Don’t Book Trips With Assholes

In the past five years I’ve fished with two guides who were assholes. With one, we caught trophy class fish, with the other we didn’t catch much at all. If you’re catching ‘em, a day with a jerk can be tolerated, but when you’re not it’s pure misery.

Most of the guides I’ve fished with have been personable and kind. Unless you’re superhuman or the only game in town, it’s tough to survive in that business if you’re not a people person. On most waters, the competition for business is just too strong to tolerate any weakness in your game. Nevertheless, they persist. I’m not saying that you can’t occasionally have a good day or even a great day with a captain who’s gruff and obnoxious, but it severely limits the chances.

Most of the time when I’ve had a great guided experience, it’s because the guide has a network he relies upon. The muskie guides we use at Lake St. Clair, including Spencer Berman and the Quintano brothers, share information openly throughout the day. The guides we fish with at Anglers Inn Lake El Salto similarly bounce ideas off of each other and compare notes. When we went to Casa Vieja in February, the captains were continuously talking about what fish were reacting to in the spread, how often, and what the water looked like in different areas.

Lake St. Clair and the Pacific Ocean are pretty big ponds – even if you’re an expert, having additional sets of eyes makes each day’s learning process easier.

It’s not just fishing in the strictest sense of the word, either. If your guide constantly badmouths others, cuts them off, and engages in other indiscretions, do you think they’re going to loan him a boat when his is out of commission? Or if he breaks down a few miles away, are they going to take time out of their day to go help? On a simpler level, if they have the last 100 plum-colored Senkos in the state, and that’s all the fish will eat, is there any chance he’ll be able to cadge a few from them?

Remember, you’re the consumer. If the guide isn’t open, direct and non-abrasive from the start — or if he has a consistently bad reputation — buyer beware.