Pro Fly Fishing Guides. A Wise Angler Wants One

 

It takes money to travel to distant ports of call. It takes money to hire a guide. 

By Henry Clement

There are three opportunities to have a guide. One, they are your friend, and it’s free or discounted. Two, the lodge where you’re staying employs them. Three, you hire a personal guide.

For #2, you’re in the hands of the lodge owner and their guides. Your schedule is set when you arrive. To some extent, you can control getting to where you want to fish and the fishing you want, but only if the lodge has several types of fisheries, such as northern pike, lake trout, and brook trout.

Making good decisions

Book through a top-of-the-line outdoor travel agency like Yellow Dog or Frontiers Travel to increase your chances of success. They are both consummate detail-oriented. In addition, the top-tier outdoor travel companies arrange everything. There are a few companies worthy of that kind of praise. Some are also available via vendors like Orvis, which can do a good job.

The following is a background check on how outdoor travel companies became far more than old-fashioned travel booking services

The change was abrupt, and the destination opportunities exploded almost overnight. There was a pent-up desire for outdoor travel to fish and hunt. One company was responsible for the new industry of outdoor travel.

What’s unique about the launch of Frontiers, out of a Pittsburgh suburb, was that it started with a perfect pitch, as in voice. A dentist and his wife created that breakthrough outdoor travel company in the late sixties. Mike and Susie Fitzgerald created a quality outdoor travel business. Both were anglers and shooters. They set a high bar for travel-minded anglers and wing shooters, which is the standard today. Frontiers’ ability to assemble your entire week-long adventure and get it right almost seemed impossible back in the day.

My friend and I booked our first trip with Frontiers in 1969, making us part of the company’s initial clients. We were delighted. Frontiers cared for everything; they knew what to bring, rods, reels, etc., and it was right on. They accomplished that through firsthand experience. They knew how to avoid the hiccups via ground support when arriving at a foreign destination. You did not have to arrange transportation; it was provided. You did not have to arrange a pre-destination hotel stay; it was provided. All the possible sticky parts of travel are always meticulously taken care of.

Here is where the guide’s story begins, destination travel

If you contact Yellow Dog, Frontiers, or a few other highly reputable companies, your chances of getting a quality guide at your destination will be high. You should be able to grill the agent in charge of your chosen property and get detailed answers to every aspect of your equipment requirements and expectations. At Frontiers and Yellow Dog, you will receive all the information you need without asking.

Guides at some lodges, especially in Alaska, the US, and the Canadian West, are loaded with college kids and are usually better than boat drivers. The kids are attentive and well spoken, and a few are very knowledgeable. Usually, a core of older guides will anchor the lodge’s fly fishing knowledge base, covering the several hundred miles you will seasonally fish.

Internationally, lodge guides are either professional men or naive language-speaking indigenous men.  A few exceptions exist.

So, what exactly is a good guide?

This situation spells out what a guide is worth. For example, you have enough money for a four-night stay and four and a half days of fishing at a fishing lodge. Or, you could take three nights, a guide for three days, and a half-day DIY. Which would you take? If you choose the latter, your angling outcome with guiding could be predictably much better than DIY.

Why?

You may be a skilled angler, but sourcing the best locations that offer hundreds of miles of riverine opportunities? Which location with what flies, how swum, and at what depth? You do not know diddle about the fishing a thousand miles from your home waters. If, as one of the most notable professional guides I’ve ever known, states: “It takes at least a year to get the hang of things in a fishery. To think that because you are a good caster, and think you can shorten the success window in days is laughable.” — Capt. Andrew Derr

Orvis’ Phil Monahan, a former guide and sage counsel, said this about guides and guiding, “Being a guide is not just about bringing your clients to the fish. A good guide is also a teacher, a problem-solver, a storyteller, and a cheerleader.”

Capt. Andrew Derr is a well-known and respected guide, writer, author, and casting instructor with experience in the Florida Keys from the late 90s through the early 2000s. Since those halcyon days in the Keys, Derr has been one of a handful of highly skilled angling guides on the East End of Long Island, New York.

In an interview, Monahan agreed with Derr that he commands a pair of vessels and guides the flats near his home in Greenport in the spring and the fall in Montauk. He added, with a chuckle, “Patience is a virtue.“

Spencer Durant is a fly fishing writer, guide, bamboo rod builder, and novelist from Utah. He is also the news editor for MidCurrent and a regular contributor for Hatch Magazine. He agrees with Monahan’s assessment of a great guide’s attributes.

Experience, Steve Kantner

I became a citizen of South Florida upon retiring in the early 90s. I learned the water from a guide with extraordinary skills. He’s known throughout the region as the Land Captain. He was also the consummate guide in everything he did. If you asked him to help with something, he already knew more about the task than you did, and he didn’t help you; he did it himself.

Thus, he became a friend, and our fishing ventures exaggerated his tendencies. Even with decades of experience with knots, leader builds, fly choosing, and retrieve techniques and hundreds of fishing adventures worldwide, Steve ensured everything was right for me before he cast a single fly. He did that for over a decade—never changed his caring. By the way, he knew every square inch of South Florida’s fishery accessible by canoe or on foot. Physically, he was as strong as an ox.

Today, Steve is retired and fighting a crippling disease, but his writing and books are superb. Steve’s books have included what walk-in fishing in South Florida is about. He was a hard-to-copy guide of the first order.

The antithesis guide – the joke is on me

It was tarpon season and my first year in South Florida. On a Florida Keys romantic weekend stay at Islamorada’s famous hotel, Cheeca Lodge, the concierge responded to a question about finding a fishing guide. She said, “No problem, my brother-in-law is a guide.” She gave me his name and phone number. A week later, I called around 7 pm, and the guy was shit-faced, but coherent. I booked him two days in advance.

I got a room at Cheeca Lodge the night before and told the concierge about booking her relative. She said, “Great,” adding, “There’s a guy here from Chicago who wants to go fishing but only has tomorrow and has not found someone to fish with.” Long and short, I agreed to have him join me for a drink, and she took care of the approval with the guide. I knew I’d made a mistake when I met my new angling companion for an introduction drink. He was way overweight, smoked fat cigars, and was a twin of a TV variety show character called The Loudmouth.

We were to meet the guide at 7:30 am at the Lorelei Restaurant dock, which I thought was weird. At 8:15, Loudmouth called the guide, who told Loudmouth he had just fixed a motor problem and would be right there.

He was drunk or high or both. We piled into his filthy skiff and off we went. We never saw a fish. Loudmouth and the drunk guide shared some weed and laughed a lot. I called it quits at 2 pm when Loudmouth had fallen asleep, pissed himself, and was snoring like a diesel needing repair. I gave the guide my full half share and no tip, for which I was called a prick. I left Loudmouth to find his ride.

I went to the Cheeca bar to help delete the day’s memory 

There, I met Capt. Gary Ellis, who had just interviewed Curt Gowdy, the former host of the American Sportsman show, whom I was introduced to, and Sandy Moret, owner of the Florida Keys Outfitters.

Sandy asked me what my experience had been like

I told Sandy, and he, Gowdy, and Gary laughed uncontrollably. Gary said he has no captain’s license, is not insured, and is on work release from prison. At that point, nearby listeners started laughing. I was stuck, so I embarrassed myself more and slightly embellished the horrible outing, and the whole bar was in stitches. I was never to be forgotten.

The following week, I spent two days with Gary. On the first day, I lost all three tarpon. On the second, I jumped three and landed one about 50 pounds, according to Gary.

NOTE: Purposely, I left out the concierge’s name and drunken boat captain’s name, as well as the Loudmouth’s. They may have all bettered themselves by now.

Please, hire a good guide, catch fish, and continue to learn

 

 

 

 

 

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