Starting A Guide Service Questions

I've been entertaining the idea of starting a guide service. Would anyone like to share their experience starting their own guide service?

Was out with a guide on Lake Fork one time. He kept "back of the boating" me, casting ahead of me, and bragging about all the fish he was catching.

I told him where I come from you tip a guide based on what the client catches not the guide. He changed his tune pretty quick and turned out to be a pretty fair guide.

Point being, always put the customer first. Repeat business and word of mouth are important.

Having been a guide, this is something I can assist with:


1. Never have a "business" partner. It is OK to have extra guides employed, but NO partners!!! I found out the hard way.

2. Be prepared for L-O-N-G days.

3. Be prepared to pay out the wingwang for liability insurance. I think VA has a $1Million minimum, but I went with two.

3a. Be prepared to pay out the wingwang for business insurance. Boat, transportation, etc needs to be covered.

4. Leave any political notions you have on the bank. This was a hard thing to do, but to keep return business, it's a must.

5. Never have a "business" partner.

6.Know your waters. In order to be successful, you need to be on the water EVERY day possible.

7. It doesn't hurt to have another source of income.

8. Get any USCG info/certifications you can. EMT training is good.

9. Be prepared to be an instructor, friend, crazy uncle, story-teller, chief cook and bottle washer. There are slow times and you must be ready to entertain.


All I got right now. If I think of others, I'll post.


Sam

The Florida Guides Association has a very enlightening article on this very subject, outlining
the "people skills" necessary, financial impacts of becoming a guide, and the licensing
requirements by the Coast Guard and the County of operation. I invite anyone entertaining the idea
of becoming a fishing guide (me too) to check out their information. Here's da link.
https://www.florida-guides.com/florida-guides-association/fishing-tips/109-so-you-wanna-be-a-fishing-guide.html
Jerry

Good thread guys, very enlightening.

I can't say that I've got experience being a guide other than taking folks out fishing, but that doesn't count.

I have however hired a LOT of guides and done a lot of charter boat fishing. My best suggestions are:
-Be flexible with client wants/needs and make sure you ask them about those wants/needs when they set up the trip.
-As New River Rat said, be entertaining, it makes a huge difference; I've been on trips where we didn't catch much and still enjoyed ourselves because of the guide (I wouldn't go back to those guides, because success is an important factor to me as well, but we still tipped and had fun).
-Never focus on your watch or ever catch the client seeing you look at your watch. I've been with many captains who were focused on a 4 hour trip being exactly 4 hours from launch to return, I rarely tip those guys much and find that they're too focused on getting through the work rather than focusing on the client having a good time.
-Never be the cheapest - if you're good, your clients will send more clients your way. Being the cheapest will only get folks that are the cheapest to come to you (and they don't tip well). I learned this lesson when shopping for the first charter I ever went on with my dad; the captain we selected was not the cheapest, but told my dad that he wouldn't budge on price because he knew what he was doing on the water and earned what he charged (he was right too!).
-Learn a lot of easily digestable information about the area and about the species that you're targeting

Something that I had to offer (since I have morals) was on a couple of trips, the clients were booked for the day, bad weather (think raft on a river in 30 MPH winds) took us out early. I offered to give them a refund or they could return at a later date.

[url=https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=325935#p325935 said:

New River Rat » Today, 16:32[/url]"]Something that I had to offer (since I have morals) was on a couple of trips, the clients were booked for the day, bad weather (think raft on a river in 30 MPH winds) took us out early. I offered to give them a refund or they could return at a later date.

Click to expand...

This would keep me coming back to you, honesty and morality go hand in hand with the outdoors IMO.

one100grand said:

This would keep me coming back to you, honesty and morality go hand in hand with the outdoors IMO.

Click to expand...

That goes double for me, an honest guide with good morality will make me a repeat customer.

I've fished with guides only twice in my life and the 2nd guide fished with us from the back of the boat. In the end I much preferred the first guide as he did not fish because he felt that we were his guests and we should have all of the chances and space in the boat to fish. He was also much more respectful and honest, and even though the weather was not prime we still had a great time.

The second guide also did not leave his views on politics at the shore, and had a lot of choice words on different topics which didn't sit well with us either.

I can tell you one thing that might change your mind, it's a young mans game. As was mentioned, it's long days, lots of sitting, or hauling butt and there isn't any telling which it will be today. It's having to listen to half assed opinions from people that don't have a clue as to what they are saying, overdoses of pure BS and lots of meaningless (to you) gossip. It's getting home so late that dinner is out of the question because you're too damned tired and sore to anything but get a shower and go to bed. Only to have to get up the next morning hours before anyone else because everything has to be ready to go when they show up.
I only run my guide service 4 weeks a year (stripers on the Roanoke River in NC) and at the end of the month I swear I'll never do it again but something makes me keep going back year after year. If I can ever figure out what that is I'll let you know.....