I dont think you have to take a class... although I know you can... I know my wife's buddy did not have too, and he's taking out some of the mariners... concerning the guide lic I dont know how that works

thats what i am tryin to figure out. i wouldnt mind startin up a lil service to help pay for my fly gear and what not, it sure aint cheap to have a passion for this hobby especially if you decide to feed the river your flies like i did. man that was a nice lil platter i gave it. but ya i am tryin to figure it out. i do know this, i need to be able to fish putah or the carson or tahoe or anyriver like that before i put someone on it with me. i need to fish them hard for about a yr at low points and high points. read a good amount of books. all that stuff. so who knows. but hey why work at a job you hate, when u can work, fish and get paid all in the same day.

jt i wouldnt do that. that would be way way wrong. i would just like to get it, so i can have it if i decide to guide.

As far as guiding goes I am sure it would be a wonderful career choice, My problem is i'd feel like crap if i couldn't put my clients on fish. I'm sure theres alot of pressure on a  guide to produce when people are paying hard earned cash money. So i'll just guide myself for now , that way i'll never have a disaopointed customer.

I mentioned guiding to my wife once, and she laughed at me.  She said that I don't have the patience to be a guide (she knows me too well).  I love fishing and helping others learn, but I hate dealing with the unpleasant things that go with it.  For example, I can't stand untangling knots, especially someone else's.  Bono, you must be a patient guy. 

Putah already has 5 guides that I know of and Ive been ask to make it #6 by MC...Bono knows who Iam talking about...Dont worry..Iam not for hire...I do it here and there for the fun of it..but I dont charge anything..most people I guide are personal friends...Iam not one to get in the way of someones goals or dreams so dont take this in a bad way.Just thought I would put out there what I know and the older I get the less I know so dont listen to me....

mx19
I take that back ..I did get paid once...big cookies.....

Brian I never took it that way. I just thought you were interested with some of the in and outs of it.

wow I don't know why they bleeped that word out I guess its a swear. The company is called Sweet Water Travel. By the way I wouldn't guide on Putah either. I don't have the experience there now and by the time I do there will still be too many guys with multiple times the experience guiding there. When you go to guide school the point is to acquaint you with the philosophy of guiding and get you started on the right foot. The real learning is all done when you get your first job. I think I'd probably have to work at a lodge or for a shop for several seasons before I had the skills (business and fishing) to try to do my own thing. Not to mention you have to build a client base. Guiding is something I would love to do because it gets me out there where I want to be. I don't need to be fishing all the time but I'd rather be near a river than in a cubicle any day. I can learn just as much watching clients fish and will probably end up with a better understanding of fishing and the waters I guide on because rather than being focused on catching fish I will be able to look at the river and fly fishing from a new angle. I think it would be awesome to do wilderness guiding and take people on backpack trips up to remote headwaters for some real wild fish! I don't know if there is a client base for that but it would be cool. It is just a lifestryle choice. I love fly fishing and I never want to stop learning about it. This way I will never have to.
chuck

Brian,

Check out the swee****er guide school. I went this past July, I spent 7 days fishing the Yellowstone and the Boulder river. You will learn a lot, eat great and meet some awesome people. Ron Meek runs the school along with some of the swee****er travel guides, these guys know there stuff and I now consider them friends.

The school trains students "in all aspects of jet boat operation, streamside jet boat maintenance, drift boat operation, first aid and CPR, fly-tying, fly-casting, and all aspects of freshwater fly-fishing". They also spent time on entomology and have a great test you have to pass on knots. They have the ability to place you in lodges from Alaska, Montana, you name it.

They guide you for the first 3 hours of the week and after that you are on the motor or on the oars. At the end of the week you guide two fisherman out of the drift boat with no help down a stretch of river that is a good test for the beginner oarsman. O and by the way when you are not getting your guide craft on you are casting from driftboats to monster fish that inhabit the yellowstone, landed 4 fish over 24"s and I would guess some 30 fish from 15"-20 and a healthy number of montana bonefish...lol

so in short....DO IT! you wont regret it.

Nick

Retail Clothing Buyer. You folks are funny as heck! I've done it all too.

Delivered newspapers, scrubbed toilets, worked coffee bars, sold life insurance, managed restaraunts, bird dogged early stage equity deals in the 90's (but didn't everybody ) ... won one deal ... helped turn around a tanking tech company that died anyway...waited tables while looking for another deal, money ran out looking...had to go get a real job!  Network marketing ... actually made money, but lost more!  I've forgotten all the crazy things I've done!

I have a friend ... another buyer ... who was working guide in Tahoe. Met another ... a GIRL ... at my wife's 20yr high school reunion, used to be a guide "certified" by Orvis...wrote a book.  My advice on that ... follow your bliss ... but get some small business experience ... your bliss can be even better if it pays a livable wage.

I'm a dad .... that's the coolest ... honest!

Hey Chuck, Since I'm such a nice guy, If ya ever need some practice for your guide career I'd be more then happy to let you spend a day rowing a drift boat down a river while i fish 

-- Edited by thecaptain at 17:31, 2007-10-23

Hey Chuck,

All the good you hear is for a reason, its really fun. I have another year to do what I do and am more than ready for a career change, after that I am planning on guiding out of bozeman during the summer and during the winter guiding on the north coast for steelhead. I wasn't sure if I would like to guide but I found myself using the people in the boat to catch the fish as if they were my equipment and almost istantly knew I had to pursue guiding.

Nick

graphic designer, large corporation, UCD alum

At first i thought this was kind of a silly topic, But now I think it was a great topic. It's very interesting to see that flyfishing is enjoyed by all different people. We all do very different things in are daily lives but once we get a fly rod in hand we all after the same things. So obviously the way to world peice is to put a fly rod in everyones hand.