What a great experience, a 50 fish day with steelies!  That is absolutely awesome.  We also fished the Klamath on Friday, and I'll tell you what, you got the better experience.  We fished quite a bit lower, about 20 miles above Happy Camp.

Talk about a disapointing experience . . . we shelled out $225 apiece to drift this section of river and looked forward to a great day of fishing.  During the drift, the guide (who shall remain nameless) mentions that he has NEVER drifted this section of river before????????  Heeeeelllllloooooo?????  Thanks for scouting the river on our dime and time.  It was a slow day.  Between the three of us, one 7 lb. steelhead, one 16" rainbow, one 10" rainbow and many salmon smolts.

After about the 5th time he mentioned that "the fish are in here, we just need to find them", I casually mentioned that we thought that he had that figured out.  One of my beliefs in paying to hire a guide, is that the learning curve in finding fish in a new body of water is shortened through his expertise and knowledge.  It's not a guarantee of hooking or landing them.

I mean, I understand.  Hiring a guide does not make a good catch day an absolute.  And afterall, he did do all of the rowing.  But I don't understand taking clients out on a part of river that you have never seen before.  What was he thinking?  Am I being too particular here? I'm sure if fishing was great, we would have thought he was a hero.

This expereince behind us, we were on the river, in great weather, having a blast no matter what.  I guess the circusmstances chapped me a bit.

-- Edited by ONEWEIGHT at 17:56, 2008-11-24

Oneweight, I agree with you and Drifter. I hire a guide because I'm unfamilar with a river and need their experience. (not to mention I need to make use of a driftboat) I've hired a guide 4 times over the past five years.  I would expect the guide to know the river and to save everyone the embarrassment/anger of a bad experience. If the guide doesn't know the river then I think he/she has a professional obligation to let the client know. This allows you to search for another guide that is familiar with the water. It also allows the guide to fish water he/she is more accustomed to.

I fish the upper Klamath several times a year, from summer (depending of the cps) through February. Fishing the Klamath is difficult, especially when the water is high. I've hired guides for the Upper K. before. We actually contacted one last week to find out if he might be available this time, and told him we would contact him Friday if we wanted to use him on Sunday. This time the cfs was low enough to allow us to fish by wading and we decided to fish on our own.

I have to get this off my chest too. There is another problem I have with guides, and that is that they often blow quickly through prime water with nothing more then a comment of where to throw your fly and/or a high five if we catch a fish. We as fishermen recognize good water when we see it. When we've caught fish in a particular stretch we have asked the guide if he/she can anchor. Sometimes if the water is slow enough we have asked if he/she could make another pass through it. It's good to talk to a guide about this in advance to find out how flexible they are. One guide actually thanked my fishing partner for suggesting this on a stretch of the Klamath.

Fishing is expensive enough as it is. If I'm going to pay my hard earned money for my once a year trip, I'd like to believe it is for a positive experience. I don't expect super days just because I'm with a guide. (And there are days when the fish gods aren't smiling.) But I would like to believe that the person I fish with knows the river and is able to give me an opportunity to have a good time.

East Bay Ed

-- Edited by East Bay Ed at 21:35, 2008-11-24

-- Edited by East Bay Ed at 21:36, 2008-11-24

-- Edited by East Bay Ed at 21:38, 2008-11-24

I'm a bit suprised that you are unwilling to name the guide. It seems that the sort of experience you had warranted stopping payment on your check and reporting him to the better buisness bureau. I'd be screaming his name to everyone and suggesting that people avoid him. The implied contract between the guide and client is that the person who is "guiding" should be familiar in fishing terms with the body of water being fished. Its impossible to guide someone on a piece of water you've never fished. If they are not, accepting a clients money seems unfathomable. I understand that he might have seemed like a good guy, but he was a good guy who gave it to you up the a. I'd at least demand a free session. Point him in the direction of this forum and tell him you'll release his name if he dosen't hook you up. Blackmailing someone may not be your style, but that guide indirectly misrepresented himself to you, and which is worse?

If he was a good guide, would he have pulled this? Your way is much classier, and even handed, and I agree a letter might be the best way to present your case. What I'm worried about is that this guide is taking advantage of the sense of generosity and comradary that fishermen, and fly fishers to an even greater extent, feel for each other. Oneweight is obviously a classy and well mannered guy to have dealt with the situation with such aplomb, but dosen't it get you guys mad to think that this dorkus guide took $250 for rowing a boat, and offering fishing platitudes when it became obvious he had no clue where the fish were? Its my belief that he is taking advantage of the good nature that fishermen feel for each other. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who would take money from a fellow fishermen and then provide him with the experience provided to Oneweight is not one of us, and does not deserve the respect and courtesy that Oneweight provided. I'm also slightly suprised that Bono hasn't chirped in on this one since ethical guiding seems to be a subject close to his heart. Lets review the mistakes this guide made:
1. He took customers out on a stretch of river that he was not particularly familiar with.
2. He did not tell them he was unfamiliar with the stretch until they were on the drift boat and committed to the trip
3. He did not offer to reduce the fee when the trip turned out bad, and the customers were unsatisfied with the quality of fishing. (This one is a bit tricky, since I don't believe guides control when the fish bite, but this guy was obviously working outside his comfort zone, and his unfamiliarity probably directly effected his clients chance of angling success)

Remember we are all part of the family of fishermen, but most of us who post here belong to a subset of that group that is made up of Ethical fishermen. Maybe your guide just had a bad day, and made a bad call, maybe his holes wheren't working out, and he'd heard the drifting was good, and was honestly trying to provide the best experience possible for his client. Even assuming this, the ethical thing to do when it didn't work out would be to return the clients money, because taking someone to a place you are not familiar with is a gamble, and why should he have the right to gamble with your money? I may still be a novice fly fishermen, but ethics I know. If this guy had a bad day, made a bad call, he should compensate you for it. If he's just incompetent he should be exposed to fellow anglers so they can steer clear of him. If he's unethical, and unscrupulous he should be brought to task (and to court if possible) and every effort should be made to expose him. What is clear is that no matter how you stir it, he acted in the wrong. Oneweight, I'm sorry if I sound a bit preachy, but the story kind of made me mad and I just felt the need to throw out my two bits. Its your situation, and you should do what you think is right.  Errrgh!  The thought of that guy walking away with $675 after that just makes me mad!  In what way did he deserve $100 bucks an hour?

-- Edited by Psyfisher at 14:12, 2008-11-26

Hey oneweight, I'm glad that worked out for you and that he came back to you first without your having to say anything. Next time catch some fish!

Hearing that made my Thanksgiving Oneweight. Its good to hear that its pretty much the best case scenario. Good guide who took a risk to find fish for his clients and then made right when it didn't go well. Its funny how a bad situation can transform itself to a feel good story.  I don't usually like to hear that I'm wrong, but in this case I'm glad.

East Bay Ed, that sounds like one of those days you never forget.

Happy Thanksgiving Guys

-- Edited by Psyfisher at 15:48, 2008-11-27

I agree OW; my belief is he hasn't done very well lately on his usual fishing grounds and is venturing out. Happens a lot; at least he was honest. Once I get a guide that is honest, I dig for information as to what he knows about the river, make the most of it, but still can be dissipointing.

Hey guys and gals, my buddy and I fished the Klamath last weekend. It was slow. We drifted the upper section from Irongate damn down to Klamathon bridge on friday and got 2 half pounders. Saturday we decided to hit new water. We figured it couldn't be much worse. So we drifted the Cade Mt. drift from China Point to Indian Creek(right in Happy Camp). We each caught a couple small ones then aroud noon I hooked into a pig. My buddy had to row through a rocky run while I fought this steelie but we were able to net this wild fatty. We caught about 10 more smaller fish the rest of the day. Sunday we fished the upper section again and only got this 18" halfpounder. We need rain, which it looks like we are going to get this weekend.

Great report and nice wild steel. sweet....

#4 black rubber legs with 3x tippet and a six wieght rod.