Question for our professional anglers

[Newt]

I know Budgie has made his living guiding anglers. I just read thru the post with contributions from Charlie B. and evidently he does as well. There may be others too.

 

I have always been curious to know to what extent being a professional angler (of any sort) affects the fun of fishing. Most of us can go when we feel like it and not go when we don't. But if it's your livelyhood (or even a part of it) you gotta go.

 

Feel good, feel bad, no matter. No job = no pay and for a guide especially, being a no-show would be the kiss of death when word got around that you couldn't be counted on.

[Dick Dastardly]

Newt I just spent 2 hours writing a mamouth reply to your question went to post it and I had used to many Graemlins.Lost the lot,gutted got the right hump now so I am off to bed will try to re type it in the morning.Never seems as good second time round though........

[Peter Waller]

I can relate to this one via my own profession. I had always, since Mum gave me a Brownie 127, been an ardant amateur photographer. Trained at college in graphics and illustration and then promptly went off and became a sailing instructor! One thing led to another but, through nescessity, like needing to feed a growing family, I used what skills I had to earn a living. Photography had taken over from illustration, so I became a professional photographer. Enjoyed it, made a good living. But I gradually ceased to be an amateur. When I went fishing I would leave the camera behind. For years photography had been my escape route, now I needed to escape photography. A few years ago I really felt burnt out, sold all my cameras, and retired, for nearly three years! Went to buy a window and walked into a job as a double glazing rep! Now that is money for old rope. But the inevitable happened, oh Peter, you're good with a camera, so it was back to photography and computer aided design work. Can't escape my grimey past. The point that I am making is that turning your hobby into a profession has one great downside, its in great danger of ceasing to be a hobby. Lesson learnt I have always kept fishing as a hobby despite the fact that I once had a riverside pub with a camping and caravan site that would have been an ideal base for angling activities. And, to be blunt, I could see a major downside in sharing my piking with customers, not a route I was prepared to take.

[charliebettell]

Having looked at your Profile Steve, I would be very interested to know if you are a full-time 'professional' guide, and earn your entire living, or the best part of your living, from guiding/fishing. I would also be very interested to know if you have public liability cover for your clients.

 

There are quite a few anglers in this country (i.e. the UK), as Steve will know doubt be aware, that say they are 'professional' fishing guides, but are far from being professionals!

 

A 'professional' fishing guide, in my opinion, is somebody that guides on a day-to-day basis throughout the year, or the best part of the year, and earns their living, or the best part of their living, from their guiding business.

 

Some 'so called' guides, guide as little as once a mounth - and do not have public liability cover for their clients.

 

If you prefer to e-mail me the answers to my questions Steve, my e-mail address is charlie@esox.co.uk

 

Regards

 

[ 25. March 2004, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: charliebettell ]

[charliebettell]

With regard to how does being a 'professional' guide effect my own fishing, I enjoy it as much today as I did when I first started fishing some 35 years ago - if not more!

 

When guiding, I am not out enjoying myself, I am out doing a job. The greatest enjoyment that I, personally, get from my job, is seeing the face of a client, or clients, be they young or old, as a pike pike materializes at boatside - the like they have never seen before!!

 

I have seen tears of joy, tears of fear, trembling hands, and just shear terror in the faces of my clients at the awesome size of a grandmother pike - that's what gives me pleasure (!)

[mark barrett]

professional charlie means more than just public liability insurance!

if you are fishing from a boat all the time then i agree wih you, you MUST have insurance especially in todays litigious soceity.

 

however there seems to be a little pop going in there at guides that dont do it full time there. perhaps where you live charlie you can go out day to day and catch the same old fish from the same old spots. down this way mate it just dont work, fact. i take gus out to catch their first zander. zander are nomadic, which means that they dont stay in the sme spots time and time again. also when the weather gets really bad ie rainfall a lt of the water round here gets almost unfishable. i dont consider i these conditions it ethical to take someone out if it can be postponed, i will do, if it cant then if we struggle i will only charge for expenses and offer a discounted return trip. i have to ask charlie how many times do you take people out when you know there is at best a very slim chance of catching?

 

some people do it every day like yourself charlie and you are welcome to do so, the reason i dont, is because i love my fishing too much. when i am guiding, i dont fish at all, apart from maybe catching bait, the reason for this is that i couldnt justify catching a big zander whilst my client didnt, they are paying good money for my help to catch fish, not to go fishing with me, there is a difference. if someone wants to fish with me, ther are a few, god knows why, then if i can, then i will have a bash with them, but a guided client is a different matter.

 

charlie you should write a book, "how to win friends and influence people" after all you are so good at it!!!!

[charliebettell]

Mark, if you only guide on a part-time basis and do not earn a living from guiding, in my opinion, your are not, what I would consider to be, a 'professional' guide - i.e. a person engaged in an activity as a paid occupation.

 

You may be very competent at guiding people, but if you are not out on a full-time basis and earn a living from guiding, you cannot be considered, in my opinion, as a 'professional' guide.

 

Anybody can take a shot in the dark and try to put a person/client on a fish or two - that's called pot luck.

 

I am out on the water nigh on 5 days a week, for nine months of the year. I know exactly what's happening in the areas/environment where I guide clients - because I work those areas regularly. I 'do not' work an area to death though, as some might have you believe.

 

With regard to weather, once I have booked a client in, there is no backing down on either side. A client has 21 days to cancel prior to the date of the Booking - i.e. to get a full refund.

 

All my clients are told well in advance of their day out with me, to come prepared for the worst weather conditions. You can always take stuff off, but you cannot put stuff on if you have not brought it with you - being my motto.

 

Braving the elements is all part of fishing in my opinion.

 

As for fishing with clients, I never bait fish - but I do show them lure fishing techniques. If I hook a pike while showing my clients techniques, I always offer the rod accross to the person who is having least luck.

 

I would not have the slightest problem passing on a rod to a client that had, what I thought to be, a really big pike attached to the lure. I've caught so many big pike myself over the years, it really doesn't bother me at all passing a rod over to a client.

 

What you have to take in to account is that many of my clients only fish once a year - e.g. on a customer client day out.

 

I want those clients to go home at the end of the day feeling like they have achieved their goal - that being to play a big pike to boatside.

 

Most of my clients do not overly worry about how big the pike are - they just want to see a pike.

 

If my clients are struggling to catch on lures - that's where I come in (!)

 

[ 25. March 2004, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: charliebettell ]

[Dick Dastardly]

Charlie,is the Steve you are refering to myself?

[charliebettell]

If you are Steve 'Budgie' Burgess the cat fish guide that I have seen on the net, then yes.

 

If you're not, then I apologise.

 

You do not show your real name in your Profile Budgie - so I took it that you were the same Budgie Burgess (cat fish guide) as I have seen show up on search engines.

 

This Steve Budgie Burgess:-

Steve Budgie Burgess

 

[ 25. March 2004, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: charliebettell ]

[Dick Dastardly]

Right Newt I will try again

 

The question(s) you ask are often asked me by clients.It will be difficult for me to put my feelings across so please excuse the length of this post and its somewhat disjointed nature.More of a series of observations really.I also find rewriting a post very difficult.

 

Obviousley to be a sucsessfull guide you need to have a lot of experience and had some degree of sucsess with your chosen species.If you cant catch them then your clients wont! Just as important you need to have personally caught enough/big enough of that species to have satisfied your own desire to catch.Unless you have reached this level then you would find guiding very frustrating.

 

Once you have spent any length of time in persuit of one species the initial excitement can become a bit jaded.Now you would have to be pretty sad not to enjoy catching cats of any size but it is a fact that (for example) with every additional 100lbr you catch the "buzz" decreases.When you help a client catch his/her first treble that "buzz" is nearly as good as with your first.The difference being that with a constant stream of new clients catching their first the "buzz" never goes away.

 

Some clients are more likeable than others sorry to have to admit it but its a fact.This does not stop you trying any less to catch them fish though.It is a matter of personnal pride in your ability as a guide to produce for all your customers.The fact that you can not show how good you are at fishing by catching the most is replaced by showing your ability as a guide.You would not believe the amount of competition between guides on the same company.When the conditions are against catching the pressure on a guide is imense.It is also very hard to go out on a day that your experience tells you is going to be a complete waste of time.At all times you must be seen to be working hard for a fish and exude coinfidence that you will catch.As you can imagine for the client a day without a fish but with the constant expectation of one is far more enjoyable than one knowing they are on a loser.That is one of the keys to being a good guide- you can not garantee fish but you can garantee to give the clients a good time.When off the water I have taught clients to reverse trailers,basic maitainance on outboards,build rods and a vast array of other angling skills.Every thing to make sure they have had a good and worthwhile time.In fact you can also add tour guide,shopping guide,taking the missus out to lunch and playing "Uncle Budgie" to the kids as well