Ok, guys, here's the skinny. When you hire a guide you pay for a service. For somebody to say that "it is wrong for guides to fish and should be illegal"?????? C'mon, are you a guide? Nah, don't think so. Sorry, but it pisses me off to hear about people who think that all a guide is supposed to do is instruct the angler on the finer points of fishing. Not always the case, my friend.
Suppose you have a husband and wife from New York that are over in Seattle for a wedding and decide that they have a day to kill and would like to fish for the famed salmon and steelhead that Washington has to offer. So they see a flyer in a tackle shop for a guide service. They have no clue about catching fish and want some fish to take home. Well, how are these people supposed to be able to drift fish, flyfish, etc. let alone catch something with these methods. Sooooooo.....you yank a few plugs around, the rods bury, they grab 'em and woo hoo!!! FISH ON!!!! They're psyched from catching fish, enjoying the boat ride, the scenery and their nice bbqued hatchery steelhead. The forementioned couple didn't seem to mind pulling plugs all day.
Then you have the intermediate to advanced angeler. They specify to their guide that they don't want to pull plugs but want to free drift and learn some spoon techniques. Fine, row them around and let 'em fish their butts off. Tell them a few pointers and teach them what they wanted to learn from you.
You see that when guiding, you have clients of different skill levels with different preferences and expectations. I never repeat never fish with clients unless they ask me to or in a pinch when they want me to show 'em how it's done. I'll run three plug rods with two clients, since I do have a license and we all know that three plugs is more aggravating than two. When ok'd by the clients, I'll fish hard and hand off rods as requested. I don't ever punch fish for clients nor do I plan on doing so in the future. I'm not a sellout so why sell off my punches?
In summary, you pay guides for a service in which the guide does what the client wants. If they client wants meat so be it. If they want to learn, then I'll teach 'em. If they want to watch eagles then that's fine too. I hate guides that fish the same way all the time no matter who they have in the boat.
Keeping the clients happy is the key.
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KID SAUK!!!!!