This is a great thread.
Several important points are clear so far.
1.) We aren't real clear on how the law is meant to be applied.
2.) The majority of the opinions expressed are by those who welcome guides on the rivers, or are guides themselves.
3.) I have a lot of friends who guide, so I hope you will accept this opinion thoughtfully, as I wish to offend no one.
I personally believe that until a fish is caught, it belongs to the public equally. We paid for the hatchery fish with license fees and gear taxes, but they do not belong to us until we tag them. That means it belongs to the PETA pus-pockets and the client and the guide and everybody else, especially those who are not yet born, in equal measure. Because of this public ownership, any person who would profit from these fish(In this instance I mean guides of course), must do so with public permission in the manner the public is willing to allow.
Most guides are fine examples of how to behave, but many are not. If the purpose of the guide is percieved as simply to reduce public property to privately owned meat, by making a limited boat the main goal,and bending a few rules to accomplish this, the public will respond to this in ways none of us look forward to.

I take a lot of people fishing and I have reached the point that I would rather teach a person how to catch fish than catch one myself. I guess I am guiding for free, so the only difference between what I do and what the guides do involves the exchange of money. Guides work their **** off for what they earn, which ain't much, so I can't attack them at that angle. Even so, a valid argument could be made that boiled down, the guides are selling the publics' fish. I know the guides are selling the experience, and once again the guides are earning their money, but without the fish, there wouldn't be any clients, so a substantial portion of the client fee pays for the fish.I would probably be a guide myself if the necessary prices would not exclude the people I most would like teach to fish, or help catch a fish. By this I mean children, or that poor guy at work who can't afford a boat of his own, or the old pensioner down the street, who has never hooked a steelhead. I have confused myself again, so I better find a point and get to it.

When a guide jackrabbits me or corks me or impinges on my fishing, it will have an effect on how I vote. Or the letters to the ODFW I write, etc. I am still pro-guide because of the character of the great majority of the guides I know.

When I am trolling or guiding a bunch of kids, we take turns reeling in the fish, regardless of the pole. Just as we take turns with the net, or running the motor, or rowing the boats. So I have no moral high ground, although I usually avoid limits in a variety of ways, not the least of which is occasional ineptitude.