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Posts: 376
Location: Lake Vermilion Tower, MN | I'd like to make one thing very clear for everyone here.
Guides don't set the prices, customers do that. 
That's what makes America great. The free market system. You charge what the market will bear. I have a thought for you to consider.
In 1987, I was charging $85.00 a day. I have had to raise my rates this year for the first time in 5 years up from $300 to $325 for a full day. My rates include gas tackle and any other necessary equipment.
My take home pay is almost the same at $325 as it was at $85 back in the day.
Everybody works hard for their jing guys and full time guides aren't any different
than anyone else.
Tips are a great way to help keep the cost of a guide trip affordable. A few extra bucks here and there, makes it much easier to cover all of the cost of doing business, without passing it on to the consumer.
$20.00 an hour? yea I wish. One other thing, Please don't confuse a once or twice a week guide with a another full time job, as a full time professional guide.
We run a business, we have to pay taxes just like any other business. I don't have a box of cash under the bed marked don't show this to the IRS.
Tips are great, I'll never turn one down.
I'll never imply that I deserve one either, that is up to the customer.
Is the ice gone yet?
"Ace"
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| This is for the guides.
Do you do trips where there is little or no fishing involved?
5 years ago I made my first trip to Cass. I had a map, a GPS and an empty head. Allens Bay is bigger than any lake that I have ever seen.
What if I wanted to hire you just to take me around the lake, show me areas to avoid and areas to fish......not your hot spots, but show me the lake and let me watch the locator and GPS as you idle around and show me the lay of the land?
Would you charge a full day or regular price?
Let's just say for instance I wanted to fish Vermillion or M'Lax.
What would you charge for a tour of the lake?
It takes a long time to learn a lake, and if you spend the first week of a 2 week trip just looking around, you waste lots of time and gas....and could lose your lower unit. I think that a tour would cover more area than a full day of fishing.
What would you guys do, or wouldn't you do it?
Not that I'm planning to go anywhere 
Besides, any guide besides Sworrall would have to adjust to my...fish for 2 hours, lay flat on my back on the back deck for an hour....fish for 2 hours....repeat, sometimes with a bag of ice on my back. I fished 16 hours once with Steve, and cut the trip short and left for home the next day and had trouble pushing the clutch in. No more beating myself up. I'm old enough to know my limitations.
So do you think a tour is a good thing if you aren't booked, and what would you charge? Same as a regular day?
Beav |
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Posts: 227
Location: Southeast Wisconsin | I guide full-time and have NO problem clearing 20 bucks an hour. If I wasnt, than I would charge more..From my experience, it seems that the CA/MN guides end up taking a much larger hit for gas, but there fees are the same as some of the top guides in my area.
Ive fished with many of the top guides in Canada and almost every single one charged me $250+ gas. At first I thought it was a scam, but once I saw what they paid to fill there 45 gallon tank (that almost went empty on a daily basis) I didnt have a problem with it. |
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Posts: 172
| I must admit I do not use guides very often. I have been very lucky to fish with many top guides as friends, but when I do hire a guide I look for a few things out of the guide. I am looking to learn. Sometimes it's the lake and other times it is their knowledge of fishing.
I tip very very well when I can learn. I could care less if we take a fish. That is just a bonus. Tell me why we are fishing this spot. Tell me why you are using that lure or presentation. Tell me what the conditions are and why you do what you do. I'm paying for an education.
I do find it funny how hard those things can be to drag out of some guides. I would think that would just be second nature to them. |
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Posts: 691
Location: nationwide | In response to Beaver,
When I did a good deal of guiding (no where full-time) and had a website with reports page on occasion I would get requests for "recon" trips as I called them. These would range from half days to a couple hours. I would always try to accomodate these people and somehow fit them into my schedule. Even if all I had was 2 hours I would pick them up and show them around their "section" of the flowage showing areas to fish and their outline as well as where to run and what to look out for. I never charged for the short 1-2 hour trips and just asked them to email me and let me know how they did fishing. In most cases the person(s) would give me 10-20 dollars for the information although I did not request it or expect it. If I was full time I would have done the same thing, although it would have been more difficult to schedule. I have been stood up a couple times for the 1-2 hour "free" tours too . . go figure.
Corey Meyer |
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Posts: 216
Location: Elk River, MN | Wow Corey - IMO the information your willing to share is more valuable than $10 - $20.
That is one of the key pieces of using a guide I am looking for as well as presentation and lure selections for that body of water.
If you gave me two hours of showing me spots on the water - I would think that is easily worth $50 if not more.
I started this post with curiousity to what others have done or have opinions. I am amazed at the variance of ideas from the tip is included in the guide trip fee to tips based upon performance (this is where my opinion lays).
I have used one guide thus far for four different trips (2 on Mille Lacs, 1 on Vermilion and 1 on Minnetonka) but in 2007 with be using this guide twice (1 on Vermilion and 1 on Mille Lacs) and am going once with Gregg Thomas one day on Mille Lacs.
I have also fished with a friend or my fiance with the guide and we have tipped $100 each and the last time the weather was terrible, the fishing was hard and we fished 8 hours I tipped $50 but am not sure what my partner tipped that day. All other trips have been 10 - 13 hours on the water. This guide does everything in his power to get us on fish and is willing to share his knowledge. He gives us his equipment if we choose to use it and gives us the baits he feels have the best chance for success based upon the conditions. Then he throws lures in the back of the boat trying different colors, baits, etc. If he catches a fish on a bait, he immediately gives one of us that bait to throw.
We elected to try Gregg Thomas one day from listening to his input in a seminar, talking with him and his typical outing day is not an 8 hr day but upwards of 12+. That's what I am looking for and thought trying a different guide might provide a different perspective.
I am sure that the cost to guide has increased with the price of fuel both to get to the lake as well as on the water. Bait / equipment costs have increased but "might" be minimized if the guide is sponsored by that manufacture - but I would assume not all guides have key sponsors.
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Posts: 172
| Hacker,I can tell you this....work out before you fish with Greg. He will beat you into the ground. The man never quits. |
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Posts: 408
Location: Omaha, Nebraska | I once heard that some guides would charge you for their lure if you lost it, does anyone do that? |
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Posts: 32885
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I'd charge you for sure, but probably not anyone else.....
Kidding, no. I don't, and don't know anyone who does. |
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Posts: 1996
Location: Pelican Lake/Three Lakes Chain | I am more likely to give a person a bait they caught a fish on than charge them for one they lost.
Coolest tip I ever received came to me via the mail the week after a trip. The client wrote a letter thanking me for the trip, and included a gift certificate to Gander Mountain. It made my day to think someone thought enough of their trip to take time out of their day to write a letter and purchase a gift certificate. Way cooler than a handful of cash!
Tips are not expected, appreciated, but not expected. |
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Posts: 2089
| Tips?Never expected , but GREATLY appreciated.In my boat, if someone catches their 1st, or largest, they get the bait to keep.Man, I gave away A LOT of XX's this season.Color? 8 of the 15 were the same color with a dash of a little somethin' somethin'. Steve
Edited by Steve Jonesi 2/28/2007 9:32 AM
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 Fish pics 028.jpg (136KB - 142 downloads)
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Posts: 1764
Location: Ogden, Ut | First and largest...
I think I know that color!
S. |
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Posts: 2691
Location: Pewaukee, Wisconsin | After reading all this I can't believe no one mentioned the friendships that are started from a guide trip. I can't even count all the friends that I have from guide trips. That alone is a great tip that is priceless.
As for the money part, I believe people tip to let the guide know how much they enjoyed the outing. Most tips for a 1/2 day @ $150 will be $50 or more on the average. Some clients believe the price is too low and will tip to compensate. Others will tip a twenty or two because that is a lot of cash for them. All people are not equal. A tip is a tip, the size of the tip is less important to me than the feeling I get when they express their grattiude or pleasure the trip gave them.
The best feeling is knowing you did your job better than they expected. Thats when you know your on top of the game.
Being a teacher rather than a guide working a boat is very important. The client wants to learn and come away from that trip with way more than they went out with. Teaching comes first, catching is just a bonus.
I read somewhere a few posts back: "The biggest tips have come when we got skunked." I believe they got lots of great info that they can use when the fish are hitting. They tipped big because they know they were schooled and not taken for a boat ride.
When I hire a guide I tip big when the guide does his job. Works hard, explaines in detail what we are doing and why, shows me the map, graph, baits, etc. Everything is open book and on the table. Thats when I know he is doing the best he can do, not if we catch a fish or not.
Bottom line, tip big if you believe you got the most out of your guide. Most guides have a "A" list, it's nice to be on that list if you like that guide and what he does for you. Friendships get you on the "A" ist also, it's not all about the money. |
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| From reading the posts, in a round about way guides do eexpect tips!!!!! |
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Posts: 32885
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | There isn't a 'roundabout way' in the meaning of the term 'expect'. Guides RECEIVE tips, but do not expect one in the manner a waitress might.
I fail to see a problem with that. |
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