S
SteveG
Member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2014
- Messages
- 980
For a good guide, I think $400 for a whole day trip is a good value. It's not all profit for them.
SteveG wrote:
Poopdeck, you comment about "mostly all profit" is woefully wrong. Talk to anyone who is a small business owner, and ask them about business expenses. I have the utmost respect for anyone, anywhere, who can make s living being a guide. It takes more than just being able to teach people how to fish. There are many different aspects to excel at in order to be successful in business.
I have no experience with guides or guiding
Do you go out a buy a new quiver of rods every year? Rods to fish with yourself + loaners for your clients? Lots of guides are set up to rep for manufacturers, sure the pro-deal is sweet but they're often expected to showcase the latest and greatest offerings, not fish 5yr old beater sticks and reels. So that means a whole range of sticks every year, do you buy a new quiver every year? Not a wash.Gear? Guides fish (not talking about when they are actually working) and would have all the gear already even if they were not guides. Gears a wash.
Sure for one trip, but when you're covering an entire year's worth of hatches and need to be ready for any and all conditions on any given day, that's a lot of flies to have on hand, it's not just the flies you use that day...and tying your own still takes time. Time that could be spent fishing themselves or taking out another client.How much for guide flys? 10 bucks, 15 bucks? Most guides tie their own right so this is an insignificant figure.
Maybe out of pocket, but your guide still has to go pick it up before your day on the water or spend the evening before putting it together, more of their time you don't see as a client.Lunch for the client, 20 bucks?
I realize there are insurance and license fees but that's spread across many clients. But lets just say you don't have many clients and assume that it costs 25 bucks per client for fees. So lets assume the total cost is 360.00 for an 8 hour day. Lets juice our expenses up to an even 75 bucks to cover our gas just for the hell of it. That's 35 bucks an hour. If he chooses to work past 8 hours that's great but also not uncommon for any working stiff.
Paying the taxman is a wash to since we all pay the tax man, the social security man, the insurance man and every other man out there.
So just what are the expenses that I'm not seeing?