Guide licensing info

In every place I have guided the season starts April 5th to October when the snow flies. The Big Horn and in the Grand Tetons it would end in October for sure, but that is beginning season prep and end of season closing the lodge or ranch up. Remember 75% of guiding is being a pack mule. The season in Colorado is all year if you want it most of the guides leave so Kirk asked me if I wanted to stay on for the ice fishing season. Yes I would have to set aside money for taxes out of my paychecks from each trip I did.We got paid every day in Colorado for each trip went out with clients on some days you might have 3 trips a day. The day would start at 5:30 am and may end at 9:00 pm. You never know walk-ins come all day long as long as we could fit them in to the schedule. The point is yes we are talking about guiding in Pennsylvania, but why it just isn't here maybe as a hobby. Now that I have lost my employment here in the Natural Gas Drilling Industry my wife and I are talking about going west. I have already been in touch with fly shop's in different areas of the west most were we are looking to move to told me all year guides are what they need. Plus I went to Sweet Water Guide School in Montana and the director there is a big help landing year round destinations. Not to be an a$$, but if anyone has never done it full time as there primary source of income it is all speculation on how to do it.
 
Krayfish2 #MicDropped unless you are an established Pa. guide you are walking uphill both ways to school
 
Okay I was expecting responses that would jack the expense sheet up but I got to tell you I was not expecting old waders and Cornish hens.

I checked the web for some guides. The prices ranged from 180 to 350 for an 8 hour day of wading. The sites that listed their lunch said sandwiches. I searched hard but could not find anybody offering up Cornish hens. Personally if I do rent a guide I'm not paying him 20 to 40 dollars an hour to cook me a chicken dinner.

Yep, I reaffirm my position that the overhead for a guide service is cheap. Websites are cheap, insurance is cheap, and learning the water is cheap. Haven't we all spent a lot of time and money learning how to be a lawyer, engineer, nurse or whatever before we ever earned a nickle. Fishing a stream for years and becoming an expert does not seem like there is a lot of frustrations and struggles involved.

Seems to me if you want to earn a living at it you have to get the work which ain't happening in pa.
 
Keep that dream alive...
 
I just want to know which guide touched your poopdeck so I never hire or recommend them.
 
Seems to me if you want to earn a living at it you have to get the work which ain't happening in pa.
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I have no experience with guides or guiding
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'nuff said?

Try getting out n about a bit more and meet some people. Believe it or not, folks actually do make a living guiding in PA and folks do actually come to this state just for the trout fishing...
 
Heavan forbid the guide shares a beer with ya afterwards!! :roll:
 
tomitrout wrote:
Seems to me if you want to earn a living at it you have to get the work which ain't happening in pa.
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I have no experience with guides or guiding
Click to expand...

'nuff said?

Try getting out n about a bit more and meet some people. Believe it or not, folks actually do make a living guiding in PA and folks do actually come to this state just for the trout fishing...
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You sure are not welcoming to different opinions are you. Im not picking a fight or trying to be controversal, i just happen to have no emotional attachment to this and can take an objective look at it. you on the other hand seem incapable of an honest objective look at the topic of guiding in PA. So some guides do make a living at guiding and some people come to pa to trout fish. No kidding where did I say they don't. What I did suggest was this is a very limited crowd. Objectively you can't argue this.

It seems that most of the guides are making their living not only through guiding but other things like a tackle shop and classes. Objectively you cant argue this either.The OP is talking about guiding and making a living. While you can blow smoke up his arse The truth is there is not that much work and a very very few make a living through guiding alone. Objectively you can't argue this either.

Your point about me getting out more is just plain stupid.
 
Wow this has become a hot topic. I say just let the O.P. try it if he wants. If he makes a full time gig out of it great, if just as a hobby that is great too. The only reason I piped in was to let him P.M. me if he wanted to ask questions from someone who has seen the good, bad,and the ugly. It may not have been here in Pennsylvania, but I can tell you it's not an easy gig whether it being making contacts which you need, to being physically able to do it I was 41 my first year and I thought I was in shape let me tell you guide school and guiding kicked my a$$!! Carrying supplies, palms of your hands raw from drift boat oars, rowing 12 to 13 hours a day using muscles you never knew you had to keep going, and keep your clients safe. Sleeping when you could, and a shower was a luxury, or just by your own fault going out at night with the other guides for some fun, and getting to stupid, and having your alarm go off at 4:30 am even if you feel like death that happy face has to be there when the clients arrive. The good though which goes any where you might be was no matter how sore beat up, and tired the sun coming up over a mountain range on the water your client is into there first fish, and is so excited it was worth the pain, and as you net that fish for him or her you just remember where you are in a beautiful place no traffic, no time clock, factory or office cubical. You are living in the now not dreaming. Why because we love these beautiful fish that swim all over this country.
 
You sure are not welcoming to different opinions are you.
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No, not when the opinion being offered is prefaced by:

I have no experience with guides or guiding
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You can call it 'blowing smoke up their arses' and I'll tell you that personally I do know a handful of guides making a go of it and I simply have a lot of respect for what they do. So, yeah, maybe you should get out more and get to know some of these guys, gain some actual experience and then offer your opinion. They're good people, have a real passion for their craft and are willing to perhaps live a life less ordinary to pursue their passion and I happen to have a lot of respect for that.
 
This has been an amusing thread to say the least...

"Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him."

That's kind of where I am with it :)
 
tomitrout wrote:
You sure are not welcoming to different opinions are you.
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No, not when the opinion being offered is prefaced by:

I have no experience with guides or guiding
Click to expand...


You can call it 'blowing smoke up their arses' and I'll tell you that personally I do know a handful of guides making a go of it and I simply have a lot of respect for what they do. So, yeah, maybe you should get out more and get to know some of these guys, gain some actual experience and then offer your opinion. They're good people, have a real passion for their craft and are willing to perhaps live a life less ordinary to pursue their passion and I happen to have a lot of respect for that.
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TT saved me some writing ^.....+1

 
poopdeck, if you consider so many expenses - legitimate expenses, I might add - "a wash," then you are saying they are so for all self-employed folks since a guide is self-employed. When you place that in proper perspective it seems you are at odds with anyone who is self-employed.

If you don't want to accept that guiding is a legitimate business, so be it. That's your prerogative to do so. I have no idea what is your vocation and I don't care to know. I'm sure that someone out there may have some choice things to say if you were to reveal such to us.

At least I can be confident in believing that you won't bother any of us guides by "wasting" money and hiring one of us for time on the stream.
 
OldLefty wrote:
poopdeck, if you consider so many expenses - legitimate expenses, I might add - "a wash," then you are saying they are so for all self-employed folks since a guide is self-employed. When you place that in proper perspective it seems you are at odds with anyone who is self-employed.
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That's how I read it also. I think I explained my stance in my prior post.
 
I have never hired a trout fishing guide. I do charter several salt water fishing trips every year in New Jersey, Florida, Mexico, and one time in Hawaii . This is hiring a guide, right? Not sure that adds any credibility to my opinions but I will assume not in your eyes.

I love the jump to conclusions about knowing nothing about small business simply because I state a fact about the profitibility of being a full time guide for trout in PA. For the record I do not operate a small business but my wife has been operating a small business out of my house for the last 25 years, a very profitable small business but one that does not pay the bills without my job and paycheck.

I'm curious what does a full time PA guide do in December, January, and February and half of march. April and May are probably good months followed by September and October and maybe there's a bit of work in November and June. Assuming you work every day during the good months and okay months you are not making a living during the year only through guiding.

You cant argue this even for a second so you and a few others simply attack my life experiences, call me a fool, and suggest silly things like getting out more. Then you infer that I hate guides for some reason.

My apologies to the OP for being the catalyst to the downhill spiral of this post. I was simply offering my opinion on the subject based on real, not imagined, fact as I see them.
 
Poopdeck. Guides have to make connections it's the only way to survive, probably even here in PA. You have to remember this life is nomadic you can't own a home vehicle has to be paid for, and a spouse or girlfriend has to be tolerable, or there gone. All the guides I know work the season then will go work a ski resort in the winter as an instructor or just washing dishes to pay for a small place to call home. The guides that really push it work from Alaska to out west "maybe PA" then hook up with an outfit in Florida for the winter then start the cycle over. You really can't plant yourself. I will be guiding again as my wife just got a job offer in northern New Mexico as a Geologist, We will head there in January. I will need to make connections fast so I can work all year even if it means going to Florida for 3 months, she understands the sacrifice to do the job.
 
I forgot to add if you are loyal to one fly shop every year some guides work the fly shop in the winter and taking the die hard winter fisherman out sporadically. They live a more conventional life. Hard to get on the shops payroll, because everyone wants to work in a fly shop out west.
 
Wow. Crazy thread. So Poopdeck states his opinion (obviously not a very popular one) and he gets attacked. His opinion/reasons may not be accurate but to each his own. He's at least not slinging mud at others that don't agree with him.
 
Watch yourself millertime if you go agreeing with me you will feel the scorn of every tweed wearing fly fishermen in this part of the country.

Coudersportguy, indeed if you want to be a full time guide that is how you do it. This proves the point I was making.
 
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