fishing guides.

flightliner · Sep 1, 2013

Anyone here ever employed the services of an angling guide to help catch fish in great britain?
Seems there are plenty who do according to those that advertise their services, is it for you or would you rather sort it out for yourself?

binka · Sep 1, 2013

Hi flight...

I reckon I would if I were going on something like a pike fishing break to somewhere like the Norfolk Broads where time would be at a premium and some good local knowledge over a wide expanse of water would probably make all the difference.

More for the local knowledge than the techniques... probably a mix and match between that and my own methods

Other than those sort of circumstances I think i'd rather have a wander and find my own way on something like a river that was new to me.

terry m · Sep 1, 2013

Myself and a friend employed the services of Charlie Bettell for a few days piking on the Broads a few years ago for exactly the reasons that Binka highlighted.

Sadly Charlie is no longer with us.

Paul Boote · Sep 1, 2013

Hank Patterson. Great series.

Meet Hank Patterson! Your Fly Fishing Guide. - YouTube

In a great many domestic coarse cases, just substitute bait for fly, Britain for America.

Gillies, guides etc - pass.

geoffmaynard · Sep 1, 2013

If you fishing in your own local area then you can do your own thing, you have the time and the chance to return next week. If however you are on a fishing holiday, or short break to somewhere you've never been before, then a guide is the only way to go. That applies to the UK as well as anywhere in the world. "Local knowledge pays on those difficult days".

nogoodboyo · Sep 1, 2013

If money wasn't an object I'd gladly pay to go out fishing with an experienced pike angler.
I'm sure I could land one but returning it safely is another matter.

Paul Boote · Sep 1, 2013

Fine, Geoff, but if Angling is to have a long-term future it is going to have to go back a bit in time, to a pre-"I'm on an asset-rich time-poor short break and I want it now, 'Give it to me, Mr Guide'" almost drug-like dependency. If not, all we are left with is not Anglers but mere in-'n'-out Occasional Punters. Fine for the Blue Cheese Martini Set and the guys looking to flog kit to it / them, not so good for any waters that they're not being sold and taken to, bad for Angling. Time to go back to something like "no-frills basics" and non-chestbeating, non-instant success humility, I reckon. Either way, we're going to lose a lot of our less-sexy domestic waters in coming years to a fall-off in Angler numbers, with only honeyholes and syndicates surviving. Fine, but what horror lies just beyond or above those honeyhole's well-fenced boundaries? We need regular bums in seats and boots on the ground, not a few thou' (and falling) who think fishing might just be a weekend or corporate-bonding laugh.

nicepix · Sep 2, 2013

Paul Boote said:
Fine, Geoff, but if Angling is to have a long-term future it is going to have to go back a bit in time, to a pre-"I'm on an asset-rich time-poor short break and I want it now, 'Give it to me, Mr Guide'" almost drug-like dependency. If not, all we are left with is not Anglers but mere in-'n'-out Occasional Punters. Fine for the Blue Cheese Martini Set and the guys looking to flog kit to it / them, not so good for any waters that they're not being sold and taken to, bad for Angling. Time to go back to something like "no-frills basics" and non-chestbeating, non-instant success humility, I reckon. Either way, we're going to lose a lot of our less-sexy domestic waters in coming years to a fall-off in Angler numbers, with only honeyholes and syndicates surviving. Fine, but what horror lies just beyond or above those honeyhole's well-fenced boundaries? We need regular bums in seats and boots on the ground, not a few thou' (and falling) who think fishing might just be a weekend or corporate-bonding laugh.

I've tried Google Translate and Bing with out success. Anybody know a translation program that can translate Bitterness into English?

Paul Boote · Sep 2, 2013

nicepix said:
I've tried Google Translate and Bing with out success. Anybody know a translation program that can translate Bitterness into English?

Moderators: I am becoming a little tired of this gentleman.

aebitim · Sep 2, 2013

Paul Boote said:
Fine, Geoff, but if Angling is to have a long-term future it is going to have to go back a bit in time, to a pre-"I'm on an asset-rich time-poor short break and I want it now, 'Give it to me, Mr Guide'" almost drug-like dependency. If not, all we are left with is not Anglers but mere in-'n'-out Occasional Punters. Fine for the Blue Cheese Martini Set and the guys looking to flog kit to it / them, not so good for any waters that they're not being sold and taken to, bad for Angling. Time to go back to something like "no-frills basics" and non-chestbeating, non-instant success humility, I reckon. Either way, we're going to lose a lot of our less-sexy domestic waters in coming years to a fall-off in Angler numbers, with only honeyholes and syndicates surviving. Fine, but what horror lies just beyond or above those honeyhole's well-fenced boundaries? We need regular bums in seats and boots on the ground, not a few thou' (and falling) who think fishing might just be a weekend or corporate-bonding laugh.

Paul, I think to a great extent we have always had a large number of occasional anglers both sit on the bank and pay to catch. The face of river angling has changed a fair bit and the benefit for me is that I can access waters that were never available before.
As for guiding, I have no problem with it at all. We are mostly experienced anglers who enjoy the challenge and have friends to share experience with, others are not so lucky and a day with a guide will often bring memories that last a lifetime and knowledge that will catch them fish in the future that they wouldnt catch otherwise.

Paul Boote · Sep 2, 2013

No problem with guides and guiding myself - it's your choice, after all - but I do have a problem with the extreme version of what guides can (and fairly often) bring about: a borderline-aggressive "We're the only show in town, take it or leave it, these are our waters, get out of here..." situation.

Angling reduced to mere better-class-of-club Golf, to increasing numbers of the fewer and fewer Anglers these days being unable to think for themselves and to fish on their own (I have encountered a fair few of the latter on my travels - rather sad, lost, wanting to be led souls - and wouldn't wish to see the same happen here).

Steve Pope · Sep 2, 2013

My experience of the people I have met is that each and every one of them has their own reason for wanting to share a day or two with me on the river.

To a man they are all really pleasant people and I like to think they all take away very happy memories from their day.

They may be very busy businessmen, they may have recently retired and are looking for some help to kick start something that may have lain dormant for a while, they may be benefiting from a present bought by a loved one, they may struggle to get on a river now because of illness, the list is endless.

The key point is that they are all looking for a pleasant experience and its up to me to do my darnedest to ensure that happens!

If you had said to me four years ago that there are a huge number of people out there who would value this kind of service I would not have believed it, but there are and if I can help encourage more to fish the rivers then it's all good.

All the best.

Chris Hammond ( RSPB ACA PAC} · Sep 2, 2013

Not in a million years.

Just a personal thing but part of the pleasure of angling for me is in working out where I should be fishing myself. My view might be coloured by the fact that it doesn't really phase me to blank or show a poor return. I'm not interested in how high anybody else might have set the bar. I don't care if my catch rate compares with anyone else's or whether my list of pb's is impressive to any one else.

In all honesty I just wouldn't feel there was any personal merit in capturing a fish that I'd been 'put onto' by somebody else.

Not knocking anyone else. Just expressing my own view. In fact I turned down numerous offers of a free day out with Charlie Bettel. I do regret that, but not because of the fish I might have caught but rather because I missed the opportunity to meet one of pike angling's great characters in the flesh. Charlie and I talked quite frequently via e-mail and I bumped into him a couple of times on the various broads, but I never got around to meeting him properly and of course sadly it is now too late.

sam vimes · Sep 2, 2013

I couldn't care less if someone wants to pay to be guided, though it's not for me. I get immense pleasure from trying to work a water out myself. Even more to try things that not everyone else is doing and getting results. There's a lot of pleasure to be had from others mimicking you and getting results too.

As much as I don't wish to be guided, I fail to see much difference between guiding and an angler gleaning all the information they can from magazines, the internet and fellow anglers on their usual haunts. As confident as I am in my own abilities and results, I'd be loath to accept cash from strangers for guiding. The uncertainty of angling would leave me feeling guilty as hell if the results weren't good for those being guided. I can live with the inevitable blanks that happen to the best of us, I couldn't if I were being paid to guide.

I'm also at a loss as to how guiding really works in the UK where fishing is restricted massively by a multitude of different landowners. It's not like the likes of Canada with hundred of miles water to go at. Presumeably, guides just have their own prolific pet bits of water and pegs to take clients to rather than the guide going wherever the client wants. Apart from the cash transaction, I don't see much difference in this than an angling mate taking you to their favourite, and hopefully prolific, haunt. This type of "guiding" has gone on forever and a day.

terry m · Sep 2, 2013

Chris Hammond ( RSPB ACA PAC} said:
Not in a million years.

Just a personal thing but part of the pleasure of angling for me is in working out where I should be fishing myself. My view might be coloured by the fact that it doesn't really phase me to blank or show a poor return. I'm not interested in how high anybody else might have set the bar. I don't care if my catch rate compares with anyone else's or whether my list of pb's is impressive to any one else.

In all honesty I just wouldn't feel there was any personal merit in capturing a fish that I'd been 'put onto' by somebody else.

Not knocking anyone else. Just expressing my own view. In fact I turned down numerous offers of a free day out with Charlie Bettel. I do regret that, but not because of the fish I might have caught but rather because I missed the opportunity to meet one of pike angling's great characters in the flesh. Charlie and I talked quite frequently via e-mail and I bumped into him a couple of times on the various broads, but I never got around to meeting him properly and of course sadly it is now too late.

Charlie was indeed one of lifes nice guys.

Paul Boote · Sep 2, 2013

sam vimes said:
I'm also at a loss as to how guiding really works in the UK where fishing is restricted massively by a multitude of different landowners. It's not like the likes of Canada with hundred of miles water to go at. Presumeably, guides just have their own prolific pet bits of water and pegs to take clients to rather than the guide going wherever the client wants. Apart from the cash transaction, I don't see much difference in this than an angling mate taking you to their favourite, and hopefully prolific, haunt. This type of "guiding" has gone on forever and a day.

Sounds great in theory, Sam, but increasingly works out very differently in practice these days - the guides start warring over the best territory; in the worst cases ensuring that they not only have that territory to themselves, but actually break a country's laws to turn traditionally (by statute) public-access water into private water - a favourite trick is to buy landowners (who don't own the fishing rights) and get them to lock their gates and prevent public access to the river(s). Then they often a blinder, play the conservation card: "We're protecting the river and its fish ... introduced strict catch and release ... prevented over-fishing....".

Today an old friend of mine (since aged 13 at senior school) sent me an email: "So and so's travel firm (my pal has long been in the business) is now offering fishing holiday's in XYZ, Paul. They're all at it now!".

So I read about an exploratory trip to waters that I and some old friends (now mostly gone to the Great River in The Sky) know well and have had occasionally considerable but usually VERY patchy success on (total blow-outs, even at the right time). An exploratory trip at the wrong time of year (a few weeks way too early), and all for $5000. Doubtless "expert" guide-led. My pal got a "I despair" by way of a reply.

sam vimes · Sep 2, 2013

I can understand the danger, especially on prolific and prominent venues, I just don't believe it'll work out quite that way in the UK. I don't believe you could buy up enough of a single river to make the danger a reality. Land ownership in the UK is quite different in nature to the wild expanses found in other countries. Couple that with the transitory and cyclical nature of UK rivers and you are in trouble. Look at the Wye, some formerly exclusive and expensive salmon beats have been turned over to coarse angling. Barely anyone was bothering with the Trent fifteen years ago, now it's a barbel mecca. Will it remain so in another ten to fifteen years? I know that some stretches are being fought over now, but it certainly wasn't the case fifteen years ago. As for genuine public access, fish for free bar the cost of the EA licence, there's so little in my part of the world that it barely figures in my thinking.

I accept that the situation is quite different outside of the UK, but I'm afraid that I don't much care what happens outside of the UK.

flightliner · Sep 2, 2013

I,m not sure I would be that bothered in the uk, I,m of the mind that having a pretty reasonable degree of confidence I would prefer to sort out my own way of working things out, be they venues, techniques and baits.
I can understand anyone having a guide abroad tho as language, limited levels of what one can transport etx can I suppose be reason enough for looking for a helping hand in one way or another in order to get too, find/catch a particular fish or more.
My only downside to all this xtra help (maybe just me here) is that if somebody is telling me its not far to go, to do this, try that, cast over there etx etx, I would feel that whatever the final results were fish wise i would be hard pressed to claim them as mine in total.

geoffmaynard · Sep 2, 2013

sam vimes said:
As much as I don't wish to be guided, I fail to see much difference between guiding and an angler gleaning all the information they can from magazines, the internet and fellow anglers on their usual haunts.

Very true. Everyone appreciates a helping hand and this is indeed a cash-rich time-poor world we live. I can't see anyone turning the clocks back either. But if we do look to the past, we see gillies and boatmen everywhere anglers went. Were these not also 'guides'? I can't see the problem really, though I understand what Paul is getting at. The Ebro in Spain was for some years a bit of a warground with guides competing for hot areas. Some were good others less so; the guides sometimes argued with each other but usually privately and I never heard a complaint from any of the customers.

terry m · Sep 2, 2013

flightliner said:
I can understand anyone having a guide abroad tho as language, limited levels of what one can transport etx .....

Ha ha, when I hired a guide on the Ebro a few years ago I assumed I would end up with a local Pedro or Raoul, instead I got 'Gaz' from Birmingham who took some careful listening to understand him. Mind you he was a top guide, great results and a worthwhile tip at the end.

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