20 Ways to Endear Yourself to Your Fly Fishing Guide
By Rob Woodruff

Want to insure that your fly fishing guide always remembers you? Here is a list of things you can do to guarantee he never will forget you. Choose two or more from the list and you are sure to be the topic of conversation the next time he gets together with other guides.

1. Show up late, because you didn’t know you were in a different time zone than your home.

2. Bring your dog.

3. Wear dark soled shoes on a white flats boat.

4. Call him at home after 10:00 PM the night before your trip.

5. Bring a cooler because you "want to eat a big bass".

6. Get mad and pout because he won’t let you drive the boat.

7. Show up with the flu, and infect your guide before you leave.

8. Remark several times that "anybody who pays $500.00 for fly rod is a fool" (while using the guide’s $500.00 rod).

9. Retort to every decision he makes with "Well Lefty says...".

10. Get too drunk to cast by lunchtime, and then demand a refund for the rest of the day since you can’t fish.

11. Bring real good cigars, don’t share.

12. Bring real bad cigars, share frequently.

13. Repeatedly try to help launch the boat.

14. Pay for a one-person trip, then have three of your buddies follow you and your guide everywhere and fish right beside you
all day.

15. Cuss out your guide over things he has no control over, like bad weather and power generation schedules.

16. While fishing with your guide, tell every stranger you meet on the river what fly is working and how to fish it.

17. The day after your trip, be seen leaving the river with a stringer of big trout.

18. Hook your guide.

19. Insist on driving your new car to the river and then get mad at your guide because it got scratched.

20. Show up with a hangover and the new girlfriend you met at the bar last night.


20 Ways to Know You’ve Booked a Bad Fly Fishing Guide
By Rob Woodruff

1. He doesn’t wade in the river with you; he just stands on the bank and screams and gestures a lot.

2. You see him taking a long swig from a bottle of whiskey as you arrive at 6:30 in the morning.

3. He calls all his clients, regardless of age, "son".

4. He brings his dog and spends more time working with it than you.

5. He obviously hasn’t bathed or shaved for several days before the trip.

6. He advertises a "gourmet shore lunch"; then serves you Vienna Sausages, hard-boiled eggs and crackers.

7. After collecting your money on a fishless day, he remarks "I was afraid that would happen, we haven’t caught anything in a
couple of weeks."

8. He advertises himself as a fly fishing guide, and then once on the river, pulls out the live bait and spinning rods and says that is
the only way to catch fish right now.

9. He screams and cusses at you before you even get in the boat.

10. He spends the day trying to convert you to the new religion he has founded, and insists you call him "The Prophet".

11. He advertises "fishing on pristine, un-crowded private water" and then on the way to the stream casually mentions that he
doesn’t actually have the landowner’s permission to fish there.

12. He fishes all day, catches the most fish and brags about it.

13. He quits at 10:00 AM because you and your buddy "aren’t good enough fly fishermen to be on this river."

14. Without further explanation, he tells you that he is surprised you showed up because; "everybody else has been scared to,
since the incident."

15. He spends most of the day complaining about the measly tip the clients gave him yesterday, and telling the terrible things he
plans to do to get even with them for it.

16. He asks you what you do for a living, then tells you how little he thinks of people in your profession.

17. He spends most of the day flirting with your wife or girlfriend.

18. He surprises you by introducing you to the five strangers who are going to be fishing with you today.

19. He makes fun of your casting, and does nothing to help you get better.

20. Before the trip starts, he asks you to help him cut the electronic monitoring device off his ankle.

Article Courtesy of Rob Woodruff of Woodruff's Guide Service at Woodruff Guide Service