I’m taking the family out on a Salmon charter over Fathers Day. The guide cleans the fish. The trip cost $375 for five hours.
How much should I tip if the fishing is good? $50? Never done it before.
Thanks guys! 
Just something else to ponder.
I have been most impressed when the fishing wasn’t easy and the guide worked his tail off to get us on quality fish. I have given a larger tip on these occasions. Probably just for all of the extra fuel that was spent running and gunning.
How many people are in the family?
FDR
In the limited guided trips I have done, I usually tip 10-20%. But I don’t tip based upon how the fishing is because as we all know even the best don’t catch a lot of fish every time out. Rather, I tip based upon if I feel the guide/captain worked hard to put us on fish. If he did and was generally good to be around, I would tip on the upper end. On the other hand, if I felt like they didn’t work hard enough, I wouldn’t tip them near the top end and maybe not at all.
Case in point. We were on a charter in the Gulf near Tampa Bay. The captain was generally unpleasant and arrogant to be around. We weren’t catching many reef fish until the first mate went into the cooler and pulled out some squid to use as bait. However, the captain pulled him aside and was overheard saying that those were supposed to be saved for the afternoon charter because they payed for a longer trip. While heading back to the dock (45 minutes short of when the trip was supposed to end due to some light rain) we discussed as a group and decided that the captain got a tip of 0% and the first mate got 20% ($100) for continuing to bait our hooks with squid and because he made the trip fun to be on.
Overall, most guides/captains have been good to work with and deserve the higher amount, but there have been a few negative instances like the one above.
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Just something else to ponder.
I have been most impressed when the fishing wasn’t easy and the guide worked his tail off to get us on quality fish. I have given a larger tip on these occasions. Probably just for all of the extra fuel that was spent running and gunning.
How many people are in the family?
FDR
Four of us.
Jake, I thought of that after I read my post, The qaulity of the experience is what I was getting at. If the guy works his his hind end off and we come up short he shouldn’t be penalized.
First mates work for tips. FYI, you will see that sign on many boats. I tend to tip the first mate more than the captain. The first mate brings a lot of info to the table from the other first mates out there about what the other boats are doing that the captains don’t share with each other. If the FM is working his but off rigging and changing things up to find out what the fish want $100 to him isn’t out of line. The captain is getting a flat rate fee for the trip already. my .02
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Just something else to ponder.
I have been most impressed when the fishing wasn’t easy and the guide worked his tail off to get us on quality fish. I have given a larger tip on these occasions. Probably just for all of the extra fuel that was spent running and gunning.
How many people are in the family?
FDR
Four of us.
$50-$100 depending on how hard they work or you.
FDR
I have only been on one chartered trip and it was for salmon out of Kenosha. The 1st day we caught a nice bag of fish and gave the captain and 1st mate $50 each. The 2nd day was rough and rained the whole time. The other 3 members of my party got sick due the huge waves. The captain AND FM went well out of their way to make sure they were as comfortable as possible. They also gave them some drops to put behind their ears that helped their sea sickness. We didn’t end up catching anything on the 2nd day, but the captain and FM worked their tails off trying. We gave them each $100 for their efforts that day.
So, like everyone else said, don’t base your tips just off of what you catch.
I went out of Ballards on LOW last year for 3 days. First two days the older guide was great and had us on a lot of fish. He asked us if we wanted all keepers or big fish, how we liked to fish, and was always watching the graphs to make sure we stayed on fish. We tipped at least $10 each per person the first two days.
The third day we went out, we had a 22 year old know it all from the cities as a guide. On the way out he told me he rarely uses the graph, as they were getting outdated. He never asked us how we wanted to fish, but he was constantly on his cell phone getting reports on which guides to follow to try to get fish. He paid no attention to lure speeds, as our spinners couldn’t even hold bottom, nor did he ever bother checking out the lines of the less experienced guys in our group. That ended up being my job. That day I think we gave him maybe $20 total from 6 guys. It was a struggle all day, and I know it was the captains issues, so it wasn’t worth a good tip IMO.
10-20 depending how well the captain and mate(s) treat you.
If they make it fun lean towards 20. If one of them is a jerk and is rude to you then much lower and tell them why.
” advice from the experts.” And you came here ???? 
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” advice from the experts.” And you came here ????
I’m still waiting to hear from one.
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