Part Time Guide

I have been kicking around the idea of doing some part time guiding on a local body of water. I am looking at strictly part time because I enjoy me full time job. I think there may be an area that is unfulfilled and when my time allows. I really enjoy taking new people out and teaching them how to fish for walleye, along with other species. My main question is if there was a part time guide that did after business hours guiding by the hour, would anyone be interested in a service like this. Just looking for feed back before diving to deep into the venture.

P.S. I know the laws and regs in my area as far a guiding goes. Not looking for feedback on legal advice or competing with local full time guides. I personally know several of them and they don’t offer a service like this.

Build it and they will come.

before diving to deep into the venture

I’m going to assume you don’t need a 6-pack license for a moment here.

With that out of the way, what expense besides commercial insurance would stop you from just doing it? Few extra rods?

Seriously, if you are doing this part time for your enjoyment start advertising and do it. What’s it going to cost you if no one hires you?

Good luck!

Where are you located? What are you thinking about charging? What bodies of water are you thinking about?

Good Luck

Something to understand is you will be showing people “your spots” that you developed through the years. If successful you can expect to find more people on those spots. Now if it’s a big lake it won’t matter as there will be other spots to fish. On a small lake those spots are fewer and far between. Off the top of my head it sounds like a pretty good option for folks. I would say go for it but be sure to price it so you can make a bit of money also. You can’t take somebody out from 5-7 pm for $30 and make money at it. There would need to be a 4 hour minimum or something.

Good luck, let us know what you do.

Good advice Dutch.

The biggest mistake imo is new guides pricing low. Charge low and make it up on volume.

If you’re any good, charge a fair price and go with it.

There may be a market there. If you were successful it would mean giving up the majority of your nights and weekends. I can’t imagine too many guides are successful by turning down trips for any reason esp wedding/vaca or any of the other things that eat up our summers.

There’s a shortage of walleye guides somewhere?

Lol.

Tight lines, part time guiding is something I’ve been considering for about 2-3 years. Been taking people out last couple years on free guide trips trying to decide if this is something worth pursuing. Many complete strangers. I’ve been bugging BK for well over a year seeking advice. It is the enjoyment of seeing someone catch something they otherwise wouldn’t have, to see someone catch a personal best many many times each year. Those are the things driving me to consider it. Making money is not really a driver for me. Guiding is not a big money maker by any stretch. But days like yesterday while I was working and handing out advice to people who were fishing is a constant reminder that I would enjoy working from a boat more than I do in an office… But there’s no way guiding could cover my expenses to fish 250 days a year either, but part time guiding would cover… Some expense.

I think it’ll be a few years before I pull the trigger on a guide license. It’ll likely never be for walleyes, and I’ll likely charge a pretty penny and only do a few trips when I do start. But admittedly I’m not ready yet.

Good luck in your decision!

People will pay for results of you can consistently provide them.

Wonder how Gabe is doing…..

I agree results are important but I think the experience is more important. If I hire a guide to go cat fishing or Walleye on the Mississippi catching a fish would be great. But understanding why we are sitting on this spot of a massive river using this bait rigged this way would be more important for me. The ability of the guide to convey all that information is important, at least to me. I know guides who are only interested in catching fish, for them first and the client second. Why and how they use the equipment is only mentioned if the client asks or pry’s it out of them.
Be the teacher and not the fee collector who has gotten somebody to pay for your fishing and you will be successful. Well in my opinion only.

I took my first guide trip when I was 13 years old and it’s been a part of my life ever since. Currently, I’m an engineer during the day and guide weeknights and weekends. I take around 75-100 trips a summer. It’s a tremendous amount of work, but I truly enjoy it.

I like to take out families on vacation, small groups or people that just want to learn how to fish better. All of these types of people are a lot of fun to guide and the reason I started guiding. The guys I want nothing to do with are the ones that know it all already. They have a fancy boat and claim to catch walleye by the 1000’s yet they want to hire me for a couple hours to show them what I know. These guys get a polite, no thank you! I think a by the hour service might be calling yuppies like this out of the wood work.

If I was you I’d offer half day(4hr) weekday trips and full day(8hr) weekend trips. That way if you only have a 2-3 hours after work you can just pro rate the trip. I turn down many trips each year from people that want to fish with me for the wrong reasons.

As you see every person has different wants and needs. The successful guide, or business man/gal in general can read their current customer and provide to them what they want/need.

nhamm wrote:

As you see every person has different wants and needs. The successful guide, or business man/gal in general can read their current customer and provide to them what they want/need.

X2 well said.

nhamm wrote:

Wonder how Gabe is doing…..

For some reason I thought about Gabe when I saw this thread lol. Haven’t heard much from him since the deb Dallas days. Wonder what he’s up to. He was always good for a laugh