Steel Dreams Guide Service - Steel Dreams offers fishing adventures on Washington's premier rivers: the Columbia, Snake, and Grande Ronde as well as Idaho's Clearwater. Take your choice of power sled or drifting for salmon, steelhead, bass or sturgeon. Great pricing, quality equipment, and priceless memories make Steel Dreams the best choice for your next epic fishing adventure.
Ok...this is a report and a rant all in one. I have a young guy from France who is doing a summer internship at the company I work for. I thought it would be a once in a lifetime experience for him to go out and catch a springer, so I thought a guided trip might be our best chance of getting him into a fish. Not gonna name the guide in this report, and he's not a sponsor here, but he is one of the guides who submits reports on salmon and steelhead university sites.
Was not impressed at the end of the day. Spent 8 hours on the Wind River bubble and ended up with 1 jack between 6 guys (including guide and his helper).
I got a funny feeling about the guy on Saturday night when I asked him if we should reschedule because of the sudden change to nasty weather. Anytime it goes from hot and sunny to cold and rainy in a short amount of time like it just did this past week, it always seems to affect the fish bite. The reports had also been indicating that the bite was slow to dead after the weather change...but the guide said don't sweat, he hits fish every day, and he thinks it will be fine. Ok...he's the professional, we went with it.
He tells us to meet him between 5:30 and 5:45 Sunday morning, and we get there about 5:50, and what do ya know, I forgot my license in my normal fishing bag that I didn't bring with me because I knew I didn't have to bring my gear...so I run to the local gas station, get my replacement license and we are back on the water by 6:20. Almost immediately he starts making excuses that we missed precious bite time and trying to put blame on us...even though people were out there hitting fish all through the day, and he even said later in the day that he hits fish randomly any time of the day on the Wind.
He set the 2 guys behind us up with flashers and cut plug herring, and then the 2 of us in the front had prawn spinners with cured coon stripe shrimp. The only thing we were good at catching was smolts. He knew I was a fisherman, but I told him I'm a bank guy, and I'm not familiar with boat fishing so he was gonna have to school me. His instruction was "keep it off the bottom and when they hit it, just lift the rod out of the holder and they will set themselves". And that was his instruction...but then I glance over at the boat next to us, which was also a guide, and he is basically giving his group a quick class on what to expect from the day, what to do, etc...another red flag went up.
So we're trolling along, not really knowing what we're doing at first, and one guy gets hung up and loses a flasher/herring rig. Immediately the guide starts getting pissy and says stuff like, "WTF? That's a $30 setup down the drain. We didn't snag once yesterday and those people weren't even fishermen"...and then the rest of the day all of us were using prawn spinners. Looking back on it now, basically he got pissed we lost a set of gear and he was setting us up with the cheapest rigs he had for the rest of the day. We never changed things up all day long. Pink prawn spinners all day for all 4 guys...even though they weren't producing. Red flag #2. I will say that I did miss a bite...I saw the bite, and lifted the rod out of the rod holder like I was instructed to do at the beginning of the day and as soon as I lifted the rod, he says "Dammit! Put the rod down, you just lost the fish". And he was right, and he tries to blame me saying I did a hook set, which I didn't. So I did miss a fish, but I was just doing what I thought I was supposed to do. My buddy did end up getting a jack, and that was the only fish all day long between 7 poles in the water.
Another red flag went up all throughout the day. We watched multiple boats bring in beautiful fish...and the guide would never go to the lane they were traveling. All day long we watched the boats to the side of us land fish...some boats would be nailing multiple fish...and he just stayed away from them and we kept running the same lane out in the middle of the water back and forth all day long. He did take us closer to the bank at one point, but again, as soon as one of the guys snagged, he got pissed and gave the guy crap about it and we left that area and went back to trolling the same line and depth we did all day long...that wasn't producing fish as we watched other boats nail fish in an obvious travel lane. He said it's too much pressure and he stays away from other boats on purpose...but it was obvious they were following the fish's travel lane and they were boating big, bright beautiful fish while we were not. We never really changed depth either. He had us stay just off the bottom all day. I think twice in 8 hours we brought it up to 20 feet and trolled around for 10 minutes or so trying that...but literally, that was maybe a total of 30 minutes out of 8 hours. The rest of the time we stayed at one depth, just off the bottom, even thought it wasn't producing.
I wasn't quiet about it either, I asked him about these various things throughout the day and he always had an answer (excuse) as to why he was doing things his way...which didn't produce fish.
The coup de grace came at the end of the day. This guy had the nerve to say "well we gave em hell"...ummm, no we didn't...we trolled up and down the same lane for 7 hours at the same depth and same speed and we watched boats 10 yards from us nail fish in the travel lane all day. So I had to pay my balance by credit card, and he uses his phone with that Square card reader, and of course he points out that there are automatic options for 10, 20 or 30% tip...are you kidding me??? I hit the "custom tip" button and as soon as he saw that he asked what I was doing, and I told him I was gonna leave $15 for the bait guy since the other guys were also tipping $15-20 each. He didn't like that and was standing over me watching every keystroke of the credit card transaction. He didn't shake my hand, no offer of another trip at a discounted rate, and no apologies for such a terrible day of fishing. Just said "that's the worst day I've had yet". The bait guy was cool. Older guy, kind of rough around the edges, but he was a good natured guy...and he shook my hand and said goodbye, nice meeting us, etc. I hope that tip money really does go to him, because I sure wasn't leaving the tip for the guide.
So at the end of the day we probably should have rescheduled in the first place, but instead we trolled up and down the same lane in the middle of the river, at the same speed, with the same presentation that wasn't hitting fish. We probably saw 8-10 fish boated throughout the day, so I wouldn't say it was red hot in general considering the number of boats that were out there...but the fish we did see boated were running flashers/herring...and we were pulling prawn spinners all day because he got pissed that one of the other guys lost his flasher and wanted to be cheap after that. All that for 1 jack. He wouldn't go where we saw fish rolling/jumping, and he wouldn't travel the main lane where other boats were catching fish.
Oh, and toward the end of the day he was telling us a story about how him and his helper got wasted the night before...but I'm sure that had nothing to do with the poor performance. LOL
On a positive note, we got to enjoy some beautiful scenery in the Columbia Gorge...but I could have saved some money and just drove up and down highway 14 for that. And we got to see some beautiful fish caught...just not by our boat.
This has really ruined the possibility of doing a guided trip in the future. I shelled out a pretty penny and came back at the end of the day pretty pissed and disappointed. If I ever pay to fish again, it will be a saltwater charter. I will figure out the rivers on my own, or wait to eventually meet someone who has a boat and is willing to let me get a seat.
Wow, that is sn epic report. Sorry you had such a negative experience. Had one myself once. Non-stop smoking guide... right in my face, ugh. Don't give up on the river guides, most of them are good guys and will work hard for their clients.
Man, that does sound like a crummy experience. I'd not have tipped him either. I agree with Mike, there are good guides and bad guides no matter what you're fishing for or where. I've got limited experience with charter fishing, but remember one in particular out of Sekiu for Coho when I was a kid. Just my Dad, bro, and I. It wasn't that the captain was bad, it's just that his intent was to get fish in the boat, not for his clients to have a good time. We were trolling and if a pole tripped he'd bark at us continuously to get the fish in the boat and don't play it. We caught fish, but it wasn't a very enjoyable trip. Felt like a private following orders. He told me more than once that I wasn't working hard enough at getting the fish in the boat. t remember my dad wasn't too happy with the guy, but again, we did catch fish at least. Hopefully you'll get another chance with a better guide someday.
Lol... that sounds terrible... its too bad that some guys are like this... its almost like some guides have ruined fishing for themselves through guiding and making it a job, and they always just seem angry about it. Ive had an experience or two the same, and ive fished with some guides that I would tip 50$ even if we got skunked because of how enjoyable the day was and how hard they worked, regardless of how fishing was... just gotta find the right guy, like the others said, its only a small % that are like that... dont shy away from river guides, because if you are a river fisherman... you can learn a lot from going on a guided trip with the right guy
I think if you put it up it's not terrible. It's not like your starting thread on him. But if someone is trying to get a guided trip on the wind river they might want to avoid a guy like this and seeing your report could steer them toward a more pleasant guide.
Your report left me speechless my friend! So sorry to hear about that disappointing trip, I used to fish Drano when I lived in Vancouver and I managed to bag a few nice bright springers but it is usually combat fishing at its finest! If you ever get an itch to go there again I'd be happy to share the expenses and make the trip with you, it can be a blast if you know what you are doing! By the way, I'll catch up with you when I return from the coast, hopefully to share a great report with you! ;-)
oh man that sucks to have thrown money out like that. We fished the wind monday from shore. The weather was crazy! But we did meet a few super nice locals! We didnt see any springers boated, but the locals said the best spot for the boats was trolling in shallower by the point. Sorry you had such a bad experience! At least you got to troll around on the big C, we saw many guides trolling the toilet bowl on Drano all day to scratch out 1 or 2 fish. Doing the same circle over and over for 7 hours. I will never pay to fish drano.
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Steel Dreams Guide Service - Steel Dreams offers fishing adventures on Washington's premier rivers: the Columbia, Snake, and Grande Ronde as well as Idaho's Clearwater. Take your choice of power sled or drifting for salmon, steelhead, bass or sturgeon. Great pricing, quality equipment, and priceless memories make Steel Dreams the best choice for your next epic fishing adventure.
