1. SAFETY CONSCIOUS
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how to choose a guide
STEPH AVENA: OMAK, WA
Ever feel clueless about hiring a Fly Fishing guide? These 5 tips will help you qualify him or her before laying down the big bucks …. and these tips may even save your life!!!
Let’ s say you’ re headed to a new Blue- Ribbon trout lake, or perhaps your spouse has agreed to accompany you for a day of fly fishing( miraculous!). Maybe you’ d like to wine and dine a client on a guided trip? Clearly you’ re gonna need a competent and dependable guide – especially, if you hope to stay married to your spouse!
So, what do you look for in a guide when you go fish a new place or want to learn a new technique? My advice is to ask other anglers, or your local fly shop to refer you to a guide with the following five qualities, all of which start with the letter“ S.”
1. SAFETY CONSCIOUS
Does the guide carry enough life jackets? Have they renewed their First Aid / CPR certification? Call me crazy, but I’ d like to make it to the take-out( even more than I’ d like to catch fish!). Yes, it should be given that my guide is safety conscious at ALL TIMES, but consider the following“ guided” experience I had one July on the Upper Yakima River.
I booked a fly fishing trip with a wellknown outfitter from Ellensburg. Instead of the experienced senior guide, I was given an unnamed junior guide— just a nice, fish-crazy college kid. About a half hour into our float,“ Big Ernie” made his fateful appearance. This twenty-plus rainbow specimen was known to local guides, and he could be found behind a certain rock. Sure enough, I missed the hookset and realized we had floated by— too far to cast again, but not to my guide. He dropped his anchor in heavy current, and grabbed the rod from my hands.“ Here, let me try!”
What happened next should caution you to always‘ vet’ your guide …. as he was false casting, this kid’ s anchor kept slipping downstream. He dropped the fly rod too late and we were pinned against a sweeper( log) hanging just above the river and perpendicular to the flow. In a flash, the boat filled over its side and was flipped.
I lost my phone, my rod, my reel, my wallet and nearly my life when the sweeper snapped back and hit me between the eyes— POW!!! Now seeing stars and treading water, it was a hundred yards until we landed on an island. Thank God we were both in swim shorts in July and not floating an icy stream in waders.
Are you too embarrassed to ask if they know CPR? Don’ t be. You might just be passed along to their most dependable( and experienced) guide. At the very least, you’ ll get your point across, and you’ ll find out how much your outfitter values basic safety.
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