Fishing Guide
We live on a lake in central Minnesota. This lake is one of the premiere fishing lakes in the state. Many people come here on day and week fishing trips. Most people bring their own boats, but there are others that go out on launch trips or hire one of the many private fishing guides to take them out fishing. This allows for business opportunities for many people that live on the lake, but people should make sure that the fishing guides that are hired know the lake as well as the feeding patterns of the fish.
We had fished this lake for many years prior to buying our home. My husband had been fishing here when he was a young boy. With the modern technology of GPS and lake mapping on marine electronics, it is very easy to find different depths and fishing spots on the lake. After we had lived on the lake for a year my husband contacted one of the local fishing guides and asked if he could enter some his fishing spots on the lake on his GPS. This particular guide has been very successful on the lake. He told my husband that he did not want to share the fishing spots because he did not want a lot of other people fishing where he was. My husband mentioned this to a friend of ours that owns the local bait shop. The bait shop owner laughed and told my husband that this particular guide does not know how to use GPS and so he does not own a unit, which is why he did not share any of the fishing spots. The bait shop owner told us that there are no requirements to pass in order to be considered a guide. He said that many of the people that advertise their services as fishing guides simply take people out in their boats and hope to catch some fish. Some people are more successful at this than others, but there are no requirements.
I was surprised by this information. If I was going to a lake to fish I would assume that the people that are listed as fishing guides would have safety training and other certification in order to take others out onto the lake. You do have to have coast guard training if you have a launch or a boat over thirty five feet, but there are many guides that have twenty foot boats that take people out fishing. This was disappointing to my husband because one of his retirement dreams was to be a guide on the lake. Now that we live here we realize that there are more than enough people already offering to guide. I told my husband that we should look into having an actual service that would provide a more special outing than just a day in a fishing boat. We are going to plan a business around the adventure of fishing rather than just advertising guide services.
Fishing Guide
