Fishing With a Guide

I moved from Kennewick, WA to the Everett, WA area about thirty years ago. I was used to fishing for small trout, bass and perch. Not sure of where to go fishing I first went to different sporting good stores in the area and they all gave me ideas on where to go fishing and what to use. Most of the information turned out good until one sales person said he uses a guide to find the good spots.

I decided to try that and was extremely pleased with the results. The first guided trip I went on was out of Everett and they fished for salmon in the Puget Sound. I chose that because I had never been on the Sound and never fished for salmon. Will that hooked me on fishing for salmon. Even through it is like combat shoulder to shoulder fishing, the deck hands handled everything very well. Everyone was good about following the deck hands orders and we all caught fish. Also, the reason I chose to try this first is because I did not have a boat  and even if I did I didn't know where to go. I enjoyed this so much I started going fishing on the Washington coast using charter boats.

It didn't take long to decide to go with a guide on some of the rivers. The advantage here was I could ask the guide a lot of questions and watch him rig up his line and see how he hooked up the bait. If you pick a good guide you will find they are very good and even eager to share their knowledge on how to rig up and showing their best spots for fishing. All the guide I ever went with would do everything they knew how to get you your limit of fish.

Once a friend and I went out with a guide fishing for steelhead on the Snohomish River. We were early for the run and we knew it. As the day went on with no luck the guide want to know if we had ever fly fished and we both told him we had fly fished a few times but we were not real great at it. He dug out two fly rod and we anchored on a small island in the river. We got out and he gave a few lessons on fly fishing and we walked to the narrow side of the island. The guide showed us where there were several pink salmon and let us just have fun. We were catching pinks on just about every cast. They varied in size from five to twelve pounds. We were doing so well that the guys fishing on the other side of the river wanted to know if we wanted to sell them some salmon. Can't say we weren't tempted even though I believe it is against the law to sell the fish.

Guide fishing has several advantages. One is usually all the gear and bait is provided. Another it is cheaper than paying for your own boat. It seems if you have your own boat everyone is your friend and wants to go fishing but no one want to pay for the gas or anything else. Another good thing is the guide usually will fillet your fish out if you want.

I have moved back to Kennewick and thought I would be disappointed about going back to fishing for the small fish again. Not true. I enjoy trout fishing with the grandchildren and I have found a great fishing guide to take me out on the Columbia River fishing for salmon and I caught my first sturgeon. So, it seems I have the best of both worlds.