No more Tracker soon for me....

[chunknwind]

I was the guide that told Elwood that I saw nothing wrong with him accepting someone paying his expenses to go to Dale fishing with them when they were wanting to learn more about the FNF. Elwood obviously knows this technique very well and paid his dues to learn it and is willing to share his knowledge with anyone that goes fishing with him.

Also as Elwood said: no one hits the mother load every time they go out whether it be with a guide or not. Your chances are increased of course if you are with someone that is on the fish every day or most days of the season which all professional full time guides are. But, hitting the mother load means you are out there to try to catch as many fish as you can...ie...just a fun, let's try to catch all the fish we can trip. On these type trips we sometimes do hit the mother load and put a lot of nice fish in the boat..but it does not happen every time...but it does happen. I had a number of trips this past season in which we put many limits of good fish in the boat...had a few I can remember this past spring in which I was taking guys out to get ready for a tournament and had to pull them off the fish almost immediately because they were hammering 4-6 lb fish on every cast and they had a tournament the next day. This is not the norm...but it does happen.

On the other hand, I do a lot of focused teaching type trips like one that Elwood mentioned...lake familiarization and I also do focused trips to teach ledge fishing. I always let my clients on these trips know up front that these trips by nature of what we are doing out there are not designed to go out and try to catch a bunch of fish. We are out there to learn..and in doing so we are normally covering a lot of water, going over a lot of techniques and even spending time in a class. Now once in a while on one of these trips we will pull up on a spot where the fish are feeding and slam a number of them...have had to leave these feeding fish many times so we can continue with the learning process that the trip is focused on like lake familiarization or ledge learning. More often than not, we will only put a few fish in the boat on one of these trips because we cannot sit around and wait on the fish to decide to start feeding...which is not a problem..these trips are designed to teach you techniques, patterns, elimanate water etc so that you can improve your fishing in the future.

Elwood said it right...let your guide know up front what you want out of the trip...if you want to learn something specific like a technique or learn the lake etc....discuss this with the guide...but don't go out with the expectation of loading a boat with fish...Example...you want to learn how to find and fish the ledges. I do this type trip. You get 3 hours of classroom and 5 hours on the water. On the water time consists of seeing as many different type ledges as possible in that short period and learning the techniques to use and how to set up on the ledges. Fact is, if you want a chance to catch a number of fish on the ledges...you need to sit on a ledge for a long time in most cases and wait the fish out until they are ready to feed. So you see, you can have it one way or the other...just depends on what the focus of your trip is.

Bottom line here is: There is more to being a guide than just going out to tell someone to throw this lure "over there" and hope they catch some fish. I have known Elwood for quite a while now and I think he would make a good guide. He would have to make some adjustments like learning how to sit up in the front of the boat without a fishing rod in his hand trying to catch fish while watching the other folks in the boat having a ball catching them....spend his time positioning the boat for the clients and teaching them, netting their fish, taking pics, getting lures unhung, retying lures etc.....but, Elwood already posseses the one quality that is common to all successful guides..he is a people person and doesn't mind sharing his knowledge.

Back to what started this...I don't see anything wrong with someone paying for Elwood's expenses like gas, motel and food to go to Dale with him to learn more about the FNF technique. In the same respect, I would not expect Elwood to not fish and spend all his time on the water with you teaching, positioning the boat for you, tying on your lures, netting your fish, taking your pic etc....If there is a big smallmouth in the vicinity eating the FNF Elwood is gonna go after him...he can't help himself...lol.

Well said Dave. I agree 100% in that Elwood has the skills and the personality to be a good guide. This last trip to Dale was a new experience for us. The lake was down further than most of the locals had ever seen it and most of the spots we like to fish were either out of the water or not fishable. So, Elwood whips out the map studies it for a while and proceeds to mark spots on the south end where we rarely fish. To make a long story short; the first spot we pull up on produced eight fish. We went on to have our best float n fly day ever, 17 fish and two over 21 inches. The other person in the boat, Mike (3sons), had a great day eight fish and a keeper, and I think Elwood was as happy for him as he was for himself. I can't think of the times we've been fishing and we'll pull up on a spot and he offers up the prime location(stump,point,cut), just because he wants to see me get into one. I guess you can do that when you have the guy down 10-1 LOL.

[elnutsmalljaws]

Well said Dave. I agree 100% in that Elwood has the skills and the personality to be a good guide. This last trip to Dale was a new experience for us. The lake was down further than most of the locals had ever seen it and most of the spots we like to fish were either out of the water or not fishable. So, Elwood whips out the map studies it for a while and proceeds to mark spots on the south end where we rarely fish. To make a long story short; the first spot we pull up on produced eight fish. We went on to have our best float n fly day ever, 17 fish and two over 21 inches. The other person in the boat, Mike (3sons), had a great day eight fish and a keeper, and I think Elwood was as happy for him as he was for himself. I can't think of the times we've been fishing and we'll pull up on a spot and he offers up the prime location(stump,point,cut), just because he wants to see me get into one. I guess you can do that when you have the guy down 10-1 LOL.

Easy to give the guy the prime spot when he has netted the 10 of the 10-1 like a champ. If there ever is a "Netboy Classic" then I am personally paying for Chunks entry fee and giving odds by taking him against the entire field. This guy can flat out net a fish like a pro, but of course he has had PLENTY of practise. I really believe he would rather man the net than catch a fish, at least that is what I have seen over the past 5 years of fishing together.

Seriously, easy to give up any spot for my BEST friend on the planet. Know this man for almost 35 years and except for him yelling at me last Friday when I was jerking on my frozen rod lockers for fear of me busting something, I don't think we have had a cross word. (We do disagree in that I was a Tubby fan and thought he had class and morals unlike this never won anything at anytime coach that we have now, chunk did not like Tubby). If anyone reading this has as good a buddy to them as Chunk and I are then you are just as lucky as I am. I do know that if only my family shows up at my funeral there will be at least one non blood relative there and that is my Brother from another Mother that I Love just as if he was my blood Brother, Cliff. See you tomorrow when we leave for Dale. Elwood