PM messaging

[dc chopper]

You can imagine as a guide how many requests I get for information. Here is how I handle the requests. If a person in a client but does not have a trip booked with me on this trip down here (I don't expect my clients to book with me every time they come down here...heck most folks can't afford that nor am I available every time they want a trip) I will give them the most recent information as to specific areas and lures and patterns that have been working recently. These are clients that book with me once or more each season.

If a person is not a client (or has not booked a trip with me in more than a year) I will give them the most recent information on lures and patterns and general areas (obviously specific area information is reserved for my clients/sponsors and those I network with).

IF I want a report from any of these folks about how their trip was...I will ask them to let me know how they did when they get home AT THE TIME I give them the information. If they DO give me a report back I will remember that the next time they ask for information....If they DO NOT give me a feedback report after I asked them to...I am not going to contact them...but I will remember it the next time they ask me for information...and the information they get the second time may send them on a snipe hunt.

I get a number of requests each season from folks that I have never met, seen or heard of before that want specific spot information etc.....of course my business is fishing information as a guide so I am going to offer them a guide trip or map marking session at the going rate. Some of these folks will turn down that offer....they are looking for free specific information....I guess they go to Wal Mart and ask the folks there if they can have their merchandise for free also....it is the same thing in my eyes...I sell fishing information to make a living just as Wal Mart sells merchandise to stay in business.

Bottom line here is: I don't mind furnishing information....if I ask for feedback on that information I expect to get it...good or bad day...many times a feedback report on a bad day of fishing is just as if not more important than a good day of fishing.

Dave hit it right on the head here. He directed me to where I could get some general info about lures, temps and some other info. I would NEVER ask him about "spots to hit " unless I compensate him, (which I hope to do sometime this year by hiring him for a day) and even if he don't request info back about my trip I am going to PM him anyway and tell him the area I was fishing "what was going on " He was kind enough to do it for me and I will have no problem doing it for him. Everyone on here , well most on here when asking about a spot is just joking (except T-ville)) and don't expect you to give them your hole. I try to answer as honest as I can even to the point of the area I fish and what I was throwing. I have fished with a friend at T-ville where we didn't hit my spots cause I knew the guy would be on here doing his best Paul Revere the second he got home. ("We caught them here, we caught them here!!")

[CTFSHWHISKER]

must be nice to be good enough fisherman folks want the info you have..i never have that problem..