BOB KORNEGAY: Kornegay’s handy guide to fishing guides

I get a lot of phone calls and emails from readers asking my advice on booking a fishing guide.

“What makes a good guide and how do you know if one is good or bad before it’s too late?” is one of the most common queries.

That, of course, is a legitimate concern and, if I say so myself, the folks wondering about such things are definitely asking the right person. I’m just the man to dispense the necessary information. Thing is, though, I simply can’t get around to answering all the correspondence in a timely fashion, what with being such a busy in-demand paragon of modern outdoor journalism. Thus, in the space allotted me here, I shall now ease everyone’s pain at once. Y’all feel free to clip and save.

My idea of a great fishing guide is one who can…

• Book a client minutes, not months, in advance.

• Keep a straight face when first exposed to my “wealth” of casting skill.

• Cook like Julia Child or Mario Batali.

• Laugh at all my lame jokes.

• Scull a boat all day, carry me on his back through the really swampy stuff and hold his temper when I break the news that I’m a big-time outdoor writer who doesn’t expect to have to pay for such services.

Keeping that in mind, now take note of some of the fishing-guide characteristics it is always in one’s best interest to avoid.

1. Avoid like the plague the guide who says, “How should I know where the fish are? You’re the big-time outdoors writer, ain’t you?”

2. Be suspicious of any guide whose boat bears the name “Titanic,” “Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Andrea Doria,” or “Poseidon.”

3. If an outfitter’s boat looks like it might leak, be advised it probably does.

4. Eat sparingly if your guide’s shore-lunch stew is green and bubbles without being boiled.

5. The guide who serves end-of-the-day libations from a bottle labeled “Old Stumpblower” is probably scrimping on the liquor. A dead giveaway is the label’s being hand-lettered in Magic Marker.

6. Be leery of any guide who takes his dog in the boat. Be especially cautious if the dog is a pit bull named “Killer” or “Chopper.”

7. One has to wonder about any hired outfitter who, on the way out of the swamp, remarks, “Hmm, I wonder if this is the same canoe trail we came in on.”

8. Make sure a guide who knows a lake “like the back of his hand” also knows east from west and the locations of all major snags and sandbars.

9. If this same man also has an ugly jagged scar running from crotch to Adam’s apple, take his statement, “Alligators don’t never attack people” with a grain of salt.

10. When some guides say, “Low barometric pressure this morning; the fish should really be biting,” it means you’re in for some terrific angling. Unfortunately, there are some who say the same thing and mean, “There’s an undetected hurricane about to come ashore. That’s why I’m sending you out in a boat by yourself this morning.”

11. The same guide who pickles your liver with “Old Stumpblower” is apt to cut cost on other essentials, like toilet tissue. It’s a shame he also doesn’t know poison ivy from a Boston fern.

12. Check the reading material your guide leaves lying around. “Fishing the North Country” is a good sign. “Poaching Gamefish for Fun and Profit” should make you reconsider.

13. Watch out for the guide who leaves your rods, tackle and clothing outside overnight in a driving rainstorm, claiming, “This is good weather for fishin’. Your equipment’s gotta get used to it.”

14. The guide who makes fun of your sleeping with a teddy bear should be barred from the profession and picketed by the American Association of Psychotherapists. I realize this has little to do with his prowess as an outfitter, but for some of us it’s a serious medical consideration.

Besides, with the luck I’ve had with fishing guides, you didn’t think I’d stop with point No. 13, did you?

Contact outdoors writer and columnist Bob Kornegay at [email protected].