Jackson: No room in the boat for big egos
The stewards of the future for young, eager anglers can be seen every day when we gaze upon our images in the mirror. Our mission with young people newly acquainted with a rod and reel is to help educate them in fishing ethics and the "tricks of the trade."
Fishing acquaintance Joe Frieden suggested I write another column regarding my take on good and bad fishing guides.
At the outset I tried shrugging off his suggestion, but when he kept hammering me over a two-month period I finally relented and said I would think about it.
And so I spent days wrestling with the thoughts and words for today's column, trying my best to be clear and succinct while transforming thoughts to the keyboard without interjecting too much resentment.
Time spent on the water with a client should be a culmination of good learning experiences picked up over a period of time and then put to good use on the client's behalf.
A good guide's communication goes from the back of the boat (stern) where the motor is steered and controlled to the middle and forward seats where the client(s) sit comfortably perched.
In the far north-country, a good native guide knows where the pike, lake trout, walleye, and smallmouth bass are and willingly approaches a target area to give his charges the first shot at strikes.
As we get further into the states, where some inherited the business from a father or other relative, guides occasionally forget their manners or allow their egos to reign supreme.
That scenario can often result in a guide telling customers about the monster fish "he caught" last year in the spot where the boat now sits.
I've experienced quite a few cases of "ego inflamatus" over decades of angling across the country.
In Texas, one chap's bass boat was his kingdom. The late Daily Herald photo chief Mike Seeling and I went to Lake Fork to fish with this character for a couple days. He managed to catch a state-record largemouth bass and subsequently told us we were lucky to have him as our guide because he knew where we could find and catch big bass.
It didn't happen that way because everywhere he took us on the lake, he proceeded to sit on the bow seat, operate the electric motor, and get the first shot at anything that spotted his lure.
In other words, we paid him so he could catch another potential record fish. We said goodbye to him after one day.
Another outing found us in the boat of a so-called walleye champion plying his trade on Lake Erie. The same scenario prevailed during his bragging sessions about all the 10-pound walleyes he caught the previous month.
My friend Ken and I spent hours talking about where in Wisconsin or Minnesota we would go next year. All this came about because the guide we used continued to rave about the big fish he caught three days before our arrival.
His favorite term during his storytelling was "we really smoked 'em Saturday."
Kenny and I agreed that storytelling like that does nothing for a client when the current fishing turns out to be rather poor and disappointing.
There's always next year at a different spot, and maybe a guide who can deliver the goods without exaggeration and a giant ego.
• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.