how to become a fishing guide?
i want to become a fishing guide in north carolina. id like to guide on fresh or salt water. how do you become certified to cary passengers?. is there a school that teaches you how to be a guide? how old do you have to be to take people out fishing on the water? what type of boat is good for inshore fishing? which brings more clients saltwater or freshwater fishing? how much should i charge for a half day of fishing?
There’s more to it then meets the eye. First if you are going to carry out clients, you will have to be of legal age and carry insurance that will cover your clients and yourself. After that it will depend on how good you are at catching fish. And how knowledgeable you are about fishing the different areas of the lake and what works best and when it works. An you will need to be able to supply fishing equipment to anyone that doesn’t have any of their own. And be prepared to have a lot of time off.Winter doesn’t pull many customers and most people don’t like to fish in 100 degree heat. Or rain.To the best of my knowledge there is no school that teaches how to guide for fishing. But here is the best way to break into the business. Locate the major lakes in your area that are resort lakes. They will have some of the major hotel chains located on their shores. Big business will conduct a lot of their meetings there and arrange for a guide to take out potential clients and\or their employees. You would have to contact the hotels and have them put your name on the list of guides available if needed.The last one I went to was a company weekend outing and had over 120 supervisors that took part on the fishing offer. It was 2 to a boat and the charge to the company was a $100 per person for a half day fishing. But I feel that an individual would not be willing to fork out that kind of money. You would just have see what the market would bear. Also when people are forking out big bucks they want to fish in big fine fiberglas bass boats. And that Little tool alone will run you around $30,000 dollars. It ain’t going to be easy! Good luck!
March 11th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
There’s more to it then meets the eye. First if you are going to carry out clients, you will have to be of legal age and carry insurance that will cover your clients and yourself. After that it will depend on how good you are at catching fish. And how knowledgeable you are about fishing the different areas of the lake and what works best and when it works. An you will need to be able to supply fishing equipment to anyone that doesn’t have any of their own. And be prepared to have a lot of time off.Winter doesn’t pull many customers and most people don’t like to fish in 100 degree heat. Or rain.To the best of my knowledge there is no school that teaches how to guide for fishing. But here is the best way to break into the business. Locate the major lakes in your area that are resort lakes. They will have some of the major hotel chains located on their shores. Big business will conduct a lot of their meetings there and arrange for a guide to take out potential clients and\or their employees. You would have to contact the hotels and have them put your name on the list of guides available if needed.The last one I went to was a company weekend outing and had over 120 supervisors that took part on the fishing offer. It was 2 to a boat and the charge to the company was a $100 per person for a half day fishing. But I feel that an individual would not be willing to fork out that kind of money. You would just have see what the market would bear. Also when people are forking out big bucks they want to fish in big fine fiberglas bass boats. And that Little tool alone will run you around $30,000 dollars. It ain’t going to be easy! Good luck!
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