First guided Fly Fishing Trip

[henry9x9]

Fly Fishing is still new to my son and I as well as river fishing. We have had success lake fishing with the fly rod but river fishing and trout have been a bit of a challenge. So, I decided to take him on a guided trip. I caught my first fly rod salmon and what a rush. After that, all the focus was on him. He had several fish on that appeared to be bigger than mine and they kept taking off to the the fast water and ended up losing them. He was successful catching his first trout ever!

I will say, having a guide who fishes the same water every day is well with the cost. We talked to many guys who failed to get a bite as well as guys passing by water our guide knew had fish and sure enough, my son would hook one. What a great learning experience we had!

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I highly recommend spending some money on good recommended guides.

I have had great days and learn new techniques with guides.

[Spicytuna1]

That is a very true statement.

Used to fish the Lower Sac a lot with my brothers on our own and we fared pretty well for ourselves or so we thought.

We have been taking annual trips with AC fly-fishing for the last 3 years and I can easily say we doubled to tripled the amount of fish we hooked compared to what we thought was decent fishing on our own.

You get a guide that spends enough time on the water they pretty much have a name for every fish caught cause most likely they have seen that fish before.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

We have some very good fly fishing guides in Nor Cal.

I do see some friends who go with the same guide all the time.

Kind of like a barber.....once you find a good one, why change.

[Bob Loblaw]

Big rivers in particular like the Lower Sac are best learned with the help of a guide. When you can't see the bottom and can only guess at structure, you'll spend half your day fishing over fish that are 20 feet below your flies. A guide will take you past those spots to where the fish are, a good guide will row you back up and down the good runs multiple times so you spend your whole day over fish.

[Woodman]

I've never had a guide day that I felt wasn't money well spent, even if I didn't catch a fish. Keep in mind that the guide's day probably starts a couple of hours before you see him and ends a couple of hours after you leave. To have you on the water for 8 hours is a minimum 11-12 hour day. Out of that $30-$40 an hour you pay him he has to pay the truck payment, the boat payment, insurance, permits, etc, etc.

At first blush a guide trip can seem pricey, but when you break it down, it's amazing to get that much knowledge and hard work for the price you pay.