On Being a Bozeman Fly Fishing Guide

“Really, the only thing a psychiatrist can do that a good guide can’t is write prescriptions.”—John Gierach, Trout Bum

Good flyfishing guides make your day on the water feel effortless and fun but that sense of ease doesn’t come easily. Creating the illusion of simplicity requires instinct, skill, effort, and experience.

Unless you’ve spent a lot of time with our Bozeman fly fishing guides or been a guide yourself, you probably don’t realize what goes into consistently delivering quality days for anglers fishing on Montana flyfishing rivers. This article gives you a comprehensive explanation of a flyfishing guide’s average day, so you understand what you’re paying for and what you should reasonably expect.

Guiding Vs. Taking People Fishing

Professional fly fishing guides don’t go fishing for money. Unlike many conventional tackle guides and charter captains, fly fishing guides don’t fish when working. They facilitate and improve your fishing experience. We’re not out there to ensure you catch your limit; we’re out there to keep you safe on the river, teach you about the vast and intricate sport of flyfishing, create an immersive and enjoyable experience on the river, and help you catch fish.

A good fly fishing guide juggles a range of roles: therapist, cruise director, caddy, boat captain, server, aquatic entomologist, fisheries biologist, environmental steward, engineer, role model, cheerleader, truck driver, tour guide, knot tyer, line detangler, EMT, and fish whisperer. Sometimes they’re also expected to be marriage counselors, chefs, sommeliers, tree trimmers, pack mules, and stand-up comedians, but even great guides have limits. Let’s peel back the curtain on an average day of guided Bozeman fly fishing to learn what the guides actually do.

The Night Before

While your trip starts when the guide picks you up, the guide starts his or her trip the night before. As a Bozeman fly fishing outfitter, we have more than 250 miles of river we can fish. any given day. Deciding where to go each day is the first crucial step to success. Guides assess weather, wind, river flows, water temperatures, insect hatches, recent fish activity, and the abilities and expectations of clients to determine where to spend the day. Some consult years of detailed logs and might call a half dozen fellow guides to get daily intel. They make a tentative plan each night, knowing that the next day’s conditions could dictate a quick pivot. Finally, they sit down at the vice to tie a dozen secret flies.

Meeting the Clients

By the time they pick you up, your guide has already loaded the boat and truck; double checked all the gear; looked up real time weather and water data; picked up lunches, drinks, snacks, ice, and flies; and packed the cooler. In the first five minutes of small talk, your guide will make an educated guess about how best to achieve your fishing expectations based on current conditions. Guides have to be experts at reading rivers, fish, and people.

Launching the Boat

Upon arriving at the put in, the guide’s interpreting a whole new data set. How many boats are here? Who’s boats are they? What’s the wind doing? What kinds of bugs are flying around? Based on that information, the guide will decide which flies to use and how to rig them. To the clients, it looks like the guide’s casually preparing the boat and rigging rods while keeping up a steady stream of conversation.

Guides often take novices flyfishing. Before launching, they need to introduce the basics of casting, mending, line management, plus how to hook and fight a fish. Different guides have different methodologies. Some will spend half an hour instructing in the parking lot. Others do all their teaching in the boat. Either way, they have to impart a basic level of competence at an incredibly complex skill in a matter of minutes before the fishing even starts.

On the Water

Once the boat is floating, the real work begins. Bozeman fly fishing guides usually fish out of drift boats or rafts. These non-motorized crafts run on currents, oars, and calories. Your guide will be actively rowing for the vast majority of the six to eight hours you spend on the river.

Rowing a boat in swift current isn’t just physically demanding, it requires a high degree of skill and experience. The guide has to keep you in position and maintain the correct speed, which is generally slower than the current. They have to anticipate which water to fish while avoiding rocks, rapids, and other obstacles.

While rowing, the guide will be watching both clients’ casts and technique; monitoring the position of your flies and fly lines on the water; offering coaching and instruction; telling you when and where to cast; and calling out “SET!” when a fish takes your fly. They will be dodging errant hooks that come flying at their head; scanning downstream for other boats, obstacles, or rising fish; handing you snacks and drinks from the cooler; and picturing the next hundred feet of river in their minds.

Sweating the Details While Seeing the Big Picture

Assuming that everything is going to plan, you’ll be mostly unaware of all this, blissfully focused on the scenery and catching fish (that your guide will net and release while simultaneously piloting the boat). If things don’t go to plan (in other words, the fishing is slow) your guide will be doing everything listed above while trying to crack the code on the day’s fishing. They’ll change flies, leaders, and tactics; get you to fish different parts of the river at various depths. Flyfishing is equal parts art and science, and while even the best guides don’t catch fish every day, good ones have a deep well of knowledge and strategy to draw on.

Successful flyfishing, however, isn’t just about how the flies are rigged, it’s about how they’re presented to the fish. Since flyfishing guides don’t fish, they have to get you, the angler, to manipulate your rod and line in complex and subtle ways. They have to keep you engaged and upbeat during inevitable lulls, because if you’re not focused you might miss the fish of the day. They have to read everyone’s moods and energy levels to determine when it’s time for a break, for lunch, or for an entertaining story to shift the vibe.

Finally, they have to know exactly where they are on the river and how fast they’re moving. Guides coordinate with shuttle services who pick up the truck after you’ve begun your fishing day and deliver it to a predetermined take out spot. Guides have to effectively manage their time to make sure you arrive at the ramp at an appropriate hour. Any number of factors can speed up or slow down a float—a stiff up or downstream wind, an inordinate number of tangles or lost flies, a complicated bite that requires multiple rig changes. Guides have to keep an eye on the clock to ensure they don’t short-change anglers by arriving at the ramp too early, or get caught out and arrive too late.

Afterward

Once the guide drives you back and drops you off, you’re free to grab some dinner, have a beverage or two, and collapse into bed. The guide, however, still has work to do. They’ve got to clean the boat and start all over again preparing for the following day’s clients. Professional flyfishing guides perform a difficult, complex, and taxing job that extends well beyond the hours clients spend with them. If they do that job well, those clients hardly realize all the effort that goes into providing a phenomenal day on the water.

Anglers have many options for flyfishing guides in the Bozeman area, but do yourself a favor; book with an experienced, knowledgeable, reputable flyfishing guide. Don’t trust your limited fishing days to a warm body with a boat. At Fins and Feathers, we’ve delivered decades of successful guide trips. Just check out our client testimonials. If you’re looking for a professional guide trip that’s custom curated to your expectations and experience, give us a call.

Additional Bozeman Fly Fishing Guide Resources

From The Montana Fly Fishing Blog