There are several good reasons to use a fishing guide. The best reason is simply to catch more fish! With a good guide, you will definitely go home with more cats. You can also learn a lot from a fishing guide. Whether you are just starting out angling, or are an experienced catfisher with years under your belt, you can always learn something new. Let's face it; fishing is not something you can learn about from reading textbooks or even watching videos. You can get a lot more out of one day with a good fishing guide than you would with a whole library of fishing videos.

Getting a guide is a little expensive, ranging anywhere from $100-$500 a day, but you can cut down costs by splitting it with a couple of good buddies. Fishing guides can also be offered along with fishing vacation packages.

How To Find A Good Fishing Guide

The best way to find a good guide is through recommendation. If a fishing buddy of yours mentions that they've gone out with a guide, and was happy with the trip, that's your best bet.

Another great way to find a fishing guide is to ask at the local bait shop. Bait and tackle shops do much more than just sell you gear. Think of it as your local fishing information center. They'll probably be able to recommend several good guides for you and you can take your pick. You can also check out the local yellow pages.

One good way to find a fishing guide is to get fancy and high tech, and look online. There are websites like Cyberangler that have listings of fishing guides by state. You can also simply type in "fishing guide" and the name of the area where you'll be fishing into Google or any other search engine, and it will show you some fishing guides in that area. Fishing guides are mostly local, and mostly operate in out of the way places, so the 'net offers a great tool for finding them.

However you decide to find your guide, make sure that they are licensed before you hire them. There are two reasons for this. For one thing, an unlicensed fishing guide may not know his left from right. If he's licensed, that guarantees that you've got somebody who knows something about something. The other reason is that you have to make sure you are fishing according to local and state regulations. A licensed fishing guide will do everything legit and by the book, and that's to your advantage.

What Your Fishing Guide Will Do

Basically, your fishing guide knows their fishing, and they know the local angler. If you are a novice angler, they will be able to impart some priceless catfishing knowledge to you. They can give you some tips and techniques, and you can learn quite a bit from just one trip with a good fishing guide.

If you're a more experienced angler, a good fishing guide can help you find catfish in their local area. Every body of water across the country is different, and a local fishing guide will be knowledgeable and experienced in their area. Just think about it - a fishing guide spends most of every single day out on the water fishing. Not only that, his career depends on how much he knows about catfishing. This means that a good, licensed fishing guide will be able to teach any of us weekend anglers a thing or three.