A couple of weeks ago I got a call from Randy in Memphis. He had been referred to me by Barry Smith and Susan Hillebrand, my old friends and regular guide clients. The success of my guide service relies on repeat business and referrals. Randy wanted me to do a three person guide trip for him, his father and his son.
Three person guide trips are not popular with fly fishing guides. In fact, there are just a few fly fishing guides that will even accept the business. The main problem is that three people in a twenty foot river boat casting nine foot or longer fly rods are an invitation to disaster. For the guides who use oars, there is just not enough room to accommodate another client. Even on a wade trip it is difficult to keep all of your clients close together in spots that will be productive. The guide ends up trooping the line, in order to keep everyone on fish. The more clients you have the less individual attention each one will receive.
At the same time, there are some really good reasons why a three person guide trip is a good idea. One is that is less expensive for the clients to hire one guide rather than two. The guides that do take three clients require an up charge for the extra client (three clients lose more flies, need more tippet and eat more lunch than two) but it is still way less than two guide fees. In addition, sometimes the three clients just want to be together. It could be the celebration of a milestone in life or just an opportunity to bond through a shared experience.
Randy was looking for a bonding experience with his eighty one year old father, Grand Dad, and his son, Ethan. Grand Dad was a bit past a wade trip and we settled on a boat trip. I asked about their casting abilities. Randy said that he and Ethan were relative newcomers to the sport but that grand Dad was an avid fly fisher years ago. We agreed that trying to fish all three at one time might be counterproductive and decided that two would fish at a time with one angler sitting it out. When one would catch a few nice trout he would trade places with the angler sitting it out so that everyone got in on the action.
We began the trip with a casting lesson and they all agreed that it helped. It was a bit overcast and the temperature was in the seventies, when we began. The river was on the bottom and one to two inches of rain was in the forecast. There was a light wind out of the south east at about five to ten miles per hour.
We began catching fish on the first drift. The hot fly was a ruby midge with a hare and copper not far behind. At the end of the first drift, Grand Dad was cranking in his line but was turning the crank in the wrong direction. It took me a minute before I realized that the last time he fly fished he was using an old automatic reel that operated with a spring and did not have a crank. It did not hold him back. He finished the day with the most trout. After we had been out a few minutes, it began to rain but quit almost as soon as we got our rain jackets on.
Randy managed to land the large trout, a fine, stout, vividly colored, eighteen inch rainbow. Ethan had landed the first couple of fish. The group as a whole landed quite a few trout with success spread fairly evenly. On this occasion, three generations of a family had a stellar time fishing three in a boat.
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