5 Things to Keep in Mind as a New Guide
Ryan Barnes for SPLIT REED
Not everyone is cut out for the world of guiding. It’s a tough business. Waking up every morning of waterfowl season at 4:00 AM to get things squared away for your clients. Going out on the morning hunt, then going out after to scout for the next day or even an afternoon shoot. You’d better love every second of it, or you’ll hate your life after a few weeks in. Trust me, I’ve done it. I’ve been on the side of loving it and on the side of hating it. It isn’t like normal hunting where you can go out and enjoy the high of a successful hunt, or just shake off a bad hunt. When you have hunters paying top-dollar to experience a guided hunt, most expect a high-caliber hunt. That can put a lot of stress on a guide to do well. However, there are things that new guides do that can make things harder on themselves, that turn the season into a miserable experience.
After talking to some of the more successful guides around the country, here are 5 mistakes to avoid making the season an absolute disaster.
1. THE CLIENTS ARE CLIENTS, NOT YOUR BEST FRIENDS
Don’t misunderstand this one, you still need to be friendly and personable with the clients you’re taking out on hunts, but keep business professional. They’re here to have a fun time, enjoy the hunt with their buddies, and kill birds. You’re there to make that happen. If you’re out hanging out with the clients, drinking beer, and getting too buddy-buddy with them, it jeopardizes your professional status as a hunting guide. There’s nothing wrong with having a few drinks and a few laughs with your clients, but that’s not your job. Your job isn’t to be their friend, it’s to be the guy who puts them on birds to kill. Being “too friendly” can lead to a few problems.
One, people may try to take advantage of you trying to be too friendly (i.e. trying to get out of certain outfitter payments, asking you to try to do things that guides shouldn’t be doing, etc.). There’s a fine line to walk when it comes to being friendly and professional, and so friendly that you lose that look of professionalism. As an example, I worked with two separate guides; the more seasoned of the two showed up each morning, took his clients out, engaged in some conversation, did what was needed to carry out the hunt, then took everyone back to the lodge. That was it. The other guide would meet everyone in the morning, hang out at the trucks with the guys, get to the field, BS with the guys (which sounds harmless but the conversation was always a bit “unprofessional” for a guy who’s trying to be a businessman) then when the hunt was over, he would go back to the lodge, drink with the guys, watch some football, and hang out with the clients. He became great friends with the clients, but that oftentimes cut into the time he should have spent scouting and preparing for the next hunt. Remember, there’s a line to walk between friendly and professional, and too friendly and unprofessional. As a new guide, you’ll want to air on the side more professional than overly friendly.
2. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
Many a guide I’ve talked to ran into the problem in their early days of guiding of partying a bit too hard at the guide house. Maybe a few too many beers and a few too many late nights cutting into the limited time that you have to sleep and prepare for the coming morning. All guides that talk about this seem to talk about how it catches up with you when you get older. “Taking care of yourself” seems to be a trend that the old vets talk about. If you’re a new guide and you want to take a stab at waterfowl guiding for the long run- take care of yourself; get enough sleep, don’t party hard, and eat well. Avoid developing any bad habits that will hinder your ability to do it for a while. This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself by any means, but don’t enjoy yourself too hard. To the extent that you start running on empty each day because you spent each night drinking and partying with the other guides. Pace yourself, be smart and take care of yourself.
3. DON’T BURN YOURSELF OUT
Guiding is an already taxing business. Make sure you take the time to recharge the batteries when you can. If you have a chance to relax, don’t pass it up. If you get your clients out on a banger hunt and you’re back by 9:00, have your breakfast, and catch a few extra Z’s before you need to head out to scout for the afternoon. After that halfway mark, you’ll be looking for every chance you can get to take a break, so make sure you take advantage of the chances you get! If you’re guiding away from home, which most people do, make arrangements to go back home every once in a while to see family and friends. That way when you get back home after the season, you’re not absolutely drained and dreading the day you have to go back. When you finally head home, you want to at least have enjoyed yourself enough that you’re excited to go back.
One important way to avoid getting burned out is to break away (rather quickly) from the low points. If you’re on a multi-day dry spell, try to take a day off. Sleep in, or go scout, or go on a hunt for yourself. Break the cycle. Nothing burns out a guide faster than going on bad hunts day in and day out. One day away from it can help break the slump. If you can’t take a break or a day off, find a way to enjoy the high parts of the hunt. Bring a friend to join you (most outfitters don’t mind if they mind their P’s and Q’s), or some other factor that will help you get through the low parts to then ride the high parts of the season.
4. LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN FROM THE EXPERIENCED GUIDES
Every guide I have talked to said that the best advice they have received in their hunting careers came from a guide more experienced than them. In my own guiding experience I know that there were two guides that helped get me to where I am today. If I had to lean on my own experience as a rookie guide, it would have been an ugly experience, but luckily I had guys around me who I could reach out to and ask for help. If a hunt went sideways, I could ask for advice, or if I needed some help on how to hunt a certain situation, they were there to offer what they could. As a new guide, the best thing you can do to help your success is to put the ego away and ask the experienced guides what they do and what has made them successful. The more you learn, the better your success will be.
5. DON’T BECOME A GUIDE JUST TO BE A “GUIDE”
One guide I talked to brought up the fact that many of today’s guides seem to be hunters just searching for a higher “status” in the waterfowl community. They’re not actually guides, they’re just glorified hunting buddies. He also said that those are the guys that usually make 2-3 seasons then tap out of the guiding world. Because once they see just how demanding the world of waterfowl guiding is, no amount of social media “likes” can keep them around to do it. Or they stick around but are never any good. One thing was for certain, don’t become a guide just for the “glory” of it, because there certainly isn’t much glory in being a waterfowl guide. For every Bill Saunders, there are 1,000 other waterfowl guides that you’ve never heard of. There’s not a lot of fanfare in guiding waterfowl hunts if you’re doing it for the social media side of things. If you want to become a guide, you’d better be doing it because you truly love and want to do it. That will help you become successful, stick with it, and make a name for yourself within the industry.
No matter how you put it, guiding waterfowl hunters is a hard row to hoe, especially as a newcomer to the game, but these 5 tips will hopefully allow you to get things started, see some success, and carve a path to a career as a top tier guide in the waterfowling business. We wish you the best this waterfowl guiding season!
For more Split Reed Original Tips, Recipes, Interviews, and other Content click here!
Click on Ryan to find him on Instagram