Best River Guides In Ontario – Southern Ontario Edition
Guiding takes a special kind of person, and to be one of the best river guides in Ontario, you need to have a great knowledge of the sport, and you need to be exceptionally skilled while still having the patience and the ability to teach that knowledge to others.
There is no guide license required in Ontario, which means any guy, skilled or not, can become an Ontario guide today.
But do not worry, using my guidlines can help you find the best river guides in Ontario.
About 13 years ago, a fly fishing store owner tried to get guides licensed. He thought that this would improve the quality of the local guides and eliminate the bad guides. I disagreed.
I explained to him that guides do not need to be licensed because the really good guides will excel, keep going, and will do well, while bad guides ALWAYS slowly disappear.
With 25 years of guiding experience in Ontario, I can tell you that it still holds true.
He thought that some people would still end up hiring these bad guides before the guides gave up.
My response was “with the amount of really good guides, if a person ends up with a bad guide, it’s becuase he did not do his homework”. I still believe that.
The exception to this is the part-time guides that the local fly shops use, ironically, the same crappy guides that he used! Yes, some of the guides the stores use are really bad guides.
I would avoid these guys and only hire veteran guides. But, see below for all my recommendations for finding a great river guide in Ontario.
Guys, there are some fantastic river guides in Ontario. If you hire a bad guide, it’s on you for not doing your homework and researching who the best guides are.
And something the remember – Good guides are not cheap, and cheap guides are not good!!
The best river guides in Ontario are the veteran guides because of their years of experience, their expert training, and their patience with clients. These are the guides you want if you are looking for the best river guides in Ontario.
Many shops hire great anglers. And many new guides become guides becuase they think they are great anglers, and they might just be… But, I’ve always said that “a great angler doesn’t always make a great guide, but a great guide can make someone else a great angler”.
You see, some great anglers just can’t teach, some have low patience, and some are just not meant to be a guide.
I asked a veteran guide once “What makes a good guide?”
He said, “If you are standing in a pool full of active and feeding fish, and you can get as much joy helping your client catch ALL the fish, you are a good guide. But if you are dying to fish yourself, then you’re an angler, not a guide”.
Why Hire An Ontario River Guide?
Everyone has different reasons for hiring a guide, and a great guide will be able to help with all of them.
A really great river guide will provide beginner and advanced anglers with the ability to learn new tips and tricks, and will be good at communication and teaching.
A great river guide will also cut down on your learning curve, as well as show you new water.
A great river guide will teach anglers to catch more fish, show them how to read the water, and teach them about the river, so that every day they are on the water after the guided trip, they will be better.
A great guide will improve your skills and help you become the best angler that you can be. After a guide trip, you should have new skills and knowledge so you will be able to catch more fish.
Sometimes, a great river guide will simply put anglers onto lots of fish quickly, or just be a companion for you while you fish.
I am a veteran guide in Ontario, but this article is not about me; it’s about who you should book, and who you shouldn’t.
“Before I went out with Graham I would catch about 6 trout a day and if I was lucky I would catch 1 or 2 large brown trout over 20 inches a year. After one trip with Graham, I now catch about 30 trout a day and I hook or see a big brown trout almost every day” My Client…
Best River Guides In Southern Ontario
Southern Ontario has a number of river guide services available to anglers. I recommend getting a full-time guide with a great reputation and avoiding any untrained part-time guides.
I say untrained because many new guides simply have no actual training on how to be a great guide.
I also advise being careful of the guides that work out of the local fly shops or the local tackle shops.
These guides are often just customers of the store that has told the store they are a guide and they only guide for some extra money. These part-time shop guides often have little experience in guiding, little experience dealing with clients, and little experience teaching and keeping their clients safe.
If you do decide to hire a guide through a fly shop, ask for their head guide and make sure he works as a full-time guide.
The best guide services offer full-time guides that are on the water 5 to 7 days a week, every week.
These are the guides who have the experience and the knowledge to provide exceptional service. They also rely 100% on the money they make from guiding, so they are more likely to work hard for that money.
Rules To Find The Best Ontario River Guide
These are my rules for finding a great guide who is right for you.
- Experience – Look for a guide with 5 to 10 years of experience.
- Friendly and Patient – While some guides are friendly and will be patient with you and your skill level, or with your partner’s skill, some guides won’t.
- Referrals and Testimonials – I can’t stress this one enough. Look for guides who get lots of referrals and have lots of recent testimonials. This means others have had good experiences with them.
- Communication – If you message a guide, or call them and they DO NOT respond within 24 hours, move on to another guide. Trust me… A guide who can’t respond within 24 hours is going to be a hassle to deal with.
- Full-Time Guide Only – Most part-time guides wing-it! A guide who is on the water 5 to 7 days a week knows what is going on, and you will most likely get much better results with him than with a guy who hasn’t been on the water in 5 days.
- Specialized – If you have specific methods you prefer, make sure your guide is specialized in that method.
- Price – Saving 50 bucks might mean you are getting an inferior guide. Ofter, the more expensive guides are the best guides. Don’t let discount guides ruin your trip.
About Me: Anglers Pro Guide Service and Perfect Drift Guide Company
I ran guide companies since the year 2000, and I was considered by many to be the best river guide service in Ontario for over 15 years.
I had multiple guides on staff, and my clients and students were always confident in our abilities since I had thousands of referrals and testimonials.
For many years, I was the busiest independent river guide and considered to be the #1 river guide in Ontario. NOTE: I am retired and I am NO longer guiding.
I may have been the first full-time guide in the world to guide with a centerpin reel, and to offer centerpin classes. I have taught thousands I anglers how to centerpin fish better.
I was also the first full-time guide in Ontario to teach and guide using competition methods and EuroNymphing methods.
As a guide, Graham has been known to teach and guide over 250 days a year and still find the time to go chase trophy brown trout and steelhead.
In the last 25 years as a professional guide, Graham has had the opportunity to guide and teach over 3000 anglers.
Graham has trained with world champion fly anglers, a former head coach of the USA fly fishing team, many competition river anglers, and fishing celebrities, not to mention some exceptionally skilled clients of his.
Graham has been featured on numerous fly fishing shows, and he has been featured in many fishing books, fishing magazines, and has been a presenter at many local fishing clubs.
Over the last few years, I have spent a lot of time training other guides, some whom work independently now.
Many of these guides have grown into some of the best river guides in Ontario.
Living and guiding in what may be considered the best fly fishing area in all of Southern Ontario, I offered guided trips for trout, steelhead, salmon, bass, musky, and pike on 13 rivers.
Check out my page The Best Rivers In Ontario For Trout And Steelhead.
Graham is also known as an easy-going, friendly, and patient guide who loves working with beginner and advanced anglers. Graham has also trained other full-time guides in Ontario.
Also an accomplished and innovative fly tier, Graham uses mostly custom-tied flies for guiding, which catch many trophy fish for his clients. His custom flies are being used with great success by many Ontario anglers.
Due to his wide range of expert skills and professionalism, Graham is a recommended guide at numerous fishing stores across Ontario.
Best River Guides In Ontario
There are river guides all across southern and northern Ontario. Use my advice and do your homework so you can find the right Ontario river guide for you.
Tight Lines
Graham
