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. That means there are some great guides available, but it also means there are some bad guides too.
It saddens me when I see anglers out there being guided by bad guides.
But don’t worry, using my guidelines can help you find the best river guides in Ontario.
Ontario Guide License
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 over 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 because he did not do his homework”. I still believe that.
My opinion, being a licensed guide doesn’t make you a good guide. I’ve been told by clients who fish all over the USA and in BC where guides need to have a guide licence, that i’m still one of the nest guides they have ever uses. I’ve also been on guide trips with guides from local shops who were licences, and honestly, they were not very good.
So, in my opinion, a guide license is nothing more than a money grab for the government and an unwanted expense for us guides.
Shop Guides
I have a love-hate relationship with the guides from local fishing stores. In some cases, the guides are good, and it’s a great way for new guides to get exposure and experience, but sometimes the guide are not good.
I recommend you avoid these guys and only hire veteran guides. I mean, if you’re going to drop $500 for a guided trip, do you really want an inexpereinced part time guide from a shop when there’s plenty of reputable guides out there.
The only time I recommend a guide from a shop is if it’s last-minute and all the good guides are unavailable. Even then, if you do want to hire a guide from a shop, make sure he’s there head guide.
Unfortunately, many shops hire great anglers. And many new guides become guides because 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.
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.
Cost Of Excellence and Experience
Guys, 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, their patience with clients, and this is all they do for a living so they will give it their all for you.
These are the guides you want if you are looking for the best river guides in Ontario.
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
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: Graham: The Guide That Taught The Guides
Graham is known as an easy-going, friendly, and patient guide who loves working with beginner and advanced anglers.
I have run multiple guide companies since the year 2000, have guided over 3000 anglers, and I am considered by many to be the best river guide service in Ontario for over 15 years.
I even had multiple guides on staff, was guiding both rivers and lakes for multiple species, and my clients and students were always confident in our abilities, especially 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: My guide client list is full and I am NOT taking on new clients.
But don’t worry, I’ve trained some of the best guides in Ontario, and they are available for you.
I may have also been the first full-time guide in the world to guide with a centerpin reel, and to offer centerpin classes. Since 2006, I have taught thousands of anglers how to centerpin fish better.
I was also the first full-time guide in Ontario to teach and guide using competition fly fishing methods and Euro Nymphing methods.
Most years I’ve been on the water for about 250 days guiding and teaching.
During my down time, when I wasn’t guiding, you’d find me out chasing chasing trophy brown trout and steelhead and massive muskies on Georgian Bay.
If I wasn’t fishing, usually due to bad weather, I was learning and improving.
I’ve 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 guides and anglers from all over Canada and the USA.
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 teaching and training other guides, some of 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.
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
