Best Ontario Steelhead Guides – Southern Ontario

The Best Ontario Steelhead Guides Will Put You On More Fish!
There are a number of steelhead guides in Southern Ontario and the best Ontario steelhead guides are the guys who do it full time.
Like 90% of my clients, you are probably interested in learning how to become a better steelhead angler which is why I will discuss how to find the best Ontario steelhead guides that can teach you, so you don’t end up with the wrong guide.
Yes, there are good steelhead guides in Ontario, and then there are not-so-good steelhead guides.
If you are going to spend your hard-earned money, be sure you use the right guide.
And, be sure you know what you want out of a guided trip. Some anglers want to catch a steelhead so they need a guide who knows where the fish are. Others want to learn the methods used to catch more steelhead and where and when to fish them so they need a guide who can teach and who is willing to share information.
NOT ALL GUIDES ARE GOOD GUIDES. I’ll explain.
And, I’m not going to tell you to hire me, because I’m not available for guiding right now. Sorry.
But there are guides I would hire, so I’ll tell you who they are.
This website was originally made to provide my clients with a great resource of information, and a summary or a refresher of what I taught them on the river. If you search the website, you will see my most effective baits, setups, tactics, and the best rivers.
UPDATE: 2025 – I will tell you how to get my SECRET Strategy for catching more trout and steelhead, with my number one tip which is a MUST-DO, otherwise your catch rate will lower by 90%. Keep reading for access to that information.
Key Takeaways
- The best Ontario steelhead guides are found at A Perfect Drift Guide Company.
- The best Ontario Steelhead guides will be the most experienced, they will be great at teaching, they will have the patience for all skill levels and they will be well-versed in all the most productive fishing methods.
- The best guides are full-time and on the river daily
- Don’t forget my secret strategy
What To Look For In An Ontario Steelhead Guides
When looking for the best Ontario steelhead guides you should look for a guide or a guide company with a solid reputation backed by hundreds if not thousands of happy clients.

If you ask “Who are the best Ontario steelhead guides” on the local fishing forums or at local fishing clubs often the same names will come up.
The names that keep coming up will be the best Ontario steelhead guides that you will find and these guides have clearly proven themselves to the anglers of Ontario.
If you really want to learn how to be a better steelhead angler and you want the best guide trip possible, then you only want to consider and hire the best Ontario steelhead guides.
Not All Guides Are Good
The shops are going to hate me for this but, my experience with river guides that work in the local fly shops or the local tackle stores has been not-so-good.
I’m also not going to recommend some new guy who claims to be a guide on his social media pages because anyone can become a river guide in Ontario with no skills and no qualifications. Just because someone claims to be a guide, it doesn’t mean they are any good.

Often these shop guides and new guides are only part-time guides with very limited guiding skills and no training. The shops often offer guide jobs to their good customers who they believe are good anglers but have never guided before and have no guide experience.
Because there are no guide licenses in Ontario a guy can become a guide with zero skills.
These shop guides are often very inexperienced guides who are trained by other inexperienced guides or trained by nobody. They’re simply thrown into the job with the hopes they do a good job.
I have said this many, many times, that “A great angler doesn’t always make a great guide.” Guiding takes skill, patience, and understanding.
As I have seen firsthand that having the wrong guide can not only leave you learning very little and not catching any fish, but it can also be dangerous.
One of my best customers decided to try a local shop’s head guide because I was booked up and unable to guide him myself. He found out later that this “so-called” head guide was this guide’s first attempt at guiding and my client ended up getting hurt and had a bad day on the water.
I have also seen these shop guides set their clients up in a spot and then leave and go fish another spot themselves, I felt bad for this couple that was left alone and reported this to the shop, but then saw the same guide out guiding a week later.
This kind of stuff makes fishing guides in Ontario look bad, but this is what you get if you’re not careful and you don’t do your research.
Only choose high-quality guides from professional guide companies. You may pay a little bit more but in the end, it will be worth it. These types of guides only guide, that’s all they do, so they take their guiding very seriously and they are on the water sometimes 7 days a week so they know exactly what’s going on and how to give you the best chance of catching some good fish.

Who Are The Best Ontario Steelhead Guides?
Graham from A Perfect Drift Guide Company has been guiding for 20 years and has guided many of his clients to their personal best steelhead and to many days of 10 to 30 steelhead per day.
Some years the guides at A Perfect Drift will put over 300 steelhead in the net just in the month of November. These numbers are unheard of for a river guide service.
Their head guide Jordan Pocket and their other guides are considered by many Ontario anglers to be the best Ontario steelhead guides.
With over 3000 clients, Graham is considered one of the best Ontario steelhead guides and is likely the most experienced steelhead river guide in Ontario.
Unfortunately, Graham is no longer guiding and now only trains other river guides.
The river guides at A Perfect Drift are trained by Graham and they benefit from his teaching and guiding experience which puts them at the top of the list for the best Ontario steelhead guides.
A Perfect Drift Guide Company offers boat trips and walk and wade guide trips to remote sections of the best Ontario trout and Steelhead rivers. They offer guide trips for steelhead using fly rods, Centerpin rods, and spinning rods which makes them the most versatile river guides in Ontario.
A Perfect Drift Guide Company also works with 3 or 4 other top full-time river guides to ensure that anglers using their service are guaranteed to get the best river guides in Ontario. This also allows them to expand their guide service to over 15 of the top steelhead rivers in Ontario


Best Centerpin And Float Fishing Steelhead Guides

Head guide Jordan Pocket is A Perfect Drift Guide Company’s top river guide and is one of the best Ontario steelhead guides you will find.
Jordan is one of the most skilled river anglers I have ever fished with and trained as a river guide.
Jordan is a well-rounded angler and guide and is extremely knowledgeable on many methods of river fishing.
Jordan specializes in fly fishing and Centerpin fishing methods for steelhead and trout and gets great reviews from his clients but is knowledgeable with spinning rod fishing as well.
You may find Jordan on one of the local Georgian Bay rivers since he’s on the water almost every day.
Jordan is experienced with fly rods and spinning rods and targets many species like salmon, brown trout, brook trout, bass, and carp.
Jordan also offers nighttime brown trout fishing with mouse patterns.
You can book a guide trip with Jordan at A Perfect Drift Guide Company but they book up fast and are always fully booked during prime time so don’t wait too long
Best Fly Fishing Guides For Steelhead

Ontario has some really great fly fishing guides for steelhead and I have worked with many of them. When looking for the best Ontario steelhead guide to help you learn how to fly fish for steelhead or for just a great steelhead guide trip, make sure you look for the most skilled guides that are well-trained and backed by a highly recommended guide service.
The guides at A Perfect Drift Guide Company offer their clients single-hand fly rod fishing for steelhead and Spey fishing for steelhead. Their spring and fall steelhead boat trips with the head guide and owner Jordan can get you into some of the best steelhead water in Ontario.
Teaching Is Our Business: There’s More For You

I love to teach and guide on the river, but I also teach online and it’s FREE. My guess is that like 90% of my clients, are also interested in a river guide trip because you want to learn more and get better at catching steelhead.
I know I can’t teach everyone and that not everyone can afford the best Ontario steelhead guides so I started teaching online through this website and another new one that I call my new info website.
If you want more detailed and updated information then you should know that I have recently gone North America-wide on my newest website so anglers fishing for trout and steelhead all over North America can benefit from my advice and tips that I have learned over 20 years of guiding.
The new website is full of the most up-to-date information, including bonus information that you won’t find here. It includes more on fishing tactics, and the gear my guides and myself use and recommend to our clients.
This is the stuff that you may not find on this website so be sure to check out Trout and Steelhead.net today.
Get great advice from pages like:
- 4 Best Steelhead Baits
- 2 Float Fishing Leader Setups From A Pro River Guide
- River Fishing Gear: Everything You Need To Succeed In 2021
- Centerpin Fishing: An Expert Centerpin Guide Explains It
- 4 Best Lures For Steelhead – A Pro Guides Recommendations
- Fishing In The Winter – Stay Warm With These 10 Tips
- Fishing With Beads: 5 Guide Tips For More Fish
Plus a whole lot more…
Okay, I promised you I would tell you how to get my secret strategy for catching more trout and steelhead, you can see it for free on another page HERE.
Tight Lines,
Pro Guide Graham