Best Ontario Steelhead Guides – Southern Ontario
I have been one of the top Southern Ontario river guides for almost twenty years. With multiple guides on staff and thousands of happy customers, and thousands of days on the water, I’ve got the steelhead fishing nailed down.
But I’m now retired and don’t guide anyone. However, in this article, I’ll share my advice on finding the best steelhead guide for you.
There are a number of steelhead guides in Southern Ontario, and the best Ontario steelhead guides are the guys who do it full-time.
Yes, there are good steelhead guides in Ontario, but, there are also crappy guides not worth your time.
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.
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 usually work for themselves.
- 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, so they know what’s going on with fish feeding and migration patterns.
- 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. Yes, referrals and testimonials are important.
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 usually be the best Ontario steelhead guides that you should consider, 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 not been 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 that 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 if 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?
These are my opinions on finding good guides.
- Full-time guides are best.
- Use guides with lots of referrals and testimonials.
- Ask on forums, but be careful, guys aren’t recommending their buddies.
- If 90% of the pictures on the guide’s website or Facebook are of the guide holding fish, chances are, he’s a fisherman, not a guide, and he hasn’t guided long. For reference, I have about 13,000 pictures of clients.
- If your guide doesn’t respond in 24 hours, find another guide.
- Cheap is not good; the more expensive guides are, often the better the guide is.
- Guides who own their own business will often work harder and put more effort in than a part-time guide from a shop.
The more of these a guide has, the better. Stick with reputable guides.
Graham 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, I will put over 300 steelhead in the net just in the month of November. These numbers are unheard of for a river guide service. But being on the water daily and catching this many fish helps me learn the river and the fish deeply.
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.
Best Centerpin And Float Fishing Steelhead Guides
Not all steelhead guides offer float fishing, spin fishing, or other methods. Be sure you know exactly what they offer and be sure they are good at the method you want to use.
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
