I have a good friend who's guided for almost 30 years, he tells me the same thing. "Half the guides at the lodge are retired or semi retired, get your SVOP and come do 2-3 weeks of guiding."I was thinking about doing some guiding, my buddies all say I should. Then I read this thread and I’m friggin exhausted. Forget it.
Guiding use to be something that those who were off work for the summer could earn some extra cash. Teachers, students etc., Not a career. Too much red tape now. Lawyers got involved. I don't see the majority of us being any better off by the way things have evolved.
And it's hardly a career path for a younger person either, not with the ever-shorter season.
Those guys on the west side of the island guide steady for 4.5-5 months. I finished off guiding 117 days my last year
There is a difference between the part time summer lodge employees and the full time owner operators who market themselves to work year round...even if it means being very mobile.
Nog is just pointing out actual DFO ineptitude. What’s wrong with that?
I took a portion of his post (and others along similar lines) to be a commentary about whats the point providing DNA data, and catch log data to DFO - which is IMO a significant mistake for the rec sector. Having sat through a few PSSI presentations from DFO on Guide Licensing - one of DFO's reasons for pursuing Guide Licensing is to be able to make provision of data and catch logs a condition of license similar to what the Commercial licence holders are required to do. That came about because not enough guides took up the request to provide log book data and provide DNA sampling. While some guides and lodges did embrace providing this, most did not.
Indeed - a lot of guys that I guide with are doing over 100 days - my head turns to mush around day 90. Always a challenge balancing revenues to expenses. Crazy covid pricing for fuel, insurance, tackle etc makes it tougher these days to make it unless you put in a lot of days on the water to pump up revenues. You can make a career of guiding if you are willing to put in over 100 days, which isn't a cake walk. Most guides I work with have other businesses or jobs in the off season, which in a way helps them fund their lifestyle choice of guiding.
The accommodations side of my business was the true money maker
I'm all for what you are saying and even a guide license as is required in BC Fresh Water. How ever required free data collection by rec fishers and guides should require MANDATORY processing of all that data. No one likes wasting their time and feeling like all these restrictions will never end because DFO is in no hurry to fix problems they are ultimately responsible for in the first place.
Don’t confuse licensed with restricted access. Nobody is talking about restricting the number of guides. Mandatory licenses with an appropriate fee structure would weed many of the illegals and give managers an accurate idea of guide numbers and more accurate value of the industry.
And more excuse to regulate the industry..that’s the eventuality-that’s my point. That’s how it starts. Ultimately-we already have resources available to deal with this problem. We just need them to get on it.
Spot on.
Absolutely, there are potential unanticipated consequences. One mentioned is already being played out in the Freshwater Guide Licensing - that is if an operator wishes to make amendments to their operation, those changes must be approved by local Nations. More layers of government - but that is apparently what reconciliation is partially about.
While not directly related to the topic of Guide Licensing - perhaps if all the recreational tidal license fees and potential guide license fees were paid into a special fund to ensure recreational fishery management programs were not subject to government budget cut backs or fiddling these sorts of things (no $ to process DNA) wouldn't be happening. Right now tidal water license fees from recreational fishers totals between $5 - $6 million/year...not a small amount of money.
$6 million is a drop of water in a bucket. There is PLENTY of money to go around. They don’t want the DNA processed and paid for. They already have data they need. Public Administrators and Bureaucrats are making these decisions based on policies and directives handed down from the Minister via the PMO and PCO. If they wanted fish-there would be fish. However- if they gave us more fish more fish would go to people who did not contribute and contributed zero for them. That would really make you mad. It’s already that way.
