Welcome to the Fish Nerds I’m Clay Groves, Licensed NH Fishing Guide This episode is the fourth in our series on how to become a fishing guide. I am happy to bring you on my journey into making a living (at least partially) in the fishing industry. This episode is brought to you by our friends at NH Outdoor Learning Center, they offer tons of great outdoor certifications and I went to guide school with them. Scott Jackson really understands this business and without his help I would have had no chance of becoming a fishing guide. We originally were going to make this a simple four part series, but as I dig into this material and grow the business I am finding that it’s much more difficult than I could have imagined. Upcoming ideas for future episodes in this series, the expenses of guiding, becoming a pro-staff, sponsorship, marketing and the one that surprised me most, the Politics of guiding. First up my first trip I arrived to the fishing spot a half hour before my client. People were in the spot of my first choice, so I moved to plan B. It was January 1 so by law I could not pre-fish the area, in addition, my snowmobile broke down the day before so it was going to be a walk-on ice fishing trip. Did I mention I hate silver lake? My client arrived on time and was super excited to fish, so we headed out. There was nobody else in the area I chose, I chose the spot for two reasons, 1- Easy Parking and 2 5 years ago I saw a trout on an underwater camera, my hopes were not high and I informed my client we were not going to catch much, did I mention I hate silver lake? Here is Mike’s first impression Confidence grows with experience, we took a break to collect more audio, after this my equipment froze so I had to stop recording. All in all it was a good day, I counted 9 lakers for Mike and a few for myself, Mike called in to recap. BTW I can’t begin to thank Mike Enough, it means a lot to me that he wanted to be my first client. With my confidence High, Fish Nerds fly fishing correspondent and my friend Rich Collins came out with me. Rich is my banana, he’s full of bad luck, so we chatted while my recording equipment failed... the buzzing noise you hear in the background is my fish finder. Recently we had some protesters or I should say protester, you’ll hear my Father-in Law Scott call in to talk about our protestor. Then our recording equipment failed, you will hear more from RIch in the future. Part of being a guide is doing fishing seminars, I have been doing these for years (since 2011) so I did one for the Conway Public Library, Vinnie Joined me, once he is licensed he will be my partner in the Guide Service. We won’t make you listen to the whole thing. I booked 2 trips from the seminar, 18 people attended and the feedback we got was positive except for one. Someone said the children were distracting (My kids!) I got a call from Dave Wilson, who is has invented a new device call the Pocket Rod Res, he asked to meet me at a coffee shop to show off his new invention. https://pocketrodrest.com/ I have a handful on these Pocket Rod Rest to give away. Here’s how you can get one. I need to know what Annoys you most about other fisherpeople, what’s your fishy pet-peeve, leave that on my voicemail and I will send the first 8 people who call in a Pocket Rod Rest and some FN Decals. 607-378-FISH
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