Coastal Fishing Guides

I’ve been watching old episodes of Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes lately, which inspired the following missive on the surge of fishing guides in recent years.

Ever notice how many fishing guides are out there? Lots of people starting out in the business these days, and some of them young. My local tackle store owner seemed disturbed the other day, after a young woman who “looked 17 years old” told him she was the best guide around. We agreed her hours on the Gulf might have been pretty low. Who knows, maybe she was raised on the coast and her dad was a shrimper or guide.

Today’s young guides start out with some awfully nice boats, compared with 30-40 years ago, and might not consider that their banks expect monthly payments, no matter how the weather and fishing has been. And don’t forget that boat insurance policy.

Years ago, most guide boats on the bay were pretty basic; many were smaller, slower, way cheaper and designed to make a living. Often, with a sponsored outboard motor. Those programs still survive today, though the competition must be tough. Guide boats range from small skiffs meant for poling and fly fishing with a single client, up to the big offshore boats hauling six clients.

Fishing guides come from a real cross section of society. Years ago we had only a handful in Port O’Connor, including one who commuted from Palacios. There was a retired tow truck driver, a former dance instructor, a failed banker, a former highway patrolman, and a retired county extension agent who collected used boats. Some of them auctioned off for a dollar, after he retired.  

Our oldest guide, neighbor Capt. Lee Richter, flew B-26 bombers in WWII (featured on the History channel, available on YouTube). He was still guiding in his 80s, though he also ran a small outboard repair shop and wasn’t out in the sun every day. In later life he fished the jetties strictly at night, often returning to the boat slip with a pretty good bump, though his 24-foot Aquasport could handle it.

Long-term guiding is a fairly hazardous business. I’ve been around a few guides and have seen Texas weather and whitecaps wear them down. Their health deteriorates, though that happens to everyone.  I haven’t kept up with all those I fished with, but a favorite Port Mansfield guide developed painful sciatica in his leg and had to retire early. Standing all day in the boat in that shallow, windy region, year after year. He wasn’t driving a big boat, either.

Another favorite, Captain Howard Horton in Galveston, had three fingers bitten almost clean off by a gaffed and agitated three-foot blacktip shark. Howard spent a few days in the hospital after his fingers were reattached. He fished barefoot and one day had a 30-pound mahi ram a billfish hook through the top of his ankle. His teenage son Mike (now a captain) got smacked in the face by a sailfish bill in Cozumel. The local doctor did such a crude job stitching Mike’s face, his friends nicknamed him Monster. Everyone can use a nickname, but that’s going a bit far. I haven’t seen Mike in years but suspect he’s doing well offshore after countless “trips,” as the guides call them.  

As I write this, after guiding on and off since 1994, I’ve been “paying the butcher’s bill” after so many years in the sun. I currently have 10 stitches on my head and eight across the bridge of my nose, handiwork of a skin doctor. We see each other fairly often and my lifetime stitch total, dormant for decades despite lots of fishing, increased eight-fold in the past 10 years. It’s impossible for a guide to escape the sun, because fishing only on rainy days doesn’t work. I’ve been sunburned even on foggy days. I started wearing a cap with earflaps in 1983. When it blew overboard during a three-day tournament, I wrapped my head with spare cloth like a Berber. In the past 30 years it’s been long sleeve guide shirts, long pants, and half a dozen brands of gloves before settling on Fish Monkey. The best sunscreen we’ve found is Neutrogena 50 with lots of zinc oxide. I wore a red bandana, good for photography, before Buff masks ever reached Texas. When I wore it in Venezuela people grinned, raised a fist and shouted, Chavista!

There are lots of ways for a guide to get hurt in this business. Like getting poked by a hardhead catfish while (wisely) unhooking these semi-poisonous fish for clients. I’ve unhooked plenty of hardheads over the years, but haven’t been stuck in three decades. Getting rid of stingrays is another problem and so far, no hits. (I cut the leader to avoid that poisonous tail).

I seldom wade fish except in the surf; many of our years were instead spent boating out to the jetties, anchoring and then walking the rocks, flirting with another trip to the ER. Wading guides see plenty of other hazards, including death-dealing Vibrio bacteria, stingrays, sharks, jellyfish and cruel oysters. On the jetties, the biggest hazard is falling. There was also the problem of swimming back to the boat anchored close by at sunset, after sharks had been tugging on our heavy stringers of trout.     

And we’ve certainly seen our share of sharks but so far, no damage. Just a little chomp from a needle-toothed, sand shark that wouldn’t let go of my finger until Amy pried it loose with an oyster shell. (One more reason to carry needlenose pliers).  I did have a Keys guide grab a lemon shark too far back, and it whipped around quick as a snake, grabbing his entire hand. We pried the shark loose and the guide, with a dark tan, turned lily white and sank to the deck. He was revived with three Cokes and a towel soaked in ice water across his face. We came back early, that day.

Fishing guides accrue their own stories of freakish injuries and adventures. We’ve all had lightning strikes close by, with differing results. One guide wisely took shelter on one of the marsh cabins off Port O’Connor: lightning was everywhere and the wind was bad. His clients soon relieved themselves off the covered dock. When the guide did so, lightning struck a small mangrove bush only feet away and the shock traveled…up his urine stream. He said it was like being punched below the belt. No doubt it was bright and deafening, too. Only a mile away at Clark’s Marina, different day, a guy at the cleaning table had his electric knife knocked out of his hand and across the side of his neck, because someone carelessly threw a trout carcass and hit that dangling electric cord.

There are stories of weird and freakish misfortune on the water, and a guide’s job is to make sure none of these things happen. Customers expect a routine and hopefully productive trip, although I’ve had clients ready to fish who said they needed excitement in their lives, because they were “empty nesters.” There is a lot more excitement out there, than they bargained on.

It’s tougher to be a guide these days, in some respects. Boats are faster, but way more expensive, along with gas prices, and thank goodness for those fuel-efficient, 4-stroke outboards. Onboard electronics are way better, and weather forecasting (with current cellphone radar) so much better. Boats are bigger, safer and outboard motors more reliable. But competition is fierce from other guides. And the fishing public has grown, with many more boats on the water. (There was a boat-buying frenzy in 2020). Meanwhile, not one new acre of coastal water has been created to fish. Most oil rigs offshore, easy to see and tie up to for decades, have been removed.

So, my hat is off to these new fishing guides. May their new careers by safe and productive.