You might find the September online issue of the Angling Trade magazine interesting. A couple of good articles, but the eye-catcher for me was on page 44.
There's an article by Chuck F. on page 44 concerning the float and drift practices with guide/clients/indicators on some popular rivers. It sounds as if Sounds kind of extreme.
Again, no indictment on guide/nymph/indicators practices---but Chuck's story is an eye opener.
I liked this part:
If you’re a bad caster, no problem. Can’t create a drag-free drift? Still no problem. Don’t know when you get a strike? Again, no problem. All you need
to do is cast 20 feet with a rig your guide has perfectly readied before the drift begins. Let him keep boat pace with your indicator, and set the hook when a sudden “hit it” breaks the silence.
>>It would interesting to post your thoughts here.
3) Other than for the presence of wading anglers, and the fact that it's moving water rather than still, it doesn't sound all that different than what loch/lough anglers in the British Isles have doing for centuries -- drift (in the wind) through a productive section with a team of flies in front of you; row back when you've finished the drift and do it again.
So to play devil's advocate. What is the line between this and a 7 year old, standing in the Housatonic, letting all the fly line on his father's reel out, and pulling (can't really call it a hand twist) the Royal Coachman back in until there was a bump, and then rearing back to set the hook on his first fly caught trout? That is how I started years ago, and I received much praise from Bill Bristol and the rest of the crew that camped there while they had their evening cocktails by the campfire? Is it being able to cast 30' of line instead of twenty toward the bank, and catching a trout on a soft hackle on the swing? Or is it 40 feet? We all gotta start somewhere, and at sixty fun I am still hoping to recreate that evening on the Housatonic.
I fish unweighted flies in moving water with bamboo/fiberglass rods using a reel as old as me (which makes it an antique) and fly patterns that are for the most part a century old. That's my way of fly fishing but I really don't give much thought as to how others do it as I'm usually too preoccupied with why those pesky fish continue to resist my carefully tied offerings.
Guided fly fishing trips have simply come down to getting the client into fish rather than teaching them the art of the sport, no matter what’s going on in nature: “Get ‘em in and get ‘em out.”
The real "heads up" on this is that it's become standard guiding practice on many Western rivers. The chapping element is that when you hire a "guide" they may be clueless about fishing any other way. Pretty lame bunch out there passing themselves off as guides.
Bottom line, if you're hiring a guide make darned sure you're buying what you think you're buying. Last thing I want to do is climb into a boat and have to teach the guide how to fish.
The article and comments bring to mind Garrett Hardin's theory concerning shared resources to which every individual has independent access, but over which no one has managerial control. Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" is taught in economics and public policy classes, and many feel it applies at times to real-life situations, like this one. The dilemma of the The "Tragedy of the Commons" arises when multiple individuals, acting independently and quite rationally according to their own self-interest, ultimately degrade, deplete, and even destroy a shared, limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen. Note the recognition that economics plays a factor (the guides have to make a living, and more fish equals a bigger tip), and the author's question, "Who's in charge?", goes unanswered. His other question - whether the guide or the client dictate whether the daisy chain is used - is a chicken-and-egg question that is largely irrelevant. The questions that are relevant revolve around the property rights characteristics of excludability and divisibility. The river in which this fishing is done is a common pool resource that exhibits low excludability (everyone can access the resource; no one can be turned away) and high divisibility (usually I would say that "the fish that I catch is not available to you," but in this case where the driftboaters are probably practicing catch-and-release, the divisibility seems to relate to taking space on the river rather than taking fish; "the prime angling space that I take up while daisy-chaining again and agin in a driftboat is not available to you"). Economists will tell you that most market failures tend to occur in systems where there is low excludability and high divisibility. In the comments section, the angler who offers to walk behind the other anglers negotiates a momentary good outcome for all involved. A great deal of international maritime law involves trying to negotiate good outcomes to much larger and very stubborn resource management problems.
the guides have to make a living, and more fish equals a bigger tip),
The experience sought by a guide and clients ($$ for the guide, fish for the client)---a business transaction using a public resource,---doesn't always comport with the experience sought by a wade-fishing angler.
Simply offering to "go around behind" a wade-angler isn't always possible. And even in cases where it is possible---well---the rising trout doesn't always feel the same way, and is not bothered. Case in point is the inflatable fishing boat floater who decided the Battenkill is a good drift fishing river. Then there was the guide with another drift boat who proceeded to run over my line in mid-stream because as he said..."sorry, Mac, there isn't enough water for me to go behind you..."
-Since a guide is using public waters for personal economic gain---not entirely a recreational experience---how about imposing a $5,000 floaters fee. The proceeds directed to securing public access and habitat enhancement.
Sitting next to me is Chuck Furimsky. He doesn't want to write anything himself but would like to have one thing cleared and asked me to ghost write for him...
Chuck's main and only problem was with the guides who ...AFTER passing Chuck and having the guide's client fish the water directly in front of Chuck, the guide rowed back upstream and repeated the drift IN FRONT OF CHUCK about 3 times. This behavior, has unfortunately become standard practice among certain guides.
