When hiring a guide.....

Report Date: January 20, 2005

A Testimonial to Captain Ed
By ?Doc-No-Mo?



I write this testimonial with more than a little trepidation; watching your favorite restaurant get discovered, and losing your ability to walk in and get a table whenever you wish is one thing; watching your favorite fishing guide get discovered, and be too busy to take your bookings is quite another.

I caught the fishing disease as a kid growing up on the Gulf Coast; regretfully, I went into the wrong profession (intensive care medicine) in the wrong place (Los Angeles) to buy a boat and/or fish very often. I could devote but two weeks a year at most to treating my addiction. So it was travel to obscure places and always hire guides that characterized my fishing while working too hard throughout my career.

Thirty years of hiring guides from Alaska to Mexico, from the Carolinas to the Bahamas gave me a wide variety of experience. Guides that could barely speak English, guides who were difficult curmudgeons, guides who drank too much, guides who wanted you to do it their way, or no way, and lots of guys who ?guided? part time while doing something else most of the year?from going to school to driving ambulances, from being a school teacher who happened to own a boat, to being the village cop. Amazing, all those fancy ads in the fishing magazines boasting of magnificent scenery/great accommodations, and ?skilled, knowledgeable guides?; distressing how many of them never describe where their guides come from, what their level of experience might be, and more importantly, just how sociopathic they might be at seven in the morning after an all night binge, or losing at last night?s poker game.

So, the older and wiser you get, the more you learn about how to chose a guide; how to read between the lines of hype, and how to find someone that will produce an enjoyable trip in addition to putting you on some fish. This past year, after finally reaching retirement time, and buying a house in the area, I wanted something more: someone who could teach me the locale, how to fish the area, what to do when the weather is lousy, and how to conjure up fish when they don?t seem interested in what you are offering.

When I talked to, or interviewed, Captain Ed, I was ?hooked? when I learned that he had been an Eagle Scout master. That assured me that he would be patient, a willing teacher, and would be tolerant of my wanting to experiment on various ways to catch fish. If he was dedicated to scouting, odds were that his sociopathy was at least ?well managed? and would not have to worry about how long it took the morning hang-over to vanish. After talking to him, and learning that he did indeed guide full time for > 5 years, I decided to take the plunge. I booked a number of charters in November, fishing from Homosassa to Crystal River, in all sorts of weather.

Ed turned out to be far better than I expected, in fact, one of the very best guides I have ever fished with. He was pleasant, patient, willing to teach, willing to go anywhere and try everything, and remarkably knowledgeable. Look at a chart in the Homosassa area?there are a million little islands, which, once you are on the water, all look alike. Ed always knew where we were without a GPS, knew which side of which island held fish, and was a great teacher of the tools and tricks of fishing the Big Bend area. I felt I had booked an all day fishing seminar, which was just what I wanted. From knots to lures, to rods to bait, we had great give and take. When the weather was absolutely rotten, and we were one of few boats out that day, Ed conjured up our limit of fish with aplomb. I learned a tremendous amount about shallow water fishing in the area, caught a lot of fish, and real enjoyed myself.

Hard to ask more of a guide than putting you on fish, and teaching you a whole lot. But Ed is just plain fun to fish with; lots of ?blarney? for a non-Irishman, so to speak. Ed is NOT a beer-swilling, locker room joker, good ole boy, yuck-yuck type; he IS a remarkably and truly decent, nice guy with lots of people-skills who is genuinely fun to spend a day with. He is really interested is helping you to have a good day. Yes, any day on the water, even in the hot sun beats a day at work; catching some fish makes it even better; but, when you?ve learned a lot for your next fishing adventures, and had a warm, personable experience to boot, you?ve had one of those days you can always remember fondly. Ed does it all, naturally. I cannot recommend him enough.

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Thanks Dr. Ray for those kind words.

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