Guide gratuity?

[JoGa]

Hoping the guides on here or someone with guide experience can chime in here.

I usually only offer gratuities to service people when they are working for a business. If it's the owner helping, I rarely offer a tip.

I'm taking a half day trip on lake Mead and the captain owns his boat and is the only employee, of course. Normally I would not tip someone who owns their own business but didn't know what the protocol was for fishing service.

Tip or no?

 

[The Silver Bye Bye]

I usually wait to see how the day or trip went before deciding to tip.

 

[KDM]

I look at the base price of a guide to be for the boat/equipment/bait etc. etc. The service comes from how hard the guide works to find fish and make sure we have a good time. I base the tip on the quality of that part of the day. If the guide works his tail off I'll tip'em every time. Whether we catch fish or not makes no difference to me. It's the effort I pay for.

 

[huffranger]

10% always made my day

 

[Norske]

The last few guides I've hired were booked through a tackle shop or resort. Since the guides (all excellent) didn't get what I was charged, I added at least 20% and handed the cash to the guide. When the guide business owned a tackle shop and café/bar, we ate at their business, and I bought my wife a better rod.
I want to use these guides again and want to feel welcome.