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Diaries of a Lodge Owner
In 2009, sheet metal mechanic, Steve Niedzwiecki, turned his passions into reality using steadfast belief in himself and his vision by investing everything in a once-obscure run-down Canadian fishing lodge.
After ten years, the now-former lodge owner and co-host of The Fish'n Canada Show is here to share stories of inspiration, relationships and the many struggles that turned his monumental gamble into one of the most legendary lodges in the country.
From anglers to entrepreneurs, athletes to conservationists; you never know who is going to stop by the lodge.
Diaries of a Lodge Owner
Episode 101: The Art and Value of a Great Guide
Ever wondered what truly separates an ordinary fishing trip from an extraordinary one? It might just be the person sitting next to you in the boat.
Great fishing guides transform what could be a simple day on the water into a rich tapestry of experiences, stories, and connections that last long after the rods are packed away. As someone who built a successful lodge business on Ontario's French River, I discovered early that guides weren't just an optional luxury – they were the heartbeat of unforgettable guest experiences.
What makes a truly exceptional guide? Surprisingly, it's not always about being the best angler. The most beloved guides combine patience, adaptability, storytelling prowess, and genuine humility. They're equal parts teacher, wildlife interpreter, and companion. They don't just put you on fish; they help you understand the rhythm of the water, share local knowledge that would take years to acquire independently, and create moments that become cherished memories. From Billy Commanda's masterful walleye shore lunches to Pat's osprey-calling abilities at special lunch spots, these guides craft experiences that transcend mere fishing trips.
For those debating whether to hire a guide or venture out independently, consider what you truly want from your trip. DIY adventures offer freedom and the satisfaction of personal discovery, but they come with stressors – navigation concerns, boat operation, and the pressure of finding productive water. Meanwhile, guided experiences eliminate these worries while providing educational opportunities that can advance your angling skills by years in a single day. The right guide doesn't just enhance your fishing – they transform your relationship with the water and create stories you'll share around campfires for decades to come.
Ready to discover the difference a great guide can make on your next northern adventure? Whether it's your first cast or your thousandth, the stories, knowledge, and experiences shared with a passionate local guide might just be the element that turns a good trip into a legendary one.
You know whether it's your first cast or your thousandth cast. A great fishing guide does more than just put you on fish. They help you understand the rhythm of the water, the pulse of the lake, and the stories that they can tell while they're doing it are second to none. This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio podcast networks diaries of a lodge owner stories of the north, we cast a line into one of the most defining and sometimes overlooked aspects of the lodge experience defining and sometimes overlooked aspects of the lodge experience the choice between going it alone or trusting your trip to a seasoned northern guide. On this show we'll explore the world of fishing guides their role, their value and the incredible stories they help to create. We'll look at what makes a great guide, why some guests resist the idea and how these unsung heroes can not only shape your success on the water but your memories for years to come. So if you've ever wondered whether you really need a guide, or if you're in the lodge business looking to build a team of unforgettable talent, this episode's for you, because sometimes the difference between a good day and a legendary one is the person in the boat beside you. Welcome back, folks, to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner. And yes, today we are going to unpack one of the most defining elements of any lodge experience the fishing guide. We're going to look at going and exploring the values that a great guide brings to the lodge the customer experience and conservation which is so very important to a lodge owner and lodge owners like myself. We're also going to talk a little bit about the DIY or do-it-yourself side of things for guests who prefer the freedom on the water and compare that to an experience that is led by an expert guide. We're also going to dedicate this episode to all of those unsung heroes of the North out there, and that is, yes, you guessed it all of you people out there that are guiding and sharing absolutely wonderful experiences, creating memories and, honestly for me and I've seen it so many times saving trips, and it is such an important role that every lodge should have, and that is guides.
Speaker 1:I learned that very, very early in my career as a lodge owner and my philosophy as far as guides were was I really didn't want. Well, not that I didn't want. My goal was not to make money on the guides. My goal was to provide guides to as many guests as possible by creating, on my end, financially, a break-even situation so that more people could experience what guides do, and in turn, that filled the beds, that put bums in beds and that is where my cream that's where everything came from is bums in beds, and those guides definitely helped retain people, bring people back and create experiences that were unforgettable for those people. So let's unpack this a little bit and let's talk about first the role of a fishing guide in shaping those guest experiences.
Speaker 1:And you know, we really structured that guide experience right from the moment you woke up and picked your head up off the pillow, and even before that, we would sell guides and I would allow all of the guides to come through the dining room in the evening and interact with guests while dinner was going on. You know, in a very subtle manner, manor, and typically that was a guide who had taken a family or a group or a person or a couple out that day to come in while they were eating and just see how their day was. And what that did was it exposed those guides to the other people in the dining room, because the French River is a massive body of water, upper French in particular, where I was, because it's also part of Lake Nipissing, which is tied for the second largest body of water in the province of Ontario outside of the Great Lakes, and so many people would come in and have unsuccessful fishing days and when they heard guests talk about our guides in the dining room and the experiences that they had, that was a huge selling point. You know you get one group talking about how they caught 100 walleye in a day and then you've got another group sitting thinking, wow, we caught three and it just to have that guide in the dining room. Being very respectful and social, it helped to sell guides as well. But it would start from the moment that you agreed that you wanted a guide, and a lot of times that happened before you even hit the island, because we actively tried to sell our guides to guests when they called and booked, and for good reason, I didn't have enough guides to service all of the people that came to the lodge. So it was one of those things where you know if you want a guide, we suggest that you book one now and then, once you did book a guide we had that in our records Everybody knew that there was going to be a guide for you know Jake McAlpine's group and it was written on all of our calendars and that way the kitchen knew if it was a muskie guide.
Speaker 1:Because if it was a muskie guide we didn't do the shore lunch experience, which is part of that experience. But typically muskie hunters they're not really interested in shore lunches and muskie fishing is not conducive to shore lunches because, first and foremost, you don't eat muskies. So we knew which type of guide these people were going on. We prepared them with either a boxed lunch, boxed dinner, shore lunch, and as soon as those people, those people that group, jake's group hit the island in part of the orientation, knowing that they were going to have a guide, we would explain how that works.
Speaker 1:Jake, you've got a guide on Tuesday, very, very excited. Your guy's name is Pat Tryon. Pat Tryon and, um, uh, feel feel free to search out Pat. Um, you know, come 4.30, he's typically coming in from guides, uh, on the dock or he's around the lounge or in the dining room. Please feel free to to search him out and and talk to him and uh, he can give you some some uh, um, uh information and some guidance, uh, leading up to Tuesday, cause it's Sunday now, you know, and you're going to fish tomorrow. So talk to Pat, get yourself familiar with them, and that is where it all starts, so that your guide, uh, so that the guests are number one, comfortable with the guide that they're, with knowing who that person is and taking advantage of some of their knowledge even before they go out with them. And then, once you get on that guide, so the morning of your guide you come down, you have a beautiful breakfast, your guide is on the dock waiting for you, you already know who he is, you grab your gear, you walk down and you get on that boat. And those guides are not just fishermen, they are people who are very, very interested in showing you an experience. Now, that is something that is cultivated and we'll talk about that a little later. But the experience of having that guide with you.
Speaker 1:Number one, takes all of the stress off your shoulders when it comes to operating the boat, because that is from doing a lot of do-it-yourself trips when I was younger. That in itself was a huge stress. Number one worrying about being safe. Number two worrying about not wrecking the boat. Number three worrying about not getting lost. And you combine all of those stressors and it takes away from the experience. Automatically the guide takes away, you don't have to worry about the boat, you don't have to worry about where you're going. You don't have to worry about the boat, you don't have to worry about where you're going, you don't have to worry about getting home. So just in those three things, the guides are amazing and I've said it once and I'll say it a thousand times when you go on to a body of water and you take a guide, the education that you're going to get during those eight hours will fast forward your learning curve by 10 years by trying to do it yourself, especially on a body of water the size of the Upper French and Lake Nipissing.
Speaker 1:So you can tell the role of the fishing guide and the way that I envisioned of a guest um who chooses um uh, to do do it on their own. Um is is is a great one, um. But you know I've done a lot of exploring on the motivations of people who want to do it yourself and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. But a lot of it comes down to the confidence of an angler. And there's so much in technology today and you know, especially when an angler brings their own boat to the lodge a lot of times. They'll want the independence of being able to go out at any time and the comfort of their own boat, which, um, which is, is huge, like I mean, when you know where your stuff is, um, it's, there's nothing better. You know where the net is, you know where your rods are, you know which rod is which, you know, uh, where your baits are, and, um, and, and, when you, when you come to a body of water, you, you, you like the challenge of figuring it out yourself, and those are all great things for for advanced anglers, you know, and I always, I always tried and not, and I never, ever pushed, but I looked at all of that go and do it yourself stuff, and one of the things that we would offer the guides didn't like it in particular, for the same reason the anglers wanted to do it was we always offered somebody to put, we always offered to put a guide in somebody's boat, and it's one of those things that the guides they were a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:For that reason it wasn't their boat, because my guides, I give them a boat or they had their own boat and all of their gear was organized. They knew exactly where everything was. They were very familiar with the electronics, they were familiar with the boat itself, how it runs and all of that stuff. Regardless, the number one goal for us owner and guides included was the experience for the guests, and there were a lot of people that did take advantage of taking a guide in their own boat. And, you know, I thought, when I first bought the lodge, that people would maybe, you know, take a guide the first time they were on the water, just to familiarize themselves with it and, you know, get a few spots, and then they would want to do it on their own, because that's where my mentality was.
Speaker 1:And that boils down to another one of the do-it-yourself factors, which is a factor there's no doubt about it, and that's the expense of a guide, because guides aren't cheap, and we'll quickly break that down a little bit. So, when I was running the lodge between 2009 and end of 2018, I was basically charging $350 a day for the guide and that, at the time, was a significant, you know, expense, but I would try and break it down for people and make it a little easier to have them go out. So, when you rented a boat from me for the week that you're there on the day of the guide, I would deduct that weekly cost on the boat. It's not a great business practice. It was. It was because 99% of the of the lodges you rent a boat boat for a week. You pay for a boat for the week and if you want to take a guide for a day, that price doesn't change and that's probably the right way to do it from a business standpoint. But for me, again, it falls back on that idea that I had that I wanted to make guides as available to all of my guests as possible, because I knew that the experience they were going to get would far outweigh the $80 that I was going to lose in boat rental revenue for that one day. And then when you start to break down the costs, you can at least make it feel not as expensive. And I found that once people took a guide once, they didn't just stop there, like I thought. They wanted more guides, whether it was two guides in the week, whether it was three guides days over, seven days, because our guides are unbelievably talented people and they're trained to give you different experiences and some guides are specialists at certain species, at certain experiences, and people would want to experience those different experiences with different guides.
Speaker 1:For instance, billy Commanda, one of the well, one of the the best walleye guide bar none on Lake Nipissing in the Upper French River that has ever lived, and I say that with confidence. He's a master at his craft and part of that experience is just watching the man fillet walleye at the shore lunch and the musical dance that he does while building that shore lunch from the fire and getting things set up and going and filleting the walleye and he, like I mean he'll fillet a walleye and five strokes of the knife. It is, it is unbelievable and um, and people sometimes like that. Or you've got Pat, who is an unbelievable and Billy, you know he's, um, he's not the most social guy, right, um, he does what he does very well. And once you get to know him and you kind of break that hard exterior that we all know as Bill, he's got a wonderfully dry sense of humor and people absolutely love him. And then you look at Pat, who's very social, extremely knowledgeable. Who's very social, extremely knowledgeable and outstanding at every species and really a muskie specialist. And then you've got guys like Matt O'Brien, who still guides at Chaudière and on the Upper French River, who can do it all, but his true love and specialty is muskies.
Speaker 1:And you know people, people, through talking in the lodge they really start to hear about the different characters and they want to spend time with those people. So you know, once you get somebody introduced to those guides and I mean introduced from the beginning, whether you have a guide or not I had them all available to talk to people on the dock, to be free, with a lot of information, to help people catch fish, which is our goal, whether you have a guide or not. That was hugely important and I found that the do-it-yourself people they were doing it because they wanted to do it themselves and some would take guides because of just what I was talking about Familiarize yourself with that lake, jump that learning curve really quickly and then go and do it yourself and there's nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with that. But I, as an owner, did everything I could to break down the barriers and really find out what those barriers were, whether it was cost, whether it was I don't want to go in your boat, I'm comfortable in mine or whether it was simply listen, I want to do it myself. And it's funny, I did a lot of television shows and you all know that, with fishing people and the one host of the one of the television shows that came up on a number of occasions with me, charlie Ray and his wife Terry from the Fishful Thinking television show I typically, when a fishing show comes in, I want to give them a guide.
Speaker 1:I want a guide not so much to go on the boat with them, but a guide to go out and point out the spots again because it's very big. Now I really truly understand the difficulties that a large body of water can pose for a group of people who have not been on the water and are under a lot of pressure to produce and do it in a short period of time. But when I went to Charlie and said, listen, charlie, I've blocked off one of my best guides for you and I'd love for you to take him, and obviously it's at no cost to you I can provide you with a second boat for any kind of B-roll shooting you need. Charlie looked at me and he said Steve, I really, really appreciate the offer, but I like doing it myself, I like going and figuring it out myself. And that's what he did every time he came and he built on his own knowledge base and I'll tell you what Charlie fished unbelievably. He caught fish in places that I didn't even know existed and that is a testament to the do it yourself and if you're set up to do it that way, by all means that is an unbelievable way of doing. It means that is an unbelievable way of doing it, but that doesn't like I mean.
Speaker 1:So we'll get back into the guide side of things and the one aspect of guides that I absolutely love and it's one of the areas that I considered myself. I never considered myself a guide because I wasn't on the water every day. I had all the information from the guides, but the guides as storytellers was key, and I'll throw teachers in there as well and a person who can interpret the wildlife around you, and those three things right there define good guides and from great guides, because every day is different and some days the fish are there but they just don't want to cooperate and that's just the way it is. Some days are great fishing days and you don't need to rely on those three points that I touched on, but the days that are really tough, or tough in general, you need to be a great storyteller, you need to be a teacher, because if you're not catching fish and you've got I just put Garmin LiveScope on my boat you can take those guests and immerse them in a world of technology. That a into the teaching part of it. Then you've got how you teach how to rig different baits and rig different styles and how you work different things right, you know. And storytelling, like I mean when you're on the water for decades or a couple of years or you've fished your whole life.
Speaker 1:I would always talk to the guides. And number one you want to try and find some common ground with your guest and I always used to, like you know, asking the question where are you from? And then go from there and then tell stories about past guide experiences or fishing experiences or family experiences, all of that stuff right, and that in itself begins to create an experience that people will remember and they will start to gravitate to you. They get to know you as a person. You're not just the guide who puts me on fish. You become Steve or Pat or Billy or Matt or Pete, you know. And then people really get to like you as a person. And there were so many times Now I was a little bit different because I was the owner and I professed that I'm not a person. And there were so many times now I was a little bit different because I was the owner and I professed that I'm not a guide, I'm just your fishing buddy. But so many people would come up to me and would want to take me out as a guide, knowing full well that we weren't probably going to catch as many fish, but wanted to spend time with me Because they and in turn I love people and I love spending time with people and getting to know who they were and it didn't matter what walk of life they came from. And when you can do that, that is magic. And then you know you've got the you're a wildlife interpreter right.
Speaker 1:One of the best stories that I can illustrate this idea with is Pat and Abby and we talked about this at length in one of our podcasts. Pat and I where he found that at one shore lunch spot in particular, which was a beautiful spot, there was an osprey who would recognize our boats, believe it or not, and knew that when we were going in at lunch that she was going to get walleye carcasses or fish carcasses of some description and Pat would talk to her, he would whistle and by the end of the season he had Abby I don't want to say trained, but they had a mutual, mutually beneficial relationship, a symbiotic relationship between the two of them, where Pat would pull up and he would start talking to Abby, whistling his Abby tune, which kind of sounded like an osprey, and Abby knew that she was going to get fed and he would toss out the carcasses and in turn she would swoop down and pick up these carcasses in front of the guests and Pat would tell them what was going to happen before it happened. And everybody was prepared with their cameras and their phones and their video. And halfway through the season Abby for me was money, because guests would come back and again in the heartbeat of the lodge, in the dining room, start talking about Abby and people who didn't care to catch a whole lot of fish and were there more for an ecotourist style experience wanted to go catch some fish and see Abby and inevitably they would come back just incensed. And not only that, they experienced a shore lunch which is second to none and just that whole experience. You know they would come back year after year and if not go more than once, would have to go out on a guide, and now it wasn't so much Abbey, but it was more the experience. You know we've got hieroglyphs that are painted on the rocks out at Keystone and you take people by there. You know, pat's big secret is especially when there's kids involved, and you know kids can be a little impatient sometimes. Take them blueberry picking Just simple things like that, to create this experience as storytellers, teachers and wildlife interpreters. And, um, you know, it's, it's uh, it's outstanding for the guests. And you know, a lot of times too and I'm speaking from experience from back in the day when I would do it myself um, things would go wrong, things would go wrong, and you know I remember this.
Speaker 1:One time Ray Poole, my good buddy Ray, this was back, oh, in the late 90s Eric, his son and my best friend, was still alive. But I got to know Ray, eric's dad, so well that we really became great friends too, which was a little bit of an odd dynamic, but a wonderful one, and it's lasted to this day. But Ray and I decided that we were going to go fishing up to Key River and we stayed at the Key Harbour Lodge, and they didn't even have the option for guides, nor did we have the money at the time or the want to kind of to take. It never even crossed our minds that you would have a guide. So we went out and Ray had just bought a brand new Grumman boat. It was the maiden voyage and we used to always go in the spring.
Speaker 1:This would have been, you know, may 1st, as soon as you could get on the water, when it was legal, and May 1st on Georgian Bay. At that time, from the first bridge on the river to Georgian Bay opened on May 1st and we go pike fishing. We went out to Genesee Bay and fished away, and fished away, and then we decided you know what, let's troll. And Ray had this brand new nine nine trolling motor. Maybe it was a, maybe it wasn't a nine nine, might've been a smaller engine, but it was a trolling motor nonetheless and brand new. And he tried to start it and pulled and pulled, and pulled and pulled and there was no way this thing was going to start and we spent probably two hours of our fishing trip and it, it, it. It ended with Ray so incensed that I had to talk him off the cliff because he was pulling the, the bracketry off the boat and loosening the the nuts. Because he nuts? Because he was asking God, why me? And if you want it you can have it, and he was going to throw that engine right off, right overboard. So anyway, he didn't.
Speaker 1:And that again was one of the memories imprinted in my mind and I'll call it a great one now. But you know, it's one of those things where, when you do it yourself, you learn the hard way sometimes and you know there's so many stories and and one of the things when you do it yourself that I learned as a lodge owner, especially when you you come and you're doing it yourself um, you're, you're in one of our boats, and um, and, and, and there were a lot of people that did it themselves out of, out of uh, want or necessity, because we didn't have enough guides. I had to learn that after dinner the guys on the dock would, specifically before people left, we had a board on the dock, a whiteboard, and each group that left would give us their approximate destination and approximate time of return, because there were a number of times when people would go out. It would be getting dark. The perspective of the landscape at that time of the day changes because of the level of light.
Speaker 1:And not only that, the one thing that I also learned when I was very young when you're driving away from your destination, you really need to, every couple of minutes, turn around and look at what it looks like going back the other way, because there's no nothing really marked right. This was and this was pre GPS, and you would have to really look at how it looks going back, because it looks totally different from a different perspective, and I would have to go out and find people you know, and it's not easy. It's a big place again. Even with that, I'm going into this general area. We always found them, but, like I mean, you can really get yourself in.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say a lot of trouble, because, unless you think, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and black flies and spending a night in the boat is trouble, you know, depending on the person, it can be trouble. Or pulling up on the shoreline and and uh and and spending the night, although I would choose the boat route, um, which I can honestly and proudly say that nobody's spent the night away from the lodge, but we did spend a lot of time with Searchlight and sending out the guides and dockhands on rescue missions. So you know, that's one of the things that you kind of need to think about when you're doing it yourself. You've got to be more prepared really is what you need to do when you're in the wilds of northwestern Ontario. You need gear you can trust and a team that's got your back. That's Lakeside Marine in Red Lake, ontario, family owned since 1988. They're your go-to pro-camp dealer, built for the north, from Yamaha boats and motors to everything in between. We don't just sell you gear.
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Speaker 3:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
Speaker 3:After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's, under the Canopy podcast world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's, under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature. And under the canopy Find. Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1:Now, from a lodge owner's point of view, I want to talk about the economic value of how guides increase and help retain your bookings. And again, I learned this. I didn't realize when I bought the lodge, because 99% of the places that I went to up until I bought chaudiere were all housekeeping, all do-it-yourself, no guides available. So I just assumed that guides were there and you know they would take people out once, because why would you ever take a guide out on a second trip when you get their spots and then you can just go back. Well, was I ever wrong? Guides number one, and the reason that I found that I wanted to do a break-even model with the cost of my guides are the people that go with those guides have much better experiences. They return more often, they have experiences that are more outstanding than not and they are your advertising. They bring friends, they talk about their experiences and that spreads. Word of mouth spreads and this in itself is a critical. This in itself is a critical, critical business advantage to having people talking about the experiences that they had at the lodge and the retention was great. The new people they talked to and convinced and brought was paramount, and not that when you come and do it yourself. People didn't do that Because we worked very hard to create those experiences. But with guides you don't just create them, you control those experiences and you will see. I guarantee to you, you will see more revenue coming in faster than without guides. It is, in my opinion, there is no question. There is no question, there is no question.
Speaker 1:And I built Chaudière from a very, very low occupancy rate to a very, very good occupancy rate. You know, depending on how you looked at it, if you were looking at cottages rather than beds, like if you looked at our occupancy rate and you were looking at how many cottages were booked and you didn't take into consideration the bed nights, the beds, because you could have a group of three people, take a four person cottage and you've got one bed empty but the cottage is full. You see where I'm going with that. My occupancy was pretty close to 95% when you looked at cottages across the board when I left, and a lot of that. Well, all of it is experience. All of it is experience, and a huge part of that experience were the guides. What makes a great guide right, what truly makes a great guide? And a hundred times out of a hundred.
Speaker 1:I take attitude over angling. There are a ton over angling. There are a ton Like. I mean, there's a lot of outstanding anglers and and you can be the best angler on the planet, but a terrible guide and the, the.
Speaker 1:The traits that I always looked for were patience, because sometimes it takes patience to work with people, especially when people are are very new to the, to the sport, and really have no idea how, what to expect, how to react. You know, and you need patience To go hand in hand with that adaptability. You need to be able to look at a group, look at a person, isolate the person that needs the most help. What kind of help? How to provide that help without making that person uncomfortable, making it fun for everybody else. And it's that adaptability. Part of it is huge.
Speaker 1:And I go back to storytelling, because storytelling fills the void and creates the experience. And another huge factor is humility. You want to be able to go out and become part of the group. You don't want to go out and talk down to the group. You want to always, rather than tell somebody, plant seeds and suggest things. Take yourself as an example. You know, I remember, and it doesn't even have. You don't even have to point things out. If somebody is fishing walleye and they're trying to set the hook way too late or the mechanics of it are off, pick a good time and tell a story about how, when you learned how to fish walleye and you don't ever direct the story to anybody. You tell the story about how you lost so many walleye because you didn't know how to set the hook and you tell your story about yourself and you outline how you learned to catch walleye better, right, and then you can see if that helps the people in the boat. And then you can go from there back to adaptability adapt to the situation. You use humility and and you're you're, you're humble with the people. And those are some of the traits that create an outstanding guide and, you know, really can turn somebody into a legend. You know those are some of the key traits.
Speaker 1:Now, as a lodge owner, I didn't start well. I started with Billy, and Billy is a legend bar none and very specialized in walleye. Right, but I didn't have anybody else. So how do you build, as an owner, a dream team full of guides? And you know, for me some of it was luck. I had Pat who was a guest. We worked together for a long time. I had a vision and I didn't.
Speaker 1:I was never a guide, but I knew I needed to have wonderful experiences for my guests. First and foremost, always with me, was experiences and keeping my finger on the pulse of every group, person, couple that walked through the door, and knowing what their expectations are and were and how I could do my very best to give them the experience that they were looking for. And I found pretty quickly that it's tough to find guides and it's tough to train guides. So Pat was very good. Pat was a he's, he's, um, whether he likes it or not, he was born with the tools to be an outstanding. He was born a guide, like he's just, he's just that guy. And and when he was young, um, I, he was young, we worked together a lot and I voiced my vision of experience and we talked a lot about how we can improve experiences and different things like that. And he got it. He got it.
Speaker 1:And then once you get that one guy who understands your vision and having a vision is one thing, living your vision is another and if you, I can tell you, if you're a lodge owner and you expect to tell people what your vision is and expect them to follow your verbal instructions. You got another thing coming You've got to live your vision and lead by example. And that part not just for the guides but for all of your staff that leading by example, doing every job, never expecting somebody to do a job that you wouldn't do yourself or haven't done before in front of them and once you get a key guide we together developed I'm going to call it a mentorship program and it kind of started with guides on the dock and they started as dock hands and a lot of dock hands and this is one of the major points that we did a podcast on how to become a guide and for young people out there, the best way to become a guide is to start on the dock, start as a dockhand, because you see those guides every day, coming in, coming going out. You're working hand in hand with them and you learn from them just simply by becoming friends with them, by absorbing their information and their mannerisms and the way that they react with people, and you can then build your own style and see what works, what doesn't. Start on the dock.
Speaker 1:Another way that we built the guide team was local talent, marcel was local talent, friends of guides, that's. You know how Matt came up. He was a friend of mine and I knew him. I knew his angling abilities. And then the legend Pete Stefanik. He's a buddy of Matt, right? So you kind of expand your network of people who may fit the role and then you employ them. And when you employ them, there's training involved. But it's not telling, it's showing and it's explaining about the big picture, the overall experience. And then you know there's feedback, feedback that I, as the owner, get from my guests. And if you're not asking your guests owners out there, you're not doing your job.
Speaker 1:Again, I'll go back to the heartbeat of my business, which was the dining room. Every night that I was there and that was at least five, six days a week I walked the dining room, I talked to every guest and I wanted to know what their experiences were like. And this is how I learned what makes a good guide and what doesn't. And, off the top of this I mentioned, I take attitude over angling 100% of the time. It's because a great guide this is the conversation that I have with guests.
Speaker 1:When I realize that I have a great guide, I go up to the table. I'm going to take Jake McAlpine's group as a example again, because I love Jake. Jake's in there and I know that he's been on a guide today. I walk up to the dining room table and Jake and Lori and his whole group are there and I say hey guys, how was your day? That's an outstanding way to start the conversation and, knowing they've been on a guide, they 99% of the time will go right into. You know what? It was a great day. We caught like a hundred fish man. It was outstanding. We caught walleye, we caught pike. We caught bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. That conversation is a great one, but it doesn't exemplify a great guide. The conversation that you have when you know you've got a great guide goes like this how was your day, jake, laurie, did you have a good time? Oh, it was outstanding. We were with. I'm going to take Billy this time. We were with. I'm going to take Billy this time.
Speaker 1:We were with Billy and he took us out to the hydro glyphs and we saw the ancient paintings on the rock that the natives painted and, billy being a native himself, he told us all kinds of different things about how he grew up and you know, he, he took us out and we saw, um, uh, uh, a moose out in the back and and it was eating and we got pictures. And, um, we, we went, uh, we went out, uh, we got enough fish for our shore lunch and, uh, we went, uh, out to the goose islands and and, oh my god, it was beautiful, the sand beach was outstanding, and we, we got to go and wade in the water and we were fishing for, for smallmouth bass, while Billy got our lunch ready. And you know, it was just amazing and that, when people come back glowing about an experience that doesn't include how many fish they caught and all of that kind of thing, but it's about an experience that they had when the fishing wasn't great, that is the true mark of an outstanding guide. That is the true mark of an outstanding guide, and that is how lodge owners need to think about that. And the other thing that I'd like to quickly touch on before we leave how to build that dream team is how to recruit right and how to develop, and this in itself is a huge topic, one that I don't claim to know all of the answers to, because, you know, it's very tough to build a great team, especially when you've got guides who are very protective of their spots and listen, it's your livelihood and there's nothing wrong with guides having you know a couple of spots that they call their A spots where they know they're going to get shore lunch and they go out.
Speaker 1:But I always I always try to foster a wonderful team concept. And when you have a great team of of guides who truly like each other and want to help each other and have clear um, I'm going to say clear outlines on good practice, on being respectful to each other, on not going out and looking at where the other guide is fishing and oh, that's a new spot I better try that one tomorrow. Or you know, this is my spot. Why are you here and pull up on another guide and start an argument in the middle of the lake because you're on my spot, kind of deal. That is the last thing that you want and something that is very real and something that can happen, and happen very quickly and get out of control. So you really need to build the team aspect and you have to have an open line of communication between everyone.
Speaker 1:Meetings with guides are great, but not meetings, like you know, get together at the end of the, at the end of the evening, and and just hang out. You know, smoke a cigar, do whatever you know, have a beer and and talk about your day and remind everybody that they're part of a team. And and maybe you know if, if you're fishing muskies, you're fishing walleye, or, and, and maybe you know if, um, if, uh, uh, you're fishing muskies, you're fishing walleye, or, and, and we've got a muskie group that wants to do a shore lunch. You know, team up, right, you, you team up and and and pull up and do a shore lunch together. That was another thing that I was always very, very open and supportive of was. Another thing that I was always very, very open and supportive of was groups doing shore lunches together, unless, obviously, the guests wanted a more intimate setting, and that's the job of the owner or the manager to understand the person's expectations of the experience before you go out. So there's building that team aspect of it, and when you can build a great team, your guides develop so much faster, they work together right and everybody contributes to the development of everybody else. It needs to be. I'll go back to the symbiotic relationship, a relationship that helps everybody in the group and and that is is huge.
Speaker 1:And then recruiting where do you find guides? Well, I kind of alluded to the fact that I used to lean on locals, but a lot of times the locals don't really fit the mold for the experience that you want, and sometimes a hardened guide who has been doing it for a long time is just that they're a little hardened and they're in and it can. Vetting them very well, getting to know their attitude before you hire them is huge, and then you can bring them on and then develop them. And again, the dock hand, um, uh, mentorship idea. I don't want to call it a program, but the mentorship of dock hands is also huge because what it does is it gives your dock hands a goal they want to guide and you can put them into those guide situations slowly and pick the right situations. And once you learn that dockhand and you figure out what their strengths are, you can help integrate them into the guide rotation in a way that number one doesn't upset the apple cart when it comes to the team and number two gives them the best opportunity to succeed. And and that is is a way that and I developed a few guides in that we'll call it a program and that you know.
Speaker 1:That brings me to another topic with the team and the guides and the guests that I want to touch on, and this is solely from the perspective of a owner, and that is the art, and it is an art of matching guests with the right guide. Now you'll get guests who specifically will request a guide in particular because they love that person and they want to spend time with that person, and that is one of the best. That is one of the best. What am I trying to say here? That is one of the best reasons. That is one of the best compliments. There we go, spit it out, compliments that a guest can pay to a guide, out of everything, and the thing is you never want to break that. You never want to break that. So when it's easy, when a guest tells you what guide they want, it's a matter of scheduling, that's it.
Speaker 1:But when you have people that are unfamiliar with guides, who tell you what they're looking for but don't know who to go with, it's very, very important to, first of all, as the owner or manager, when you have that person on the phone or in front of you at the lodge when you're selling that guide, get to know who the person is, understand their expectations of the experience, and sometimes they don't know what they want and it comes down to you feeling out their personality and sometimes you have to do this in a five or ten minute conversation with that person, but it's very, very possible. I was very good at it. I don't want to sound conceited at all, I was just. I'm good at feeling people and you know your guides intimately and you're like a matchmaker and it's very, very important, because if a person is looking to go and catch walleye for the first time and have a shore lunch and is amazing, and have a shore lunch and is amazing, and that's what they want to do, then the answer is Billy. But if that person doesn't like somebody who smokes, sorry, Billy, that ain't you. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So there are so many different and little factors that you need to take into consideration when it comes to matching your guests with your guides, and great matches make unbelievable memories. Poor matches, on the other hand, and although your team of guides are all outstanding, each one of them has strengths and weaknesses and if you match the wrong guide with the wrong group of guests. All of a sudden things can go sideways and you would rather make sure that you create the experience in your mind that you know that they want first, rather than have to take your guide aside after a day where you don't have a thousand percent awesome experience and have to use that as a teaching situation with your guide because the guests weren't very happy. And again, there's lots of different things. And I mentioned the smoking off the top because that was one of those things that I had to learn and it only took one. It only took one right, and you're not going to change a smoker.
Speaker 1:So I changed my way of doing things and I made sure that you know if people I would explain, you know some of our guides smoked you have a problem with that. I had one guy who well, a couple of guys who would, who would chew, chewing tobacco, and you know you can, you can go and you can tell somebody you know you can't chew when you're on the boat, like it's. That's unacceptable, you can't chew or you can't smoke. But I tried that and I found what happened was they would do it anyway because it's an addiction and they would try to not do it, but, in turn, would make them turn, would lower their vibration, would put them in a bad mood, and it was just a better solution for me to take that into consideration with the guests that I was pairing my guides with, and a lot of them would say, ah, that's no problem, we smoke cigars too, so you mean we can smoke cigars on the boat and turn that into a positive, rather than put a smoking guide with a family with three young kids who is are dead set against it. Right.
Speaker 1:So that in itself, is is a key trait for an owner to learn, and and you do have to learn and you will learn from mistakes, and it's, it's, um, it's something that you just have to go through as an owner when you're managing groups of people and that comes down to the training aspect with your guides Sometimes you get in a jam and you know you're putting a group with a guide and you may have a better match, but that match is already taken. So in that case you need to set that guide, sit down with that guide prior to and, rather than tell the guide he has to react this way and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you talk to your guide and you explain who his guests are and what they like and maybe talk about some strategies to give them the experience that they are looking for. Right, there's always a better way to convey a idea or a thought rather than telling. Telling is not good. And that brings me to another area with the guiding, and that is cultural sensitivity, right, and inclusivity on the water, and you know I'm not much of all this cultural inclusion and all of this other stuff when it comes to you know, people getting jobs and there's people that are better qualified that don't because of you know that I do not agree with never, have, never will I love. You know I'm a fairest. I like everything fair. Best person gets the job. I love people from all different races, creeds, colors. You know there's great people everywhere and sometimes you need to make sure that you talk to your guides about diverse guests, right, like one example was we had a wonderful couple, a Jewish couple, and they wanted to do a shore lunch, but everything had to be kosher.
Speaker 1:But everything had to be kosher and I really didn't have a whole lot of experience with the idea of kosher and it was actually it was quite a lot. They brought all of their own gear, right down to the frying pan. They had a special knife that we had to use and if I'm and I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that he said it had been blessed by a rabbi. But and I could be wrong I just remember that they had a specific knife that had to be used. They had all all of their cooking gear was very specific be used. They had all. All of their cooking gear was very specific and and it was. It was something that that I wanted to provide them. They were great people. I didn't want them to go out and all of a sudden something happened and and they can't eat their fish because it was cooked improperly.
Speaker 1:So, going back to the point, before pairing your guides with guests, the guide that jumped out to me for this was Pat, because Pat is very adaptable, intelligent and thoughtful in those ways. You know Billy again, he is the walleye king. He provides an experience that is second to none. But for me to try and tell Billy that he has to not use his knife anymore, you have to use this knife and you can't use your frying pan. You have to use this frying pan. You have to use this knife and you can't use your frying pan, you have to use this frying pan. You have to do it like this. You can't use the oil or whatever it was. You got to put this in and you got to cook it this way.
Speaker 1:I knew that that putting Billy in that position was not putting Billy in a position to succeed, so I chose Pat for that task and Pat did an outstanding job and and and it and it's that whole cultural idea of having different people. You know, there's a lot, of, a lot of and and it's a wonderful, wonderful resource and experience to share with people from different cultures from across the world, from India to to Africa, to all of these different places, and in some ways, it's so much more enjoyable to take those people out and show them things that they have never seen and share the unforgettable French River and all of its beauty with people that really are awestruck. And that is key as well. And as an owner and we'll talk a lot more about this I had a great conversation with Val Gaynor up at the lodge about this very thing, and it was more how our lodge is going to survive going into the future with our, with our um, our cultural um, with the cultural changes we're seeing happen rapidly in this country, which are good. There it is what it is, there's all kinds of great people and, and that whole inclusiveness for for, uh, immigrants in Val's words, who is an immigrant from Romania himself, uh, years ago, mind you um is a great, great topic and something that needs to be.
Speaker 1:Well, if I was still in the business, I would be focusing fairly heavily on that as well, because there's such a great market out there for people that just don't know what kind of experiences that they can have. And, again, it comes down to a little bit of training with your guides, right, because you've got to be respectful in ways. Right, Go back to the kosher thing. Right, you want to be very respectful of the traditions and the I don't want to call them rules because they're I guess they're kind of like rules but the ways that these people live their lives. You've got to be inclusive and open to those ideas and make people feel comfortable in your boat and in your presence with those ideas, and that, above all else, creates unforgettable experiences.
Speaker 1:And the other thing, too, with your guides, moving on from that topic, is I myself, more so than probably anybody, was very worried about being a great steward of the resource, because that was my bread and butter. Let's be real. A fishing lodge needs fish. There are all of these other experiences that you can pack around fishing, but you need to have that resource and you need that resource thriving to have a thriving business. There's ways of doing it without that, but it's not a fishing lodge Now, you're an ecotourism lodge and there's great value in that as well, value in that as well.
Speaker 1:But you really need to be a great steward of your resource and your guides play a vital role in that, in conservation, in teaching proper handling of the fish, like one of the things that I learned, especially with walleye, the upper French river. By the time you hit end of July into August and September, those walleye are schooling with small mouth in, you know, 35 to 45 feet of water and deeper. But we never fished any deeper than than 45 feet, or at least I didn't. And that was part of the part of the education that I was, I was giving to the, the guides, because what happens is in 40 feet of water, 42, 45 feet of water, when you're jigging for walleye on the bottom, if you hook a walleye and you reel it up like lightning, like really fast, because you're you're because you're a new angler, you're just learning what a walleye feels like and you're so excited to get it in the boat. You burn that prick right up from the bottom and all of a sudden, once that walleye hits the top of the water, its body is hard and then the swim bladder pops right out of its mouth because there's very few species of freshwater fish that can actually equalize from the pressure of being down 40 feet. Right, they can if you bring them up slow and give them a chance to equalize as they come. Lake trout can burp air out of their swim bladder to equalize. Walleye have a hard time doing that.
Speaker 1:So part of the conservation is educating as a guide. Educating your guests is educating as a guide. Educating your guests. And this happens when you have to find walleye that are in 40 feet of water because they're really tough to find anywhere else and you need to have shore lunge Like that is a priority. Educate your guests on when you hook them. Keep your rod tip taunt, keep it tight, keep a tight line and reel it up slow when they pull drag. Don't reel over the drag. Let the, let the fish pull the drag, use the bend in the rod as a as a as a tensioner to keep tension there and when they stop pulling, drag, keep that tension and reel again and bring them up nice and slow. That way, if they're not in the slot or you already have your limit, you can release that fish and it's going to swim back down and get back to where it needs to be and be no worse for the wear. So that is educating on fishing practices and how to catch fish and that's also teaching proper handling of that fish and also teaching people how to release that fish. And again, that goes for every species across the board.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're looking at muskie fishing, there's proper handling of those fish and I was always a proponent of. You know this was a topic and actually you know what I'm going to make a note to next time. We've got Matt O'Brien on, we're going to talk about this in a little bit but Matt was a big proponent of not letting the guests hold their fish, their muskies, because they're big creatures. They are majestically wonderful, awesome creatures and you know, when you start catching fish that are over 50 inches long, there's not a whole lot of them out there even 45s, right. So when you hand that over to a guest, you're relying on that guest to number one, not drop it. Number two, well, number one, not hurt themselves. Number two, not hurt the fish. And number three, not hurt the fish. And and number three, get pictures and it back in the water in a in a timely fashion.
Speaker 1:And, um, my point of view was the guest always gets to hold the fish. It's it's the responsibility of the guide to teach that guest how to properly hold that fish, even before they catch it. That's part of your discussion in the boat. That's part of the experience is talking at length if necessary on proper handling practices and teaching that guest how to hold that fish. Obviously, if the guest sees the fish and says, oh my God, you can hold that, for me that is absolutely acceptable and we always had ways.
Speaker 1:I would a lot of times when people didn't want to hold that fish, I would hold the fish and stretch my arms way out in front of me and have that person stand up between myself and the fish in between my arms and then take the picture that way, with the fish out in front of them, and I would hide behind them. Sometimes you hardly even knew it wasn't their arms holding the fish in the photo, right? But if somebody wants to hold that fish, if somebody has paid thousands of dollars to come to one of the number one musky angling bodies of water in the world to find that trophy, one of a lifetime fish, they, in my opinion, it's their right to hold that fish. And that was one of the not arguments, not arguments. It was one of the topics of debate that I would have with some of my muskie guides and anglers alike. So you know in closing, you know whether it's your first cast or your thousandth cast.
Speaker 1:A great fishing guide does more than just put you on fish. They help you understand the rhythm of the water, the pulse of the lake, and the stories that they can tell while they're doing it are second to none For do-it-yourself adventurers. There is definitely a place for that and we've discussed it. But I can tell you a seasoned guide can turn a fishing trip into a memory that will last you a lifetime. So you know what, the next time you're planning a trip up north, just consider the value of that local knowledge, because it is very real, and the stories that you get in the boat that you can then repeat around the campfire that night and the quiet moments on the water that a guide and only a guide can really give you, those moments when you don't have to worry about all of those things that we mentioned earlier, like getting lost, because in the end, it's not just about catching fish, it's about connecting with the land, the water and all of the people that are around you in that boat and folks.
Speaker 1:If you've got this far, thank you so much for listening to this episode. I really, really appreciate it and I appreciate you and listen. Our numbers have been growing and that is so awesome. But I would love for you to tell somebody to listen to one of these episodes. Pick your favorite and bring somebody else on and write down some comments. You can comment on one of these episodes. Pick your favorite and uh, and bring somebody else on and, um and uh, write down some comments. You can comment on Apple uh, um, uh, podcasts or um, wherever you know, like and do all of that stuff. All these different platforms do it a little bit different, um, but uh, your comments really help you know how to get a hold of us.
Speaker 1:You can get me at steve at fishincanadacom and Willie at Two Rivers Lodge. And again, thank you to our wonderful sponsors at Lakeside Marina. They are the best when it comes to just about everything and number one in customer service, which is huge um and uh. And head on over to the fishincanadacom website where you can get into free giveaways. The boys are on the road. They're uh up at hawk lake lodge, uh, with teddy putnam and uh, I, uh, I, uh I missed out on this one.
Speaker 1:We're spreading, spreading the love between Dino and Pete and Nick and Ange and I.
Speaker 1:So I backed off of this first shoot of the year, which was hard, heartbreaking but necessary.
Speaker 1:I've got so much work around here with the island and I'm actually, with this guiding podcast, thinking, not thinking I've decided that, yeah, I'm going to throw my name in the hat as far as guiding and renting the island and sharing that French River experience with people. Again, it is one of the things that I miss dearly about not owning the lodge on the French, and I do have the ability to rent out cottages. I have my main cottage and a bunkie and I've got a second bunkie that I'd stay in and have groups of people up, and you can do it yourself or you can take me as a guide. So if you're interested in booking a trip on the French River to do that, again you know how to get me Reach out, let me know and we can talk about some dates going into the fall. So again, fish and Canada free stuff. Thank you very, very much for listening and don't forget to thank our wonderful producer, anthony Mancini. And thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North.
Speaker 3:I'm a good old boy, never meanin', no harm. I'll be the all you ever saw Been railin' in the hog since the day I was born. Bendin' my, my rock, stretching my line.
Speaker 5:Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine.
Speaker 3:I'll be making my way, the only way I know how.
Speaker 4:Working hard and sharing the north with all of my pals. Well, I'm a good old boy. I bought a lodge and lived my dream, and now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems. Yeah, yeah, hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola, yeah, right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm, now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 5:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes, All the other guys would go golfing Me, and Garton Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists.
Speaker 5:Now that we're reforesting and it's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 2:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 4:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5:Back in 2016,. Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2:Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world. Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.
Speaker 5:Thus the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.
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