And every once in while you can watch a colossal food fight. That happened recently when a member of the forum posted a seemingly innocuous question: What are the 10 Biggest Mistakes Clients Make When Chartering?

It rapidly went downhill from there. I printed out 36 pages of responses and comments to that question and it wasn’t pretty. I’ve gone through it all to sort out the real responses to the questions for the benefit of all of us who use fishing guides. I’ll post those later. But what was amazing about the posting was the attitudes of some of the charter captains. They were shocking not just to me, but to lots of other forum participants as well.

The debate really got started when one captain cited “undertipping” as one of the mistakes his clients apparently make frequently. One reader responded that undertipping would fall under the category of “expectations not communicated before booking the charter,” i.e., the captain’s fault. That was quickly echoed by another reader: “I don’t get the tipping thing either. If you (the captain) need more then charge more. Tips should not be expected.”

The captains fired back. “What about the fact that we have to make you happy for 4 to 8 hours straight no matter how bad a fisherman you are or how bad the weather is and you still wanna go…remind me never to take you out on a charter.”

BAM! That got a quick response: “Remind me to NEVER book you for a charter…You sound like you are in the business for the wrong reasons.”

And then it got hot. One well-known charter captain and frequent participant on the forum cranked up his own set of 10 rules, including:

• Turn your cell phone off. If it rings I may ask to see it and I am known to have slippery hands. Whatever it is, it can wait. No stinking IPODS either.
• Put your stuff away where I tell you to.
• Do what I tell you to do.
• No stripping baskets or River Runs Through It vests. Wear one and you’ll go for a swim.
• No singing.
• It’s my boat. I’m the Captain. You pay me to show you what I know. If I want to know what you know, I’ll ask.
• Enjoy yourself.

“When I pay good money I expect to answer my own damn phone anywhere I want to.”

“Man, I really hope (the captain in question) was joking. If not who in their rights minds would hire this guy?”

“If you really think fishing on your boat is more important than my Mother’s telephone call then you have some very real issues…if you have ‘slippery hands’ with my personal property then you will pay for it. One way or the other—you will pay for it.”

“Did you just put in writing on the Internet that you would purposely attempt to murder someone for wearing a vest on your boat? You O.K., buddy?”

“The title of this thread should have been hey, captains, let’s hear you complain about your clients. How about a list for captains:

• Park over the same beat up rock until you build a chum slick of undersized snapper.
• Stick close to shore—saves gas.
• Provide plenty of stale bait diced into tiny pieces.
• Have your mates treat experienced fishermen like children and then expect big tips.”

Not that it was all bad. Most of the readers found one captain’s response to be precisely what they were looking for: “There are no mistakes any client of mine can make, only unfortunate occurrences that may cause an inconvenience….Remember, it’s customer service, not US doing them a favor.”

And I must say that I’ve never had a bad charter trip. The guides I’ve fished with—Bill Taylor on Black Dog out of Jupiter, Gary Rhinehart and Joe Ward in my neck of the woods, Bert Barkus down in Chokoloskee and Greg Mercurio on the Yankee Captains in Key West, among others—have been extremely helpful, good humored and lots of fun as fishing partners.

Still, the overall tone was highly negative. As one forum participant put it: “This thread may have set back the guiding business by twenty years!!”