Hi Bowhunter, thanks for the compliment on the fish! I have two arms to my business: pond and lake management, for which I manage private waters for whatever the owner's goals are, whether those goals be trophy bass, trophy bluegill, nice-sized bass and bluegill both, etc.; and my guiding business, for which I spend my own money on eleven ponds and lakes from a half-acre to twenty-two acres in size, managing those ponds and lakes intensively for trophy bluegill. My agreement with the owners of the ponds I guide on, requires me to give half of whatever I make guiding, to the landowners.

When I began working with these ponds I guide on in 2009, I felt that there was an open niche in the world of guiding in respect to trophy bluegill. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of privately-owned waters in this country that are intensively managed for trophy bass, where anglers can pay $300 or $400 per person per day, up to $1000 per person per day, for the chance to experience bass fishing on a level typically not found on public waters; but, presently, I only know of one private water in the country that is open to anglers and that has bluegill fishing good enough that two-pound bluegill are common, and they charge $1000 per day per person, or $600 per person for groups of four or more. I began spending my own money on the ponds I guide on three years ago because I felt that if I were able to get the fishing in them to where it was comparable to that lake that has a good number of two-pound bluegill, and I charged half or less than half as much for anglers to fish, that people would beat a path to my door.

So, as of now, I'm about a year away in most of my ponds from having fishing comparable to the $1000/day lake; I have one pond that will give that lake a run for its money by March or April, and is already a better bluegill water than most people could ever imagine; but, unfortunately, it appears as of now that I overestimated the appeal of trophy bluegill to anglers, because the business is failing badly. I really didn't advertise the guiding service much before this year because I was still working on getting the ponds turned around, but I've been getting the word out on several sites for a few months now, and I've had several people ask about my rates; but I don't know if people are comparing said rates to guides who guide public water on which they don't have to split their fee with a landowner and haven't spent $20K getting the fishery to where it is, or if they're unaware of what comparable private waters charge, or the economy is bad and they just can't afford it, or what, but no one is booking trips. I had two guys fly in from Texas in July and they caught roughly forty bluegill over a pound, including four in the pound-and-a-half range, in three days of fishing, but those are the only two guiding clients I've had.

So I'll probably give it another year (assuming I can come up with a way to keep buying the fish food), and if it doesn't improve drastically, admit defeat.