What age for kids in the boat?

[thaDudeAbides]

If they bring young kids, adult guest does NOT fish, only supervises kids. Guides are not baby sitters. I have 7 and 9 year olds. When on a guided trip I am just an assistant guide and only people fishing are the kids...period.

[SuperDave336]

Took my 2 yr old and 5 yr old out today for first time. Wasn’t long and they crying and ready to leave. 1- 1.5 hr is all and it started getting rough.

[chaunc]

Post an age limit of your choice on your web page and be done with it.

[Ketchn]

attention spans for children are pretty short , like 3 minutes maybe per year old .
under 10 is likely going to be a lot of work on the water .
my 8 year old can do about 20 before drifting for 20 ….

[fiveeyes]

13................

[BuckeyeCrappie]

I would say 13 as well.

[Schmoopie]

When you say "guide charter", do you mean a guided trip where you are taking 1-3 other people who are all in the same family/group and booked together? If we're talking about a shared charter where strangers will be on the same boat as other strangers (like deep sea trips), the answer is way different.

Assuming it's the "family" type trip, then there are pros and cons to taking any age, so I'll stick to the "no age limit" side since others have weighed in on why not to take them.

First and foremost, make sure to have a liability waiver that both your attorney (and you need to operate as a corporation for the protections) and your insurance company agree with. It'd be something essentially that you are not responsible for any personal injuries on your boat.

Here are the pros:

Kids have a short attention span. I've heard 2 mins for every year of age. So, a 4 year old can handle 8 minutes. You could very easily get a "look, the kid can't handle this, lets end the trip early." Full pay, short day

Seeing a kid's face light up with the monster (3 inch) fish they just caught.

Other thoughts:

The parent may just want some bonding time with the child. If you're trolling, perhaps you'll go to fewer rods so that when you get into the fish, you don't have 8+ rods going crazy at once. The kid just wants to catch fish (or the parent thinks that's what the kid wants).

Kids won't listen to their parents, but will listen to other adults. It's an odd thing, but it's true. So, if dad tells the kid that you need to be patient, the kid ignores it. But when a "professional fisherman" tells them to let it hold a little longer, they suddenly aren't deaf. To go along with the previous comment, perhaps the kid has shown an interest in fishing and wants someone to show them how.

Based on the conditions, explain to the parent up front (during booking) that you may have to utilize certain tactics to locate and catch the fish. For instance, if you're spider rigging, your attention is on the trolling motor. You can't just stop the boat for every fish. Explain that the parent will be handed the rod with the fish on it and the parent will need to help the child.

Explain what YOUR services are (and aren't). For instance "My service is to put you on fish; I cannot guarantee anything other than bites" (assuming you have a no fish=free trip policy). With small children, the catch rate will be considerably reduced as children simply need more time and opportunities to catch fish.

Also, offer the chance to go "perch jerking" if it's just about numbers of fish. Sometimes, it's just about "I want my kid to have fun and catch a lot of fish, but don't care what we catch".

Mention to the parents that you are (or aren't) a "G-rated" guide, meaning like movie ratings. In other words, you aren't going to use foul language. I had a guide in Texas tell me that people would call and ask if he was "g-rated" and said no, and the parents would say "I can't believe how hard it is to find one" and he finally asked what "g-rated" meant because he was clearly losing opportunities. He thought it was like a certification or "approval" from some "professional association". Nope, they just wanted a guide that was family-friendly.

If you do take kids, I'd suggest docking the boat and before everyone loads up, go over basic equipment you'll use, how that equipment works, what to expect, what not to expect, and demonstrate how to cast the equipment, how to retrieve, how to set the hook, and so on.

One other thing, ask the dad if the kid has a fishing pole. If he says "we'll get one", steer them away from those danged barbie or scooby rods. Steer them toward a $20 zebco 33 combo if at all possible. Keep a spool of say 8# line (no point in 2# line on a zebco 33) on board and offer to strip and re-spool the reel before starting (unless it comes with decent line).

Also, be sure to ask what the customer wants from the trip. It may be the dad wants to fish and mom said "take junior with you", in which case, tell dad to load up some games for the kid on the phone and tether it to something so the kid will stay in one part of the boat and not lose the phone .

Also, suggest that both parents come along, even if one parent doesn't care about the fishing. This will allow dad to do his guide trip and mom can take care of entertaining little Billy. (gender bias notwithstanding)

[SeaRay]

In SC any child 12 or younger MUST wear a CG approved life vest suited to their size.
Don't know about other states but that's a common ticket item in SC according to DNR.

[JET4]

I'm going with 13 also

[M R Dux]

Thanks for the replies. I run a family friendly, no alcohol operation but I feel many parents today totally give raising their kids to anybody else. I dealt with a 6 year old the first year I was guiding who totally ruined the trip simply because the trip was for Grandpa, who was Stage 4 cancer, and the kid's Dad had never told the kid the word NO. I want to be fair to those kids who are gung-ho about fishing and want to learn but it's hard to make that decision until I get the kid in the boat. I've had many good family trips with kids under 10 but the kids were supervised by adults who wanted the trip to be all about the kids.

Vicki and I talked about this last night and I think I'm going with each child, 8 and over, must be accompanied by a supervising adult who will be totally responsible for that child. While it doesn't happen often, the requests have come in after this virus and I just need to take care of it the best way I know how.