trophy guide service -day tours

The date of this trip was 25 June 2014. I reluctently waited to submit this review because I was trying to work with Trophy Guide Services for a partial refund. The trip was to begin at 6 am on the 25th. We received a call from "Sparky" the owner at 9:30 on the 24th asking if we could go out at 3 am instead. He said every thing was dead by 9 am - meaning no bites. We were at the dock by 2:45 am, Sparky showed up at 3:45 and began telling us he did not feel well, but since we were there he would go out anyway. He said he was late because his aireator failed and he lost all his bait fish. He then told us it was against the law for us to go out with him to get bait so we waited at the dock. Finally got onto the water around 4:40 am. We were about 200 yards from the dock when he powered down to set the outriggers. He asked if we knew how to drive the boat to get back to the dock becasue he was not sure if he could make it the whole trip. For the next 3 hours we trolled - never getting out of sight of the dock. It wasn't until the start of daylight that he left the area. I am convinced he wanted to stay close to the dock in case we needed to navagate back. He even told us don't worry about hitting the dock if you have to drive, just beach the boat in launch area. When we got back in he said to me I never felt this bad, I could hardly see the charts out there and - you guessed it, we never had a hit. A few days later I wrote to Sparky and told him my displeasure with our trip was not about not catching fish, in fact I had been out with Sparky on two other occassions - with the same result. That being that all was going to be well before we launched and 20 minutes into the trip all I heard was complaints from Sparky about the bad weather, the wind, I don't know where the fish went.So I will answer the obvious question, if two previous trips went bad why go on a third. This (3rd) trip was a gift. The people who purchased the gift only knew I had gone with Sparky before. I never mentioned that I would never recommend anyone going with him. This trip was for a party of three, myself and two teenage grandchildren. I tried to negotiate a partial refund (which by the way I was going to donate to someone else) but Sparky seemed to think you go out you take your chances.I have fished with charter captains all up and down the east coast. I know you take your chances. But there is also supposed to be a level of integrity. I relayed to Sparky that I felt he put us and himself at risk that night and he certaintly put the almightly dollar ahead of what a respectable Charter Captain would have done.You going to Raystwon Lake, you going out with a charter captain, well, you take your chances. But I firmly believe that Sparky from Trophy Guide Services is living off a reputation he made 25 years ago. I would rather float Raystown Lake in an inner-tube then go out with this guide service.

Trophy guide service is one man named Sparky Price. We attempted to fish Striper with a 4 man group in mid july 2013 and were sadly disappointed with the bait and switch that was pulled. To begin with, the trip was to begin at 1:00am. We waited on the doc for an hour before the boat finally appeared. Getting aboard the boat, we noticed that there were not enough seats to accommodate 4 fishing and a captain. as a result, one of us was made to sit on a bucket in the middle of the deck ( not very safe or comfortable for a 6 hour trip). Once we were on the boat and out on the lake, Sparky then identified that we would be "taking turns" fishing rather than everyone getting a pole and trying their luck. This would not have been an issue if the cost per person was not close to $100. Clearly, this boat was not setup for four fishermen, but sparky had no problem keeping this information to himself until we were out on the water. As you may have guessed, the fishing was terrible. This guy had no clue where the fish were even with a fish finder. We fished 4.5 hours with absolutely no action. It was not until about 6:00am that Sparky allowed us to change the bait and move to Alewife. We had a little luck with a couple of hits but the opportunity only lasted literally 15 minutes right before the sun came up. The issue here with the tiny boat was that we finally got our own rod, but Sparky was consistently in the way setting up rods that when a hit came in, we could not get to the line because he was in the way. Still no fish caught.This was the worst charter I have ever used: boat too small, didn't change bait for 4.5 hours so we missed all opportunity to catch anything else, and the guide was less than the experienced fisherman we were looking for. He may have been good at this in the 80s (nice pic on the website from over 30 years ago.....very misleading), but not anymore. Definitely use anyone but trophy guide service.

My son and I were at Raystown Lake in July for a weekend vacation, then came back again for the fishing in October. Both times we chartered fishing trips with Trophy Guide Service. Sparky was our guide and the trip was well worth every penny we paid. In July we went for Striper and caught a few big ones, as well as one that got away but felt bigger on the line than any of the others we caught. In October we came back for Musky...we didn't land any of them but my son caught a huge smallmouth bass (the second biggest one he's ever caught) and he hooked a huge walleye, but that one ran under the boat and cut the line on the prop before we could land it. Before this year I've been mainly a shore fisherman, but this was definitely a more enjoyable way to spend the day fishing!