About Mike
Captain Mike, your Lake of the Ozarks guide
Mike is a U.S. Coast Guard certified and insured guide, and Mike's Guide Service is one man and one boat. When you call, he answers. When you book, he is the one taking you out.
He was twelve, on a family holiday at Kalfran Lodge, when he found a Zebco 33 someone had left behind with a Firetiger Rebel crankbait still tied on the end. He made something like a thousand casts that day and did not catch a single fish. Nobody in his family fished. He has never been able to explain where it came from.
At eighteen he bought a sixteen-foot bass boat. It was not much of a boat and the motor never did run right, so 1998 and 1999 went on trying to get it running and, when it would not, trolling around PB2 until he was very good at trolling around PB2. He caught some nice fish off it anyway.
From 2005 he fished the Bassmaster Weekend Series as a co-angler, travelling the Midwest and watching very good anglers work at close range. What he took from it was less about catching fish than about how serious anglers read a lake they have never seen. In 2012 he bought a real boat, a twenty-foot Triton, and started making the drive to the Ozarks nearly every weekend.
A friend of his, Jack, had been guiding here since the 2000s, and watching him do it was what put the idea in Mike's head. He took a few trips of his own in 2014 and found he liked putting somebody else on their first fish more than catching it himself. In 2017 he went all in — Coast Guard licence, website, guide service — and he has been on the water most days since, fishing with people he has never met. A good number of them have stopped being strangers.
Ten thousand hours on this lake. He is still out there most days.
The boat
A 21-foot Phoenix with a 250 Mercury on the back
It is a proper bass boat, not a rented aluminium hull. Fast enough to cross the lake when the fish move, and stable enough that nobody is nervous standing up to cast. It fishes best with Mike and two anglers — everyone has room to work without crossing lines.
- Boat
- 21' Phoenix bass boat
- Motor
- 250HP Mercury Pro XS
- Anglers
- One or two, plus Mike
- Live sonar
- Garmin LiveScope
- Imaging
- Humminbird side & down scan
- Trolling motor
- Minn Kota Ultrex, Spot-Lock
How he runs a day
What it is like to fish with him
- He works at it
- The phrase that comes up most in his reviews is some version of worked hard to get us on fish. If a spot is not producing you do not sit on it out of politeness — you leave and go to the next one.
- He teaches if you want teaching
- Some people want to be told exactly where to cast and why. Others want to be left alone to fish. Mike reads which one you are within about ten minutes and runs the day accordingly.
- Nobody gets ignored
- Two anglers is the number for a reason. With two people fishing, Mike can actually help both — retie a knot, unhook a fish, put a kid back on the spot that just produced. A third is possible, but it is a busier boat.
- He does the unglamorous parts
- Rigging rods, netting fish, taking hooks out, and cleaning your catch at the end. You are paying for a day of fishing, not a day of chores.
On board
What comes with him
You bring a fishing license and something to keep the sun off. Everything else is already in the boat.
- Rods, reels, jigs, lures and bait for everyone on board, matched to what you are fishing for that day.
- Garmin LiveScope and Humminbird imaging, which is how Mike finds brush piles and the fish sitting on them rather than guessing.
- Life jackets, ice-cold water, and lunch on the eight-hour trips.
- Fish cleaning at the end, so you leave with fillets rather than a job to do at home.
“I’ve booked multiple days with Mike for the last four years. He knows the lake and puts you on ’em. Mike is my first call when I need a bass guide.”
Go fishing with Mike
Four, six or eight hours at a flat $100 an hour. Call or text and he will tell you straight what the fish are doing.