All,

Before I go off half cocked I wanted to put the following situation to the board. While on a recent family vacation I went on a 1/2 day guided trip with a guide service I hadn't used before. Before scheduling the trip I looked into all their reviews (Facebook, Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, etc). Overall they were incredibly positive (4+ Stars) so I felt pretty secure in scheduling a trip with them. My only requirements were that we not fish two rivers I've fished extensively on previous trips to the area. The person I spoke with on the phone indicated that wouldn't be a problem as they had plenty of water available to them. On the day of the trip I got to the shop at the requested time and met my guide for the day. He indicated I asked to fish a specific river (I hadn't), and that he thought fishing that river would be "tough" based upon comments he'd received from another guide. I indicated that wasn't a problem and what suggestions did he have. I was told the best bet was to "fish in town". Now here is where the issue started as I specifically stated when booking the trip that I had fished this river many times and didn't have any interest in fishing it on a guided trip (I do pretty well on this river without help), and asked what other options we had and I listed two other rivers I knew the shop can guide on. I was essentially told that neither were fishing well and our best bet was the river in town. I reluctantly agreed but honestly felt like my request to fish elsewhere was being refused under the guise of "other rivers are fishing better". I base this on having visited the shop a few days prior and getting the scoop on area waters. When talking to personnel in the shop all said, don't fish the river in town fish any of these other rivers (two of which were the very rivers the guide told me weren't fishing well). I'm not big on complaining and I was willing to defer to the guide that my best chance of catching fish was in town. Well the trip started out decently well with the guide seeming to know what he was doing. On the second cast I had a fish on and the guide netted it, and before I could even state I wanted a picture he'd released it. I commented immediately that I'd wanted a picture (it was a nice sized fish for the river) and he sort of apologized but stated "there will be others". Well....long story shorter, for the next 3 hours there weren't any other fish. Finally, in the last hour after having spent the prior 3 watching the guide go from one fly to another trying to find something the fish would bite on we found a hole where the fish were biting and managed to catch a few more really nice sized fish before our time was up. In addition when we returned to the shop and settled up I was charged for 7 flies, but I only received 2 from the trip and lost a single fly to an overhanging tree. There was no discussion of where the other 4 flies had gone (into the guides pocket I'm 100% sure).

So we come to the questions of the situation:
1. What did I as the customer do wrong? Did I misstate my preferences or should I have stuck to my guns and demanded to fish one of the other rivers rather than than fishing "in town" (in other words did I give in too easily)?
2. Should I bring this whole situation to the attention of the shop owner, or take it as a learning experience and not use them in the future?
3. Should I post my experience to the same sources I read reviews on so others are aware there may be "issues" with the shop? Or should I only post a negative review of the shop if, after contacting the owner, I don't receive a satisfactory response.

If before commenting anyone feels additional information is necessary please either PM me directly or let me know via the board.

Thanks,
Brian