In your opinion as a sport fisherman, is there any difference between a pilot and a fishing guide? Have you noticed that there are places and situations where one term is used more than the other?

It's true to say that both have important activities and responsibilities within the context of fishing and shipping. The fact is that while there may be substantial differences between the two terms, in some cases they can even complement each other.
This means that we shouldn't think that one function is superior to the other or that one can exclude the other. It is very common for a fishing guide to be called a pilot and vice versa. This is because the vast majority of people are unaware of the difference between one concept and the other.
What is a pilot?

In essence, a pilot is the person responsible for steering the boat to the fishing spots, or in other words, as the name implies, piloting the boat.
Through their in-depth local knowledge, the pilot has the skills to navigate safely, even in the most extreme situations.
Most of the time, the pilot is a river dweller, born and bred in the region where they work and, therefore, they have navigated the area in the most diverse conditions, whether in times of drought, flood, rain, wind or even storms.
Thus, the pilot is an expert on the canals, sandbanks, rocks and submerged structures, lagoons and streams.Often the pilot is also an artisanal fisherman and therefore knows where the fish are in a given region.
Fishing is constantly evolving and, as a result, new methods and equipment are launched onto the market year after year. Tourists, fascinated by fishing, tend to follow the most diverse innovations and often pilots are unable to keep pace with this evolution.
Whether it's because they don't need to, since the vast majority of fishing activities are geared more towards family sustenance, or because they don't have access to these market innovations, many pilots end up being out of date with the development of new fishing techniques and equipment.
This often means that the pilot is limited to just piloting the boat, taking tourists to the place where the fish are, without being able to give any other instructions related to the equipment and its techniques, since they may not know how to correctly handle the equipment that the tourists have.
Due to this lack of knowledge in the proper handling of equipment, pilots often start taking orders from tourists about what they should do, such as where they should stop the boat, how they should position it, how far they should leave the boat from structures and the shore, among other things.
The Current Fishing Guide Concept

The concept of a professional fishing guide, on the other hand, is more up-to-date and tends to keep pace with the fishing market and its developments.
Fishing guides are professionals who are not only dedicated to guiding the boat, as a pilot does in the sense of navigation, but are also capable of bringing some new teaching to the client, passing on some fishing technique and instructing what should be done to catch a certain species in a certain environment.
The fishing guide must be a proactive professional, who is constantly observing everything that happens around him and especially inside the boat, realizing what his client's real needs are so that he can always work towards their satisfaction.
Unlike piloteiros, a fishing guide is not always a river dweller or was born in the same place where he works as a professional. But that doesn't stop them from dedicating part of their time to acquiring this knowledge from a local expert and then taking on the role of fishing tourism guide in that location.
We can also say that the fishing guide is the captain of the boat, i.e. he or she is in charge and must say what can and cannot be done on the boat during the fishing trip and not merely submit to taking orders from clients at all times during the fishing trip.
Therefore, a fishing guide also has important functions such as planning a route to lead his clients safely to the best fishing spots, trying to keep his clients satisfied at all times, passing on knowledge and technical instructions on fishing and handling equipment.
The Demand For Trained Fishing Guides

With the globalization of the market and increasingly sophisticated technological innovations, the number of more demanding clients is growing, which is why the demand for more qualified fishing guides is becoming ever greater, and there is also a need for sport fishing lodges to be increasingly up-to-date and well-prepared to cater to the most diverse types of public.
In addition to this, there is a big growth in the fishing world, which is the emergence of high-end lodges, also known as “Fishing Lodges”. Because of their promise to provide a complete and high quality service, these lodges have an even greater need to constantly develop and train their fishing guides.
The Fishing Guide and Boat Pilot Complement Eachother

As mentioned above, the roles of a pilot and a fishing guide can complement each other.
According to needs, there are fishing lodges that have brought the two together, in which pilots and fishing guides work together on the same boat.
An example of this is Untamed Angling's operations in Brazil, where international fishing guides are placed to work together on the same boat with pilots (local river dwellers or indigenous people from the region), serving clients from the most diverse foreign nationalities.

This is a high-end fishing operation specializing in fly fishing. It is therefore essential to have a guide on board who is fluent in other languages to communicate with foreign tourists, as well as being knowledgeable about fly fishing, which is the sport practiced by the clients.
Since these specialized fishing guides are brought in from different regions and even from other countries to work on these operations, it is essential that a pilot is able to steer the boat safely while the fishing guide is able to pay full attention to serving the clients with the quality they deserve.
When there is this integration, the most common thing is for the operation to have a fishing guide specialized in a particular sport and a local pilot, plus two clients on board in the same boat.
In some cases, given the complexity of the location, as is the case at Kendjam Lodge, the fishing operation can have up to three people on board making this integration, where a second pilot is placed at the bow of the boat acting as a pointer, helping with the paddling and guiding the boat in the safest direction through his frontal view, while a professional fishing guide stays in the middle of the boat attending to clients and the other pilot stays at the stern, piloting the engine.
