Anglers under 18: guardian signing and consent
How Fishing Outfitter handles a client under 18 — who signs, who can pay, and what never happens.
Fishing Outfitter treats 18 as the age a client can sign for themselves, platform-wide. It's checked at the moment of signing, so a blank or an already-recorded date of birth both work — if either one shows a minor, the guardian flow takes over.
18 is Fishing Outfitter's own signing threshold, not a legal determination for your state or province — British Columbia's age of majority is 19, for instance. It doesn't tell you whether a minor's waiver is enforceable where you operate; talk to your own counsel about that.
How a guardian signs
When a signer is under 18, the document names the angler and asks for the parent or legal guardian's full legal name and their relationship to them before it can be submitted. Both are recorded on the signing certificate alongside the signature.
No account of their own
A minor can't accept Fishing Outfitter's own Terms of Service, so no portal account is created for them. Their guardian's account handles booking, documents, and payment instead. The rule is scoped to clients — it has nothing to say about a guide's or a cook's age.
Linking a specific guardian
On a minor client's page you can link a guardian — an adult who is already a client of yours — so that guardian can sign and pay for them from their own login. The link is scoped to while the client is a minor: it stops working the day they turn 18.
SMS consent
If a client gives SMS consent before their date of birth is on file — on your public booking form, for example — and Fishing Outfitter later learns from that date of birth that they're a minor, the consent is cleared automatically: the flag, timestamp, and source are wiped and the change is logged. A minor is never left with an active marketing-text opt-in.
Guardian signing carries no plan gate — it's available on every plan.