I re-read my post that you are commenting on. I made it sound way worse than it actually is. I don't go in with a chip on my shoulder. I don't tell the guides their business. But, I do go in informed and if I think that things are a little fishy I tell them what I think. I'm not politically correct. If I think someone is full of carp, I tell them so. If I think someone is a Jacka$$ I tell them they're a Jacka$$. I don't beat around the bush. It definately rubs some wrong.

Skeeter don't take offense. But, If you get pee'd off if someone brings a topo then I don't want to hunt with you. Maybe, You don't do things the way I described but I assure you that other have and do. I once had a guide tell me that we couldn't go after a certain elk that we had spotted because in his words: "we might blow them off the mountain and not see them again." It would have been a tough stalk but it was do-able. Well, it was my last day of the hunt so what that told me was that he wanted to leave them for the hunters that where coming in behind me. He had been upset with me all week because I had passed on a rag horn. We had hunted where he had wanted to in the beginning.. It was an easy area, he could have got a truck to within a couple hundred yards of the carcass. I had asked a few times about an area I found on the map. I knew it was in his area. He was reluctant to go. He didn't want to hunt the area because he had more clients coming in.

I also had a guide get lost on the mountain. He was certain that we needed to go straight down a drainage. I told him that it led to a vertical drop that we couldn't navigate. I said that we need to crest a ridge and go down the other side. He, like you, said: "I'm paid to know this mountain" Well at dark we came to the vertical drop. We spent the night there. The next morning we went the way I wanted to go the evening before. I'm not complaining, it happens. I'm just pointing out that even guides are fallable.

I'm upfront with my outfitters when I book. I explain to them that I look at the guide as a hunting partner. We discuss our strategies, we discuss our routes, and we decide whats the best course of action. Sometimes we disagree. I say that it is no one else's responsibility to take care of me but me. Some get that stuck in their craw. They want to be in charge. They want to point and have me follow. Well, thats not me and I don't work that way. I don't book with those guys. I have experience too, I'm no Dude ranch hunter. If an outfitter is too wrapped up in himself to listen then I find another. Most times by about day two the quide realizes that I'm no city slicker and we end up being good friends. But, some get rubbed wrong from the beginning and never like me.