RE: Guided hunts
Having done a lot of east coast whitetail hunting and now moved to Oregon it has become obvious us and I mean just about all of the east self proclaimed experts don’t have a clue about the big country. Game densities and travel distances are totally different. Most east coast forests deer stay in a square mile or so. Western areas you are talking hundreds of square miles if not thousands. Some bear travel 30 miles on way a day, square that and you have 900 square. Kind of like the area of all of South Jersey Pine Barrens. I am new to this and was good at scouting the east coast deer. Out here I am awed. You will wait 10 years or more for a bighorn tag and a 6 to 8 animal heard probably roams 100s of miles. I want a guide for my chance of a life time that has been doing the scouting and can get me real close. Seasons are only days long and pack ins to a general area take days. So how is a newbie to the area going to do his own scouting, get real. Knew an outfitter in Alberta who takes six or so hunters a week at a time and his scouted stands are 20 miles apart and took many years to set up in the correct spot. Does it seem likely that even an expert has a chance of locating game in a week. I don’t think so. You really need to be dropped off in the middle of no where out west to see how humbling it is.