ORIGINAL: Coues1
I have to tell you, it would be wrong, I see this point from two different perspectives.
1. If you guide this is his way of supporting his family, and although it is on state land he still has to support them.Now speaking of my buddy who is a guide, all state land is his and if he has clients down no one should hunt the area his clients are in, even though we used to hunt those same areas before he became a guide and is all public lands.
2. It is public land and my suggestion if you know how to hunt, do some research on the area via local biologists, sportsman stores, and ranchers and farmers, they will point you in the right direction, and bypass the outfitter all together, to avoid any conflict.
First - I won'tendure any sympathyfor the guy who's out making money from other guys on public land(whether it's to feed his family or make the payments on his wife's Escalade). What's to say the spot he's taking you isn't the same one I've hunted since before your "guide" was born? Maybe it's MY spot? Those deer feedMY family. Maybe instead of thinking about the "poor guide" you should think about the poor guy like yourself who has a job during the week and only gets out on weekends, slogs into this little area, in hopes of bringing venison back to his family every year?
Though I don't own pack animals, I do know people who do. And they hunt elk inthe wilderness areas right there with the outfitters. Are we saying that because a commercial enterprise makes money from this endeavor that you - as a private citizen - have no right to hunt there yourself?
On the flip side though, I don't know many folks personallywho'll PAY a guide to hunt in the first place. We've plenty of public land out west, and generally plenty of friends who'll bend over backwards helping someone get started hunting. If we run into a guide, it's pure accident - if we know him, it's from seeing him at the gas station. We've never paid him for game information, never will, and he'll never "guilt" us into giving up our access so that he can turn some coin.So, in that regard, I would say that we completely agree.