The most I've spent on a guided hunt is about 4500. As far as your second question I'm planning on dishing out quite a bit of money when I head to New Zealand for my Stag hunt. They charge trophy fee's there and I'm expecting to spend around 15,000 when I'm there. As far as whitetail hunting goes no I'm not going to spending that type of money on whitetail because I have enough time to hunt frequently enough. I do however know people who have spent that much money on whitetails. They were hunting in a high fenced area however. I don't know of any whitetail outfitters in the US that are charging that type of trophy fee on a free ranging animal though I do expect to start seeing it soon. A guide charging trophy fee's like that is going to have a lot of time in to find the larger deer. Its going to be a full time job year round. He'd likely be planting food plots on the land for each phase of the deer's yearly cycle. He's going to be out in the field frequently learning the patterns. Once he's found a deer that is going to go 200 inches he's going to stay on top of where that deer is at pretty much all the time. So again people are trading money for time/skill. Its no different than someone paying a contractor to build a house. You don't know how to do it so you pay someone who does. Or you dont' have time to do it. In the end you still say you built your house .