jnclement the guide I am speaking of IS on federal lands (Gila and Apache National Forests in western NM). The guide looks at his obscene tips as payment for all his hard work of finding and becoming familiar with LARGE bulls (380"+) by the time season rolls around. He has done so well in fact that his only job is the month and a half he spends guiding his clients during NM elk season. The rest of the season he spends with his family, doing a lil fishing and spending probably a LARGE percentage of his time slogging through the moutains looking for and becoming familiar with other large bulls for next year. Alot of guides go back to work in various trades in other locales. Not him, he has become so intimate with the elk in the Gila region that he has become good enough to make a handsome living off guiding them. Because he works harder (and MUCH longer) at it than most guides, I feel he is justified in his larger rewards. Though the hunters are only there for a small bit of time each year, he spends the better part of 12 mths out of the year doing something that relates too those very bulls that pay his bills. I think its a pretty neat gig he has going if you ask me.

As for the "rich hunters" ruining the sport in our lifetimes. Who do you think laid the groundwork for what became the restoration efforts of the first half century in the 1900s? Teddy Roosevelt, Nash Buckingham, Fred Bear, Ben Pearson, Roy Weatherby, Howard Hill... they get the name "rich hunters" tied too them many times in a conversation. Yet its EXACTLY men like them that we can thank today for doing ALOT for our sport. And sure, alot of it was directly influenced by the money that each of them had (some of them had family money). Ol Joe the clockpunchin stiff didnt have the time to get out and chase em from the 4 winds, alot of what we know about game and mgmt came from such hunting escapades of just such men. I for one am GLAD that there is money in the sport. Lord knows we couldnt count on the workin stiffs, the govt or anti-hunters to foot the bills in all cases. It had to come from somewhere.

BTW if you think ranchers/farmers are exploiting hunters now, just wait until the new farm bills aimed at reducing subsidies takes ahold. Lease rates will SKYROCKET. And thats not because Donald Trump took up deerhunting, its because Joe the oil filter jockey decided to buy his food at walmart because it was from South America and was cheaper. Likewise he also complained too his senators about how much money the "rich American farmers" were being paid in subsidies so the programs were cut or eliminated.

If it wasnt for the desire to "grow em big" and produce healthy herds in the name of economic prosperity, the elk herds of most western states would simply be like those of Colorado for much of the 70s through the mid 90s. Simply there to stop bullets. But through profit motivation and sometimes costly restrictions and conservation the trophy producing areas of the west are better now than perhaps ever before.

$$$$ aint always the evils of our society,
RA