Howler

The cost for THE hunt is very affordable, but we'd still have to get airline tickets and then pay extra to get the meat and cape/antlers back here, which would also not be cheap. And does the $400 include food, lodging, and meat preperation/butchering/packaging for flight to the USA?

salukipv1

By the way they aren't getting any cheaper...so if you plan to make the same money in 5-10years as you do now, go sooner than later. One way to save is to draw a quality tag, and hire a guide, vs. buying guranteed tags. In some cases, such as elk etc.....you can get a $10,000 hunt for $5-6,000. Also it's the only way some guys will ever hunt some states etc.....I've seen I believe in cabelas hunts brochure some utah elk hunts going for 25-35k, draw the tag for.....$800 and go DIY on public land.

glockman55

Guides are gonna price themselves out of a job..which ain't all bad.

stuckinthereeds

Not only with the other answers you have recieved, but usually when you go to an outfitter, your hunting for trophy animals that will score and look big. A lot of hunters dream of putting down a huge 7x7 elk or a 5x5 whitetail with tines 14 inches long. Hunters want that, they will pay for it, hence that what outfitters will charge. However, that doesn't change the fact that we all wish they were cheeper.

Dave R

Blaserman-

I hear what your saying. Problem is, I am planning to go solo for elk w/ a bow in which case I need to either get paired up with a guy I don't know or pay an extra $500-1,000 for 1 on 1.

There are other unknowns which I plan to know: Like some hunts start @ noon the first day and end at noon the last day ... so a 5 day hunt is now 4 full days and 2 half days. Given the time it takes to get to hunting grounds and get a on an animal 1/2 days don't sound too promising.

Also, landowner tags Vs. drawing thru a guide there's another $1,000 difference in cost. This stuff is new to me as I've always hunted w/out an outfitter.

homers brother

This one is always and without question my biggest peeve about hunting today. I know a couple of guys who "guide" during elk and deer season. They know what they're doing. Trouble is, they're like the waiters in the restaurant. They don't set the prices, they just put you on the game and hope you tip them well.

The guys who OWN the elk camps (horses, outfits, etc.) and who have the money to LEASE UP all the available private land are the guys who are the problem here, second only to the guys (maybe some of them here reading this) who will PAY for expensive hunts like that. Most of these guys couldn't tell their own behinds from a hole in the ground when it comes to game - they know MARKETING, and they know ECONOMICS.

Everything I do is DIY (with the exception of halibut fishing in AK, now that I sold my boat). I absolutely REFUSE to support people who are only into hunting only because of the MONEY (it's not about the chase to them, or the tradition). Even more disgusting are all these magazine writers who get onto these "trophy hunts" - oh, yeah - in exchange they have to put a plug in for the outfitters, always "the best in the business". Nothing is free. Nothing is honest anymore, either.

I'll always have more respect for the guy who hangs a littleforkhorn on his wall from a DIY hunt somewhere else, over some guy who has money and paid someone to show him what to shoot, even if it is a 5x5.
Sure, the guides need to make money too. I've no problem paying them directly, it's those guys they work for that I (and often they) have the issues with.

And I'll second that a WY antelope hunt is a great DIY opportunity. They're all over the place, though many of these "outfitters" have leased up much of the private land. Thank goodness for BLM.

907Alaska

Ecomonics is the reason I hunt pigs here in California..Cheap... its public land and you have to chase them a little, but if you want a guided or semi-guided hunt on private land and ranches here, for pigs in most cases it will cost you 325.00 to 500.00 a pig and the success rate is high, and there are a ton of pig ranches here to chose from.I actually spend a little more than that chasing them around the Los Padres Nat. Forest. because it takes more time to scout for them, sometimes 2-3 days sometimes maybe 4 days. A guided hunt here with a fairly good success rate is probably only one day. I actually hunt 50% NFS land and 50% semi-guided hunts. 325.00 to 500.00 for a pig is not to bad, and these are not high fenced hunts either. Some hunts here you can take 2 for 475.00...you just have to travel a little further north from where I am at. In our present state of the economy here, there are alot of these guys here in Cal. that are willing to discount the pig hunts, espicially the semi-guided ones. Like one guy said if people stop paying for those 7500.00 hunts, the price will fall eventually.

ironranger

TXHunter58, you are right about that. If you get a few guys going it's really not that much money. I went to CO last fall on an archery hunt and went solo which cost more. Can't recall all cost but payed $310 for round trip flight, borrowed friend's truck from Denver to hunting area, $510 for license, probably $300 for food, gas& Misc, Around $150 to get elk processed and frozen, Extra $70 to ship bow plus gear bag, about extra $50 to bring two coolers full of meat as luggage, and that was about it.
That's about $1390 solo and the price gets cut when you share driving expenses.

I started hunting out west back in 1996 and have gone on 7 elk and 3 mulie hunts. I've had a great time on every hunt and have had some up and downs along the way. I'm single with no children so it's much easier for me to justify and afford doing these. Just don't wait until you are too old to experience it if you can do it. You won't regret it.

LlindeX

I agree, hunting with an outfitter is more expensive than alot of us can afford, myself included. It's a shame, but a large part of that expense is caused by the rules and regulationsour government hascreated on guides/outfitters. In most states, Just anybody can't set-up shop and start charging to take us hunting. In nearly every state, there are mandatory training & testingin safety, emergency first aid, guide skills, etc. that they must first take & pass. Then after they get all of that out of the way, they have to purchase a guides license. Usually, that's from someone who already has one because the state has put a limit on the number of guides/outfitters it will allow & theyhave already filled all available guide licenses. Next, in alot of places they have to find landowners willing to lease them hunting rights to private property within the area they are licensed to hunt. Even on public land, they have to apply for the exclusive rights to guide hunts in a given area of the National Forest.Once againvirtually all of those rights have been previously assigned to someone. Thus, again, they are looking for an existing outfitter willing to sell their rights to hunt in a given area of public land. Once they get all of that lined up, they then have to purchase or lease all of the tents, horses, stoves, bedding, lanterns, trucks, trailers, fuel, etc necessary to get their new clients to the camps. Finally, since they only have the short period of time alotted to hunt (the season), they must take on enough clients simultaneously to make the operation pay enough to cover expenses and make a decent living. Finally, do to our current "sue everybody climate" here in the U.S, you can't forget the cost an outfitter must put out to purchase insurance for his business. Ever look into what it costs to purchase the insurance necessary to cover you and your businessif you have an bunch of guys with rifles climbing aboard horses and heading up the side of a 40 degree slope?? Not to mention the fact that no one can guarantee howmuch experienceyour clients have either handling horses orusing firearms. Think about how much it costs you to get liablity insurance on your car, then think about how much it must cost to get liability insurance against the possible lawsuits if a client were to get killed by another client or seriously injured by a horse or mule. Heck, even the insurance to cover the possibility of a client having a heart attack and dropping dead while on a hunt would cost a small fortune since his/her family may just decide that they want to holdyou responsible in a court of law. At any rate, all of those things add up. And any outfitter must cover those costs in just a few short weeks every year. (By the way, I'm not an outfitter; never have been, and have only used an outfitting service once in my life. That was on a bighorn sheep hunt & I had no other way to get myself and my gear into the hunting area. I checked, and it was going to cost me almost as much as I spenton the guide just to rent the horses to do a proper job of scouting, and then rent them again for the hunting season. Guess what, once again, when I checked into why, I found out our state has regulations dictating who and how many people can rent pack animals within the National Forest. There are also regulations dictating how much insurance such an individual must have in order to rent horses on public land. Not to mention the fact that when you take pack animals into the national forest, you must also pack in "certified weedless" feed for them while they are there.And thanks to PETA, we now have regulations dictating how the animals must be looked after while they're being kept in the hunting camp.)

Regards, & Good Huntin',
LlindeX

SwampCollie

The answer can be found at the intersection of the supply and demand curve.

Economics 101 my friend.