Outfitter booking

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05-05-2020, 08:14 AM

#11

TwoBear

Fork Horn

Join Date: Jan 2011

Location: Beautiful Western Montana

Posts: 112

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Uncle

Most of the outfitters in the hard to draw units will have openings until hunters find out if they have a license. Some will gladly take a deposit to reserve spots until the draw results are out, and then either refund the deposit or apply them to future years. The easily drawn units with mostly private land are the ones booking quickly. I think it is pressure of dealing with the draw and the point creep that is pushing early booking.

This is accurate. Its the difficulty of getting a tag that is pushing back booking dates. In our case, because we are a small operation with high repeat business especially on the archery side, we don't even have many openings for first time hunters. We turn down more hunts then we book because of limited availability. To get a spot, folks are booking 2 years in advance and giving themselves a chance to build preference points. The draw situation becomes hard on outfits because it does compromise outfits that have heavy repeat business. One of the amazing developments I have personally witnessed is actually a surge in public land interest. Almost any pic of a bull posted online will have in the first few responses public or private? Over the last few years we have received calls from private land guys that want to do a public land hunt. Public land bulls have gotten to be more esteemed the private land bulls, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that feeling, just reporting what I have personally observed.