Found out a large outfitter is leasing up ground in my county and surrounding counties. I never cared much for oufitters, but paid little attention because they were always farther away. Now that they lease land not too far away, and are hitting up area farmers in a 4 county area........I have even less use for them. Am I venting? Yes. In the name of providing a service to NR hunters hoping to kill a big buck, its actually nothing more than 3 guys lining their pockets. And yes they are making damn good money. How else could they afford to place ads on the internet and in magazines and have their own website. But what I really am wondering is how many hunters lost a place to hunt when an outfitter came in and took over?[:@]

Am I cutting my throat here.....probably, but I hate outfitters.

I'm a outfitter in South Dakota and I want to tell you about the other side of the story. It does sound different than what you are running into but here goes. I am a seventh generation rancher and the majority of our income is from cattle and horses. We have wild mule deer, Whitetail deer, antelope, turkey, and some upland game on the ranch so why not take advantage of that and outfit? I do not go around leasing up every ranch I can but I do have arrangements with some local ranchers to hunt there place on a per animal bases and the land owner is welcome to have whoever he wants hunt the land that they own as well. This arrangement seems to be working very well and the other ranchers are very pleased with the extra income that they might get from the wildlife just like I am. I do take limited number of buck hunters but if some average Joe knocks on my door and wants to get some does for the freezer I never turn them down and actually take my time to go show them good locations for a opportunity. Plain and simple what I'm trying to say it is not all Outfitters are bad and taking up all of the land like you are generalizing them to do. As a matter of fact all of my antelope hunters have filled and gone home so I have contacted the local Game Warden and told him if he runs into anybody having trouble finding antelope to give me a call and so far this year I have helped several people out and they are more than thankful for my offer. We are not all bad when it comes to outfitters.

Them damn guides are terrible here in Minnesota as well with bear hunting. They don't even lease the land were hunting (State land) but they sure think they own it. We've been bear hunting in this particular area for 25 years, we were the first ones in this area, now 5 or 6 different guide's are in there and there trying to run us out but they ain't getting that lucky! These guide licenses should cost a couple grand and then maybe we wouldn't have so many around!

Need more like you!

I feel yaman, I never cared either until one day the landowner we hunt off of called us and told us there was some new arrangements. He had around 300 acres of prime "deer country" and an outifitter came in and bought half of it. Split itright down the middle. It really sucked because my dad's stand just happened to be 10 yards across the property line and he had killed very nice bucks out of it every year and they were all coming from the side that the Outifitter bought.

I can not believe the prices. 2000+ for a buck hunt, "Unguaranteed" at that. 1500 for a freakin shed hunt!!!!!! During a two week period, this guy brought in twelve hunters!!! 12x2,000= 24,000!!!! They didn't kill anything worth bragging about though

While it ticks me off when I think about it, there was only one positive from the whole thing. When he came in he tilled up a weed patch that held an amazing amount of deer- thats no good, but he turned it into a food plot. So now, I hunt the routes on my side of the property that lead to his food plot. While Im still a few hundred yards away from his property, I still get a kick out of knowing that Im harvesting the deer that he is spending all kinds of money to feed.

I also get a kick out of knowing that there are all these guys out there paying thousands to hunt the same land that I pay 40 bucks to hunt. I dont know, I just wish there was some way to keep so many people from doing it. Like a limit on the land bought or something. Before we know its going to be all outfitted. I read an article once talking about how rapidly people were getting into outfitting- it was unbelievable.

Unless you and your family owns a nice chunk of land to hunt you need to go ahead and start leasing the land yourself or you won't have anywhere to hunt. Farmers and ranchers need to have all the income they can get to to pay land taxes and help with other expenses.

Yes but unless we are going to guide ourselves we will be outbid by the guides and the wealthy. Sooner or later there will be only 2 kinds of hunters the wealthy and the poachers!!! When it gets to that I dont have a problem being the poacher.

That's happening quite a bit down in richland county too. One of my cousins just leased out a big piece of his land that several folks hunted. Of course, that's his right and his business. Its just sad to see POSTED signs going up all over the place where once a person could walk 4 miles without seeing one.
I'm lucky in that i bought a nice little piece of land a few years ago that is good for deer, turkey, and squirrels. But then again, if someone waved enough money in my face, i might start singing a much different tune.[8D]

Look guys you can't blame the outfitters to me thats like blaming the taxidermist ....all their trying to do is feed their family's and do something they love to do ...personally I blame the Bill Jordans ...Jackie Bushmans ...Mike Waddells of the hunting world ...they have SO publicized HUNTING with their TV shows that NOW EVERYONE wants to get that MONSTER buck ....which fuels theoutfitters with clients...supply and demand is the key and ALL these @#$%^ TV shows are mostly to blame IMHO

dd

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO D.D. ole buddy, ol friend, ole pal does this mean your idea for a show is
now KIBOSHED?
Hopefuully ya change your mind and get it going...
I agree with the fact everybodies into killing a big rack bucks but I don't think its because of shows, I personally think its because thses bucks offer huge returns in money, endorcements to the average hunter..
One can basically become a celeb over night...Hence the reason we now have not just the Boone and Crocket record book / Pope and Young but we have the SCI standandrd as well amongst others.....
I mean even replica racks of record breakingungultes are selling in the thousands of dollars......
My great uncle from England came over to visit my Dad and my uncles, and was telling us, our mounts that we have in our house (no intention of getting rid of at any cost) would go for thousands of CANADIAN dollars, and not one of themNETTED theofficial B&C min although a few gross over andcame close..
Even antler sheds are going at a high price went to a custom furniture shop outside of town, and a bench seat framed from moose and elk and elk antlers was selling for $2000
Antler chandiliers not much less..
These things sell and sell fast and he makes a crap load of money doing it......
With all racks I got, I'm thinking maybe I should attempt to fabricate some furniture up and selling it at a 1500% percent mark-up........
Bottem line all this stuff makes for people looking for animals with big racks..
If you can't make money by shooting a new world record, you can make money making furniture...
But getting back to the piont, I havn't lost my place to guide outfitters yet, but I have talked to them,
and they are under extreme amount of pressure to produce big animals with big racks for their clients..
I am good friends with many.....
It is happening More so now than ever before , and I can honestly tell you, it ain't a fun job and honestly I think I'd hate hunting pretty fast if Iwere one..