Thread: Why do people use a guide?

Have never paid for a guided hunt but about 14yrs ago won a Speights comp. where the prize was a wekend guided hunt/fish trip on Nokomai Station., Otago. Have to say myself and two mates thoroughly enjoyed it and we're all experienced hunters/fisherman.We got choppered to areas,guides were knowledgeable and friendly,game plentifull. I can see why people go down this route if they don't have time/skills or whatever to do it on their own and good on them. Personally I'm happy getting out most weeks for a recreational hunt and taking my chances.

For some people's success rates of going with helisika they are better off going to Ngamatea and smacking over an animal or 2. Think you can split the guide cost and a meat animal is cheap so could work out the same or cheaper depending which block.you wanted to go

I've been fishing a long time and don't enjoy charter trips. Half the challenge is finding fish and working out what gear to use. If a skipper drives you to the fish and tells you what to do, it isn't a challenge and it's really a matter of luck which rod the fish jump on. I feel the same about guided hunting despite being a novice. Having said that, I live in Northland, and neither have hunting buddies further south, or know any particular block well. With a full time job and young family, the logistics of doing the hard yards are not realistic, so understand why others use a guide.

Incidentally, I have been on a guided hunt on DOC land. It was a birthday present from the wife. Wasn't a great experience. Guide didn't seem like he wanted to be there. Fair enough, we all have shit going on, but work is work and part of being a professional is sometimes putting on a smiley face.

I have organised at least 20 social club trips on private property, most trips someone gets their first ever deer and most members got there first and subsequent deer on these trips.
Its about the only way to guarantee 4-8 guys all newbs with little or no gear get a animal or two in a weekend.
Normally I am left to self guide another member or two and I really enjoy teaching the basics.

They would probably never happen if they cost 700 plus per animal tho...our costs are more often 250-400 per amimal.

I mentioned only a week ago to a guide I could see the attraction of a payed hunt not so much being guided to an animal but say the use of a hut with the family and a bunch of animals around you no more of a relaxed atmosphere and no pressure to find an animal before the kids get board and having the comfort of a hut ...one you can drive too !.

I’ve met a few clients through work who only hunt once a year during the roar on private land with a guide and that’s the only hunting they do. They can afford it and it’s just about guaranteed success for them.
They get to stay in a decent hut, drive door to door and get fed too.
If I had plenty of money and was only allowed to hunt once a year I’d probably consider it


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Same reason people pay to hunt private. In the near future i wouldn't mind paying for access to a block/farm that holds good fallow bucks. Ups my chances of shooting a buck when over this side of the island there isn't public land to hunt fallow

Results is the answer.
Like anything in life it takes a lot of practice/experience to get good at something and even then its probably only a 50% success rate for public land hunts.
Id say half the people that like hunting don't have the time these days to get out and become efficient killers so choose the guide.
When you are new/inexperienced to hunting its all about getting an animal,I have found that as I have become a better hunter over the years(still only average)the hunts become more about just being out there and in turn success always seems to come easier.

Sorry my original post wasn't super clear, maybe I should have said "trophy stags" not just stags.

I'm not interested in using a guide for "meat animals or people's first animals". That could be another whole thread.

I wrote up what I really wanted to say a couple of times, chewed on it for a bit and deleted........a couple of times.

The guided hunting has it's place for a variety of reasons, always has. Maybe now it will become affordable until the overseas wealth is back and flexes it's monied elbows to shove kiwis back to one side again. Might take landowners a while to get a grip on adjusting cost to suit the new client base pockets though.

I would do it to achieve a specific purpose if pricing was aimed at kiwis, but I'd want a guide who knew his onions and wanted to be there doing hard yards if necessary. Till then, I'll bumble along keeping my freezer filled just as I always have.

Originally Posted by 257weatherby

I would do it to achieve a specific purpose if pricing was aimed at kiwis, but I'd want a guide who knew his onions and wanted to be there doing hard yards if necessary. Till then, I'll bumble along

AS will I. If our borders remain closed for as long as I think they will, maybe the guides who usually are out guiding cashed up overseas trophy hunters may re-adjust pricing to offer affordable meat hunts. I doubt it though.

Originally Posted by 257weatherby

I wrote up what I really wanted to say a couple of times, chewed on it for a bit and deleted........a couple of times.

The guided hunting has it's place for a variety of reasons, always has. Maybe now it will become affordable until the overseas wealth is back and flexes it's monied elbows to shove kiwis back to one side again. Might take landowners a while to get a grip on adjusting cost to suit the new client base pockets though.

I would do it to achieve a specific purpose if pricing was aimed at kiwis, but I'd want a guide who knew his onions and wanted to be there doing hard yards if necessary. Till then, I'll bumble along keeping my freezer filled just as I always have.

So you want someone else doing all the hard yards for you so you can achieve your specific requirement for very little effort??

This is exactly what I have trouble with understanding. Where would there be any satisfaction in getting your trophy like this? To me it just seems like plain laziness.

Sorry not having a go at you personally 257weatherby but just my opinion.

Originally Posted by Huntn

So you want someone else doing all the hard yards for you so you can achieve your specific requirement for very little effort??

This is exactly what I have trouble with understanding. Where would there be any satisfaction in getting your trophy like this? To me it just seems like plain laziness.

Sorry not having a go at you personally 257weatherby but just my opinion.

Not sure comprehension is your strong point - Lazy? you would die staying with me in difficult country in adverse conditions by the way.

Perhaps comprehension is not my strong point, so humour me: 1:What "hard yards" do I want someone doing for me"? 2: What "Trophy" am I after? 3: How am I being "lazy"?

Originally Posted by Huntn

So you want someone else doing all the hard yards for you so you can achieve your specific requirement for very little effort??

This is exactly what I have trouble with understanding. Where would there be any satisfaction in getting your trophy like this? To me it just seems like plain laziness.

Sorry not having a go at you personally 257weatherby but just my opinion.

now you have posted that you will see why I referred to whoreing in my earlier post......same thing at end of the day,you are paying for a service with guarantee of results..... now just how much of a bang you want/get depends on how deep your pockets are...both are legal,its a moral dicision and entirely up to the individual as to weather or not they brag to mates about the outcome....

There's many reasons someone would use a guide. Not all of them are going to be legitimate in a lot of our eyes but many are as well. None of us would hold it against an 80yr old to use a guide for the safety, physical capibility of dealing with an animal and maybe even just the friendship. On the other hand there's people who are just incompetant because they choose to use money to replace skill and hardship. I saw both sides of the coin when I worked in the guiding scene in Canada last year. Some salt of the earth types (an elderly couple who saved their whole lives for that hunt) and some I wouldn't want to see again (Multi-millionares spending $400K to shoot a record book sheep with a collar on it).

Every different type of person makes the world what it is.