Thread: Why do people use a guide?

In my mid 20's I hired a guide to take me deer hunting. I'd been hunting rabbits and goats for a few years but always wanted to step up to deer. Nobody in my family hunted, I was the exception to the rule. I knew nobody who hunted deer within our extended circle of friends, so after much deliberation I contacted a guide and talked through my objectives. In a nutshell, I wanted to know what to do, where to go and how to do it. The guy wanted $180 per day for free-range hunting on DOC land with no gaurantee of success. To me that was a lot of money and seemed expensive however when I did the sums, I quickly realised that worked out to a shit hourly rate. In the end I paid the man his $360 for the two nights and almost 3 days in the bush. That included food and everything... all I needed was my rifle and a sleeping bag.

While I was confident in my shooting skills if presented with an opportunity to shoot, reading magazines and books was the limit of my knowledge on where to look, what to look for and what to do once an animal was down. As it turns out that $360 was money well spent. What I learned from that guide in two days would have taken me two or three years to work out for myself. I shot myself a good plump red hind and in total saw 9 deer that weekend. I can tell you (without pride) that I never saw that many deer again in the bush for another 15 years. Clearly that guy knew his stuff to put me in front of that many deer in two days in an area that was quite heavily hunted. Clearly I was thick... as I said I never saw that many deer again for many years.

I learned many tricks that I doubt I'd ever had worked out otherwise. I learned how to hunt deer, where to hunt deer, what to do with an animal once it was on the ground and how to carry it out once it was prepared. I was no green-horn at camping or bushwork but I still learned a whole bunch of new skills. Was it all worth the $360? Damn right it was. That $360 set me on a course for the rest of my life and for the hard work that guide had to put into my success that weekend I don't begrudge the guy a cent of it. He earned it.

Since then I've recommended to a number of new comers to consider following my example. Not everyone is lucky enough to have fathers, uncles, cousins or mates to teach them the ropes. Aside from our own stupid pride there is no reason not to give it go because even an experienced hunter is still likely to benefit if for no other reason but to see how somebody else does the same job slightly differently. And hell, you might even enjoy yourself.