[deerguy]

Originally Posted by Torkdiesel

Landowners tags keep most of them going, the ones with money that can buy them anyway.
Other buy up the access rights to private land and get by that way.
I've hunted in a couple states and the outfitters have been mostly scrapping by, certainly not thriving business wise.
Some have old family money and giant parcels of land so they get enough tags to survive on.
Indian reservations are big all through the west.

I had a couple buddies hunt Colorado for elk. The outfitter had 48 hunters through his camp in 3 weeks. They killed 4 elk, nothing bigger then a 5 point. I doubt his repeat client numbers are high.

There is a reason why people are waiting 2-3 years to hunt with the best outfitters in the best areas in Canada. A big reason is you actually get to hunt, when you want and can hunt, not in 10-15 years, maybe.

There are some Alberta outfitters that will guide residents, I took out two guys 6 years ago. They paid 10K each to hunt, the same as NR did at the time. They promised to never come back and they didn't. Lots of others asked but would never pay the price I was asking.

This is interesting, thank you for the honest reply.