Tipping etiquette

[owlhoot]

Well hopefully you have researched the outfitters and have such a good time that when it comes time to tip there will not be any doubt about tipping the guy .

[snapper1982]

Seems to me there is some confussion of a guide and an outfitter. An outfitter is the owner. He can also be the guide or a guide. I am a guide for an outfitter. I work and do anything within my ability to make sure the person(s) i am guiding get an opportunity. I also do this for a tip. That is my pay. I do not get any monetary compensation from the outfitter. I get free meals and lodging and a place to hunt when/if i have time. Clients come first and i love to do it.

So basically you are doing because you get to hunt... This brings up a sore spot with me.. I'll NEVER hunt with an outfitter that let's his guides hunt before all his clients are finished.. In my opinion this is wrong, wrong , wrong.. I'm not bashing you Snapper but this is just how I feel... I have guys that come to KY to hunt with me, free of charge, and I  won't even shoot a bird until they are done.

No i am not doing it because i get to hunt. I do it because i love to help others. So i should sit out the whole season and not hunt at all? If you had 60 birds and 3 clients per week every week of the season. They can kill 2 birds each. So that leaves an excess of 36 birds that they can not kill. You would sit out the whole season? We dont. We take the clients and make sure they get birds. We do not hunt while clients are in camp and still hunting.  If they tag out and we have time we then will hunt for an afternoon or morning or day or what ever little bit of time we do get to hunt. Bottom line we all love to hunt and that is why we do it. We have access to enough birds to cover the clients and have a huge left over. That is why i dont have a issue with it. I would have an issue if he booked so many clients that it would require every known bird be killed then there would be a huge issue. 

It is the same way with the guy that Hookedspur hunted with up here, that outfitter that you know. He allows his guides to hunt if they dont have a client to guide.

[Roost 1]

Re-read my post...No, you should  not sit out the whole season, but clients should come first. In other words, I guess its alright to let guides hunt AFTER all clients are done. I've just seen too many times guys pay for a 2 bird hunt and end up with 1 or none and then come to find out the all the guides have already killed 1 or 2 and nobody seems to know where all the birds went. Did not mean to ruffle any feathers, it just seems like a bad business move to me. Just like the deer guide that always kills the big buck after his clients do all the scouting....

[snapper1982]

Re-read my post...No, you should  not sit out the whole season, but clients should come first. In other words, I guess its alright to let guides hunt AFTER all clients are done. I've just seen too many times guys pay for a 2 bird hunt and end up with 1 or none and then come to find out the all the guides have already killed 1 or 2 and nobody seems to know where all the birds went. Did not mean to ruffle any feathers, it just seems like a bad business move to me. Just like the deer guide that always kills the big buck after his clients do all the scouting....

No feathers ruffled buddy. We all have our personal views and opinions. The point i am trying to get is. If there are clients through the whole season when is it ok in your opinion to hunt. Now i am talking a place with way more birds than are needed to fill everyones tags including the guides and still have a bunch left for next year. If you say after the clients are done but i have clients booked the last week of the season then does that mean when those last clients kill it is ok? Now what about those people who are just poor hunters? We had several that flat couldnt understand turkey hunting. One guy leaned forward in the blind and put his gun all the way out of the blind while the birds were still 50+ yards and then shot at them running away. Then spooked several more birds. He did not kill one. In the same group another guy(65-70 yr old) and his son had birds at 10 yards beside the blind and the men got into an arguement over getting the gun up. The birds spooked and he took 3 shots at 40+ while they were running off. There was 7 guys in that group. Only 2 tagged out and 3 others killed one each. They all should have killed 2 but 5 of them were very poor hunters and none of them had ever patterned their gun. They didnt know jack about their guns other than they used them for duck hunting. We had multiple wounds from that group. We had a woman insist on using a bow and wounded 2 ( i am sure the first died but the second was killed 2 weeks later) before we could convince her to use a gun. Then she killed a bird. Would you not hunt at all until those clients the last week are done? 

[Roost 1]

Honestly, if I were an outfitter either no guides would hunt OR I would stop booking hunts before the last of season and let the guides hunt the last week.
Actually if I were the owner, no guides would hunt period. Now with that being said you would not be working for tips either. I pay you fair amount and I would have that included in the price of the hunt. Depending on how my operation was set-up, if I could lodge you and feed you that would also be included. A good guide should never have to work for tips and no one should be using a bad guide......

[reynolds243]

I have a buddy that owns a big deer and turkey outfitting in Alabama. No guides can hunt period. However the owner leases some other property close by and allows the guides to hunt it all they want as that is their property to hunt alone


Joshua 24:15
"But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."


Sent from my phone sucka

[owlhoot]

Re-read my post...No, you should  not sit out the whole season, but clients should come first. In other words, I guess its alright to let guides hunt AFTER all clients are done. I've just seen too many times guys pay for a 2 bird hunt and end up with 1 or none and then come to find out the all the guides have already killed 1 or 2 and nobody seems to know where all the birds went. Did not mean to ruffle any feathers, it just seems like a bad business move to me. Just like the deer guide that always kills the big buck after his clients do all the scouting....

No feathers ruffled buddy. We all have our personal views and opinions. The point i am trying to get is. If there are clients through the whole season when is it ok in your opinion to hunt. Now i am talking a place with way more birds than are needed to fill everyones tags including the guides and still have a bunch left for next year. If you say after the clients are done but i have clients booked the last week of the season then does that mean when those last clients kill it is ok? Now what about those people who are just poor hunters? We had several that flat couldnt understand turkey hunting. One guy leaned forward in the blind and put his gun all the way out of the blind while the birds were still 50+ yards and then shot at them running away. Then spooked several more birds. He did not kill one. In the same group another guy(65-70 yr old) and his son had birds at 10 yards beside the blind and the men got into an arguement over getting the gun up. The birds spooked and he took 3 shots at 40+ while they were running off. There was 7 guys in that group. Only 2 tagged out and 3 others killed one each. They all should have killed 2 but 5 of them were very poor hunters and none of them had ever patterned their gun. They didnt know jack about their guns other than they used them for duck hunting. We had multiple wounds from that group. We had a woman insist on using a bow and wounded 2 ( i am sure the first died but the second was killed 2 weeks later) before we could convince her to use a gun. Then she killed a bird. Would you not hunt at all until those clients the last week are done?

. Why would an outfitter or guide allow his clients to run amuk that that? Shouldn't the shotguns be patterned before allowing them to hunt , like sighting in a rifle before a deer or hog hunt?
Shouldn't a guide be a coach and mentor for those that don't have experience? Shouldn't weapon rules be established beforehand? Guessing wounded game doesn't count as part of the limits there ? Sure some people are just hard to teach or control .

[GobbleNut]

Here's a little different perspective on this entire debate. 

I think many of us that go places to hunt are not looking for "guide" services.  What we are looking for is access to a place that has birds to hunt.  This is often in a location that has limited public-land hunting opportunities where the only practical alternative is to pay someone for access.

I will admit that I have had very limited experience with these types of situations, but I will say that when I talk to someone about hunting in an outfitted or "paid access" situation, I make it very clear to them beforehand that I am not expecting guide services, and in fact, I don't want any.  If they do not want to provide access without providing a guide that is expecting to be tipped for, in essence, being in my way for my hunt, then I look for another outfitter or property to hunt.  I guess I just have a hard time understanding why anybody wants to pay to hunt something where they are doing nothing but pulling the trigger. 

Admittedly, there are those outfitters/operations that do not want hunters "doing their own thing" on their property and must insist that their hunters be guided.  In those cases, in my opinion, the hunter should be able to look at the price he is paying and be able to assess whether he should anticipate tipping the guide and maybe the other "help".  To me, there is a big difference between paying a couple of thousand bucks for a three or four day hunt, as compared to paying a few hundred bucks,...and how that affects my attitude about tipping.

Finally, I have had a couple of experiences where I made it very clear prior to the hunt that all I/we wanted was access to the property and did not require or want any guiding services,...only to arrive at the property and have the outfitter/owner more or less insist that we have someone along with us.  In those cases, I have felt like telling him,..."Okay, you can come along,...but you are going to have to pay us for the privilege".   

[Roost 1]

Here's a little different perspective on this entire debate. 

I think many of us that go places to hunt are not looking for "guide" services.  What we are looking for is access to a place that has birds to hunt.  This is often in a location that has limited public-land hunting opportunities where the only practical alternative is to pay someone for access.

I will admit that I have had very limited experience with these types of situations, but I will say that when I talk to someone about hunting in an outfitted or "paid access" situation, I make it very clear to them beforehand that I am not expecting guide services, and in fact, I don't want any.  If they do not want to provide access without providing a guide that is expecting to be tipped for, in essence, being in my way for my hunt, then I look for another outfitter or property to hunt.  I guess I just have a hard time understanding why anybody wants to pay to hunt something where they are doing nothing but pulling the trigger. 

Admittedly, there are those outfitters/operations that do not want hunters "doing their own thing" on their property and must insist that their hunters be guided.  In those cases, in my opinion, the hunter should be able to look at the price he is paying and be able to assess whether he should anticipate tipping the guide and maybe the other "help".  To me, there is a big difference between paying a couple of thousand bucks for a three or four day hunt, as compared to paying a few hundred bucks,...and how that affects my attitude about tipping.

Finally, I have had a couple of experiences where I made it very clear prior to the hunt that all I/we wanted was access to the property and did not require or want any guiding services,...only to arrive at the property and have the outfitter/owner more or less insist that we have someone along with us.  In those cases, I have felt like telling him,..."Okay, you can come along,...but you are going to have to pay us for the privilege".   

Excellent reply!!!

[owlhoot]

Okay so you can come along = that's funny.
Only thing is that if I don't know what you are like then that would be a little bit of a concern to me to let you go out on your own. You maybe like some of the yahoos that snapper had to deal with !
Once you have proven yourself then you could have at it and that would be decided before you go out .
Of course the guides may not agree if they are not being paid to take you or recieve your very generous tip!!

[GobbleNut]

Okay so you can come along = that's funny.
Only thing is that if I don't know what you are like then that would be a little bit of a concern to me to let you go out on your own. You maybe like some of the yahoos that snapper had to deal with !
Once you have proven yourself then you could have at it and that would be decided before you go out .
Of course the guides may not agree if they are not being paid to take you or recieve your very generous tip!!

Very true statement.  That is exactly the reason that in every outfitter/client agreement, both parties need to tell the other what is expected up front,...from both sides.  The outfitter needs to tell the client,..."this is what is expected of you",...and the same for the client to the outfitter.  If those expectations don't match up, no agreement should be made between them,...and the hunter should look for something more suitable to his needs. 

On the other side of the coin, any outfitter that is willing to tell the potential client what he wants to hear just so he can sell a hunt is just as guilty of misrepresenting himself as is the hunter that claims to be competent, but is not.  Honest communication is essential.

[Farmboy27]

Ok. Enough bickering!  Lol!  Bottom line is I'm going on a self guided hunt. Meals and lodging provided. The contract states that the outfitter will show us the property the day before the hunt and then we are on our own. We provide our own transportation. Bird cleaning is on us. Is there really any reason to tip?  Self guided folks!  Quit bringing guides into the question!  There ain't gonna be any!  We are already paying the outfitter for access and lodging. And did I mention, no guides! 

[Happy]

I would say let your conscience guide you. If he was a genuinely nice fellow and treated you well, put you on good property, fed you well and made you feel welcome then why not? If he did the opposite then why would you?

[owlhoot]

Ok. Enough bickering!  Lol!  Bottom line is I'm going on a self guided hunt. Meals and lodging provided. The contract states that the outfitter will show us the property the day before the hunt and then we are on our own. We provide our own transportation. Bird cleaning is on us. Is there really any reason to tip?  Self guided folks!  Quit bringing guides into the question!  There ain't gonna be any!  We are already paying the outfitter for access and lodging. And did I mention, no guides!

Are you sure 

[opster246]

You go to a restaurant to get food.  If the restaurant has wait staff, I pay for the food and then tip the staff for their service.  If I go to McDonalds, I pay for the food and since no one served the food, no tips. Access to land is like the food - you pay what is asked.  If no one guides you (Wait staff), no tip.  If the outfitter is setting up lodging, doing pre-season scouting, giving good scouting reports and boots on the ground info, then I think a tip is in order.