Ask Me Anything

First question is, "Do you hunt/guide on a private ranch?" Yes, I do.

Um, and here's the interesting thing about hunting or guiding.

I, I hunt on public.

Um, I guide on private.

Um, I hunt on, on private sometimes too when I get the chance, just like anybody else.

But here's, here's from a business standpoint why I guide on private land.

The last time a public land permit came up, it was $750,000 for me to buy that permit.

Now, once I've done that, I owe a percentage of my gross to whichever, um, public land agency manages that, so if it's Forest Service or BLM.

That can be anywhere between 3 and 6% of your gross pay before you've paid taxes that you've gotta shell out, so you've lost a significant amount of margin right there.

You're competing with other people who have access to that land, and then you only have a set number of days that you can use to actually guide on that ground.

So the only way that public land outfitters ever make any money at all is just to get by for the years that they're operating, and then hope to sell that permit for enough money to hopefully retire on.

Uh, not, not a good business strategy in my opinion, um, and very few people are ever actually successful with it.

It's a really tough way to do business, and the folks that are doing it and, and are doing it well are in it because they're passionate about it.

Um, not to say that you shouldn't go with those folks.

I really think that you should.

They're offering tremendous opportunities, and a lot of times they can get you into places that other folks aren't going to be able to access.

But from a business standpoint, it doesn't quite make sense to me.