If you are booking a big game hunt the services of a guide are probably part of the overall price of your hunt package. While unguided trips are popular with many and invariably less expensive, for the majority of sportsmen and women paying the extra cost to have greater chances at success, is easily justified. In this context, success will be defined primarily by quantity of game seen and shot opportunity but in reality the component that a good guide will add to your enjoyment and overall satisfaction goes well beyond.

Perhaps the single most important feature that a good hunting guide brings to the table is his or her eyesight. The ability to spot a sheep laying on the rock tailings at the base of a sheer cliff two miles away; picking out a palmed antler through the thick spruce and tuckamore of a Newfoundland bog or catching the twitch of a buck's ear as he lays bedded behind a log, are skills honed by days, weeks and years in the bush.

I recall on a caribou hunt not long ago; we had stopped on the rock dome of a mountain to glass. In early fall the tundra presented a mosaic of color that stretched to the horizon in every direction. From our vantage point you might think spotting caribou would be easy. Our guide Carl said, "there is a big bull straight out in front, on the edge of that bog"
I turned my attention in the direction he had pointed. I looked first with my naked eye and then starting panning with my binoculars.
"Where exactly is he?" I asked.
Carl again gestured, attempted to give me points of reference, actually stood behind me and put his hands on my head to get me facing the right direction. Finally, I made out an antler and then could pick out other parts of the bull's body partially hidden in the shade. That caribou was at least 2 miles away and for all practical purposes invisible!

"How did Carl see it?"

Seeing game is one of the things good guides are good at. Calling is another.

Up here in the northeast the closest a lot of us get to calling is luring a big tom into a box call or getting lucky with a rattle bag during the rut. But there is nothing quite like being there when your guide is working a rutty bull moose in with his horn call. More exciting still for the bow hunter who waits for the bugling elk as it is tempted by a guide's amorous flirtations on a diaphragm or tube.

Along with an intimate knowledge of the hunting territory guides also prepare and pack game, sometimes cook, almost always entertain and if you pay attention you will realize that good guides also teach; unselfishly sharing their secrets with their clients and helping to make each of them better skilled in the field.

Often outfitters offer options regarding the level of guide service available to their clients. As a general rule the lower the guide to hunter ratio the greater the opportunity for success in the field. However, when you reduce the number of hunters per guide the price of the hunt naturally goes up. Unless 1x1 guide service is the package standard, you can expect to pay from $500 to $1,000 extra. In almost all cases however, if you can justify it financially, one guide with each hunter will nearly always increase the number of animals you see and correspondingly, shot opportunities. Two people move less obtrusively through the woods than 3 or 4. Guides can quickly identify a hunter's conditioning and confidence level and customize the hunt to what he feels will work best for a particular individual. Also, in the 1x1 format, there is a greater chance of the guide and hunter bonding and developing a chemistry that can add immeasurably to both the hunt's potential success as well as the overall trip's enjoyment level for both guide and client.

Does that mean that to hunt 2 people or 3 per guide spells disaster? No, not at all and in fact, with some animals guide service ratios are far less important than with others. Caribou for instance, are largely herd animals, travel in sometimes very large groups and if you hit the migration right, can be relatively easy to locate and harvest. For this reason 1x3 and 1x4 guide service is a standard with the most popular American Plan packages. The role of guides also changes with some hunts. In the Midwest for instance, guides typically don't sit in a tree stand all day with their clients waiting for a big buck to make its way down the scrape line. While hunters are on stand, guides are scouting or moving stands or cleaning up around camp. Lots of elk hunters and guides prefer a 1x2 ratio particularly during the bugle. When a guide starts calling usually from 20 to 40 yards behind where his clients are set up, he never knows from the exact direction the bull might appear so to have two clients positioned to cover different potential entry routes, increases the odds for someone getting a shot.

Before deciding to either increase the cost of your hunt or decrease it based on the level of guide service, take a moment to contemplate the importance of this decision. If in the end, your overall satisfaction is contingent on seeing lots of game, having shot opportunities at quality animals and hopefully scoring; recognize that these are the elements most influenced by the value of good guides.