tina:
I'm glad that you enjoy guiding. It's just not for me. This may seem harsh, but I honestly do not have the patience for laziness or any tolerance for mind-numbing ignorance.
The four individuals that I guided were complete and utter boneheads; there's no other way to put it.
Their normal routine was to get up and hunt for one or two hours in the morning and then hunt for one or two hours during the afternoon and then complain all night that they weren't seeing "enough" deer. This was the peak of the rut in north Missouri, and the weather was absolutely perfect; not too hot, not too cold with steady and predictable wind directions. In my opinion, a serious whitetail hunter should be out all day during that time of the year, if not in the same stand then in one stand in the morning and another stand in the afternoon, all the while trying to keep scent and disturbance to a minimum.
Now, I was the one who actually set all of the stands that they were sitting in so with all of the trail camera pictures of big bucks that I had at my disposal and all of the scouting that I did, I was intimately aware of the caliber of deer that were walking past these stands on a regular basis, so I knew how full of baloney they all were. At one point I had to actually say, it sure makes it difficult to kill a big deer while you're asleep in the hotel room!
Here's a small example of what I had to deal with... I walked one of these "hunters" into one of the stands that I had set, and I not only had to walk this person all the way to the stand, but I had to actually climb the ladder stand with this person and haul up every, single piece of unnecessary equipment this person had with for the hunt. This was NOT an elderly individual by any means. This was an able-bodied person who simply had no clue how to bow hunt and had no business being in the woods with a bow and arrow, and as bad as it sounds, I sincerely hoped and prayed that this person would not get a shot at a deer.
Also, when I finally got this person settled in, this person asked me how to get back to the truck when the trail was clearly marked and the highway was clearly, and I mean,
clearly visible -- with cars whizzing past -- from the stand!! When this person asked me that question I nearly fell out of the stand!! And, that particular incident was just the start of one horribly long and frustrating week. I could go on and on and on about what all happened that week, but I won't. Just know it soured me to no end on the thought of ever guiding anyone for the rest of my days on Earth.
Maybe I had a bad experience... I don't know. But, I do know that I will never waste a week of prime hunting time guiding a group of lazy bellyachers ever again or for any amount of money when I could be out in the woods hunting myself.
Take care and Good Hunting!
Best Afield,
Steve
