Sounds like just the right approach to me stx.

I expect every guide worth his salt has a detailed conversation with his hunters about their expectations. If they are unrealistic - the time to tamp them down is before the hunt begins.

If they are high, the time to for guide/hunter to be on the same page is, again, before the hunt begins. If one seeks an animal of a certain quality one must understand that may mean going home without an animal. As you point out.

Since I simply seek a mature animal representative of the area hunted it's not a huge issue for me or the guide. A little research and study on my part is usually all that's needed. A good animal in almost any species is pretty apparent - though bears, pronghorn, and mountain goats can be pretty dang tricky.

I have found that guides who understand you are not going to make them "guarantors" of a particular animal's size are much more willing to be more specific with their estimates when it comes to size.

I have learned through the years to not guarantee size. I provide pictures and let the hunter decide if that animal is worth the price. Trial and error works.

We even quit doing that when most hunters wanted a particular buck that was difficult to find or pattern. It got to where most thought the bucks were much smaller than they really were when looking at the pics. Just started hunting and let them make the decision if or when bucks were seen. Most every time a when a hunter killed a buck, he was more than happy with how big the buck got after they got to see it on the ground.

If I make the call as a guide and the deer is in the next size class I never charge them for my mistake. I never charge if it was smaller. If I am hunting I will not pull the trigger unless I like the animal. In africa I wanted a 50 in plus kudu however we saw one with great curls that was mature. My guide told me we could get one longer but not that heavy. I chose to shoot him and he ended up 48.5 inches.

And that's even better. It pressures you when you show a picture and that deer changes his pattern. I'll probably start doing it that way soon.

Wow is all I can say.................. the quest for inches and fame and glory has gotten ridiculous and it is coming back to bite all of us in the [censored]. Hunting for a good mature trophy animal, the hunt and the overall experience, should be the goal and reward. This BS with guaranteed size and put and take needs to stop. It causes dissension even amongst the ranks of hunters because in the end..... it isn't really hunting. It is special order livestock and killing. Designer trophies and guys needing recognition and being able to pat themselves on the back about what a great Bwana they are. We all need to get past that.

The high fenced stuff should be sustainable herds and the animals hunted are the off take to keep the various herds within the numbers that can be sustained on the property. The removal of old males to make room for the up and comers or new genetics.

These places I have seen that are stocked with nothing but shootable males of various species that have been bought, hauled and released into what amounts to a kill pen need to go away. It cheapens everything that is good about hunting in general and in fact detracts from the original goals of sustainable exotic herds.

I am sure I will get flamed for this, but I can assure you I won't lose any sleep over it. The snivelling about not getting a specific animal that is purported to have huge horns and will stroke the ego of the buyer is pathetic on the side of the hunter who thinks he is buying a position in a record book and the operator who is selling it.

Sorry. But you seem to be interested in promising trophies too. No doubt, you won't lose any sleep over your own hypocrisy.

"At Skyline Adventures we are focused on one thing. Big black bears! Manitoba is one of the best places in North America for producing big, record book black bears. Our hunts are conducted in an area adjacent to Riding Mountain National Park, which has one of the highest densities of black bear in North America. The area is noted for having the genetics that consistently produce big bodied bears with big skulls. Our Manitoba black bear hunts offer an excellent chance at taking a record book bear and multiple bear sightings and super high success rates are the norm, not the exception."

I told the outfitter and guide I wanted a 22+" black black buck. I got a 20.5" BB with a little black in him. Sun in my face, guide saying shoot, shoot. However it's a beautiful animal taken after a fun, tough hunt. Best one we had seen in three days. I was disappointed as I planned to only kill one and spend the money once. Now I will save up and go after another one. With a bow this time.

I hope the pen is small, I don't like to shoot over 35 yards on animals.

This is why I never hunt where the price is based on score.... It's my decision when I decide to squeeze the trigger.

Nice try.......... we don't guarantee anything and although our hunters kill some big ones every year there is no fence and if you do get a chance at a buster and mess up, you are done. Of course we are hunting for big trophy males, they are the ones you want to remove. They take over the best feeding areas, they kill and eat young bears and cubs. But killing a boar that has reached 10, 15, 20 years of age is far from a guaranteed deal. If you make a mistake, he isn't coming back and there are no second chances.............. you will be hunting for a different bear after that.

We don't have a pen filled with big male bears we caught and transported and released behind high fence. They are free range and have hundreds thousands of square miles of habitat.

Get serious............

I you think there is a similarity then you need to get out and about more. But having said that this is the lame sort of response I expected.

"At Skyline Adventures we are focused on one thing. Big black bears! Manitoba is one of the best places in North America for producing big, record book black bears. Our hunts are conducted in an area adjacent to Riding Mountain National Park, which has one of the highest densities of black bear in North America. The area is noted for having the genetics that consistently produce big bodied bears with big skulls. Our Manitoba black bear hunts offer an excellent chance at taking a record book bear and multiple bear sightings and super high success rates are the norm, not the exception." HOWEVER we don't guarantee anything and although our hunters kill some big ones every year there is no fence and if you do get a chance at a buster and mess up, you are done.

Now that's truth in advertising.

The only thing I guarantee is that a person will see Buck Deer. I put them in a blind and tell them if they see a deer they like then shoot it. The Deer cost a certain amount per point. If you can add at a first grade level there will be no confusion as to the price of the deer. Clean and easy with no complaints.

"Our Manitoba black bear hunts offer an excellent chance at taking a record book bear and multiple bear sightings and super high success rates are the norm, not the exception."

"We have well established baits and our clients are only placed at active bait sites which have been pre-baited for weeks before they arrive on their hunt and this is why we produce record book bears every year."

I guess you didn't get the memo, but typically there are just as many people who say the same thing about baiting as they do about hf's.

And they sound just like you.

When did a fence keep bears in or out?

Electric won't stop them

I'd say most good guides/outfitters have a pretty good idea of which animals your going to have an opportunity on. Especially on private land.

I think selling animals by size has it's place. If you are the landowner and you have invested huge amounts of money into breeding and then raising that animal, you are entitled to get whatever you can for it. There will always be those who chase the record books, and if they want to spend their money on what position they see their name in a book, that's great.

I booked a silver medal package hunt to New Zealand. The ranch was high fenced and around 7,000 acres at the time I was there. I heard it's much bigger now. While there, the outfitter got a call from another well known outfitter that had the new world record red stag in a pen and wanted to know if anybody there was interested in shooting him? Just $300,000 for the first person that had the cash. The pen was just a few acres in size so he would not hurt himself, or get injured by any of the other animals. They would let him go for the hunt on a few hundred acres the day before the hunt.

On that hunt, I shot a red stag that just went over gold medal by a few points. Outfitter was happy. We came across a gold medal chamois that had a broken front shoulder way down in the valley along a creek. Outfitter said to shoot him because he wasn't going to live and it would be better for me to have him then to just die on his own. On my tahr, he glassed him and glassed him before saying to shoot. Turned out he was wrong and he went well into gold medal. Outfitter was a little upset about that, but shrugged it off. Fallow and Arapawa where both silver medal. The other guy at the lodge was shooting all gold medal animals. Everything was based on medal score. He wanted an elk bigger then what he had shot in the States, but after measuring it, found it wasn't bigger then his other elk. The rest of the trip, he sulked and complained about that. The outfitter offered him another at a lower price, but he declined. It was a gold medal elk, and I thought a very impressive 6x6.

On my kudu, a few days after I shot him, we had one that my PH said was 56 inches run out of the brush in front of us for a little bit, then back off into the brush. My PH was very excited and wanted to go after him, but my hunting buddy was broke and I had no interest in another kudu. He hunted for that bull with other clients the rest of the year and never saw him again. On that same trip, we saw a huge 45 inch gemsbok on the second day and spent another week trying to get close enough for a shot without luck. We saw him once a day, but he would take off and disappear on us every time. On the last day I took a very old, very thick 36 inch bull.

When I hunted my dall sheep, I wanted a 40 inch ram, but was told they where very rare in that area. I booked off of price and history of success more then trophy quality and knew it wasn't likely to happen. From camp, we could see a very large ram with chocolate horns that my guide felt was close to 40, but probably 39 inches. We where looking through spotting scopes a mile away. As we got closer, he said he was under 40, but felt 39 was still good. At 500 yards, he took off and we never saw him again. He was impressive, but I'll never know what he was or what happened to him. We got withing a hundred yards of a thin ram that was also very close to 40, but heavily broomed on the other side and just not what I wanted to see on my wall. It was fun to watch him up close like that, but that was all. The ram I shot was 36 inches with a full curl and then some. He is perfect and he looks amazing on my wall.

My bison wasn't even close to being one of the bigger bulls, but he had the best coloring on his cape. Even though he was standing right next to one that was clearly bigger, I went for the color of the cape over another inch of horn.

That's just me.

There's nothing wrong with any of that. I just don't get it.

Me neither. I will never understand the main (and seemingly sole) focus of any hunt being about a number. I cannot relate to being surrounded by the beautiful country that is New Zealand and letting some numbers reflected by a tape measure ruin the experience as the fellow you describe did. Talk about some mixed up priorities.

Once you get past chasing an animal with your bare hands while bucknaked, anything cheapens the hunt. You may not like it but they're still hunting, just not the way you hunt. FTR, I'm not a HF guy either.

Under many conditions a higher scoring animal equates to an older, more experienced animal that can be tougher to hunt. And often most of us won't get to go to Africa every year. We can't afford a King ranch trophy whitetail every year or a Yukon moose with Jim Shockey every year. So when we scrimp and save and get to go on that once or twice in a lifetime hunt we want to take as nice of an animal we can afford. Also, in my case, I have limited wall space. I want to fill that space with animals that have meaning. Be it the 8 point buck I took on the hunt my son first went deer hunting with me but only scores 105" or the three year old 9 point he took in Missouri when he was twelve years old. The third is a very nice, but not quite what I'd hoped for, black buck that is over this computer. Only a few heads, with a few spots left, and I'd like them to either be the best quality animals I can take, or ones with equal meaning to the first two. Either way why I hunt for what I hunt for is what drives me and if you don't understand it tdb. I'm not too concerned about what others judgement of it is.