Guiding & Making a Living

[G-Hought]

Hey everyone,
I’m interested to hear of you or anyone you know that has been able to “make a living” out of guiding that a wife and kids would be ok with. Particularly what you do during the off season to help with income. I know several guides, but not very many that sound like it is something they want to sustain as a career. Whether that be not enough income in the off season, or spending too much time away to make the money they need, it seems rare to find someone that has actually made it work. Just looking for any opinions of what you have been happy doing, or what the ideal setup would be.
Thanks

 

[BeastOfTheTrees]

Looked into this many times brother, all outlets end up in less money then most “good jobs”. Pretty much have a wife that makes great money and do your thing at guiding. The key is to get the wife to move to an area where you can guide in some form all year. Be that whitewater/fishing/ hiking in the summer, antlered animals in the fall, bears and predators in late winter/spring..... then I imagine one could sustain a living...... I’m just a dude tho not a guide

 

[GoatBoat218]

I have been involved in the guiding industry for a few years. Most all guides I know that do it "full time" don't have kids. The only guys that have kids and a family and support it are the ones that own an outfit and hire the single guides to do most of the hunts. Specifically in Alaska is what I am familiar with. Billy molls (Modern Day Mountain Man) seems to do it every year in Alaska with kids and a wife, but he is the only one I know of.

 

[Beendare]

I used to have a guide business [ a short time]...and more recently sometimes help a buddy guide his rifle clients, my take;

There is a difference between hunting for pleasure and it being a job. Hunting became a chore for me. You cannot always choose your clients....and some of the guys you get are real winners. Stubborn, hard to get along with, out of shape....and you have to take it with a smile. You do get some great guys too....and that makes it a good day in the field.

"Thats only your 4th miss...you will get the next one"

You have to keep your positive attitude...and keep that smile on your face.

I guided for hogs behind dogs back in the day...and when a nimrod almost shot my partners head off on accident...it was time to call it quits. Guiding took the fun out of hunting for me....but I do know others that still love guiding and can make a so so living at it.

 

[adventure907]

There's no way I could be a full time guide if I had a wife and kids. Hell, I have a hard enough time leaving my dog for long periods of time as is anyway.

 

[Felix40]

I think a guy could make it work pretty easily in my area. There’s only one month of the year when there wouldn’t be anything to hunt. Other states....I don’t know how you could make it work.

 

[Oregon]

Big game Guiding/fishing guide//charter boat operator.
I’m the charter boat guy. I run 170 trips between Mar 15 and Oct 1st. No wife like this. Kids hate this. Zero opportunity to take summer camping trips/vacation.
If I wasn’t retired and had a pension for the 6 months I didn’t work, I’d be working some crap job in the off season.
In my opinion, guiding makes a great retirement job if you have a family.
Single young bucks. Go for it. Hell, we can sleep in our trucks and drink PBR in rough patches

 

[dtrkyman]

I have 15 or so seasons guiding, mostly whitetail and turkey, also some fly fishing. No way I would recommend it to anyone with a family, I was married for many of those years but the wife traveled for work as well.

They always say follow your passion and it will never be work, well I call BS on that one, because that is exactly what it turns into, work!

Living at camp for months at a time, always entertaining, part time Phycologist full time adult baby sitter!

Not to make it sound awful because it sure as hell beats a day job for me, but it isn't glorious either! A lot of my family does not hunt, when I see them they commonly say are you still hunting for a living, I just smile and say no, just baby sitting.

 

[mtjimbo]

Easy to make a living as a single guy, guiding hunts all winter and fly fishing guide all summer. Pretty much live out of a wall tent all hunting season and at least I did kinda the same all summer. I personally like hunting clients better than fly fishing clients hahahah.
That being said, I got married and had a baby and life changed. Turns out being gone 300 days a year doesn't work for family's

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[wildwilderness]

Get a real job to pay bills, use your vacation time to guide (give up hunting for yourself)

Only other way is to get the outfitter/registered Guide license and run your own family business, and all the risks/reward of being a small business owner.

most people I know did the first part for 5-10 years and if they still liked it moved on to the second part.

 

[BluMtn]

I have done a little guiding in my life time and I learned that it is a good way to screw up something you really love to do. I have also learned from listening to a lot of older generations is if you try and turn a love into a business after a while you will loose your love for it. Its like guys that have a love for fixing up cars and decide to turn it into a profession. If you talk to them several years later they will tell you that they don't even work on their own stuff anymore because they have lost the desire. All the guides I know talk the same way.

Don't get me wrong I am sure there are people out there that continue to guide and love it, but it is a hard life to raise a family in.

 

[G-Hought]

So far the replies are about what I expected... unfortunately ha ha
What my ideal situation would be is to have an income for 9-10 months of the year, and for the fall months to be able to hunt for myself and guide for 4-5 weeks. I guess if I find that job it’s the golden ticket! If anyone has a job like this or knows someone who does I’m all ears for ideas.

 

[akbrett]

become an Ibew power lineman. once your a journeyman you can work pretty much whenever you want all over the nation and make great money doing it. i have lots of friends who work all year down in california and then take off the summer/falls and hunt and fish up here in alaska.

 

[Michael54]

So far the replies are about what I expected... unfortunately ha ha
What my ideal situation would be is to have an income for 9-10 months of the year, and for the fall months to be able to hunt for myself and guide for 4-5 weeks. I guess if I find that job it’s the golden ticket! If anyone has a job like this or knows someone who does I’m all ears for ideas.

I know a guy that him and his wife work for an outfitter together in alaska and come back to pa every winter for 3 to 4 months and work temp jobs. They don't have any kids though...

 

[MTPipeliner]

I know a couple guides who guide for waterfowl- mostly spring snow goose, and they have other jobs in the off season. One is an electrician, one a taxidermist, another does construction, the outfitter they work for does landscaping during the summer.

 

[Northpark]

So far the replies are about what I expected... unfortunately ha ha
What my ideal situation would be is to have an income for 9-10 months of the year, and for the fall months to be able to hunt for myself and guide for 4-5 weeks. I guess if I find that job it’s the golden ticket! If anyone has a job like this or knows someone who does I’m all ears for ideas.

That’s my ideal situation. I actually got offered a couple guiding jobs this year but I do not get enough vacation time to guide and take family vacation (wife and two kids) and the family takes priority for me. Heck the two 10 day out of state hunts I did this year was too much for the family.

 

[Glory]

I do and it works rather well. Wife and 3 young kids 7, 6, and 2. I guide on the saltwater for 65 days a summer but we do the whole package with lodging etc. wife and kids are super involved and work their butts off all summer too
Do a little commercial fishing more as a hobby. Don’t work the rest of the year anymore, just hunting, hanging with the family, and preparing for the next season. Wife doesn’t work a job either.

I will say it took me 16 years of hard work and working a ton of odd jobs to get to this point. Absolutely no shortcuts in this business and their is a process to go through and substantial investments to make to get there. Took me till 40 to be were I wanted to be.

If you want to do it be prepared to live really cheap and work a ton of jobs in the off season as you gain the skills/experience needed to eventually do it for yourself. Just don’t sacrifice your family. I see guys try to skip the process and they fail.

 

[Poser]

Know one guy who guides in the US part of the year and then again I’m New Zealand the other part of the year. Others are wildlands firefighters and probably make much more doing that work than guiding these days.

Personally, I do not see the allure in guiding unless you have positioned yourself to have the demand only work with certain types of clients.

 

[Robster]

So far the replies are about what I expected... unfortunately ha ha
What my ideal situation would be is to have an income for 9-10 months of the year, and for the fall months to be able to hunt for myself and guide for 4-5 weeks. I guess if I find that job it’s the golden ticket! If anyone has a job like this or knows someone who does I’m all ears for ideas.

Go to school to be a surveyor. Start your own company and close the doors or have your employees work on the list of jobs you lined up before you leave.

As a surveyor, you work in the field and in an office. So some of the most miserable days, if you plan it right, can be spent doing office work.

And houses are always being bought and sold, and always need to update the survey so there should not be a lack of work.

 

[jolemons]

So far the replies are about what I expected... unfortunately ha ha
What my ideal situation would be is to have an income for 9-10 months of the year, and for the fall months to be able to hunt for myself and guide for 4-5 weeks. I guess if I find that job it’s the golden ticket! If anyone has a job like this or knows someone who does I’m all ears for ideas.

Wildland firefighting in summer along with guiding in the fall would be decent living, especially if the wife works

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