How much to tip your hunting guide?

[WTNUT]

I have never asked this question, but people ask me a lot. Assuming you have had a very hard working guide and he has done all he could do to give you a great hunt, how much do you tip him? I will give my thoughts first without giving an answer.

1. Whether I harvest an animal factors in, but not as much as you think. Generally if the guide puts in same effort on a no harvest hunt as a harvest hunt, the tip is going to be the same.
2. I do not try to “bait in the guide or outfitter” by saying if I get a Boone and Crocket or a Pope and Young you are going to get “x”. The reason I have been on both sides of the fence. When younger, I could barely scrape up the money to go. Now, money really isn’t an issue and if someone wants to get in a bidding war over who the outfitter is going to put on the 390” inch bull opening morning, they better have some pretty deep pockets to get ahead of me. But, I do NOT play that game. Period.
3. Being prepared and ready when I get there for the first days hunt means a lot to me. That seems basic, but I have had some guided hunts where it was the third day and they were still trying to figure there $hit out. For me what I am paying an outfitter for takes place BEFORE I get there - at least 80% of it.
4. I factor in what the guide most likely gets per day from the outfitter and where we are. In other words for an Alaskan hunt the guide gets more dollar for dollar because things just cost more up there - a lot more.


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[Doc Holliday]

Ask the outfitter before the hunt. They want their guides and staff to be taken care of and will tell you a good range to tip. There also may be packers, wranglers, base camp kitchen staff to consider.

 

[NCTrees]

Following. Have not hired a big game outfitter / guide yet but considering it in the future. FWIW I have hired guides for a few bird hunts and a few fishing trips and just asked them what they thought it should be. Best answer, I thought, was one who told me it’s no different from any other service tip. So for me, 20% would be standard. More for excellent service and maybe as low as 10% for sub-par work but always leaving something unless they were a big bunch of unprofessional jerks. For me anyhow I’m more comfortable tying it to the level of service and effort than the result. Also of note, lodge managers / outfitters suggested tips be given to them directly to ensure cooks, cleaners, drivers and other helpers got a reasonable cut which I thought was interesting.

 

[RuggedYogi]

This has been covered pretty extensively in several threads. Hit that search button in the top right corner.

 

[Mojave]

I just tell them not to eat yellow snow.

That is my tip for the day.

6 thoughts on a guy that will not get a tip.

1. are you jerking me around, leading me all over the mountain, but either have no idea of what you are doing or are purposely trying not to find game.

2. you have a shit attitude.

3. you make any mention of tipping.

4. you let booze or drugs get in the way of the hunt.

5. you are not ready to go in the morning. Or your personal life interupts the success of the hunt.

6. you get emotional about your personal life and drone on about it.


Any thing else I am pretty good with. I tip 0% on the cost of the hunt up to $1000. $1000 is my max. Even skinny sweet waitresses with huge chest don't get more than 10% from me anymore.

In Africa I tip the PH 50%, trackers 20% everyone else gets the other 30% divided by the number of hands.

 

[SuperDUECE22]

How much to tip | Rokslide Forum
Tipping a guide ? | Rokslide Forum

 

[WCB]

As a former guide standard thought was 10% of the cost of the hunt...Of course % as a baseline is personal thing. My wife and I are good tippers and our "baseline" is not 20%. 15% is baseline + for better... - for eh they got the job done but needed a little help along on service. 0% has happened due to incompetency etc. I will say we are probably actually at 20%+ avg but we have a few select places we go out to eat or tip at and they have very good service.

I will say I had some honest conversations with clients about tipping as they were normally the ones that saved up and took extra work to "afford" to go. I'd tell them take care of the camp jack, cook, etc. first if their service was to standard don't worry about me, but the standard thought was 10% of the hunt cost.

I would still go with 10% maybe 15% of the hunt cost then up or down from there. Of course if you have the means probably not as big of a deal as I know some of my clients gave me more then the deposit on their next years hunt was.

1. are you jerking me around, leading me all over the mountain, but either have no idea of what you are doing or are purposely trying not to find game.

This one makes me laugh...I actually had clients that I would give the talk to before the hunt. I scouted my ass off between clients and paid attention to maybe the species my next client had that my current one doesn't. So many of my hunts at least 1 client would have a tagged in the first day/day and a half....These were always above average no question shoot it type animals for the area.

Conversation went: I know where there is a really good (name the species) buck/Bull. He has been in that spot or general area for the last (month, week, # of days) We will probably kill him in the first 1/2 day or less are you ok with that or do you want me to take you on the scenic route and find him later in the hunt? Your comment made me laugh because I have had clients even after I showed them pictures and they would comment "man that thing is really nice" or "he's huge" say they want to look around and I felt like I was avoiding finding that animal.

 

[wyosteve]

Mojave- just curious, why is your percentage so much higher in Africa? Just seems inconsistent to me. No disrespect intended.

 

[intunegp]

I just tell them not to eat yellow snow.

That is my tip for the day.

6 thoughts on a guy that will not get a tip.

1. are you jerking me around, leading me all over the mountain, but either have no idea of what you are doing or are purposely trying not to find game.

2. you have a shit attitude.

3. you make any mention of tipping.

4. you let booze or drugs get in the way of the hunt.

5. you are not ready to go in the morning. Or your personal life interupts the success of the hunt.

6. you get emotional about your personal life and drone on about it.


Any thing else I am pretty good with. I tip 0% on the cost of the hunt up to $1000. $1000 is my max. Even skinny sweet waitresses with huge chest don't get more than 10% from me anymore.

In Africa I tip the PH 50%, trackers 20% everyone else gets the other 30% divided by the number of hands.

That's sad, hope you don't go out much.

 

[MallardSX2]

My wife has her ways.















Oh, that sounds weird.


Keep in mind, I'm her guide. lol

 

[Rich M]

This one makes me laugh...I actually had clients that I would give the talk to before the hunt. I scouted my ass off between clients and paid attention to maybe the species my next client had that my current one doesn't. So many of my hunts at least 1 client would have a tagged in the first day/day and a half....These were always above average no question shoot it type animals for the area.

Conversation went: I know where there is a really good (name the species) buck/Bull. He has been in that spot or general area for the last (month, week, # of days) We will probably kill him in the first 1/2 day or less are you ok with that or do you want me to take you on the scenic route and find him later in the hunt? Your comment made me laugh because I have had clients even after I showed them pictures and they would comment "man that thing is really nice" or "he's huge" say they want to look around and I felt like I was avoiding finding that animal.

The guided hunts I been on - the guides didn't care if I saw or shot anything. Then there'd be a line 6-8 people long with their hands out for the free money when it was time to leave. Where did they come from? No-one told me there'd be a cafeteria line for tipping, I'd brought smaller bills.

Would love to hunt with a guide such as yourself. Can see the guys wanting to hunt as opposed to kill right away 'cause that's what they had in their heads all the years or months leading up to the hunt. Want the full experience as opposed to just shooting a big buck. Tough call.

Could always do the hunt backwards - make the kill, then go scout with the guide and learn stuff.

 

[Haro450]

I think tipping is ridiculous and has gotten out of hand! I am not saying that outfitters and their employees don't deserve good wages. On the contrary I believe that the outfitting business should pay well enough that guides and cooks don't need to rely on tips. That being said I have never payed for a guide or outfitter and most likely never will. I always thought tips where suppose to be for someone going above and beyond their job not just a standard thing. I don't know maybe I am the odd one.

 

[Wags]

1. are you jerking me around, leading me all over the mountain, but either have no idea of what you are doing or are purposely trying not to find game.

I've been on one guided hunt and had that experience. The whole family pitched in and booked it for my sons birthday. It was a cow hunt in October on private property. The guide wouldn't take us up where we knew elk were because they didn't want to chase the bulls off before rifle season. I can tell you that part wasn't in the advertisement. Pretty disappointing.

 

[Mojave]

Mojave- just curious, why is your percentage so much higher in Africa? Just seems inconsistent to me. No disrespect intended.

All those percentages are the same.

$10,000 hunt. $1000 tips unless something strange happens, and you either really felt like the guide killed themselves or they went out of their way to be a dick. That tip gets split $500 or 50%, trackers 20% or $200 everyone else gets the other 30% divided by the number of hands.

In looking at my previous post on this, I think you have to ask the outfitter what they think the splits should be. The cook or tracker might have a womanizing or drinking problem and disapear from camp if you give them $200. You need to ask.

Tipping is a very Western influenced situation. My father got $100 tips on guided elk hunts in the 1970s. Hunts were about $1500.

My last German hunt I tipped my guide 100 Euro on a $1500 Euro hunt. He coughed and put the 100 in his pocket, and I said bier money and he smiled. Some guys are going to have their hand out. Just what it is.

The mid-tier hunts are taken by guys making mid tier $70,000-,200,000 money. Guys that have kids, wives, older kids in school, medical bills, mortages and everything else. Those $30,000-100,000 hunts are normally taken by guys that make more than that. Or are single.

You have to find your own financial limits on what you do. If you are a single surgeon going on a $30,000 moose hunt and it doesn't hurt you to blow $3000-5000 on a tip do it. For everyone else who saved for this trip for 5-6 years, a much lower number is going to be ok. I have been told that in the Yukon and NWT a $1000 tip for the guide, for a guy that doesn't make a lot of money is an ok number. They probably won't see you again anyway. If you plan on rebooking you ought to be able to throw more at them.

If you are a retiree on a budget or a married guy or couple even if you make good money the economics of life are different.

 

[Mojave]

Any thing else I am pretty good with. I tip 0% on the cost of the hunt up to $1000. $1000 is my max. Even skinny sweet waitresses with huge chest don't get more than 10% from me anymore.

In Africa I tip the PH 50%, trackers 20% everyone else gets the other 30% divided by the number of hands.

That's sad, hope you don't go out much.
======================================

Very rarely! If I do it is someplace I don't have to tip.

I am still very Australian or European in my theory on tipping. I have spent 17 years of my life living overseas.

 

[Rich M]

I've been on one guided hunt and had that experience. The whole family pitched in and booked it for my sons birthday. It was a cow hunt in October on private property. The guide wouldn't take us up where we knew elk were because they didn't want to chase the bulls off before rifle season. I can tell you that part wasn't in the advertisement. Pretty disappointing.

I’ve heard of a couple hunts like this where “guide” was restricted from taking hunters where the elk were. Only the repeat customers went there.

I’m tired of tipping. Why cant they just charge the correct anount where everyone makes enough to live on?

 

[sacklunch]

That's sad, hope you don't go out much.

Curious, why is it sad? The standard tip in the service industry has, for as long as I can remember, been 20%. But can you honestly say that the service has maintained the same level of quality to continue to justify the standard?
Nothing is owed, everything is earned.

 

[SDHNTR]

It’s obvious some of the tightwads here have never worked for tips. Wow. You can be an ass and say well these service industry folks should get paid more wage so we don’t have to tip. Well guess what? That’s not the way the service world works. Never has, never will. And it’s not the employees’ fault the “system” works this way, so why short change the very folks who are just trying to make ends meet? They don’t give a chit about your philosophical objections, they care about putting food on their table and the good ones work hard to make that extra buck. All you non tippers are doing is short changing hard working folks. Don’t fault them for the system.

And from a hunting customer’s perspective, who wouldn’t want some sort of incentive system? Isn’t that good for us? You’d rather the guy or gal make all their money no matter what the results? No matter how hard they work for you? Remove the incentive? Yep, that would work out well! Gimme a break.

The beauty of a system including tips is you are in control of that last piece of compensation. You have the choice to dish it out or not! No one is forcing you to crack open that wallet if the service sucks. You can always hold back. Some of you want to give up that choice? Huh?

If you can’t afford a reasonable tip, you can’t afford the hunt. Look, this is simple! A $5000 hunt doesn’t cost $5000. It costs $5500-6000, and that’s how much you need to budget. You just get to hold onto that last $500-1000 and only dish it out if YOU feel it was earned. I like that concept personally.

 

[Mojave]

 

[WTNUT]

Since we have some good answers, I will add to my original post.

1. I have tipped a guide more than the price of the hunt, so that is proof positive the price of a hunt does not factor in to me.
2. Going to stir the pot here most likely, but if a guide is guiding a 75K dessert sheep hunt he isn’t getting a $7,500 and his buddy only getting $750 on a $7,500 elk hunt. I have two great friends that are large outfitters, and have discussed this with them some. Generally the dessert sheep hunt is a piece of cake. Find the sheep a day or two prior to the client arriving (yes you had to know where to look) stay with it until someone else brings client then shoot sheep first day of season. Whereas the elk hunt may last 10 days and be tough as hell for many reasons I will not mention. No way am I giving the sheep guide 10 times the tip as the elk guide.
3. If I am with a guide for 7 to 15 days depending on the hunt, I am going to get to know him pretty well. It is something I do for a living so comes easy to me. If he does a great job for me, I am going to know how much money is going to be truly appreciated by him. And, no I don’t short change him if it would not take too much to make him happy. I will give him something that will really make him happy.
4. On two hunts I had unbelievably bad outfitters, but he guides were good and honestly embarrassed when it came to the outfitter. I didn’t allow the outfitter’s unimaginable short comings impact the guide. But, I did play a good get even joke on the outfitter before leaving - and his super star client which was the only person he gave a dang about.
5. Best answer is it truly is a personal matter to be considered case by case and thanks to each of you for providing valuable information for me to consider in the future.


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