How much to tip your hunting guide?

Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
2,575
I find the whole conversation awkward, and I wish that the outfitter would just include the tip in their cost.

Spend $5000 on a hunt and then have to give $500-$1000 more after it? Whaaaaat?
I don't do guided hunts, but if I did, there is absolutely no way I would tip more than 10% and that 10% would be split amongst the people involved.

No thanks. Thats not for me.
 

SDHNTR

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Aug 30, 2012
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When I was a kid it was common to hear "his parents did/didn't raise him right" so I think it's funny to see all the older people shitting on entitled millenials now...seems to me a bunch of boomers didn't raise their kids right eh?

It's easy to blame a generation but there's people of all ages who never get it together. I'm a millenial and it seems to me most of the career fast food/service workers are a generation older than me, not my peers. I have a blue collar career, a home, a soon-to-be wife, and no financial worries even though I'm far from getting rich. I know people my age doing a lot better than me, and some not doing anything at all.

I have no problem tipping 18-20% when I choose to go out to eat because if it was all about saving a couple bucks I'd have fired up the grill. If you're having a $200 restaurant dinner and the difference between a $20 and $40 tip is what burns your wallet I'd say the budget needs a closer look.
I’m not a millennial but I find it laughable that boomers chit on anyone. Talk about gov entitlement! They live off it, and have left a path of destruction in their wake!

Few of em saved enough when pensions stopped so now they’re overly dependent on Social Security and Medicare, broken systems. Too many piglets and not enough tits. Fabricated economic strain. Then they’ve over strained healthcare and insurance systems with their propensity to indulge in the Standard American Diet, booze and tobacco and the resulting after effects. Let’s not even talk about the environmental damage. I’m certainly no liberal and I love my Boomer parents. I just find it humorous to hear Boomers casting stones as they simultaneously demonstrate a complete lack of introspection. That generation has left its mark on nearly everything in society today, and other than military service, not much of it is positive.
 

sacklunch

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I’m not a millennial but I find it laughable that boomers chit on anyone. Talk about gov entitlement! They live off it, and have left a path of destruction in their wake!

Few of em saved enough when pensions stopped so now they’re overly dependent on Social Security and Medicare, broken systems. Too many piglets and not enough tits. Fabricated economic strain. Then they’ve over strained healthcare and insurance systems with their propensity to indulge in the Standard American Diet, booze and tobacco and the resulting after effects. Let’s not even talk about the environmental damage. I’m certainly no liberal and I love my Boomer parents. I just find it humorous to hear Boomers casting stones as they simultaneously demonstrate a complete lack of introspection. That generation has left its mark on nearly everything in society today, and not much of it is positive.
So you blame the boomers for being overly dependent but in the same breath say it’s on everyone else to subsidize millennials working service jobs?

And how dare those boomers take social security which rue paid into their entire lives! Shame on them! And the doctor, no way, an aging population group is going to the doctor more than younger individuals? You don’t say!?

You can’t make this stuff up😂
 

SDHNTR

WKR
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So you blame the boomers for being overly dependent but in the same breath say it’s on everyone else to subsidize millennials working service jobs?

You can’t make this stuff up😂
My point is, it’s not a subsidy at all. It’s earned income.
 
Joined
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Wisconsin
I use 10% to the Guide as a starting point.
Variables to build it up from there include, hunting the full week, above and beyond experience, trophy success.

Had a year when I swapped hunting partners, and the guide as a result (a day a piece), then enjoyed success with the 2nd guide. I asked the Outfitter, how to handle tipping his guides in that scenario? He said 'you tip the Effort, not the Success, a 50/50 share between them'. Life is simple.
 

sacklunch

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Dec 12, 2022
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My point is, it’s not a subsidy at all. It’s earned income.
sure, tips count as earned income. But it is 100% a subsidy. You are by definition subsidizing that business owner who refuses to pay an appropriate wage. But you seem to think it’s mandatory to tip. I fundamentally disagree. And if you have anything other than an emotional argument for it, I’m all ears.
 

SDHNTR

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sure, tips count as earned income. But it is 100% a subsidy. You are by definition subsidizing that business owner who refuses to pay an appropriate wage. But you seem to think it’s mandatory to tip. I fundamentally disagree. And if you have anything other than an emotional argument for it, I’m all ears.
Zero emotions involved. I tip when it’s deserved. I feel that it earned income. End of story. And I feel most service workers who live off tips understand the system and work hard for that extra income. They deserve commensurate compensation.
 

sacklunch

WKR
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Dec 12, 2022
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Zero emotions involved. I tip when it’s deserved. I feel that it earned income. End of story. And I feel most service workers who live off tips understand the system and work hard for that extra income. They deserve commensurate compensation.
I’ll expect you’re tipping the UPS driver 20% of each and every delivery then. Same goes for the flight attendant on your next flight..what’s fair, 20% of your ticket price? How about the nurse…you tipping the nurse/doctor 20% for their service? Those listed above work hard and provide a service…but no tip from you? Or are we only tipping those whose employers refuse to pay them fairly, in other words, a subsidy.
 
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WTNUT

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jun 3, 2020
Messages
223
A $5K elk hunt where one guide leads you around the mountains for a week has very little in common to a sheep hunt up north (dall/stone/bighorn) where you are supported by all kinds of people and logistics...as an example, the bush pilot who flew you into a remote spot and then came and got your butt out during a tight window between bad weather. Pretty easy to see the lack of experience/ignorance in this thread. People talking about things they have no clue about

Dall and stone you are right. I am not going to agree with regards to bighorn and dessert. Plus we are talking about a guide not the outfitter, not the bush pilot, try to stay on point. P.S. I have experience with all four thank you.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Fowl Play

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Oct 1, 2016
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I am purely asking out of ignorance here. Roughly, what percentage of the price for say a $5000 elk hunt is actually being paid to the guide in a large outfitter operation?

I never know where to draw the line on tipping, it's so engrained in American society but where does it end? Construction is technically a service. We're not tipping those fellas. If you're dropping thousands of dollars on something, why isn't the total cost already priced in?

Part of my job is helping extremely wealthy individuals get into and out of spacecraft. That's a service! Should those guys be paying me 10% of their $40 million ticket? I want my compensation!
 
Last edited:

stevevan

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Mar 23, 2016
Messages
672
I am purely asking out of ignorance here. Roughly, what percentage of the price for say a $5000 elk hunt is actually being paid to the guide in a large outfitter operation?

I never know where to draw the line on tipping, it's so engrained in American society but where does it end? Construction is technically a service. We're not tipping those fellas. If you're dropping thousands of dollars on something, why isn't the total cost already priced in?

Part of my job is helping extremely wealthy individuals get into and out of spacecraft. That's a service! Should those guys be paying me 10% of their $40 million ticket? I want my compensation!
Depends. I've been on hunts where a happily left 20% and I've been on hunts where I left 0.
 

Trial153

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I know one thing. If I ever decided to be employed in a service in that tipping was the norm I would steer clear of hunters. Unfortunately some of these responses I feel are all to indicative of many of them being tight greedy bastards.
 

Fowl Play

WKR
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Oct 1, 2016
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I know one thing. If I ever decided to be employed in a service in that tipping was the norm I would steer clear of hunters. Unfortunately some of these responses I feel are all to indicative of many of them being tight greedy bastards.
We can still talk about it.... have you ever traveled internationally? The US is one of the only places tipping is the norm. I have been laughed at for trying to tip in Europe... the server straight up said. "We pay our people a living wage here."
 
Joined
Feb 12, 2022
Messages
2,054
I am purely asking out of ignorance here. Roughly, what percentage of the price for say a $5000 elk hunt is actually being paid to the guide in a large outfitter operation?

I never know where to draw the line on tipping, it's so engrained in American society but where does it end? Construction is technically a service. We're not tipping those fellas. If you're dropping thousands of dollars on something, why isn't the total cost already priced in?

Part of my job is helping extremely wealthy individuals get into and out of spacecraft. That's a service! Should those guys be paying me 10% of their $40 million ticket? I want my compensation!
I work in construction and get tipped more often than not.
 

SDHNTR

WKR
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
7,056
We can still talk about it.... have you ever traveled internationally? The US is one of the only places tipping is the norm. I have been laughed at for trying to tip in Europe... the server straight up said. "We pay our people a living wage here."
Yeah, and stuff costs more and their taxes are sky high to boot!
 

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