Hunting guide as a career ?

[Forestryguy]

If joining the military don't just be grunt. Get a job that you can actually use outside the military in a normal civilian life. Kicking doors and banging mortars is cool shit, but there are few jobs to use it in outside the military.

Today I would go firefighting or into the trades. My neighbor is in mid 20s, plumber and making bank and has all the toys.

 

[Hnthrdr]

No advice on the marriage thing, I married young and ended up divorced, I have a great wife and kiddo now, but that was a rocky road to get here. For career like some have said, firefighting is pretty great, that’s what I did after my stint in the army. I love it. Make solid money low 6 figures before any overtime… (but it’s expensive as heck to live out west) and had all the time in the world to hunt and fish, don’t get as much with a kiddo now but love my career and the guys I work with.

 

[RuggedYogi]

Follow your heart, young man. Life is too short to not have some fun adventures in your twenties. You have all the time in the world to settle into a career. Your twenties are for figuring out what you want to do with your life, get out there and make some mistakes and have fun while doing it.

If you’ve talked about these options with your wife and she’s supportive of you being away a lot, then you’re golden. However, if planning on having kids soon, I take back everything I just said.

 

[2five7]

I got married at 21 and it was one of the best decisions I ever made......

Me too. If you pick the wrong girl, don't matter how old you are...

 

[woods89]

Let’s pull the statistics on that outcome.

I'm fully aware that statistically we may be an outlier. All I'm saying is that following your advice would have been a colossal mistake for me.

 

[dtrkyman]

I have been a guide for over 20 seasons, first season was 1998. skipped a season here and there.

Folks always talk about issues with clients, I guess I have been lucky or good, only ever had one real issue with a client!

Believe it or not other guides and employees are the larger issue!

I would neither recommend it or steer you away, I highly recommend a good wife with a good job.

Keep in mind in many instances you may not see home for months and you literally live at work.

I had a season that I guided in 5 states, travel is a B and you use your own vehicle!

 

[3forks]

I guided fishing for 20+ years.

Some of that was part time after I had left guiding full time and went back to work with a corporate career, but I spent a lot of time rowing boats and wading rivers.

When you become a guide, it will take you a long time to develop a repeat clientele that won‘t make you want to pull you hair out. Also, when you first start guiding, the outfitter you work for will give you all the sports that are ”walk-ins”, beginners, people he can tell will be difficult, or sports that all his other guides won’t take or can’t take because they’ve been booked with their return clients for sometimes years in advance. Essentially, you will be guiding people the outfitter views as potentially just one time customers.

Every once in a while you’ll get some OK sports, but mostly these people are going to make you question why you’re doing the job. Even though you’ve got the skill set to put people on fish or animals, when you first start out - you’re going to be learning as much about how to guide and deal with people as your sports are going to learn from you.

IF (and it’s a big if), you decide that guiding is still something you want to pursue after a year or so, you’re going to need to accept that to get to a point where you‘re taking out more skilled and capable people and consistently getting trips, you‘re going to be paying your dues for several more years. And, despite the fact that you’re going to be frustrated with how awful some of your clients are, you’ve still got to bust your ass for these people because the outfitter won’t give you better clients until you’ve proven yourself capable of taking out guys who actually know what they‘re doing (and a lot of these guys have been guided by some very capable people and had some world class experiences). You’re going to be the low man on the totem pole, and trying to out work/compete all the other new guides in an effort to get better sports.

I could tell you a lot more about why guiding can suck, but if it‘s something you‘re still interested in doing even after reading all the comments from guys who have posted in this thread, give it a shot. However, if I were to give you any advice - it would be to let your fiancé determine where to live because she’s the one who has been going to school for her career. And, I think it would be wise to get a job in the trades so that you‘re learning a skill and can be working when you‘re not guiding because the reality is, if you start guiding - you could go days or more between trips.

 

[MTguy0341]

I was in the same predicament as yourself. Join the military or go guiding. Went the military route. I don’t regret it, now work in the trades and joined the reserves after being active duty. Take the days off I want for hunting, but still have a decent benefit package from my one weekend a month.

 

[displacedtexan]

I got married at 21 and it was one of the best decisions I ever made......

I was 20... But same.

Also, if you don't KNOW that you want to join the military... Don't.

I've got a number of friends who joined it as a "good job". Most of them, are either physically or mentally broken from it. A couple are both.

And good lord, police work is not (or at least shouldn't be) like being in the military.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Do you really want to scrape rust off the sides of ships and hang out with a bunch of dudes on a boat for extended periods of time ???

 

[Minute_of_Antelope]

It’s funny; most dudes can’t get married fast enough when they join the military.

 

[EastHumboldt]

So you’ve been with a girl since you were 16?
You’re about to make a seriously bad decision, young man.

Dump that chic tonight and join the Coast Guard tomorrow.

OP is being pretty polite to you. Your repeated insistence that he should dump a girl he loves enough to marry is pushy and rude. It’s none of you f’ing business and he didn’t ask for your advice on that topic. As I said he’s too polite to say it, so I will On his behalf. I suggest you go pound some sand.

 

[rocksteady]

Whatever you choose, just focus on open communication with your fiancee - her support will make a big difference. You've got your whole life ahead still to pursue guiding dreams too. Wishing you the best figuring this out!

 

[western406]

I work as a year round hunting and fishing guide right now. Make decent money, hunt more for myself then I did prior to guiding year round. The catch is you have to be willing to travel to follow the seasons. I spend about 6 months in Alaska then the rest of my year is split between Montana and Texas. As for getting into guiding, check out a guide school. Royal Tine is about the best in the industry. As mentioned above Pat with Swan Mountain is a joke. There are ways around the guide school route but it’s an industry where who you know still gets you far. If you’re serious about it feel free to message me and I’d be more then happy to tell you things I wish I woulda known or thoughtful about 10 years ago when I started this guiding thing.

 

[Squincher]

I’m 21 years old and trying to figure out what I want to do in life, I’m looking into the coast guard but I’m a little bit apprehensive about enlisting with being married soon and potentially being underway on a ship/cutter for over half of the year… but my dream is to guide hunts/ fishing trips… I travel out to Wyoming, sd, and out west in general every year just to hike, explore and hunt predators… I live on the east coast and we have some good deer hunting but it’s not the same world over here. Those of you that guide, how did you get into it? I’m a young guy and I’m getting married soon so I need to get things moving one way or another

I was in your situation, except I was 18 and planned to make a career of the Army. Fast forward 33 years, and I ended up with a different career but the same girl. I can't predict your future, but marrying my wife is about the only thing I've never second guessed. One thing about being married in the military is you'll know certain before the end of your first enlistment if she really is the one. Just don't have kids right away and it will be cheaper to get out if you need to, and that applies to the marriage and the military.

 

[EastHumboldt]

I want to apologize to JoshuaJosh, poser, the moderators, and everyone else on the forum. I just went back and reread my post, and My tone was kind of angry.

Instead of attacking poser, what I should’ve said was:

when you break up with a girl, they generally ask for some sort of explanation. When the explanation is “some guy on the Internet who doesn’t know either one of us told me to break up with you“. I can’t imagine the look on her face. if you do break up with her because some guy on the Internet told you to, you don’t deserve her.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do careerwise until I was in my late 20s. I got married when I was 18. far from ruining my life we were married for 20 years, and she kept me out of a lot of trouble. Our union produced a son , who is my pride and joy, and my best hunting buddy still. we are divorced now, but I don’t consider it a failure, just one of the chapters of my life. That being said, being married is hard, especially when you’re young. But it’s not as hard as marching around some foreign country, toting a rifle and getting shot at.

I spent about 10 years in manufacturing, then I got a job as a maintenance guy for a local government. There’s just so many career paths out there, try a few on. Sooner or later something will stick.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

The guides I have hunted with, to the man has told me, they gave up something they loved doing, hunting, to become a guide, they all regretted doing so.

 

[*zap*]

focus on what you can do and being happy while also taking care of the future. Material possessions are not the most important thing contrary to popular beliefs...

 

[Glory]

I don’t buy into the whole idea that you will ruin something you love by doing it as a living. I have 20 years guiding and I look forward to it every year. Probably do 15 more before I hang it up. Am I burnt at the end of the season, yep. But that’s normal.

The key is to be good at it. I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t good at it and had problems with clients and booking.

 

[CorbLand]

Regardless of what you decide OP. If you want to move West, do it now. Find a way to make it work and make it happen. It does not get easier as you get older. You have nothing to lose when you are 20.