WOW! Somebody is upset!

[singleshot12]

You are right gasman we should stick together as hunters but to some of us we believe commercial hunting and fishing is a threat to all hunting and fishing in the future.

[gasman]

I don't view guided hunting as a threat but as a resource.

[Packers10]

I don't view guided hunting as a threat but as a resource.

True, and guides and their clients are (obviously) held to the same laws and standards as the rest of us.  They can't take more game, use special equipment, etc.......

[Guzman]

In terms of how are you differentiating from the guides and the average Joes. The point that I was making was that most of the floating blinds are not guides, but just your average guy who is not guiding. They are not taking money. So if you are destroying their blind you are not discouraging guiding, but just your everyday hunter.

On the Pot Holes a guide must get a permit the the WDFW in Ephrata and must have $1,000,000 in insurance. They do not pay for anything, but they are insured.

Although there is no fee for guiding on public land, which I do not guide on so I am not arguing to protect myself, they do bring in a lot of cash flow in the form of community sales and taxes.

Seperatly I do not buy into the idea that guides should not profit from public property. For one there is not a large profit margin. Two think of all the other entities that benifit from public resources. Not knowing where you work I would be suprised if it didn't or there wasn't a link. What about a company like Boeing that gets tax breaks, or truckers who use public highways? Heck even your super market uses public power and water.

Too add to it I just don't think that guides make up that large of a percentage of the hunting being done to have much effect. And the cost to set a permit/fee system would outweight all income being brought in. Seems like a large bureacracy to me. But if you want to pay taxes to set it up than contact your representative.

[gasman]

I don't view guided hunting as a threat but as a resource.

True, and guides and their clients are (obviously) held to the same laws and standards as the rest of us.  They can't take more game, use special equipment, etc.......

I agree, and would hope to belive, guides would put more effort in to keeping our areas clean and do all they can to keep the resources available to all.

[DUCKDOWNER]

Get up earlier!!!! Their blinds are public property and first come first serve! Welcome to waterfowling in 2011.

And read what I wrote. I promise even if you get up at what you think is an early enough time you will not beat the guides to the blinds that are worth hunting.

So what makes you think that your average Joe hunter isn't going to show up as early as a guide. I have driven two hours on opener to find a parking lot full of hunters with every blind taken two days before legal shoot!!!! You will find this at any spot that is shooting well.

[ICEMAN]

This whole agruement could be avoided if all sportsmen would treat each other with common courtesy and respect.

[gasman]

This whole agruement could be avoided if all sportsmen would treat each other with common courtesy and respect.

AMEN Brother..........

[Ratdog68]

This whole agruement could be avoided if all sportsmen would treat each other with common courtesy and respect.

+1  The antis WIN when they're able to get US to drive a wedge 'tween us and become divided.  In Montana, the antis are getting deer tags and not usin' 'em to make our chances more difficult.  They oppose US from every front.  Ammunition, attempts to ban our tools, and any number acts of pure stupidity in the name of "eco-friendly" causes.  And, we have nothing better to do with our time than to squabble amongst one another.  Shame on us for it.

[Bigtine96]

This whole agruement could be avoided if all sportsmen would treat each other with common courtesy and respect.

agree 100% well put

[sakoshooter]

Guzman,
Guides do not 'open' up any land to hunters. Leasing a farm that 2 hunters would hunt and stating you opened it up to 100 hunters is just wrong. Those 100 hunters pay dearly for the priviledge. There's no 'open' to it.
I'd also beg to differ with you on your percentages of guide filled blinds on Potholes.

One point that I was trying to make is a lot of the "guides" are not guides. Everyone is saying get to the blind first and take it etc. Most of the perminate blinds are not guides. How is everyone differentiating the guides from public guys?

The point I was trying to make was that previously very few people hunted or had access to hunt the farms that I hunt. Now on those farms many people hunt it. Do they pay yes. Do they pay dearly no.

With all of hunting times are changing and will change. Point in fact there are more people in this state and less waterfowl. Leases now cost more, yet there are less birds. Guiding is and probably will be less profitable in the future. There are less guides now than there were just 5 years ago. I think they same can and will be said about the general public in that there will be less birds and will require more work than 5 years ago. It is a progression that comes with increased population. You have more people vying for the same resourse.

The way I differentiate the guides from the regular hunters is by their actions in the field.
Example 1: A couple years ago, three of us made a DIY duck/goose hunt to Potholes for a long weekend. After spending Friday scouting and moving around, we had a spot for Sat morn. Arriving darn early found us set up in two or our own portable blinds before anyone else was in the area. Soon after setting up, we heard a boat motoring very fast all around us. Figuring it was duck hunters looking for a spot or a way to get thru some dunes. Wrong. It was a guide dropping off hunters all around us. When it got daylight, we had a group directly across from us, two groups on the same dune as us,  one just down from us and another directly behind us and a couple groups close by on other dunes. The guide's route to 'tend' these hunters took him right past our decoys about every 45 minutes not to mention all the other running around close by tending the other groups. This constant running around and the fact that this guide placed hunters right next to us even after we shined lights their way ruined our day. We moved to a new spot the next day only to have a similar performance but to a lesser extent.
Example 2: A couple years ago at the Nisqually delta, a guide(according to the huge logo on his boat)motored out to a salt grass flat 75yds directly in front of me and my partner 20 minutes after shooting light. We'd been there for over 2 hours. I hollered at him with no response. He and a little guy in the front of the boat started shooting at EVERY duck that flew over. Approximately 1 hour and 50 shells later, they crippled a Bufflehead. They proceeded to chase it down with the outboard with the little guy shooting wildly while the 'guide' drove the boat. 10 shots later they had it in their boat. I called WDFW enforcement. Then I paddled my canoe out and confronted him about his great ethical hunting practices informing him that I'd called the law. He stated that he was a guide and just wanted to get his nephew some shooting. After putting him down as best I could and reminding him that I'd called the law, he picked up and left.
Both of these instances happened on public water at everyone else's expense. This is what my opinion is based on.
Now I'm sure there are many great guides out there but these are examples of why there needs to be some form of policing. If we can't police our own, who's going to do it? I would think that guides would want to police their own as a bad guide would ruin it for the good guides.

[bearpaw]

You made a good point there. I don't think it's legal for the guy to shoot from a boat under propulsion so you probably did the right thing by reporting him. He certainly did not do any guides any favors with his actions and I can now see why you have a bad attitude about guides. Like every other group of people there are good and bad, and those type of actions are bad for everyone. 

[Sneaky]

why make it illegal to guide on public land, especially in a waterfowl situation?

in this case, you beat the guide to "their" blind, they are going to have a harder time getting birds. Their clients aren't going to want to pay money for a marginal hunt anymore. The situation will work itself out - they will either no longer have customers or they will learn another spot. They won't continue to compete for that space - Unless they can make 200+ a day for limits of coots 


I live on the west side and have a 3 hour disadvantage to get any spot in eastern Washington that I want to hunt. that leaves me two options: get up earlier or walk further.

[bearpaw]

Most agencies consider guiding a positive resource for the public and it is in most cases. As someone else said, these things have a way of working themselves out. The one thing you need to remember, guides do provide services to the general public. Guided trips are preferred by many hunters who have busy job schedules, hunters who are not as experienced as more fortunate hunters, or simply by hunters who want to let someone else deal with all the prep. But the bottom line is, the guide isn't hunting, the public is still doing the hunting, if you banned guiding, you are actually taking away opportunities that many public hunters prefer to have.

My guess is that the guides you mention are not pleasing many hunters if they are acting as you say and in the end they will pay the price for their actions with the success of their business.

The one guy wasn't even guiding hunters, you said he had a family member with him, perhaps he isn't even a real guide. 

I agree with Iceman, we all just need to treat each other with respect.

[ducks55]

Get up earlier!!!! Their blinds are public property and first come first serve! Welcome to waterfowling in 2011.

And read what I wrote. I promise even if you get up at what you think is an early enough time you will not beat the guides to the blinds that are worth hunting.

So what makes you think that your average Joe hunter isn't going to show up as early as a guide. I have driven two hours on opener to find a parking lot full of hunters with every blind taken two days before legal shoot!!!! You will find this at any spot that is shooting well.

Its not going to be a good shoot with a parking lot full of hunters and driving two hours for a duck... damn man you gotta find some other spots!