Hi there outdoor board. I read your stuff all the time but I hardly ever post anything. I can't even remember the last time I posted on any board at all!

My husband hunts a lot and has his own lease with a bunch of guys he has known forever but I know he has never killed a big buck. He kills several deer each year but he only has a couple of skulls on the wall. But this year has been a good year for us and I bought him a guided hunting trip on a ranch that does "package deals" so he can kill a big buck.

We have never done anything like this other than going on a charter fishing boat for his friend's birthday several years ago. I remember we tipped the boat guys at the end of the trip (they made several announcements during the trip that the deck hands worked for tips only), so I'm guessing that its also normal to tip hunting guides even though the cost of the fishing trip was A LOT less than the cost of this hunting trip? What would be the proper amount to tip? Is it like a restaurant where 15-20% is normal? According to the guy I spoke with when I booked the trip, its all inclusive; meals, room, cleaning & quartering the deer, etc. All my husband has to do is show up with his gun & license and have a good time is what the guide told me.

Thanks for your help!

$100 per guide

Per day

20% of the cost of the hunt, generally!
Also, take into consideration the cooks,etc.
Bring cash !!

NW80 forgot to tell you that he is a high roller

I guided on a ranch for 7 years. If I got 20% of the hunt, I would be retired right now. Give him what you think he is worth. Its more about the effort that he shows you. If he busted his ass or had to crawl in the brush in the dark, give him more. The going rate foe guides is $150 a day. Most guides have about $10000-$15000 in equipment, not including his truck, that he uses to take you on a hunt. Keep this in mind when tipping. I know I haven't given you a # but it is still up to you what to give.

Hunting or fishing I do 10-15% to the guide, Captain, deckhand, and if skinner/caper is different I'll give them $100. The cook is good for $100-$200 depending on whether I eat Fajitas or Ribeyes, Sashimi or fried whatever fish. Had a muley down in thick Sagebrush and two other guides helped pack him about a mile to a road, so that was good for $100 each.

It all kinda depends, but the tip is a substantial part of their pay.

[This message has been edited by Deerdude (edited 12/12/2013 7:41p).]

This is my 9th season as a guide and I've seen the tip amount all up and down the scale. I've seen guys who tipped $40 for an entire all inclusive 3-day hunt. I've seen guys that tip their guide and every guide in camp and the cook $500 each. I've seen guys base their tip on the size of the deer they got, no matter how hard (or not) the guide worked. And I've seen guys not tip at all even if they say they had a great time and they are going home with a nice buck and coolers full of venison & pork. Then there was the one guy who tipped another hunters guide because that hunter didn't tip.

With me its like eating at a restaurant. If you had a great experience tip 20% or even bigger if you're feeling generous and you can afford it. And tell them why they got a big tip. And if you had a bad experience tip small or not at all and tell them why they got little/nothing. This drives my wife crazy at a restaurant. She automatically tips 20% no matter if we had the best dining experience of our life or if the waiter spit in our glasses and cleaned them with his greasy apron right in front of us.

I've only been on two guided hunting trips. Both were with the same outfitter in Wyoming. I didn't get a deer on either trip but I tipped 20% of the hunt cost because the guide worked his butt off every day. Horses saddled and ready to go at 4am. Ride/hunt all day. Put up horses after dark and drive home then be back next day to start all over again. 5 days in a row.

Some things to remember when tipping your guide:

They have most likely been up an hour or two before you were called for breakfast.

They are out in whatever the weather is doing all the dirty knife work, and likely don't get to bed until well after you.

They judge, track, drag, pack, cut, sort, ice, and load game that they worked hard to find for you.

They love every minute of it until someone shows lack of appreciation by stiffing them on a tip. A good guide can make all the difference on a hunt, show them you appreciate their effort with a tip that is commensurate with that effort.

I always tip 10-20% every day depending on how that day went. Effort counts, but so do results.

20% for a pen-raised deer hunt?!? Come on now. That's a joke. No guide is getting up way before the hunters and no guide is scouting. I'd tip $100-300 and get on down the road. Those guides are merely sitting in the stand with you to score whatever walks out and probably looking at some game cam photos on the side. They aren't hiking up and down mountains every day and saddling horses.

[This message has been edited by Txaggie02 (edited 12/13/2013 3:08a).]

I was sitting at the house with one of my best friends who not only has guided in Alaska for 30 years but South Texas as well.
My remarks were directly based on what he said, not being a "high roller" at all.

I agree with trident and 02.

If he's shooting penned up deer then I think the tip is a little bit of a joke... if a guide is required for that they are probably expecting a different type of client, imo.

An outfitter or fishing guide or cleaning guy/cook is def. worth their tips.

15-20% is fairly standard.

I knew a guy that got tipped $50.00 for a week of Elk guiding. The guide handed the money back to the hunter and said, "apparently you need this worse than I do".

Tip well, but also according to service.

First, I agree that 20% would be extremely generous, specially since deer from $7500 to $15000 aren't uncommon now.

Having said that, and admitting that my experience with guiding high fence is limited, it really isn't any less work on the guide. How many whitetail hunts wether high fence or free range have you used horses anyway?

I was talking about guided hunts in general. Not just a whitetail hunt where the guide wakes up and takes you to the stand so that he can score the deer when they walk out.

My reference is a professional Alaskan guide who is in the field or on the water over b250 days a year. Not, someone who works at another job and "guides" as an avocation.

Where all the guide has to do is get up and go judge a deer then he's done? No other work? Which ranch requires no more of its guides than that? I'd like their contact info, that sounds like a sweet gig.

Why are we talking about Alaskan guides and pack in guides when the lady asked about an appropriate tip on a package whitetail hunt in Texas?

If you would spend 30 seconds reading the complete thread, you would see how the conversation evolved.

I have followed the conversation from the beginning. We have established that pack in guides are tipped at an appropriate level of at least 20%, which is commensurate with the amount and intensity of the work they do for the hunter, which I agree with. We have established that 20% on a $15000 high fence whitetail hunt would be ridiculously generous, which I agree with. How much work goes into that $15000 high fence hunt from the guide, and what that's worth...well I wouldn't be insulted by the $2-300 mentioned, but I'm going to have to stay in disagreement over the work that goes into it.

Whatever other work the guide does should be compensated by the outfitting company, which would be the money paid by the customer for the hunt. Tipping is a reward for what a guide does for me on my hunt, which isn't going to be a whole lot when we merely drive to the stand and sit there together for 3 hours in the morning and evening.

Yeah I said we had a good year but it wasn't good enough to tip 15-20% of a $15,000 buck! My husband wouldn't shoot anything like that anyway.

The place I bought the hunt is high fenced but is something like 4,500 acres. We talked about it before I booked it and he said if he gets there and it looks one tiny bit like a canned hunt, he's leaving.

I spoke & e-mailed with outfitters from three different ranches around Texas and I think I made a good choice. Here are a couple of things that the outfitter told me that made me choose this ranch over the others.

1. Their deer are all native to the ranch. No outside genetics have been introduced to the herd.
2. No "deer pens" inside the ranch that they hunt in, its only high fenced around the perimiter.
3. Its a working cattle ranch that just happens to have a decent deer management program, its not a ranch that does nothing but hunt deer and make its living off of deer.
4. We hunt the same way you do at your own personal lease except the ranch employees are the ones doing all the hard work like filling feeders, cutting shooting lanes through the brush, hauling firewood, fighting wasp in the blinds, gutting & skinning animals.

The hunt cost $2500 for the package deal. My husband said he would have no problem tipping 20% of that amount if the place was legit and he had a good time. He did say that "If I see one deer with an ear tag, I'm packing my stuff and leaving".

Thanks for all of your input guys!

Don't forget the post-hunt pics.

Good for y'all!!!
Hope he kills a biggun!

Sounds like you made a good choice in outfitters. I would much rather kill a wide, high, native 8 or 10 point than one of those "Chernobyl bucks" that are 16" wide and have 47 scoreable points. And as long as your husband has a good time, that is probably what matters the most.