Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters On guided hunts who guts kills?

Actually I learned from my Dad to always take your camera! Keeps you off your butt and your hands clean and then you can share the pics with your guide!

We're cutting my son's buck tonight. At 13 he knows how to finish, measure, cut, fletch, and assemble the arrow tips. He knows how to build a sturdy stand. He knows where to put the arrow, how to track the animal, gut the animal, drag it, hang it, skin it, cut, wrap, and freeze it. He does a fine job cooking and eating it too. He even loves his mom and dad. I'm very proud of the lad, and the others too.

If I pay the big bucks for a guided hunt with all the expensive frills you can damn sure bet the guide or one of his farm boys is going to do all the cleaning, including the skinning, quartering and putting it in the ice chest.

Blowtorch, we S. Texians kinda think alike on this one!

Just some random thoughts:

1) Many guides will do a lot better job of gutting, skinning, etc. than the average once-a-year hunter, just because they do it a lot more. I have gutted hundreds of animals and am pretty good at it, but I have also guided and know that many hunters aren't any good at it.

Even some hunters who are very good at gutting are often slow. I once guided a doctor ot a whitetail in below zero-weather. He wanted to do the work himself and literally started laying out his scalpels. I suggested that I start while he got ready, and by the time he WAS ready the deer was gutted.

Same deal with skinning. My wife really likes to skin, and like many women is better at it than men. She actually took the knife away from a friend of ours who was "caping" a medium-sized whitetail he'd shot, because half the neck meat was ending up on the cape--which also had a few knife holes. (This guy is a nationally-known writer on both rifles and custom knives.)

On the other hand, I shot my first caribou on a hunt in the Northwest Territories with an Inuit guide, and learned an awful lot about gutting and skinning caribou from him. When I asked how many caribou he skinned each year, he thought for a little and said, "Oh, about a hundred." He could skin a bull for a full-body mount in about 45 minutes without the slightest mistake.

Same deal in Africa. They know a lot more about those animals than you do, even if you've been a taxidermist or guide for years in the U.S., amd do hundreds a year.

2) I have never known a guide to refuse help on a bigger animal such as an elk or moose. Most will do it all themselves if they have to, but I have never seen any reason for sitting around and watching when two of us can get it done a LOT faster.

On the other hand, my hunting partner and I (who have both guided) once helped a British Columbia bear guide skin a large bear my partner had shot. Afterward the guide said that while he appreciated the help, he got kind of nervous with THREE knives going at once. So if we didn't mind, he'd do all the skinning after that.

3) A very few guides who are lazy and incompetent. I make damn sure my pronghorns get taken care of properly, because I've run into a few guides who don't always get antelope hung up and cooled right away. If they don't act very concerned about the meat, I take charge.

4) Some guides do pride themselves on doing their job right, and their job description includes gutting. I feel the same way about doing my job, so certainly don't mind letting them do theirs--though I almost always stick around, holding legs or taking photos. The rare exceptions have been when I had something else pressing to do, like catch an airplane.

But I have packed out one caribou to the boat while the guide was taking apart another, and have gutted deer or pronghorn when more than one was down. Last fall my wife and I shot two big mule deer in Alberta within 10 seconds of each other, and I gutted mine while Eileen and the guide gutted the other. I also helped him skin both deer when we got back to camp, and he was very grateful for the help, saying that most clients would be watching TV instead. But it was warm day and, again, I wanted to be sure the hides were off as quickly as possible.

Have to echo most of what John just said, I was once chastised by a Maryland hunter for cutting off the front shoulders of a large bull elk for an 8 mile pack out because it ruined the meat,(made 3 mule loads, it was steep). But, he had left the whole rib cage intact, so we were even. Then after travelling all the way to the wrong side of the country he took it to a butcher shop, go figure.....

Been there, seen that... Seems more common with pronghorn than other animals. I really don't know what it is. Maybe it reflects their attitude toward the quality of the meat.

Maybe they need to be cooled quick like MD says because pronghorn season is early and it is still hot genius...

Hey, bayou butthead. You missed the point (again).

I was merely observing that I've seen the same issue with guides NOT being very concerned with taking care of the meat pronto.

Of course, you're probably too blinded by the glare off those shiney Brownings to read properly.

Super T,
Been on two guided hunts, on both the guides took care of the gutting and skinning, I was "allowed" to help pack out the meat.

It was hard for me to sit back and do nothing, but like JB pointed out, they had their system and were much faster and neater than I'll ever be.

I agree with JB on this. Also will add, that if the client-hunter does his own skinning or cape work and the mount or meat turns out bad, it reflects negatively on the guide/outfitter to all that see it. The only way they can control that is to have their guides do the work.

As to the antelope, certainly it is usually hot during the SW season for sure but another reason is that the hair on the goats is hollow (I am told) and slippage is quick if not handled promptly and properly - if you are mounting it of course.

I've had clients who did absolutely nothing and stood around the entire time and clients who wanted to do it all with little help from me other than holding something. Most simply want to pitch in, just as they have done all through the hunt, and work as a team.
I've had lots of hunters who do almost no looking or glassing for game and only read a book on the hill each day and others who hunt as hard as I do. As far as I'm concerned it's the clients hunt, he is paying for it, and unless safety is an issure or I think they are really messing up their chanches they can do most anything the way they like it.

I don't mind gutting or skinning a deer or other game animal. I ain't too good to do it an I ain't real good at it since I do it maybe once or twice a year. I ain't skeered of getting my hands dirty either. My point is if I can afford a first class hunt or I'm invited on one, this is something I expect and I will gladly leave the guys a generous tip. I wish I could have found this type of work to do myself when I was young and dumb. I waste more now than I cut off.

P.S. The gutting is the easy part!

That's the way it ought to be, the client (paying the bill) should be able to do what he wants within reason. I am not going to try and skin a brown bear by myself but sure wouldn't sit down and watch!

I went on a WT hunt in Mexico about 10 years ago. We brought my buck back to the bunkhouse field dressed- I don't remember who dressed it now. The next day the outfitter took the other guides/hunters out and left me with the cook and the camera man. I was bored so I went out and caped my buck. When he got back he went out to do it and I think we was greatly relieved to see it was already done. He chastised me but didn't mean it. We have become fast friends since.

I've never paid anyone to hunt with me, though I've hunted with plenty of guys who often get paid in the process of hunting, and many who don't. As Steelhead pointed out, it's all a part of a process (even moose gutting ), and I rather prefer to be involved i every aspect of the hunt. I guess I've always judged what I've seen and stepped in as necessary to make sure things didn't go badly or laid back when I could see I was going to learn something.



I prefer a rifle to latex for protection.

Field service is part of their job.
Would you like it if your client wanted to horn in on your territory, your job? If they ask for assistance with a large animal or whatever that would be different.

Which all falls into the category of customer service. I'd say the customer in such cases, except where judgement relating to management of a resource in an area, or legalities are concerned, probably deserves to have an important say in matters. If he wants to do the work with only assistance from the guide, that should be his business. Yes, the guide is obligated to provide the direction in terms of making and keeping things legal; his future depends on it. And it would be a real a$$hole of a client who would insist on doing things his way to finish something well into the dark hours, for example, when an equal or better job might be accomplished by the guide before dark. But no amount of work on the part of the client should remove the client's obligation to fairly compensate a willing and competent guide IMO.

If I'm payin', somebody else better be guttin'.