Went to a large Sportsmans show over the weekend and started chatting with a Moose/Black Bear outfitter operating in British Columbia. He is selling a "Semi-guided" hunt for his area in Canada... I ask him how this is possible and he tells me, that BC changed the law in 2015 to include Non-Residents eligable for an "Assistant Guide Outfitters license". Basically, it's legal for him to license anyone to guide on their own in his specific outiftters region... For a much smaller fee, he can license you to guide your buddy and license your buddy to guide you, so that you do not need to be with a resident guide.
I did check the BC regs and it does have a license for Non-Residents to operate as assistant guides. It sounds like this is kind of a loop-hole and he even said he is getting lots of angry letters from his fellow guides, but that its 100% legal and many more will be following suit in the future.
I didn't jump on his offer, but it's still a very interesting prospect. It seems that in theory we (US citizens) could go self-guided in BC for any species (Moose, Grizzley, Sheep, ect) as long as we find an outiftter to offer this service for their respective areas.
Pretty interesting to say the least. Anyone else come across this?
I did check the BC regs and it does have a license for Non-Residents to operate as assistant guides. It sounds like this is kind of a loop-hole and he even said he is getting lots of angry letters from his fellow guides, but that its 100% legal and many more will be following suit in the future.
I didn't jump on his offer, but it's still a very interesting prospect. It seems that in theory we (US citizens) could go self-guided in BC for any species (Moose, Grizzley, Sheep, ect) as long as we find an outiftter to offer this service for their respective areas.
Pretty interesting to say the least. Anyone else come across this?
