I like what mntnguide said about success and opportunity. That is a huge thing with an outfit. Success may be low but opportunity high, so many things can happen on a hunt... missed shots, not having shells in chamber, passing on animals. Also when it comes down to guided vs drop camp success. A guided hunt can have more opportunity as usually a guide is there to push the hunter and knows the area better. A drop camp hunter may only hunt sun up for a few hours then back to camp and only hunt an hour or two before sun down, they may use the hunt as more of a vacation vs hard hard hunting to harvest. Ask about return clientele, if they having returning clientele even with low success rates they have to be doing something right to keep the same business year after year.
Get a few years worth of success and opportunity, we had a very low success year in 2016 with the unseasonably warm temps, I was guiding in a t shirt during third rifle, very hard hunting. Especially when we usually have at least 8" of snow during third rifle.
Find out about how big the outfit is get a general idea of number of camps they will have during the time you will be there then try and get a general idea of how many people they have working for them. Our outfit has 14 different camp locations but since we are such a small outfit with minimal employees we will not overbook what we can handle personal wise. I'm not gonna book 7 camps a week cause I can't keep 7 camps in tune with my personal. I'd prefer to have happy clients vs a ton of money. We generally have a high turnover on our employees. But when it comes to our guided hunts there is 3 of us that guide, we don't generally bring in a brand new guy to guide unless we absolutely need him AND we will have another one of our experienced guides in camp as well to help. I try to hire guides that will come back the next year but I live in a town of 90 people with no housing. We usually use our new guys to pack in and out vs sending them out with clients unless we know they have extensive hunting knowledge and we can get in the area before the season to give first hand knowledge of the area.
Personally I try and be as straight forward as possible when booking clients, if I fill them full of bs and can't deliver I may have made money for a year but I want my guys coming back. Word of mouth is huge in this business and if you cant deliver on what you promised then there are so many outlets for word to get out, it can reach a ton of people really quick. Whether it's Facebook, the many many hunting forums, even the local bar. As many of the usual clients aren't from in state we can't be there to talk to people first hand.
As hilltop said an outfitter that knows the game wardens and get a good reference are usually pretty straight forward. They have developed a relationship with the warden on a business level.
It is tough with any outfit the first time you go it can be a gamble but soon research and a ton of phone, email or face to face if possible will help. I like email as there is a "paper trail" to go back on for the client if needed. When calling outfits right down what you talked about and have those notes in front of you every time, ask some of the same questions you asked in previous conversations and if the answers change you might learn you have a bit of a "salesman" technique going. If they can answer the same each time then you know they're not blowing smoke or they have their info down very very well and can really blow some smoke.
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