Contributors to this thread:
Ok, another one. This actually happened to a friend. You have been scouting a REALLY big bull in a basin for the week before the season. He is pretty much comfortably parked in that remote basin, in a killable spot. You have not spoken of this to anyone, you are hunting solo, and as far as you know nobody else is on this bull.
The night before season opener, a well known guide who is camped nearby comes to your camp, and tells you "I know you have been watching that bull in X basin. I glassed you glassing him the past few days. I've been watching him for awhile. Just wanted to let you know that the Governor's tag hunter is coming in tonight, and I'm taking him in to try to kill that bull in the morning".
Do you honor that "request", or do you go in in the dark dark and try for the bull at very first light before the guide gets his hunter in there?
No one "owns" the animal. Anyone may try to put their tag on him. My biggest worries would be safety and possibly blowing the animal out of the zip code......Some guys have quite the entourage. I'd shake his hand and wish him luck, and hope that he does the same.
I’ll be up there before they are
Am I bowhunting and is the Gov tag holder using a rifle and an entourage of scouts and spotters, (aka: doing the Jimmy John)?
Matt
I'm going for it You are both on him may the best man win
Sounds like you are talking about the Jimmy John Bull
Go full on Comanche on them at about 2:00 in the morning and burn their camp to the ground with them in it!
Probably not…
Maybe just slip in there and take their boots and guns…
Well, probably not even that.
Sucks to be competing with a rifle blaster who doesn’t belong in my archery season…
I am sure I would come up with something…
I would try to be in bow range at legal shooting time
Not much of a "request" if worded like that. I'd be happy to have a conversation with the guy but we'd be off on the wrong foot to begin with.
That all being said, I don't want to knowingly hunt to hunt the same animal at the same time as someone else. Don't care how big it is. Not my idea of fun and that's why I'm out there.
If you recall, Rogue Outdoorsman (Trent?) can't remember his name at the moment) backed off that bull and let the guides take Jimmy John in to kill it. They worked something out and he seemed good with the arrangement. Who knows, maybe they paid him to back out.
He has no right to make that request of you. Go hunt.
If the guy was bowhunting I'd go after the bull also. If he had a rifle I'd probably go somewhere else. The last line of the first paragraph says "As far as you know nobody else is on this bull" On public land you never really know for sure, but you've got as much right as the next guy to go after him. The rifle part would be hard to swallow, but if he's legal there's not much you could do.
I likely go try and kill him (the elk). Elk have a way of throwing a wrench in everyone's plans. So might as well go see what happens.
I’d just tell him good luck in the morning. See you at the scene of the crime
Not sure. But leaning towards I am going in EARLY and try to get on him as soon as legal light
Id tell the guide it’s gonna cost you $10,000 for me to give up on that bull.
If he just out told me he’s going after that bull, I’d say “so am I”. That’s not a request or offer to talk it out.
If he started off differently and actually politely asked me about backing off for a day, then maybe I’d do that.
There was no request. I'd just smile and say "I guess I'll see you in the morning".
Wish them luck and go about my business as planned. Might try an escape route at first light in case they rush in and bump him. With that said I don't know elk so maybe that's a goofy idea.
I'm curious about whether all you guys would go in after the bull with a bow if you knew a guy might be setting up for a rifle shot. I agree you absolutely have the right to, but I would be worried about the safety of the situation and think that would take the fun out of it for me.
Given no experience, I will assume his team would have a much better chance and I would try to find a less traveled location.
After viewing the Jimmy John's hunt you should be good to hunt the morning. Didn't look like Jimmy got to his shooting spot til later in the morning or afternoon.
I guess it would depend on how important it is to me to get along with said Well Known Guide.
I suspect that the guy who backed off of the Jimmy John bull was pretty adequately compensated. And I don’t think it was an unlimited, lifetime tab at a sandwich franchise. Not that I’m entirely comfortable with that thought, even…
I really want to say that I would tell him to tell his client to make awfully damn sure of his target because I had been planning my hunt all summer and had nowhere else in mind to be.
But warning somebody off of hunting a PUBLIC area/animal is just dead wrong; I don’t care who you are. I think unless I felt physically endangered, I would hunt as planned. And if I actually felt threatened, I think I’d address my concerns to the DOW, the local authorities and/or whoever issues licenses to outfitters, because that’s BS to stake a claim like that.
Asking the outfitter what it’s worth to him. I’ll take a cool few G’s and find another bull. If he isn’t coughing up cash then im going straight in, killing it, and tagging the outfitter on Instagram for his client to see.
I would go in early in the am and hunt and hopefully kill said bull. Like stated it’s public land and no one owns that bull. It’s a governors tag he can elsewhere.
I would be hunting that bull in the morning.
He isn't the boss of me. I'd go after that bull.
To add: the outfitter stated he watched your Buddy watching the bull for a couple days. So if the outfitter had any class, he’d just keep watching until Buddy had his first day. THEN come and ask about some strategy.
And the more ”well know” the outfitter is, the less likely I’d be to accommodate. That just means he has more options.
Unless he was well known to be a great guy and very fair minded to other hunters.
I wouldn’t take any money to back off if any were offered. I’m not going to be paid off. I would say “ well, good for you. I’ll be after that bull as well.” I would get up extra early and head out. Be in the general area before them regardless of weapon the hunter was using. Maybe even take some food and bivy close to the area.
Here's the rest of the story. I posted this on the elk forum to get more traffic, but it was actually a Shiras moose. My (now) friend had one of a handful of tags for the unit and no other moose hunters knew about this bull. I had seen him several times, and the guide and I had discussed the bull one day while B.S.ing beside the road. He had been watching him for a couple weeks.
I did not know my now-friend at the time. We met a couple days before his moose season started, when he was coming out of the basin and I was going in to hunt elk. He told me he had a moose tag, I told him about the bull, which he also had been scouting off and on for a couple weeks, and was pretty much parked on him waiting for the season to start.
All three of us, independently, had estimated the bull to be around 58" wide and over 180. That is a giant Shiras. He had everything. Biggest bull I've ever seen, and I see them almost every day.
The Governor tag hunter planned to bowhunt. I was not in his camp for the discussion with the guide, but knowing my friend now I know he told me the straight story. He is a very standup, ethical guy. He ceded the bull to the guide.
So the guide leads the hunter to the bull (the guide told me the story a few days later), the hunter says "I want a bigger one - I have an Alaska moose bigger than that on my wall". Guide tells him it is potentially top 5 all time P&Y and there are no bigger ones.
The hunter walks away, demanding they find a bigger one. A couple hours later he has second thoughts and wants to go back. The bull is still in the willows, now with another slightly smaller bull that is still a gagger. Hunter goes in, isn't careful, buggers the bull, which was never seen again. He ended up shooting a little 34" and was all pissed off at the guide for some reason.
My (now) friend went to a different area and, after a week, found another really good bull he had seen in the summer, and killed it. It was a B&C bull, but not nearly the caliber of the other one.
Karma paid him back, however. The next year he drew the one archery sheep tag for my local unit. He found a really good ram and ended up killing it. Scored in the mid-170s.
I told him if it was me, I'd have told the guide "good luck" and been skinning that giant bull by the time the guide got the overweight, out of shape (as it turns out) hunter up into that basin. But he is too nice of a guy to do that.
I would say I was hunting that bull in the morning..........................unless I got a better offer! ;-)
some guides and ranchers act more and more like the political class who view themselves as elite, and better than the commoners.
i'd tell that guide to $%^# off and i'd go after the bull.
Moose changes it for me. For your buddy that’s probably a once in a lifetime tag. That’s a lot different than just bumping over and finding another bull elk to hunt.
I would go in and get in there around midnight and sleep within a couple hundred yards of where ya think said bull is. I would take my best shot in the morning and may the best hunter win!! Shawn
What did the guide do that is wrong. He didn't tell the guy to back off or threaten him. He told him they we're going after him in the morning. I'd probably told him may the best man win if it was as big as Lou's says. But can't knock the guy for sharing his plans with you. That IMO makes he more of a stand up guy than just saying nothing and going for it. They both had as much of a right as the other.
Hell, now that we know this was a moose, I might be even more Comanche… sucks when some poor soul sets their tent over a hornet nest…
No matter what, I would have been in striking distance of that bull at first light…. Might even offer to pay the outfitter for use of his horses to pack my bull out.
Call me crazy, and I'm probably in the minority, but I kind of feel for the guide. He runs into Jaq, and tells him straight up he is watching a world class bull. He runs into the tag holder and tells him he is watching a world class bull and is planning on putting his client on him in the morning. So, he puts the client on the bull in the morning, client says he is too small, the guide can't believe it, and eventually they leave. Client then has a change of mind, they go back to find the bull he had in the crosshairs earlier. The big bull bugs out and the client shoots the smaller bull- then chews the guides arse. In the end, the tag holder shoots a decent bull moose and then next year shoots a trophy ram. The tag holder, in hindsight, probably has no regrets over those 2 years of hunting. Jaq, I am assuming, doesn't really care one way or another, especially at this point. The guide, well he has the experience mentioned above to reflect on from this point forward. Lots we don't know, but from what I read, I don't think the guide did anything that was too much out of the norm, and he is left with a quite the experience to reflect on.
I'd say the real winner in all of this is the big bull moose. Unreal the ways that the true giants end up surviving...
Well, John, I guess that would depend heavily on body language and tone of voice. I’m going to guess that Jaq’s new friend was under no illusion as to whether he was being told to back off or not.
You’re correct that there is nothing explicitly threatening in the words as Jaq summarized it, but I don’t think we’d be having this discussion if it hadn’t been clear enough at the time.
And yeah, if I had planned my once-in-a-lifetime-tag Moose hunt around 1 specific bull, I would be that much harder pressed to walk away. I suppose Jaq’s friend knew the whereabouts of a number of good bulls, though, and maybe he realized that dealing with the outfitter and his client would take all of the enjoyment right out of it and some things are more important than inches.
Glad to hear that the big dude didn’t fall to the undeserving nitwit.
johnmc, you are right. i've had a bad experience with a guide in new mexico and a rancher in oregon ruining a public land hunt intentionally. i suppose they could give examples of a bad experience they had with a hunter.
i guess it comes down to the guides intent or tone. if it was just a friendly heads-up and good luck, i'd be OK with that. if it was more of a 'request' to not pursue the elk because the holder of the governor's tag has dibs, than i wouldn't be OK with it.
