I've emailed and spoken with several outfitters about various hunts in Canada. I just can't believe how expensive it is to hunt there! In some cases the hunts have gone up $5k to $10k more than the previous year. One outfitter in particular bought another one out for his bighorn tags. I spoke to the previous outfitter and they took 4 guys in '07 and none of his hunters scored. So he sells his tags to the new guy and the new guy promptly raises his fees $10k. Did I mention in '06 the previous guy was 2 for 4? Think I'll wait til I pull a tag from our draw system. $35k for a bighorn hunt where 2 bighorns have been shot the last two years is a real bad investment.
How much is a lion hunt in Africa??

Yep, its expensive! I'd look at Kamchatka with Safari Outfitters, you could shoot quite a few Russian big horns for the price of a Canadian one.

Supply and demand. If there were people not willing to pay that price then it would not have gone up. You also have to take into account the weak US dollar and Europeans willing to pay top dollar for select hunts. I know of one outfitter who is booked solid through 2012.

Canuck,
I know all too well supply and demand. That is why I posted the numbers of animals taken the last two years and the asking price for this year. Perhaps it will put some levity back into the supply and demand - cause the supply side is looking a little weak right now... In all fairness the former guide did say weather was a huge factor in the outcome. So if someone wants to plunk down $35,000 for a hunt they may want to explore what their $35,000 is actually getting.

bluefin,

What is the quota for the outfitter you are referring to? And how many hunters?

Many outfitters in southeast BC take one or two bighorns per year....because their quota is only one or two animals per year.

There are only 3500 bighorns in all of BC...supply and demand plays a very large role in all this. There are only so many places you can get a bighorn, and the population densities are low in all of them. More people with more disposable income are wanting to hunt sheep...and so it goes up.

The biggest factor in the recent increases though, is the change in foreign exchange rate. In 2004 the Cdn$ was worth $0.65 US...now its at par. So a bighorn sheep hunt that was $25,000 USD in 2004 would have been worth $32,500 CDN to the outfitter. To get that from his hunt today he obviously has to charge that much in USD today to retain the same income.

Also keep in mind that many territories change hands...the value of these assets is based on the going rates of the hunts. Guys that bought in over the last couple years have to charge these high prices just to make their payments.

Cheers,
Canuck

Care to share names? I am currently in the market for an Alberta bighorn hunt. It seems to me the farther north you go, the higher the success rate, but the smaller the rams. I'm not sure at this point whether a SW BC hunt wouldn't be a better bet, full curl restricton notwithstanding. By the way, watch the price of Stone sheep hunts starting to skyrocket this year!

San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation Conservation Dept in Arizona has one Desert Big Horn Sheep for $75,000 , two Rocky Mtn Big Horn Sheep for $45,000 apiece and 30 bull elk tags for $30,000 each.

All the sheep are going up. The NWT Dall hunt I went on in 06 is up to $19800 base price, plus charter/chopper in/out of $1500, plus tags and 6% GST. The goat hunts are looking pretty good...

I'm doing a dall sheep hunt this year as well as a mntn goat hunt. Both will be in Alaska. Just can't see where Canada is worth the extra $5k for dall and extra $3k for goat. That excess could go into next years hunt, perhaps in the lower 48.

Think I'll save Canada for a fishing trip. What's a license cost for a non res? Is there a GST tax on top of it as well? If you use a hook is there a surcharge on top of the GST and license?

bluefin,

Check out Asia!!!! Great hunting and the Ibex are beautiful trophies. You can go several trips for the 35K.

Hawkeye47

I'm interested in seeing how the plummeting US dollar will effect BC non resident hunting.

Outfitters will raise prices to offset the exchange rate, and I wonder if the US hunter will become scarce, with only the very wealthy going on the expensive sheep hunts..

I also think that the way BC alocates tags has something to do with the low sucess rate. An outfitter can sell a hunt on a tag to several people in the same year.
I got stung by that in 06 on a grizzly hunt. Outfitter had 1 tag and sold a hunt to me and then also one other guy after me. I had a nice one lined up until guide pulled my barrel before I shot and then made a huge racket to scare bear away. On returning to float plane dock I met the second hunter who was headed out on same Griz tag and I was able to put 2 and 2 together. If I had shot second hunter was SOL. In the end my lawyer was able to get my monies back for the hunt though

Hawkeye,
I've looked into the ibex hunts. Pretty reasonable price and you get to go into a really foreign (as opposed to Canada, ha) country. Two things though, some of the reports I've read on here seem to suggest that they have become somewhat canned hunts in that they are so prescouted that by the time you get there it's, pretty much, go around the mountain and shoot it and now you have 6 more days of nothing to do. The other is New Mex. has them on their draw hunt. I'm kind of leaning towards the draw.

Gatehouse,
I don't see how the US hunter is NOT going to become scarce up there. I make fairly good money and have the added benefit that I can usually get away any time I want. There are going to be a number of hunters like me who have the money, but just aren't going to throw gobs on it for something like a sheep or goat. I'll either go somewhere else or find another hobby. $35 grand for one animal makes you stop and analyze a little. $35 grand and you get to go on a pretty nice lion hunt. $35 grand is a significant down pymt towards a bongo hunt. $35 grand is a couple months in Cabo at a nice hotel, viewing the latest bikini styles, and with some serious off shore fishing...

Supply and demand, it's the same in every market and hunting trip's are no different. I as a Canadian have been watching this for the last 40 yrs. and what i see coming is , if you are not filthy rich , you won't be hunting the game that we have been hunting. It will be only the rich from Canada, USA, and Europe. I think this is not a bad thread though, if every one find's it to expensive maybe they will go to Africa , Russia, etc. I must be living in a fanatsy world thinking that, Oh well , just my 2 cent's.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Wayne:
Supply and demand, it's the same in every market and hunting trip's are no different. I as a Canadian have been watching this for the last 40 yrs. and what i see coming is , if you are not filthy rich , you won't be hunting the game that we have been hunting. It will be only the rich from Canada, USA, and Europe. I think this is not a bad thread though, if every one find's it to expensive maybe they will go to Africa , Russia, etc. I must be living in a fanatsy world thinking that, Oh well , just my 2 cent's.

i think you are exactly right. why would i spend $35,000 in the country next door when i can go to africa, have a unique outdoor/cultural experience, shoot an elephant and a few other animals and spend the same amount of money?( with probably a higher success rate)does the phrase dealing with geese and golden eggs ring a bell?

quote:

I got stung by that in 06 on a grizzly hunt. Outfitter had 1 tag and sold a hunt to me and then also one other guy after me. I had a nice one lined up until guide pulled my barrel before I shot and then made a huge racket to scare bear away.

Holy $#&!*!! That guide has balls the size of grapefruit, or he was one very large dude!

I've heard rumours of that type of thing happening, but never to someone that could personally verify it. I'll buy you a beer (or three) to get the details on that one!

Cheers,
Canuck

quote:

Outfitters will raise prices to offset the exchange rate, and I wonder if the US hunter will become scarce, with only the very wealthy going on the expensive sheep hunts..

Gates, these guys are business men like any other. As long as they keep selling out, prices will climb. When they can't book up at least a full year in advance, prices will drop (or at least stabilize).

All, The problem is not the outiftters pricing 'average' hunters out of the market, its hunters pricing hunters out of the market. If you have something for sale, of course you are going to sell it for whatever you can get for it. Outfitters are no different. Its certainly not their obligation to keep hunts affordable for the average guy. The price of a limited supply of a specific game animal or experience is dictated by what people are willing to pay for it...and unfortunately in this case, there seems to be enough really rich dudes out there to price sheep hunting through the roof. I don't like it any more than anyone else, but its economics 101 and a fact of life.

Cheers,
Canuck

Canuck,
While I can understand your reasoning here, I have to ask - could the reason for such price hikes, pricing structure be that there are too few outfitters? Or maybe too many tags being issued to too few outfitters?
Perhaps if fewer tags were spread out to more outfitters then the competition within the outfitters would bring the cost down.
Supply and demand works on both sides of the equation. This is an example showing how the other side could work.

Bluefin,

I can only speak to BC.....There won't be any more tags for outfitters, so that part of supply is relatively fixed (assuming bighorn populations remain stable). Most outfitters that have bighorn tags only have one or two per year, so it would be pretty hard to spread it out any further than that.

I don't see much changing on the supply side.

As long as the real wealthy fellas are jazzed on getting their Grand Slams, sheep prices will probably keep climbing.

Stone sheep on the other hand...I guess one could better divy up the supply. A few of the big well known guys have the bulk of the tags, and those outfitters have even consolidated a few large territories in the last 10 years. I don't know how much difference breaking them up a bit would make, but I guess its a possibility.

Cheers,
Canuck

Bluefin,
Don't forget about the US hunter who bid up the AB premiers tag for about 500,000.00/year for several years to get his new World Record Bighorn. And then continued buying it when no one else would pay what he paid.

It's a fairly elementary fact that if you live in a country with a devaluing currency, then goods and services sourced abroad are going to cost more. That is a harsh fact of life that we in Canada have lived with for nearly a decade.

The uncertainty in the hunting case is whether the American hunter is a big enough piece of the marketplace to drive foreign prices down. If they are, then all of us, Canadians, Americans,Europeans,etc., who like to travel and hunt will win, and the outfitters lose.

Somehow, I don't see that happening.

quote:

I got stung by that in 06 on a grizzly hunt. Outfitter had 1 tag and sold a hunt to me and then also one other guy after me. I had a nice one lined up until guide pulled my barrel before I shot and then made a huge racket to scare bear away. On returning to float plane dock I met the second hunter who was headed out on same Griz tag and I was able to put 2 and 2 together. If I had shot second hunter was SOL. In the end my lawyer was able to get my monies back for the hunt though

After the guide came to and I was at home,I would not have been happy just to get my money back.I would have been filing fraud charges against the outfitter.

Kinda hard to file fraud charges as what he did was completely legal under BC regs.

I know of a Caribou Outfitter that went from $3950 to $5400 + $280 for the licese.

Considering the changed value of the currencies involved that seems about right.

I've always said to my outfitter friends that they should advertise in CDN$ and let their clients do the conversion. That way, when fx rates change, their profitability remains the same. But when the CDN$ was low, they liked the small USD$s for attracting business. Now its coming back to bite them.

I work in a commodity export business (lumber)...I only wish lumber prices were based in CDN currency!

Cheers,
Canuck

Three years ago that $3950US resulted in $6350 Canadian. $5400US today is $5290 Canadian. That's just on exchange rate, with no allowance for inflation.........sounds like a deal to me!
~Arctic~

hunting in canada is way to overprised,only because richer americans coming, in same place in canada for balck bear or moose u can go to safari in africa , i think price are to high

quote:

Originally posted by Wooly ESS:
It's a fairly elementary fact that if you live in a country with a devaluing currency, then goods and services sourced abroad are going to cost more. That is a harsh fact of life that we in Canada have lived with for nearly a decade.

The uncertainty in the hunting case is whether the American hunter is a big enough piece of the marketplace to drive foreign prices down. If they are, then all of us, Canadians, Americans,Europeans,etc., who like to travel and hunt will win, and the outfitters lose.

Somehow, I don't see that happening.

This is exactly true and I do not see the dollar regaining strength anytime soon!

Some hunts in Canada are overpriced because there is a small population of people willing to pay top dollar for Sheep, Moose, Caribou etc. These people don't buy ALL the hunts though and outfitters know it. Therefore, even though outfitters publicly price as though they assume this population is their whole market, they know that a good number of their hunts (depending on species) may well sell for less than that amount. Shop around, particularly this year, and there are deals to be had. Of course, it doesn't hurt to occasionally pay for a full price hunt from an outfitter that you hope to maybe get a deal from at some future date.

Here in BC, we have both "sub-species" of Ovis Canadensis in our RM and Cali. Bighorns, we have both "thinhorns" in our Stone's and "Dall's" sheep plus many other species. We still have REAL wilderness to hunt them in and almost no residents hunting where thr foreigners and their GOs operate. SOOOO, what is the beef, the prices for what you get are, IMO, actually LOW and the "tags" for foreign hunters a "steal".

The interest in sheep hunting among BC residents is growing and I expect that the allocations for GOs will markedly decrease; this will price OUR sheep the same as Mexico's Desert Bighorns and they SHOULD be! Don't like it, tough, go elsewhere and hunt some "trophy" in an enclosure.

quote:

Originally posted by Dewey:
...what is the beef, the prices for what you get are, IMO, actually LOW and the "tags" for foreign hunters a "steal".

LOL...that must be why end of season deals and the occasional deal for repeat clients pop up right?

No, the first is a basic business decision and the latter is a fairly commonplace situation to keep good clients; I have had offers of this from GOs in BC and AB. However, the prices will very likely soar when the coming quota cuts to GOs take effect, as they will, soon and if BC is too costly, well, maybe "hunt" sheep in Texas.

Another item in cost consideration is the cost of operating most areas, short seasons, management principles which allow for good numbers of game for all to harvest.
Watson Lake.

quote:

Originally posted by Dewey:
No, the first is a basic business decision and the latter is a fairly commonplace situation to keep good clients.

Dewey,

Both of the above indicate that the "usual" price is too high. If an outfitter is scrambling to sell extra quota at the end of a season or calling "regulars" to offer them deals on that quota, do you really think that says "gee, these hunts are too cheap?". I have benefitted from this end of season rush too...but where did you take Economics 101?

Watson Lake,

While I think Dewey is out of his mind to call these hunts a bargain, I agree with you to a large degree. I would not want to do the job of most outfitters...especially up in your neck of the woods. Just maintaining the horses, planes, trailers, snowmachines, and vehicles would drive me nuts. Add to that the reality that even dry good might cost 15-20% more up there than the lower 48 and suddenly you can see how these guys aren't really getting rich. Oh, and there is that little extra matter of maybe paying seven figures for a hunt area to begin with.

My meaning was actually very simple. It is that we here in Canada HAVE some of the very last REAL wilderness and rare game animals left on Earth and it is a privilege to even be allowed to come here and experience this wilderness, let alone kill one of our rare sheep, etc. as a "trophy".

From this perspective, that of a Canadian nationalist and conservationist, the prices charged for these hunts and ESPECIALLY the "return" to we, the Canadians whose resource this is, are miniscule. I favour HUGE increases in licence fees and "trophy fees" so that we can realize more money for management and, that is simple, basic, but, very effective "economics".

There are wealthy "hunters" who will still pay big bux for our game, as they do for "Desert Bighorns" and I firmly believe in making the commercial hunting industry PAY for using our game. The alternative would be to close it down and reserve BC hunting for ourselves.

BC game is not merely a commodity to be subjected to international economic fluctuations as "pork bellies" are and allowing cut-rate foreign access to it is not acceptable to me and LOTS of other BC citizens.

Tendrams,
I know a few outfitters up here and you are right. It is not an easy job. having to fly everything in. The regular season up here runs august first to Oct 31st. Most outfitters hunt from August first to September 15-20 for mountain hunts, and will hunt to the end of the first week of Oct on the rivers for moose. so a short timeframe. And yes by the time you amortize the 7 figure cost of a 10,000 square mile territory you got to love the job..

watson lake

quote:

Originally posted by Dewey:
I favour HUGE increases in licence fees and "trophy fees" so that we can realize more money for management and, that is simple, basic, but, very effective "economics".s.

Riiiightt....except you admit that your outfitters dont sell out at posted prices RIGHT NOW. What exactly do you think will happen to your revenue when you implement your HUUGE price increases? Again, Econ 101.

Watson,

Right, and it's not like that season is the only work period. All the prep work and scouting and arranging guides and wranglers....what a mess. By the time a guy factors in all the costs and ones time and stress level, I am not sure it's worth it at all. Honestly, over the last 20 years, I am not sure a guy couldn't have done much better diversifying that seven figures into the NYSE, S&P, and Nikkei indexes.

quote:

Originally posted by tendrams:

quote:

Originally posted by Dewey:
I favour HUGE increases in licence fees and "trophy fees" so that we can realize more money for management and, that is simple, basic, but, very effective "economics".s.

Riiiightt....except you admit that your outfitters dont sell out at posted prices RIGHT NOW. What exactly do you think will happen to your revenue when you implement your HUUGE price increases? Again, Econ 101.

I fully expect that the present situation will change and very soon, probably right after the "Olympics" is over and our next provincial general election is held. I think that the current administration, a "neo-con" one, will be changed and then the entire approach to commercial hunting here in BC will change, very much.

As things are now, the actual return to we citizens on our wildlife is tiny and will not markedly increase unless the system is changed to benefit US, not the GOs and not foreign "hunters". So, it is a moot point in respect of your economic issues as the revenues are not here now and thus there really is no incentive to maintain commercial hunting and/or foreign hunting here, certainly not in BC.

By implementing a "draw" system, with appropriate fees, for other Canadian citizens, so that they could hunt BC without competing with wealthy foreigners and do so simply accompanied by a legal BC resident hunter, I suspect we COULD maintain at least our current revenue level from non-BC hunters and we would be assisting our fellow Canadians as well....seems like a "win-win" to me!

Do you know that a Canadian, born and bred in a family who has been here since the 18thC., MUST currently hire and pay a GO, who CAN be a foreigner, as much to hunt a Stone's Sheep as an American or other foreign national has to? This, to me, is unacceptable and will be changed and soon, the concern over prices notwithstanding.

Sorry, I did biology, English and some history, not Economics 101. So, we are not "on the same page".