quote:

Originally posted by bluefin:
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...

Count me in on this sentiment. Hell, you can climb Mt. Everst for 35k!! And that includes 10k to the govt for the permit.

It would be interesting to know, post marking at the big shows( Dewy- they are all in the US, go figure..), what the "holes" are in bookings. From folks I've spoken to there are openings all over the world and have not spoken to anyone about sheep.

I just got an e-mail from one of the TOP GOs in Stone's Sheep country, his area is generally considered THE single "best" for multi-species hunts, with lots of game available. He still has a couple of openings for this year and I think that is a very telling indication of what is happening. So, the situation here may well be resolved by international market forces and that is just fine with me.

I don't think that you will see the younger generation BE quite so interested in guided trophy hunting as were previous generations. The lure of "big trophies" of rare and foreign animals seems to fade as soon as tough, young, backpacking hunters realize that this is not all it is sometimes marketed as being......

Of course, the big hunting extravaganzas are all in the USA, you have probably 75% of the hunters wealthy enough to travel to hunt there, so, WTF, do you expect?

All in all, there are and will be SOME "bargains" in Canadian and BChunting, but, I seriously doubt that Stone's Sheep costs will decrease or Grizzlies or RMGoats and probably not Elk. If, the costs WERE to drastically fall, well, how would the GOs here be able to convince a largely anti-hunting public that their miniscule contribution to BC's economy, which would then be even smaller, is worth allowing foreign hunting in BC.......?

Dewy- Do you think that given the stone sheep openings that the folks selling dall hunts are the same? My dall hunt in the Territories in 1995 was 8500 US. It is now well over 2X that. There has to be a breaking point and you are right about the next generation of consumers from all over the world. But I'm thinking it is for a different reason.They are more discriminating on value and may go elsewhere where the perceived value is greater.