Do You Need a Guide?

Utah Elk, pretty nice. It was shot above 7000 feet. How far above, I don't know. Somewhere in the 9000 range I think. Anyway it is an elk. I am happy with it. I was hoping for a little more competition though. Elk are wary enough but big targets. I have heard of people going out and hunting for long periods of time, never killing an elk. I think mostly their standards and my standards of trophy elk are different. Surely if they had wanted to they could have pulled the trigger. Click, Click, Boom! ya know. I had never been on a guided hunt and likely will never do it again. I liked my guide alright, I just didn't need him. I'm a hunter, there is an elk, where is the mystery. Maybe if I reach out there I am making a little light of the experience. I did walk straight up a mountain for 5 hours. A very steep and grueling mountain. I did spook the whole pile of elk at 400 yards as I was bracing for my shot. After they spooked, I climbed to their position to see the herd a half mile away running into another canyon. As luck would have it however, all of a sudden at 80 yards, I saw this one. He forgot to run and I killed the straggler. I was glad when he fell. With that hunk of meat on the ground, I sat on a rock and let my guide earn his money which included taking the picture at the top of the article and "rendering" the elk. He also packed out the head and the horns while some other people in a six wheeler carried off the meat. I walked out with my rifle on my shoulder. I guess that is what I am talking about. I'm not used to being taken care of. Don't get me wrong, I have recieved a lot of needed help in the woods getting animals out and advice on ways of the woods but I am not yet at least disabled. I have my own ideas and ways. My guide was used to calling the shots for hunter want to be's. Those who care more about the "experiance" and how they can tell a good story than actually doing the dirty work. Southern Whitetail hunters raised in the late 70's and 80's are the best hunters in the world. We don't need guided hunts. After the 80's these young cats might. The "tree sitters" I call them but we do not. For instance, my guide and I got into a cloud somewhere on the mountain. The guide tells me, "Visibility is to bad to kill an elk, we will stop here." Excuse me. I can see clearly out to 40 yards. He sits down and gets out his lunch and begins to eat. I can hear buggling elk withing 100 yards. I did not want to totally offend him so I did take the opportunity to eat a sandwich. After I ate, I said to him, lets get going. He went into this long spill about his experience with these elk, yada, yada, yada. I don't care, get up and let's go hunting. Now he's is mad. He is thinking what kind of idiot am I hunting with today. I tell him what I want to do. He disagrees and promptly spooks three trophy elk that took half the mountains tree tops with them when they busted out of the bed. He appologized fervently and said, "He just didn't get many actual hunters in camp." I forgave the guy and continued up the mountain much more in charge of the situation now. He spoke much after that about southern Whitetail hunters and how well they take to the mountains. Subsequently I killed what I would classify as a nice elk. Bottom line, it was a good experience. Seven inches of snow on the ground at our camp located at seven thousand feet, the first day of October was new to me. Sleeping in a tent with a wood fire, new to me. Taking a cold water shower with 30 mph winds and temperatures in the low teens, new to me. There are many stars over Utah and the silouete of the mountains in the moonlight is not anything I can describe. All new to me, however there is nothing like a mosquito infested, muck filled swamp bottom, in Greene County with the sound of deer sloshing ever closer. To a western guide it would not only be unhuntable, but a nightmare. To me.......Ahhhh. Wonderful.