[quote=Ton
I’ll keep watching but I personally wouldn’t spend $5k and not know the season dates…….[/quote]

As I said in the video, I could have verified the dates he gave me, but it was just one of those things you have to put some degree of trust in your guide. You just don't expect to be told you'll be hunting for two weeks when the season ends five days from the day you arrive. Everything is different on tribal land.

^^^^^
I understand. I get hit-up frequently by booking agents who want a free hunt in exchange for promoting me. I have never needed to go that route.

I know guides who do these types of freebie hunts, they generally wedge them in between hunters or do them late in the season. The hunter on these hunts almost always gets second class treatment. I know it seems like it would be the other way around, but this is generally the reality of what happens.

As I said in the video, I could have verified the dates he gave me, but it was just one of those things you have to put some degree of trust in your guide. You just don't expect to be told you'll be hunting for two weeks when the season ends five days from the day you arrive. Everything is different on tribal land. [/quote]

Sorry, I missed that in your video.

I have been on about 20 hunts that I exchanged for the publicity and I have found just the opposite. When I'm in a bear camp, for example, I always tell the outfitter not to give me any preferential treatment because that's not fair to the paying hunters who are there, and also not fair to the readers/viewers who will see my story and video. Their tendency is to really step it up and show favoritism for the writer because they want the glowing report.

I brought George about $40,000 in business from my first hunt with him and if I had been successful with a moose and a bear, it probably would have changed his business for the next 5-7 years. Probably $100,000 worth of hunts over that time frame. I think he got so enamored with that thought, that he just avoided telling me about a lot of things because he was afraid I might back out.

^^^^^
Very unfortunate for everyone involved.
It just surprises me that you had to be so involved with the day to day operations of the hunt itself. Running to the hardware store, buying groceries, etc. Maybe they conduct hunts differently there, but the guided hunts I'm familiar with the hunter doesn't need to concern himself with any of those details.
And yes, the hunter should not bear the responsibility of knowing the dates of the hunting seasons, it is the guides responsibility to know that, and convey that information to the hunter.

I found this interesting (I do not know what tribe Bernie hunted on)[quote][/quote]:

"The Penobscot auction five moose-hunting permits per year to non-members. Applicants send in sealed bids during May, and during the first week of June, Banks and his staff grant the highest five bidders a permit, mainly to big game hunters.

Those hunters are allowed to take one moose each during a two-week period in early fall. Bids start at $3,000. The revenue is enough to employ one full-time game warden, out of 25 overall Tribal staff, Banks said.

About 20 to 25 bids come in every year, Banks said, though it varies, with 14 last year. The permits are good for one week during two weeks at the end of September through the beginning of October — the peak rutting, or mating, season.

More permits are available for the eight-week-long spring bear hunt, which spans much of May and June. Those cost $500 each and are not subject to lottery. The Penobscot are one of two Northeastern Tribes that offer this hunt.

Both bear and moose hunting permits require hunters to hire Penobscot guides. For moose they have a choice of 10 or 12 Penobscot experts.

From: https://www.nativebusinessmag.com/moose-and-big-game-hunting-on-penobscot-indian-lands/#:~:text=Hunting%20moose%20and%20other%20big%20game%20form%20a,head%20of%20the%20Tribe%E2%80%99s%20Department%20of%20Natural%20Resources.

Not for me. I don't care who I hunt with, I check everything to make sure I'm legal. Sounds to me like both guide and hunter dropped the ball.

I've been involved with Maine bear guiding for the past 15 years. I am a Maine Licensed Guide. We have three types of hunts here. Number One is with an outfitter that supplies everything and you just go hunt. Number Two is with a guide and you must take care of your own food & lodging. This guide typically recommends a rental cabin for your use and takes you to the bear baits & handles the baiting and taking care of the kill. Number three is a guide that just shows you a bait site & may have a tent or cabin for your use. You do it all including rebaiting the site. Some use cameras and some do not. The outfitter I worked for this year bought a hunting business I have been with for 14 years. They have about 200 leased bait sites and less than 50 trail cams. I do have a dozen of my own trail cams. In Maine my hunting has all been on timber company land where every bait site is leased and most outfitters/guide have from 50 - 200 leased bait sites. The area around the leased sites is open for public hunting and from time to time you will have someone poaching from one of your baits or running dogs off of your baits.

My “only” guided hunt was that way. They literally freaked out when I jumped off the UTV to open a gate, lol. I informed them I work for a living and wasn’t afraid to do something to help. My guide was terrific. I tipped him and his entire family, lol.

Anything "native hunts" would scare me off " before agreeing to anything.

We’ve turkey hunted the San Carlos Indian Reservation in Arizona after buying tags online. It was a great hunt. Never saw another soul until we left and got back in the desert portion and the Tribal GW had set up a check point. They weren’t the friendliest as far as personality, but did their job of completely searching the vehicle and checking tags and licenses. Then told us have a nice day and they hoped to see us again, lol.

So Bernie,
You have received many opinions.
What are you going to do about the situation.
Simply accepting the lousy experience seems foolish.

I've already moved on.

Supporting outfitters would not be my method of hunting. If the public can't access public land that is land locked by private, outfitters and the lan owners should not be able to use it either. There are young kids who can't find land to hunt on simply because it has became a thing for those with money. In the end, everything changes because of time, but it doesn't always change for the better.

Two thumbs up!

This was land that has always been owned by the natives due to treaties hundreds of years old.

Remember the 6 Ps
Proper
Planning
Prevents
(This word is unacceptable on Trapperman)
Poor
Performance

Pee

We used to go to SD to shoot prairie dogs on Indian land. We each paid the Indian Bureau in the area for two days of shooting and were given a map of the various homesteads we were allowed to hunt. We were told the landowners were reimbursed by the bureau for allowing hunters on their land. But, every place we went to we were charged a fee of $50 each. The next year we went back, paid the bureau, and went to the same couple of landowners where we had hunted the previous year and found they wanted $100 per person.

We paid the landowners and hunted two days. On our way back home we stopped at the bureau and told them that these landowners had charged us to hunt when we were told when we paid the bureau, we could hunt these lands without charge. The guy at the bureau said he knew some of them did charge, but they weren't supposed to. And that was his excuse. We never went back after that.