I know only one person who is a hunting guide.
This man has a full time job for the city, takes time off to guide part time.
He does it because he loves it, but has also told me that it pays much more per day than his regular city job.
He expects no tips, and feels bad when people try and tip him. So obviously not all guides are the same.
But lets do some quick math shall we.
Five day guided hunting trip for $5,000 is $1,000 per day.
Accommodations cost the outfitter say $100 per day, $100 to feed you, and lets call it $40 in gas to drive you around. But with 2 people per room, the owner is making a lot of profit on the room to.
So far the expenses are $240 a day, now the boss man takes $300 and shoves it into his pocket, still leaving $460. The government doesn't tax a business for what they spent, and so far its all tax free. Licenses, bookkeeping, insurance, and such, another $100 again all legit expenses, so not taxed. Now that guide makes $360, he does pay income tax on it, so pockets $250 a day per person, times however many hunters.
End of the year the owner pay some tax on the $300 he pocketed.
Now this owner has 8 to 16 people in hunting, say 4 groups of 2 each, so this all doubles, per group. That guide has 2 people paying him, not 1, but the owner is taking $300 times 8, so making $2400 to $4800 per day, plus a lot more on all those rooms..
Now that is a cheap hunt relatively.
Lets say this hunt is 5 days, but $10,000 per person.
Accommodations are a little nicer, so lets up it to $120 day, food is better to so $120 per day, owner takes $500 as his profits, and that $40 for gas, lets not forget the license, insurance, bookkeeping $100. So we are at $980 per day from $2000 per person. The left over $1,060 pays wages etc, but likely 2 people per guide, possibly 3 or 4, occasionally just 1.
How are these guides not doing really well?
Then they want a cash tip, which isn't even taxed on top of it all. Nice gig, I to want a job making $2000 to $5000 per day, a chunk of it not taxed, to go out and play in the woods, something I do for fun, and free.
The guide I know, flat out told me that he makes really good money guiding, while not the exact amount, said about as much per day guiding, as per week at his job, which is a good paying job for the city, as a heavy duty mechanic repairing city owned trucks, equipment, and such, for $39.15 an hour. Maybe some guides make crappy wages, but then why not quit, and open your own guiding company, or go work for someone who pays better.
By the way my boss owns a few hotels, and restaurants.
A typical hotel room doesn't cost anywhere near the $100 per person, based on double occupancy as laid out above, in fact it doesn't cost $100 total. Food cost in a restaurant is typically 27% of what you pay, so add in cooks, servers, sous chefs wages, overhead costs, insurance, snow clearing, bookkeeping, credit card machines, website costs etc it brings that up to 58% on an average diners bill, leaving 42% profit, that yes the owner pays tax on that 42%. So don't tell me that you can't feed these hunters really really well for $100/120 per day...the true cost is likely far less, but I way over budgeted the food and accommodations costs so nobody says that there is no way to do it for that amount.
By the way, recently stayed at a hotel owned by my boss, had the executive suite, really nice room, normal rate is $275 day, his cost including chambermaid, front desk staff, the free breakfast included, maintenance guy, heat, lights, phone, tv, etc is $81.09 per day. A cheaper, smaller room, goes for $149 per day, costs him $52.17.
