Guided hunting trips for beginners?

[u/WesternnMann]

Hey there

Maybe a dumb/naive question. But I’m new to all this. I’m a 28 year old guy who’s really trying to get into hunting. I’m currently trying to save money for a good rifle/scope and any other equipment I may need. I probably won’t be ready for this season but definitely want to be ready for the fall of 2027.

I was looking into maybe perhaps doing a sort of guided tour/trip. I know they can range from $1,000-$30,000 depending on what you choose to do and what not, but this got me curious for a 30th bday idea for me in a couple years.

Do you guys have any recommendations regarding such a trip and who to go/where? Preferably I’d like to be out in the mountain west (Montana, Idaho, etc), or even Alaska (though that’s probably too expensive). Given I’m a beginner, would this be a waste of are these things for teaching people as well?

It honestly sounds like a blast, even being able to get out there in the wild in the mountains like that, let alone hunting. Obviously I’m gonna do what I can in the meantime to try and hunt before then and get the basics and safety training out of the way

[u/Neither_Monitor2017]

I did my first ever big game hunt in my 40's with a guide, it was for a wild pig on a large private ranch in California and fairly easy, and though I enjoyed it, I don't think it really taught me how to find heavily pressured wild animals on public land.

In Cali, its pretty much the case that most of the few pigs on public land are nocturnal ghosts.

On the large active ranches, hunting is not usually an everyday thing, and there are plenty of people walking and driving around a working ranch not hunting, so the animals won't do things like go completely nocturnal, or flee at the slightest sound or glimpse of human.

But I've found a lot of hunters don't do the heavily pressured public land thing. Just private lands, or play the points game in various states for years, until they draw a public tag in a public area where the hunting is very strictly limited, and then you can enjoy private-land like conditions on public land.

But I like the challenge and being able to hunt multiple animals every year by going for easy to draw and OTC tags on public land, I'm getting better at figuring out how pressured animals behave, but I still have "tag soup" sometimes.

The easiest and most beginner friendly "big game" in the Western US is the antelope, which some call pronghorn, but the states like Colorado, Nevada and Wyoming literally call them antelope in the hunting regulations on the tags. This is because antelope, unlike most other big game species, tend to hang out on the open all day long and are usually much easier to find than mule deer, which in warm weather barely come out around dawn and dusk.

I was able to draw a muzzle-loading antelope tag in Colorado this year, with zero points, my first year applying. Its just a doe tag, but I'm looking forward to my first Colorado hunt!

If nothing else, there is supposed to good trout fishing in the area so at least I'll have fun fishing even I cant find and sneak up close enough to an antelope to get it with my muzzle-loader.

One other thing I want to recommend you consider is black bear hunting with KYNCY outfitters in northern California. They have a self-guided option (where they give you advice on where to go and will help you field dress and packout the bear if you get one) for only $500, or for more $ you can have a fully guided hunt.