When talking to prospective hunters that are considering booking with us or any other outfitter for that matter, we are always asked, “What is your success rate?” It is a very valid and quite frankly necessary question; however it does require a certain amount of explanation. I used to always him and haw about how to answer that until one of our guides on one of his days off managed to film himself missing a beautiful specimen of a bear on bait at 114 yards. It provided a classic way to answer this question by being able to say “Do you mean what is our opportunity rate?” Because you see the best you can really ask for from an outfitter…any outfitter is to put you in front of the game. What happens after that is generally up to you. Now I will readily admit that after putting a hunter in front of some game, in some way I have managed to mess up (hopefully not that often, but it does happen) but the facts are that some people miss (as seen in the video), some people pass as in the animal is too small, some people never see the animal (even though the guide does) and then there are those that never even get in a position of being able to see an animal because of not being prepared for the strenuous effort that is often required for a western big game hunt and last but not least some just flat don’t get to see an animal because it just couldn’t happen that year despite the best efforts by hunter and guide.

So the next time you are researching outfitters for your next western big game adventure maybe you could try asking “What is your opportunity rate?” What chance will I have of actually seeing game much less harvesting something?