Hypothetically, what if you had a breaks bull tag. Your two buddy’s went up to a pc of blm to hunt deer in your unit. They see a really big Bull bedded right in the middle of the blm and he’s not going anywhere soon.
They happen to have cell phone range and call you and send cell pics of the bull. He’s well over the size you are looking for. You happen to be eating lunch in Lewistown and can get there in an hour.
Are you running to your truck????
I’m on the fence with this pay for scouting thing. Because the information is free and not paid for is it now automatically unethical?
Kind of apples to oranges...a more apt comparison would be if you had a breaks bull tag and you didn't want to put in the effort to find an animal and your two buddies who are elk junkies went out and found a good bull and called you and sent pics.
It's not unethical to capitalize on some luck... but if going into a hunt your entire plan is to have others do the work for you... well maybe not unethical but lazy.
To each his own on the above, my main concern like wytex is that it's incentive for guys to string up cams everywhere and going in all the time to check them, which a. ruins the experience for others (who wants to see trail cams everywhere they go) and b. impacts the resource
Wlllm, that could go round and round. You could argue that if you really put enough effort in then you wouldn’t need your friends “luck”. Is there an effort police that I don’t know about who get to reign down judgement if a guy hasn’t spent enough nights in a tent that fall?
I’m not trying to pick a fight. I don’t even know where I stand. Just throwing out devils advocate stuff.
There’s recurve guys who think that modern bow sites are unethical. There’s flintlock guys who think inline muzzleloader guys are unethical. There’s guys who think long range rifles are unethical.
Hell, I know a guy who has elk in his wheat fields every fall, gets a landowner tag and gets a nice bull every year if he wants. He doesn’t need help scouting. Heck he doesn’t even need to own a spotting scope. Just walk down the gravel road and shoot over the fence post after the first good snow storm.
Is that guy more awesome or ethical than a guy who lives in Kansas and has a backcountry Wyoming mule deer hunt coming up and wants to pay to know which canyon a nice buck was in a month before the hunt starts? That deer has a better chance of making it than the herd bull in the winter wheat I would guess. The guy still has to travel states and get his hind end up the hill, then locate the buck before a slew of other guys and that’s after 15 days of archery have gone by.
Like I said I’m not even sure where I stand but it’s not black and white.
Totally agree, that's why I said it's not unethical... just not my cup of tea
The issue is more the monetization of scouting. When you go on a guided hunt you are paying your guide to scout for you, which is basically the same thing, not my cup of tea but not unethical. The problem is that a service like this isn't regulated like guiding, with permits issued to specific areas.
I'm not going to buy it because it's not my thing, I think it should be illegal because of resource damage...