I do believe there's also an ego stigma for alot of guys when it comes to the idea of a "guided" hunt. "Me.....great hunter, yes?? Then that is all you need to know". The mindset that you have to do it on your own or your less of a hunter or so on, I have seen that alot, whether some of yall want to admit it or not, it shows.
I'll say one thing, I know how to hunt elk, especially archery elk. I respect archery elk hunting enough to have had taken 2 years off because I gut shot a cow and found the remains a week later, it made me sick to my stomach, so I hung that all up until I was shooting bulletholes and gained enough confidence in myself to know I had given my all to respect the next animal enough with a clean shot.
All that said, the guide I hunted with made me look like I had never hunted elk in my life. Elk were moving up the valley in the morning, there was a great pinch point that I spotted and I thought we should get there and ambush, wrong.....i trusted the guide and that was the best decision I could make. He toom us up the side of this rocky hill into some junipers, it's as if someone had them elk on a leash because they walked right to us.
Later that evening we sat and glassed and listened, waiting for the elk to start moving down the same valley. He pointed to a little highway and said, they are gonna come right through there...we should get down there and ambush. He was human and wanted to wait a little bit though just to make sure he wasn't wrong, he wasn't. We heard a scream and boom, we took off down the hill. 80 yards from where we wanted to be, the elk were already right EXACTLY where he said they would be going. We waited and then backed out.
Next morning we did the same tactic as the previous morning and tried for that pinch point area. It was sprinkling and the elk were going nuts. Again, I pushed for the pinch point but he wanted to go a different route. I trusted him again, he wanted to head up the other hillside and get behind them. We did just that, closed within 100yrds of a screaming bull. Guide smiled and let out ONE single cow call and that bull turned and bolted to us.
The rest was history. This guy made every right move on these animals. Thats what I payed for in a guided hunt. I came out of that hunt humbled, with 10000x more knowledge, a full freezer, and a hunting story that I got to experience with my brother at my side the whole way.