The Back Office: Them's the Rules 

It had been a normal opening days of deer season in late October some years ago. My hunters and I left hunting camp in the pre-dawn hours and headed toward one of my managed hunting properties. Everyone was excited about the prospects of harvesting a trophy buck on this beautiful, cool, fall morning at my business, Woods-N-Water in Wrightsville, Georgia. 

As we had done many times over the last five years, we left camp in my Suburban and started transferring gear to a UTV to go deeper in the woods. As I walked around to the passenger’s side, I suddenly heard a very loud boom and saw a bright flash to my immediate right. I also felt the concussion of the blast and an unusually warm sensation on my right leg. My first thought was that a bomb had just gone off. My second thought was that I had just been shot. Thank God neither of these were true. We had, however, just got our first kill of the season—a 5,000-pound Suburban!

After the immediate shock and confusion, I realized that one of my hunters was trying to load his rifle and accidentally shot a hole in my vehicle. Thankfully, his rifle was not pointing toward me or one of my other hunters. Otherwise, he could have seriously injured or killed himself or one of us.

That’s the moment I realized that I needed to establish some ground rules ASAP. There are just so many things you can tell a hunter, but if I could write down the essentials, things might be safer and more efficient. That day, I went back to my office, sat down, and started calling other outfitters to see if they had already put a good list together. I was surprised to find out that most of them did not have any kind of established rules or regulations.

So I sat my guides down and we brainstormed a basic set of ground rules to help ensure that our clients would have safe and successful trips.

Over the past 15 years, this one-page set of rules has evolved into a comprehensive five-page contract that we have all of our clients sign prior to any of our trips. When they arrive, one of the first things we do is to go over these rules and have each client sign them. Then we conduct a safety briefing well before any of our clients go to the field.

The development of this document, which is basically a client contract, includes all of our ground rules and is by far the best thing we’ve ever done to prevent misunderstandings and accidents regarding our trips and our clients. These client contracts will also save you a lot of time, money and effort in managing your clients and your operation.

The ground rules outlined in our current client contracts can be broken down into four specific areas: safety, operations, game management, and common courtesy.

All of the guidelines that follow work great for my business. Yours might vary, of course. But I’ve listed them here so you can see what I’ve learned over the years. If you already have a comprehensive contract or rules list, that’s great. But still, these might help you dial them in to cover the multitude of situations you could run into.

Safety

Of all of the rules, the ones relating to safety are the most important.

• Abide by all local, state, and federal hunting, fishing, and gun laws.
• Exercise appropriate firearm and weapon safety at all times..
• Under no circumstances shall a client discharge a weapon when visibility is limited, the target is obscured, or in the direction of a person, residence, vehicle, road, or highway. 
• No hunting or shooting allowed within a half mile of the outfitter’s lodging facility or fishing lakes without outfitter supervision.
• Hunters shall not load their weapons until they are securely situated in their stands or blinds. Hunters shall unload all weapons before exiting their stands or blinds. Weapons shall be unloaded at all times at camp and during transportation to the hunting area.
• No alcoholic beverages, substance and/or medication that will impair a client’s judgement will be allowed either before or during the hunt.
• Safety harness shall be worn at all times when hunting from any open, elevated stand or blind.
• Clients shall not ignite any fires on any property during their trip.

Operation

One of the first ground rules we established for my outfitting operation was how we handled the booking and payments for our trips. When I first started my hunting and fishing operation, we did not require any deposits to reserve dates for our trips but soon realized that this was a huge mistake on our part because many of our clients were not showing up on their reserved trip dates. How could we effectively run our operation when we didn’t know how many of our clients would show up for their trips? We incorporated a number of operational rules regarding deposits and final payments. Some of these operational rules included:

• A 50 percent deposit of the entire trip to reserve any trip dates. Balance of payment is due upon arrival of trip. Balance shall be paid in cash or by credit card. We do not take checks on any final payment because there may not be sufficient funds in client’s checking or client may refuse payment if he or she is dissatisfied with their trip. If a client rejects payment on their credit card, you can always file a dispute with the credit-card company and get your payment if you prove that you provided the services that you promised the client. All deposit and final payments are nonrefundable except for serious medical emergencies or deaths in immediate family of the client. Include all pertinent information and everything that you will be providing during the trip, plus anything that will not be provided during the trip. Write down the arrival date and time, actual hunt dates, departure date and time, food, lodging, type of hunt, transportation in the field, harvest limits, etc. All of this information will help prevent misunderstandings between the outfitter and client and be very helpful in resolving disputes regarding dissatisfied clients and nonpayment of services with credit-card companies.
• If any situation should arise and the client says he or she is not satisfied, the client must bring it to the attention of the guide or outfitter immediately or shall be deemed as waived. 
• Client shall follow all instructions provided by the outfitter or the guides.
• Unless notified in writing by client prior to trip, outfitter shall have the right to use pictures or images of client taken during the trip in any of the outfitter’s promotional materials.

Game Management

These rules will vary depending on the location of your operation and the overall game-management plan of the outfitter. Some of these rules should include: 

• Noting the sex, size, and quantity of game that can be harvested on the trip including any antler restrictions. Trophy fees or any fines should also be addressed in this section on your agreement.
• It’s the client’s responsibility to make accurate, effective, and ethical shots at all game animals. If a client shoots or wounds an animal that cannot be collected afterwards, this will constitute a client’s harvested animal.

Make sure you designate any no-hunting, buck-only, or bow-hunting only areas to ensure safety and to promote sound game-management practices and maintain proper game populations and buck-to-doe ratios.

Courtesy

The final category of ground rules that you should address is courtesy.

• Clients shall not leave any litter or trash in lodging areas and on outfitter’s property during their trip. Clients should pick up their clothes and trash, and keep common areas as clean as possible during their stay.
• Clients shall not get out of their blinds or stands and walk around during their hunt (unless given prior approval) to prevent them from getting lost, disturbing the game, or disrupting other clients who may be in the area.
• No pets will be allowed in lodging facilities or on outfitter’s property unless approved prior to their trip.
• Clients should not smoke or use tobacco products inside outfitter’s lodging facilities, hunting blinds, or stands. Clients should remove all trash immediately upon departure from their hunting blind or stand.

Once you establish a client contract with appropriate ground rules for your particular operation, it is very important that you enforce the rules. If you don’t strictly enforce these rules, they will be worthless and no better than the paper they are written on. It would be just like having a speed limit without any fines.

It’s also a good idea to run them by a lawyer who knows the outfitting business. He or she can help you identify any areas that you maybe neglecting regarding liability.

Ground rules are absolutely necessary if you want to operate your outfitting operation in a safe and effective manner. They will greatly reduce your chances of experiencing costly accidents, improve the overall effectiveness of your operation, and minimize misunderstandings with your clients.

Unfortunately, it took me almost five years to learn the vital importance of ground rules. Hopefully, you already have them in place. If not, don’t wait another minute for your back-office meeting. 

Blaine Burley leads guided and semi-guided hunts for a variety of game at Woods-N-Water in Wrightsville, Georgia.

From the Summer 2020 issue of Guidefitter Journal.