I've got a sense of humour and can laugh at myself as well as the next Newfoundlander. However, I don't have as high a tolerance for bull$hit as I once had either. The above is more than a little offensive.
You say you're a welder by trade. Most welders I know are easily making in excess of $75-$100K, again depending on qualifications/certification....and you continue to ##### about paying $1500 (your figure...I've never spent that much to drive to Edmonton and back personally) for travel by personal auto to the Island for your hunt? Then you make a snide comment about guides "liking" tips as if this was something exclusive to Newfoundland Outfitters and compare a Newfoundland guided hunt to costing the same/more than an African Safari???
If you begrudge tipping a guide a couple hundred bucks as a gratuity for working their arse off for you trudging across bogs, barrens and fighting their way through tuckamores and having to pay the gas to drive here, I seriously doubt you're ever going to stomach the $2500-$3000 return airfare will run you to most African locales, not to mention the thousands more in trophy fees, plus thousands for taxidermy and thousands more for shipment of said trophies to Canada. That blows that part of your argument out of the water...oh, many African Outfitters expect you to tip the guides/trackers also, unless those tips are already built into the cost of your hunt.
Also, if you personally feel that a guided Newfoundland Moose hunt doesn't offer you good value for the money, why not take your money elsewhere? Is there another province or outfitter who can offer essentially a 95%+ success rate on moose for under $4000.00? Remember me mentioning Jim Shockey? Last I heard his Yukon moose hunts were a bargain at something like $12,000.00??? (ballpark figure!).
I'm still waiting for a link to the quoted number of 2800 returned licenses this/last year...other than hearsay that a supposed CO told your guide in a restaurant. I know a fair number of COs and most of them certainly wouldn't have any sort of exact figures memorized dealing with that issue...sadly, the way the current dept. is organized, far more attention is paid to the forestry aspect and angling than it is to hunting and wildlife management.
Finally, why not post the name of the Outfitter and guide that you dealt with in the past? I may know them and I'd certainly like to have a chat with them to get their side of the story, because you're certainly painting a one-sided and quite negative picture of my home province.
I'm not defending all Outfitters either. I'm sure some are the biggest arseholes you'll ever run into, just like in any other province. In fact, I had my own run-in with one particular outfitter in the Northwest Gander area of Area 64, Middle Ridge a few years back while hunting for Caribou, Moose and Black Bear.
He didn't like the fact that my father, brother and I had the audacity to hunt way back in the bush, a hundred miles from the nearest paved road, on Crown Land and in supposed "direct competition" with his clients. (At the time, Caribou populations were still quite high).
The asshat actually had his chopper pilot buzz the caribou herd we had been stalking on a number of occasions and scatter the herd on us. At the time there were plenty of animals to go around and we hadn't interfered with his clients at all...in fact, we had helped his guide out of a jamb with one of his ATVs. The chopper buzzing was how that particular Outfitter chose to thank us. He was most definitely an arsehole and if you booked with him, then you have my apologies and condolences!
On the other hand, the German couple he was hosting, were very nice people and were pleased as punch when I used the horrendous German I had picked up in my first year university German course at Memorial University. Interestingly enough, they resided not far from a wonderful hotel I stayed in during a trip to Europe some years ago while on holiday!
