For years, as he hunted everything from rabbits and squirrels to deer, Tony Doucet thought about how cool it would be to be able to hunt for a living. Imagine, getting paid to spend time in the outdoors. He figured the best way to do that was to become a guide.
But how does a young man living in southern Illinois start?
Doucet, of Robinson in Crawford County, cruised the Internet. He discovered the Colorado Outdoor Adventure Guide School in Colorado Springs and last year signed up for training.
“I was looking for a new opportunity,” said Doucet, now 23. “You learn quite a bit, and all of the people you meet and the contacts you make are a great way to get your foot in the door.”
That’s the idea, according to school President Gary Jordan. Train those who want to hone their skills in two-week sessions and guide them into the world of professional guiding.
More Top Picks Best Motorcycle Intercoms For Riders
“It kind of created a life of its own,” Jordan said of the school that began in 1993 and has placed graduates all over the country specializing in everything from elk hunts to deer hunts to fly-fishing.
Jordan said the school is scheduled to accommodate 200 students in the shadow of Pikes Peak this year, but many more are turned away.
“We never have been able to fill the demand,” he said.
The courses test the starry eyed and let them know if they are cut out for the guide lifestyle. Proficiency in leadership, woodsmanship and survival skills, as well as specialty training, must be demonstrated.
“The top 25 percent [of students] have all types of jobs to pick from,” Jordan said. “The middle group, you don’t know. The lower end, we can’t recommend them.”
Not every student aspires to guide. Some sign up for fun and the challenge. Ken and Linda Burgh, both 59, of Plainfield, attended a two-week guide school course two years ago.
“We did it to gain knowledge,” said Ken, who said the mule packing, tree cutting, fire building and orienteering information was valuable. “I wouldn’t be afraid to go out and pitch our tent farther from the car. We don’t have to have the attitude, `Boy, I can’t see my car, I’m in trouble.’ We can find our way.”
Burgh, a tool and die maker, and his wife, a former small business owner, were among four of a dozen in their group who simply wanted to improve their outdoors skills.
“The rest of them had plans [to guide],” Burgh said.
Dan Alexander, a retired Illinois Department of Natural Resources conservation police officer from Smithfield in Fulton County, was 52 when he took some Colorado courses in 2002 to expand his outdoors expertise. He learned something about his own limitations at 10,000 feet of altitude too.
“I was one of those guys the guides complain about because I can’t keep up,” he said.
Two-week courses cost $2,500 and the price goes up from there depending on length of study. Jordan said 90 percent of the clients are men, and they range from 18 to 70 in age. Older clients sometimes sign up so they will be more comfortable going out with their grandchildren, he said. But not every top-notch outdoorsman is cut out to be a guide.
“Being a good hunter or being a good fisherman doesn’t mean you’re going to be a good guide,” Jordan said. “We teach Dale Carnegie programs.”
People skills matter, and if a guide doesn’t know that when he starts out, he learns it in a hurry. Todd Gessner, a southern Illinois hunting and fishing guide based in Whittington, did not go to guide school, but he thinks it’s a good idea.
Gessner, 59, began guiding 17 years ago “as a way to write off my toys [on my taxes],” and he joked, “I have a degree in philosophy. I felt very qualified through trial and error.
“If you don’t enjoy people, it will be a disaster. You have to be half entertainer and be a good outdoorsman. Some days Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate. The first person who called me as a guide, I don’t know if I was ever more nervous in my whole life. It worked out. It takes years to develop into a business where you can make a decent living.”
That is Doucet’s dream. Last fall he spent 2 1/2 months as an assistant guide for antelope and mule deer hunting in Colorado, a job obtained through guide school contacts. He hopes it is just the beginning of a long guiding career.
“It was great,” Doucet said. “It was the best job I ever had.”
———-