Let's Go Guided

Andrew Pringle grew up hunting in South Africa, then spent a decade guiding whitetail and mule deer in Alberta before building Crusader Safaris into 800,000 free range acres back home. No high fences, no farmed game, animals living where they've always lived.In this conversation, Andrew breaks down what actually separates a free range hunt from a high-fenced one, why the majority of his clients come back within a few years, and how giving local communities a real stake in the wildlife has made poaching a non-issue in most of his areas. He also talks through the three conservancies (Umkomaas, Stormberg, and the Baviaansriver), what a first South Africa hunt should look like species-wise, and why he thinks it's one of the easiest, best-value first international hunts a North American hunter can book.Robbie also shares that Let's Go Guided is bringing a group to hunt the Baviaansriver Conservancy with Crusader Safaris in June 2027, with five-day and seven-day packages and room for a custom trip. Want in on it? DM us on Instagram (@letsgoguided_) or Email [email protected]. Come for the hunting, stay for the comradery, the filming, and an experience none of us will forget!Crusader Safaris:🌐 crusadersafaris.com📸 @crusader_safarisPhotography credit: Courtesy of Crusader Safaris

Rod runs one of Sonora, Mexico's larger desert bighorn sheep operations, and he guarantees hunters a shot opportunity on a ram. In eight seasons, that guarantee has only slipped twice, and both times the hunt was simply extended a day or two to get it done.He and his partner Gustavo started GURO Outfitters with two mule deer tags and nothing else. Rod grew up hunting in Mexico City, starting at four years old on whitetail hunts just south of the Texas border with his father. Gustavo's family had hunted the same Sonora ranches for generations, and after his grandmother's eightieth birthday, the two decided almost on impulse to start an outfit together. The first two years were rough. They couldn't sell their own hunts and survived by taking overflow clients from another outfitter. By year three they added desert bighorn sheep to the lineup, and the growth from there was steady.Today GURO runs two camps at a time, each with its own chef and guide team, and never mixes hunting parties. Sheep hunts run eight full days, mule deer hunts six, with clients typically picked up in Tucson and then crossed the border.Rod walks through what actually makes a sheep hunt hard, how "high racking" works for mule deer, why target acquisition, not marksmanship, is the biggest obstacle most clients face, and how Sonora's government uses a helicopter survey every three years to set sheep tag allocations. He also gets into the mule deer scoring standard GURO holds itself to, the toll a multi-year drought took on the herd, and the questions he thinks every hunter should ask an outfitter before booking.Let's Go Guided:Website + email signup: letsgoguided.comInstagram: @letsgoguided_Facebook: Let's Go GuidedGURO Outfitters:🌐 desertbighornsheephunt.com📸 @gurooutfittersPhotography credit: Courtesy of GURO Outfitters

Three generations, one concession in Cameroon, fifty five years of guiding the same wild country. Xavier Vannier of Faro Safaris joins the show to explain why the Lord Derby Eland has become the animal that defines hunting in northern Cameroon, and why it is considered one of the most difficult trophies to close on anywhere in Africa.Faro Safaris was founded in 1971 by Xavier's grandfather, who got his start in the bush with the help of Xavier's great grandfather, already working in Cameroon since the 1940s. Xavier's father took over the operation in 2003, and Xavier joined full time in 2016, having spent his entire childhood immersed in the bush. Today the family holds one of the smaller hunting concessions in Cameroon by size, seventy five thousand hectares, but by their own account runs among the highest quota density per hectare of any area in the country.Xavier walks through what actually makes the Eland so hard to hunt: a January to March breeding season unlike any other species in the region, a herd structure built around wary, watchful females, and terrain so unstable underfoot that a single misstep can end a stalk. He and Robbie get into what a twelve day tracking hunt actually looks like day to day, the physical and mental demands it puts on a hunter, and a couple of specific hunts that stuck with Xavier for what they taught him about patience and pressure.The conversation also covers the making of Eden, a documentary filmed on the Faro Safaris concession during the COVID years, and the conservation side of the operation: anti poaching patrols, community relations, and a nonprofit called the Faro Conservancy Project that runs on hunting revenue, a published photo book, paid conservation trips for non hunters, and international conservation funding.If you're weighing a first guided hunt in Cameroon, trying to understand what an Eland hunt actually demands physically and mentally, or just want a straight account of how a well run, multi generational African outfit funds its own conservation work, this episode covers all of it in detail.Faro Safaris:🌐 farosafaris.com📸 @farosafariclubcameroonLet's Go Guided:Website + email signup: letsgoguided.comInstagram: @letsgoguided_Facebook: Let's Go GuidedPhotography credit: Courtesy of Faro Safaris

Guiding hunters across Alberta and British Columbia for decades, Jeff Lander built his reputation on one rule: never oversell the hunt.Jeff Lander is the owner of Primitive Outfitting, based in British Columbia near McBride. He grew up hunting mule deer, elk, and upland birds in Washington State, then guided whitetail for years in Edmonton's Bowzone under outfitter Jim Hole Jr. From there he built his own archery-only mule deer operation in southern Alberta, ran it for decades, and sold it a few years back to focus solely on his BC operation.Today Primitive Outfitting runs spring black bear hunts out of a family-run lodge, where Jeff's wife cooks for the camp, and eight-day moose and elk hunts by jet boat and raft along a sixty-mile stretch of river that sees almost no other hunting pressure. Jeff has shot a longbow since 1985 and chased stone sheep with it six times; grizzly with a longbow is still on his list, not something he's done yet.In this conversation, Jeff and Robbie get into the landowner relationships that kept his Alberta operation running, the most common mistakes hunters make glassing open-country mule deer, how his team handles it when a hunt turns dangerous, and what he hopes clients say about him ten years from now. Jeff also gives his honest advice for anyone shopping for an outfitter: call the references who didn't fill their tag, not just the ones who did.Listen and subscribe to Let's Go Guided for more conversations with the outfitters and guides shaping western hunting.Let's Go Guided:Website + email signup: letsgoguided.comInstagram: @letsgoguided_Facebook: Let's Go GuidedPrimitive Outfitting:Website: primitive-outfitting.comEmail: [email protected]: @primtvePhotography credit: Courtesy of Primitive Outfitting

Lee Drescher didn't grow up hunting. His passion for the backcountry started after his father fell ill, and within a few years he had gone from watching Meat Eater videos in his living room to purchasing one of British Columbia's most remote guiding territories. Findlay Creek Outfitters operates 220,000 acres entirely within the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy, protected since 1974, with no motor vehicle access whatsoever. The only way in is horseback or boot leather.In this episode, Robbie sits down with Lee to talk elk, moose, mountain goat, and mule deer hunting in the East Kootenays, what it actually feels like to be dropped into nearly a thousand square kilometers of backcountry with no one else around for forty kilometers in any direction, and the story of his very first guided hunt: a six point bull at fifteen yards, called in on the last day, shared with a client from Idaho who later mailed Lee a laser engraved skinning knife with his name and the words Lee Drescher Outfitter.Let's Go Guided:Website + email signup: letsgoguided.comInstagram: @letsgoguided_Facebook: Let's Go GuidedFindlay Creek Outfitters:🌐 findlaycreekoutfitters.com📧 [email protected]📸@findlaycreekoutfittersPhotography credit: Courtesy of Findlay Creek Outfitters