The big thing in ranching currently is in
discovering profit centers on your ranch that were previously lying
dormant. I’m talking recreational ranching where you charge dudes who
want to be western for a week. Ranching dudes is nothing new, Howard
Eaton started the first one in 1881 and Oscar Wilde later came up with
the term by combining the word “dud” with “attitude.”
You
may think that because you’re ranching in Freezeout, Mud Flats or
Suckertown that you have nothing to offer, no world class fishing
stream, rustic cabin, or herd of elk for the gunsels to shoot at. But
just because your ranch isn’t near Jackson Hole doesn’t mean you can’t
cash in; simply turn your negatives into positives.
You
may not have a lake full of rainbow trout but you have a pond or even a
water trough the tenderfeet can cast into with their Orvis® rods while
wearing neoprene from head to toe. And there will be no time-consuming
snags or fish to clean afterwards. Guests won’t even have to bait their
hooks or make decisions about whether they got a bite or not, or waste a
lot of effort fighting big fish into the boat. That can all be very
stressful and these folks need rest, not stress.
Sell the sizzle! Your guests can fish without even getting their feet wet!
Same
with hunting. The dudes won’t have to buy lots of ammunition, or get
dirty skinning any exotic game because there hasn’t been as much as a
forked horn on your place in a hundred years. Guests probably don’t even
need a license because they’re just going to get skunked. And do you
know how expensive taxidermy can be? Dudes won’t have to get up early
either because no matter what time they go hunting they aren’t going to
find anything. So sleep in.
You
can still promise that you offer “great hunting.” Just no finding. Send
guests home with a set of sheds and 20 pounds of beef that came from an
old cancer-eyed cow, call it elk meat and they’ll have something good
to eat to show for their $500 a night experience.
There’s
no need to hire a cowboy to break the broncs or get the kinks out of
your mares that have been running wild. Kill two birds with one stone
and let the dudes do it. (Perhaps that’s a poor choice of words.)...
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