Hunting guides, outfitters and lodges
Hunting guide waivers, signed before anyone loads a rifle.
Six hunters arrive at a lodge four hours from a hospital. Two are new to you, one brought a rifle you have not seen, and the stands are twenty feet up.
Where it goes wrong
Not a feature list. These are the three moments this exists for.
The hunter you have never met and the rifle you have never seen
Booked nine months ago through an outfitter show, arriving tonight. What you know about their experience, their equipment and their judgement is what they told you, and the first time you find out otherwise is at the range or in the field.
Twenty feet up, four hours from a hospital
Falls from elevated stands are the injury that actually happens in this sport, far more than firearms are. The harness rule has to be a thing they read and signed, not a thing you said at the truck in the dark.
The landowner who wants to know what you have signed
You are guiding on somebody else's ground. When the lease comes up for renewal, or when something happens, the landowner asks what your hunters agreed to — and pointing at a filing cabinet in a cabin is not an answer.
What happens instead
The whole packet goes out with the deposit
The waiver, the firearms acknowledgment and the access agreement behind one link, months before anybody flies. Not a stack handed over in a lodge kitchen on the first night when everybody wants to eat.
You see who is short while there is time
Nine months is a long time to chase four signatures one email at a time. A list that shows who has finished and who has not means one reminder, sent to the two people it is for.
The record outlives the season
Sealed, timestamped and searchable by name and by date. When a landowner or an insurer asks in three years, it is a search rather than an expedition.
Two documents, in your account the moment you name your trade
Setup asks what you do. Answer "hunting guides, outfitters and lodges" and these are waiting as drafts, in your words, with the blanks marked and the points a lawyer settles flagged for one. Edit them, or paste what you already use.
Guided Hunt Waiver and Firearms Acknowledgment
A starter, not legal advice: the wording is yours to change and your attorney's to check. A note left in the text holds the document at send until somebody has.
Property Access and Lodge Agreement
A starter, not legal advice: the wording is yours to change and your attorney's to check. A note left in the text holds the document at send until somebody has.
Documents this trade sends
Written from the document's side rather than the trade's, for when you know the form you are short of.
Signing a PDF you already have
upload a PDF to sign · PDF signature fields · fillable PDF · sign an existing document
A release is worth less here than almost anywhere
Hunting sits on top of recreational-use statutes, landowner protection statutes and firearms law, all of which differ by state and several of which decide what a release can do before the release says a word. The starter documents mark those places for an attorney rather than papering over them. What we do well is get the right document to the right person early and prove they read it.
Who this is for
If you are on this list, the words above are your words.
Guided hunt outfitters
Hunting lodges and preserves
High fence and game ranches
Waterfowl and dove guides
Western elk, deer and antelope outfitters
Bear and predator guides
Landowners leasing hunting access
Exotic and cull hunt operators
Questions
Can the landowner be named in the release?
Yes, and in most of these it should be. The starter names the landowner alongside the outfitter, and marks for an attorney the question of whether the recreational-use statute where you operate needs particular wording or posted notice to work.
What about the guide who takes a client onto public land?
Same documents, minus the access agreement. The permit or concession you hold usually has terms of its own about what clients must be told, and the acknowledgment can carry those.
Do we need a separate document for the ATV or side-by-side?
Not usually. The hunt waiver names off-road machines among the risks and the access agreement sets where they may go. If you rent machines unguided, that is a rental agreement and a different document.
Ready when the next guest is.
Free for the first 25 agreements a month. No card to start.