As you noted in your original post, you haven't done much guided hunting. At its basic level, whether Canada, the American West, or your own Northern Territory, a guide's role is pretty much the same when hunting big game. Except for the accent, my guides in British Columbia, Montana, Argentina, Spain, and Austria carried out their functions just like my PHs in Africa. In none of those locations did I feel like I was along to merely pull the trigger. (I take that back, there was a fenced hunt here in Texas where I once felt like an executioner).
I am in my late sixties and went to Africa for the first time in 2008. I had been hunting my whole life, to include guiding every day of the hunting season while in college to help make expenses. Because of my military career, I had hunted all over the US and a bit of Europe. I had a stack of African hunting videos in the cabinet below the TV and had read everything I could get my hands on about hunting Africa.
I went to Namibia and hunted the free range low fence country near Omaruru. Sometime during the first hour of the first day, I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about hunting Africa. After the first couple of hours, I realized I knew absolutely nothing about tracking game, or how to find it in that very different environment. By the end of the first day, my PH, tracker and I were a smoothly operating team. We had a wonderful hunt and never did I feel like I was merely the trigger man.
Most guides and PHs have hard earned practical degrees in human behaviour. Sometime after picking you up at the airport and finishing your check rounds at the range, he will have a pretty good assessment of you. By the time you finish your first approach on a game animal, he will be at nearly 100% and will adjust the hunt accordingly. He will treat a novice differently than someone with obvious experience.
I now have had the good fortune to make several hunts in Africa in three different countries. In August I'll add a fourth. Like the other trips, my PH will take the lead. But, like all my other hunts, we will operate as a team.
If I may offer some advice - don't assume you know very much. Go with an open mind and be willing to listen a lot more than you opine. (that was rather poetic!
) I assure you your PH would much rather hunt
with you than lead you around by the collar. Moreover, he will figure you out a lot quicker and more accurately than by whatever you try to tell him.