Paradox
Active Member
- Messages
- 284
So here's the rest of the story...
I won a guided hunt (my first) with landowner voucher in Colorado unit 21 in Huntin Fool's membership raffle. Boy was I excited! We hunted with Twin Buttes Ranch owned by Scott and Owen Robertson. Owen was our guide.
Figuring I had transportation covered we flew from NY instead of driving as we have done for the last 26 years hunting the west. Mistake #1 - the "guide" was 2 1/2 hours late picking us up in Grand Junction. And, as I was to later find out, Colorado limits their guides to a "concession" that is a very small part of the unit.
Mistake #2 - Private land would more than make up for the reduced hunting area. NOT!
So off we went... day one we got up early and waited for 1 1/2 hours for the guide to show up just before daylight. I said "shouldn't we be going soon" he said "well you can't hunt til you can see them". We then spent the next 2 hours driving up and down the highway. Right! Road hunting on blacktop, CO139. Back to the lodge for lunch and a nap guide shows up at 3 and we drive the highway for 2 hours. I should have dumped him then but I figured he had a plan.
Day 2,3,4 (Yeah, I'm a slow learner) much like day 1 except we drove ranch and dirt roads, some private, mostly public. We did see a lot of almost big bucks, not something you would burn a 21 tag on though. You could hardly get this guy out of the lodge before daylight and by 10 AM he was itching to get back for lunch. Disappeared 'til 3 and we hunted 'til 5 or so, too dark to see deer. We spent a half hour each way driving through prime deer country, saw bunches of deer but they could not hunt there so couldn't even slow down to look them over.
By day 4 I had had it, I said just leave me on a ridge while you get your nap and pick me up at 3. I put that time to good use and made a bunch of calls. Rented a truck, called Scott who had seen "a lot of big bucks in other parts of the unit.
When he showed up I said i wanted to hunt the rest of the unit and he could take me back to town after the hunt.
Last day - we headed out on our own, (before daylight) and first place we look we see a NICE buck, not quite the right buck though. Scott got us back on track and we found this deer at 5 PM, one of, if not the nicest we had seen all week, including private.
There is more bad to tell but this has probably gone on long enough.
Suffice to say, I would NOT recommend a hunt with these guys.
In fact, I were to be so lucky enough to win this package again I'd go it alone and use the tag to it's fullest. I am very happy with this deer, though I am convinced if we had more time to look over more of the unit we could have found the gagger buck we all dream about.
Ed
If you ain't the lead dog,
the view never changes