wallhanger
Active Member
- Messages
- 848
How many of you have run into less than honest outfitters out there? I had an experience with an outfitter this year, luckily I wasn't hunting with them.
We were in West Texas on our hunt this year, and ran into some outfitters in town while having dinner. They were nice enough guys and started chatting us up about the big deer they have on their ranches in the area. We enjoyed visiting with them, and they started "selling" a little more at the end of the conversation.
Long story short, one of them says hey, let me show you the kind of deer we hunt in these here hills, and invites us out to look at a picture of a buck he'd killed "in this area" "the previous year". He gets out of his truck a 195 B&C monster high, wide and HEAVY muley photo with him posing with the deer. My first comment was wow, I didn't realize deer got that heavy out here in the desert. "Oh yeah," he says, "you just have to know where to look." We were obviously impressed, and encouraged about our next few days hunting in the area since that deer was killed "just across the road" from the ranch we were hunting.
Fast forward to last week, as I'm browsing the web for a hog hunt to take my son on between deer seasons. I come across this outfitter's website, and say "these guys were nice, I'll see what they've got." Well, as I'm looking into their hunts, I check out their photo gallery. There, on the first page is the picture that the outfitter showed us. Only on their website it reads, "2004 COLORADO MULE DEER".
To say the least, I was glad I didn't sign up for a hunt with these scheisters. So it got me thinking, how do we know if the deer on these brochures and websites are really taken by the outfitter, in the area they're claiming, and any time in the recent past? I would encourage anybody to check more references before you book a hunt than you think you need to.
WH
We were in West Texas on our hunt this year, and ran into some outfitters in town while having dinner. They were nice enough guys and started chatting us up about the big deer they have on their ranches in the area. We enjoyed visiting with them, and they started "selling" a little more at the end of the conversation.
Long story short, one of them says hey, let me show you the kind of deer we hunt in these here hills, and invites us out to look at a picture of a buck he'd killed "in this area" "the previous year". He gets out of his truck a 195 B&C monster high, wide and HEAVY muley photo with him posing with the deer. My first comment was wow, I didn't realize deer got that heavy out here in the desert. "Oh yeah," he says, "you just have to know where to look." We were obviously impressed, and encouraged about our next few days hunting in the area since that deer was killed "just across the road" from the ranch we were hunting.
Fast forward to last week, as I'm browsing the web for a hog hunt to take my son on between deer seasons. I come across this outfitter's website, and say "these guys were nice, I'll see what they've got." Well, as I'm looking into their hunts, I check out their photo gallery. There, on the first page is the picture that the outfitter showed us. Only on their website it reads, "2004 COLORADO MULE DEER".
To say the least, I was glad I didn't sign up for a hunt with these scheisters. So it got me thinking, how do we know if the deer on these brochures and websites are really taken by the outfitter, in the area they're claiming, and any time in the recent past? I would encourage anybody to check more references before you book a hunt than you think you need to.
WH