Sharing my recent experience with dealing with Hunter Ross from Desert Safari’s in West Texas. I’ve read good thinigs about the place which Is why I booked with them, but my personal experience was Sketchy
I reached out and booked an Audad hunt for This Sunday (9/15 – 9/20) down at one of his ranches. I signed his contract back in April and sent over the $4,000.00 deposit. Over the last few months weve been in contact about the hunt and ironed out some of the details of the trip. The first guide that I was supposed to be going with had some serious family issues, So hunter mentioned he would be guiding me personally. I asked for a gear list, as I wasn’t sure what to bring and he said he’d send it to me when he hung up the phone. I followed up a few times over the next few weeks and couldn’t get a hold of him, so I had to reach out to the office and have them track him down. (Totally get it, as a guide you’re not always accessible, so it took about 2 -3 weeks , but finally got the list.) It included a bunch of camping gear. Sleeping bag, pad, other camping utensils..ect. Spent about $1,100.0 0 on all the new gear, as we were going to be staying in tents and I wanted some quality stuff.
Fast forward a bit, I’m a few weeks out from the hunt and I asked him for directions to the ranch, as there is no address, just written directions. He said he would get it over to me and give me info on buying my license. I proceeded to follow up about the directions to the ranch on and off for about 2-3 weeks (Every few days) and didn’t get a call back or text message from the guy. Finally, 8 days out from my trip, I get a bit concerned that I haven’t heard anything and don’t know where I’m going. So I reach out to the main office. The office mentioned that she was going to reach out to Hunter and tell him to call me. She emails me back and says she spoke to hunter and that he’d call me in the next 24 hours, but to reach back out to her if he doesn’t. (hes not responding to any of my texts or voicemails, but responding to her) . 48 hours go by and I don’t hear anything, so I reach out to her and said I haven’t heard from anyone, about 2 hours goes by and someone who I’ve never spoken to before calls me and mentions they are in Nashville and don’t have any paperwork Infront of them and that they’re trying to figure out the details of my trip. He mentions he will be guiding someone nearby on a similar trip, but will try and get the details from hunter. He also tells me that Hunter’s mother is very sick and in Hospice and so he’s been a bit difficult to get a hold of. I feel terrible and real life trumps any hunt or trip that I have planned, But I start getting a bit concerned about my upcoming trip in 6 days and that my guide is dealing with a serious personal situation. I am not going to expect someone in that situation to take me anywhere, but now I’m getting a feeling like this trip is becoming a bit of a shitstorm and they are trying to scrape it together to salvage the hunt.
3 hours later, After half a dozen unanswered calls over the last few weeks, Hunter calls me and tells me that he’s setting up another guide to take me out and that we’ll be staying in a ranch house on the property. I was told we were going to be camping, so I went ahead and purchased a ton of new stuff that I can’t return. The details seem to be changing every time we talk and this would be the 3rd guide that he’s chatted with me about. He also dropped it on me that we’ll be going in on horseback each day. I’ve never been on a horse in my life, sounds awesome, but It would have been great to maybe hop on one a few weeks before the trip to get prepared.
So After chatting with hunter and getting some last minute details, I wrapped up the call with me asking him to send me the contact info for the new guide if he could please send me the directions. This was the 5th time ive had to ask for them. He assured me he’d send me both as soon as we hung up…48 hours goes by and I didn’t receive any directions and no contact for the new guide. So… 2 days later, I called him again and got no response.
This is when I started to get really anxious. My trip was in 5 days, im traveling halfway across the country and driving 4 hours to somewhere that has no address and I have no contact of anyone that will be there. My guide is having a serious family emergency , I should have taken horse back riding lessons lol and now I have people that I’ve never spoked to before telling me that they’re going to work out the details of the trip for me.
I have a good buddy who runs a guiding business out of Idaho and gave him the rundown and he mentioned that this had a bunch of red flags. I spoke to a few other buddies that have hunted all over north America and they all agreed this sounded dodgy and that I should try and come up with a plan B.
I sent an email to Hunter and his office saying that I had a lot of concerns about this trip and that the lack of communication and the feeling that this was being thrown together last minute was enough for me to cut my losses and try my luck with a late season hunt somewhere else. I didnt feel like this was going to meet my expectations and that I was going to pull the plug on the entire trip. Almost immediately Hunter sends me the directions and follows up with a call. To make a long story short, we argued a bit about the trip and discussed my deposit and we left off with me saying that I’d walk away from my deposit if I had to , but obviously would rather come to an agreement of maybe getting half of it back. He said he would chat with his office and then call me back today with an answer.
I followed up this morning with a text and he immediately calls me and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. It sounded like he was hammered drunk for the first few sentences. Then he proceeds to tell me my "deposit is ****** " and that he never had someone cancel on him because he didn’t send directions (This set me off). We got into it alittle bit back and forth and he then called me a ******* pussy because I said I’d share this sketchy experience online.
Ive been on fishing trips all over the world, but I’ve only been on a handful of guided hunting trips. This is a big financial investment for me and a huge time investment. I totally get that with hunting, things change. I’ve been on trips when guides have had to switch halfway through the trip because of emergencies. I’ve had to fly 200 miles from one location to another because the fishing was slow where we were. In all of those experiences, I've never had such poor communication and felt like a trip was being thrown together at the last minute. I get that if arrangements were made, I would be putting him in a weird positions. but up until 5 days before it seemd like nobody knew who I was going with and the details were developing each time we spoke.
Sorry for the long winded story, but I figure’d I’d “be a pussy “ and share my experience online and hopefully help someone in the future if they are looking at an audad hunt with this Guy.
