RNhuntAK
FNG
- Joined
- May 8, 2021
- Messages
- 14
Booked a mtn lion hunt with an outfitter in Wyoming back in 2021. I booked an on call hunt in order to give myself the best odds for the best conditions especially due to me traveling from Alaska and the added logistics and cost of flying rather than driving to the outfitter. Winter 2021/2022 came and went and the outfitter contacted me a couple times to start looking at flights however the snow fall didn't come to fruition and the plan was that the hunt would happen this winter.
I contacted the outfitter a couple weeks ago and asked if he was tracking a snow storm for his part of Wyoming that I'd seen on a weather app and he said he hadn't but would look into it and this may be the storm we were waiting for. Couple days later I get a call from the outfitter and he says they're calling for a good amount of snow so this might turn out pretty good but as with past storms,no guarantee that we truly get the snow they are predicting. I decide it's now or never and book the flight and fly to Casper, WY. On my way there, outfitter texts me and says roads are too bad tonight to pick you up so grab a motel and I'll pick you up in the morning. Frustrating but happy that the storm is actually happening and we'll have great conditions for the lion hunt.
Outfitter picks me up at the motel next morning and says conditions are great. There will be about a foot of snow on the ground when this is done tomorrow morning and you'll probably kill your lion on Thursday (this was said on Tuesday). We drive north to where outfitter lives. Outfitter offers me to stay in the spare bedroom of his house rather than at the little motel room. Outfitter says he doesn't normally let hunters stay at his house with his family but I seemed like a good guy so the option was for me to choose. I chose to stay in the house rather than a motel room. When we get to the house, outfitter says he will apologize in advance that the house smells like a rotten mouse that is in the house somewhere but he'll find it and take care of it. Wasn't a major deal but he never did try to resolve the rotting mouse situation aside from having his wife light some candles.
Getting to the important part now. We hunted 5.5 days in what the outfitter said where perfect conditions and only cut 2 sets of several day old lion tracks. The outfitter day in and day out would say we were going to go do one thing and then do something different almost always related to the fact that equipment/transportation he'd plan to use wouldn't run or was broken. His side by side he had tracks for, he waited until day 3 of the hunt to call the hunt that day short to travel back to the house to put the tracks on the side by side..... correction...one of his other houndsmen guides and I put the tracks on while he took pictures for Snapchat. Same thing happened the next day when he had to use the old little bronco to hunt from because the side by side wouldn't run properly. We blew a tire on the bronco up in the mountains. He had no jack in the vehicle but fortunately he had a spare tire so we found a log and rock to run it up on and once again I had to change the tire while he took Snapchat videos. He admitted that he doesn't take care of his equipment and he loaned some of his good dogs to his brother to go lion hunting with. He admitted that he needs to spend more time with his pups because after letting his brother take 2 of his good dogs he only had 1dog that could run more than 1day. He also wanted to turn the dogs out on every damn bobcat track even though that was not what we were after. He spent approximately half the time the last 3 days on the phone talking with his fellow colleagues from the local college as he is a rodeo coach trying to figure out how to get students eligible through loopholes due to failing grades etc.....
The point of all this is that I spent a lot of money to go on this on-call lion hunt and the outfitter was ill prepared and his priority was not helping a paying hunter but worrying about 5 other things. The number of lies I heard by this outfitter in one week was unreal. I don't think a good hunt is measured by a kill but rather by the experience. In this situation the experience was an expensive learning situation. I could go on with more examples but I think I've presented a good picture of the situation.
If you want to know the name of the outfit send me a message and Ill be glad to provide that and save you money and alot of frustration.
Merry Christmas outdoorsmen and women
I contacted the outfitter a couple weeks ago and asked if he was tracking a snow storm for his part of Wyoming that I'd seen on a weather app and he said he hadn't but would look into it and this may be the storm we were waiting for. Couple days later I get a call from the outfitter and he says they're calling for a good amount of snow so this might turn out pretty good but as with past storms,no guarantee that we truly get the snow they are predicting. I decide it's now or never and book the flight and fly to Casper, WY. On my way there, outfitter texts me and says roads are too bad tonight to pick you up so grab a motel and I'll pick you up in the morning. Frustrating but happy that the storm is actually happening and we'll have great conditions for the lion hunt.
Outfitter picks me up at the motel next morning and says conditions are great. There will be about a foot of snow on the ground when this is done tomorrow morning and you'll probably kill your lion on Thursday (this was said on Tuesday). We drive north to where outfitter lives. Outfitter offers me to stay in the spare bedroom of his house rather than at the little motel room. Outfitter says he doesn't normally let hunters stay at his house with his family but I seemed like a good guy so the option was for me to choose. I chose to stay in the house rather than a motel room. When we get to the house, outfitter says he will apologize in advance that the house smells like a rotten mouse that is in the house somewhere but he'll find it and take care of it. Wasn't a major deal but he never did try to resolve the rotting mouse situation aside from having his wife light some candles.
Getting to the important part now. We hunted 5.5 days in what the outfitter said where perfect conditions and only cut 2 sets of several day old lion tracks. The outfitter day in and day out would say we were going to go do one thing and then do something different almost always related to the fact that equipment/transportation he'd plan to use wouldn't run or was broken. His side by side he had tracks for, he waited until day 3 of the hunt to call the hunt that day short to travel back to the house to put the tracks on the side by side..... correction...one of his other houndsmen guides and I put the tracks on while he took pictures for Snapchat. Same thing happened the next day when he had to use the old little bronco to hunt from because the side by side wouldn't run properly. We blew a tire on the bronco up in the mountains. He had no jack in the vehicle but fortunately he had a spare tire so we found a log and rock to run it up on and once again I had to change the tire while he took Snapchat videos. He admitted that he doesn't take care of his equipment and he loaned some of his good dogs to his brother to go lion hunting with. He admitted that he needs to spend more time with his pups because after letting his brother take 2 of his good dogs he only had 1dog that could run more than 1day. He also wanted to turn the dogs out on every damn bobcat track even though that was not what we were after. He spent approximately half the time the last 3 days on the phone talking with his fellow colleagues from the local college as he is a rodeo coach trying to figure out how to get students eligible through loopholes due to failing grades etc.....
The point of all this is that I spent a lot of money to go on this on-call lion hunt and the outfitter was ill prepared and his priority was not helping a paying hunter but worrying about 5 other things. The number of lies I heard by this outfitter in one week was unreal. I don't think a good hunt is measured by a kill but rather by the experience. In this situation the experience was an expensive learning situation. I could go on with more examples but I think I've presented a good picture of the situation.
If you want to know the name of the outfit send me a message and Ill be glad to provide that and save you money and alot of frustration.
Merry Christmas outdoorsmen and women
