Doing your homework on an outfitter and asking for references is crucial. I found this out the hard way. I went hunting with HK Hounds in February of 2025. It was full of empty promises, terrible hospitality, and ultimately disappointment. This outfit is a joke. We were supposed to stay in a wall tent, instead we stayed in a double wide. We were supposed to have breakfast over the fire each morning, we did once. He verbally guaranteed me a lion, which was smoke and mirrors. I completely understand hunting is by no means guaranteed, I have been hunting my whole life, but again he guaranteed it. We did catch one lion, but due to the location of the dogs I could not shoot the lion without putting his dogs in harm's way, which I completely understand and had no problems with this. When I asked him after the hunt about coming back, he replied "yes, I’ll get you back out and get you a lion". He then ghosted me for quite a while. When he finally communicated, he said he was booked; I would have to wait until the following year, and I would have to pay full price.
One of the worst parts of this experience was how much time he spent playing on his phone. Texting his girlfriend, scrolling on social media, watching videos on social media. Literally nonstop, all day, every day. He is ate up with social media, worse than anyone I have personally ever been around. Even while we were hunting, all he was concerned about was videos and pictures for Instagram. We hunted from daylight to around 11-12 each day and then went back to the "lodge" where my brother-in law and I sat, bored out of our mind, while the outfitter played on his phone until bedtime. We paid money for this experience, believe it or not.
With the cost of the hunt, he provides food, drinks, snacks, lodging, hunting. We ran out of water on a few occasions….in the desert. Almost no snacks to speak of; the "snacks" were a mostly eaten bag of trail mix, a partially eaten pack of club crackers, and four little sleeves of hostess powdered donuts. I can't make this up, I wish I had taken pictures. Dinner was “throw-something-together”. A couple nights were not too terrible, but most nights were tough to choke down. He did the cooking as well, and needless to say, he is not a cook. One night was Great Value frozen lasagna. Lunch was nonexistent, so we stopped at a little burger shack and ate every day. That burger shack was the best part of this experience, and since we didn’t get breakfast like we were supposed to, we were starving by the time we got there. The guy had absolutely no tools or necessary equipment. He cobbled everything together with black tape, and I do mean everything. When I got home, I put together a $250 Klein tool set, in a Klein zippered pouch along with some other goodies and shipped it to him. Obviously after being ghosted and then shafted I regret that now, but oh well. I'm not hard to please and I sure don't need pampered, but I was sold a Cavalier at Cadillac price. This is not a good outfitter, at all. Utah was amazing, I will take my family there for sure. This outfitter is terrible, very dishonest, and selling a false bill of goods. Do your research, they're are good outfitters out there!
