Recourse for a Outfitted Hunt that was not what was advertised?

[COelk89]

I say that because you expressed how you "laid out explicitly" your wants. Those came from you, not the outfitter otherwise they would have been in the contract. I don't believe that 4x the deer seen and a certain inches "class" was in your contract, otherwise you would have mentioned that or replied to the people here asking about the contract.

Hard and fast expectations are within the agreement and contract you signed. Nothing more nothing less.

I understand it was not in the contract. But it was how the hunt was marketed, which sets the expectations of the customer. I get there are no guarantees, I am saying I fell victim to false advertising, have never been in this situation before, and am literally asking if there was any recourse besides writing reviews and putting the hunt on blast for not being what was represented to me. To me, a person's word still matters and I take people at their word. That can get you burned, and in this instance it did for me. It is not a life altering issue for me I would not have booked the hunt if I could not afford it. I simply feel a lot pain and I want to spread that around to those I feel we're responsible for misleading me. Frankly I am most upset with myself for trusting someone in this manner, but thats how you learn. Won't ever be doing an outfitted hunt again.

 

[COelk89]

How many deer did you expect to see?

I was anticipating to see 30-50 deer today and maybe 5-10 bucks per day. Some days we only saw 2 deer.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Did you kill anything

 

[Michigander]

Thats huntin'. If you wanted a slam dunk you should have booked a 40 acre high fence hunt.

 

[Drenalin]

I doubt there's anything you can do, other than voice your frustrations. Best bet is likely to have a calm conversation with the guy and see where that goes. But, sometimes animals don't cooperate - especially mature ones - and that's probably going to be his position on it.

Curious what you think changed on the property? Over pressured? Drought, flooding, fires, unseasonably warm/wet/dry/windy conditions? I'm also curious to see the advertising that promises a particular number of sightings.

 

[SDHNTR]

Already an experienced DIY hunter I did this hunt to experience something different with my almost 70 yo father who is not a DIY western hunter, doesnt play points, lives in Texas where I am from.

Your damn right I feel shitty and want the world to know that what I was sold was not what was delivered.

Paid close to 10k to hunt a "300k" acre ranch on MLD (Texas thing...rut hunting) ranch targeting mature 160-170 class mule deer. Booked hunt 2 years ago. Laid out explicity we were experienced public land hunters and wanted to see a lot of deer. We saw probably 1/4 of the deer expected, very few mature bucks and the quality was absolutely not there. It became clear that the ranchers and outfitters knew things had changed signifigantly since we booked, but they decided to go on with the hunt anyways.

Texas is way down. Especially Central Texas. It’s nowhere near what it once was and nothing like what gave the region its historic reputation for high deer numbers.

Poor hunting conditions and lack of animals seen does not constitute fraud. If the outfitter was otherwise good, provided you a full hunt with the food and the accommodations and the number of days you paid for, you’ve got nothing to stand on. You can’t make wild animals show up. And in my opinion, it’s on you as the hunter to know range conditions and regions to hunt or to avoid. Things change from year to year, and you’ve got to stay on top of it.

 

[COelk89]

Did you kill anything

No my dad shot a small 140s class maybe 5 yo buck. I didn't pull a trigger. Could have shot a small 3x3 that was older over a bale of alfalfa mid way thru but that is not my type of hunting...the hunt progressively got smaller to where we were just hunting the hay stack bc that is the only place we could find a lot of does to watch.

 

[DMurphy]

A little free and unsolicited legal advice- the type I usually try to avoid providing! Make sure that you do not end up the defendant in any litigation resulting from your expressing of your frustration over this hunt. Words like "fraud", "scammed" and "sheisters" may be considered defamatory and lead to a suit over libel and/or slander. It would be unfortunate to pursue a $10k recovery and cost yourself 10x that amount in civil damages before paying lawyers for years.

 

[steelheadmike]

That's a generally a crappy situation. But the phrase "Past performance is no guarantee of future results" rings very true in hunting, especially with outfitted hunting. Guys will see all the pictures of monster bucks and hear the stories, then get a picture in their mind of what it will be like. When reality doesn't meet their expectations, they get mad and feel the need to take it out on somebody.

Sounds like you may have had expectations set a little high. How would you have felt if you saw 1/2 the deer you expected instead of 1/4? Where's the line where you would have been satisfied?

 

[Dos Perros]

So you booked two years out. Did you have any conversations on course of action if the quality of the hunt changed? I assume you would have been similarly upset if all of a sudden there were a bunch of 190" deer running around and he wanted to jack up the price? Did you talk to the outfitter over the spring/summer to see how the deer population was doing?

 

[COelk89]

Thats huntin'. If you wanted a slam dunk you should have booked a 40 acre high fence hunt.

I get it, but we paid a lot to hunt a big ranch during the rut. It's kind of like HF hunting if you can find the does...unfortunately we were not finding many.

 

[COelk89]

I doubt there's anything you can do, other than voice your frustrations. Best bet is likely to have a calm conversation with the guy and see where that goes. But, sometimes animals don't cooperate - especially mature ones - and that's probably going to be his position on it.

Curious what you think changed on the property? Over pressured? Drought, flooding, fires, unseasonably warm/wet/dry/windy conditions? I'm also curious to see the advertising that promises a particular number of sightings.

Drought for sure I suspect maybe disease outbreak, but that was not relayed to me to potentially book a different hunt or cancel altogether if the quality dropped so much. They knew things had changed since I booked and went forward with it anyways. There was no specific guarantees, as I would not expect there to be. But it was just clear the numbers were way down. It's just not how I would do business if I was in that game...

To be clear, I'm not mad I didn't kill something. I don't need to kill something to have a successful hunt. I'm mad that the hunt I paid for was misrepresented relative to the situation on the ground, and no attempt to communicate that was made.

 

[Maverick1]

Is there anything to be done?

Follow these simple steps:

1. Go online.
2. Start a smear campaign.
3. Post one side of the story.
4. Feel better.
5. Enjoy the defamation of character experience.

 

[deltadukman]

So I will say this. I mainly hunt whitetails on a great piece of property. You mention hunting the rut multiple times. We have a lot of deer, however, depending on the timing around the rut, you can catch a week during lockdown and it's like a ghost town. This year lockdown was a week prior to when it usually is. Not saying that is what happens, but it sounds like what could have possibly happened.

 

[COelk89]

That's a generally a crappy situation. But the phrase "Past performance is no guarantee of future results" rings very true in hunting, especially with outfitted hunting. Guys will see all the pictures of monster bucks and hear the stories, then get a picture in their mind of what it will be like. When reality doesn't meet their expectations, they get mad and feel the need to take it out on somebody.

Sounds like you may have had expectations set a little high. How would you have felt if you saw 1/2 the deer you expected instead of 1/4? Where's the line where you would have been satisfied?

Good question, I am not sure what the answer would be. I am used to not seeing a lot of deer on public hunts and maybe the only buck you see is the buck you kill. I wanted the chance to be picky and if I went home empty handed because I passed on a buck so be it. That was not how it worked out.

 

[COelk89]

So I will say this. I mainly hunt whitetails on a great piece of property. You mention hunting the rut multiple times. We have a lot of deer, however, depending on the timing around the rut, you can catch a week during lockdown and it's like a ghost town. This year lockdown was a week prior to when it usually is. Not saying that is what happens, but it sounds like what could have possibly happened.

Could have been, they did book us on a full moon which seemed f'ed up too.

 

[SDHNTR]

Btw, a 140 inch whitetail, it’s not small!

 

[def90]

I was anticipating to see 30-50 deer today and maybe 5-10 bucks per day. Some days we only saw 2 deer.

Where did this expectation come from? We're you told specifically this would be the case or were you simply told that they have a bunch of deer on the property?

 

[deltadukman]

Could have been, they did book us on a full moon which seemed f'ed up too.

What dates and what area? That sounds more plausible. Also, what was the weather like?

 

[COelk89]

Btw, a 140 inch whitetail, it’s not small!

Mule deer