I Just finished a rifle hunt with Thomson outfitters myself and felt I my experience with them justifies commentary.
Before booking my hunt, I had a telephone conversation with Todd to get a feel for his demeanor and as a few questions. One of those questions was about what size of a pack he felt would be necessary. I have a medium sized frame pack, but was pretty sure it was more than needed for a horseback hunt. He said that most any normal daypack would be sufficient so that is what I purchased. I made my deposit and shortly after the 1st of the year, I sent him a check for the special access tag that is roughly 2x a normal non-resident tag. Shortly thereafter I made a payment for the 1st half of my balance. In mid July, I got an envelope from him about the upcoming hunt in the fall. Within that was a document stating that any backpacks that were carried during the day needed to be less than 10 lbs! His reasoning is that the extra weight was wearing down his animals! The real irony is that most of his animals are rented, not owned by him. With even a fairly lightweight pack, just add a little bit of water, and you are over ten pounds! To say I was alarmed by this is an understatement. We had the discussion around this subject without any word of that, but once he had my deposit, burned my 6 points, and half of the remaining balance, suddenly he drops this BS on us! At this point, he had my money and my points were now gone and I had no recourse.
When asked about it, his only response was an absolutely arrogant statement that "Nobody needs a backpack to hunt elk" and if you need a backpack, you probably shouldnt be hunting elk! Apparently he saw himself as the sole arbiter of what everyone does and doesnt need on a hunt, as if everyone's needs are all the same! I had worked out and trained all summer with trekking poles as I have bad knees and they really helped me a lot. There were a few items I had practiced shooting with all summer that I had planned for. I had the Quick Stix attachment for my trekking poles and a lightweight pair of shooting sticks for quick, impromptu shots. Things that like those are absolutely needed in country were a 500+ yd shot is commonplace.
When I went to go on my hunt, I had paired my pack down to a bare minimum with water in a Nalgene bottle to go into the horse's saddle bags. When my guide (Todd's brother. All of the guides in the camp were either his brothers or nephews) sees my pack on the first morning and throws an absolute temper tantrum! Only when I suggested that he take a breath and attempt to engage in an adult conversation did he finally calm down and reveal what was apparently the newest decree from Todd: No backpacks allowed, at all! Period! If he had made that restriction clearly up front, I would have simply moved on to another outfitter without a second thought, but that is NOT what he did.
At this point, I more or less knew that there was virtually nothing that I could do. He had manipulated the circumstances so that it was too late to do anything about it. To stay that Todd is NOT a stand-up guy is a dramatic understatement. Everyone was reduced to what they could carry in their clothing pockets and bino packs. No exceptions. I know of several guys that had no choice to make marginal shots because they were in a position with no support for shots. Even worse, the guides were not permitted to carry spotting scopes or shooting sticks either! I was very temped to not tip the guide after his little temper tantrum but in the end, I decided not to punish him for Todd's chicken shit behavior. The camp jack and horse wrangler were good guys that I was also happy to tip. I know of another hunter in camp that was also much less than impressed by the experience that did tip what he thought was appropriate given all of the other issues and got the honor of getting his ass chewed out by Todd because he didnt think he tipped him enough! Pretty insane given that his restrictions caused the problems that resulted in that. Apparently he chooses to ignore his written word when in suits his needs as he did with the backpacks, as well as the tipping that was ostensibly "Entirely Optional"!
To say that I will not be hunting with Thomson Outfitters again is a dramatic understatement. I just hope this is able to help others avoid these issues.