Bowsite.com

Hunter Comments

Hunting was unbeliebable. Best I have ever seen. Plan on seeing LOTS of deer as well as mule deer, moose, coyotes and others. If I were to only rate this on the hunting experience I would give it top billing. However, the communication was very poor, and conditions at camp were fair at best. The beds were tiny and falling apart, no covered storage for hunting gear and not much room at camp. We only had 4 people there and it was packed. Can't imagine if you were to have the full allotment of 8. The dinners were satisfactory, not great, but good enough. However, breakfast and lunch were to be provided as well and there was no food in the house beyond leftovers. We went to town once to eat breakfast and went another time to purchase basic groceries just so we had something to eat during the day.

The biggest complaint that I had throughout our trip was the lack of and poor communication. When we signed up, our contracts stating there was no antler minimum. When we arrive we found out he was charging $500 penalty for under 115". When I addressed this with him, he said it started this year and it was in our contracts. When we returned I looked at our contracts to find nothing in there regarding this. I brought this to his attention and he agreed that it was not in the contract and he would not have charged us the penalty.....

Overall....fantastic hunting!!!! mediocre food,when availabe, very poor communication and conditions of camp are sub par.

Was the outfitter notified of problems? - YES

Outfitter's Response

I'll agree the lodge is comfortable for only 4-6 hunters. But we like to keep our bowhunting camp between 4-6 hunters a week, even though we could house up to 8 max. Usually a rut hunting week may see that many hunters at one time. We are working on that issue this year with additional lodging. And we need to fix the one bed where the one bottom lat, the staples pulled out.

In 5 years I never heard anything bad about the food, or lack there of...??? We always get praised for our cook Betty, and there is always food in the house. Usually we are throwing stuff away at the end of each week. I'll agree we don't overstock food, but there is always food in the frig and pantry, trust me, I eat alot....maybe I ate it all that week?

The communication about the antler restriction was based on this fact. The hunt was booked 2 1/2 years before the hunt dates. In that 2 1/2 year time frame we had decided for quality management reasons to add an antler restriction of 115". Which is really liberal I think, but a good place to start. Of course it was not in their contract because that was 2 1/2 years before we started the antler restriction. The misunderstanding was when I told him it was now a part of the current contract and we needed to start with the 2009 Fall season (verbal notification before the hunting started without any penalty becauase it wasn't part of the contract 2 1/2 years ago). The goal was to try and limit the effects of hunters harvesting a bunch of young deer in 2009 so we didn't loose another full year of future trophy bucks and fall 1 more year behind our management goals. Which is to provide even better quality bowhunting and give our future hunters more quality bucks to bowhunt!

I agree it may have been a sour subject, but for the sake of trying to provide better hunting in the future, it had to start sometime, and everyone else was completely happy with the decision. It was actually the repeat customers pushing for the antler restriction because they see the increased potential for our bowhunting only restrictions on 8 miles of private riverbottom!...it is awesome hunting!

And the fact that 3 of the 4 hunters this hunting week in disscusion harvested or wounded bucks over 120" up to the 136 4/8" (buck that was killed), leads me to wonder why agrue with the 115" minimum at this point?

Overall, I really believe we need to improve on some things (example:bigger lodge), and it's good to have someone voice their opinion, no hard feelings, just some points to work on for the future! But we really do try to focus more on the hunting first, then everything else. We love bowhunting, and getting guys shots at quality bucks is our #1 goal...!

Keith Miller Montana Whitetails, Inc.