Bowsite.com

Hunter Comments

After hitting Rod's 2 or 3 favorite hunting areas with no luck we were disappointed that he did not really know unit 13 as well as was represented. Rod didn’t even have Maps of the area, and had only GPS coordinates. There was very little scouting of area before we arrived, other than checking water tanks to see it there was water being pumped. And these tanks were in wide open and not conducive to archery hunting. Locating elk outside his marked areas, Rod was clueless as were to look for elk. He had not been in other areas of the unit except for the Narrows. Jerry and I thought we were paying for hot knowledge of Unit 13, thus eliminated our need to spend a week finding the elk and the 2nd week getting the elk. We were expecting to be guided to un-pressured Elk in overlooked areas. I have no double that Jerry and I could have taken an elk with Rod if he had actually known Unit 13 really well. I am not providing this feedback to say Rod is not a good guide, but I am providing this critique so your outfitting company can provide the time and resources to better prepare your guides. Thanks for listening and have a great season.

Was the outfitter notified of problems? - YES

Outfitter's Response

My name is Jim Welles. My wife Kelly and I own JFWRC. Below you will find a copy of the original e-mail received from the hunters. I responded to them immediately, thanked them and indicated I welcomed their feedback. I assured them I would consider their comments for future hunts. I had no reason to believe that they wanted anything more from us as we never received a phone call from them to discuss their concerns openly.

As you will note, Jerry cut and pasted the worst portion of the e-mail leaving out comments like "we could not ask for anything more" or "it was a pure delight."

My responses follow the email below:

----- Original Message ----- From: Dennis To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 10:37 PM Subject: Jery/Denni Critique of Guided NM Elk Hunt, Unit 13

Jim/Kelly,

Jerry and I have just recently finished our Elk Hunt in New Mexico, Unit 13, guided the first 4 days of the season by Rod Phillips. We were not successful on our hunt. However, I came very close on the last evening with 7 cows and two bulls at 30 yds at an unmarked pond, but missed getting a shot due to thermal currents giving my position away. Since Jerry located and figured out the movement pattern of these elk, I believe if we had a couple of more days left in the season we would have gotten our elk.

We really enjoyed our guide, Rod Phillips. He was real nice. He provided us his travel trailer to stay in and cooked us delicious meals. We could not have not asked for anything more. It was pure delight. Rods knowledge of elk hunting and calling was commendable. I was especially impressed with his attention to wind direction in approaching elk. After hitting his 2 or 3 favorite hunting areas with no luck we were disappointed that he did not really know unit 13 as well as was represented. Rod didn’t even have Maps of the area, and had only GPS coordinates. There was very little scouting of area before we arrived, other than checking water tanks to see it there was water being pumped. And these tanks were in wide open and not conducive to archery hunting. Locating elk outside his marked areas, Rod was clueless as were to look for elk. He had not been in other areas of the unit except for the Narrows. Jerry and I thought we were paying for hot knowledge of Unit 13, thus eliminated our need to spend a week finding the elk and the 2nd week getting the elk. We were expecting to be guided to un-pressured Elk in overlooked areas. I have no double that Jerry and I could have taken an elk with Rod if he had actually known Unit 13 really well. I am not providing this feedback to say Rod is not a good guide, but I am providing this critique so your outfitting company can provide the time and resources to better prepare your guides. Thanks for listening and have a great season. Regards,

Dennis McNabb & Jerry Yates

HERE IS MY RESPONSE TO THE RATING:

1)Rod has been in 13 on several occasions and had several spots to hunt. The clients had their pre conceived notions on where to hunt prior to Rods arrival. Rod accommodated their wishes and even moved camp to accommodate their notions. Rod finally convinced Dennis to hunt an area known to Rod and immediately got into bulls. With regard to GPS coordinates......Rods GPS has maps on it via a simcard. All the maps Rod needed were on his GPS.

2)We have several clients that think the world of Rod. I personally chose Rod to guide this hunt as I have known Jerry for several years and thought their combination would be good. I was wrong about the combination and obviously mis-judged my relationship with Jerry as a phone call regarding his concerns would have alleviated all of this and we would have worked something out monetarily or provided services in the future at no charge to make things right.

3)The total charge for this hunt for 2 hunters fully outfitted for 4 days and leaving the trailer with food for their use until the last day of season was $3,156.50. That is $1,578.25 each. This hunt would have normally been $3,700+/-ea + tax for a fully outfitted elk hunt in western NM. We gave this deal to Jerry as I considered him more of a friend than client.

4)Reading the e-mail above indicates some expectations were not met, but the majority of it is positive. I do not take this displeasure lightly. Again, I would have worked with Jerry and Dennis to heal some of the hurt, although I doubt it would have been good enough at this point. Please know that going into unit 13 expecting to find undisturbed elk on the third archery hunt is naive. There were 125 public hunters in this unit Sept 1-10 and there were 100 public hunters in this unit Sept 11-18. I do not know how many unit wide landowner tags were converted but I can assure you that they were pushing total numbers to 200 each hunt. 200 hunters running around tooting on bugles and cow calls doesn't calm the animals down.

5) I talked to Rod about the complaint again last night. Again, he was very disturbed over the complaints and indicated Jerry and Dennis never gave him any impression of dissatisfaction. In fact, they tipped him about 10% and gave him a knife. On top of that, he indicated Jerry said "he wanted to do the same set up again next year." Go figure that one.

6)Best wishes to Jerry and Dennis on their future hunts. For those of you that would like positive testimonials on hunts from JFWRC, please contact us. This is the second negative we have had since we have been in business. It is a shock coming from Jerry... guess you never know. Funny thing I noticed about these ratings.....the folks never call to talk to you personally. They go behind your back. Tells me allot about their character and integrity.