Bowsite.com

This hunt started on a bad note. When I arrived at camp it was full of repeat customers (these guys all turned out to be really great). They were set up on the main food plots (Nov - bucks chasing does, etc...). First mnorning I was set up on a high ridge on a fence crossing. None of the leaves on the crossing were beaten down indicating that this crossing was not seeign a lot of use. Furthermore, the approach had me walk right through the opening to get to tree which was not marked. The wind was totally wrong blowing right back across the fence opening. Saw one button buck that spooked when he smelled where I had crossed the fence. Sat ther all day and then I talked to guide and said I wanted to move - I was immediately told that I was hurting my chances and that I did not know how the deer moved?

The second day I was put in a small section of woods right next to road and once again the wind was swirling from the bean field into the bedding area. it was a tree stand they set up the evening before. We were told that they had been seeing a buck during daylight in the bean field and had pictures of him during daylight. They took three of us in there, two were in the pernament stands where the cameras caught the buck and I was put up in a new stand right next to the road? 1 doe seen. I called at 1100 and said the wind was wrong and I wanted to move. Once again I was treated very badly by the guide picking me up and the owner. That morning while I was walking in, the owner took another guy and walked right past my stand area, winf blowing their scent right into the woods I was hunting and put him upwind of me with his scent blowing through the bean field down to me??? He shot the buck at 1100 AM... I saw one little spike and one doe.

This pattern of poor stand approach and bad wind was repeated several times. I was told over and over that I don't understand Missouri whitetails and they are different, they dont pay attention to hunters walking through bean fields or wind? Yet I was winded several times going into stands and after I was there for a while.

Third day, one of the younger guides missed my approach to one stand (couldn't find it and had never taken a hunter in before daylight???) and wound up driving and then had me walk, right through the area (bean field) I was to hunt. when we heard does blowing I said something about it and he said he didn't think they were alarmed by us??? Really???? walking right through the beans??? He also told me a guy killed a buck there two days ago and that he liked hunting over gut piles? Seriously?

Now I will say that the owner Dave did seem a little upset that I never saw any buck over a spike in 5 days of hunting the rut.

There was also a team from scent lock that came in and they had a private ranch not open to the rest of camp? Of the 14 hunters that hunted the week I was there (not including one of the guide's daughter that took a deer while we were there) 3 took bucks (one a nice 150 class deer taken by a hunter in a second camp hunting different land). The other two bucks were 120 - 130 calss deer. As for me, I hunted the entire 5 days hard and saw 3 or 4 does and only three small bucks. The area had been hit with EHD and they failed to mention this prior to hunt... the guides were bringing in skulls almost daily whiel we were there.

N. Missouri and Dave have some nice ground. They need to pay a lot more attention to how they appoach stands in the mornings (instead of driving right through the ag fields) and they need to learn how to set up archery stands in bottle necks and funnels and they need to set up for the wind. I think if you are a repeat customer your odds go way up and you may be given a good stand/area. I will not go back and use this guide again and will not recommend them to any of my friends. I have taken many outiftted hunts, and there have been several times we did not take animals. I have never been treated so poorly and never have I seen such few deer. I hunt a lot of public land that gets hammered and I always see more deer than I did here.

On the plus the facilities are nice, the cooking was really good and the guys in camp were a hoot. Dave is not a bad guy, I think he just gets frustrated too easily and doesn't listen to his clients very well. I knew by day three that I would probably not see a shooter due to the stands and areas he put me in. Every area I hunted was either wrong wing, next to a road, previously hunted or definately not in prime rutting areas. I know I could have easily killed a deer in this area if I had a chance to pick out a stand. Dave's approach is to hope the rut will bring a buck buy rather than a well though out plan to take a specific buck. The weather was perfect four of the days we hunted. The week prior, 12 archers took one buck..... says a lot. My email is [email protected] and I would be happy to discss this hunt with anyone that wants more info. I do NOT recommend this outfitter for a good quality hunt.

Was the outfitter notified of problems? - YES