Bowsite.com

In 2014 my friend and I booked a 2 on 1 archery elk hunt in area24 with this outfitter. Prior to our hunt we consulted with Larry and Laura, we even took the head guide out for lunch in the time leading up to our hunting trip. Communications were very poor, often times emails would go unanswered and would need to be repeated. Our instructions were to arrive at the base camp before 9am on the first day of our hunt but it took some doing just to get that important detail out of this outfitter. We arrived at the base camp at 8:30 the morning of the hunt. We were not greeted in any way by any of the staff. In fact they acted like they had no clue we were coming. Larry mentioned that they were waiting for two no shows for the coming weeks hunt and was surprised to find out that we were standing in front of him. I am not certain who he thought we were but he never introduced himself or ask our names. Once it was settled that we were there to go hunting, things kicked into gear. Area 24 is a 4.5 hour ride. We paid our balance of the fees, the horse and mules were loaded and we were off. The ride was pleasant enough despite the fact I had a terrible horse named Ringo that seemed to want to canter as soon as there was more than 6 inches of space between his nose and the next horse in line. We arrived at camp early that afternoon sore but ready to hunt. The camp consisted of two dome tents pitched just above tree line and one guide. There was not a chair or place to sit down in the camp. Our guide was a young man that had just emerged from guide school the previous year, I had more hunting experience than he had years of life. Don’t get me wrong, the guide was the highlight of the trip. He cooked, he called, he glassed, he hiked, he checked the wind, he maneuvered us up and down and around mountains for the next 6 days. He worked his butt off and I greatly appreciated it and genuinely liked him by the time the trip was over. In the 6 days of hunting we walked 10-15 miles per day in an effort to get a shot at an elk. My GPS gave me a reading of 70+ miles of hiking for the entire trip. If you do this hunt you better be in shape. We saw other outfitters almost every day and on two of the days we saw no elk at all. I was within archery range of a legal bull only twice in that period of time but on neither occasion did I have a shot. At one point we were told there was not enough bread so we were put on rations of one sandwich per day, we ran out of drinks, and by the end of the trip we were eating dehydrated meals in a bag. If I had killed an elk, I would still never use this outfitter again. When we rode out nobody greeted us at base camp, nobody seem to care anything about our hunt. Larry and Laura were nowhere to be found. They dumped our stuff on a tarp we loaded our truck and departed. There has been no personal follow-up communications of any kind, except the now annoying emails telling me how great an experience we can have hunting. I guess you need to have a TV camera behind you to get decent treatment.

Was the outfitter notified of problems? - NO