Bowsite.com

To start this review, I will say the food was great and so were the accommodations. Now lets get to the issues. The first night you get to camp, you get a briefing. During this time you are told the rules and treated like you have never hunted before. I accept this because I am sure there are people that come to guided hunts with little time in the woods. We are told what to shoot, where to shoot, and what to do if you shoot. This was good information for people that have not hunted and it probably does help the guides recover the deer. The first day of my hunt I saw a lot of deer, these were all does and spike bucks. I had an absolute blast watching the deer in front of me for hours. I came to hunt with no expectations of shooting a 180" deer. The reason I booked a guided hunt, was the ability to hunt another state. I live in Wisconsin and wanted to explore other states. I forgot to mention, my wife was also on this hunt with me. The first night I passed on a wide but not tall or thick 10. I showed pictures to the guides at camp and they said this would have been a good management deer to take due to the age they guessed by the picture. The next few days I saw a ton of does, but no shooter bucks. On the 4th day of my 7 day hunt I connected with a nice 10. This deer ran about 20 yards and went down. This was in the morning and the guide wanted to wait until the evening to recover it. I knew this deer was not a 140" but what I felt was a good management kill. When my guide and I found the deer he agreed and said it was up to the guide to determine if there was a fine for shooting smaller than 140" Im guessing this was a 120"-130" deer. After you recover the deer, they take you to a different farm and have you pose for pictures and congratulate you. 36 hours after I shot the deer, I get a text from my guide while I'm hunting doe. He said sorry but management wants the 1000 dollar fine and asked me how I would like to pay. I was obviously not happy because I was told it was a good deer. They did not measure or age the deer in front of me. They did not tell me the score and said it was a 3 1/2 year old deer. During that night I got a call about a death in the family. My wife and I had to leave camp two days early to get home to be with family. We told the guide and he said he was sorry to hear that and we would set up the payment later. The other guide said he would take care of the mount and give me the information on price and getting the mount. 45 minutes after leaving camp, we were called asking for payment, knowing we were on the way to Wisconsin for a visitation. That was not the time to ask for the money. Money is not an issue, but I waited to get information on my deer. I have yet to pay them the 1000 dollars because they couldn't tell me what happened to my deer. So my wife and I paid a lot of money for a hunt. A buck was shot and recovered, and we don't have it and it is not known where it is. What started as a great hunt turned out to be piss poor experience. Should they find my deer and get it to me, I will be more than happy to pay them and give thus hunt a better rating. Until that time I would say, stay clear of this outfitter.

Was the outfitter notified of problems? - YES