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Hunter Comments

If you are looking for a Colorado archery hunt consider these comments when choosing your outfitter. I have done 14 elk hunts and this is the only outfitter that I would NEVER go back to again. The accommodations are terrible with an old falling apart very small farm house with 5 bunk style beds in a room that are noisy and do not allow for hunters to sleep as anytime someone turns in bed they make enough noise to wake up the room. The furniture is old and has an odor to it. We were booked on a 5 day archery elk hunt and on day two of our hunt at around midnight three of Terry Trumble's friends showed up to disrupt the camp and wake us up. They were there to coyote rifle hunt while we were paying $6500 a person to archery elk hunt plus the cost of tags and travel expenses (total cost of nearly $9,500) This clearly was not consistent with what we thought were had signed up for. I expressed this to Terry who advised me that they where their to swap him landowner permits for his New Mexico land lease in order for Terry to get a lease secured for some property in Montrose Colorado to get hunters to come to next year. The owner of that land advised us that it was not that good for hunting and puzzled us when Terry then attempted to sell us a hunt for 2019 in Montrose? Didn't make sense to our group. Why would we book a hunt when the landowner of that land said it's not as good.

In addition, the hunt contract states that Terry will pick us up from the airport and he advised us to fly into Colorado Springs. We arranged this as advised; however, just before our hunt was to start Terry refused to pick us up at the airport which left us with a $400 car rental bill or be left at the airport. Finally, it was routine for our guide to bring beer with him to the hunting fields and drink beer while calling for elk or even while driving us back to the run down broken farm house. This was witnessed by several of us. This is the ONLY outfitter that I would chose to NEVER return to. There are many many outfitters out their offering services consistent with what they send out in their hunt contracts. I am sure Terry will respond with some convoluted response or excuses; however, this is not the same camp that I signed up for when I booked this hunt. Who has guys coyote rifle hunting while guys are there to archery elk hunt??? Have them come when the archers are gone.

Was the outfitter notified of problems? - YES

Outfitter's Response

Keith, I'm sorry to hear you were unhappy with your second visit to our camp. We are continually striving to upgrade, and we have already made many changes and improvements just since your hunt with us last year. Your constructive input as to what needs upgraded is very helpful.

We do offer in our contracts transportation to and from commercial airports in the immediate area which would be the Trinidad airport. Occasionally we will go to the Colorado Springs airport if time permits, unfortunately the arrival of the second half of your group did not permit such time. We did pick you up there previously when the entire group could be arranged, but due to personality conflicts you were scheduled to hunt at a different time.

I'm sorry you feel the arrival of other hunters was disruptive. However, their coyote hunting on an entirely different section of land from your elk hunt on our 100,000+ acres should not have been an issue. Predator control is something we have to deal with on a year-round basis, and we do it in areas we are not currently hunting other species as we explained while you were here.

We do offer a hunt in the Montrose area as well. The landowner is very proud of his place, and would never say it wasn't good; he just wanted you to know you were already hunting in a great location and didn't want to take away from your current hunting experience. We offered this opportunity as our Trinidad location is currently booked into 2020 which is what you were told when you tried to rebook. Other hunters from your visit have already rebooked at our new location.

As for your guide; he is no longer with us. We do not condone drinking on the job nor were we aware of the situation until now. Unfortunately, this was not brought to our attention until after your visit.