Premier Trophy Outfitters of Western Kentucky boasted and bragged of any hunter seeing many 120-130 class Whitetail bucks on a daily basis. You would be fined $1,000.00 if you shot an animal under 130 inches.
The owner of the operation Mark Clifford stated many facts that did NOT occur while on the property. First, I was told that the farm owned by a Mr. Sisk was 46,000 acres and we were going to hunt on a 20,000 acre contigious block of property. When arriving at the camp the hunters (7) during this hunting period of October 30 through November 3rd, 2015 were taken to many small farms in a two county radius of the main camp we were staying at. Many of these farms were privately owned and not by Mr. Sisk. These blocks of land ranged from 600-1,500 acre parcels. This was the first misstatement by Mr. Clifford.
Of the 7 hunters during that time period of October 30th or 31st, 2015 through November 3rd thru the 4th, 2015 only one small buck of 120-130 inch class was harvested. All hunters were able to shoot 2 deer each (one buck of 130 class or better and one doe). It was totally forbidden to harvest a doe after the morning hunt. If a buck under 130 inch class was harvested by a hunter a $1,000.00 fine was to be issued to that hunter.
Most of the hunters were very disappointed and were actually afraid to shot any deer of question for fear of retribution of the $1,000.00 fine by Mr. Clifford.
My personal observation was that my guide Chris did not have proper stand placement for me during the hunt. I was hunting out of an original ground blind set up over looking a large harvested crop field of about 100+ acres. The deer seen were on the average of 80 to 300 yards away while in this ground blind. Remember I was hunting with a cross-bow with the average successful shot placement of 30-50 yards. After the first days hunt I stated to my guide that I did not want to come back to that stand and he (Chris) total me that they keep hunters in their stands for 2 to 3 days before moving them. I insisted to be moved immediately since the deer seen were well out of bow (cross-bow) range. He did move and place another ground blind in another location, however the local deer population in that area were not familiar with the blind and would blow their warning whistles before they could be seen. Needless to say I saw one spike buck and three harvestable does during my stay. The three does were in the afternoon/evening hunt SO I was unable to harvest these deer within shooting range since it was the afternoon hunt and it was forbidden to harvest does during that time frame.
The camp we were at had no cooler or ice for harvested animals. The guides indicated that it was the responsibility of the hunter to process their kill. However, If the hunter would like the guide to process and cape the kill an additional cost would occur.
In general I would not recommend to camp to fellow hunters due to the inconsistances of what you are told prior to arrival on the telephone and what you get while at the facility upon arrival. I have personally hunted throughout North America for the past twenty five years and this particular hunting operation would be rated as fair to poor compared to the others I have hunted with.
If you would like further information in this regard please contact me at 352-201-3106 (home phone) or [email protected] (personal- email).
Was the outfitter notified of problems? - YES
Review number two from Mike. Please refer to the first review. Two different stories. Interesting.....
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