My hunt was Nov 5-9, I stayed at the "New lodge" which was a nice and comfortable house on 10ac located about 30 min from hunting farm, but it is not the one pictured on website. The cooks made good meals, were very friendly, attitude and service was excellent. The first night got into camp had dinner and went over rules, they have a 4 year old or 130" minimum trophy rule and $1000 fine in place for smaller bucks that are taken. There were two guides Clint and Erik, 3 hunters went with Clint to another farm, another hunter and I went with Erik. We were hunting a 900 ac property that was up in the hills mainly wooded with some CRP fields on it. I had never hunted whitetails before so I had no clue really what to expect as far as quantity/ quality. The weather was ok the first day, sucked the 2nd and 3rd day (very warm), was great the 4th day, and was ok the last day. I saw a nice shooter buck the first morning and the last morning, both times didnt present me a shot. I consider myself a hardcore hunter out west and since my lack in experience with whitetails I choose to sit all day in the stand, everyday of the hunt. This was valuable on good weather days as there was movement in the middle of the day while others did not make any difference. My stand was a "lock on" on a wooded ridge that overlooked a scrape, and was located near some trails headed to a CRP field, based off of outfitter's FB posts and trail cam picks it was hung over the scrape in early October. Here is my Deer log that I kept while in the stand Day 1 8:30 am doe and shooter buck 55 yard down to the right, no shot 9:00am fork n horn came by on same trail 10:30am 3 small bucks came up on the ridge to the left 10:50 2 does came up ridge to the left and followed to behind me 3:30 small 2x1 came up the creek bed to the right 6:00pm young 8 point came up then cut in front of me and to the right side 30yard Day 2 9:00am 2 doe came running from behind tree to the right of me, small 5 point chasing hard Day 3 8:00am spike came up the ridge and right underneath the stand 9:00am doe came up ravine to my right Day 4 5:30 am 2 deer understand unknown 6:30 doe came underneath me 7:15 doe came up ravine on right 8:30am Hot doe came running by, half spike chasing, 1min -followed by 4 point, 5min -Followed by 5 point 8:45 hot doe came running back down ridge half spike chasing on tail, 2min- deer running in creek bottom down the ravine 12:05pm hot doe came running back down ridge, 2 bucks came running by 1 borderline shooter, no shot 3:15pm spike fork came underneath stand 4:45 3 small bucks and 1 borderline shooter 58yards, no shot Day 5 7:00am shooter buck 56 yards away, no shot, heading for CRP 8:00am 3 does and small buck 10:10am spike fork came up ridge Note this was 5 x 12+hr sits in stand I did not harvest a buck, but I did learn a lot and saw some really cool rutting deer activity, the guides and staff were nice, hard working people that tried there best to get you on Deer and it just didn't work out for me. Out of the 5 hunters in camp, 2 got bucks, one hunter missed, one hunter didn't see a shooter, and I was not presented a shot. In my experience with guides out west they will invite a someone back at no / or lesser charge if they are not presented with an opportunity, but I don't think that's a possibility with these guys. I think that if I make the investment to travel back out to whitetail country I will look for a place that has a higher quantity and quality, as well as more Contiguous acres to hunt...
Was the outfitter notified of problems? - NO
Matt, it was a pleasure meeting you and hosting you on your first ever whitetail hunt. Thank you for hunting hard and keeping a great attitude. I sure wish you and the other guys in camp would have had great weather but considering that 2 out of 5 killed one missed and you saw shooters with high 70s temps it was a good hunt. I would love to have you back, call me or email me and we will work something out. With what you saw and experienced on your first ever whitetail hunt I have to disagree with you not recommending us to other hunters. Hopefully that was just a mistake.
1st day cold overnight and morning temps, warmed up in the day 2nd day was unusually warm (Mid 70's) 3rd day was unusually warm (Mid 70's) 4th day morning was cool, rained for an hour, and was overcast, cool, and windy 5th day morning was cold but warmed up in the day (60's)
