ORIGINAL: skeeter 7MM
DD I recall a debate we had about tipping awhile back. In that debate you referred to your guide(believe it was the same one as this hunt) as nothing more than a taxi driver. At the time I was put off as being a whitetail guide here in Saskatchewan for a number years yes that was our job to get you to and fro your blind or stand but the rest of the day was anything but sitting in a truck smoking. I now see you were talking about your impressions of this Guide(I use that term very liberally) and appears werecorrect with your assessment. Though it makes me wonder why you returned?? I mean I know youfellas shot good deer on that trip so you were feeling high as kites when you left. Thinking back, what did he do differently that trip vs this year's? Just curious.
Skeeter good point and good question. The difference is that our prior hunts were successful mostly because the weather was reasonable and the deer moved so the guide or outfitter (both in this case) really did not need to do much... We realize he had no control over the weather however during this hunt there was 2 ft of snow and the deer just were not moving for whatever reason in our area... thus why we felt our guide should have made adjustments not excuses...did some scouting to find were the deer were movingwhich would have been simple enough with fresh snow on theground or push some bush... we reported every evening what we had and had not been seeing such as very few fresh tracks in or around our blind area ...FINALLY on Thursady evening I found some fresh tracks when hiking back from my stand and told him I would no longer be hunting the blind he had me sitting in for four days ...Iwanted to takea pop up blind in on Friday and hunt where I was seeing sign but he told me he had put the blind up that I was hunting in for a reason and for me to trust him and be patient plus he informed me he had no more heaters to put in the pop up... so I spent ANOTHER 10 hrs looking at the SAME cut line and saw nothing on Friday so now I am down to my last day ...Friday night I INSISTED on taking a blind in to hunt Saturday and he oblidged me ..I sat Saturday in 8 degree tempsfor almost 11 hrsand never been that cold in my life BUTat least I sawa doe and right before dark saw a young buck on a fence line ...I honestly feel had I been there for at least two or three days I would have seen a lot more deer as a hunter the following Monday saw a 160 class buck there cross the field where I had put up my blind...you know deer hunting in the snow aint rocket science especialy during the rut ...I am not the greatest deer hunter in the world but I do know enough that where you find deer tracks it means there have been deer there..and you find the doe's during the rut and you stand a very good chance of seeing some bucks.... I expected HIM to do the scouting ..thats what we paid for ...never got ..and thus why we are dissippointed.
dd