Hiya folks. I' d like to run this by you and see what your opinion is on the matter.
My son, brother, and I booked a hunt with an outfitter in Maine for bear this fall. We booked the hunt back in Sept., and asked the outfitter if we could get the week of my son' s 21st birthday, which was the week of 9/24/03. He said yes, and we sent out our deposits (300.00 apiece, with another 300.00 due by the end of june). A few weeks later the outfitter e-mailed me that they had made a huge mistake in that the bear season wasn' t even open the week that we booked, and that we could change our hunt to an earlier date or get our deposit back. The only opening they had was the first week of the season (last week in august), and I was concerned about the bug problem in Maine that time of the year, so I e-mailed them back with my concern and asked for some more info and a few references of fellas that hunted that early in the season up there. No reply! I waited another wee and sent a duplicate of the same e-mail, and again got no reply. A week later we all got a letter from the outfitter stating that our money had been deposited and that we were booked for the last week of august. I thought this was really unfair in that we didn' t really agree to take that week as the preferred date for our hunt, and I was ready to raise a stink, but my brother and son said to let it ride because we had heard so many good reports from the references and that they had a good camp set up. I had cancelled a bear hunt in New Brunswick about 5 years ago because the outfitter didn' t even take the time to figure out when he could take on clients for the hunt, and was ready to do the same with this outfitter, but let it ride because of being outnumbered on the vote.
Anyway, my brother has his own steel fabrication business, and my son works for him, and they have been having a rough year as far as work goes. Not much work coming in and a lot of unemployement being drawn out. And I' ve only worked a few months in the last 7 months because of lack of work and some health problems that have recently risen. So I called the outfitter to see if we could get our deposits transferred to a hunt for the fall of ' 04 since none of us can really afford to dish out the cash this year. Got a call back saying that they were really trying to fill our spots, but if they couldn' t , we' d lose our $300.00! After being forced to accept a date that we didn' t want to begin with, I think it only fair that the outfitter make an exception and give us a spot next fall. Under any other circumstances, I would cut my losses and let them have the deposit. What is your opinion? Thanks ahead of time for any responses.