Man that sux bud. I sure hope he has a way to rebut this statement on this site. I would love to hear his side of the story. I am an outfitter and the hunt you just described is similar to the hunt I had that made me decide to be an outfitter. I just knew I could do much better than the the hunts I had been on with outfitters. The good part about the web is, now folks can hear about the bad ones. I always try to undersell my hunts just a bit so that if the client is surprised -- they are pleasantly surprised instead of disappointed. Unfortunately hunting is just that -- hunting. Sometimes it does not go the way it should or even always has to date. This year we had tons of big lopes and could not find them until we had a big snow. Then they just came out of the woodwork. I had a hunter come from Montana and bring his son to shoot big lopes. I told him we had them and he should have no problem shooting a good one. While I have never had a problem making that statement before and following through, this time the Montana guys went home with what I call substandard bucks. Both he and his son shot 13 inch category bucks. It was not what I had stated to him and have offered him a return with a substantial cut in fees. I just feel I did not deliver what I said I would. Now these were pretty good bucks but were not big bucks like I had said he should be able to get into. A good outfitter/person would stand behind what they say. All I can suggest to any of you who are planning a hunt with an outfitter CHECK AS MANY REFERENCES AS YOU CAN. With this age of information at your fingertips you really have no one to blame but yourself if you run into a bad outfitter. I am not sure how many references you guys checked but that could be a good way to avoid a bad outfitter. If you did check references and still run into something like this then the best thing to do is get on the web and tell the truth. There is just no place for bad outfitter in the world of hunting.
Again I sure hope this guy gets on here and tells his side of the story so we can find out how something like this could have happened. I do feel sorry for you guys. I will also tell you... if it were me and I had a 45 yard shot at an elk the guide would not be able to tell me no I would just shoot it. In the outfitters defense on the wounded animal policy -- it is an industry standard IF YOU HIT AN ANIMAL ON YOUR HUNT THAT IS YOUR ANIMAL RECOVERED OR NOT. That should not have to be stated any where. In my opinion if you have to question that policy then you do not belong in the field hunting. I have had to place that in all of my correspondence to make sure it is known up front. While I think everyone should know that and it should go without saying -- I wanted to have full disclosure so there would be no question. I even have that posted on my web site.

Just my 2 cents worth. I really do feel bad for you guys. Good luck getting some resolution to this issue. You can file a protest with the outfitter board.

Bugleward