Yesterday, I got a call from a good client who had just hunted with another outfitter on an early season hunt. He was more than a little upset, because he had shot a nice buck, but was unable to recover it, and the outfitter would not let him try to fill his tag on another deer. I think the real problem was that the outfitter never really stated his policy up front, leaving a grey area, and a big uh-oh when the client didn’t get to complete his hunt! Our conversation made me think about how we handle “problems” at The Quail Shed.
For years, we have had a very lenient policy about fines for deer smaller than our 130 inch minimum, and also covering this type of situation, based on our belief that we want to be fair with everyone. Fines are a very negative thing, and I question how effective they really are when used to force compliance with a minimum antler size restriction. Last year, we attempted to cover all of the bases, and offered a special price for anyone who felt they would be satisfied with shooting a deer under our minimum. Surprisingly, no one took us up on that offer, but we had several bucks shot that were, without question, well below our minimum. In all but one case, the hunter told me he thought the deer was bigger, until he saw it on the ground. I have decided that we need to spend more time in orientation this year, explaining what a shooter looks like, so that we do not go down that road again.
A wounded deer that is not recovered right after it is shot, presents us with another bad situation. We cannot let a hunter go out and shoot another buck, until we have completed a thorough search for the deer he has wounded, and determined that the deer is either still alive, or has escaped with a fatal wound, which he will succumb to later. That information is not always obvious right away. We have tracking dogs that will find most fatally wounded deer fairly quickly, and I am confident that our recovery rate will be very good. But, it still takes hours of hunting time away from the hunter. The decision to shoot, or wait, belongs to the hunter, and we have always looked at these situations on a case by case basis. Every hunter can be assured that we will do everything we can to recover any deer that has been shot, and in exchange for that, I will hold you to a high ethical standard if you hunt in my camp. It’s a two way street, right?
As I wrote earlier, it is important that there are no grey areas when you are on an outfitted hunt. If you have questions, please feel free to ask them. And, I will continue to try to cover all of the bases, before your hunt begins…