Ontario Outfitter - Got burned!

[Walleye-Doctor]

Just got back from our Dryden deer hunt. Stayed with Shane Rowat at Elm Bay Resort/Sunset Country Outfitters. We have stayed with this outfitter before and everything was fine. That's why we thought we'd give him a try. Normally we hunt on our own, but this would have saved us a couple of day's scouting and setting blinds.
They were supposed to have 4 baited stands and cameras set up for us. Below is a small list of problems we had.

1) Waited 4 hours first morning before he would meet and show us where the blinds were.
2) Dropped us off at the trail head and said stands are end of trail then took off. Said he'd be right back.
3) Could not see or shoot out 2 of the blinds. Had to remove 1 box blind and set up a pop up. Partner had to sit on floor of his elevated blind cross legged just to see out the door of blind. My blind was brushed out that morning. This is why he was 4 hours late.
4) Another partner had to go and find a place to set up his blind because outfitter said he didn't have time to find him a place. We booked this a year ago.
5) Put 2 of our hunters on private property that was in the middle of a land war. One of them got into a dispute while waiting at the gate for us to pick him up.
6) Didn't get cabin we reserved. Neither did 2 other groups that showed up, overbooked.

As I stated, these are just a few of the problems. I want to warn others not to book with this outfitter.

We only hunted with him 2 days and that's all we could handle. We called John Butts Outdoors and finished our hunts on his properties. Everything went fine after that.

Next year it's back to do it yourself.

[lakerbreaker]

Did you get any deer? Pics???? Love those Ontario bucks!!

[Walleye-Doctor]

No big bucks this year. We'll have to wait until next year and try again.

[lacywbosu]

Thanks for the warning.

[plumberjoe]

I got this one a few miles north of Vermilion Bay on Nov 5th.

[BroadwayBill]

Great Buck Plumber. That looks like a big body on that buck too.

Bill

[Suzuki]

I hate hearing stuff like this. Happened to me on an Ontario fishing trip years ago. Tell everyone you can for as long as you can remember. That guy deserves to burn.

[rjschulz1]

The same thing happen to us in 2013. We booked a trip with Shane Rowat because we had used him before when he had a partner. Apparently the partner was the difference on the first trip. Anyway, we traveled by car from New Jersey to Dryden for a week hunt and paid for heated and baited stands, cabin accommodations and semi guide services.

When we got there the cabin was occupied with other hunters and we waited 6 hours to see Shane about what was going on. He gave us this lame story about the hunters in the cabin had a bus that broke down and they couldn't leave so he was going to put us in a motel. He did, and it turned out to be the Bates Hotel, absolutely horrible conditions. We thought it would only be for one day but at the end of the first hunting day we talked to the hunters in the cabin and they said they booked the cabin through mid week. These hunters were form Montreal and they were also very upset about their hunt.

Shane lied about the bus breaking down to cover the fact that he overbooked. The stands were supposed to be heated, baited and in prime locations. The stands were not baited, in fact they were so overgrown that several hunters sat on the ground near the stands without bait. There were no heaters either.

The second day we confronted Shane and told him we wanted a refund of half the cost of the trip. He agreed and wrote us a check. When we deposited the check it bounced! We also had to pay for exchange rate fees and service charges for the non-sufficient funds check.
We filed a small claims court settlement and won a settlement for full reimbursement of the cost of the fees we paid to Shane. It took 2 years for us to collect our settlement as the courts were garnishing his pay on a monthly basis. We were still out all of the travel money and more importantly, we had an awful experience on a hunt that was supposed to be fun.

I write all of this to warn would be hunters not to book with this guy. He is a liar a cheat and not a honorable sportsmen. He is out there taking advantage of hunters and should not ever be allowed to guide anyone.

[johnboat]

That sucks! No doubt, get his name out there. All the anticipation, the planning, special purchases, and travel, let alone use your precious time, only to get burned by a schumck. Hopefully karma comes out big on this one. He'll burn the wrong guy someday.

[jfaisten]

You wonder why a guy like this just doesn't do something else is life. The complaints, court issues and his name/reputation getting hosed should be enough for him to fold his tent and start a different career. There's a payoff somehow for him, can't imagine what it could be.