My hunt with Pope Brothers Guide Service

CPope if you do take your reputation seriously you might want to edit your post. "Any time you want to come back and pig hunt at no charge the offer stands." Is all you should have said. Your post did more damage to your business than SigPros ever could.
 
$250.00 per day to go hunt somewhere with drinks, meals, blinds, feeders going year round, cameras on feeders, guys to take you in our vehicles to a blind and pick you back up, track your game, skin and quarter your animals, and all of this at all hours of the day and night. I don't think this is a bad price I think $250.00 per day is cheap. I look at prices and other peoples pictures, and I try to stay competitive on my pricing.

What I pay on my end: 150.00 per day for a guide, $9.00 per bag of corn, meals and drinks, wear and tear on vehicles and equipment, gas, insurance, $40,000.00 tied up in that lease and lodge each year.

This person makes it seam like we do not care about our hunters or that we don't try and go the extra mile for guys and this is flat out not true. You can look at what several other hunters stated in this thread. You can look around on the internet and I think you will be hard pressed to find something bad written about us. This is after thousands and thousands of hunters. I think we have a pretty dang good track record with lots of pictures to back that up.

We loaned our night vision equipment to these hunters at no additional cost normally my night vision hunt costs $450.00 per night. We tried to call in some guys to run some dogs (normally $500 per guy per night), but my guy who does this could not come, and I told my guys if they saw any axis they could shoot them at no additional cost. I want my hunters to get animals I want them to get plenty of animals I want them to be happy. But I can not control the weather and I can not make animals come in no matter how bad I want them to, and I can not shoot for my hunters.

If you think me or my guides don't care about our hunters we wouldn't be out all times of the night or tell our hunters if you see an axis shoot it, or loan our hunters thousands of dollars of night vision on the basic hunt package at no charge. We were doing everything in our power to get you guys on pigs. I just want everyone to see there is always 2 sides to a story and whoever reads this can make up their own opinion.

When people back out of a hunt it is a no win situation for me.
I book hunters and take a deposit so people do not back out of a hunt and leave me sitting without work. Does it happen yes it does and it throws a wrench in things especially when the other hunters expect to take that persons deposit. Then the hunters expect the same discount as well even though the number of hunters didn't show that got them the discount. This is a no win situation for me and this is part of the problem we had with this hunt. It does go both ways.

Me and my wife Holly own this business and she was up with y'all every day if you had a problem all you had to do is talk to her. When I don't know there is a problem I have no way of fixing a problem. If you felt we did that bad of a job why didn't you email or call me or talk to her or say something to a guide?
 
Man our guide knew we weren't happy. We told him so, and the other guides. I really feel we we're put on the back burner because the other guys backed out. And again I'm sorry for that. Holly knew we weren't having a good time also. But hey after this trip I have no desire to go hunt pigs again. None at all. And I wrote a review of how OUR hunt went. I told these guys I would write a review before I left. I didn't put a review on any of the other forums I am a member of. This sub forum had just been created and a lot if guys were asking about places to go etc. And I do appreciate the offer to come back. But I feel it was only offered because you read this review. Brian and I aren't hard to please, just a couple blue collar rednecks from Missouri. Pretty easy going guys. I gave my side and you gave yours. I'm not trying to be in a peeing contest here.
 
Sounds like he tried to help you guys out the best he could. That is a lot of money but he has a lot into it. I go down there every winter and hunt on a couple of ranches and one of them is do it yourself the guy just give us a bed we buy our own corn and gas and use out own vechicles. We paid $10/bag the last time I was down there and we went through 33 bags of corn and I never killed a hog I only saw one I could have shot but I wanted to use my bow. I have been blanked more times than not on hogs they are smart smart smart animals if they have been educated they are smarter than any big old white tail. Sounds like you should make a mend with Mr. Pope and take him up on his offer. It says a lot about him and his character he doesn't want a bad name and he cares about his business and is trying to make things right. I have hunted with way worse guides than him and they could have cared less they took my money and never looked back. They put me in ranches that had helicopters there the week before and there were no animals to hunt. We didn't know any better the more times we went to Texas the more people we met and the more doors opened up and now I spend two weeks a year down in Texas it's a blast even if I don't kill any pigs I love the country.
 
Originally Posted By: sigprosMan our guide knew we weren't happy. We told him so, and the other guides. I really feel we we're put on the back burner because the other guys backed out. And again I'm sorry for that. Holly knew we weren't having a good time also. But hey after this trip I have no desire to go hunt pigs again. None at all. And I wrote a review of how OUR hunt went. I told these guys I would write a review before I left. I didn't put a review on any of the other forums I am a member of. This sub forum had just been created and a lot if guys were asking about places to go etc. And I do appreciate the offer to come back. But I feel it was only offered because you read this review. Brian and I aren't hard to please, just a couple blue collar rednecks from Missouri. Pretty easy going guys. I gave my side and you gave yours. I'm not trying to be in a peeing contest here.

Sigpros......I think the letter that was posted in public should have been sent to Mr. Pope first. He is the boss and if one of the guides is not doing his job then he has no way to rectify the situation unless he knows about it. You also mentioned that you told the "guides" that you were not happy about it before you left. IMO....You should have asked to speak with Mr. Pope before you left. The guides work for him and he should have been given a chance to assess their performance regarding your hunt and maybe provide you with some type of reimbursement or another hunt like he has offered after reading your post.

You also stated that you feel like the only reason you were invited back was because of your post. If you never approached Mr Pope on a personal level before this, then I don't see how you could have expected him to do anything about it beforehand.

$750 is a lot of money to most people and it appears that Mr. Pope would have tried to make it up to you if given the chance. You get to type your letter and go about your business but this is Mr. Popes business. He has invested 20 years of his life to build it. I would respect your position a lot more if you had given Mr Pope a chance to address it man to man before posting it in a public forum.

 
Last edited:
The fact that sigpros never met cpope before, during, or after the hunt tells me everything I need to know. [beeep], on our Texas turkey trip, even the booking agent made a 1 hour drive to come by and say hello. I've done out of state (& out of country) hunts for 15 years, and NOT ONE SINGLE TIME have I ever not met the outfitter I was hunting with.

Again, thank you sigpros for posting this review.
 
Back
Top