so part of this is venting, part of this is gaining perspective from a third party or more or less more than one third party.

so.......i originally talk to an outfitter about getting some elk hunts and a bear hunt for my oldest. they know the game, i would like a price and dates on an elk handgun hunt for me, rifle hunt for my 12 and 13 year olds, and a bear handgun hunt for my 14 year old. told them get prices and dates and i'll decide which ones i can do as i was starting a new job in a new town in july, this was in march. so i hear nothing for about 3 months and they call and tell me that they've got all the tags and need the money for the tags. i told them to hang on and i needed dates and times, remember. the wife agreed and let me know that her husband has cancer and is going through treatments and is a little loopy. i expressed my condolences and made a little suggestion that he shouldn't be running things in that condition but i'm not buying a bull tag for that money and those dates, i can't do it. so we progress to the others, i get the bear hunt set up and know that it may fall through due to the season being closed early which is always a possibility. if so we'd just do it next year. anyway, i'm emphatic when given the cow elk options, i don't want bow or muzzleloader for the two cow hunts, don't own a muzzleloader, don't want one and don't like them. in fact i hate them. so i'm working out of town for the week until we can get moved and my wife calls and tells me she got the contracts in the mail, dates etc correct and i tell her to send the checks for deposit...first mistake. last sunday i hadn't recieved the landowner permits yet and i call. i tell the wife the rifle the kids are gonna be using and she says it's perfect and that the permits are on the way. so i get them and the two are watching a hunting show on elk hunting excited about taking off on this hunt to the gila wilderness in 10 days. i notice on the permits it says muzzleloader only.................wtf!!!!!!! i call and so far my calls have been unreturned. i check the contracts and in one of the paragraphs it states it's a muzzleloader hunt. so..........now i'm not taking them, i understand i didn't check the contracts well but everything i had communicated said this was not what we wanted. gary came through at handgunhunt.com nicely and we have a replacement hunt in south texas for them at the texana ranch but dang.......this just infuriates me. still trying to get ahold of them.

oh yeah, then when i'm calming down and figuring she's just stressed i find out they were convicted of killing a mountain lion out of season and transporting across state lines and plead out on that one in 07. my buddy also has taxidermy with them and his has not been completed on dates they told him he could pick it up. last time he showed up when they told him too and no one was home. they won't return calls to him either.

Geeze that sucks with BOTH lips.
Tough on the kids too.

Sounds like when the IRS went after me. An hour on hold and then they cut you off.
Then one day I am greeted with a direct number from the IRS agent, please call if we get cut off. I thought it was a joke. Seems my CPA went thru a Senate Subcommitte on tax payers rights.
A CPA won't help but I know a guy named"No-Neck Guido" who could pay him a visit.........course the guy couldn't walk to the phone anymore so maybe not. But if nothing else works Guido is very proud of his work.
Hope it works out for you and the kids.

well.......i just got off the phone with the outfitter. she seemed genuinely upset. was belligerent before i pointed out i wasn't being rude or mad, so she shouldn't be either. i told her straight up that we were told it was never gonna be a muzzleloader hunt, she never denied this, then offered to let us hunt with someone else's muzzleloader. sorry, but that's not the deal and the kids have pride in ownership and practice with their own rifles and i don't see how a muzzleloader that can fire a 300+ grain projectile over 2300fps won't kick the hell out of a 90 pound girl that doesn't shoot often. anyway, they said they'd see if someone would buy the tags. we'll see what happened.

Tough break. I hope they make things right.

first rule about using outfitters is doing the research about them i almost ended up in simualar situation but avoided it from doing more research about them

Is there a section of Angies List for Outfitters?

For car repair I sent folks to Cartalk dot com. Click and Clack the tappet brothers have saved my daughter a fortune.

well, thanks to gary at handgun hunting mag online and he's hooked us up with what will be cheaper even if i don't get my money back and prolly a better hunt imho for the kids. can't think him enough.

absolutely research research research.

Glad it worked out for the kids.
Spend time with them now and they will spend time with you later.