Dear friends,
This is a report i wrote in an australian in a thread about this guide which was already running several pages long. I am posting it here hoping it will save some other fellow hunters.

hi members,
im currently writing this from lance's living room where he's put me up. hes in his other room. its 0930 in the morning and we're still here, home.

i read reviews about him just 2 hours before he was due to pick me up and after i'd paid him the full amount in advance.($1650+500 trophy fees)
I flew all the way from england to hunt deer and pigs.

day 1 he picked me up and we went to try out the rifle and zeroing. He had said they supply soft drinks but we should bring our own beer. So i did and he helped himself to it. Then at home, he showed me pics of previous clients then phillipino mail order brides till i was dozing off. he then went in to get another memory card to show me more pics of his philipino conquests but i went to bed (which was in his living room)
Day 2, due to jet lag, i slept till late but realised he too was sleeping late.
Though i was in his living room, he didnt bother waking me up, we left at 9. on reaching the property, he gave me a printout of google earth of the area and said there are deer in there, go get them.

I had already told him that in england we shoot deer from the high seat or spot and stalk in scotland and walk the woods standing.
When i returned after 4 hours of walking randomly through the mangroves, he said 'why did you stand up?". you never stand for a chital hunt. This after one hunt session was gone.

Then he gave me a cold sandwich and helped himself to another bottle of beer.
He then showed me deer 350 m away and and told me to go get them and left. i crawled for a good hour but the deer were grazing away from me. i called him to ask if he could drive his car to the other side so that the deer might be steered towards me but he refused. end of day one no deer. All i got for dinner was a micrwawed piece of chicken. not the 'big' pieces you get in a restaurant but a real small one with microwaved veggies.
I thought if day one was anything to go by, day 2 wouldnt be any different so lets try pigs. He said the pigs need ed to be hunted in spotlight and that he had never seen the property so we needed to go there in the day and locate it and then then shoot them at night and that we would do that tomorrow. I asked him if he had never seen the property how did he take people pig shooting, he said that was a new property overrun by pigs and he wanted to take me there. So i told him he hadnt seen it so not to take chances and go to the old property. He said he didnt understand me. I said he knows the place where he suppposedly takes clients pig hunting plus its dark so lets go spotlighting for pigs. He said "for goodness sake, drop it"
he then again got the memory card and showed me more phillipino women pics.

On day 3 i woke up at 0530 and then woke him up. we were at the property at 0700. He showed me deer 500 m away and told me to go get them. I told him to stay there and keep in touch with me through a walkie talkie and let me know if the deer had moved since id be in a ditch and keep low.

By the time i reached near to where the deer had been, there was nothing. so i called him up and asked him where the deer were. he said he couldnt see them.
He said i should follow them. I said follow them where? I dont even know where they went. so he said go where i left you off yesterday and we saw deer. I said this is the bush and im not very sure how to go there. He said see the map. Well he hadnt shown me on the map where he had driven me the previous day b ut judging by the suns direction, i somehow managed to get there. there was another herd of deer which ran as i didnt know what to expect round the bend of the creek.
So i called him up and he said i should follow this herd now that i know which direction they went in.
So i said im doing something wrong and cant go as they might spook again. He said they would be in a depression and i could sneak up to them. I said i dont know the land. sometimes i go qand there is water filled field in front of me and i dont know where the depressions are and that the dpressions dont show up on google earth maps. i said he should be with me rather than at the farm.

So he comes to get me and is furious. he told me he had a name for people like me and it was called 'tear-ass'. he said it means i am an ass who tears through the bush. he told me native americans could creep upto within 20 paces and that i couldnt even do that. I said thats why i had hired him as a guide. He said i had to have the ability within me.
He mocked me saying i wanted a map like the old sailors made pointing out areas where they would be sure to find sea dragons.
I told him that i have shot 4 continents and many countries and am a part time guide myself and a hunting consultant so know a bit about what a guide should do.
SO he drives me to another place and shows me deer right into the distance and says go get them. I told him i could already see the deer move away going towards the mangrove groves and this area was really flat how should i approach them. he said 3 words "into the wind". I asked him to stay behind but he said his car would spook the deer and drove off.

I reckoned this was the only chance i would get and if i didnt get the deer now, id have to get it in the evening and that would spoil the pig hunt.
SO i started crawling. i crawled for 3 hours. my belt broke due to being dragged along the hard ground, my hands knees elbows bled. but the thought of deer kept me going.
I finally got close enough to shoot the deer. we later measured my crawl with the car meter and it was 700 yards. it was at midday and i was on the verge of collapse (i had come from british winter into the queensland summer). now im no olympic athlete but but i do think on flat baking earth it was quite a feat. the black plastic stock got so hot that i had to blow on it before i could hold it.
I asked him how older people and more unfit ones did it, he said he puts them in a place where the deer come to them!
We had loaded the deer on to his car by 1 pm but it took him 5 hours to process it.
He told me to chop the meat up and then said this was for his dog. said i could keep the back legs and backstraps; rest would for the dogs (neck, upper back and two forelegs) I said i wanted the meat but he said it wasnt "fit for human consumption". I told him i had hunted chital before and eaten it dozens of times and i didnt know this so i had also been putting a lot of good meat un knowingly into the dog food section and working so hard to cut the pieces into good cuts. so i said i'd keep atleast one front leg.finally he pointed to chunks of good meat and told me to cut it up and bag it. so i ended up processing the whole deer myself while he just skinned it but still took sooooooooo long. I had made that long crawl hoping to shoot pig that night and to save time.
Then he proceeded to bag the meat for his dogs who got a big portion of the deer. i thought now well have time to go pigging as he we had daylight in which to find the property. All this time no lunch but i thought why waste time and we can go for the pigs instead. i was so thirsty i went to the fridge for soft drinks and saw another bottle of beer missing.
When i got in the car, he started to drive the other way around. i asked him about pigging he said not enough day light was left for that. so i said yeaterday he said it was summer and the pigs only came out at night and needed to be shot in the nightlight and today youre saying they cant be shot at night. so he said i must be hungry and should get dinner first. i said forget dinner i want to shoot pigs as you had promised.
So he just turned into a bylane and into a mango orchard. this wasnt the property where he said he would take me but said the smell of mangoes draws out pigs. I do admit there wqas evidence of pig damage. he said he would fill his car with mangoes and i could go look for pig but to return before dark. it was 630 by then so i walked around the orchard with signs of "no shooting". After 15-20 minutes it got dark so we left.
When we got home, i was super hungry with no food allday and working hard in the australian summer sun. but no dinner he was on the computer looking up.........u got it.

SO i told him i was hungry and he said i'd told him in the car "forget dinner".
I pointed out the context in which i had said that phrase. So finally i got microwaved frozen fish and microwaved frozen veggies (again). He said hes used to women cooking for him so he cant cook.

this night i didnt want to see more pics of phillipinos so i just started playing on my laptop.
Today morning hes just sitting in front of his pc and not getting dressed.

He is also refusing to transport my trophy to a taxidermist saying i should do so myself. He knows i dont live here, i dont have a car here neither a satnav nor a roadmap. he has given me a card ("copy the details and return it to me"). So im expected to carry a deer skull (bloody with muscles and tissues still attached- it was just shot yesterday). I told him since hes driving me to townsville, we can just go and drop it. he said this taxidermistguy has changed his address.

Please note im not whining due to my abraded hands elbows of knees. im used to difficult hunts. the 700 yard crawl was satisfying and the stag was 27.5 inches not great but not bad either and it had 7 points. But it was like a semi guided hunt and he didnt teach me a thing. he was there for only a few minutes during 2 day hunts.

If youre thinking there are 2 sides to every story, ive had very good experiences with other guides and heve never seen such 'guiding'. I have had fairly vast experience in hunting.
Ive guided people myself and if my clients want, i go into as much detail of shooting as they want. during spare time, i tell them hunting stories, talk about guns, gun history, shooting techniques etc not porn or mail order. I stand with them during wingshooting and advise them (if they desire) re: every shot. With deer, i sit up tith them and talk about field craft (i might not be an expert but teach them whatever i know). I give them hunting books and magazines to read. All in all i try my best to make their experience worthwhile. Between shoots and hunts i ask them if they are enjoying themselves and if theres anything else they want or i can do better. (most common answer is to get them a record buck or more birds and that is more of a joke than a comment on my services)
If the meat of the shot animal doesnt belong to the client (common practice in england), i point it out them earlier before the hunt. most of my clients come back or keep in touch as friends.

All last night he told me anecdotes of people tipping him or that if i was happy, i should buy him a 6 pack of beer (hint hint).
The only think keeping me sane is the chital i shot.
Its my first hunt in oz and do hope that the words 'guiding' 'hunting' 'hunting guide' mean the same here as they do in the rest of the world and do sincerely hope that mr abbey is the only rotten apple out there.

Note: i chose him for the cheap price. yes i was being stingy and thought i was being smart. In hind sight i would rather pay a bit more seeing i spent $2000 on just plane tickets.

I do hope this will help other people away from him.

You should have flown to Texas, you could have shot a monster 30"+, stayed in a fantastic lodge, and drank my beer/whiskey than you could fit on a 747. PLUS you wouldn't have had to fly all that damn way!

Sounds like you got what you paid for! I learned a long time ago...cheaper is usually more expensive in the long run. Good luck getting your trophy back!

Sorry to hear about your misfortunes. I think anyone who hunts regularly internationally, will eventually have a hunt go awry!

Sorry, mate, you got shafted. He has a very bad reputation amongst Aussie hunters. There are many fine guides here, but he isn't one of them. Real sorry, but glad you got a chital stag.

This is a pretty good report on how Mr Abbey operates. if you search any of the australian-based hunting forums you will discover that you are now a member of the growing group of folk who have been conned by this guy.

Anyone thinking of hunting in Queensland would be well advised to join the group Australian Hunting Net and ask about guides and recomendations. Its a pretty sure bet that Lance Abbey wont be recommended by anyone at all.

It's sad when things like this happen to travelling hunters. I've been on the receiving end of such things and it always happened when I booked solely based on price.

At least you got your stag. What happened to the trophy in the end?

K

Thought it was a different Lance by the story at first. Same sort of hunting stories.

What a dog end He should be banned from any form of guiding or hunting.

Sorry to say but all of this is old news to most of us in the know.

The old adage, "you pay peanuts...." holds true here.

When I was operating as an outfitter many inquirers would object to my pricing and were informed they were free to go to cheaper competitors and in many instances reports like this were the end result.

Caveat Empor.