fall turkey

True to the honest opinions, and transparency that you have come to expect from me and the musings I create here on Turkey Talk Blog; In a moment, I will dive into what can be summed up as negative review of Joshua Creek Ranch as a gained opinion from my recent experience there this past April. First I will lay out what are the norms, the expected circumstances a turkey hunter expects on a turkey hunt, and not from ranch hands and operators with little association or concern with the traditional turkey hunting experience. As one might expect, the reaction to reviews I have left on review sites as a courtesy and buyer beware for my fellow turkey chasers are countered with inadequate responses, and lacking of any genuine customer service while failing to acknowledge the very real problems they have in offering turkey hunts.

It is a given, a well known fact that turkeys are hell bent on not cooperating with our intentions and what any of us as turkey hunters can reasonably expect in a outfitter offering is to be where the birds are, and have an opportunity to work them into range. No guarantee of filling a tag. When my good friend and I booked this hunt, it was impressed upon us that there were plenty of turkeys to hunt on the ranch, and we could expect plenty of opportunities to work gobblers there. Due to multiple hunting operations going on at the ranch we would be guided. Neither of us need any one to do the calling for us or anything more than set us in a direction with a description of the grounds to hunt and where birds would be expected to be roosting and what land features we should be mindful of. Never the less, guides were required at the ranch. My guide was friendly, good company but not a dedicated turkey hunter or a savvy caller. To prefix against claims made in response to my online reviews, our guides used texting to maintain status updates with the hunt manager on the property.

Positives: Wonderful Ranch, great layout, fantastic food, great accommodations and warm and friendly staff. All the necessities to earn: Beretta Two Tridents-Upland Birds, Federal Select Outfitters, Orvis Endorsed Designation, and Shooting Sportsman Endorsed Lodge recognition. Like most of you, and in my view, those types of glowing accolades paints a picture, an expectation of excellence in world class service. As I will lay out further, this may all be true unless you happen to book a turkey hunt there as we experienced

When we arrived, we were informed that no gobblers had been seen or heard for two weeks on the entire ranch, followed by, only one gobbler taken on the ranch in two years. 5 gobblers, 4 jakes and a few hens were all they had seen that spring. That was not remotely the story when booking the hunt. Arguably, a small single flock is not enough to have a sustainable hunting program by any stretch on 1400 acres with maybe half of it at best due to daily operations, suitable to hunt turkeys.

A staff member laid claim in response that 10-20-30 turkeys crossed the ranch routinely and seen while driving the property and that we could have rifled/blind hunt them. One, that doesn’t jive with what we were told or saw. Two, we were not offered a rifle hunt other than an even swap for a whitetail doe as the ranch was aware the turkey hunting there was dismal at best, and non existent at worse. I came there to enjoy a quality turkey hunt in keeping with their reputation. Had the staff had any clue what a turkey hunter might think of using rifles to take a turkey is an affront when we paid to call them in and hunt them, not snipe them. Despite all this, no 10-20-30 sized flocks of turkeys were seen the entire duration while on the ranch property. What few turkeys were seen and heard, were off the property, on the other side of the river. I saw one right along the property border, couldn’t be sure what it was.

With three hunters there, had we filled two tags each, it would have decimated the flock, and represents no professional resource management given this scenario. Sad situation in my opinion. Guides had no direct bead on where birds were at the time or their daily patterns. Truth be told, during our time there, they were roosting off the property, and the Ranch had no backup parcels to cover unforeseen circumstances, or lack of birds. Hunts conducted in blinds, no slow hunting of any kind.

Despite all this, on the last morning of my hunt, I had one gobbler cross the river onto the property and closing under 200 yards by estimation of gobbling, never showed, only to go silent and never heard from again when the ranch truck pulled in directly in front of us a little over 100 yards to release pheasants for the soon to start bird hunt over dogs. My guide told me that the hunting manager is always aware of our location, and this is unacceptable and unprofessional for allowing ranch operations of one type of hunt to directly interfere with another.

This is not my first rodeo with nearly a dozen successful hunts in the great state of Texas, and thirty-one spring and fall turkey seasons under my belt, and this was a dismal hunting experience. I had not been contacted by anyone on staff until now and was told that the incident with the hunt interrupted was communicated at the time it occurred. Staff has since responded saying they were blind sided by my reviews, and they could have done something about it at the time, I say hogwash as communication was ongoing for the duration of our hunts.

I responded to their less than world class service response: “It is impossible to not know with abundant communications with your guides that no reasonable opportunities were presented during our entire time there. There was no observation of 10-20-30 birds traveling the ranch at any time observed by all three ( a third turkey hunter was also on the ranch at the time) of us hunting. Your guides stated that five gobblers total were seen the entire spring leading up to opening day. That is not sustainable on my 138 acres. much less than your 1400. This is not a quality offering for turkey hunts, and you would be negligent not knowing how depressed your numbers were. This includes when we booked. If anything, your winter counts should have alarmed you. My criticism of your business practices is reasoned and justified. You took our money without providing a reasonable opportunity and should have canceled the bookings, You had to know or ignored the circumstances entirely. Again, in my view you do not offer turkey hunts with the same world class customer service as you do your upland game hunts. I do not believe for a NY minute that any of your staff is blindsided by the criticism and that your comment is a diversion for not making it right. Any seasoned professional would see this coming. We treated your staff and the guides in a friendly and respectful manner to make the best of it as there was little to be done to salvage such a poor hunting circumstance. I have no faith that you would do anything to make it right, not while we were there, not now. To claim you didn’t know points to only two very poor conclusions and as a professional, as they say “that dog won’t hunt.”

Given what we learned upon arriving and not given reasonable choices to hunt gobblers where they actually are, the hunt should have been canceled and refunded. It has been made clear that no effort will be made by Joshua Creek Ranch to compensate or resolve this. They are not set up in so many ways, in my opinion to offer a quality turkey hunt. In view of all the praises for other offerings at Joshua Creek Ranch, there are uncomfortable questions that are left unanswered and unaddressed.

It is my learned opinion, and a stark comparison to the multitude of great ranches/outfitters I have thoroughly enjoyed in the great state of Texas, that Word Class Service and Endorsed Destination accolades are not extended to the turkey hunting experience at Joshua Creek Ranch .

-MJ

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