Here are the two best responses about Ray that I have read yet
Jayco,
You should have never started this post and made the claims about Ray that you did. We all have a natural tendency to doubt and say prove it.
I don't doubt some of Ray's extensive firearm/outdoor knowledge but also knowing he was biased, aren't we all!
I think the old cowboy knew how to put a pretty good spin on things though, honed at real campfires. He was better at that than 99% of those here.
He was a professional at turning dudes into clients.
He's probably a great husband and family man but could never turn down a bad deal that involved $$$.
Maybe he grew up on nothing but gravy for dinner, I don't know.
Like it says, the root of all evil is the love of money. Ray got caught, and that may be a good thing for the long run.
Each of us has that same nature it's what we choose to turn loose. None here better than Ray and Ray no better than anyone here.
Some make better choices than others though.
I do know Ray and visited with him at his home as well as at various SCI shows. He is not a rich man nor a crook but someone who thought he could moonlight some as a booking agent and maybe parlay that into some good hunting. There are a lot of folks doing that part time and from my experience Ray was a lot more honest and trust worthy than most of those. Like most older honest folks Ray tended to take folks at face value - so if some outfitter told Ray he had numerous world record trophy's on his place- Ray would believe him. I know he got burned on a few African deals due to this tendency.
Just as there are numerous crooked booking agents in the business taking advantage of both hunters and guides, there are crooked outfitters who take advantage of agents and hunters.
Sure Ray liked the attention he got from this forum - who of us honestly doesn't ? - and he may have embellished some things - that is also a common theme here - but he really does have a lot of experience and knowledge.
Years ago Ray advertised a hunt that was in an area I lived in and knew well, for a species I have hunted extensively for year the better part of 20 years. The hunt was so grossly misrepresented I called him on it in a respectful manner and it went downhill from there. He called me every name in the book, manufactured lies about me and left numerous messages on my phone, in some of them he threatened to show up at my door where I lived with my wife and daughter. Want to see a man do things out of his character just threaten his family. I didnt know anything about the man at the time so I didnt take it lightly. He went absolutely ballistic because I pointed out what was wrong with the hunt that was offered over the internet. It was so bad he actually used a photograph of one of my good friends deer as one of his clients and added 30" to the score. My buddy has never heard of Ray Atkinson. All I know is that he was completely irrational and made threats because of a difference of opinion on the internet. What kind of person does this?
That being said, I am not objective when it pertains to Ray in any way, shape or form. I dislike the man
I will attempt objectivity here and we'll see if it works. I think Ray has a great ability at story telling. This is not a knock on him at all, I enjoy listening to stories around a campfire as much as anybody. I also think Ray has a great imagination and this is probably one of the reasons he is a great story teller. Who hasnt embellished a story around a campfire? Hell, I'm from Texas and down there it's damn near a contest so I am guilty as much as anybody.
I think that 458Win hit the nail on the head when he said that Ray believes what the outfitters tell him. Outfitters are salesmen and I think that Ray wanted to believe what he was hearing so he could send people on what he thought were good hunts
Where the problem lies is that as a "booking agent" one would need to listen to the outfitters hunt offerings and then do research to decipher whats BS and whats real so you can give your clients a realistic "sell" on the hunt and not over promise things. I dont belive that Ray does this, he listens to what these outfitters tell him and instead of wading through the BS he "Atkinsons" it up a little bit and now you have a hunt thats grossly misrepresented. This is the root of the problem IMO
As much as I just tried to be objective with Ray I am not willing to just give him a pass on this one. Ray has made a decision to be dishonest on more than one occasion. I'm not even going to go into detail about the stories he has told of seweing the eyelids shut on wild cattle, stiff arming hippos, making offhand head shots on running animals at 800 yards, killing more buffalo than any other white man alive, shooting 2-3 deer over 200" with spreads exceeding 40" every season on one ranch and of 26" world record antelope. The BS goes on and on. There is a post floating round that lists a bunch of the quotes, some of them contradicting one another, I just want to focus on some of his business tactics here. He has made up lies about me, he uses photographs of harvested animals and claims them as "his clients" kills for his North America hunts as well as Africa hunts, he said that he contacted certain organizations about his latest hunt offering only to have people from within the organization come on the forums and let people know that they had never heard from Ray. I know for a fact that Ray has been made aware of his misrepresentations and been provided the facts and continued to represent hunts in a false way. These were conscience decisions by Ray. He knew exactly what he was doing
If a guy just had a reputation for telling a tall tale or two around a campfire thats one thing, telling tall tales in an attempt to sell something is another. Add money to the equation and you go from being a great story teller to being a crook. I dont think Ray realizes just how serious something like this is and thats too bad.
Drummond
