Looks like my Sept 11th moose hunt will be canceled, so maybe next year. I was really looking forward to it.
Johnny,
Has that been formalized? My BC outfitter is still holding out. His email.
Hi Guys
Sorry for the group email, but we wanted to update everyone and try to do a better job of communicating how things are looking for the coming season.
We have been working with our local Outfitting Association closely and they are working directly with the government around how things would work in a quarantine situation, as well as when we are looking at an open border scenario. Unfortunately, it's been a slow process. So far we don't have anything concrete.
As we approach your hunt dates we will have to make a call on whether we will be operating on your dates, deferring to later in the fall, or deferring to a future year. This could potentially be right before your hunt. If you are booking flights, book flex fares- or plan on driving.
It costs a lot of money to be prepared for the season; 190 horses ate all winter, the plane has a fresh annual and is ready to go. We spent 3 months trapping wolves and many other preparations. If you did purchase trip insurance before covid hit please advise as that will greatly reduce the strain of this if we are unable to do the season. Our goal going into this fall was that if the worst case scenario did happen we would be able to move everyone without cost sharing the expenses from this year. Unfortunately, if we lose the entire season we don't think we will be able to do so without impacting future hunts severely. Our goal has been to downsize both Stone and Folding Mountain and improve the quality, providing the best trips that will be available. We don't want to move this year's hunts to the future by simply adding to the harvest in those years. It wouldn't work well and we would be doing a poor job for those future hunters also, some of which could potentially be you. If hunters are being moved to a future hunt year, they will be placed into existing openings, so that we are not putting excessive pressure on the area by over harvesting.
Please understand that if you are considering canceling your trip this year we will be unable to sell it to another and you will lose your whole deposit. If you bear with us, we will know what moving your trip to a future year will cost by the end of the fall and as long as we are not dealing with a total closure for the whole season, the expense should be minimal to nothing.
Thanks for your patience, there is just a landline up here, no cell service so if you are having a difficult time reaching us and would like to speak over the phone, please send me an email and we will connect with you as quickly as we can, often the quickest and easiest way to reach us is email.
We will absorb as much loss as we are able to without impacting future trips. These trips we do are beyond personal to us. We want to make sure that you as our hunter know that you are in the right place, even if it ends up being at the wrong time as we go through this. We look forward to hunting up here with you in the future, hopefully really really soon!
Looking forward to your trip up here with us!
Blair
