Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska 2014 Sheep and Moose Hunts

What cloud???
I just made arrangements for an advertisement for Tom
I guess it's not simple enough he is just a good friend and I donate my services for 6 weeks in sheep and in sheep and moose camp.
He has great hunting opportunities that's All
Why do I need to be compensated???
Sounds like you guys would charge your mother for a ride to church.
Just forget it you guys are beyond reasonable.
You guys in another post about how you all hate thieves but when I posted we had an outfitter take stuff from our camp you set up a cheering group sort of a double standard don't you think. Remember I just started with a honest offer of some hunts you guys took it upon yourselves to muddy up the water.
I had or do not have any intent to cause such problems as some of you think I am presenting.
Well you guys can post away , I see why Rick does not want to set up a blog for hunt advertising to many no it alls. just not worth responding to this forum any longer i see. as I figured none of the guys that hide behind the computer who want to sling remarks have no desire to call me to explain their issues. I gave you all the opportunity but I figured easy to display here but no not when you need to confront a live person.
Also just for your information Tom does not visit this site or another forums that I post on. So it's completely inappropriate to disparage him in this or any other post on your forums.
For those that follow some of these cheap shot guys on here just think you may be the next subject of ridicule.
Larry

yes it's us not you, Larry


I fear you are correct, you're too good for the likes of us.


breaking up is such a beatch

With your permission to call you collect,I'll chew the fat with you,

60n148 w
Ok anytime
Larry

Larry,

I got the Sports Afield today in the mail. The hunt took place in 2008. The hunt took place "in the area Tom Shankster has been working since 1986". The hunter was Sara Brandenburg who was entering her Freshman year of high school. This made her 14 at the time of the hunt. As I mentioned earlier, she hunted with Bob Graham as her guide.

She harvested the only legal sheep they saw, which was barely legal (looks similar to the posting about the legality of a ram last week on here). There were 9 hunters in camp and only 2 got rams. Weather was not an issue on the hunt.

Success rate of 22%? Only $14,800 for a sheep hunt? Too bad you are out of sheep hunts for this coming year. I might have to jump all over that. Those stats are pretty hard to beat.

If anyone wants a copy of the article, I am happy to send it to you.

You never answered the question raised about how many hunters go through your camp and the actual success rate. You told how many sheep were harvested but that doesn't mean anything if you got 10 sheep out of 45 hunters hunting sheep.

If Tom tells the unsuccessful hunters they can come back for free, I wonder how many of the 7 unsuccessful hunters from the article actually took him up on the offer. There is a saying "throwing good money after bad". I wonder if that's applicable to Tom's offers to unsuccessful clients.

P.S. I tried to edit my post from 11/29 to reflect the changes after rereading the article but it won't let me do so. It's not like a 22% rate is much better than what I initially posted. She was 14, not 13 like I initially thought.

Can you scan and email?

My last answer
The past 3 years we have had 12 to 14 hunters sheep only and 2 to 3 secondary hunters after they shoot a moose.
And like I said we averaged 11 sheep a year.
I was not there in 2008 so I can't say but if I can I will have Tom look in his harvest report book. Well she got one I guess not bad for a 70 year old guide to get a 14 year old hunter in on a sheep. You hunted them you should know not easy.
Not sure in the article who gave the harvest numbers but there may be some confusion.
As for seeing one legal sheep well why look for others after you have one.
Oh well I will never be able to convince you that Tom has one of the most reputable outfits in Alaska because you ignor to research with game and fish those are the numbers that count not what some 14 year old puts in a hunting magazine. Remember what they say believe only 50% of what you see and nothing you read.
Sorry for your negative attitude .
Larry
Also my offer is open for anybody to call
Nobody has of yet.

Ks
One thing I did not mention
You are completely out of line trying to describe what an unsuccessful hunter would do or should do. I guess if you think a hunter is cheated cause he does not score an animal you better quit hunting while your ahead. After 52 years of humting there are many hunts and some high dollar hunt that we did not score.
I have hunted leopard 3 times no sucess so is that a bad outfitter. I guess in you think it is. Well that's all
Keep writing BS, I have said all I need to. We would like to have you hunt with us but we don't need you. We sell out every year.
Thanks to people who know our operation maybe sometime you will chime in and dispute these accusations.
Larry

If I were Tom Shankster, I would be doing everything I possibly could to distance myself from you.

You have done your friend a great disservice here, and have unfortunately done it with very little entertainment value.

Carry on.

Google Tom Shankster and this thread shows up on page 3 of the results. In a month it'll be on page 1.

I think I'm going to gather up some buddy's and get a guide/outfitter business going in both CO & NM......come one come all! ...then I'll take all the money I make and give it to PETA- who operates under simple principles that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment .......although this thread has been great entertainment!

Looking for the sympathy vote is an interesting advertising angle. If it so incredible for a 70 year-old guide to put a client on a sheep, why is he still doing it at nearly $15k per crack? .... or did I just answer the question?

To be fair I do not know any guide that is rich on guide wages...

Why would you look for a second sheep after you found the first? Maybe they thought they had a chance at a better than marginally legal ram.

Ironbender, sent you a PM. I have it scanned in color and will send it your way.

Larry, they hunted 8 days before finding a legal ram (likely on a 10 day hunt, from your ads on here). But you can never trust those writers and articles from Sports Afield. That Craig Boddington is full of it.

If anyone else wants a copy, I will get it over to you. Just let me know.

P.S. And Larry, if you are someone who hunts all over the world, you would know that they are called PHs in Africa, not outfitters.

Thanks.

I am looking at Moose hunts but after reading the experiences of the guys in the thread I posted your outfit will not be one I look at. Pretty disappointing to spend weeks in camp with more than 10 other hunters staring at each other for no reason. After saving for a hunt like this I would have said alot more if I were there. Lack of game happens, your paying more for the experience. Lack of motivation other than ripping off clients is what stuck out to me. Others can read what they want from this link but it is pretty clear what his motivations are.

Another happy customer, well maybe....

http://www.rokslide.com/forums/showthread.php?21742-Alaska-Range-Dall-Sheep-My-First-Sheep-Hunt

I just saw this thread this weekend and can't say I'm surprised. I hunted sheep with Tom in 2004 and things were just like what has been described in the other threads referenced by gremcat. At the time, Tom had a really choice area with a lot of good country and lots of animals. However, Tom was terribly organized and I've heard from many others over the years that things have not improved and most likely have gotten worse. I was only there at the beginning of sheep season, so there weren't too many hunters in camp, but even then we had too many hunters and not enough guides. I did my 1 on 1 hunt with another hunter tagging along. Luckily, we got along and I ended up shooting my sheep the first day, but that just meant that Tom could use my guide to cover for his lack of sufficient guides. The food situation in the main camp was horrendous, with guys scavenging around for anything they could find. I ended up cooking dinner for guys on many a night because no one else would step up and Tom had no one to help. To top it off, because I was willing to help out the other hunters in camp by letting them fly out whenever they had an opportunity, I ended up being stuck by myself in the main camp for 3 or 4 days with no communication and nothing to do. I can't remember exactly how many days now. But Tom decided to fly to Wasilla and then claimed he couldn't fly out to camp because of weather and smoke. Not a big deal to me, but for all I knew, he crashed and I was stuck. This was before he put in his fancy satellite dish. In any case, having hunters sitting around, Tom not wanting to fly, and poor equipment and poor planning are nothing new. I can only imagine how many hunters might be sitting around as soon as moose season gets going. I have no doubt that the guys posting on the other sites are telling the truth. Buyer beware.

What do you know! Our old buddy, Larry, makes it into the story.

See page 3:

"The next day still no word from base camp. I sent a message to my wife and asked her to get me the name of another person in camp. I described our situation of being stuck and needing to get word out to camp for the plane to come and get us to my wife very poorly. She was in a state of panic and got me Larry's email and cell phone number and admonished me for taking five years off of her life. Larry also did not respond to our calls for extraction or what we were supposed to do. So that was another dead end."