We have waited for about 3 months before we filed this report, we wanted to be sure we were over the heat
There are a group of us, around 8-12 depending on the year, We are all experienced hunters and have hunted hundreds of clubs over the last 25 years... we are all either retired executives or still employed. This is our once a year blow out and it has always been wonderful, last year was horrible.
We made arrangements with Mr. Walker over the phone, he is quite the gregarious and engaging character during this phase, he will tell you how many thousands of acres he has, how he is a Movie Star and virtually any thing he can make up,.
We agreed upon a two day low fence and one day in his "preserve" we were promised a shot at a animal of 300#'s or more in the preserve...please note, he no longer shows his preserve. There never was one.
We had agreed on a $900 per head rate, for ten hunters. When we arrived he pulled me aside and told me that the hunt was $12,000 not the $9,000 agreed upon,... and the deposit was writtten for. He was in my face in two seconds letting me know that since only 9 hunters showed up he was going to give us a break and only charge us $10,000. I elected to agree, all of our friends and everyone was alread there and he was already threatening and running his mouth. It wasnt that much, however we should have stopped payment and left.
Mr. Walker sits down and starts filling out papers and telling all of us about the horror stories that he had encountered...he told us that if we were to write anything online about his organization we would be arrested by the State of Florida, he further informed us that stopping any credit card charge was a felony and Florida would issue bench warrants without a defendant to even show.. i listened and said nothing, I am a non-practicing lawyer and it was quite clear that this man was delusional.. he goes on to say that he owns nind law offices, has his own helicopter and is a multimillionare... this all within a few minutes of our first meet... he went on and one about how many animals we would see and how wonderful the "preserved" was...
i had my grandson with me for his first hunt... we went out the first morning.. no thousands of acres... no hundreds of acres... not much of anything....one of our guys was able to pull up all of the tract maps in the area and Mr. Walker has nothing,... a few acres here and there.. it would see that most of his animals meander over from protected areas.
Mr. Walker knew this, within a few minutes he has dogs and vehicles out.. WE DO NOT HUNT BEHIND DOGS AND SO STATED. He ran down a few hogs for my grandson and one of our guys who had to leave early.. it wasnt a hunt, it was more like eratication. The guys who went to the "Preserve" were skunked...
The next day we did the same thing... there are were no moving animals and we did everything he said. That afternoon I went with my son and grandson to the "Preserve" to put it mildly, it was a real crap hole.. it was a swamp with some of his exotics running around... from what i saw it sure as hell not much bigger than 20 acres... if that... there were three blinds... all in horrible conditions with very weak fire lanes... we were there past dark.. we saw one 100# sow who came an went in a couple of seconds.. one could tell that she was over hunted... about an hour later a 75# showed up, my grandson took the only shot and missed...
The morning before we went to the Preserve i was hunting with an old buddy of mine.. they told us where to stand and where to look.. and guess what, Mr. Walker, his dogs and his ATV's drove two right by us... this isnt hunting. It was a joke..
We were all sitting around one of his gourmet meals... MRE's were better. He then decides to tell us how he was the star of American Hoggers, he showed us the trucks, jeeps and ATV's used and told us that it was all a set up.. they put hogs in the cages.. cut them loose and made it look like they were really hunting... kicking our trapped hogs so that dogs could chase them was a joke...
The last morning we were there the last of our hunters went though the Preserve... they saw nothing just like eveyone... Mr. Walker had already left for who knows where and we were with his "guides" We sat down with the one guide and told him how dissapointed we were at all the hype and no reality... he stared and we understood he had a job... evidently he spoke to Mr. Walker wherever he was and relayed the fact that we were far less than happy... about an hour later i recieved a phone call from the missing Mr. Walker... he was mad at us... he said he gave us a special deal and that we didnt know how to hunt and thats why there were no hogs unless he ran them with his dogs... he was unable to provide dogs on the last day... he alleged that we ran them too hard... we never ran anything... he ran them... he just blamed us..
When the last of the preserve hunters showed up around 10 am we decided to meet and discuss the situation... the guide was there... he told us in no uncertain terms that he would be glad to take us where ever we wanted to go, low fence or Preserve... and made it clear that he doubte we would see anything... he was honest.. One of our guys ask told him that we were throught hunting, we were over charged, we were swindled and now we had Mr. Walker an all of his threats... yes, it was a hunt to hell.. We asked the guide how much he usually made, he gave us a number, we paid immediatly...and told him we were done and would be packing an leaving.
Mr.Walker called me up and started screaming and threatening me... i asked him to just let it go, we were leaving and we would contact him in the future.. that really got him going.. i hung up... he later send me a voice mail accusting us of everything but the Vietnam Conflict, he made sure to tell me that if he was around it wouldnt be so pretty...he alleged that he had to pay our guide fees and at that point i hung up and deleted his idiotic rant.
It should be noted that Mr. Walker walks around most of the time with a bluetooth in his ear... everysingle on of his conversations were threatening and contentious... throw this guy off the property, dont let these guys in... the entire world seems to be screwing him around.
When we got back home we did a lot of searching... a number of our party have the ability to get fast answers... Mr. Walker has almost no property and surely none in his name.. we checked all of the holding around where we were and Mr. Walker did not even have hunting leases in the area we were in...
You would not believe all the stories this guy could spew... one of the best was where he was hunting out of his own Helo ( no he doesnt own one in his name or his address) and someone called it in... alas, they sent out a flight of f-16's to take him down... and no, i am not making this up. He had his helo landed with no lights and just went quiet unil the Warplanes were out of the area... he had his pilot drive it back to his home... he provided an address... the house is modest... there is no helo-pad or a hanger to park it in... and he has many more.
He also informed us that one of the "top narco traffickers was trying to kill him" since we are in the business we made some recomendations as to a personal defense weapon... he didnt have a clue... twice during the hunt he told us the bad guy had called him..
We could write volumes on this tragedey... the bottom line is that this is one of the worse places we have ever been and Mr. Walker's personality and bluster killed it all..
My Seven Year old Grandson asked me if he could have another chance at his first hunt... Mr. Walker scared him and even he knew that that nothing that came out of his mouth was true.
There are plenty of good hog hunts... this is not one of them... if it was free we would suggest that you stay away..
The one nice thing was that there was a c+ hotel on the water that we stayed at.. it was being remodled however it was better than most hunting camps and they had a bar and restaurant on the water.
I made friends with a few of the service personell at the hotel.. they were all shooters... they all wanted to know why we would pick this guy... we should have known... we asked one of the guys if we should do our range time on Mr. Walkers range... the one he said he had. We were told that if we used it Mr. Walker would tell us that the noise spooked the game.. they took us over to a real nice public range.... The range that Mr Walker says he has is really a 4'x4' skid leaned against a wall with paper plates stapled on to it. There are no tables or chairs... there is a swamp infrested little pond., the shooters layed in the grass and shot the plates.. about 30-40 yards... all the guys who went prone were insect bit so bad they bled.
In the end Mr. Walker told one of the guide to tell us that the acorns were falling and the hogs were eating then and not going to the feeders... we got two of them together and asked the obvious " do the acorns fall every year?" the answer was yes, why would someone schedule a hunt under those conditions... they both looked at the ground and shuffled thier feet...
Whatever you hear, no matter what propaganda is out there... do your selves a favor and find something else.. this is a true unmitigated rip off...
FLORIDA HOG HUNTS Reviews
We have waited for about 3 months before we filed this report, we wanted to be sure we were over the heat
There are a group of us, around 8-12 depending on the year, We are all experienced hunters and have hunted hundreds of clubs over the last 25 years... we are all either retired executives or still employed. This is our once a year blow out and it has always been wonderful, last year was horrible.
We made arrangements with Mr. Walker over the phone, he is quite the gregarious and engaging character during this phase, he will tell you how many thousands of acres he has, how he is a Movie Star and virtually any thing he can make up,.
We agreed upon a two day low fence and one day in his "preserve" we were promised a shot at a animal of 300#'s or more in the preserve...please note, he no longer shows his preserve. There never was one.
We had agreed on a $900 per head rate, for ten hunters. When we arrived he pulled me aside and told me that the hunt was $12,000 not the $9,000 agreed upon,... and the deposit was writtten for. He was in my face in two seconds letting me know that since only 9 hunters showed up he was going to give us a break and only charge us $10,000. I elected to agree, all of our friends and everyone was alread there and he was already threatening and running his mouth. It wasnt that much, however we should have stopped payment and left.
Mr. Walker sits down and starts filling out papers and telling all of us about the horror stories that he had encountered...he told us that if we were to write anything online about his organization we would be arrested by the State of Florida, he further informed us that stopping any credit card charge was a felony and Florida would issue bench warrants without a defendant to even show.. i listened and said nothing, I am a non-practicing lawyer and it was quite clear that this man was delusional.. he goes on to say that he owns nind law offices, has his own helicopter and is a multimillionare... this all within a few minutes of our first meet... he went on and one about how many animals we would see and how wonderful the "preserved" was...
i had my grandson with me for his first hunt... we went out the first morning.. no thousands of acres... no hundreds of acres... not much of anything....one of our guys was able to pull up all of the tract maps in the area and Mr. Walker has nothing,... a few acres here and there.. it would see that most of his animals meander over from protected areas.
Mr. Walker knew this, within a few minutes he has dogs and vehicles out.. WE DO NOT HUNT BEHIND DOGS AND SO STATED. He ran down a few hogs for my grandson and one of our guys who had to leave early.. it wasnt a hunt, it was more like eratication. The guys who went to the "Preserve" were skunked...
The next day we did the same thing... there are were no moving animals and we did everything he said. That afternoon I went with my son and grandson to the "Preserve" to put it mildly, it was a real crap hole.. it was a swamp with some of his exotics running around... from what i saw it sure as hell not much bigger than 20 acres... if that... there were three blinds... all in horrible conditions with very weak fire lanes... we were there past dark.. we saw one 100# sow who came an went in a couple of seconds.. one could tell that she was over hunted... about an hour later a 75# showed up, my grandson took the only shot and missed...
The morning before we went to the Preserve i was hunting with an old buddy of mine.. they told us where to stand and where to look.. and guess what, Mr. Walker, his dogs and his ATV's drove two right by us... this isnt hunting. It was a joke..
We were all sitting around one of his gourmet meals... MRE's were better. He then decides to tell us how he was the star of American Hoggers, he showed us the trucks, jeeps and ATV's used and told us that it was all a set up.. they put hogs in the cages.. cut them loose and made it look like they were really hunting... kicking our trapped hogs so that dogs could chase them was a joke...
The last morning we were there the last of our hunters went though the Preserve... they saw nothing just like eveyone... Mr. Walker had already left for who knows where and we were with his "guides" We sat down with the one guide and told him how dissapointed we were at all the hype and no reality... he stared and we understood he had a job... evidently he spoke to Mr. Walker wherever he was and relayed the fact that we were far less than happy... about an hour later i recieved a phone call from the missing Mr. Walker... he was mad at us... he said he gave us a special deal and that we didnt know how to hunt and thats why there were no hogs unless he ran them with his dogs... he was unable to provide dogs on the last day... he alleged that we ran them too hard... we never ran anything... he ran them... he just blamed us..
When the last of the preserve hunters showed up around 10 am we decided to meet and discuss the situation... the guide was there... he told us in no uncertain terms that he would be glad to take us where ever we wanted to go, low fence or Preserve... and made it clear that he doubte we would see anything... he was honest.. One of our guys ask told him that we were throught hunting, we were over charged, we were swindled and now we had Mr. Walker an all of his threats... yes, it was a hunt to hell.. We asked the guide how much he usually made, he gave us a number, we paid immediatly...and told him we were done and would be packing an leaving.
Mr.Walker called me up and started screaming and threatening me... i asked him to just let it go, we were leaving and we would contact him in the future.. that really got him going.. i hung up... he later send me a voice mail accusting us of everything but the Vietnam Conflict, he made sure to tell me that if he was around it wouldnt be so pretty...he alleged that he had to pay our guide fees and at that point i hung up and deleted his idiotic rant.
It should be noted that Mr. Walker walks around most of the time with a bluetooth in his ear... everysingle on of his conversations were threatening and contentious... throw this guy off the property, dont let these guys in... the entire world seems to be screwing him around.
When we got back home we did a lot of searching... a number of our party have the ability to get fast answers... Mr. Walker has almost no property and surely none in his name.. we checked all of the holding around where we were and Mr. Walker did not even have hunting leases in the area we were in...
You would not believe all the stories this guy could spew... one of the best was where he was hunting out of his own Helo ( no he doesnt own one in his name or his address) and someone called it in... alas, they sent out a flight of f-16's to take him down... and no, i am not making this up. He had his helo landed with no lights and just went quiet unil the Warplanes were out of the area... he had his pilot drive it back to his home... he provided an address... the house is modest... there is no helo-pad or a hanger to park it in... and he has many more.
He also informed us that one of the "top narco traffickers was trying to kill him" since we are in the business we made some recomendations as to a personal defense weapon... he didnt have a clue... twice during the hunt he told us the bad guy had called him..
We could write volumes on this tragedey... the bottom line is that this is one of the worse places we have ever been and Mr. Walker's personality and bluster killed it all..
My Seven Year old Grandson asked me if he could have another chance at his first hunt... Mr. Walker scared him and even he knew that that nothing that came out of his mouth was true.
There are plenty of good hog hunts... this is not one of them... if it was free we would suggest that you stay away..
The one nice thing was that there was a c+ hotel on the water that we stayed at.. it was being remodled however it was better than most hunting camps and they had a bar and restaurant on the water.
I made friends with a few of the service personell at the hotel.. they were all shooters... they all wanted to know why we would pick this guy... we should have known... we asked one of the guys if we should do our range time on Mr. Walkers range... the one he said he had. We were told that if we used it Mr. Walker would tell us that the noise spooked the game.. they took us over to a real nice public range.... The range that Mr Walker says he has is really a 4'x4' skid leaned against a wall with paper plates stapled on to it. There are no tables or chairs... there is a swamp infrested little pond., the shooters layed in the grass and shot the plates.. about 30-40 yards... all the guys who went prone were insect bit so bad they bled.
In the end Mr. Walker told one of the guide to tell us that the acorns were falling and the hogs were eating then and not going to the feeders... we got two of them together and asked the obvious " do the acorns fall every year?" the answer was yes, why would someone schedule a hunt under those conditions... they both looked at the ground and shuffled thier feet...
Whatever you hear, no matter what propaganda is out there... do your selves a favor and find something else.. this is a true unmitigated rip off...