Complaint Review: Black Creek Plantation - Union Springs Alabama

I’ve been an avid hunter ever since my grandfather put my first shotgun in my hands at the age of 10.  I’ve had the pleasure of hunting various game throughout North America including white tails, mule deer, turkey, black bear, wolves and the list goes on.  This past May, a couple buddies and myself decided to try our hand at a “guided” hog hunt in Alabama.  In this case, I use the term guided very loosely.

We showed up to the cabin, at Black Creek Plantation, in Union Springs, AL to a very kind welcome.  From the initial introduction we had very positive thoughts regarding the hunt.  That lasted up until we   unpacked our bags inside the cabin.  The inside of the place looked as though it had not seen a vacuum nor a dusting since it was constructed.  The furniture looked as though they had gone through two decades of college house parties and the stains on the walls/curtains and lampshades helped support this assumption.  However, we had all stayed in some interesting camps over our hunting careers and figured we would simply chalk this up to another experience.  Besides, we came there to hunt and were remaining positive about the adventures in the field that lay ahead.  Unfortunately the first trip to the woods only helped solidify our worries.

When I initially approached my stand I was astonished by the pure lack of effort in maintaining the actual blinds…laced in cob webs, 2 active hornet nests, a critters nest on the northwest ledge, empty diet coke cans, and a water bottle three quarters full of urine on the ledge facing the feeder.  This instantly told me that these blinds had not been checked nor tended too in quite some time.  The following morning I sat in a ladder stand (stand #9).  The stand set up was nice up until the feeder had not gone off at the time our guide had told us they were set too.  I climbed down out of the stand at roughly 9 a.m. and walked over where I found absolutely no corn on the ground nor on the feeder….THE FEEDER HAD NOT EVEN BEEN FILLED!  When our guide came to pick us up I asked why the feeder had not been filled with corn in which I received a response of pure confusion.  Naturally my next question pertained to why the feeder had not even gone off at the time it was supposed to.  That’s when the guide let us know that they had been having issues with some of the brains on the stands.  A similar scenario happened to my hunting buddy on stand #5 not that far from my location at #9.  He sat in the ladder stand only to find that the “brains” of the feeder were not working properly.  When we brought this to the attention of the guide we were told he would take a look at both of them after he dropped us off back at the cabin.  We had our doubts and with good reason.  By taking a look at them, he meant throwing a bag of corn under one of the stands that evening when I was dropped off and having my buddy spin the feeder at the other location to release some corn to the ground.  That really pissed me off.  Why would you have paying hunters come to your property and not at the very least have your stands working adequately.  At this point the conversation of simply packing our bags and heading back to WI began to arise.  The next day, I even drove into town to the local sporting goods store to purchase bags of corn with the intention of us baiting and prepping our own stands.  Unfortunately with it being Memorial Day they were not open.

We were fortunate enough to shoot 2 pigs in the 4 days we were there.  Understanding it is not the number of animals that is taken but rather the experience of the hunt, we were grateful for the 2 kills.  However as far as the cleaning of the hogs, I have one question….since when do the hunters supply the knives to the “guides” for the cleaning of their own game?  That was certainly news to us.  Once the cleaning of the game is complete, it is my understanding as well that all entrails should be disposed of away from camp.  In this case, the bucket of the pig remains stayed at camp for the entire next day which created a less than favorable aroma and gave what seemed like an open invite to every fly/ant and vulture in Bullock County, AL. 

Once we returned home and decided to reach out to Pitts informing him of our less than favorable experience at his hunting lodge, we were all very surprised to get the email response we did.  First and foremost, questioning the financials of your customers was very shocking.  Every guy in our hunting group paid the dues immediately as we had agreed upon.  So questioning the integrity of our bank accounts was a bit appalling.  If you ask me, I would take a deeper look at what I was offering to future hunters for the checks they are writing to Black Creek Plantation.  We honored our end of the bargain and to be quite frank, we’re left with empty promises.  I’ve been in business for quite some time and not once have I seen a business owner insult both the integrity and character of a customer as directly and rude as this.  I know plenty of women that are excellent shots.  However it sounds to me as though Black Creek disagrees and feels women are not equal in the field.  Not to mention the term “Yankee”.  Would I be fair in assuming then that the new motto of the Black Creek Plantation is “No hunters from the north allowed”?  I have included the email below for everyone to make up their own mind:

-----Original Message-----

From: pitts

To:

Sent: Sun, Jun 8, 2014 3:33 am

Subject: Re: Hog hunting

Mr. Brooks,

     Im sorry you feel that way and sorry yall had such a bad experience. I could tell yall weren't to happy from the tip yall left Chase. Then started to think back about an earlier e-mail you sent about someone else maybe coming to help you with gas money. Maybe it would be a good idea for yall to sit out a year and save up your money. After being in the northeast for 9 years I've gotten a good understanding how you Yankees are and really didn't expect any different. I had Chase put yall in stands that we normally put women kids and the elderly to give yall easy shots and from what i understand someone still missed and another didn't see anything.  That tells me one of you cant shoot and the other likes to sleep. So yall may want to spend the money you save on shooting lessons. Yall should have given my 13 year old son Cole a twenty and he would have given yall some lessons while shooting clays. But anyway im sorry yall had such a bad time. Thanks, Pitts Lowman

 Overall this was supposed to be a great hunt with a couple of buddies with the intention of hopefully creating an annual tradition.  Instead, we found ourselves extremely disappointed and discussing far different memories then those we had hoped for.

Sincerely,

Dissapointed “yankee”