March 2007 Updates page 9
21 March
Report Card
We certainly appreciate those members that take the time to send in their feedback and especially those that allow us to post it to the update page and all the more so when someone takes the effort to hand write their letters.
Sending in feedback for our in-house use and not for the update page happens about twice a week. That information is shared by the two Jo(h)ns and is incorporated into our decision making. In the case of Brandon's or Rex's letters below their value is not limited to "bragging rights" for the staff it will show what hunt quality value points others have found in their membership. Each describes how there is a lot more to hunting than the hunt.
From all the feedback we receive by snail mail, email, member to staff telephone calls and the handful of members we call for feedback across all hunting disciplines each year the feedback is far more positive than negative. However, we do not pretend that all things are perfect at all times. Areas requiring more attention are lease sign posting (more to come on this topic); first year upland bird member expectations of hunt quality compared to effort and overall first year member jump start.
Thank you Brandon for all the reminders of what is as or more important than the harvest.
Another Hunt Another Report Card
MAHA Office staff,
I am writing in regards to my fall firearms deer trips to [location deleted]. Lets start with the [location deleted] opener. First of all, I finally got to meet the owner of our club after 4 years, and as it turned out, I met up with Jon twice in a week. We got our first choice in [location deleted] where I killed a 160 class buck last year. My brother Dan, and my son Austin and I were very excited in anticipation of opening morning. Austin had a case of buck fever when a large racked buck with stickers came by chasing a doe first thing. His shot missed, and he was bummed. We never saw another trophy class buck in three days, and we all filled our tags on the last day of our hunt with some smaller buck., we also thinned out the doe population a little. We donated the 5 deer to the local butcher who in turn has a local church with people in need.
We also had the camp shared with another familiar club member who frequently sends in pics of him and his family, [name deleted]. Their group was excited the night before opening day, not only for the hunt, but his son had a state playoff football game on Fri night. Although the game did not end well, their hunt was successful as well taking a nice buck. It was good to see a father spending some quality time with his children.
On to [location deleted] for the firearm opener it was. Little did we know that a major blizzard was going to hit on the second day. When we got there the day before season, we were setting stands in 65 degree weather, then on the opener, the rains set in and the temps started to fall.
Before we left, I had set some pretty lofty goals of trying to wait out for a Boone and Crocket class buck. I passed on three bucks in the 140's, one on the first day in the rain, and two more during the blizzard. The weather put a complete halt to most of the deer movement, however after the snow quit, and the winds quit blowing, the deer started to move again. It was on my last day when I decided to take a medium sized 8pt. and a doe.
I had two friends along who are not in the club, they hunted the WIHA (public land) in the area and did quite well also. All three of us filled our buck tags, and doe tags. As you can tell by the pics, the deer were frozen solid when we loaded them up for the ride home. I had the camper, atv, and all the deer loaded on the f350. (Ford should be interested in using this pic for their advertising campaign) Needless to say, we got a lot of looks during our 12 hour drive home to [home state deleted].
We had super time despite the weather, and can't wait for turkey season this spring. A great big thank you goes out to Shaun, Jon, and John for all your hard work to make this club run so smooth.
Sincerely and God Bless, Rex
Thanks Rex. It appears you and your family always have a great hunt. Thanks for the doe pictures, we always want to see more of that. Good luck to come.
