(A Much-Anticipated Trip Gone Bad) Well, hunting is always a challenge! A bad outfitter makes hunting a nightmare. That's what happened on my trip to Adventure Plus Outfitters. I met the owner of Adventure Plus Outfitters, Ashley Wishall, and one of his guides, Chris Tatum, at a February sports show in North Carolina. I was impressed by Chris and quickly determined he would be a good guide and would help us have a good hunt. I contacted Adventure Plus and booked the dates for our hunt. I chose to hunt October 31, 2025, through November 3, 2025. I chose these dates because of the rut. We sent our checks on March 16, 2025, to book the hunt. We arrived for our hunt and were told that Ashley had not received our checks. He said we needed to issue new checks for the deposit and pay for the hunt in full. We checked our bank records and found the checks had been cashed. Ashley had made a mistake and not recorded our checks. His mistake could have cost us an additional $1800.00. We received no apology. I asked Ashley for an orientation about the hunting areas and any rules about the deer harvest. An orientation is listed as a requirement in the Waiver all hunters must sign. He said that he was too busy to talk. He had to go to the taxidermist and the butcher. That missed orientation cost us $750.00 in fines. Be sure to read all points of the Waiver BEFORE signing it! You'll learn the rules the expensive way if you don't. The bad news continued. Chris Tatum was not there to guide us. He had quit Adventures Plus two weeks before the start of the hunting season. Kevin Daniels took over the guide duties and did an outstanding job. He worked hard to give us a good hunt. I hunted 8 sessions and saw deer on only 4 hunts. I hunted hard each day. The deer we saw were does and small bucks. Nothing even approaching a trophy buck. The first day out, one of the hunters in my party shot two small bucks. One went down in the lane, the other one ran. He was not an experienced hunter and thought he had missed the deer. The following morning, he told our guide about the shot he took. The deer was recovered. That evening, Ashley confronted me about the situation, He accused my friend of being dishonest and deceitful. He threatened to end our hunt because of the mistake. He told me he would fine my friend $500.00 for shooting these bucks in the trophy area. We were never told about the rules or the area. The missed orientation was expensive. I shot what I thought was a doe that turned out to be a button buck. It was just before sundown. I had glassed the deer and saw no horns or buttons. That deer cost me a $250.00 fine. The following morning another experienced hunter shot a doe with testicles. He paid a fine too. What a racket! Tens of thousands of dollars a year in fines. I'd sure like to see the books on those. Needless to say, we will not be hunting with Adventures Plus Outfitters again. I'd advise all hunters to be very cautious before booking a hunt with this group. read more

Planning a hog hunt? We booked a feral hog hunt at the Harrisburg outdoor show. Went down first week of June. There was a pen of feral hogs at the lodge. Billy the guide told us that was for kids to hunt not for us. Billy took us to bait our spots the night before we hunted. These spots had no sign at all. Most outfitters bait well ahead of time. It's common knowledge. He told a lot of stories about all the dogs he had that we never saw. We both thought he smelled like booze at 5:30 a.m. Could of been from the night before but he did have beers in the cup holders. I was concerned. My buddy was put in a stand twice with no bait. They took us to our stands well after daylight. There was a dog crate that kept switching trucks although there was no dogs. There was also some kind of lasso in truck. We'd be in our stand and Billy would come pull us and say he found pigs. Each time that dog crate was present. He walked us right up to the pigs upwind and they didn't not spook at all. I'm pretty sure you could just go up and pet them. I've hunted wild pigs before. At this point I knew he was playing us. If he was truthful I wouldn't of booked the hunt. It's the lying and trying to fool us that bothers me. The fact that he thought he was fooling us shows his intelligence. I later found out it's actually illegal to transport and release hogs. I'm waiting to hear back from the DNR. It was a really bad experience. We weren't sure what to do. We should of confronted him but we just left. Vacation days and a lot of money on gear, gas, food and licenses lost. We really looked forward to this trip. I called the owner Ashley a couple days later and he admitted they did this. Told me I wouldn't be happy if I didn't get one. This is not true. We just wanted a real hunt with wild pigs. We left bad reviews on a few sites. I filed a complaint with the better business bureau. This got to him. He called me and rambled for at least 15 minutes. This time he was more careful about admitting it was a fake hunt. He hinted around it. His arrogance was astounding. I didn't argue except to correct him when he accused me of lying. The guide Billy went so far as to say we did the same thing in South Carolina. Ashley added that lie in the BBB complaint response. Please look it up and read it. A blatant lie easily disproven. Ashley actually tried to make it out that I was the bad guy in this. Said I was a keyboard warrior. All I did was post my story. Absolutely absurd. He blamed his guide billy for "not reading us right" and us not communicating we wanted a real hunt. He said the penned feral pigs were to feed customers. Why wouldn't you just use regular farm pigs? Because I don't think he was being honest. He said he didn't care about the YouTube, google and yelp reviews and it wouldn't affect his business. He then said if I took them down he would refund our money. You'll notice his positive reviews were all posted within a day or two. I deserve my money back regardless of leaving bad reviews but we took the reviews down. He said he was starting the process of refunding us that day was Monday the 13th. That Friday I texted him asking if he sent it and he said we'd have it next week. Early the next week I texted him and he said it would go out that week. Friday my friend texted and he said it was going in the mail that day and my friend would get a refund on his card. Texted him Wednesday the 29th and he said it was sent last Friday. It's now Friday the 31st. It would of arrived by now. My friend also received no money on his credit card. Not sure what his plan is but I don't believe we're getting any refund. We expected he would do this. Nothing has been straight forward with this whole ordeal. read more

Adventures Plus Outfitters - Penned pigs for hunting - Wildlife Hunting Ranges Near Me - Tarboro, North Carolina

HUNTERS BEWARE! You've probably read about the shaky deals this outfit does with pig hunting. Let me tell you about my horrible experience deer hunting with them. I booked a 5-day hunt for $2,100 the first week of November 2021. It barely lasted 24 hours. Prior to the hunt I informed Ashley that I'm a Vietnam vet, 70+ years old, titanium left knee, bone-on-bone right knee, and a recently recovered broken left arm. I wanted to book a hunt with a ground blind for corn-fed whitetail and was told by Ashley no problem, no problem, no problem. When I arrived at the property, I was told by the property owner that there was no longer a large volume of deer in this area since they quit planting corn years ago (nothing but cotton and soybeans now). It was only after I gave Ashley my deposit in full and signed his extensive miniscule print release that I realized a scam was going on. The first morning in the tree stand, it was not on the ground. It was 10 feet in the air with no ladders to climb up. The blinds were fully open with 2x4 framing and burlap walls, and you couldn't stand up in the blind. Horrible construction to say the least. After the morning hunt I had to be helped down from the stand by the second in command. I informed him that I was not good at elevations off the ground and that I had booked a trip for corn-fed whitetail in a closed ground blind. When I got out of the tree stand the first evening, I severely bruised my left elbow (on the arm that was previously broken) getting out of the tree stand by myself. It was blatantly apparent that these hunting accommodations were not going to work. None of the things that Ashley told me were true. Once Ashley received his money in full, I never saw him again. I informed the second in command of my physical limitations and Ashley's assurance that my needs would be accommodated. It fell upon deaf ears. Along with being treated like a piece of dirt and constantly lied to, the food and accommodations were extremely substandard in comparison to all the numerous other hunts that I have booked across the U.S. After leaving the property within 24 hours, upon my return to California I contacted Ashley to work out a mutual financial resolution. He was totally unwilling to refund any portion of this hunt, although I was only there for 1 out of 5 days and he did not provide any of the necessary services that he said he would for this hunt. I would not hunt with this guy again if it was totally free. P.S. There was no game to speak of on this property. HUNTERS BEWARE! NOTE: If you want to kill whitetail corn-fed deer in large volume with a guarantee, do your homework and go to Texas. I have been there numerous times and will return there again. To protect other fellow hunters from being scammed, a copy of this letter will be sent to the local Better Business Bureau and the Veteran's Administration. read more