Turnpike Ridge Outfitters

Submitted by: Dale Severcool

Review Submitted: Feb 11, 2011

Hunt Date: Jun 8, 2009

Species Hunted: Black Bear

Days Hunted: 6

Hunt Type: Guided

Primary Terrain: Mountain

Method: Rifle

Price Range: 1000-1999

Spring Bear Hunt

I have hunted with this outfitter in Maine and Quebec and they are a top notch service. My wife has hunted twice also and she absolutely had a great time and harvested a bear her first time, had plenty of opportunity the 2nd time. And she said herself wasn't because of lack of effort on the guide, she made the mistakes. She will go back again, I am headed back on a hunt w/ them again in the fall w/ several friends. Usually when I go approx 7-8 other hunters book at the same time and we have a great adventure everytime!

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Submitted by: Chris Aikey

Review Submitted: Feb 2, 2011

Hunt Date: not provided

Species Hunted: Black Bear

Days Hunted: 0

Hunt Type: Hunt Type

Primary Terrain:

Method:

Price Range:

turnpike ridge outfitters maine bear hunts don hel

while i must agree with all the negatives,flat tires,dons general asshole attitude i would like to add on it my group took a hunt and stayed at prays cottages the cabins were nice running water hot and cold,flush toilets and generally very clean.we saw mrs pray more than don. he showed up on sunday to collect the balance of the hunt money,was in camp about a whole hour gave us all a 3 dollar hat and was outta there. the food was generally awlful hot dogs, meatless spaggetti, cold cut meats i doubt the budget spent per person on food for a week was 25 bucks when we got our bears and we did get bears so the guides were awesome they took our gallbladders which they stated were there bonus money seems its legal to sell them in maine. which is fine but how about giving a discount for the extra income all in all i would NOT recomend Turnpike ridge outfitters but if going fishing i Would seek out prays cottages

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Submitted by: Josh Lewis

Review Submitted: Sep 28, 2010

Hunt Date: Sep 20, 2010

Species Hunted: Black Bear

Days Hunted: 6

Hunt Type: Guided

Primary Terrain: Any

Method: Rifle

Price Range: 1000-1999

fall bear hunt

My complaints range from the general attitudes of the guides to the owner himself. Both were more concerned with when you eat your meal rather the actual hunting. One thing that was not specified was the use of your own personal vehicle, plan on driving 40-60 miles in each direction from the camp to your bait area. The roads are gravel and dirt and not smooth at all plan on driving 35-40 mph or you will tear up your vehicle. One hunter shot a bear in the evening and instead of harvesting the bear the next morning the guides waited until the next afternoon, by that time the bear was rotten and the hide was no good.The excuse was the area was too far from the camp to drive for just one hunter. The owner was more concerned with the ten corporate hunters than he was with the average hunter who was paying the same amount to hunt there. If you dont mind tearing up your own vehicle and playing second fiddle to corporate hunters i would recommend this outfitter. Lastly I hunted 6 days and did not even see a bear we had a 45% success rate not the 85% advertised.

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Submitted by: Dennis Eckenrode

Review Submitted: Sep 12, 2010

Hunt Date: not provided

Species Hunted: Black Bear

Days Hunted: 0

Hunt Type: Hunt Type

Primary Terrain:

Method:

Price Range:

I would recommend Turnpike Ridge Outfitters for a

I went on a baited black bear hunt this spring with Turnpike Ridge Outfitters. We arrived on Sunday August 29, 2010 and departed on Saturday, September 4, 2010. We had 6 people in our group. This was the first week of the baited bear hunt for the Spring. 4 of us killed on Monday, 1 of us killed on Tuesday and 1 of us killed on Friday. We could check in on Sunday after noon and had to check out by 9AM the following Sunday. There were 22 people in camp. When we left Saturday morning, there were only four hunters left that needed to kill a bear that day. Talk about a high success rate. I was impressed. The Salmon Pool Camp is a wonderful and relaxed environment, and makes for very comfortable accommodations. Our cabin was set up for 6 people. There were 3 bunk beds, solid wood, with mattresses and bedding which were surprisingly very comfortable. The cabin had a small room attached to it with a table, chairs, gun rack and storage cabinet. The cabin was very clean upon arrival. This camp is far north of public utilities; however they have propane light fixtures in the cabins. Just turn on the valves, light a match and you have light just like at home. There is a natural cold spring that they have plumbed with PVC pipe so you can still get fresh clean water. They even have a makeshift shower set up. If you are that much of a sissy on a bear hunt, you can start a fire and heat the water and get a hot shower. Almost everyone in camp (22 hunters plus staff) just used the Aroostik River to bathe, which is located directly behind the camp. It is a clean, clear, rock bottomed river that was a comfortable temperature to bathe in. This reminds me, the cold spring pumps into a deep hole in the river. The salmon and trout were in huge schools. Make sure you get a combination hunting and fishing license. We had a blast fishing at the Salmon Pool Camp. The regulations on the river were: 1 trout a day, artificial lures and flies only, couldn

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note: The following reviews predate the numeric rating system and are not included in this outfitter's overall rating.

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outfitter review submitted by: Ace on Feb 20 2010

Species Hunted: black bear

Game Quality: good

Accommodation Quality: rustic but clean

Camp Condition: good

Food Quality: good

Guide Experience: very good

Other Personal Experience: good

Overall Impression: exciting

Recommend: yes

Reviewer Comments: This is an easy hunt. you will shoot a bear if you listen to don and do what he tells you to do. You have to stay perfectly motionless. I got my bear the first night. Good bear habitat in this part of Maine.

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outfitter review submitted by: Len Read on Feb 17 2010

Species Hunted: Bear

Game Quality: average

Accommodation Quality: excellent

Camp Condition: good

Food Quality: n/a

Guide Experience: excellent

Other Personal Experience: good

Overall Impression: poor

Recommend: no

Reviewer Comments: This occurred in June 2000. I was new to bear hunting and assumed their would be some guidance. 50 miles from any civilization, I was placed in a lawn chair on the ground 50 yards from a bait bucket that was upwind from me. When I asked Don about being directly downwind from the bait bucket, he stated the bears will come from any direction. He left to deliver other hunters to their "stands". Before dusk,, I had a approx. 200 lb. bear sneak up to 5 paces from behind me coming toward the bait bucket that was upwind. It bolted when it recognized my presence. I was left at the site for approximately 2 (two) hours after dark before the guide came back to pick me up (dark moonless night). Almost everyone got a bear including me, the nimrod. However, I shot the first bear that appeared and gave me a shot after 4 days of intensive hunting. The guides were aloof and did not interact with the group I was with. They hung around with their buddies. Not what I would call a good quality hunt

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outfitter review submitted by: George Harpole on Oct 28 2009

Species Hunted: Black Bear

Game Quality: Good

Accommodation Quality: Fair

Camp Condition: Good

Food Quality: Good

Guide Experience: Outstanding

Other Personal Experience: Very Good

Overall Impression: Good

Recommend: Conditionally

Reviewer Comments: I hunted black bear with Turnpike Ridge Outfitters in September 2009. The camp is located at Salmon Pool in the North Maine Woods near Ashland, ME. The camp is rustic and nice; however, there is no running water available for hunters use. The only water source available to hunters is the Aroostook River and a small PVC pipe providing a trickle of water from a spring. There is a makeshift shower available that requires hunters to carry water from the spring, pour it into a wood fired boiler, heat to temperature and manually pour the heated water into a shower tank for showering. A time consuming camp chore that camp workers should be doing, not the hunters. Restroom facilities consist of a simple double privy with barrel type urinals which is about what would be expected by most hunters at a remote camp. The small PVC spring pipe is the only source for appropriate hand washing. The cabins are heated with wood, lighted with gas lights and are comfortable; however, hunters must split and carry fire wood to the cabins. This is another chore that camp workers should be doing. The cook house is very nice and well organized. There are three meals daily, consisting of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast consists of bacon, pancakes, french toast, etc. The lunch meal is balanced, consisting of chicken, beef, vegetables, etc. The dinner meal consists of mainly cold cuts and chips and is served after hunters return in the evening toward midnight for some. The ladies that run the kitchen are very efficient although one of them seemed rude at times. There are hidden costs with this outfitter, especially if you have a vehicle in camp. There were approximately 4 guides for about 20 hunters. It was not possible for all hunters to be placed on stands each day using only guide vehicles. Some hunters were required to drive their own vehicles and this was not known up front. Beware of this! The roads are very rocky, destroy standard passenger tires and are very hard on vehicles. Some hunters driving their own vehicles had to purchase new tires to continue hunting. To my knowledge, the guide service never offered to pick up the cost of tire replacement or to defray the cost of gasoline for those using their own vehicles. A big financial plus for the guide service at the cost of the hunters, especially when you consider that some stands were located in excess of 50 miles from the camp. The area has lots of bears with the average running less than 200 lbs. Our hunters took bears weighing less than 100 lbs to in excess of 400 lbs. The three stands that I hunted were well prepared with two having been recently hit. The third showed no evidence of recent activity. This guide service has stringent rules and hunters are expected to comply at all times. Some rules were not safety related and seemed to be odd as I have never experienced this with other bear guides. The guide seems very comfortable with berating hunters with inappropriate language if for some reason a rule is not complied with. Guides also seem comfortable with making fun of some hunters, especially if they in some way do not seem to fit in. Success with this outfitter during my hunt was high with success ratio running at approximately 85 percent. These people have been bear hunting for a long time and are good at what they do. This outfitter in my view is out-of-line with it's tip policy. The outfitter requires all tips to be put into a pool which is apparently split between workers. I offered tips to individual workers that were not accepted. I feel it is up to the hunter to tip however he feels inclined to do so without being regulated in this personal matter by the guide service. I would not unconditionally recommend this outfitter to others. I would not do so mainly because:(1)In my opinion all hunters were not always treated equally and with the respect that a paying guest should receive and (2)Utilizing your own vehicle to the cost of $20.00 - $40.00 a day, not to mention wear and tear is unreasonable. If the negatives are not a significant problem for you, the many positives could make Turnpike Ridge Outfitters what you are looking for in your pursuit of taking a black bear in the beautiful North Maine Woods.

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outfitter review submitted by: George Dillon on Sep 22 2009

Species Hunted: Black Bear

Game Quality: Average

Accommodation Quality: Average

Camp Condition: Average

Food Quality: Average

Guide Experience: Good

Other Personal Experience: Average

Overall Impression: Below Average

Recommend: No

Reviewer Comments: To start this story off, I have been anxiously waiting for this week in September 2009 for a year, just to go bear hunting at Turnpike Ridge Outfitters in Maine with a total of 7 hunters in our group. Let me say right off the bat on the first day of the hunt and only 2 hours and 15 minutes on the stand I killed a nice 200 lb black bear. I was so happy that my first bear hunting experience went so well. Now that being said, let me get to the nitty-gritty of how things went throughout the week at camp. I found out really quick that the owner Don Helstrom was not a nice man. He was rude and crude to say the least. He mistreated several guys in the camp throughout the week. He made fun of them and made unprofessional comments about certain hunters in his truck as he took us to our bait sites. I felt very uncomfortable to say the least. In his information regarding his hunts, there is no where that it states that we have to use our own personal vehicles to get back and forth from camp to the bait sites. Well when we got their we were all shocked that we had to use our own trucks. Now you say what's wrong with using your own vehicle, let me tell you that you are over 40 miles away from a paved road out in the middle of nowhere at the camp site. The roads are terrible and beat your vehicles up bad. The roads are covered in Shale, this in turn means that there are sharp and jagged pieces of rock all over the place. There were a total of 10 flats and that ended up costing over $1,800 in new tires as they left holes in the tires that were not fixable. These drivers had to take time away from hunting to drive an hour and a half to Presque Isle to order new tires. Also if you drive your own vehicle there, be prepared to go to Ashland every other day to fill up, as it costs around $40.00 a day to drive, because Clayton Lake is where you hunt and it's almost 70 miles each way which takes 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to get back on terrible logging roads. Hunters left at 12pm and were lucky to get back at 12am and sometimes 1am in the the morning from their hunts. Don Helstrom not once offered to help with our flats or give us a break as we used our own gas. After a bunch of us guys got together, we all found out that Don is using his hunters to save himself money. There were 3 guides and 22 hunters, tell me how in the heck can 3 guides haul 22 hunters everyday to the bait sites. It aint happening. We ending up paying alot extra in the end. After talking to Gayle, Don Helstoms wife, about having to drive our own trucks, she said after all all you guys have money, or you wouldn't be here. I about fell over when she told us that. Gayle has a helper, her name is Janet. She is awesome and was the glue that kept the camp together all week. She takes excellent care of you and makes up for the rudeness of the Helstroms. Lets get to the guides. First off, they are very experienced in what they do, but several of them were not talkative and very crabby and in some cases rude to the hunters that were there. They don't like questions and don't want to be talked too. George was the worst, with Jeff being the nicest all week. The camp was rustic, I like rustic, but didn't like the fact that you had to go to the spring and fill up a 5 gallon bucket of water to take a shower with. The spring is a little trickle of water that comes out of a pvc pipe from the ground. It takes around 10 minutes to fill up. Then you have to take the water to a tank and pour it in and then build a fire and then 45 minutes later the water was hot, and then you could take the water to the shower and use it. Very time consuming. The bathrooms are disgusting and smell of fecal matter and urine. I can't say much more. In the end, if you want to get used and abused, and kill a bear possibly go here. If you want to be treated like a human being and most of all a customer, don't go here. Don Helstrom ruined my first successful black bear hunt, I will never forget that. Thank you all and I hope someone will find this helpfull.

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outfitter review submitted by: Ken Kennon on Sep 14 2009

Species Hunted: Black Bear

Game Quality: Excellent. Mostly boars – 150 to 250 lbs. with several 300+ taken. Many of the hunters were first

Accommodation Quality: Unbelievable!! We were in 100

Camp Condition: Clean. Organized. Outhouses we

Food Quality: Gail (DonÂ’s wife) and Janet p

Guide Experience: Very Good. Don and George run

Other Personal Experience: All were engaging, helpful and

Overall Impression: Well planned and organized. ItÂ’s obvious they know what theyÂ’re doing. A lot of work goes on to

Recommend: Absolutely. DonÂ’t be fooled

Reviewer Comments: My two high school buddies and I have been doing unguided hunts out West for several years. On the drive back through Nebraska last year, I mentioned a guy I work with had been on two successful bear hunts in Maine. ThatÂ’s all it took and the planning began. WeÂ’ve been waiting all year for this hunt and it couldnÂ’t have been any better. My two sons, (30 and 24) came with us this year for the first time. My oldest son was the only one without a kill, but he had to leave on Thursday due to work. We left camp Friday morning so IÂ’m not sure how the week ended, but it was 19 out of 23 with two days left. WeÂ’ll all go back in two years after my buddyÂ’s son graduates from high school. We used this website to check out this outfitter before booking our hunt and found only positive postings. Combined with my co-workerÂ’s experience, we went. I hope this posting will help others. ItÂ’s a lot of money and it would be a shame to have a bad experience if you donÂ’t have to.

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outfitter review submitted by: Brian Ruse on Oct 18 2008

Species Hunted: Bear

Game Quality: Great

Accommodation Quality: Good

Camp Condition: Good

Food Quality: Great A++

Guide Experience: Very good

Other Personal Experience: good

Overall Impression: well worth it

Recommend: Yes

Reviewer Comments: I booked this hunt with a buddy. We shared the camp with 12 others. We got along really good. We hunted active baits that were in great areas. If the bait didn't get hit the after 2 days we were moved. I saw a good size bear the first 5 minutes of the hunt and never raised the gun. THe next to last day I got a huge 300lb boar. My buddy got a good size sow. Out of 14 hunters 12 got bears, 1 we couldn't fnd and the other 1 didn't get a bear. He said it was his 10th trip and was holding out for a 400lb bear since he got one every year for the last 10 years. I look forward to going back, Don is first class guy and the food is excellent. I had a great time.

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