I have decided to share my experience on a hunt where I believe I was scammed by Northwest outfitting, Shane Barbour (also known as Hillbilly) from Graham, Washington. In January of 2022 my wife and I purchased 2 guided Elk hunts from Northwest (NW) Outfitting at the International Sportsman Expo (ISE).
Returning from the ISE we googled Northwest Outfitting and noticed they didn’t have a website. We called that evening, he confirmed his company and said he was known as Hillbilly and had his own TV show at one time. He said he doesn’t have a website because he is not good with computers but assured us we were in good hands. The only thing he provided us with was his cell phone number (253) 353-9420 .
HillBilly (Shane Barbour) called us several times during the summer updating us that he had the perfect site for us on a ranch, a place all set up for my wife to shoot and an Elk that he has been surveying. If we wanted this Trophy Bull we would need to pay more, we agreed. He requested us to Venmo him to Shane Barbour. This is the first time we had heard his real name. My wife googled his name and again, felt very suspicious about this hunt. In her due diligence, she called ISE and spoke with Brent Layng. She shared her concerns with Brent and he assured us he had worked with Shane Barbour for years and he had never heard anything negative. After our experience we are very disappointed that Brent Layng and ISE endorsed Shane Barbour, and we hope they were unaware of what he is doing.
Upon arriving for our hunt on November 14th we meet up with Hillbilly the day prior to our hunt. He showed us our hunting location, it was in a neighborhood (not a ranch), looked sketchy, several broke down cars in the driveway, old abandoned camp trailer, one mobile home with football field type of lighting outside with loud head banging music coming from the inside.
He pointed to a trail marked by red ties and said he didn’t want to go into the hunting site for fear of busting the Elk out. He said the elk were use to the neighborhood noise and loud music. He then advised us he would be busy the next morning and we should go in to the blind by ourselves, stay in the blind till dark and not move. That was the first RED flag we wouldn’t be guided. Next morning we went into the blind at daylight, its was very brushy with only a 22 yard by 28 foot opening for an Elk to pass through. After an hour we began to hear kids going to school, people talking, cars going by, dogs barking, trash cans being brought in and the closest house or mobile home to our location was 118 yards away. It felt extremely unsafe, especially knowing how close people were to our shooting range surrounded by this heavy brush.
After an hour and half we left, I told my wife this is not hunting. I tried to contact Shane to let him know the spot was not an appropriate hunting location, no reply. I decided to go back in the afternoon to look around I found a game camera tied to a tree but no sign of Elk whatsoever. Shane finally got back and said he had another spot and his righthand man Jeremy would meet us at the gas station to lead us to a new location.
Day two, Another yard filled with broken down cars, boats, a school bus and petting zoo full of goats. We were lead to another ground blind and a tree stand and advised the area had been baited with apples the day before Flag number 2. It was a dried up swampy area with a visible house 210 yards away and the highway 350 yards away lot of noise again no reason for Elk to be there. After an hour I went scouting again no sign of Elk tracks.
We hunted the property that day and as we left we met 3 other hunters which stopped us in front of the property getting into our car. They asked if we had been hunting there, I replied, not so much hunting just bird watching, they laughed said they had the same experience the day before from the same guide Shane Barbour.
As we exchanged experiences we learned from this hunter Shane has pulled this hunting scam many times. When researching his name we saw numerous dissatisfied hunters posting they too were scammed. We have talked to 6 other with the same experience. They had talked to police in Graham and were told Washington doesn’t require Guides to have a license and they were aware of Shane and nothing could be done. We spoke with Washington Department Fish and Wildlife and they were aware of the problem, have had several complaints and again, nothing they could do about it. Advised us to call BBB.
We heard, but haven’t confirmed Northwest Outfitting has been banned from Sportsman shows in Roseburg Oregon / Eugene Oregon / Medford Oregon and Anderson California.
My hope is that by sharing my hunting experience with Shane Barbour other unsuspecting individuals will avoid being scammed.
Other hunter experiences listed on the internet: