Dakota Hunting Lodge

Hunted with the great folks at Dakota Hunting Lodge for many years and had a great experience. We got a bunch of birds, the lodge and home cooking were awesome. Highly recommend Dakota Hunting Lodge. Great hunting experience.
5 9 years ago (21-01-2017)

I have visited North Dakota once before and rented a trailer house to stay and bring food for ourselves. That week went great, but this time after checking around I had thought it might be worth the extra money to stay at a "lodge". After checking on multiple other lodges I contacted this one and immediately asked for a price per night. The owner quoted me a price per night with a guide. I asked if we could rent the lodge with everything minus the guided hunt. Prices were given and reservations were made and a down payment of 50% was sent and received with conformation from the owner. Approximately one week before our arrival I received a phone call from the owner stating that we owed more money, even though nothing had changed from the 10 months prior when the reservations were made. After a ten minute argument he reluctantly changed his mind. For the first two days of our hunt rules were expected, but never really explained. Most of the information we received was from the group that had arrived before us in regards to what time meals were, taking hats off while at the table, and how birds were supposed to be cleaned, etc. Everyone has there own idea of a perfect hunting trip, and mine includes relaxing, having fun and not worrying about making anyone else outside the hunting party happy. Dinner was at seven which was before the end of hunting hours. One night the comment made to us was "Do you KNOW what time dinner is?" after we arrived five minutes late. For the first half of our stay attitude was poor from hosts and gradually warmed up by the end of the trip. To sum up the whole stay, if you would like to go on a relaxing trip without worrying about keeping the hosts happy then this is not the lodge for you. In the end, we enjoyed our stay, but felt as though we never had our own time to ourselves aside from hunting due to the fact that one of the owners was always with us up until when we went to bed. Long story short, I have a busy life and ended up coming home more stressed than when I left.
2 10 years ago (23-10-2015)

So we set up yesterday morning with high expectations and 400 snow and dark deeks when a guide from above mentioned outfitter pulls up 150yds downwind of our spread and puts his three clients and a couple of dozen decoys out. He leaves the clients lying on the ground with burlap to cover themselves with and pulls off. Daylight comes and so do the snows who refuse to work us because of the party of three are sticking out only covered in burlap. Mean while a few ducks begin to work us only to be cut off by the spread placed downwind. After watching the Lodge's clients down some, one of the trio walks over with three mallard hens and says he is in need of assistance due to the fact they are over the limit of hens. Thinking to my self "the balls on this guy" I politely decline. The gentleman places the birds behind my blind and walks away. When the guide returned we returned the ducks to the party of hunters and picked up our stuff. I thought I would inform everyone of the tactics used by this particular outfitter, and hope that he doesn't do this to anyone else. Game and Fish was notified of the poaching violation.
1 10 years ago (06-11-2015)