EP 275: The Epic Stuck Episode, Mule Deer and Big Game in Idaho, Wyoming, New Mexico and Nevada.
This episode will have you on the edge of your seat as Jason and Adam share the times that they got stuck in the desert with NO WATER. With all this snowfall and moisture we have to reminisce on a time when water wasn’t so plentiful just to keep our perspective in check. Jason and Adam talk upcoming deadlines in the month of April and their excitement for Nevada, Wyoming and New Mexico Big Game. Logan is back to defend himself on his “shed hunting” trip he had last week and the adventures he had, all of which didn’t amount to much time spent looking for sheds.
*Closed Caption Transcription is not perfect, this transcription does not represent the ideals and beliefs of Epic Outdoors or its employees, some statements may be inaccurate. We encourage you to listen to the audio to resolve any confusion.*
Anything to do with Western Big Game. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armor.
Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson coming at you from Southern Utah. It’s awesome. It’s like freaking 70 something degrees Bronson. Last couple days. I’ve seen nothing but major water coming outta that canyon. Yeah,
It’s the canyon’s spitting hard right now, but it’s got, it’s nothing what it’s gonna be
Like. No, but I, I mean from, we’ve been watching day to day and two days ago it was half of what it is. Yes. What it was yesterday. And who knows what’s gonna happen today. The mountain’s warm. It’s unbelievable. And yeah, they’ve got it diverted in like three different streams and if there’s significant water coming off that hill,
So will be for months too.
Kind of crazy. How about, how about Josh was, went skiing over the weekend, snow skiing.
Yeah, he did. It was, I don’t know, spring break for his kids or something like that. And he lit, he’s burnt to a crisp on the right side of his face. Cuz apparently you right up going, you know, west to
East. Spent too much time on the lake
West to east and that South’s face just cooked him.
I don’t know, I, I mean, hey, he’s, kudos to him.
Second or third degree burns on his face. Yeah. It looks like. Yeah.
The old man went snowboarding. How about app? Yeah, John did it. John was up there too. Saw each other up there. Kind of crazy. I don’t know.
I’m looking. Yeah. And then how was John or Josh walking yesterday around the office?
He seemed a little bit
Bowl legged and shuffling.
Yeah. He was wounded.
Sore. Yeah. Yeah. Muscles you don’t use if you don’t ski often.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
If you try to ski, ski aggressively, I skied as a, as a youth couldn’t do that through high school sports and all that, just because kind of a team rule. But skied very little after it got expensive. Of course you get. And then I got other expensive habits like hunting and so I don’t ski and now I’m kind of spared to get back into it cuz you’re gonna blow something out. It’s the same reason I quit playing church ball and stuff. You’re gonna blow an Achilles knee. Everything else
You quit chasing tie around the house.
Yeah, exactly. Well look at your kid. He once he’s 16, he’s had how many shoulder problems? Oh, due a snowboarding
Scheme. He had surgery. Yeah, he’s down and out. I now have a permanent tro cam scouting friend for the summer. No job or nothing. And my kids, because he
Can’t lift ice. He’s a nice deliverer.
Well, doesn’t one
Of the jobs Yeah.
Builds ice. Makes ice cut. Size. He could probably sells ice. He could drive. Yeah. Is he gonna drive truck? No he
Can’t. Oh. CDO gotta be 18 probably, huh?
Yeah. Yeah.
So what do you got?
I’ve got a buddy for
The hills. Okay.
Sometimes he’s awesome. That words.
That’s a slave. Oh
Well, hey, if, if we did human trail cams nowadays I’d do, he’d be my human trail camera. So, hey,
He’s your last son. You might need to pass something on something.
I don’t know. Ashley’s, Ashley’s as heart of Hunter as all of them. So anyway, she’s killing it.
You can’t quite give her the the slave driver job. So she’s a girl daughter. You got daddy take care of his little girl. Justin, go pound the post. Oh yeah, you gotta dislocate his shoulder. Nevermind.
Nevermind. All right. Here, here’s the coyote gun. Oh, it’s your right shoulder. We can’t pound that. That’ll have to shoot all the coyotes.
Oh yeah. Just have me a Pepsi. Justin. Just have me a Pepsi. Can you gimme that?
Oh, poor kid. Anyway. Bummer. He’s still getting trucks muddy. Trust me. I’ve been sending him out. He’s been,
He can’t be driving.
Looking around a little bit. Not, not been out and about. Can’t
Drive the stick or is he back driving the stick
Automatic? No, no. Nope, nope. He’s been traveling to Arizona, cranking the hills and I mean if he trips one time, you’re back in for another three to five months. It’s a problem. I
Said those rotator cuffs, you don’t mess around with him.
Yeah. He’s like six foot two or something and, and just like,
You know, you go down hard, you’re in the heap,
You’re all arms and legs at that age. Don’t be clumsy, you know, so anyway. Well we don’t have anything specific today where there’s a lot of kinda loose ends. Bronson, who knows, who knows where this is all gonna go and sometimes these are our be best podcasts. But anyway, we initiated the mules matter movement, so to speak, and with the help of everybody in the hunting world. And we appreciate all the support as we kind of talked about the challenges that that Mueller are facing, whether it be droughts combined with harsh winters, harsh winters up north, droughts down here now, you know, just the changing of of weather patterns makes a huge difference as well as management with the, within the state and then maybe even some states being apathetic to change when they need to change and, and you know, trying to put that off as long as they can, just for obvious reasons.
Lots of reasons. They want lots of participation. They also wanna generate revenue and there’s balance budgets to balance and o and other, other things as well. You know, there’s a lot of people that, that are, some people that just absolutely don’t care about an age class and structure and proper management and 14 other variables. And so anyway, trying to keep us all happy and that’s not easy. We did bring up some of those challenges and talked about some of it and then we just thought, well the least we could do is, is try to, is is try to not kill the babies. You know, it, you know what I’m talking about.
Well, yeah, and I mean, talked about
States some of this you and I a little
Bit. Yeah. And you know, this last week, I think it was Friday, we’re getting ready for this May magazine, which we do cover Wyoming antelope, deer. And main reason why we put that off and don’t cover it earlier in January is for the very reason of what happened this year is since you don’t have to apply for those till the end of May, we put those off to gauge winter effects on deer and or antelope around Wyoming before we go to print. And by the time we go to print, we normally have the permit recommendations so it makes sense to put it off to like an April mag. Yeah. Well obviously thankfully you did because you could apply for those back in in January. Yeah. Yep. Luckily you can amend, it’s easy to amend your application. But, but we’re seeing monumental. So Friday they came out with an additional set of permit recommendations that went even deeper in most places, especially for antelope.
Some deer eliminated tons of doon tags all over the state for antelope and eliminated or cut severely even more buck or the, any antelope quotas throughout the state, which just, and I’ve gotten, I’ve, I’ve spent hours and hours as, as we’ve done in other states, Jason and Idaho and Utah and other places watching these YouTube presentations about from biologists that are given around the state. And it, man, it sounds bleak up there. And these were, these were done. Wow. These weren’t done this week. These were done. Some of them you’re reading them and they were the initial Yeah. Permit cuts. And now a month, a month later things have worsened. They got more big crushing snows and they’ve gone deeper. I bet you’d see and even hear the, I dunno desperation even more if, if they rerecorded those today. But anyway, enough said Wyoming Yeah.
Is making some changes there. They’re cutting some season dates off the end of some of the western popular g and h units to end them the end of September. And don’t go into that first week of October. Also go into three point or better in, in those areas. And they specifically say this is 100% to prevent, to prevent from harvesting yearling bucks because they’re, they’re basically saying if a buck is strung or a fond is strong enough to just to survive this winter, we want him around a while. Yeah. And, and they’ve already gone. So you and I 90%,
So you and I teased a little bit and we’re saying in part in some states, and even, you know, even let’s just say within Utah, you know, we’ve seen where they want to their
Increase in tax, kill the babies for one reason.
Kill the FS down south, save the fons up north, you know, or because we’re potentially gonna save some fons up north, let’s issue tags and, and harvest ’em down south because they, you know, they’re not up against winter kill ever.
Just different with the perspective. They’re making stuff three pointer better to save every two point that makes it. And and other places, Utah. Yeah. Southern Utah. They’re, they’re dramatically increasing tags in some units for the, with the sole rationale that we have a big fong crop coming in this year. A big fong crop at two points. Yeah. That’s the only reason they can base it on. Yeah. It’s the only thing that’s happened since deep cuts last year.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s Kill
The babies.
I know it. And it’s, it’s a little awkward to say it, it, it kind of jerks a little bit about it triggers you a little bit and which it’s supposed to we’re, I, I’m not a fan of of, of, you know, harvesting the small ones. Well I’m okay with people having an experience and, and
Kids and all that are totally different. We’ve said that a million times. But I mean, when you dramatically increase by what, what they’ve done in some units in southern Utah, just based on the fond crop’s coming up this year,
Abnormal pressure on those young bucks.
Yeah. Well, and let’s put how many three, four year old bucks do we even have on these units because of the drought. Right. We we’re not even out of the drought. They’re so slow to cut tags during the drought, but so fast. One good moisture year that we’re gonna add, add ’em right back. Right. It’s just what my first, so there’s a lot of I don’t wanna get going on.
No, no. And they’re, you know, we’ve a lot of, of frustrations. We’ve vented plenty. But we kind of wanted to do a little bit of a recap because this mules matter movement has got so many, so much traction. We’ve had a lot of donations that’s significant by personal, personal people. Not, some are quasi businesses, small businesses. Some are just individuals that don’t want to be named, that are, that are thrown in optics. So, and, and legit not, we’re not talking there. The, you know, you 10 year old used optics we’re talking no inbox optics. And so it’s
Not gonna be a rinky-dink thing. We’re not giving giveaway hats and t-shirts.
No. I mean, wait, maybe, maybe along with a good price. Significant prizes. Yeah, that’s right. And so we’re just, we’re so excited about it. We just appreciate all the support out there anyway. And, and, and it’s not necessarily, you know, support for us as, as well as just that the, it’s raising an awareness of let’s let’s not shoot the young, you don’t have’s the moms. Let’s just, you know, do our, do our best to, I mean, we gotta do something. We gotta do something in addition to what the states are doing to sometimes to help our own. Cause this is our own industry. We all own this me, you the members of Epic Outdoors, everyone listening. We all own this industry. And so what can we do? There’s, there’s things we can do. Yeah. May, may not make a difference with the states, may not. Maybe at times we have. But this is something we can all do. Everybody can throw in a little and it’s, it’s been way fun. Yep.
To be a part of Save some bucks, pun intended.
Well, yeah. Literally. Geez, we’re gonna save some bucks. You know, the one thing I wanted to talk about a three pointer better, you know, is I worry a little bit if it’s three points on one side and a fork on the other side. You get this, you know, shoot, pray, leave and lay walk concept.
Wow. Say that again. Shoot.
And leave and lay. Wow. That
Rolled off your tongue. I haven’t heard
That before. I haven’t either. Wow. It was just
Devon
Just, well, no, but I mean, you know,
Shoot,
Shoot, pray, leave and lay. Okay. You just get that concept of, of, I hope of people are hoping that it’s got a three on one side and then they’re nervous, they walk up to it, they’re nervous and they go back to hunting and pretend that they didn’t find it. And it, and that has happened. It’s, it’s shown itself year, years ago
In other states. Yeah. A lot of states, other places. But that’s been a, that’s been the number one reason. They, they don’t stick for very long Right. Is right. The leaving lay. So
If they do that, I, I, I just think maybe three points on both sides. That way you have to actually consciously view it, look at it, count ’em, and know what your know, know your target and more so than just
Hoping Oh, he’s got a decent frame.
Yeah. I
Mean decent. Yeah.
Well, I mean, you know, he’s got an eye guard. I mean, you know, I mean if he’s a fork with, with eye guards or I don’t know.
That’s a breeder bar dude
Leaving here. A hundred percent. Yeah. Especially if he made it through Yeah. Up north. And he’s, he’s got igart. He’s
Legit. I’m telling you. And it’s gonna be, it would be if you see a, a yearling two point this year Yeah. In Western Wyoming. Take your hat off and say do get things my friend, because he’s one of the Yeah, right now you’re talking 90 to 95% FAW loss on the leather radio,
Other talking up at 85%
Adult, adult in
Places.
Mortality.
Yeah. These, these are
Significant. Oh, you know, sometimes threshold crossing type
Figures. Yeah.
Meaning, meaning meaning you’re crossing a threshold now that meaning may not recover just by simply backing off a little bit of tags.
You can double your herd and you’ve got three or four or six or nine or whatever. Right. I mean, so to speak. Yeah. And you can’t double, you know, 4.5 and get done. I get that. But I mean, I’m just saying when you double low numbers, you get nothing. And it takes so many times to double to get to anywhere. And we’re not gonna quit hunting. And we’ve shown, we’ve shown that, I mean we’ve, we, we closed units how many years ago? Actually, Bronson, why don’t we talk about that a little bit?
How long has it been since the year closed you in our
Time? You case studies in, in college on those. Well, we
Did, we, well some of of ’em are in Utah, so I’m more familiar with
That. The book, book Cliffs, the Henry’s, the Ponta, San Juan Ponta. Did we close the book Cliffs? It seems like we did. I know we did. San Juan
Henry’s in Ponta. Absolutely. For sure. In p those are the ones in, in southern Utah. San
Va. I know when they opened it up there Giants. So keep going.
Yeah. So just interesting. You don’t see it anymore. I, I just wonder why, why in the past, why was that decision? Man, that’s a dramatic change. And from normal. Yeah. This was in the eighties. Well we had a lot more deer than we have today. Collectively. Yeah. But, but it had slipped from whatever Norma was to the people at the time in the eighties, that they felt like, I’m gonna close this down.
So what happens? And I know what happens. I know the answer to these things, but I mean, what happens when, when they close ’em down for, and it was like a five year stretch, you know what I mean? Yeah.
Most of ’em were not more than five to seven years. I That’s right. Without digging it up now.
I mean it was, it, it, for some reason there’s an intangible they didn’t even hunt doze prior. And those are the ones do do are what obviously have the babies. Yeah. But, but just no hunting pressure actually saved dough too. There’s an incidental of impacts,
Whatever. I, I don’t know what it is. Whether’s, illegal delays or just intangibles, whatever. I don’t know what it is.
Pressure in general,
Don’t know how to do it. Just, they were left alone and they did good things and they did
Letter left alone. Even those that weren’t hunted prior just
Seemed like they did. But, but I’m, I’m sure we’d have to go superimpose. And I mean, some of that could have been, it was a perfect time that they closed down with, you know, 82 to 85 in Utah and certain places was
Monumentally wet. Or, or, or, or like saying going to a draw for Colorado was perfect timing cuz you didn’t have the rough winters from Yeah, exactly. Oh, three to five or oh six. Exactly. So you had this perfect. Now if they would’ve had really r rough winters in oh one Yeah. Or oh three. Well, and then you wouldn’t, we wouldn’t have this example. Well, and look
Colorado, look at, look at, let’s say in Southern Utah or Nevada, if we had a closed units hypothetically and after, after, you know, 20 20 20, it, 21 and 22 were, were just as bad. You know what I mean? It would not have had, so a lot of it is just you get lucky a little bit, little bit like sheep transplants or other things that sometimes you’re doomed right from the start because of whatever. But, but anyway, and we’re not, we’re not saying, hey, everything needs to be closed down. But I mean, there’s, there’s instances on small, have
85% loss.
How do you, how do you just back off pressure do come back two or three
Years later? How do you, I mean, how there’s, there’s plenty of sheep hers in New Mexico that aren’t hunted, they call it, they don’t have what they consider to be a viable population, but they have a population. Yeah. I mean, sometimes there’s not viable population
Viability.
Yeah. You know,
There may be some of that in places. I know
There’s sheep in, in Colorado that aren’t hunted. Well,
There’s no, I, we saw unit, unit one 30 in Wyoming for deer. It’s always been a 15 tag type unit, which is kind of like debatable. Wow. Well, I have a, they call it a late season, but it only goes till October 31st. But why even have 15 tags? There’s kind of a unique, let the region h steer migrate down to the open stage and hunt. Well, they’re cutting that to five tags. I’m thinking why even have a hunt for five? Probably because they already had people apply for it back from January. Like we’re talking
About when, when you gotta skew, it’s hard to get rid of it. You know? And, and that’s, I think I contend there’s all along those same lines. I contend, you know, there’s times when the management hunts have
Darn out.
They’re welcome. We’re out there. Welcome. It’s maybe it’s okay to pull those out. If we go to a three point or better in northern Utah, it would be okay to transition out of that sooner than later, as soon as we we’re back to where we need to be with a
While, two to three years of good farm production. You got, you’re, yeah. It doesn’t need to be forever, but maybe there’s
Some different things tend to hold on and, and think
There needs to be some outside the box.
Yeah.
Process. And I, I applaud I guess Wyoming for thinking about that because it’s not common. Most states, I don’t really know of many other states that even employ that. And it’s controversial. There’s maybe some states who will conflicting. We say it doesn’t help. Whatever, there’s a lot to have to line up to, to, to really demonstrate something to work. You could do it in a bad year and then drought and it get masked by the drought that say we’re not recruiting any anymore bucks by doing three pointer better. Well, it was masked by the fact that it went in two, two dry years back to back. You know, so there’s things like that. But I guess man, just as some of these agencies and wildlife commissions look at these things that are, you know, hey, we’re in our, I guess upper forties, not you Logan. So, but in our lifetime, I’ve not seen something this widespread in my lifetime as far as all of northern Utah, that much of Wyoming and even northern part of Colorado. I mean this severe, I I haven’t that that much. I haven’t either. No. And, and it goes back, you know, I haven’t
Either. And, and so we may need to, you know, cruel and usual times require cruel and unusual remedies.
We need to be was it was after some of the winners in like 92, 93 that, that, that Utah had to go to a draw for the general that that was what started it. Yeah. And you know, we’re now we’re to a draw now we’re to unit by unit draw. Nobody likes to see opportunity go away, but at the same token. And they’re like, yeah, if we take away opportunity, how do you get kids hooked on hunting? How do you get ’em out there and you know, give ’em the opportunity if you cut tags? Well, if you don’t have a, a good experience out there, if you don’t have something for them to see and hunt and harvest, then what are you hooking them on? You hooking them on. You can take them camping right now. Yeah. What are you hooking them on? If there’s nothing there, my
Kids are addicted, but I, but I work, I also work at other multi-state opportunities and, and, and yeah, you could say that that’s not possible for some people, but, but
If you had to just rely on the Utah general, I mean, and they drive every two to three years or two every two, every other. And, and then the product during these drought years has spent Yeah, you can find bucks. I mean, you can, but it’s, it’s tough for people, some of ’em to find bucks or if you hunt casually, you know, a casual family or hunter. It, I contend that just having a tag isn’t good enough. Right. For some you have to have a product on the
Mountain and, and when times are bad, we all suffer, including the kids. Yeah. And when, when times are good, we hopefully all prosper. Yeah. I think it’s commendable. There’s private, oh, private enterprises and, and cws or, you know, that are considering, from what I’ve heard, that are considering not hunting, not not commercially hunting their place. And and I think that’s commendable. And I think it’s similar to cattle or sheep or anything else. When you’re dealing with, you know, livestock or animals or wildlife or whatever, things change. The price of hay changes that maybe there’s a drought and they have to pull off the range earlier than normal and that creates hardship and it’s unfortunate. And then on the good years, they, they do well. And hopefully some of these guys do really well on the good years. And, and I think it’s commendable. They’re willing to take care of the resource and, and, and look past their, their checkbook at times. You know, but also they’ve also got a reputation with Yeah.
To hold up to realizing I do not want taking sell hundred. I I’m gonna, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna lose my reputation. I lose 10 years of business by taking people these next two years that I shouldn be taking
Or 10 years of a great reputation, all of a sudden turn sour. And you got, you know, internet trolls crushing you over a bad hunt that you were
Sold, that you, that you sold went ahead with. Yep.
Yeah. And so there’s some of that, our position. And if that happens, the public shouldn’t be able to hunt those places either. If, if, if we’re in effect shutting down an entire operation. So,
Which a lot of of reason we’re bringing that up is a lot of northern Utah is heavily private land. It’s where 90% of the CW mus in Utah are, are up there. You know, maybe 80%, whatever the number is. But it’s vastly private land. Yeah. So,
So it’s kind of, kind of interesting. There’s, there’s just a lot of moving parts and I, and we’ve talked so much biology. I’m actually tired of it. Yeah, me too. I think I do want to talk a lit just, just a little bit more, you brought up a good point about Buck to-do ratios in Wyoming, even on the general areas. And I’ve often wondered personally, why, how can a place like Wyoming in, in even parts of Idaho at times, how, you know, offer basically over the counter opportunities for the residents with, you know, un unlimited number, you know, and maintain good hunts. People that’ll spend, people will spend 10, 12, 14 points to go to region G that’s over the counter for residents. Like why is that? How can they do that and command that kind of point level, which obviously that people are being provided a decent experience or they wouldn’t be willing to go and we wouldn’t be talking about it in a publication. And, and you and I surmised a few things. Maybe there’s, you know, the population base of people in Wyoming is such that they can, they can get away with a little bit of that. And maybe it’s just the nature of the units and extreme and a little bit more
Physical forested in physical mountainous. So you don’t just crush everything that walks. There’s escapement, whether it be because of train or timber, things like that. And it’s a also a very unique season to hunt on a, on a general season. There’s no other general seasons that hunt September 15th Right. For two weeks, you know, it used to be three weeks this week year it’s gonna be,
And you could contend to September 15th, makes steer pretty vulnerable. They’re in a summer.
Yeah. They, they kind of are just right at there coming out of velvet. But they’re also right at that phase that, that they can get tough. And it feels like with the added pressure, what we normally hear and see
They’ve learned over the years to get smart and go
To the timber. You dive to the timber. Yep. And so yeah, they manage those units for 30 bucks per hundred dollars, which I mean by other standards in other states better, that’s like a limited entry type unit in Utah, or
That’s better than a lot of states,
A lot of states, you know, for a general season area. So that, that, that’s a, a testament and to the productivity of those areas. But at the same time, and
They’re above that, they’re, they’re above 30 now. Prior pre pre
Winner. Yeah. Going into the winter they were like 34. I I I read 34 bucks per a hundred dollars. Which that’s high. It is high. I mean that’s, you know, we,
That’s some of our better units here in Utah. Yeah. I I mean we have
Some, some are in the forties even higher, some are in the forties, like, but Ponta gone or things like that. But,
But impre but impressive. Yeah. Honestly. And, and if they’re within their threshold, you know, we’re critical. Hey, y’all ought to be changing things up and, and we’re, we’re a bit critical, but in, you know, cri being critical set aside if they’re within their management objectives, well, maybe, maybe that’s why that
We also talked about
That slow
To change in Utah. The the other day though, when we’re talking about buck to do ratios, but at what point does your buck te ratio do you get
Versus carrying capacity?
Yeah. Versus how many deer do you actually have with that buck tedo ratio and, and after a big winner in Wyoming, those are the types of questions they’re gonna have to really, well look all right, what, okay, we’re, we’re, we’re okay buck to do ratio wise in a year or two, but our due numbers are 20% of
Objective. And Zach and Zack mentioned that we have this moving target all the time and we’re changing our carrying capacity objectives and we feel like we’re chasing our tail and never, and then at some point people forget what carrying capacity unit could really have because you haven’t seen it for 20 years. You know, I mean, only the, the elderly in our hunting community remember what a caring capacity
Well, and really looks like. Well it’s just like we’re we, we joke early winter on about some people don’t know what a regular, a regular normal winter’s like.
Yeah. So, so you
See winter
Really hard
And, and it, and it, it turned out to be in most places, especially say it did very northern Colorado and all that, but initially even in southern Utah, you know, we got people, you know, freaking out. We’re gonna lose a lot. How are they gonna, they’re like, this is, this is, I mean, this is the first above normal severely above normal we’ve seen in 10 plus years. So normal gets warped into a new sense of normal and yeah. That, that notion of carrying capacity or that notion of how many deer can we really sustain on a unit. Yeah. A lot of times it feels like that just gets lowered and lowered and lowered because, you know, we’re so far below it, they just lower the objective
Or not discussed at all. Yeah. Maybe it’s just not discussed
At Well, that’s the point of emphasis more than anything. Yeah.
Growing
More
Dear. And so yeah. It’s just kind of interesting. But anyway, so there’s a, there’s a lot going on. I guess our point of it is just to say, Hey, these tag numbers have been up adjusted again up there in Wyoming. Utah’s having meetings today as we speak. We’ve been listening in talking about c committing things to death and whatnot. And maybe, maybe some adjustments in our system a little bit coming, who knows? Didn’t, didn’t even know that was really up for debate, but it sounds like it is today a little bit. So they’re having some good discussions. And again, we, we appreciate the people that spend some time. We, we know a lot of ’em and they spend a lot of time working on this stuff. And there’s like, we all know what they say about opinions and, and we have ours and everybody has theirs and and whatnot. And so it is, it is what it is. We’re just, everybody’s trying, trying to look out for what’s best for the wildlife and what, and from their perspective. So anyway, some positive Bronson, some positive New Mexico’s gonna run the result or run their draw maybe
This week, in a week or so. Yeah. Yeah.
And how
Excited, you have a tendency of sometimes being a little early than their advertised date, which I think is the 26th of April. But sometimes they’re weak or early.
Well they’ve gotta, they’ve gotta sift out the felons and sift out a few of these other, you know, make sure that the draws clean and, and the applicants are clean and everything’s ready to go. So I think there’s quite a process in getting everything ready, but it’s, it’s coming together from, from my understanding and I just, I’m gonna put you on the spot.
Oh geez.
Just came to me.
I need to remember what I applied for. You can ask me what I applied for. No.
Okay, good. I want to hear a 380 inch bull story. I don’t know that you’ve, what year was that spewed that story? It was a draw tag and let’s, let’s just call it 2018. I think it was 19 if you, so 2019 was actually, it was actually a pretty good year, at least here in Utah, Nevada was really good year. I imagine New Mexico had that same result. Arizona usually when Nevada, Utah have good years, we have good years in, in Arizona and New Mexico as well,
2019.
Awesome. So I, you you, you know, they have two different draws. They have a regular draw where, you know, we, we give 6% of the tax people that are willing to do anything. They could go guide it, they go self-guided, they do whatever they want, they can eat the tag, whatever. And then you’ve got 10% to go into a guide pool for non-residents or residents wherever applies. Well, and that guide pool helps at times. That’s the only pool that’ll be issued a tag where a non-resident can get a
Tag if you’re dealing with a a 10 tag unit or so, or 10 tag, huh. There’s only gonna be one non-resident tag and it’s gonna go to the guidepost. So
That particular year there was one-on-one.
Yeah. There, there was, it was before they, I guess reinforced that they used to round and it was, in that case it was eight, two and two. Well, then they ended up tightening up their rounding Yeah. Procedures and whatever. So now it’s like nine zero and one. Now in that same instance. But, but yeah, I’ve, I’ve entered the guide draw on occasion for certain like, like for sheep and things like that. Mainly because get absolutely an extra tag or two. And I know that doesn’t seem like monumental, but I mean I you’re,
When you’re looking at one tag, two is double.
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So anyway, this was one of those years that it was also one of the years, like we’ve talked about often with New Mexico that in, in a good wet year, which 2019, if you remember, it rained and rained and rained all spring here. It was just wet, wet, wet was a a an average winter up until about March. And then it just turned on from then to May. It was, which is not, not as usual for us. And and northern, Northern Arizona, New Mexico got it too. So it was one of those years feeling like, all right, this is when you just go out there and draw something weird. Well there was a, a new unit that opened up that had a nerdy rifle with 10 rifle
Rifle. There had been only hunting, like archery.
Yeah. So I put it down as my first choice. I mean just like, well 10 tag unit, you better put your first choice or you know, why put it, you know, and then I, I don’t even remember what I put on the others. Might have been a, that one might have been the same year. 16 bee wilderness had the early hunt too.
Yeah. Really added that
In October one. Yeah, it might’ve been that same year. So I’m gonna put those two back to back, which is not really an aggressive draw strategy, but
No,
It’s actually going for the one tag in the unit or two.
But it, but it was also an area that was overlooked because they’re not easy that, that it wasn’t easier arid, low densities. Yeah. But giant potential.
And, and I don’t know what I did second, third, honestly. It could have been 16 B wilderness, but it may not have been. But anyway, I, I was more aggressive on the third, whatever that was. Boy, I, I drew, I drew my first choice and I remember I about crap. You remember that? Yeah. Oh, I mean cuz we had to look forward. I don’t
Remember the bathroom drew incident. Yes.
But remember we, I read the hunt code to you and we’re like wow, that’s what it is. But how was that? How are you the only person? You’re the one statistic, you’re the one in whatever. What
I love is you can’t draw 50% off, but you’ll draw the one in a hundred. I’ve drawn weird goat in Alaska over one in
A hundred. I’ve drawn some really wild ones. Antelope in Arizona. You to 10. Oh yeah. Shouldn’t draw that. No you
Shouldn’t. You got an 87 wreck. 87 inch shouldn’t draw that
Truck chaser, you know, but, but you, do
You chase him? Did or did he chase you? No,
Depends on who you asked. Can was all me and him, but I was chasing him. I
Think you’ve even spewed that story once. Oh yeah. But it seems like it was a thunderstorm of epic proportions.
I I was, it was actually after we, I had a friend of mine, Eric Hunt in Arizona. He, he knows unit at 10. Well, so he’d offered to come up on the hunt and just glass. I found this buck and a couple of others. This the one we, so we’re talking antelope now instead of elk.
Well I just, but I think it’s just hilarious. But
You’re out in antelope country and you’re the tallest thing and you got a gun over your shoulder. I remember walking back to the truck, it’s pouring rain and lightning all around us and I’m like, we’re gonna die. One of us is gonna get hit by lightning. There’s lightning hitting all over. It is pouring. And, and I, I didn’t dare put my gun on my shoulder cuz why the highest thing above your head? It’s gonna be a lightning rod. It’s gonna be your bullet. So I carried my gun down in my head and I’m just stretching, you know, we don’t got heavy packs. We got an antelope in there but it was, it is only probably, I dunno this half a mile to after smashed it. Oh. And took care of it.
45 mile an hour run, dude. Pretty much. I wish I was there.
Well that yeah, that’s what I meant by I chased him. I air mailed him, I put my sticks in the bush, got my gun up and I don’t know if they weren’t actually on the ground, you know, the actual stick. But I shot my gun, fell down into the bush and, and and and, and I’m like, he just took off running. I’m like, what? It’s
Full
Ball, like 300 or three 50, like
It’s a dead, dead goat. So
I just checked one in and luckily he was running straight away from me straight. We all go,
There’s a major kill, there’s a major kill zone. That’s what, four inches in diameter? Yeah. Total. Yeah.
And I, I think I’ve told the story but, but I had no time to range and dial. And by the time you range and dial, get on your gun, he’s moved a hundred yards so it doesn’t matter. So I just, you know, he was a big antelope and I’m like, so I just put it right on his butt, raved it above his head of his head and just shot and crumpled him out.
Pretty impressive.
And went up there and that bullet hit him right at the top of the tailbone. Went in and out in about six inches and hit him right in the back of the head.
Wow. Yeah. I love that.
And I just remember Eric getting on the radio. He was like, bro, that was something I said, well I’m glad glad I had a witness cause cause it was the wildest shot I’ve ever made in my life. But hey, I air milled one broadside at three to three 50. So. Well it’s not
All, but anyway, way past a truck chaser. Now let’s, let’s move back onto this elk story. Yeah.
So anyway, so we’re out in this. It’s
Long shot draws.
Yeah, long shot draws. I drew it. So went down there and my guide Jordan from premium hunts, it was an awesome trip. He had already scouted down there. He’s from New Mexico. So we had been looking around, but it’s the type of unit too that these elk roam a lot. Especially at night. There’s movement scattered, scattered trees. It’s very flat. They can roam miles and miles at night. So
Five or eight miles. Yeah. You can’t to and from water like cattles can
Do. Yeah. They’re just really like that. And so anyway, after, you know, fir, I dunno, first day or so we saw several bulls. We saw one that was, you know, probably a three 50 ish bull but you know, maybe right three 40 or 50 had a, I forget exactly now, but he is a really solid bull. But it’s like, ah, not a no-brainer. And then that evening we ended up seeing the bull that I ended up killing. But he was on a little piece of private and that unit’s got a healthy mix of public and private with all throughout it. So you just gotta be, you know, willing to deal with that. And on the five day hunt though, you know, stuff can, you’ve hunted these, you’ve hunted several of those types of units that have bullet gets tied up on private and you hunt ’em for a day or two and all of a sudden half your hunt’s over. Yeah.
Five, five days. Yes. So your hunt is a five day season. They
All whole season, all the firearm hunts. To my knowledge, what
I love is that they’re a five day season. What I hate is that they’re a five day season. Yeah. At least you have closure. Yeah. For
Good, good days. Yeah. They can’t go on too long. But anyway, the second day he had moved, he moved his cows down off in his rutten. We got into position and you know, he had a big group of cows and took us a while to, to sort him out. He got on this thick seated ridge and they all started betting down. He couldn’t see the bull. And so we actually split up, you know, he had one angle on the ridge, I had another, I snuck in, I was 500 or something yards from them. And finally the bull got up out of his bed and started, you know, rotting cows, you know, just like they do in the middle late morning. And, and I hammered him. I just kept hammering. I just remember I kept shooting, shooting at that bull cuz you know, I had no spotter right with me. He was, you know, I don’t even remember if he could see the elk Jordan, but, but you know, one an elk standing on his feet. I’m not one of those proud guys that likes, that likes to proud how many or pride himself on how many one shot kills they have on an elk. I don’t care. I want the elk dead. And I’ve rocked him. He stood there, I rocked him again, he spun, I hit him again. Anyway, it was, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of shooting. Well, four or five times. Well,
Yeah. And you don’t have to say everything like this. This isn’t a tell all. I don’t care. I think it was more than
Five. I think it was five.
So
No more than five.
No more than five. No more, wasn’t it? But he
Just soaked up, wasn’t
It, wasn’t it a 300, wasn’t it a 300 rum? I can’t remember.
That was a two, that was a seven. It was Red Rock Precision seven. Okay.
Regular. Did you already say that? No. Okay.
But anyways, that gun, I love it. It was, you know, 500, 5 50 or something like that. But, and he was also in cedar trees. So meaning if he, you shoot at me, runs it out of your gap and he’s not hit perfectly. You, you got problems in cedar trees, you know. So as long as I could see him and he just kept standing there stiff legged, he was getting another bullet. I didn’t care if I thought he was dead on his feet. But that was awesome. We walked up to straight six, like 3 81 super long beams, big fronts. Anyway, it
Was gorgeous bull. Beautiful. That’s
Just a perfect six.
When you think about a desert bull, I don’t think about a long, tiny, beautiful giant big back end, just beautiful bowl. You know what I mean? You just think in the desert, you’re just thinking it’s gonna be a stubby heavy, monster wide weird
Three, there’d been a ton of feed down there that year. Ton of feed. There’s a lot of feed down there. And they grew well and it was a, I dunno just the right year to drop beat the odds of one in whatever. It was terrible. Yeah.
Yeah.
I think there was one in 64 that year.
Yeah. Oh, I don’t, I I can’t
Remember. Which is bad.
It was tough. But anyway, there’s, there’s some pretty, pretty awesome experiences down there. I’ve had some of my, I’ve killed, you know, some of my best bulls have come from New Mexico and same, same premise what you’re talking about. Just odd great years, great moisture years and odd units. Yep. It can happen in any of these units. I I mean
Know it’s going to happen this year.
This year. Yeah.
That’s what I can Arizona and New Mexico, it’s gonna happen.
That’s what I guess I kinda like about it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a even a a 37 or a 23 or a, you know, 38 and some, you know, your unit. Even some of these just crazy outliers that aren’t really outliers on great moistures. No. You know. Right. Can produce as good or better than anywhere else. I mean the age is their old, old freaking dinosaurs. Let’s just call Sean real quick. Who my, my kid Sean, he went on a, that youth hunt killed his first archery buck. Oh yeah. On to be a late archery. And
He also killed his first elk on a 15 youth muzzle, didn’t he? He did First Elk. Yeah. Was that It was a little
Screaming. I don’t even know. Even
15, probably 13. How old was
He? I don’t know. Young, I don’t know. 11 or
12. Rocking a muzzle over.
It was a giant heavy muzz or in the clock. God. You know what I mean? And so
Were rot like crazy, weren’t they?
Oh yeah. 15. It was awesome. So that youth on early and it kind of gives ’em the, the jump mobility impaired in youth in, in New Mexico where they have those seasons. Not all units have those seasons where they have those seasons. They get preferential treatment with the exception like the viele that’s kind of a late, like an October 28 youth or something. There’s some of some of those exceptions. But anyway, I just want to hear, I have no idea what Sean’s gonna say. I have no idea. He’s never really been on the podcast. Well
We call he called you a couple weeks ago and you answered on the podcast,
Remember? I know. And he, and he was just like, but anyway, let’s just see what he says and see what his memory, Hey, if he answers and then what his memory was like.
Hello,
What are you doing?
I’m working. What are you doing?
Well we’re working right Bronson,
You betcha doing a podcast right now
If you got a quick minute. Yeah.
Yeah. I got a
Man. I just wanna know, Adam and I were talking and we’re kind of talking, new Mexico’s draw results are about to come up and you’ve had a couple of experiences, a your first archery deer spot in stock and then also your first elk with a muzz or, and Sean, you were so young. I don’t even know. I I actually don’t know if you remember. The Elk was a long time ago.
Elk was a long time ago. I that’s man, nine years ago now. I think I was 11. 11
Or 12
Utah or anything.
Yeah. So we went down and did the New Mexico and just, just, I guess just wanna, other than we didn’t kill the three 70 pole. That was one of those muzzles. Do you remember Sean? What happened on that bowl?
Oh yeah, we had, we had a misfire with the muzzle loader.
Well it actually, I think, yeah, I remember it, it, the firing pin dented, dented the primer but didn’t really hit the primer and the bolt was slightly up. The bolt was just slightly up. Okay. You remember Sean?
Yep, I remember that. Yep. And the bowl was right there at walking outta range.
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of crazy. But you ended up killing a bull.
Yeah, we ended up with one on the last day, I think the last morning.
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about your archery deer experience a little bit. And two beat. So we had a, Sean ended up drawing two B on the archery, the late archery of
January. January youth
First of the 15th or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So what did you, what did you think of that hunt, Sean?
Well, I did it twice,
Right.
I think I hunted it two years in a row, right?
Yep.
And you did, the first year was awesome. I mean, I missed a 200 inch plus.
I forgot
How old were you there? Like 13 or 14 or 15 somewhere?
Yeah, I think I, I was, I wasn’t driving. Well I had a permit cause I remember I was drive kind of driving then.
Oh, I remember you were 15. You were trying to get me out of the driver’s seat and it was like two in the morning, dad. I drive on a drive and I’m like, go. So I did. I, dude, I let him drive. We’re going across the nav. And remember Sean and I could not fall asleep. I mean, I was jerky.
Just scared. Oh,
Scared. Crapless.
This kid’s gonna dude
Run you off the road on
That. This kid unfamiliar highway too in another state.
Yeah. I’m trying to keep him off caffeine and then he’s thinking he’s big and Dr. Can drive and I’m, I’m white. Probably put a full day in here and then jumped in the truck as we do all the time. And anyway, you remember Sean? Yeah, I remember Even though.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I remember it was back when you had the Tacoma.
Okay, well, so anyway, go ahead. I want you to just tell the story. I guess if you, if I could shut up and let you talk, I just, I, it brings back a lot of memories for a dad. So
Yeah, I mean, we had, first time was a lot of fun. There was just deer everywhere. Everywhere you went. We found a lot up on the forest and stuff. Ended up missing the big deer and then
How far, I got a,
I don’t know, I think 50 or something
Ish or less.
Yeah.
And it was, it was a big deer. It was, it was No, no joke. No joke.
Giant frame and cheaters out both sides.
It was, it was no joke. It was, it was no joke.
But,
And what, I don’t know that you missed him on purpose. I don’t know. It was your fault. You be, Hey, we found the air and we found where it, he
Deflected hit a limb or something. Yeah,
It did. It was one of those things. It’s just kind of a, the buck was standing there and we jumped out and he was kind of getting away and it was, I think it was 50 yards. You arranged him and I shot and I knew when I shot that it’d missed. I wa it deflected off a branch. It went flying up in the air.
But
You, it was just one of those unlucky.
But you shot at your first 200 Cher though. That’s what you
Did? Yeah. Yep. Shot at my first 200.
Yeah.
And then it, was it that trip or was it the neck? Neck? Did you kill a buck that week? That day? Next day? Yeah.
Yeah. It was the next day or the next We had a, I think we had four or five days down there and ended up killing one on the very last morning. Just a little three by four. But it was good for first archery buck. Oh
Yeah. It was unbelievable. Spot in stock. Yeah. Sean got out and he’s like, dad, I’m gonna shoot him. Remember?
Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Keep going with it.
Yep. I, we just, another one of those things, it’s just a lot of thick country, so you’re driving a lot of roads and drove up on him and he kind of ran over the ridge and we got out and just, just kind of snuck our way to the edge of the ridge and poked over and he was still standing there, so just kinda lucked out.
Well, and I’m trying to leave him, so I’m watching from a distance. I’m just trying to leave him go
Like, let him and the deer be go you hunt
The deer, make that happen. You know? Cause if you got two, two dudes out there stalking a deer. I mean it’s just, it’s just an, you know, it’s just overpowers him a little. And I, I mean if it’s just Sean, he’s what, what are you Sean? Like five foot three at the time or whatever. You’re really young. Something,
Something close to that.
Well you’re really young, like you’re, you’re 11, 15 years old or whatever it is. No, no. You’re way past 11. Yeah. So you’re probably, yeah. A little taller than that. But anyway, you’re out there stalking this deer and, and I’m back there just watching it and, and like he draws back and I’m like, are you crapping me? Like this is gonna happen right now. Split one five and Sean take over.
Yeah. Shot him. I hit him. I hit him far back in the first one and so we ended up having a track job. It was the last night we were gonna be there. And so we were just pretty much tracking him cuz we could get out. Anyway, I ended up up five or 600 yards later walking up on him in his bed and had put another one in him.
Awesome.
It was awesome.
Yeah. It was blast. It was blast. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. The second year we went down there, not so much. It was just the winter and everything that was going on that year. The deer were all spread out and
Yeah,
I remember it being really tough.
Yeah. Tougher. Tougher. Oh yeah.
Still for
Sure. Still good compared to what we experience here, you
Know? Yeah. Oh yeah. We, I mean we could have shot smaller bucks that year. Stuff like that.
Seemed like you turned trophy hunter overnight to me.
Yeah.
You’re pretty picky.
Well, why don’t you shoot a few, four points. Yeah. You
Know, wanna up the game a little bit. Some batter.
Yeah,
That’s right.
Well, all right. Yeah, it was Sean, tell me how many, how many bucks did we see on that trip in, in your estimation and deer in general?
Oh, hundreds and hundreds of deer. A handful of, you know, a handful of bucks. I don’t, I don’t remember how many. Quite a few. Four points. Lot of four points. I was stocking bucks almost every day. Multiple times a day. Sometimes
That’s it. Yeah. It was
What you need those kid with a ball. Yeah. Pretty fun stuff. Yeah.
Sean, did you, do you have any special story you wanna talk about? Anything? Any other deer hunting story or any
Other story? Oh, I don’t know. I’ll have to think of an embarrass. An embarrassing one of you?
No. Oh yeah. Hey Sean. You know, I’ll talk after and we’ll get that ready for the next podcast. I’ll call you.
Sean doesn’t know anymore. We
Need the juicy ones.
Sean.
We could think of one.
No new.
Like, like maybe a time your dad slept in and it, you woke up in the tent and it was at nine 30 my opening day sometime.
Sean, has that ever happened?
I don’t remember a time of that. No.
Or I don’t know. You got all the way out their opening day and he left his gun back at the house or something. I don’t, I don’t know him of anything. I’m just wondering. It’s time to jog your memory.
That never happened, man.
Huh? It’s hard. Hard to think. Hard to think. Yeah, exactly. I know there’s been times.
How about the time you left your tag? We were in New Mexico archery, deer hunting. And you left your tag at the motel.
Nope. That doesn’t,
These are supposed to be stories about you, Jason, not Sean. We’re
Asking, these are about dad being frustrated as a dad.
We’re not talking about me anymore.
Well, you think Sean, and you got my number. You know how to get a hold of me. Yep. And we’ll get you back on anytime you’d
Like. Sean, what’s your, what’s your favorite species to hunt?
Mul there, course. Nah,
I like it. I like it. All right. Sounds, sounds good. Well, appreciate you coming on for a quick sec. Yep.
I appreciate you calling me. Okay. We’ll
See you later. All right. Bye. I don’t know those youth, the youth opportunities down there are, are pretty significant. That one’s not a special season. They get, they hunt against the adults too, but it’s a separate draw,
Draw pool amongst kids only and better odds than the adult draw pool, stuff like that. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s kind of exciting. One of the first, I guess, bigger states that comes out with multi-species draw results. Yeah. New Mexico always is. So it’s kind of, we’re all excited about that. There’s a few others like, you know, Montana, deer and Elks, but you gonna be coming out here in the, this week, possibly by the end of the week or early next. We’ll see. But it’s not the whole state, you know, sheep, mo scope, bison, all that. It’s not, not, doesn’t come out until later. So New Mexico is one of those fir the first that has a big re big release and you look for green, not red. Oh
Yeah, it’s a good point. The color code him. And it’s kind of, kind of exciting. But you know, what I like too is just they don’t have an age, you know, they don’t have a minimum age requirement. You just need to have Hunter Edon so you can take kids really young. Yeah.
We’ve all, you’ve done your two boys I took tie down there, shot his first year before he could hunt anywhere else too. So it’s just, it’s good for that. Yeah.
Colton killed his first deer at nine years old down there. I mean, just man. Pretty, pretty cool stuff. But anyway, yeah, Bronson, that stuff’s coming out. We’re, we’re way excited, especially on top of a wet year. We’re just, we get so excited for our members to draw, give
Green.
Gimme
Me green. This is a year, man. I want,
It is, if
You want hunt. I’ve even put it for antelope. I did. And I don’t do that every
Year. I, I did too. I told you, I I, I applied for
The I know where you applied. I know where you did.
I mean, it’s a 14 day drive.
Do you need a passport to go down there? I might need it. Do you have to dip into Mexico and come back in? I don’t know how you even get to that spot. I’m just teasing
Everybody. They make, they make two lane highways that get there for sure. So I’ll be there. But anyway, I don’t know. Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty fun. We’ve got a lot going on, Adam. I mean, we’re working on Idaho, we’re working on Idaho, deer, elk, and antelope as well. And you know, some, some, there’s a, there’s a few changes up there for sure. I mean, they’ve, they’ve made some adjustments. They’ve had, you know, they’ve had those August and December hunts up there and they’ve did it done away with some of that because they were lar in large part were brought on for degradating elk and, and to deal with that issue. And it actually, I mean, it af it, it,
It did the job. It
Did the job in large part, it did the job, but it also, you know, it also, I don’t wanna say hurt quality, I mean, but it did, it actually curved quality a bit in for elk, like in unit
45, 52 and 45 units like
That. Yeah. Yeah. And 46, I mean, it did its job out there in the desert and, and you know, people could hunt like, like in 45 you could hunt the whole unit and and whatnot. And so when, when you did that, you know, a, you ended up taking bulls off of private too in, in, you know, the center of the unit in other places. And so you end up with, you know, kill rifle hunting bulls August one or August 10 or whatever within the season that, you know, when they’re somewhat vulnerable and it, and it takes a toll December, they’re
December they’re vulnerable for different reasons because of, you know, herd up big, vast open country to find them. But yeah, gonna be some changes there. I haven’t gone through ’em all like, like you have yet as I’m working on Wyoming and some other stuff. But, but yeah, that’ll be done here in the next, you know, 10 days or so. Emag will probably be live within 10 days, I’d imagine. Yeah. Week to 10 days, something like that. And, but then, yeah, quite a few deadlines coming up here too. In the next, I’ll, we’ll call it three weeks this month, dude,
We’ve got Idaho, sheep, goat, moose. We’re due April 30th. We’ve got, Kansas is due April 28th. We’ve got Montana, sheep, goat, moose, bison, do May 1st. Wyoming, obviously we’ve talked about that. Sheep, goat, moose, bison. April 17.
Yeah, that’s coming up real quick. Utah the 27th of April. So April is jam-packed with, there’s a lot to do. So make sure you stay on top of Teve draw schedule. And cuz man, there’s a whole lot coming on then may pretty busy too month.
So yeah, there’s, it’s an intense month. It’s kind of exciting. We’re also of course 60, 70 degree days. How about I I’m so excited. Yeah. Just to be out and about. We’re, we’re dying to get out in the hills and shed hunt locally here and, you know, not have to drive state away or whatever to get out in the hills. But anyway, trying to avoid even, it’s like these guys stay here in the office, they’re scared to just take a walk in the hills cuz people will think you’re, shed honey.
Yeah. Just how do I do that? How do I get my exercise? Yeah. Can’t get my steps in around the office, you know, gotta do something. But if I get hiking in the mountain in the morning, I’m gonna get turned in. I gotta fight that.
Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna throw a little shout out out there to Under Armor. You know, they’ve got a lot of stuff on the, on the horizon. They generally come out with their, with their new models, clothing and whatnot and gear generally in July and August. And that’s the schedule, you know, that’s kind of the schedule for this year as well. You know, you’re gonna see a lot of, you know, the new products and whatnot, basically coming out in force in August. And so you can get on our website for 40% off cards, coupons, codes, whatever you want to call it, up to $2,000 per one. So get on our website, you can download that and grab it and then, you know, kind of wait, you know, build up a shopping cart and kind of a list of items you’d like wait and make the best use of that card when you’re, when you’re willing to spend a few bucks. And so anyway, you can go check out what they’ve got at ua.com. They’ve obviously, you know, all sporting activities, you know, they’re, they’re making clothing and shoes and boots and clothes for as well as hunting. They’ve got a hunting section on there and got the Ridge reaper line of, you know, camel, which is awesome. It continues on in Barron and Forest and whatnot, as well as other patterns as well. So anyway, just great, great people. Happy to be associated. They’ve been a huge proponent of ours and supporter and, and we appreciate them. So,
Yep. Also wanted to give a shout out to Blaine St. James and his crew at St. James Sporting Properties based in Windsor, Colorado. But they, they licensed in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. They’re built around the idea that more often than not, the recreational value of a property exceeds the agricultural value. And they wanna bridge that gap between sporting property buyers and recreational ranch owners. And Blaine is crew. Have over two decades of real estate experience, founded the brokerage. Not to be everything to everyone, but to be specialized in marketing and sell the finest sporting properties in the west. So if you’re looking to buy or you’ve got family looking to sell, reach out to Blaine. You can email them at info sj sporting properties.com or 8 7 7 3 5 4 7 2 4 7. Or they advertise in our magazine as well. But he’s a hunter. He knows how to value property, knows how to find what you’re looking for too. We’ve had a lot of members buy and sell properties through Blaine and he’s a, he’s a hunter. He knows he’s got an knife or stuff like that. Whether it be you give him your goals, your needs, what you want. If you’re looking to place to, you know, just a secondary ranch or you’re looking to put a place to, to retire, move out west. He can help you. So,
Super smart guy. Yeah, he’s a good friend of ours. And like Adam said, he just, he just got an eye for it. He’s got an knack for it. He’s, he’s just awesome at what he does. We also want to throw a shout out to Red Rock Precision super good people. Kurt Pilcher and his boy just, just awesome. They, they support us here at Epic Outdoor Doors. We support them, make incredible rifles, very innovative. They’ve got some new stuff coming out. Pretty awesome. You know, don’t want to, don’t
Wanna, I’ll be able to get ’em on a podcast one, they ready to talk about it cuz they are some new things working, they’re
Working on. They are. And I don’t wanna really, you know, say anything, you know, too early, but, but they are working on some things. Very innovative. And we’re gonna be, you know, a major affiliate with that and partner with them. So really excited for that. Appreciate them. Red Rock Precision. Go on. You can go find ’em on the web, get ahold of ’em. They’ll do anything custom that you want and you know, calibers whatever. And just that they just feel great in your hands. That, that that Red Rock rifle of mine, it’s in a 30 nozzle regardless of the caliber. Just an incredible feel. Bronson killed a lot absolutely with their
Rifles. Absolutely love them. I’ve got a couple brothers, got a couple, used them a bunch. So one last shout out. Want to give to stealth cam. We’ve obviously we’re dealers of their products, they make great products, they’re always innovative too. Looking to try to upgrade models, tweak a lot of, lot of technological changes that have come into the steal or truck camera world over the last 10 or 15 years. Monumental changes, whether it be from, you know, reactor or fusion cellular cameras. All, all down to the SD cameras for whatever you need. Whether it be high video quality is what you need, or just coverage cameras, whatever they, they make ’em check ’em [email protected] or if you’re interested in buying some cameras, it’s getting very close to that time. You just start finding out you draw tags, maybe need to run some cameras or update camera cameras that are getting older, used, weathered, all that. Give us a call here at Epic Outdoors. We’ve got a bunch in stock, we’re stocked up with lock boxes and cameras bowl. So when you find out what you got, give us a call. Or if you wanna look at all the products they have, again, check ’em [email protected]. So,
Pretty awesome. Well, one last shout out. Let’s, let’s a little shout out to the guys there at phone scope. Super good guys. If you didn’t video it, it didn’t happen. Of course. I can’t show you guys that I’m hunting big deer unless you video it. Yeah, that’s right. So you can
Tell stories, but we wanna see to believe.
And then there’s some phone scope footage that Wyatt and the boys won’t show us. Why, why do you think that is? Bronson?
There
Is. Oh, I know there is.
I’m gonna ask them why get in there
Next. Absolutely. There is. Hmm. They’re videoing some big, they’re, they’re on some big animals. Anyway, appreciate those guys. They’ve got some great products. Just allows you, I mean, they’re the originals, the OGs, you know, for producing a way to video animals and his technology gets better on the phones. Of course, the video footage is incredible. I’m videoing 4K now. Oh yeah. And I do it with ease. That’s awesome. With their products. So p h o n e s k o p e. Find ’em out there. The big bi wide world. Logan. They’re old Cheston and family are right there from where you’re from.
Beaver County, baby. How about it? Best place on earth. Really?
Oh yeah. Nice. Why don’t you tell us why it’s so awesome.
Well,
Some of the most incredible hunters and families live there, right?
Yeah. No. Well, me especially
My family’s from there. Yeah.
Oh well. Yeah, they are.
That’s true. What do you mean you, you act like you forgot that or didn’t know
It. Well when you said best hunters in the nation, come outta there. I was just thinking about me and my family.
I think they are.
You were there too. That’s
True. I think they are. But your dad has me on speed dial boss for a little few recommendations here and there
Just to get on. Just to help us find somebody to get unstuck. Oh,
How about this, Logan? I just want to know what was going through your mind when
You 75 miles an hour down
The highway? You, when you dad or you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, there’s part of that. We can go over that story, but you guys text me. They’re la long
And that’s all you got. That’s
All I got. So I don’t
All they’ve got, well, might be to you might be a 400 said, you don’t know what that means.
And it says we were last here. Oh, and
You got coordinates and not a point or a pin on a
Map. Yeah. And I’m just like this, this is my location. 34 93 do random minus one 11. And I’m, I’m thinking Yeah. And it’s a 6 78 number.
Yeah.
So it doesn’t say come get us. It doesn’t say, it just says, if you fu this is my look location, look at my bones. Come look for my bones here and leave me to rest. Tell me what, what you, what happened and why you guys were, why were you te why did I get this random text of a lot long?
So we were driving around this old two tracker road, a road that we shouldn’t have been on in a truck we shouldn’t have been in. We were in a big old duramax driving down those two tracker rough
Roads. Bronson and I now own Derm Maxes. Why? Why, why do, why are you hating on derms?
No, I love ’em. They’re great trucks. But on those two tracker roads we boots, they are rough and heavy. Oh yeah. And we weren’t, we weren’t planning on it, but it got to the point where we were on it too long to turn around. You’re committed. Yeah. And so we had to just ride it through the rest of the way to camp. And we get going and we get up on some of these hills.
Is that about the right camera right there? Yeah,
Yeah. Sure. Nailed it. I wasn’t even recording on that one. Oh,
Keep going. Hit record.
He controls
Everything anyway. Yeah. So we, we get going on top of these hills and there’s a lot of snow that hadn’t melded off yet. We didn’t know that. And
What were you doing there anyway? This
Was in Arizona. Let’s clarify that
Right now. Yeah, it was, it was, was Arizona. We were down
In Arizona a hundred percent looking for sheds.
Okay. All right. Keep going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spending money in their state. Right? Buying, buying fuel. Yes. Maybe even side-by-side tires.
Hey, shout out to a little gas station right off that highway. They make a good burger for a gas station. So
There you go. Supporting the local economies. Okay, keep going.
So we get up on top of these hills, start hitting some snow drifts and man, they’re deep and they’re those iced over ones that have been there since who knows how long. And it would’ve taken us like four hours or more to get back the way we came. Just cuz it was so rough going. And
I wanna interject, Bronson, can I have hunted this unit and the road they took, I never told them to take. And it literally, it was nearly half the night to get to a paved road in a half ton. It was the most brutal road I’ve ever been on.
It would’ve been tough on a side by side,
Rocky. Oh, brutal. And you hit the pumpkin about every other, what? Every 20 yards or something? You’re just dragging. And these guys are up in a, in a three
Quarter ton diesel. Yeah.
And I made it out. I I was committed. I’m like, I’m gonna spend the night out here trying to get back to the pavement in dry conditions. Yep. These guys happen to take that road. I don’t know why. Why? Well,
Because, you know, we were just doing shortest
Distance between two points. Yeah. And you would naturally say this looks like a major road on Onyx or a map or anything else. You never take that road. Keep going. Yeah.
Well, you know, we hit the glass and spot there with some elk, but we hadn’t found the horn. So we said we’ll just go deeper into the belly of beast is why we stayed on that road. Yeah. And so yeah, we start hitting them snow drifts and we are like, it’s too late to turn around. It’s, it’s probably dang near eight o’clock by this point. And so my dad says, we’re just gonna get through these, these snow drifts and we’ll just get out the other side. So he just gooses it and we’re blowing through snow drifts. They’re deep and it’s, you know, slowing the truck down pretty good as we hit ’em. And we hit 1, 2, 3, 4 in a row, probably 10 yards apart. And we hit that fifth one and it just high centers us the rope. Oh, snow. Yeah. The snow was so icy and drifted that it packed up under the truck and we were high centered.
Those plastic air dams of these nice pretty trucks are, I mean, do you guys have one left? Like, was is there one under that bumper that those pla black plastic air
Dams? Yeah, that’s exactly, that was half, did
You leave plastic in the
Hills? No. No. Well that’s littering Jason. Not
Well, I’m just wondering, I’m just thinking about
This. We didn’t leave any plastic from those things underneath, but our grill is a different story.
Handyman
Jack. Yep. Handyman jack. You know it. And so we’re high centered, we’re jacking the truck up, getting rocks underneath it, trying to just get enough to just roll
Using the handyman on a tow, on the, on the tow hook.
Yeah. And
Now’s that’s when you get the, this is when you get the coordinates. This, this is why you got the
Coordinates. Yeah. When did, when did you guys think we better send somebody and hey, and I feel honored. You guys thought I would drive from Cedar City,
Utah. What is that? Seven hours? Seven.
I mean, one
Way, 6, 7, 1 way. A six or seven hour way
Probably. Yeah. We on the worst road and no man, I would probably get those coordinates, look at it on a map and send my boy, Hey, here’s a gas card. Do good things and a and a winch. Maybe two
Wins. We maybe two wins. We jacked the truck up three times and it kicked the rocks and sticks out and we couldn’t get out. So my dad had azo one of those satellite foam packages and I
Don’t know how that works. How does,
Where does that, is that the,
So the Zo like,
It’s not the Elon Musk thing. Huh? That’s, that’s like, like wifi isn’t it?
I’m gonna learn something. Choose to your phone and then it gives you this app and you can text people through satellite coverage on your app. You guys use your
Phone? It’s
Like, it’s like in reach we use, we use inReach sim. Same type thing?
Probably. Yeah. But you don’t have to buy a device for it. It works through your phone. Or do you have to This one
You have the little square and you like Caribbean or onto your, all right.
Okay. It’s an inReach
Type. I think it’s the same, the same general idea competitor.
It’s a relay boom boom text.
So that was the text you got. We were like, I was like, I’ll bet Jason knows somebody that lives near here.
Oh, okay. That’s what you were thinking.
That’ll come and tell
Toe I was Bronson, but that only that was being summoned at some point. And I don’t know who this is, I don’t even know who
It is.
It was
Supposed to, where are
You to say here’s my LA long, where are you? You’re like, who am I supposed to meet? Where?
Well, it doesn’t come through on a mapping app that I have because I don’t recognize that
It’s called Zolio
Or
Whatever it was supposed to say, Hey, we’re stuck. Do you know anybody that could come do us a good
Deed? Did you think you sent that message?
Well, my dad typed that in, in Senate and then hit the, the coordinate sent. And so I don’t know, hit the, I don’t know what had happened. Well,
I’m gonna screenshot what I sent
You. Yep. And so our, our idea was put two hours. Yeah. You put those in the, you put those into OnX those coordinates and send somebody out to save us. Oh yeah. Finally the, the fourth or fifth time we jacked out that truck, we finally got big enough boulders underneath it. It rolled off. We got turned around, we blew back through all those snow drifts. And,
And you’re like, this way we’re going now.
Yep. Got back to camp at like 3:00 AM Oh,
One of those nights.
It was a, it
Was, this is one of those times when you just wondered like how many of those trips can a, can a Chevy handle? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, they’re pretty significant trips. Jason,
You ought know more better than anybody.
Well, dude,
I went through, that’s a regular
Curve. I went through motor mounts. It’s got 49,000 on it. Why? How does a truck go through motor mounts?
You know, better than anybody. I’m just gonna say it again.
Well then you said you were
Shocked them.
Rough road. And then I thought, wait, what, what, what’s happening to your truck right now? New shocks.
I got a shock somehow. I don’t know how it went off. I don’t know how, I don’t know how. I blew a shock.
And we’ve had trouble with those
Shocks. Reservoir shock. I don’t know. Yeah. And they’re not cheap.
So anyway, so handyman Jack will jack up a, a diesel and it will like a full, they’ll, they’re a heavy, heavy truck. Usually. Usually guy take guys take two to four ton, you know, floor jacks for a diesel. But one side of
The, that floor jack, one hook at
A time wouldn’t have helped you necessarily. You’d have had to holler it out with a shovel and yada yada.
Yeah. And that, that handyman Jack is at least 15, 20 years. He’s had it since.
I don’t even know. I’ve got my original high
School. Yeah.
They’re heirlooms. Yeah. I never get rid of mine. You know how many times that has saved me?
Yeah. I haven’t used em in a long time. And that’s, that’s a good thing.
Well, that’s a good thing you
Would Oh, I, no, I, yeah, I would.
I mean, but, but I used surprised
Growing up in high school or my dad had a 75 Chevy Blazer. I don’t, and they had beefy be it rear beefy. Oh, solid metal bumpers. Like you just hook
Bumper, make men a shop class. Yeah. But they’re like 4,000 pounds apiece.
Yeah. And just what you described, Jack it up, throw anything you debris Yeah. Limbs, anything underneath there. You’re begging to get a little bite.
Yeah.
So, yeah. It’s a,
Jack is a love-hate situation. I’m just surprised that they’ve gone, they haven’t sent, sent more people to the grave than they have. Well I, I’m sur I mean, dude. Yeah. If that Jack gets away from you and smacks you and then well you
Usually not gonna kill you. It’ll, they’re probably loose teeth. Yeah. Oh, it’ll, a lot of lost teeth from
Heaven. It’ll break your jaw. Yeah. Won’t it?
Oh
Yeah. Split lip for sure.
Did. Have you done it?
No, I watched, I watched my dad give himself a split lip on one of those handyman jacks. Yeah. Pretty good.
Yeah, but you have to have one.
Oh, I’ll certainly have. There’s two, there’s two brands that me and my dad owe our lives too. From that trip, whatever tie downs have the little bungee cord right by the hook to hold the side by side on the trailer.
I want to say somebody in Beaver invented that or something, but I don’t
Know. I don’t know.
They they do have a bunge, like a big Yep. Thick rubber stretch
Thick. And they just, they go with the bo really good and they don’t loosen up. Yeah. And they’ll, it’s
But that one actually drug your side by side drug.
Those drugs the side
By side and didn’t break it. Rubber
Uhuh. Yeah. Ba the tires burn the tires on. Yeah. Those tires were
Flat. They should be a sponsor of this podcast
Now. Yeah. That and handyman Jack without high
Left. Jack, you want, you want to name, you want a high left brand,
You know what you need. You know what you need your side by side drive your side by side.
Why weren’t you guys driving your side by side?
Well it was cold
And it was open. It doesn’t have SiriusXM
Radio. Right.
They don’t have SiriusXM
And they don’t have,
There’s something to be said about Sirius satellite radio. There’s also something to be said for a cab side-by-side. Bronson, we talked about this.
I’m a believer. I didn’t even take mine off last year. I just unzipped it.
How you get the dust out of it.
We hate dust. Well what happens they’re is dusty. They, they, well mine, mine, mine has airflow through the top and pressurizes the cabin. I don’t get dusty. Hmm. So you have a little, you have airflow over the top of your head and at times like when you, when you’re in the winter and you don’t ha and it’s not dusty, you stuff a towel or jackets look extra jackets up there because that’ll keep pressure.
Make the wind.
It’s just, I’m not sure on the Pioneer Bronson, you’ll have to tell me does that have that because I know the talon might, you could air behind
You get air through it. You do. And, and you need it in the dusty times. You need a little bit of keep it going back. But, but in the winter, yeah, you can shove it. But, but I don’t, I didn’t even do it last year.
And then I have an then Bronson, we have the Epic Polaris machine and it doesn’t have, it has an open cab and it’s incredible for a hundred degree days. 80 degree cam trail cam days. Like, so it’s kind of nice that you don’t have to tear your cab off,
Got a roof, got a little bit of shade, but, but no, nothing else.
Yeah. And you don’t want a cab sometimes. But anyway, you had that trip out there in Eastern Utah and it made you believe it. Like you take one trip like that, it’s worth the price of the
Cab. Oh yeah. I just got it. I just got it on late last summer. I knew, I knew my ear, I knew my early fall, meaning August and, and September. Remember I was busy. I I and so I’m like, I’m gonna get this on because by the time I get back from all that, it’s the end of September and it’s not hot anymore. Yeah. I’m gonna need it cuz it’s gonna be raining, it’s gonna be whatever. So I had it put on in July before I even left up north last year. And I used it hard. I used it hard last year. So I used it year before actually too. But, but I take, I can take it on and off the, the back portion. Yeah. I, I don’t, I don’t want it all on there. Yeah. I I don’t use it in the
Spring. But in those monsoons they can hit you.
Oh yeah. With
Ven gallons and gallons. Yeah. Yeah. Vengeance. Yeah. And it’s nice to have a cab machine
Too. I usually don’t in the summer, but, but I, I have, I have the kind that I can keep the front cab with the doors on if I want. And the back part isn’t. So you, you know, have all your car going back there. Just kinda easy to get in at it. But I don’t
Know the best machine I’ve ever owned. You have, have you ever heard me say something?
Never, never heard you say that. I’d like to know what you’re gonna say
Next. Was it standard Cab? Now? It’s funny because side-by-side standard cab. So one bench seat, Polaris Ranger Cabbed out with, and I had a diamond plate toolbox in the back. You can put all of a full elk, all quarters and everything in it. And it was, it would pressurize itself like that. And it was just unbelievable. And then really easily removable doors pop up a window a little bit. Get the airflow
For the summer. Oh
Yeah. And it was, had a lift. Ah, it just, it was just right. It wasn’t too long. Like sometimes those, those double
Wheel bases that, that get too long, these high center
And when you put a lift on ’em, they, they quirk and tweak and, and they just, sometimes they’re not. Right. And then sometimes a lifted machine’s. Right, right. That one was right.
Why’d you get rid of it?
Dunno. Well,
I mean, still don’t know.
No, I don’t really. I want it back. Yeah. And then, but the people I I remember sold it to, which is actually
We had a
Cheap close relatives.
We had a with
It Yeah.
About it together. We did. What
Do you remember? Tell
Me. I just remember, I just remember that bike,
Which
Have it long. I think it was 2 43.
Was it? Yeah. Oh yeah,
We had about that. I
Remember that. Yeah. Yeah. We cranked that and we also cranked this down on the springs. Do you remember we we hit a lot of scouting on, on 2 62.
Yeah. We’ve scouted a bunch of units that year. It’s taking a statewide
Hunter. Do you know, I, I know this is winding down. I I get it. But I, I don’t want to quit. I’m so freaking excited about hunting Nevada, the
Desert. Oh
Yeah. I
Even, we call it
Desert people, friends, whoever gets attack. Yeah.
Me.
Yeah.
Okay, good. Hey, he said it
Dude, tell me, tell me. You’ll be there with me. Tell me how you feel about it.
Oh, well it, part of the reason is, is it’s been a rough few years and we’ve been anxious to get back because 2019 was a pretty solid year over there. And it hasn’t been since we’ve taken
Some, I could tell we could tell that story for a minute. But anyway, keep
Going. We’ve taken some, we’ve taken some licks on the chin. You talked about a eaten dust. Was it 2000, 20 or 21?
I don’t know. Oh gosh. Either one. Oh my gosh. 20.
The stag year. I killed an awesome stag with a membership drive winner. Yeah. But man, we ate dust. Oh, that deep, that powder. Yeah. Some of those roads
Shout out to any vehicle that makes it. Same thing with the strip. The strip will eat a truck like that. But I think it’s what it’s those years, those good years keep you going back every year thereafter. And really what we should do and what we’ve learned, and I I don’t know why it’s taken us, there’s been, you know, in our lifetime, Bronson, you know, we haven’t been a part of official studies per se. You have and some your Yeah. Five years of heavy biology and, and you, you know, dealt with a lot on the, you know, being the president of, of Euo back then is what it was called. But you just, you know, you just, we’ve, we’ve proven a few things. And the one thing we’ve proven and, and there was always a question, do drought years make big antlers for deer mulder specifically in desert or high desert, you know, whatever. 7,000 foot, seven to nine, five to nine, four to 9,000 foot type elevations. And people were wondering, you know, in drought years, well the feed that does grow is so rich, you know, and, and does it, could it actually make for big deer versus just, you know, wet years where, you know, there’s
Everything’s Yeah.
And we’ve proven, dude, we know for a fact as big deer grows in, in that years, in these type of areas,
You can’t make it happen in those, in those off years. You and we’re talking not slightly off. They were massively off. And you can’t make it happen. I mean, the amount of big deer, you guys are sick of hearing about it. Cause we’ve talked about it for a few years. But it was rough.
You’d have over, well and on good years, you’d have over 20 bucks, over 200 inches on truck camera in two or three units that we could run hard. And then on drought years, you, you might have
One or, or zero.
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s significant buck would go
From running the same spots.
Well, yeah. Yeah.
Not, not like you moved and tried new areas.
And why is it, why is it the same places produce big deer year and year out. Like, you know, I’ll, I’ll run, I’ll think I’m gonna, I’m gonna find the most obscure little water a a break in a line from a farmer drop, whatever. Right. You’re gonna find something obscure that nobody knows about. And it’s, it’s the common areas that produce giants.
The proven, the proven. It’s the fee. It’s gotta be just the habits. Muld deer are very habitual in terms of, of dispersion, in terms of where they’re raised, where they water, where they do well, they don’t, they aren’t no mats very often. I mean, you know what I mean. Right. They’re, they’re not like elk in that regard. Right. Elk or nomadic. They’ll, they’ll do crazy stuff year after year, year after year. Sometimes they go back the same thing other times you never see of a bull again. Ever.
Yeah. That, and that’s happened on specific units and, and bulls that we were a part of that that’s happened. But these deer, so anyway, just
Excited. They can’t be contained almost.
I mean, and so when then we’ll take, you can buy land on her tags in Nevada and, and there’s affordable tags in parts of the state. They’re, they’re hard to find anymore. What’s affordable Bronson like, go ahead and find that for me anymore, our trucks affordable. Are, is food affordable?
Sheep pumps aren’t, I
Mean our eggs affordable. I mean, you know, concrete, affordable, what steel, affordable, you know, whatever the case products in general affordable. So we’ve spent a lot of time draw tags, wasted points, bought landowner tags and off years. Yeah. And it’s really hard to stop yourself.
Goodness. You want to be there because when it’s good, it’s good. But yeah, I think I’m in double, I’m in double digits for deer points.
Sure. Yeah.
Well it’s been 2012 since I drew a tag, so Yeah. I’d have 10 or 11.
Yeah.
We ready to blame on the table. And
So yeah, so Kenny went in. We’ve been in some, some weird o off units in, in special years and, and hunted multiple big bucks. Multiple big bucks in kind of u units that are not known to be super special, you know. Yeah.
Kinda like, like that same principle with New Mexico. Sometimes you gotta do something weird in a good year. What’s looking to be a good year? Do do a different weird risk yourself. Stick yourself out there a little bit like a New Mexico. You can’t just stick to the Hela. I mean the odds are terrible. Y you know, I’ve never drawn a healer tag. I don’t know if you’ve drawn maybe one or two, but, but fact that you get multiple choices there in Nevada. Use ’em. Well part don’t be afraid to, part of it is put yourself out there a little bit. Make something. Yeah. Make something happen. Hopefully in a, in a, in a really good moisture year, which we haven’t had for a long time now. At the same time, yielding numbers are way lower in, in these units. We’re talking about way lower than they were five years ago before this bad drought. So you are still gonna have to grind, in my opinion. It’s not gonna be like the same deer that were there five years ago. Now we’re there to just grow cuz a lot of those deer are gone.
Well and waters change. Like springs change the, the what the, you know, areas that we hit really hard Yeah. Five, 10 years ago don’t even exist anymore. The water doesn’t even exist.
Gonna be, I haven’t been down to ’em yet. Right. I don’t wanna be caught acting like I’m shut down. But this is
Where water maybe hopefully some of that old time knowledge, like there were springs we found in Yeah. Weird units or even popular units that have disappeared and the new generation of hunters might not have, they might have been dry when the gen new generation was really
Looking there
Even looking. Yeah. You know, so maybe that’s where being old.
Yeah. It’s gonna, the old black book’s gonna get pulled out this year. Springs and La Longs
And waypoints on old GPS’s.
Yeah. That I gotta find a charger for. To to turn it
On to even turn it on. Right.
The old
Rhinos back when Onyx was Montana mapping company, or Montana hunting company or whatever it was,
And rhinos we thought was the best thing that could have ever been invented.
And they were the time Right. You could transfer waypoint via radio. Hey Jason,
You got my location.
Yeah. And, and then, and then we put cards in, you know, like, like microSD or micros or whatever. And even big ones.
Yeah.
You know, and so anyway, there’s some, there’s way points in that. I notice I have a physical one that I keep in a special place. I tell my kids this is an air, like take this.
No, I, I’ve got one of those with a lot of waters in the deserts of Utah. Desert sheep country.
Well you’re talking water pots, like, like they’re not on,
On maps. Like, not wa just stuff that will save your life when you need it to or that will allow you to hunt certain areas.
Seems like you and I got dry in one of those pots. What do you mean on, what do you mean? Seems like that are now in a, well,
Go ahead. Oh yeah, we, that sucked. Yeah. We, how
How long ago was that? And that memory is etched forever. What
Year? That year I, same year I had my dut elk tag. Is that 20
2008?
Nine. Eight or nine. Yeah.
Because they started roughly the same weekend. You had a, you drew a desert sheep tag and I drew my own. Yeah. And back then it’s kinda like now Utah, you found out like the end of May and by the time you find out it what June is like the hottest month, the Nats are out and it usually doesn’t rain. And, but we were what, how, how old were we there? That was 15 years ago. So what were you thirties? Mid thirties. Four mid thirties. Right. In other words, bring we were bring it on, bring on anything in the world. Bring it on. So we drove out there, we marched in and it was in a year, not like this year we’re having right now. It was year that had rained for two, three months. Yeah. And all of the standards places that I thought, hey, we’re gonna go in there camp for three, four days. Stop
Used, be big, big, let’s call ’em
Swimming pools. Swimming pools. Literally like hundreds or thousands of gallons of water. Yeah. Were dry. Every one. We went to weed. We went in all in and we had to now like put
In a Leaf River trail camera that had Ds and seas batteries and, and CF cards. Do you know what those are? Logan, do you know what a CF card
Is? Compact flash.
I do not know what a CF card is. Okay.
They’re about, they’re about an inch and a half, two inches by two inches square.
Three or four times the size of an SD card. Yeah. Do you know what an SD card is? I do. I do. I work with those a lot. Lots. Yeah.
But but but that was only 15 years ago.
Yeah.
Can you believe that? No.
And
The path we weighed the cameras, they were with the batteries. They were four pounds. The
Batteries. Yeah, I remember. And
Then the camera and batteries in
’em and the lens on ’em turned yellow from the sun. We over, over the course of like three months,
At least two of those in there. What were we thinking? What were
We thinking? Stupidest.
We were mid thirties and
Back then we, if they would’ve made a cellular, we’d have been all
Yeah. Yeah. You probably could have got ’em. But I mean, it was then the realization is we cannot stay here anymore. And it’s a long ways out. And you just remember hiking would hike it, it progre and it’s brutal. When I say brutal hot, it’s a hundred, 105. It wasn’t 115. But for Utah, that’s hot. And when you’ve gone all day hiking in there, you know, 10 plus miles, it’s,
Oh dude, remember Okay. The deep part’s 25 miles. Yeah. We were 17 to 20 miles to where we went. That’s right.
Each way. And now, and now you gotta go back out probably six to eight until you hit for sure. Went
Again. Went the full way in, put the camera in and wanted
To, and realized we can’t stay, there’s no water in here. We can’t camp here tonight. We’ve gotta go all the way back out to where we know there’s water.
Which is the river. Yeah. Okay. But along between there and, and the river, we were out. Okay. We were dry, we were out. I
Just, we were totally
Out. We weren’t tearing anymore. Right.
Not sweating anymore.
Not sweating anymore.
I just remember it was a, we’d walk felt like two to 300 yards and have to sit down and just rest. You remember that? We did that. We didn’t even talk to each other.
No,
We didn’t even talk because we
Do. We were, but honestly it was back then we were too, too dumb to even ride our last will and testament. Like it was,
We didn’t have anything to send a lot long out to our friends.
There was nothing like that. Not that they’d respond anyway if they were adjacent.
Apparently there was nothing.
I would respond, I am never gonna leave you high and dry. I think you know that. But
There was, this is pre
I would’ve let you’ve worked on that truck another day. Probably.
Make sure you really need me.
We didn’t have seven hours each way. And we’re, we’re, we’re putting out a magazine, bro. I, I’d been like, Bronson, what do you think? All right, keep going.
Yeah. It was just a, I remember it was a, it was a grind. It was a, you know, we were in great physical shape. We were young, but we’d been all day 20 something plus miles hiking and outta water. And you, you knew where he had to get. And it was, it was just all you could do. We’d, we’d go two, 300 yards, try to find some little shade overhang or a cedar tree or something to, it was just, we were weak.
So in this kind of country, there’s natural funnels where when it rains, there’s a natural funnel where the water goes and then it drops into a pot. Drops into a pot. Drops into a pot.
They, every single one all day long was dry that I had marked. They were
Life. We did, we were onto new untested, uncharted territory. And we were going down one of these little, let’s call it a little draw or little sandstone draw. And what happened, we found one.
Yeah. We tiny. It was, it was like, I just remember it was like a godsend because this was like, this little thing should not have water. Of all the things we checked all day long.
It was open to the sun.
Yeah. To face the south. But it was just the, the sandstone must not have been as porous or something cuz sandstone sucks up water just, just by nature. Right. And I don’t know, it must must’ve had a layer of something in there. Different mineral and it wasn’t big, but it, but we got it. But
It was stagnant. But nobody cared. We did not care how to drink it straight up. Yeah. And it was, we’ve sucked and sucked and sucked through the water pumps and beat those water pumps up. And
We used them in the river later and, and ruined them cuz that silty a fine silk in the water will ruin ’em fast. But I just remember getting to that river and just sitting there. Don’t remember how long we just sat in that river and just hours just drank. And I dunno. And we
Can’t break there. We, we
Were happy We weren’t going any further. No, but it was a, it
Was a humbly, let’s call it a 17 in on a another 12 out because it’s another five from there at
Least. Yeah,
It was. Or seven. I
Can’t even fathom going out and trying that right now.
Hey, we were,
I am a realist. I am. I don’t, I just know that that would’ve, that would crush us right now. I think one of us would be scratching our initials in the sandstone
Right now. Well, and we were too, too young. I never really realized we were too young to realize you’re kind of, is there a heat? Can you get a heat stroke? And really didn’t even those don’t cross your mind. We weren’t gonna, in my mind you weren’t gonna die. But nowadays, and, and I would hate to think, well, well what, what, what would a Gen Z Well Logan, is your generation tough there? I just wanted I know you’re tough. I believe you are tough. I’m glad
We we got that out of the way because I don’t know,
There’s no juice boxes out there.
Yeah, no juice boxes bud.
There’s several in my packet at all times, so don’t
Even worry. Yeah. Well it was just one of those, I I’ve had two of those experiences. That’s one of them. So, and roughly half century of living. We’re talking about this one. And I had one other when I was doing my graduate hiking for desert sheep. Very similar that I, I got probably weaker, more delirious. I don’t think it was like hallucinating, but it was just like total empty. But I, two times in my life and we’ve lived in the desert. Yeah. So it was a significant, well
You can talk about a little bit and then I’ve got one on that I’ll talk about. Yeah, it was, tell one more.
It was significant. I just, it was very similar. So I don’t wanna sound too redundant, but I was, I was, for two summers, I I did my graduate research project on desert Bighorn sheep and watering sources in southern Utah. On the compare Whats Plateau and Mo you know, you get outta college in the what, April? Late April, early May. So your, your season to do your master’s project is from, you know, June one to like mid-August when you gotta go back to the coursework, which is what the hottest time, the hottest of
The year. The hottest. There’s no hottest. August is August one to 10,
But the Nats are out. It’s just a brutal, I don’t remember when it was, but I just remember. And this was also in the early two thousands. Like 2000 to 2002. Okay. What what we what what I hiked with paper maps in my pack. Yeah.
Oh yeah. I know. All right. 2002 was an extreme driver. And
So two by the way. Oh yeah. And so I would look at routes and, and I’d, I’d have a truck and a four-wheeler and I’d try to, you know, cuz you can’t get picked up. You’re out there all alone. You get drive to a certain point, maybe leave a four-wheeler here. So you could do a loop of let’s call it 10 to 15 miles in a day as you’re mapping and GPS and spots. And I got, I, I either missed a canyon or the top I was reading was more of a one to a hundred thousand instead of seven and a half minute one to 24. And I didn’t have the detail to know which canyon do I need to get out of this canyon on and hike up and back on top. And I way, way overshot at way overshot my canyon. And by the time I topped out I realized I am way, I’m a long ways away and I have no water.
Yeah. And I have the lot, a lot farther to hike back than I thought. And I just remember, I remember the intervals that felt like 50 to a hundred yards when I got, when I topped out and I’m walking on a road, I’m walking on a flat road. But I remember I could go like a hundred yards and I have to just stop. And I, I I never felt like I’m gonna die. Almost never to that point. I just like, I, I’ve gotta just make sure I, I don’t, you know, tip over or something like that. But I just remember never been part more parts of my life and I left my pack. So I, I didn’t, I didn’t need to pack anything. I, I mean nothing in there is gonna save my life. Wow. I had no water. So I just left it. Cause I know I could come back and get it. But it was a scary moment. Finally hit the truck and I remember just starting to gu guzzle water and I’ve never had this happen. I would guzzle a quarter of water and I remember threw it all up water. Yeah. I just think the body was just so empty.
Gotta go slow.
Yeah. And I, I didn’t do that. I remember just throwing it all up. Luckily I had tons. I could keep doing it, but it was a scary moment
Mine. I was. And and I think you’ve, we’ve been around each other enough. I’ve, we’ve heard each other’s stories a little bit, but man, mine was, my dad drew a desert sheep in San Juan. He drew this desert sheep and we had fat cat, we did fat cat motorcycles. They were, they were Honda fat tired motorcycles. We
Gotta define that like,
Because they were in 86 and 87 and, and you know, cuz Beaver County, all the farmers use those. So every, about half of the fat cats that Honda built have made the rounds through Beaver County and became farm animals. Farm machines and hunting machines and
Moving sprinkling pipe cuz they don’t sink the
Mud as much. And there’s probably a thousand fat cat frames in farm fields down in Beaver County at some point. So they’re just, they were one of those bikes we didn’t have side besides. And the four-wheelers had monoshocks like what you were raised on. I still remember the Henry’s mono shock story of the old rancher. Oh yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Manual shift or, or a foot shift. And so, you know, we’re a push button shift, but not the Honda Matic transmission and things that we have nowadays. You know, belt driven stuff. So we use the Honda Fat cat too. Even navigate roads. Its, it’s not that we were u using ’em cross country, although back then a lot of people did to shed hunt. Times have changed. Well
They’re just reason I would’ve ride that a
Skinny look down upon. Do you remember that Logan? To do what shed hunt off of, off of those four-wheel motorcycles? I never did that. Yes. Okay. So this is beyond the Gen Z crowd Bronson years ago, years prior.
Well they years and they were 30 years ago. They’re more forgiving to ride. They’re more like a t w now. But they were even fatter. They were like three wheeler tires.
No, no they weren’t, they were clutched. They were just, you let off like a four wheeler, you, you let off the gas and, and shift. Right.
Well and they were more forgiving to ride in the desert and sand and all that. You didn’t Yeah. You didn’t put ’em down. So let’s, they were,
Yeah. They were
Easy to ride. They were, my grandpa had one, he bought a brand new one. Yeah.
And those kids. Yeah. Yeah. Which sure
I still had it.
I remember we bought brand new ones from Monticello, the Honda shop in Monticello. Honda Land. Yeah. Honda. That’s from my grandpa guy. Yeah. So anyway, we just u used ’em on an old, old uranium road or whatever. It got us up to elevation. Basically had to hike our guts out. We hiked up on top and this was summer. There’s September openers as you know, we hike up on top and I, I was prided myself on being a good Glasser. Yeah. And sure enough, you know, I was gonna glass a a she a sheep and I did, I glassed a ram as far as I could see as far as I could see up on top of the mix. And you know, you’re, you know, whatever in the mornings are cooler and the evenings are cooler and you know, it’s cool. And then it’s starting to get hot and we’re gonna go after the sheep and see what he is. And we don’t, we don’t have that much water. But you don’t think a lot about it cuz I can see it. I can see it. Let’s still four miles aerial each way
And, and not, not to mention how many cuts you gotta go around to.
Yeah.
It’s not a straight line.
No, not at all. It’s canyons tight. Yeah. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them. And so we get going and we go to the very, and then by the time you get there, you’re committed, you’re two-thirds of the way there realizing you’re, you got water problems and, and then you’ve gotta finish it because we saw ram and what if it’s the ram and here we are and now we’ve gone through all this, this pain and suffering and we’re gonna finish the job. And it’s a dink. We, we walk over the edge and Yeah. It’s a couple of dink rams. Yeah. And for sure they’re the ram for sure. Like, I’m like Yeah, that’s
Where what I saw.
Yeah. And we gotta make it back. And we’re outta water. With the exception, we each, we, we, we, my dad saved a little bit for a rainy, the trip out hour, whatever it was the death. Right. And we got, yeah, we got to where we were a third or or half the way back. And it’s a hundred and something degrees as you know, in September and down there. And he, he turns to me and he says, okay,
This is it.
I’m gonna give you this water. And I’m, I’m, I’m stopped. I’m done. I’m sitting under this tree and you take the water and you make it back. And then, then we had a gallon at the bike and then you
Replenish and get back to me.
And then you h and then you come back and you get me and bring me water. And that happened. Yeah. And I don’t know how I made it back to that bike I had, I still had, I mean it was tiny. He had, let’s call it a pint. That flash that I got. Yeah. Little flash. And I’m, and I stopped and I had, I had to stop every a hundred to 200 yards and I, and I took a nap. Yeah. Every a hundred to 200 yards. And I don’t know how long it
Was out. I remember that’s, I don’t know what that does to you, but that’s that feeling. I feel like that’s what you have to do. It’s full, like all you can
Can do. Yeah. So you get a little bit of shade and you, and whatever you, you know, and stopped and started and stopped and started all the way back to the bike. Did the same thing. And then I took a nap at the bike and then I’m like, I gotta make it back. And so I took what was left and I went back and I, and I met up with my dad, gave him the water and we made it back to the bikes. Wow. And then we went down, we had camp trailers with generators and it was a day and a half. We laid on the floor under the air conditioner and we ate and drank and were married and we ate and we drank and we were
Married. The last thing in your mind was a desert sheet.
I didn’t, we didn’t care about nothing. We didn’t care about nothing.
Just get your body swollen back up. Didn’t
Matter.
We drank water. It needed
Fine liquids, whatever it was. We drank Pepsis and, and water and ate all that we could eat. And it was a joyous experience. And it was, it was one of those that you just looked, you don’t forget back on. And, and you know, just kind of one of those experiences that you carry to the, you
Remember
Yeah. To carry to the grave. Yes. And that define you a little bit. Yeah. You know, and I think it’s some of those experiences that maybe, maybe some of the, the younger generation don’t experience as much. Bronson, do you ever get lost anymore?
Not anymore. But I also, I, you’re more cautious cuz one of those, one or two of those, you can always get caught out in a storm. Snow is when they’re not supposed to snow, you know, whatever, kill something up dark and now you’re gonna be way late getting back. But we’re, I’m way more prepared now than I ever was back then. Way more for, for some experiences like that. Way more
Prepared. And I think they make you, I think they make you tough when you’re in the Yukon and you and I have both done ’em, you’ve, you’ve done some of those mountain hunts, you know, more than I have. Like you, you know, and even Alaska, you know, I’ve, we’ve done it. I’ve done some of those sheep hunts and, and I’m telling you there, they, there is no, I’m not gonna make it. There wasn’t, we weren’t, we’ve done hard, you’ve done hard things. And so it’s just, how am I gonna, how am I gonna make it? Yeah, that’s right. You know what I mean?
Yep. No it is, it seasons. You for sure. Seasons you teaches you helps you be more prepared. Helps you be more, cautious is not the right word, but just more analytical now when I am, when I’ve got a place that I need to go scout or a place I need to go look for something that’s, I’m gonna be exposed and you’re going to a little bit of unknown cuz water in, in southern Utah, we don’t have, we don’t have a lot of seeps and springs. It’s natural water in sandstone pot house to
House in that location.
We call him TaNaK, earth and Earth and
Potholes. Catchments.
Yeah. In the, in that. And that’s what you survive on. And I’ve also gotten better about when I know not to go, like these last couple summers, like not the summers to come off of a winter you had nothing and go like, you’re asking for trouble going on real, real deep stuff this spring right now bring
It on. Well that’s why I was a little bit surprised that Paul being, as wise as he is, he, that he kept forging because, because honestly anymore now, and it’s what happens is you get to that point in no return and you just assume I gotta, if I make it through a few more snow drifts, I’m gonna make it. But we’ve all done it and I’m not a kid anymore and I’m just over it. Yeah. I’m over getting stuck, you know what I mean? If I can help it. That’s what I mean. Broon, I went, I took two trips out to Nevada. Right. Flatten level. What did I tell you? Totally got stuck. Yeah. Okay. I came back
And you’ve been here ever
Since. You need to replace motor mounts in my truck and I’m not, and I’m, and I’m like, and I told, what did I tell you? I’m now happy to be in the office. I’m just fine. Yeah.
You dodged a bullet. I don’t had to walk, walk miles and get picked up at night and Yeah. Send an sos
And
Send some
That longs. Yeah. Yep. The kids went out, got stuck and you know, luckily they had a shovel and then some people came and helped push ’em out and this and that. And anyway, anymore we’re just, just careful of making sure we take what we need and trying to
Got a lot more tools, awesome tools now than we had as kids too. It was a handyman jack and a shovel. No inReach, no sap phones, no nothing. Yeah. You know, and I just think about the places we went as kids and nothing we
Driving. I’m feeling an old Bronco in, in three foot of snow and broke the back, the back drive line Ujo and had to, had to take bailing wire and, and take and hold up the drive line front dragon. And we were in four wheel drive, but front, front wheel drive and you know, there is no who you gonna call. Oh yeah. You know, so you’re getting out. So anyway, I don’t know where, what we gotta end this. Do we just end it and call it a day and go eat? Yeah, that’s right. Drink and be married
For lunch. Yeah. On that note, let’s go eat, drink and
Be merry. I’m, I’m over it. Okay, let’s do it.
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