EP 10: Hunting Colorado Mule Deer

Colorado's coming up quick. You know, it's a preference point state, so it's somewhat predictable. Any unit in the state can produce a big deer. This is one of the best deer hunts I've ever been on in my life. Anything to do with western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter here with the Epic Outdoors podcast. Got Adam Bronson here with Epic I'm Eric Outdoors as well. He's my partner here at Epic. Anyway, just bringing you out another podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about some exciting stuff in Colorado. First off, I want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring these podcasts. They're an awesome partner of ours and have been on board since the inception of the podcast, as well as some other projects we've got going on. I really appreciate them. Just want to thank them again. Anyway, as we get started, Colorado's coming up quick. We've got an April 4th deadline. Postmarked April 4th. A lot of that doesn't, you know, matter when it's an online application such as deer, elk, and antelope.

But for the paper applications for non-residents, being sheep, goat, and moose, definitely needs to be postmarked by April 4th. So, anyway, pretty exciting. Colorado's one of those states, super popular here in the West. Maybe one of the most talked about states, especially when it comes to mule deer. So, today, Adam and I, we've hunted Colorado for years and years and years. And we just want to discuss a lot of the different options and availability and different things that we found when hunting Colorado mule deer. And just give you a few things to think about. A lot of you guys already have plans, and you already know where you're going to go, and maybe even have somewhat of a tradition on what you do with you and your buddies or your families. But anyway, just give you a few of the things that we found, and maybe it'll help you guys out a little bit.

So, as we get started, I just want to let you know we do have a monthly publication, December through June. It covers all the western states, drawing odds, kill percentages, best units, and gives you an in-depth analysis on the different things available. So, as we cover Colorado, we'll be really light on all the other species. A lot of that information on sheep, goat, moose, elk, antelope can be found in the magazine. Of course, we are available to visit with it about on the phone, but today's will be really centered around mule deer. Yeah, there's no question that I think this time of year, and maybe all year, we filled probably more phone calls, it feels like, for Colorado deer questions and what should I do with my points than maybe anything else. I don't know what you'd have to say about that, but I know it's on our front burner right now, so it maybe feels like that.

But it really, it is one of those states that has, you know, a lot of hunts you can draw on zero to two points. And, you know, it's a preference point state, so it's somewhat predictable. There's no randomness to their draw for non-residents. You know you got to have X number of points before you even got a chance. So, we're always field and call. It feels like more than anything else all year long on Colorado Deer. Does it seem like that to you? Oh, yeah, 100 percent. Like, we're dealing with that every day. And, you know, the interesting thing about Colorado, like you say, you can really tell when you're going to draw. It's a preference point state, so there's just no randomness. You can kind of tell from looking at last year's odds, the year before, the year before, and you can kind of predict unless, you know,

in some of these real low tag units, obviously one or two applicants coming over with a big bunch of points can sure change the odds. But, generally speaking, we found that you can really predict the odds and tell when you can go. Well, for example, if you were to, you know, look at a 22 third or something, eight or nine points, and you come in with 12, you know you're gonna get it. We've been in Colorado for 12 or 14 maybe years now. It feels like since they went to the draw in the late 98 or 99, whenever it was, unit by unit, and started cutting tags, and immediately within four or five years, things started, everybody started hearing about Colorado. I know my first year was 2004, and, you know, been a big part of my plans at least almost every year since. And I know yours too, Jason. So, a lot's changed, and we'll talk a little bit about that.

But things, everybody's expectations, I think, got really, of Colorado, got really formed from about 2003 to 2007. It was on everybody's, wow, I gotta get there, whether it be drawing a tag, buying a landowner tag. Then we've had a big winter in 07-08. Things maybe moderated some, and, you know, now we're maybe dealt with, I don't know, the best way I'd characterize it is just a lot of good genetics over there are, I don't know, about as good as anywhere. Good deer numbers, varied seasons, you know, a lot of different seasons. Three rifle seasons for deer in some units, late into November. And so, it gives a guy a lot of options to consider. Archery, muzzleloader, and two, three rifle hunts. So, there's a lot to talk about when it comes to deer.

You're exactly right. Back in the day when, like you said, pre-draw, back before, you know, they actually went to a limited draw for most things, you know, I had a lot of points built up. Actually, the best unit in the state back then was 142, Pinyon Canyon, out on the Plains, which is a public land unit. You know, I went on that drought year of 1996, and it was a December rifle hunt. Of course, I was back in college. That's a whole other story. Back in college, I had a truck that basically couldn't make it. I had to repair it a couple times getting there, repair it a couple times getting back, maybe even a new tire or two because of the I had some issues, but nevertheless, went out there, did see what I felt like was a 210 or 15-inch deer, didn't kill it. I remember him to this day. I've still got a picture of him in my mind, big inline on a big frame.

But cool, but the frustrating part of that is they told us where we could camp. We all kind of had to camp together, check in and out somewhat regular, and it was just, I don't know, it just was different. It just was different. When I want to go hunting, I want to go hunting, and I don't want to camp with everybody necessarily. So, anyway, dealt with some of that, experienced that. But once we started hunting the other part of the state, which is basically the western slope, it kind of changed things. And of course, what other state offers, you know, November rifle hunts? In any number, let alone, I mean, we're extremely careful when we do that here in Utah. Extremely careful. Very rarely do we do it. Especially where you got trophy quality. I mean, Montana gives them on the general hunts, and I understand there's some trophy deer to be had here and there on those.

But Colorado does it western slope-wide with one to two rifle seasons in November with areas where you're legitimately hunting 180 plus deer on. And that's almost unheard of for the points required to draw. Of course, you draw a strip tag, you draw places like that, allow you to hunt in November once in your lifetime, and you get that special experience. But Colorado, you can do it every single year if you want. You can go on, you know, units that take zero to one point, or buy a cheap landowner tag, or go every two to three years, or every five to six, or every 10 to 12, whatever, and hunt November every time. I think we will get into that a little bit later. I think that some of the underrated seasons might be some of those earlier seasons, personally.

The first season, which is October 21 to 29 or 30 this year, some years if you don't get the rut kicking in, might as well be there first and hunt these bucks first if you don't have a lot of high country. You know, obviously archery and muzzleloader are earlier than that. Yeah, if you look past, you know, in the past years, sometimes we'll get that early snowstorm, and that's what they call the second hunt, which in reality is the first rifle deer hunt in most units. And, which, you know, the first rifle hunt being for elk only. So, let's call it the second, which is October 21st to 29th. But, anyway, a lot of times you'll get that early snowstorm, and that can be when the big, big deer are killed. I know, you know, I've hunted 44 on the second, and it was snow, it was awesome, well, it was cold.

Anyway, you know, we would access some of this country by an hour, hour and a half, four-wheeler ride, Getting back in onto Bellyache Ridge and just working all that country behind the private, and you're hunting the public. But just, you know, getting in there was somewhat tough. You're at negative 10 to zero degrees, four-wheeler dressed up to the hilt, and, you know, pushing a foot of snow at times. And that was on the second. You know, so some years when you hit it right, that second requires a lot less points to draw. And in some cases, such as like 35, you could draw it on a second choice. And yet, can kill sometimes the biggest deer of all the seasons. I can think of another unit. I've hunted 61, and that's a unit that does not have a lot of high, high elevation country.

It's a big plateau. And if you don't get any change in weather between the second and the third, it can be just tougher on the third, Because the deer just got being done hunting for nine straight days. Nothing new weather-wise, no rut initiation. And so, to some extent, you might as well scout it and be the first ones there. So, there's a few units like that in Colorado that you might get away with being there first and killing the best deer of the year on the unit. And I remember, if I remember right, you killed a deer, didn't it go like 207 on 61? 207 or 209, I can't remember. And it was on the third, and it was, you know, got a break, saw one big deer and killed it. And it was not set up to be a great year. It was warm and hot, and I was in for long, nine days, I felt, until that deer stepped out. That was a lot of thick country, wasn't it? Just super thick.

It is. A lot of pinion juniper, a lot of oak. It's rim rocky. It's similar to a lot of southern Utah, where I grew up hunting. So, I liked that. I liked that type of unit, and knew there was big deer, great genetics. And so, drew it with nine or ten points at the time, and it turned out great. But, you know, we've alluded to a couple of units we've hunted on, but I know, Jason, maybe you ought to just read through the list. Read through the list that not just... these aren't just people, aunts and uncles, friends, once removed unit that we've heard something about. These are units we've actually been in. We've tried to work every angle in Colorado to get a tag. Whether it be a draw tag, landowner tag, leftover tags, whatever. But we've been there a bunch. Yeah, there's no question. I mean, we've spent a lot of time, you know, I've spent a lot of time in 21,

which is notably one of the best units in the state. I know there, you know, for quite some time, it was considered to be the best, then it had, you know, a lot of down years here. Now it's coming Seems to be doing really good, but we spent time in 21, 35, 43, 68, you know, 70, 25, 34, 44, 142, 136. I mean, spent some time in Gunnison, 54, 66. I know you spent some time in 77, 71, 711. I've been in 10 a bit. Of course, we've both been in 40 quite a bit. And I know you've hunted 60. I mean, there's just a lot of different options. That's what I love about Colorado. Even like we're talking about 61, you killed a great buck on the third. That is arguably one of the toughest units in the state to hunt. For the points required to draw, we probably had more people go hunt that and be disappointed with their 10 or 11 points than maybe any other unit I

can hear feedback on. It'll make a man out of you. That's not one of those easy... It's just not It's not easy. It's not drink Pepsi, drive the winter rains, and shoot bucks. The nice thing about 61, it's good when there's a lot of winter kill, which we'll get into that, you know, not necessarily this year, but, you know, of course, Gunnison did receive a fair bit of snow, and it did crush some deer, but 61's always going to have a big deer, always going to have a big deer. It's thick. They have escapement. They don't have necessarily the fourth. You know, it's just hard to go. Limited entry for elk, which cuts down on the general season, or the amount of elk hunters in the field with you, when you got a draw unit for elk, so you don't have the over-the-counter hunters. That's right. Some other consideration, you know?

Because I know a lot, most of these units were hunted. I mean, 21 included, 35, 68, you know, a lot of these, you know, your 25 stuff, you've got elk hunters. Probably unit 61 and 40 are the only exceptions that have limited draw for elk. Everything else, maybe unit 10, but I mean everything else, they're over the counter with you on the second and third, and they're everywhere. A lot of good people out hunting, and they're trying to, you know, of course you can buy an over-the-counter elk tag. And you and I have seen some awesome bulls on these over-the-counter, you know, elk tag units while we're hunting deer. I've seen bulls in 44. Yeah, I've seen them in 34 and 43, 310 to 330 bulls, you know, on over-the-counter tags.

I've never bought one because I'm there to hunt deer, and I didn't want to get packing a bull out for two days and take it away from my deer hunt, but could have if you ever felt like it. Yeah. Well, some of the best units in the state, I want to dive into... I want to really get to the meat and potatoes, and I know you do too. We've been discussing it quite a bit, and of course, we're answering questions every day. But I do want to talk about, you know, good, better, best type stuff, and just basically, you know, start out with some of the best type units. I mean, of course, you know, guys with high point options, we're, you know, we're fans of 21-3rd. I mean, that's one of those hunts. It's an easy hunt, lots of good access, lots of public, you know, and right now, there's just a lot of good deer.

Guys that are looking for 180 plus deer definitely are going to have a good hunt in 21, especially on the third. The third, you've got a lot more limited tag numbers, and you are going to see rut action, generally speaking. And it really doesn't require heavy weather to push those deer down. You can't get that high in the unit. You know, and it's going to take 19 to 20 points to draw for a non-resident. It's going to take 11 or more for residents. So, that's a pretty significant number of points for residents. And I think that's important to point out as we start talking about these best ones. I wouldn't say these are the ones that I would tell people with three or four points to start holding out for. I would tell them exact opposite of that. You'll never, it may take you 30 years to catch up to that if you were to chase them right now.

So, we're talking to people that have 18 to 20 right now on this subset of units. You know, I know 44 is probably another one we're going to have to talk about. Very, very low tag numbers. You've hunted that yourself, but third and fourth, it's going to take 20 plus points to draw. It is, and yeah, I think we should just dive into it. I mean, 44 is one of the most talked about. There's no question, I mean, percentage-wise, you look at the tags, you figure, let's just say there's, you know, 20 tags. A given year, it's between 15 and 20.

Let's say 20 for this year, third and fourth. The crazy thing about it is, is if you do a percentage on the number of 200-inch deer taken, it might be three or four of those bucks are over 200. Percentage-wise, there's not another unit in the state that'll do it. So, it's hard not to say 44 is the best unit in the state. Percentage-wise, I challenge anybody to come up with something better. I'd love to know about it. Per deer kill. But, having said that, one of the toughest units in the state to hunt, you know, you've got a lot of private. It's very, you've got to be aggressive. You've got to use your GPS with the cards and know your boundaries of the private. You've got to be prepared. It's one of those things, if it snows, it's high country. It's just high country. They're not going to be down at 4,000 feet.

If they do, down there at 6 or 7, they're in golf courses and subdivisions and they're off limits. They're off limits. They're an eagle, you know, or whatever, gypsum. So, you know, you can, and that's fine, and you can find them there. There again, the lower you get, you're gonna get closer to private, and you're gonna have private issues. So, kind of crazy, kind of a real crazy hunt to think about. We're really careful. I know when we talked to you guys about that one, there are, there's not necessarily an outfitter that is legal to hunt the public, the public land side of it.

So, you've got to have an outfitter that has a private land leased. That is rare. We know of a couple of situations. It's a very high dollar to do that. So, just be prepared. There is public to do it. It's somebody that's very aggressive. It's not a road hunt the rut situation where I can drive around and just enjoy having a lot of fun hunting. A lot of spruce fir, aspen patch, timber-type stuff. And, you know, overall, it's a unit that's gonna eat your lunch, but it's got the best genetics in all of Colorado right there. No question. And there's places you could get lucky, and people do every year. And I'm not here to say you have to be an animal to hunt it. Just don't want it. A lot of guys are disappointed that that hunt, especially like this past year when it was hot and dry.

It was tough on third and fourth to even find a 180-inch deer. There again, there was a couple over 200, a couple over 220, and that's just what the .44 does, but it was tough overall for most of the hunters. You know, my sister even years ago hunted it, and you know, riding around, they saw what looked like a nice buck, and she pounded it. It's a 197-inch net four-point.

I mean, that just, where else does, I mean, and that's eagle genetics. Giant typicals, not, although there has been some 40-inch deer, generally, they're like more compact. Big frames. Big frames. Big frames. Beautiful deer. Yeah. So, and you know, I know guys talk about the archery, and we always are looking for the inside scoop on a unit and try to really make the most out of something and do something people aren't thinking about. And if you crunch the archery odds or the muzzle rods in that particular unit, you'd say, well, it's the best unit in the state. And I can get it almost any time I want to get it. Well, just a word to the wise, it's one of the toughest archery muzzleloader hunts that there is. A lot of thick timber, high stuff is not like a 43 or some of these other units. You got a lot of alpine basins and glass and bucks out that you can stalk.

It's thick trees and tougher to kill them. You know, you're still hunting with a bow. I could see how a resident may do good because he can spend a lot of time And just, you know, spend his whole summer there. And maybe you do catch one of these bucks feeding out in the open, and you pattern him or whatnot. But that's a tough one. Well, so what about other units in that, let's say, let's just call it 15 plus point range, because we really kind of got to talk about units in chunks of points like that. And, you know, I think after we get rid of 21 and 44, you start getting to maybe a bunch of the four season units. Yeah, so what we're talking about there, in my opinion, tell me what you think, but we're talking average units with great season dates. That's right. And low tag numbers. That's right. You're

dealing with literally five to fifteen tags total for some of these, a lot of these fours. You know, you're talking like maybe twenty-two, and fifty-three, and thirty-five, and sixty-three, and I don't know, just sixty-eight, although that's It's maybe getting under 15 points, but these units are all taking 15 plus points to draw them, and they take half or almost three times as less to draw second season. I know. Or third. Or second season, 35, get this as a second choice. You can get it as a second choice. But it takes you 15 as a fourth season. Yeah. So, what do you say? The bottom line is we're talking about units that get pounded in other seasons. Heavy tag numbers such as 35, 336. Unbelievable, extraordinary amount of tags. I mean, when you look at the third, they're showing like 620 tags, you know?

So, and it tells you there's a lot of deer. It can sustain it, but, you know, it's not necessarily managed for giants. Down to 35 or so on the 4th and later dates, and it is a much better chance to have one deer stick his nose out of the timber chasing a doe and, you know, 190 type deer. The first year I hunted 35. I hunted 35 on the fourth, you know, late 2000s. What, 2010-ish, I want to say. Anyway, Kurt and I went over there. He killed a great deer, like 189 or 190s, you know, and I got lucky, underjudged a deer, but decided to kill him anyway, fortunately. But anyway, ended up grossing 212, but that was one of those, you know, just, I don't know, just one of those, I didn't know the unit.

And that's what I love about Colorado 2s. I mean, to hunt the rut, you don't have to necessarily know the unit, you just have to, it's a numbers game. For me, when we're hunting the rut, and Adam, you can, you know, chime in on this too, but when we're hunting the rut, we're not necessarily pre, you can't pre-scout the rut, you can't pre-scout the migration. So, what you're trying to do is get as close to your season as you can. Maybe you spend three or four days pre-scouting on a fourth, like we did in 35, and then hunt it as aggressively as you can. That fourth is only five days long, and you just hit it as hard as you can and get lucky. And that's what hunting the rut is. It's getting lucky.

Now, muzzle and archery, yeah, we're pre-scouting. We're working hard in Nevada, Utah, on some of these other early season hunts, and forcing our luck. We're forcing it to happen. We're earning that deer, so to speak. These rut hunts, I mean, it's just a luck game. I know you hunted a fourth this last year, and I mean, it's not something you would have pre-scouted. No, you can't. You go hunt a fourth, either burning your points or the landowner tag, hoping that you get snow prior to that, a week to 10 days prior to that, that drives deer down lower, compresses them a little bit more, and initiates the rut. And of course, last year, we didn't get that. We killed bucks over 10,000 feet in the fourth season, which is crazy. And it might be worth mentioning something here. Now, Colorado changed their policy of turning your tag back in and getting your points back last year.

Before that, you could turn it up in up until the day before the hunt and walk into a Game and Fish office Friday, go over there, scout it for three or four days prior to the third or fourth, or see what the weather's gonna be like, and like, yeah, things are looking good, and use it. Or don't. Turn it in. Now you got to do that 30 days prior to your hunt. It pretty much eliminates the ability to predict the weather, to know how much the weather is going to influence your hunt. You've got to just roll the dice. And it's, I think we've got a lot more calls this year on that. It's got a lot more people that have used that as a safety valve in the past. Me and you? Yeah, me and you both. I've turned tags before, and basically, because I didn't have the time, and I didn't think it was going to be phenomenal,

so I just turned it in and got my points back. Now you're going to have to just go make something happen. And I think a lot more people are a little bit uneasy of that, and it's just kind of the new normal of Colorado. You're gonna have to... weather will make the hunts great over there. Everything will be okay, or maybe tough if it was like last year, because it was just 75 degrees in November, and it was really, really tough. But, you know, keep that in mind. You're gonna have to roll the dice if you burn your points.

Yeah, that's right. And you know, and having said that, even when you do turn it back and get your points back, you actually don't gain a point like you would in Utah or Nevada if you turn them back, or even in, you know, the point guard program there in Arizona. You actually just go back with the points you had pre-draw. Yeah. And so, you kind of lose a year. You know, we'll talk about point creep and trying to keep up with everybody. Yeah. If you're on the bubble of drawing that, it's kind of a bigger gamble. If you got two to three points more than you need to draw the same tag again, then you're probably going to draw the same tag again. But if you're right on the bubble and you draw something, point creep might edge you out for another year, too, if you turn it back and don't build a point.

Yep, that's exactly right. And so, well, moving along, I know, you know, so we've talked about some of these force, and, you know, guys with real high number of points need to use those force. And, you know, there's a few good outfitters there in Colorado we could sure help you with, you know, if you were to draw those tags or apply for those units. But having said that, that's another game in and of itself, because you can tell when you're going to draw. These outfitters are booking people in advance, maybe even one to two years out, planning for these clients to draw, because they know how many points they have. And so, don't, you know, just a word to the wise, anybody that's listening, I mean, don't draw a tag and then look for an outfitter. If you know you're going to draw,

and you can tell you're going to draw, or we tell you you're going to draw, because you've called in a visitor with us, And you know you're going to hire somebody, probably should consider sending another deposit before you apply. Yeah, that's right, because people have gotten into trouble, then you find out you draw, then you can't book the outfitter or any outfitter. You end up having to turn your tag back in, like we described. You lose your $375 and don't get a point for that year. And, you know, maybe you're sitting out another year or two trying to draw this very same tag. So, yeah, very good point. Yeah. So, some of these other high point units in the past that have been really good, we did want to cover some of the Gunnison units. And these are some of the most talked about, you know, units right now because of the winter.

The winter is brutal. Gunnison is known for having tough winters every, for sure, every 10 years. If it goes seven years without a tough winter, then you've got big deer and older deer. And so, anyway, this past year, I know, you know, December, January, February was abnormal. Crushed the place. Definitely put down a lot of snow. Having said that, it did warm up. They only had cold temperatures, really cold stuff there for, it seems like, two to three weeks. You know, and it made it fairly tough on the deer, and we were all concerned. And when we wrote this publication, we definitely admonished people to pay attention. It's not going to be the same. And we still believe that. It won't be the same. Anytime you have deer, you know, living on the pavement, and then the Game and Fish is, you know, feeding deer to keep them off the pavement from getting road killed,

You know you've got an issue. Having said that, it hasn't crushed all the deer. We know there's going to be some mature bucks out there. It's not going to be like 2007 and 8, but it is the one part of Colorado probably that is going to have a little, is higher than normal winter loss, outside of a couple pockets here and there throughout the state. Nothing widespread. Yeah, we're definitely, you know, across the state, you know, Colorado has maybe a higher winter loss than a lot of other states, especially some of these arid states like Nevada and Arizona. I mean, it's a mountainous state, and it's gonna have some pockets of winter krill, but nowhere near catastrophic. Gunnison Basin, it's popular. Those are fun units to hunt. We've hunted them. I've hunted 54. We've killed some big bucks in Gunnison.

You know, and it's one of those fun, you know, almost truck-type hunts at times, or it can be as physical as you want it to be, and hit some of that roadless country. This country, I know 54 has got a lot of that. Some of these mesas that you can hike up to within an hour hike and get up in there where there's no roads and work some of this country. So, you know, 54, 55, 66, 67. We've got a lot of friends that hunt 67 pretty hard. Of course, 66 is known as one of the better Gunnison units in the state. But all of those have been really good in the past and still will most likely produce a few good bucks. You know, they've all got four season tags. I don't know what they're going to do with the tag numbers. Of course, they'll probably be cut, but anyway, word to the wise on those ones.

That's right. You know, in units that are obviously close to that, a unit that tends to always come up, close to it geographically, is unit 53. It's a unit that, if you're sitting in that 12 or 13 point range, you might want to look at that one on a third season. The biggest benefit on a third season over a fourth is you got nine days versus five, and that's almost double. And if you get a year like last year when you don't have incredible snow and rut and all that, you're gonna need nine days. You're gonna get your butt kicked for nine days maybe, but five days is nowhere near enough with bad dates and bad weather. Oh, you've experienced that firsthand. I know you had flat-out blizzard for what, two or three days?

For two days. Yeah, you could be there on a fourth and be getting snow, and you're whited out for two days. And on a five-day hunt, that can tear into your hunt a little bit. So, third season's give you more days. If you know you're gonna get some kind of weather, or feel like you're gonna, or, you know, just got the time to dedicate to it, you might look at something like that. Really, Colorado comes down to use the points. I don't think there's anything right now. Use the points to draw the best tag you think you can get. If you're only a point or two away from getting something, and you really want to go to a certain unit, okay. But these units we're talking about, 18 to 20, or 15 to 17, or 12 to 13, if you're three to five, six points away, who knows what it's going to be like when you get there. And there's a lot of good hunts for whatever points you're sitting at right now.

I can't emphasize that enough. Use the points for what you have right now. Yeah, I definitely think the same. Like, what are you waiting for? I think, you know, it's better to draw. Four or five times over the course of 20 years than one time. Yeah. Because even like we were talking about this past year, it was warm, you're in unit 44 or one of these awesome 21, and then you end up with hot, dry weather, and you're just like, geez, you know? And you're killing the same kind of buck or even less than what you could kill on a three-point unit on a decent year or even an average year, good year. That's right. So, yeah, I'm with you. We want people to use, you know, apply often. I'm trying to draw often and go hunt often. So, I know some of the biggest bucks in the state of Colorado have been killed in no-namer units, so to speak. You know, just units that

are just got a big deer in it. And any unit in the state can produce a big deer. It's a factor of genetics and age. And, you know, it's proven itself that there's good genetics throughout the state. And then it's just a matter of age, and you get one of these deer You know, you've got a 260-inch plus deer, you know? So, anyway, and then some of the, you know, some of the other zones that we've hunted, I know, you know, I've hunted 68 this last year. I hunted 68 second with my boys, and easy unit to draw. Anyway, just one of those opportunities for my boys to go hunt. I've hunted 68, 681 country quite a bit over the years. I've killed 100 mid-190s type deer one year. Some of you guys may have seen it on the Ridge Reaper TV show on the Outdoor Channel. We killed a 32-inch buck that was 193 or 194. But anyway, just solid deer. This last year, tough, really tough.

That 68 was warm and dry, let alone being the second season. And so, if you don't get weather, like we talked about earlier, That can be a tough hunt, and it was, but nevertheless, we had a good hunt with my boys and got on a few four points, and, you know, Sean killed his first buck. And so, anyway, but an easier-to-draw hunt, I have hunted the fourth on 68. Interesting in there, they rut later than most places in the state, from what we found. Even on that fourth, you won't see much for rutting activity. I did kill a buck that was lip-curling one year, that was mid-190s on the fourth, back when you can draw it with like five points. That wasn't that long ago. So, things have changed a lot where there's definitely people have been building points, and all of a sudden, they just, you want something, and you go in and

point creep, so to speak. They jump on you pretty heavy. And I know you've spent some time in 70 and 71, some of that country. That's right. I mean, Aaron, we've hunted 61. 70's right next door to it. Grew up shed hunting a little bit in 70. And Aaron and I got landed on our tags there one year, showed up to the unit to hunt for the first time. I remember the first night I was there, I found a buck, and I think I even called you about it. You did. I found a freaking giant tonight. And it was the first... Crossing the road or something. I was hooked up to my camp trailer. Yeah, that's it. I mean, I couldn't stop for nothing. The hunt was on. It was like the Sunday night. Well, anyway, it took us a day or two later, but Aaron and I just basically tag-teamed that one deer, and he killed as a 32-inch, low-90s buck on Unit 70.

And 70 is one of those units that I think has probably tapered off a little bit in the last handful of years. A lot, maybe. Yeah. You know, I would never tell you to expect a 190, 32-inch deer there, but it's happened, and it's got good numbers of deer. A lot of deer flood to that low elevation of 70 to winter from 70 and 71. And sagebrush, pinyon juniper type country, easy to get around in. It's a great hunt to take kids to, things like that. But tons of deer, isn't there? Just a lot of deer. But not as many 175 plus deer, I think, as there used to be. But, you know, that unit, unit 71, 711, very similar. 71, 711 have a lot more private land. You know, unit 60 to To the north there, kind of a migration area. Got some resident deer in it, but also deer that move out of Utah, full of Sal Mountains. Not overall a top-end unit. I've been there before. Terrible unit.

But, you know, when you get something as a second choice or something back in the day, or cheap lander or tag, you go make something out of nothing. And, you know, it does have some good genetics. It's kind of sandwiched around a bunch of good stuff, and there have been some good deer killed there. But, you know, these are kind of units like, you know, 25, 26. You've talked about 35, 36. All these type of units are units you can go every year, every two years max. Yeah. You know, maybe 70 takes four, five, six points to get there on a third, but you don't have to wait, you know, a lot of years to go to Colorado. If you want to go this year, there's somewhere you can go this year. That's the good thing about Colorado. You can force your hand. You might have to burn your points on something you wouldn't ideally like to, but if you want to go, you can go. Yeah.

There's units you can draw 95% chance with zero points, or 100% with one point, or 100% with two or three, whatever. Yeah, and two, you know, we've kind of learned how to hunt Colorado over the years. It's like, at first, you're kind of apprehensive, you know, and I understand that, and people are, you know, worried that they don't know the unit, and it's definitely not their backyard. You're usually driving one or two states to get there. But once you get there, and if you get the maps, and you get set up with your GPS and the cards, and you just start working it, I mean, it's a deer factory. I mean, that country, it's beautiful, mountainous. It's made to produce deer in a lot of them. So, anyway, it's not rocket science. It's just a matter of starting to work, glass it. You know, everybody has their different hunting styles and what they like.

And I mean, if you're a road hunter, great. You're probably gonna do fine, maybe do great. You know, if you're anybody that's willing to work a little bit and get out and hike and work it a little bit, you're gonna do awesome. You know, generally speaking, you're gonna have tough hunts. We've had them. We have tough hunts, but we keep going back. Well, you just go because of the overriding factor of genetics. And when you get the right weather, I've been on units like 43 and 25 and 70. When you've been there, when the weather hits, and you're like, this is one of the best deer hunts I've ever been on in my life. And you're on a second choice unit, or a $500 or $1,000 land or a tag unit. So, you go to Colorado later in the rifle hunts because of almost the what if. And, like, let's face it, we don't want hunt season to be done yet. You're ready. Let's go to Colorado.

You're going to get another tag, another place. It's usually after Utah, and usually after Nevada's over for you, You spend a lot of your time, so get over there, see if you can time it right. And, you know, then I've been on the very, very same units the very next year with terrible weather. And when I say terrible, I mean just hot and warm, and you're wondering if you're on the same unit. And if you dreamed what happened there the year before, it can be that dramatic back-to-back years based on weather. You've got a lot of high elevation, 10,000 to 14,000 feet peaks in a lot of these units. And when deer get hung out from a little bit there all the way down to 7,000 and strung out a little bit, it can make it out for you to be a very tough hunt. Yeah, I agree 100%. You know, one of the units that seems to not be talked about hardly at all is that 43.

And I know you've spent time in there. We've had a lot of friends, close friends that have hunted at 43. You know, really close friends of ours, and we know there's still big deer in there. We don't talk about it a lot. It isn't easy. You can tell us about that a little bit. It's got a lot of high elevation country, a bunch of 14ers and marine belts. In fact, it's probably one of the better high country archery and muzzleloader type options that doesn't take very many points to draw. Yeah. That, maybe 74 units like that, that you can go to very often. Well, you know, when you have to pull deer from some of that country down to the low country for them to show up, You're kind of at the mercy of that weather, and down low around Aspen and Carbondale and a lot of that, there's a lot of alfalfa in private land.

Yeah. And private land that's not even open to hunting. And I've seen some 235-inch deer get brought into the- It's a sanctuary. Yeah. People shot, had the right little piece of private they could hunt, and the deer showed up. But I've also been there in warm years when it's like, pfft, this is a waste of our time. Yeah. But I got lucky and killed a 200-incher there at my very first time there, and went back the next year. I was alluding to that, and it was like it was a ghost town. Yeah. And it was even later dates. So, weather can make or break that. 43 is one of those units that did, I think, take it on the chin in that winter of 2007, 2008.

And maybe, to some extent, it's never fully gotten back on track. The tag numbers are nowhere near where they used to be. Back when I was something, you could draw a second choice or buy cheap $500 landowner tags, and that's pretty much not there anymore. Speaking of landowner tags, I want to talk about that a little bit. One of our huge topics of discussion when people call in is landowner tags. People want to get landowner tags, and in Colorado, of course, they've got the unit-wide landowner tags, and they've got private-only landowner tags. But, you know, let's talk about that a little bit, like how that's changed. I know, of course, they don't allow you to broker them. It makes it tough to, you know, help people find tags, especially for guys like us.

But, you know, also, it's changed from, you know, 15% of the total tag quota going to being able to be used for landowner tags to 10%. It's changed a lot. That's right, yeah. So, in the past, when there was, let's say there's 100 tags on a unit, There used to be 15 of them set aside for the landowners to draw on the draw. And, you know, they could be used unit-wide, all of them. And so, if you got a good piece of property, you could hunt their ground and all the public ground. That got bumped up to 20 percent. So, initially, you think, oh, that's better. Well, actually, it got bumped to 20 percent, but then half of them are mandated private land only, half of them are unit-wide. So, in essence, you got cut by 33 percent from 15 percent to 10 percent of units total. You got cut by a third the number of unit-wide landowner tags.

You factor that in, the fact that you can't broker, and now you've just had 10 to 12 years of landowners dealing direct with outfitters and whatnot, and tags are a lot harder to get your hands on now. A lot harder. Well, and the landowners are nervous about the language in brokering, And they don't want to, you know, be in violation of the law and be banned from the program and whatnot. So, they're comfortable selling to the same people they've worked with. Yeah, who walks up to them at the coffee shop or whoever. Yeah, or who they've worked with for years and years. And so, it's just made it a challenge to get those, you know. The nice thing is, when you do get them, and one of my sons did use one this year, just because he didn't have enough points to draw. But when you do get them, you know, you can, you don't use your points.

You can still gain a point, apply in the draw and whatnot, and then go ahead and take advantage of a landowner tag and go hunt the unit. You know, and we don't even really want to hunt the private. We don't. We just want to hunt the public and just go hunt together, you know, and that's what we did this past year. So, yeah, we're normally using to hunt units we've been to before, and we just want to go hunt as if we drew the tag again. You know, that's usually how we view it. Now, if a specific landowner's got a little bit of acreage or something, and it allows you to give you something to go check out and see if there's a group of does hanging on it, the buck moves in, that's great. But we don't normally base any of our hunts around the private on landowners.

No, that's right. And so, when we're talking about some of these places we've hunted, like Unit 21, for example, multiple times, you know, and I did kill a, you know, a 207 34-inch in there, and my dad killed a buck that went 212, you know, a few years back. But it's one of those deals where, you know, you do want to hunt those units, the same units year after year, because you've learned it, and now you can hit the ground running. Kind of like what we said when you can only scout the rut in the rut. You know, as you've been there, you were in the rut, and we want to go back the next year, because you can kind of hit the ground running, and you feel comfortable. And when you feel comfortable, you do well, or at least better. And so, anyway, we do supplement our draw tags with landowner tags when we can.

But, like having said that, a guy goes in and hunts one of these four season tags, I mean, the tag numbers are so low. When you take 10% of one of those and give them to a unit-wide landowner program, you're talking about one tag. One or two, maybe. And when you do that, what's the chances you're going to get it, and what are the chances you can afford it? When you're talking about a unit that takes 18 points to draw for a non-resident on the fourth, it's not going to be a cheap landowner tag. When the landowner draws one after waiting six, eight, ten years themselves, then the landowner draw the draw, because there's only one. And he doesn't want fifteen hundred bucks for that tag. He's gonna want six, eight, ten grand. So, having said that, a little bit more on that landowner tag program is, landowners have applications like you and I do, and they apply

in the draw. And that application has points associated with it. And the most points win. It's a preference point system. Very same thing. Yep, they apply for them amongst the pool of They're called just landowners. They can opt out of the private land tax and just apply for the unit-wide permits, which, unless they have enough ground to hunt, that's what we'd probably recommend to landowners to get, is the unit-wide ones, because they're safer to sell to Joe Blow to go hunt the unit. But yeah, they compete amongst themselves. They don't find out until the end of May, 1st of June, when the draw takes place, just like us. That's right. And so, anyway, lots of cool opportunities. I did want to touch a little more on the archery and muzzle seasons.

You know, these are seasons you can draw some of the better hunts like we talked about, although, you know, like 44 is a prime example of not being that good on the early season hunts. I mean, the deer are there, the bucks are there, and somebody's going to prove me wrong and kill a giant. I hope they do and call me and give us a story and maybe even a cover shot. But having said that, you know, like 21 archery, I mean, you can get 21 archery with, you know, seven, eight points plus, right in there, seven or eight points. And those deer, you know, 21's a little different up high. There's a lot of private up high. And, of course, right there on the boundary is unit 30, and it kind of, that high country splits, you know, 21 and 30. And you can hunt both units when you draw that archery hunt. And that is, it's a good opportunity, tough opportunity. It's tough. It's not easy.

You got a lot of thick oak country to hunt, as well as private land to work in and around, or at least try to get private access on. That's right. Well, and another thing to point out is these two hunts are early. So, if you're hunting a familiar country that you've been to before, going there without needing to scout or hitting the ground running is usually a pretty important way to do it. But you can also find deer in the summer range and go right back in the archery hunt, and they're going to be there. Yeah. So, your pre-scouting really can help you on these hunts, where the November hunts, they're really not. The one thing to keep in mind, though, is the muzzleloader hunt starts September 9th this year and goes to the 17th. It's essentially a nine-day hunt right in the middle of the archery hunt. Yeah. And so, you're not going to be alone. You've got...

Archers want to be there early. Yeah, archery hunters get to go there for a bit, then the muzzle loaders are there, but then you've also got in maybe 75% of the state, over-the-counter archery elk hunters. Yep. Everywhere. Yep. So, just bear that in mind on these hunts. Maybe another reason my people don't look at them as much is they're not exclusive. You're by yourself. Like Utah, you draw Henry Mountains or a Pont-Sagant. You're by yourself hunting there. Well, and the state's kind of careful to try to be careful with the hunters that have been saving points for years and years and try not to have those seasons overlapping as best they can. Yeah, Colorado's very much so a combined hunt deer and elk at the same time state, whether it be archery or second or third rifle.

They love deer and elk hunters at the same time. Their state loves it. The residents love it. So, you just got to be prepared for that. You're going to see some people. But I think, having said all that, I think you and I, I mean, and you and I talk about it every day. I mean, we're at 2 or 3 in the morning working, or 4 in the morning, you know, pounding out a magazine or whatever when the phones are dead. And, of course, we do this because we love it, and we're just working it over for our own, you know, I mean, what are we going to do ourselves? And we think about it every year. The archery muzzleloader hunts are definitely something that we should be doing. But, you know, we've got other things going, and I know some of your sheep stuff here in Utah starts in September, and it gets really aggressive. I'm in Nevada or Utah, and, you know, there's so many places you want to be.

But having said that, people that have time, I think the archery muzzleloader is definitely overlooked. Yes, they are. Well, and there are a couple of units as well that have early high country wilderness or above timberline rifle hunts that start September 2nd. Yeah. Pretty unique opportunity. Not very many states, maybe Wyoming in the high country, Region GRH on the 15th. But here you're walking in September 2nd after the bow hunt's been going on for a week, and you've got your long range rifle in these high country basins. And if you've got time to scout and find a buck, they're a pretty dang good time to hunt. And you've got to be physical. Yeah. They occur at 11,000 to 14,000 feet. These hunts aren't for everybody. You're going to have to backpack, you're going to have to get aggressive.

But we talk about it every year about how, not those hunts specifically, because they take 12, 13 points to draw, but archery and muzzle, way undervalued for the points it takes to draw if you have the time to go dedicate to them. I agree with you 100%. And so, you know, good options like 61 we talked about. Of course, that high country shares it with 62, but, you know, those bucks are there. Those bucks are there. They're living there year-round. And you can hunt them, and some of the, you know, craziest stories and sightings of giants that we hear about are in some of that country, and yet, to get them on the ground is another thing. It's pretty tough. It's not a state you can bait, and it's a spot and stock. And you could do, you know, I don't know, maybe there's another good effective method.

I'm usually a spot and stock guy, and it's tough when you can't see them. It's thick country up there. A lot of oak brush in some of these units, too, where you start hunting them in August, they're fully leaved out. That oak gobbles up elk, let alone deer. And 61, 40, some of those units like that. I even think like 55 early would still be good, even though Gunnison has had this winter loss. Some of those deer don't just winter in Gunnison. They winter several different areas, and yet they'll share that summer range. So, I think there's some good opportunities there. Anyway, lots of opportunities. Another thing I want to talk about a little bit is just how the turn back program, you know, when guys turn their tags back, what happens to those? Yeah, last year it was kind of a new system. They just started throwing them back on the internet, first come, first serve.

This year, I believe if it took, what, five points or more, they're going to go to the next alternate on the list and try to offer it to them. And I'm sure that's probably going to be how they get rid of the bulk of those tags. But if they can't get rid of those, they are going to use that online system, first come, first serve. Within a certain time frame, and like every Tuesday, they go on sale, first come, first serve. Interesting. I mean, first come, first serve for where? You know, online, phone, standing in line, physical. So, not an easy, but I do have a good friend that got his tag like that last year and didn't use his points. Got to go ahead and gain a point like he did.

Definitely a benefit if you do live in Colorado or have somebody, a license agent, can walk into a mom-and-pop license agent at 7.59 and be there when the computer turns on and pick up a leftover tag for nothing. Yeah, exactly. So, but... Some of these other units that I know, you know, take virtually zero points, you know, depending on the season. We've looked at the cluster of 15, cluster of 18. You know, of course, we've talked about 35, 36 seconds, be tough, lots and lots of tags. But, you know, a place that might take your kids, especially with the cheap youth fee, $100. You know, kids getting a tag for $100, how can you go wrong, right? It's pretty cheap. You know, there's... Even non-resident youth. Just something to keep driving home is if you have a light schedule that you think you're going to have this year, and you have any kind of points or even no points in Colorado,

there's something you can go hunt. Pick a point, pick a unit that took zero points, you know, And apply for it. And you're gonna have a chance to go hunt deer, and in some years of the right weather, you can still 180 plus bucks on units that don't take any points to draw. Yeah. We've done it ourselves. We don't do it every time, but we do it enough. We go to Colorado enough that the stars align for you every now and then. You know, more often than not, it feels like, because we're learning from a familiar country. And, you know, it just broadens your opportunities. When you do get to three or four or five or six points, you can go back to something on maybe a little bit more desirable unit or season dates or things like that. A few other hunts that have kind of intrigued me. I've never been able to hunt them, but like Unit 2, it's a giant unit.

You look at the map, it's just unbelievable, real low tag numbers, but it borders good country in Wyoming, at least good genetics. Wyoming doesn't manage for big deer, but if they did, they would have giants right across the state line. It's just one of those, you know, it intrigues me. Of course, I'm a desert freak, and that's a lot of wide-open, crazy desert-type terrain, and might be something a guy could pull a giant out of. I know 30 in the past, Unit 30 has been talked about, and we've known multiple 180-plus deer come out of there. It hasn't been talked about a lot. I haven't heard a lot about it, but, you know, like I say, in any of these units, you might pull out a Giant. So, anyway. You know, that was a lot of smash-and-grab, fast-and-furious talk, but there's only so much you can do in an hour.

Just can't overemphasize enough to build points in Colorado to give yourself options. And I guess for me personally, I view Colorado, I use my points over there every five to eight years now, And I'm not opposed to using them in less than that, but I usually have other seasons and other states or my personal guiding schedule or something like that that I don't want to burn my points every other year or something like that. And, you know, fortunately, I can pick up a landowner tag, you know, in the years I want to go and don't want to use my points, but just make Colorado part of your application strategy when it comes to deer. I will say also that I think everybody's expectations need to be slightly lower than where we're all used to thinking of Colorado as.

There's a lot of good in Colorado, and not as much no-brainer, great, phenomenal deer hunting as there was six, eight, ten years ago. I agree with you 100%. I agree with you. So, just be prepared to see other hunters, orange hunters, people in orange. Orange hunters. Not orange hunters, but pink now. Yeah, I guess you can. You can wear pink now. Hey, that's a significant change, by the way. You can wear hot pink instead of hunter orange. Yeah, I'm waiting to see what clothing lines come out with the snazzy pink clothing this year. Hey, if we were smart, we'd come out with some epic pink shirts, you know, and jackets and hats and whatnot. So, anyway, but I did want to... A lot of orange on the mountains, is what I meant to say. You will see a lot of orange, but you got to be prepared for that.

That's just Colorado, but the genetics are there. Just better to be there than sitting home hoping to have a big deer happen somehow else. I did want to cover the eastern plains real quick. I've hunted the plains a bit. You know, they've got a lot of private land over there, and it is dominated by private land. And so, we don't cover a lot of it in the magazine. You know, the plains is one of those that, you know, those big deer are largely dictated by the management strategy and practices of the ranchers, and their neighbors, because these deer are moving around, and they've got late archery seasons in the rut. They've got late rifle seasons. They've got an early rifle season. And so, you know, it just depends. And if they cut their corn, or if they don't cut their corn, and there's a lot that goes into play when dealing with those Eastern Plains hunts.

And so, we work with a couple of great outfitters on the Eastern Plains. For the most part, either you find landowners that you develop a great relationship with, and you start learning their property, and maybe you help them manage or whatnot. If you know somebody, have relatives of the family, or however you get to know them, then, yeah, by all means, go apply on the plains. It's easy to draw out there, and a lot of it is because it's private, and you're not dealing with public land hunters for the most part. And anyway, the outfitters will dictate, too, how hard they hunt the property, and if they're managing for trophies. Some of our good friends are outfitters out there, and they do well, but it's also one of those things, You don't just apply for a 109, 102, or 98, and then try to figure it out later. It's not that situation.

You need to essentially book your hunt, then apply. Yeah. Because limited number, they just don't take an unlimited number of hunters. They may take two people on a ranch all year. And make sure you book the hunt, or know who you're going to hunt with, then apply and draw the tag, so it's not a surprise when you're starting from square one the end of May. Can you believe, can you hear that rain? So, like, Adam and I are sitting here in the studio, and it's just pounding us with rain. It's unbelievable. I just get excited every time I see these big old storm clouds. Here in southern Utah, Arizona, Nevada, gonna be some of the most incredible antler growth years. I mean, Nevada had an amazing year, you know, last year. And man, how can it get any better? The conditions are amazing. Of course, we'll talk about that.

I'm going to be visiting with Greg Krogh and a few other guys. Of course, we're going to visit with Vic Trujillo, awesome sheep outfitter and good friend of both Adam and I. And anyway, a lot of good things coming up, but we're excited. Of course, it's hard to keep the excitement level down here in the office. We talk hunting every single day, And, you know, we're hearing about big deer and big sheep, and we're pulling trail cameras. I know Adam this past weekend pulled some trail cameras, and we're looking at 178 to 184 inch rams and desert sheep, and we're just dying right now. So, anyway, super excited. There again, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson here with Epic Outdoors, just wrapping up a podcast, Colorado Deer for the most part. We do cover all the species in the state in our publication. We publish an EMAG version, electronic file online.

It's up and going, as well as a paper publication. It's $100 a year. You get them both, there's no extra cost for the other. And we visit with hunters every day, be happy to visit with you, help you with your hunting strategy. We developed short-term, mid-term, long-term hunting strategies for literally hundreds of people, and happy to do it. We love visiting with you guys. We learn from you. I would say our clientele is some of the most serious, avid hunters there is, and just proud to be a part of it. Just love our organization. We got a super good team in here with everybody.

And, anyway, appreciate Under Armour. Again, they sponsor this podcast. They've helped us afford to bring it to you, and they're one of the leading innovators in our industry. Love what they do for the hunting and the hunting community and the support they give all of us. And, anyway, so, from now, Adam and Jason, going back to work. Good luck in the draws. Let us know what you get.