In this episode of The Epic Outdoors Podcast Jason Carter sits down with Bryan Offutt of Under Armour. Jason and Bryan Share stories from past hunts and talk about Bryan’s history in hunting and also his background at Under Armour.
Disclaimer: this podcast has been transcribed from the original audio and likely contains errors. This transcription does not reflect the views and opinions of Epic Outdoors LLC. Please consult the original audio with any concerns.
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It was
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Unbelievable. It was unbelievable.
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20 yards away for
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Whap.
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I’m like, get another arrow, get another
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Arrow. All of a sudden, I saw this cat coming right back at us.
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Anything to do with Western Big Games?
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Welcome
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To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Hello everybody, it’s Jason Carter with Epic Outdoors Podcast. Today we’ve got a special guest, Brian Offit of Under Armour. What’s up? What’s up? What’s up? What’s up, Brian? I love Brian. We’ve been hunting together for a long time. We’ll get into that. Before we get started, I do wanna thank you a and their sponsorship for the podcast and their supportive Epic outdoors. They’re a phenomenal company, very, very progressive in, in all of their products and what they’re coming out with. And, and of course I’m a huge fan of the Baron Camel Pattern. It’s awesome. I’ve used it exclusively since it’s come out and, and it’s awesome. So anyway, just appreciate them and all the support. I’ve been been involved with Thunder Armour for quite some time, doing a lot of different projects, including the Ry TV show, which is owned by Under Armour, and we continue to do different things and we’ll get into that as well. So anyway, welcome Brian.
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Thanks, buddy. Thanks.
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How you doing, buddy?
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I’m doing good. I’m doing good. We’re at the, we’re at the Western Expo. This is great.
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It’s awesome. It’s awesome.
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This is a, this is a great venue and you know, you get done the season and you come out here and it’s just like, Ugh, man. It just feels so good to be here, doesn’t it?
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Yeah, it does. You knows, I’ve been, we’ve been getting up at two in the morning and crunching statistics and kind of cranking on the magazine because, you know, at eight o’clock the phone starts ringing. And so we really get a lot of, you know, grunt work done, so to speak early. Yeah. And Adam and I were talking, we actually, we actually look forward to coming here. It almost feels a little bit like a vacation. We get a visit with people and talk hunting and That’s great. And just kind of get a little different Yeah. Set of walls to look at, you know what I mean? Totally,
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Totally. And Jason, congratulations to you and, and the team, man. Awesome. Epic outdoors. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s something special and really proud of you. You know, you’re, you’re a good friend of mine and it’s pretty awesome to see and, and you know, not trying to get so
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Bubbly on you, buddy. I
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Don’t, but it’s great. We
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Don’t need to start crying here, but Yeah, no, I sure appreciate it, Brian. It means a lot coming from you. And of course, you know, we’ve shared many, many hunting camps together Yep. And been out in the fields, and so I do feel like I know your family and I know you know mine. And so, yeah, no doubt. There is a lot of history there, and we’ve shared a lot of things and so it’s, it’s pretty awesome when it comes full circle and, and we can continue to work on projects together.
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Absolutely.
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So anyway, maybe give us a little bit of background of your hunting background, like where you’ve been and what you, what you did, and then, and then what led you to Under Armour, and just kind of give us a little bit of that. Yeah,
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Sure. So, man, I’ll bring it all the way back to the beginning. So, yeah, I was, I was born in Alabama, so I’m like a, you know, a southeast kid. Didn’t spend a ton of time there, but as a family, we kind of worked our way up the coast. And so Montgomery, Alabama moved to North Carolina, and then we ended up in, in Maryland and Awesome. So, lived, lived most of my life there. I went to school, went to college down in Georgia, so pretty much a, you know, a southeast, I don’t know if you call me a native, but definitely from there. And man, you know, just growing up, you know, my dad’s side of the, of the family was big in rodeo, and so just growing up around animals, horses, and, you know, my, my family was, did team roping and just
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Outdoors
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Oh, yeah. Everything outdoors, just, I mean, everything we did. Yeah. Yeah. And which practice was, you know, roping the, you know, the, the fake cow, you know? Yeah. We did it all. Yeah. And just loved being outside and, and yeah. More than anything, you know, I grew up with a BB gun in my hand. Yeah. And I’d love to go out and, you know, we had a ton of groundhogs on the east coast. Yeah. We had
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Groundhogs. Yeah.
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And man, I, I, I lived for it like every weekend, every time I woke up, like outside all day long, like, just want to go and be outside. Oh my gosh. It’s
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Gonna get dark soon. Like, are you kidding me? I gotta go back inside. That’s right.
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But yeah, so, but in Maryland, and, you know, whitetail, whitetailed deer is pretty much Yeah. You know, where I spend a lot of time in a, in a tree stand. Yep. And we also do waterfowl. So I live on the eastern shore now of Maryland. Love it. And it’s great. We’ve got whitetailed deer, you know, we, we, we live on the Chesapeake Bay, which is awesome for, for, for fish and for crabbing. We got the, you know, the Maryland blue crab Yeah. In which you need to go crabbing with me. Bring your boys. I
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Do need to, I love seafood. Yeah. We don’t have good seafood in Utah. They call craw ads. I’m not, I don’t
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Wanna offend anybody, but the Maryland blue crab is, is pretty tasty. But yeah. And, and, you know, just growing up in the outdoors, man. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s been special. Very fortunate, very humbled, and, you know, love, love the space. So, whitetailed deer, and then I’ll be honest, man, like my introduction to you was my true introduction to the West. Wow. And now I have had this, call it obsession. Like, you know, most western hunters have,
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We hadn’t known each other very long before we would come out and win elk hunting. Yeah,
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No, we, I
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Mean, just real brief.
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Yep. And, you know, I said, man, I, I gotta do this. Yeah. Like, what is this elk hunting? Are you kidding me? Yeah. You know, I just know white-tailed deer and Yeah. And man, it, it was awesome. But yeah, you, so, so went to, went to college. I was a criminal justice major. Okay. So when I was a a kid, I always thought like, F B I, like
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I wanna be an F B I agent,
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You know. And so went to, went to, to college for a criminal justice degree. And coming out of, of college, I went to the F B I, I went secret service and applied there. Wow. And pre nine 11, they only wanted accountants and lawyers, and I just wanted to go after bad guys and kick down doors. Yeah.
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Right. So I was
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All ticked off like, what,
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What do you mean you don’t want me?
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And so look at me, I’m ready. I’m like, come on,
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I wanna go out to bat guys.
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And, you know, so I was like, man, I was ticked, I was pissed. I was like, come on man. Yeah. And now what? So yeah. So I started my own personal trading company down in downtown Baltimore. There you go. Yeah. And I used to, I remember that.
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Yeah. Used
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To, used to train, you know, some, some crazy guys Older. Yeah. Some crazy people. And I was like, I gotta get out of this.
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I’m done mean, yeah.
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I’m out. Meanwhile, ran into a couple guys from Under Armour. Yeah. And they came in and they were like, Hey, we wanna get free work workouts from you. And I’m like, who the hell are
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You? Yeah. Yeah. Like, what? No, this is when Under Armour’s in its infancy, this, they’re fairly young company.
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So this, so this was like, literally like, what are those shirts? I was looking at ’em, I didn’t even know who the, who the these guys
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Were.
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Yeah. But they were just like, yeah, we work for this company Under Armour, we’ll trade you some shirts for workouts. And I’m
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Like, who are you? I’m gonna trade you money for workouts. Right. I’m doing this to feed my family. Right.
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Actually, it was the Yeah. Just to feed me at the time. There
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You go. All right.
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But anyways, I went on vacation down to the outer banks and something came over me where I was just like, I don’t know what, who these guys are or what they’re doing. Yeah. But their passion and like willingness to like, just go after Yeah. Whatever they were going after. ’cause I didn’t know. Yeah. But I was like, man, I wanna be a part of this. Yeah. Like, I, like, you know, this is something I could really gravitate towards. And I called ’em every single day, called ’em like four times a day. And they were just like, all right, just come in fine. Yeah. They’re like, just come, but we
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Want free workouts. Yeah,
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Exactly. And then nine 11 happened, of course, you know, the world stood still. Yeah. And I came on in October of, of 2001. Wow. And yeah, started in the warehouse, like literally
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Warehouse.
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Warehouse, man. Like I was on the ground floor, small warehouse. So we had, back
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Then,
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Dude, the warehouse was like, you know, a little bit bigger in this booth, but
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Okay. It’s a little bit bigger than 10 by 20. It was probably quite bigger, but Yeah. But it was young,
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But it was different. You know, Kevin, Kevin Plank, you know, our c e o and founder ran the front half of the business where he was really the front man. And, and you know, the guy that really went out there with a, you know, a business card that said he had one card that said owner and founder. And they had another card at the same time that said like, sales manager.
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He was everything. Because
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It was just like, you know, he did everything. Hey, I need to talk to the ceo. O you bought that card. Hey, I need to talk to the sales manager that you pull out that card because we were,
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Hey, when you’re a young company, you do everything. Yeah. You wear many hats.
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Yeah. I mean, I, I came in, I was employee number 33, so it was just, it was just a, you know, a few of us. And so I ran the whole warehouse floor. Kip ran the back end of the business. So everything from sourcing the product, we were all, you know, U s A made product and, and you know, it was, it was something special. And, and Kip and I used to shoot our bows in the warehouse and the rolls of fabric. Wow. Which, if Kevin knew about, we’d be fired today. We won’t tell him. No, don’t. Please don’t. And but it, it was awesome, man. I mean, it, it really, it it was, it was, it truly is the American dream. Yeah. Where Kevin, you know, started the company out of, you know, he was playing football at the University of Maryland. Okay. And, you know, football player was like, I’m wearing these compression shorts.
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They, you know, make me feel light and dry and compressive. Like I got t-shirts that we’re switching out Yeah. Like four times a game that are heavy cotton. Yeah. Like, they’re miserable. Like why can’t we have shirts like these shorts? Yeah. So, you know, he, let’s do it. Went in the back of his car, he went up to New York City, like, found this fabric, went down to his grandmother’s basement in Georgetown, you know, right there in dc Crazy. Sewed up some shirts, gave ’em to the guys and said, Hey, what do you think? And the guys were like, man, this is cool. You know, you had the fat linemen that were like, Hey, I feel like a stuffed sausage. You know, this isn’t
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Gonna work. And they look like a stuffed sausage
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Too. But you know what they said, Hey man, will do, I feel lighter or drier. Like, this is awesome. Yes. And so Kevin made some more shirts in the back of his car, drove down to Georgia Tech, gave it to some of those guys, and, you know, that’s how, that’s how the brand got started. Wow. And so really from that singular t-shirt performance, but, you know, there’s always been this, you know, under Armour’s gonna make it better. Yeah. And we haven’t lost that from that day of, you know what, when you put this on, like, this product’s gonna do something for you, and we’re gonna empower you and we got your back. Yes. You know, even from the start of, you know, it literally was like Kipp and, you know, a few of us at the time that loved the hunt. Yeah. You know, we made the mock turtleneck and cold weather gear and we’re like, man, it’d be awesome if we could get this in camo. How cool
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Would that be? You know? And by the way, we own the company, we could do that.
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And, you know, so it’s kind of cool having, you know, one of your buddies that hunts at opened the company and, and has a passion for, you know, this industry. And so we made it for us, but it was out of a pa it was out of a passion for, you know, the love of hunting. Of hunting. Yeah. And next thing you know, it was kinda like, well, we could probably sell some of these too. Right.
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And by the way, then we could get paid to hunt, then we’ve gotta go on all these hunts to try our stuff out. And then,
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Then we gotta be Jason Carter, be Rich Draper.
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Well, I want, I still want to be that guy. Yeah. I still want to be that guy. So, anyway, so fast forward October from oh one. Yeah. To when I think wasn’t your elk hunt that we did together in 2008 ish.
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That’s probably right.
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I’m thinking about 2008 or so you came out to Utah at that time. I think you were the head of outdoor marketing. I, I don’t remember your official title, but moved high up into the company in a matter of seven, seven years or so.
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Yeah. I mean, you know, I, I took a couple different places. One, I, I hated working in the warehouse. Yeah. I was just like, get me outta here. I wanna talk about the brand. I wanna tell people about this product. Like, I wanna get out.
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But you still had to put your time in workout through
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The ranks. So, so I went, I went, I went to sales and I helped to start up our indie sporting goods channels for the West coast, the Rockies in the Northeast. So literally I was, you know, selling t-shirts and mock turtlenecks to the mom and pop retailers that were selling to colleges to Pop Warner football. Yes. And I literally had like a little tri-fold catalog that it was like heat gear, tight t-shirts, mock turtlenecks when it’s cold. And we had a couple polos.
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Wow.
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And the catalog’s a little bit bigger now.
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Yeah. It’s a lot bigger. It’s like an inch thick. I mean, you got, you got for every sport you got more lines of socks than,
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There’s a few SKUs. Tons. There’s a few
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SKUs. Tons and tons of ’em. There’s
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A few kuss. But yeah. So, so did Indy to two, 2003 when we went to war as a, as a country, we had special forces calling us up and they were saying, Hey, we’d love, you know, your football product. Yeah. And, but we’re wearing it overseas. We’re wearing it underneath our body armor. Wow. We freaking love it. But we need it in the marine olive drab, and we need it in the army brown. Yeah. And so I was fielding these calls Yeah. And I was like, man, this is awesome.
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Yeah. Because
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Now we’re moving. I said, I went to Kevin Kipp and said, we gotta take care of the best athletes in the world. That’s right. These are the best. They’re over there. It’s 136 degrees. Yep. And we gotta keep ’em lighter, drier, and the best. And they didn’t hesitate. And they’re like, oh, hell yeah. Go get it. So I helped to start up the whole tactical business for Under Armour back in oh three, which was really self-fulfilling for me because I was a criminal justice major. Yeah. That’s, I wanted be doing, I wanted to be doing what these guys were doing. I used to tell ’em that. I was like, I wanna be like, I wanna go with you. They’re like, you’re fine buddy. Like, just keep doing what you’re doing. And so,
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And they brought you behind the scenes a little bit here and there. You got
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Some friends buddy? I did. Yeah. We, we got a couple. And I love it, man. It’s, they’re good, dude. It’s been, been very, very, very blessed to, you know, be a part of this ride. Yeah. And, and, and meet some phenomenal, phenomenal Americans and people along the way. And I’m just, I’m really humbled by it. And, you know, so with that, you know, started up the, the tactical business and, you know, outdoor, we, we really were building that. And, and Kip and I, and I was helping him and, you know, figuring out where we’re gonna take, you know, from military tactical to hunting, to fishing Yep. To action sports, which is, is ski and snowboard and, you know, each of those really. Yep. You know, you can be, you could be a sub-brand if you want to in each of those. Right,
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Right.
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And so we really got focused within tactical and hunting. And that’s where, you know, I, I went to help out on the marketing piece. And so we, we, we did about five years, about right there. Five or six years. And, and then Yeah, we’re, we’re here to today. Okay. So then now, so we went, so we went 2007. Seven, right? Yep. So
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2007, 2008, you killed a giant bull with me. Life’s, you’ve never been better. First time, dude, that was so awesome. First time, first elk hunt out on public land, Southern Utah. First Elk, 380 inch bull. Doesn’t get better than that.
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I think he was a little big, bigger than that.
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He might’ve been a little bigger than that, but I scored him with that. Let’s call it that. Anyway,
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It was one of the, it was, it, it was the greatest hunt that I’ve ever done in my life. Yeah. Because I had no idea what I was getting into. Yep. You know, I just knew, like, so I remember, I remember a year before that hunt, Kip and I were walking, it was either this show, actually, I think it was a t a and we were walking around the archery show and, and we were talking about like, so what do we wanna do? You know? Yeah. We’ve got this UA hunt thing. Like
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What are we gonna do with it? What, what, how are we gonna grow?
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And Yeah. And it, and it’s like, what? Like what are we about? We’re about innovation. Yeah. Technology, brand performance. And like, we’re edgy, we’re rough, and like, like we’re about pushing, pushing, pushing the limits. And so, you know, we were trying to come up with, you know, what is this that we’re talking about? And it’s like an elevated platform Yeah. Of product, of storytelling. And like, you know what, we’ve gotta get, we’ve gotta get somebody involved in this. Yeah. Absolutely. And so one of the things we were talking about was this idea of Ridge Reaper.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, we were talking about people in the industry or whatever, and like, we started talking to you. Yeah. And then you and I went on this el hunt together. ’cause you’re like, you gotta go with me, you gotta experience like, what’s going
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On? That’s, that’s right.
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And like, we’ll talk product and you know, we were like, but you and I were just gangbusters. Like,
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And I wanna do this. And it’s, and it’s this
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Thing Ridge Reaper. And I know, and then I remember sitting on the back porch of the place that we were staying at for the Alcon, and I was describing to you what Ridge Reaper was. Yeah. And I said, man, this is what it is. And, and I said, this is what it’s called Ridge Reaper. And you looked at me and you go, I’m the Ridge Reaper man. Yeah. That’s my name. Like what you just described to me Yeah. Is what I do. Yeah. And that’s what I’m about. And I was like, this is freaking great. And then we went out and you showed me the west man. Yeah. Like, we went up there and pounded the hell out of the ground. Yep.
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I’m
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Used to, we worked hard. Like we worked hard. I had no idea it was public ground. We had guys literally in trucks like
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Tracking us down,
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Tracking us down, like guns out the window.
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There was some crazy stuff going on.
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I’m like, what is
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This? Yeah, you can, this is the wild west. This is cool. It was crazy. You gotta get my tactical buddies outta here. Yeah. No. It was Well, and that’s public land out here, you know? Yeah. You do have a lot of families. And, and, and when you have special tags like that, that’s a special elk tag. You know, residents here in the state get one of those every 20 years. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so you, when when they do draw one, they bring everybody. Yeah. They bring grandma, grandpa, all the uncles, cousins, and you just got a lot of people going on, you know? Yeah. And we deal, we dealt with that. Yeah. We had a lot of people on our hunt. Totally. I mean, you know, that we were, I guess, somewhat competing against, but everybody wants to kill a great bull. Totally. It was warm weather. September hot, actually.
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It was hot.
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And, but anyway, we got it done. Worked our guts out. And we did since, since then, we did do a mule deer hunt and a lion hunt. The the lion hunt’s gotta be like one of my favorite in the world.
00:19:03:24 –> 00:20:06:22
Oh my gosh. That was unbelievable. Well, I gotta tell you, I remember, so just to go back to this elk hunt a minute, because I’ve learned some things. So I’ve done probably, I don’t know, four or five elk hunts since then. And I remember it was so funny. ’cause you know, I’m like paying attention to everything you do. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what are you, like, what are you hearing? Like what is that? Yeah. Yeah. I remember one of the first bulls we came up on, on that hunt, we were out in the middle of this field, you know? And we’re like laying down, just listening to all around us. And you’re like, well, do you hear that one over there? And I’m like, yeah. You’re like, that’s a dink. That’s a dink. Do you hear how it’s calling there? It’s like, that is so weak. And I’m like, oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s a dink. Yeah. Yeah. Carter, I’m with you. I’m like, I have no idea. I have no idea what you’re talking about. And then we go off and like, we’re, so we’re, we’re trying, you know, trailing these other bowls and then all of a sudden we see where we heard that dink a massive bull. And you go, Hey, you remember that sound of that dink? It’s actually, he’s a, he’s a stud.
00:20:07:12 –> 00:20:11:07
He’s a giant. He, I know. He said, he
00:20:11:07 –> 00:20:12:24
Said, man, sometimes you just don’t
00:20:12:24 –> 00:20:16:07
Know. Yeah. You don’t. You don’t. But it’s really hard. I’m like,
00:20:16:08 –> 00:20:18:28
I’m like, no man, you just, you just taught me. You just
00:20:18:28 –> 00:20:42:08
Taught me. That was a dink. You just taught me that was a dink. I don’t wanna go after him now. And I’m like, yeah, but he’s a giant. You’re like, he’s a giant. Sometimes you don’t know. And it is hard for me to chase a dink bugle, a dink sounding bugle. It is for everybody. You know, you just think, man, he’s so weak. But it doesn’t really mean anything. It really doesn’t. I’ve, I’ve hunted, you know, giant fives or even small fives that sound like giant bulls. Yeah. And it’s just the way, it’s, it’s,
00:20:42:08 –> 00:20:53:13
Yeah. But it’s funny how that is, you know, because, you know, growing up on, on the East coast too, or, or white tails, it’s like, sometimes you can hear it whether they’re grunting back or something like that. Yeah. Some of these animals, like, you just can’t
00:20:53:13 –> 00:20:54:25
Tell. Oh, you can’t, you can’t.
00:20:55:01 –> 00:21:01:12
No. But that, that was pretty funny. But we and you were like, Hey, you remember that dink, he’s a giant
00:21:01:15 –> 00:21:03:17
And we’re gonna kill him right now.
00:21:04:27 –> 00:21:05:16
Let’s go.
00:21:06:17 –> 00:21:16:14
So anyway, and then fast forward, we’ve had a few more experiences. You know, we’ve hunted quite a bit together. Actually. We have. But like I say, probably that most memorable hunt was the lion hunt. Oh
00:21:16:14 –> 00:21:30:28
My gosh. So, you know, you and I we’re always texting and talking and all that. And I, I remember I told you, I said, man, I don’t, like, I might have an issue with myself because I know growing up, like I just, I’m not a cat guy.
00:21:31:01 –> 00:21:31:10
Yeah.
00:21:31:19 –> 00:21:37:19
You know? Yeah. Like some people love cats in their house and all that. Yeah. Yeah. I’m just like, man, like, I don’t know what it is, but
00:21:37:27 –> 00:21:39:05
I’m not that guy. I’m like, Carter,
00:21:39:23 –> 00:21:48:29
If you can ever find like the mother of all cats out there, like, let’s just go after it. ’cause I feel like this need
00:21:49:17 –> 00:21:51:29
To kill a cat. I gotta go after a cat, man.
00:21:52:19 –> 00:21:58:19
And so you’re like, all right, I wanna hang tight. And if we get the opportunity, like you just gotta be ready.
00:21:59:02 –> 00:21:59:08
Yep.
00:21:59:11 –> 00:22:05:10
And if you can be ready when it snows out here, like, we’re gonna, like, I’m gonna call you and we’re gonna go and we’re gonna chase a job.
00:22:05:13 –> 00:22:08:25
But your job is so taxing, it’s a hard for you to get away. Yeah.
00:22:09:00 –> 00:22:23:00
It’s just, you know, so we’re, we’re in Baltimore. I travel all the time. Yeah. We’re a global company. Yeah. So, you know, travel, working hard, you know, not just North America, but it’s everywhere. Yeah. And, you know, I have multiple categories, but you know, just like everybody else, you gotta find time and
00:22:23:00 –> 00:22:23:07
Yeah.
00:22:23:25 –> 00:22:39:18
If you can manage from work to, you know, to family and, you know, you’re trying to put all those priorities in check. Yep. Family first and Yep. And God and country and, and work and, and then, you know, hunting’s probably somewhere in those priorities, high somewhere,
00:22:39:18 –> 00:22:43:28
One or two, it’s probably or three probably. But it’s high. It’s high.
00:22:45:11 –> 00:22:45:19
I gotta
00:22:46:01 –> 00:22:48:16
Oh, yeah. It feeds the family. I have to. Yeah, absolutely.
00:22:48:23 –> 00:22:54:02
And, and the great thing is, is you get to do it with, with one and two sometimes too. So, or, or all the time.
00:22:54:05 –> 00:22:54:20
That’s right.
00:22:54:29 –> 00:23:04:17
And, but so yeah. And then you called me in December and you’re like, man, can you do it? And I’m like, I’m coming and
00:23:04:29 –> 00:23:05:22
Done. Let’s go.
00:23:05:28 –> 00:23:09:01
And so we were in Colorado. Yeah. Craig Colorado
00:23:09:17 –> 00:23:10:00
Picked
00:23:10:00 –> 00:23:14:13
You up and you picked me up. We drove up, saw a boy ox. He’s the man,
00:23:14:20 –> 00:23:15:12
He’s awesome.
00:23:16:06 –> 00:23:31:13
Great, great dude with phenomenal dogs. And so new experience for me. Yeah. Again, yeah. Have no idea what I’m getting into. Right. And, you know, we’re gonna go chase these things and let these dogs just work, work, work. You know, I’ve
00:23:31:13 –> 00:23:55:22
Been good friends with Josh for a lot of years, and he’s a phenomenal hunter. He loves his dogs. He knows dogs like crazy. I mean, I mean, they’re like, they’re like kids to us. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And they do it what they’re asked, I mean, they mind him and, and work, work extremely hard. And just watching the dogs is, is probably one of the funnest things about lion hunting. Yeah. But this story, this story is incredible. Yeah.
00:23:56:00 –> 00:24:08:14
I mean, even if we didn’t get a lion on that trip, watching those dogs work and the rewards, that’s what, you know, I kept asking Josh, I said, what are these dogs Like? What do they love? He’s like, you know what they’re waiting for? They’re waiting for me to hug them. Yep.
00:24:08:24 –> 00:24:09:02
They
00:24:09:03 –> 00:24:23:20
Want love, they want love after this is all said and done. Or if, you know, they get, if they tree one of these lines or whatever. Yes. I’m like, what do they want? They want to, you know, taste the line. Or he is like, no man, they want, they want love for me. I’m like, that is awesome, man.
00:24:23:20 –> 00:24:24:06
That’s amazing.
00:24:24:11 –> 00:24:36:17
That is so cool. That bond Yeah. That he has with all those dogs. And you know, it’s just, that’s why we all love animals, man. Oh, yeah. You know, because there’s just a lot of special, you know, it’s a special bond. So, so
00:24:36:17 –> 00:24:41:26
We get, we get on this track, the dogs go to the end. We see the lion out on the cliff.
00:24:42:23 –> 00:24:46:25
Well, number one, I wasn’t in the greatest shape of my life,
00:24:47:10 –> 00:24:49:00
Neither was I It’s wintertime,
00:24:49:00 –> 00:24:59:04
Bro. So it’s wintertime. Yep. It’s, it’s like mid-December, you know, almost Christmas. So you’re putting on your winter coat. Yeah. And these dogs, you know, go after, go after this Lion
00:24:59:05 –> 00:25:00:12
Canyon over the canyon, over canyon. In
00:25:00:12 –> 00:25:06:22
The canyon. Yeah. And then, you know, we’re like, well, you know, it’s like three miles up there. And I’m like, like up there.
00:25:07:07 –> 00:25:08:11
Yeah. Up there, Brian,
00:25:08:29 –> 00:25:10:23
Like way up there. You talk about,
00:25:11:07 –> 00:25:15:05
And by the way, if we get up there, I wanna make sure he is there. I don’t want to go over another 14
00:25:15:07 –> 00:25:22:22
Canyons. I’m like, yeah, hor, are you sure they have him? Are you sure they, that he’s there and he’s sitting there, they
00:25:22:22 –> 00:25:24:18
Go another couple miles. We may not make it out,
00:25:25:15 –> 00:25:41:20
But Yeah, man. And that was so cool. So we, we got up there and man just had this, this, this line on a ledge. Yep. And I mean, on a ledge that, I mean, it went straight down,
00:25:42:04 –> 00:25:43:04
Straight down, straight down.
00:25:43:04 –> 00:25:47:19
Yep. It did. And I mean, so I’m like, all right,
00:25:48:09 –> 00:25:49:02
What am I gonna do? What
00:25:49:02 –> 00:26:13:12
I gonna, what am I gonna do? Yeah. So I, you know, I’ve got my Hoyt, you know, Josh and Carter are like, Hey man, there’s a big boulder. It’s like six yards away from ’em up on top. Go up on top that boulder and shoot down on ’em. I’m like, no, I’m not. I am not getting that close to that cat. Yep. I mean, this thing is pissed. And these dogs are like two feet away from it.
00:26:13:23 –> 00:26:14:14
Face, they’re, yeah.
00:26:14:22 –> 00:26:20:04
And it’s just hissing and they’re, you know, barking. And it’s just chaotic on that. That’s
00:26:20:04 –> 00:26:23:06
Right. Freaking lip right there. And he doesn’t want one of his dogs hurt either. No.
00:26:23:07 –> 00:26:42:19
So there’s quite a little Yeah, Josh science to getting him killed. Yeah. Josh’s let’s, let’s not hit one of the dogs. Yeah. Don’t do that. So I said, man, I just, I wanna make sure I’m safe. Let’s see if we can try to get a broadside shot on him. Yeah. And, you know, 20 yards or so, whatever. I’m like, I don’t care. I’m not getting close to that cat. ’cause I don’t, I’ve never done this before. Yeah. And it’s
00:26:42:19 –> 00:26:43:12
Pissed. Yeah.
00:26:44:17 –> 00:26:51:04
So you and I are like, all right, we’re gonna go over, you’re like, I’m gonna film you. I’m gonna film you. I got, I got my
00:26:51:04 –> 00:26:51:19
Phone, got my
00:26:51:19 –> 00:26:52:11
Phone, I got my phone.
00:26:52:15 –> 00:26:52:29
My iPhone.
00:26:53:04 –> 00:27:02:05
I got my iPhone here. I’m gonna film you right over your shoulder. I’m like, all right, let’s go. So we go over to this ledge, 20 yards away. Broadside. Well,
00:27:02:05 –> 00:27:13:23
When we’re sitting out on this thing, it’s like an island ledge. Like you can’t jerk anywhere. You’ll fall off, you’ll slide. It’s, it’s ice and then snow on top of a little island of ledge. It’s, it’s hard to get up on it. So
00:27:13:23 –> 00:27:21:25
We got ice and snow. Yep. We’ve got this ledge. Meanwhile, we kind of had to like, walk up on this ledge and on either side of this
00:27:22:05 –> 00:27:22:19
Fall off,
00:27:22:22 –> 00:27:23:16
You’re falling off.
00:27:23:16 –> 00:27:28:22
Yes. And it’s like, probably, what, two feet across and like five feet long? Yeah. Something like that. Like an island.
00:27:28:22 –> 00:27:38:16
So it’s just you and I on this ledge, we can’t move. Right. That’s right. So it’s kind of like, alright buddy, here you go. Here we go. Make sure it’s a good shot. Are you ready? I’m ready.
00:27:39:01 –> 00:27:39:13
Record,
00:27:40:07 –> 00:27:52:24
Record. 20 yards away. The whap hit him. Like, cat goes over to the other side of the ledge. Right. I’m like, crap buddy. I, I thought I hit, I mean, you heard
00:27:52:24 –> 00:27:54:08
That, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah,
00:27:54:08 –> 00:27:59:01
Yeah. I’m good. And, and then, you know, you got, I’m like,
00:27:59:01 –> 00:28:00:06
Get another arrow. Get another arrow.
00:28:01:12 –> 00:28:19:06
I didn’t even know what was going on because all of a sudden I saw this cat coming right back at us. That’s right. And I’m like, oh my God. Like, what are we gonna do now? Dead silent. Yeah. Like, you guys aren’t saying anything. Yeah. Nothing’s going. Except I hear Rah, you know? Yeah. This cat coming. Yeah. I’m freaking out. And somehow
00:28:19:13 –> 00:28:20:08
You’re re knocked.
00:28:20:23 –> 00:28:29:00
I re knocked. Don’t remember doing any of that. Like Yeah. I dunno. I don’t know if it’s, I don’t know what it is. And shot this freaking cat at two feet away
00:28:29:07 –> 00:28:46:19
And no, he comes and charge like charges us. So comes right at us, comes right at us, comes right at us. I’m, and I was like, crap, I’m looking around like, where am I gonna run? I’m looking around, I’m behind you. So I’m like, Kay. He’s like, he’s gonna get Brian and I’m gonna leap and I’m gonna be fine.
00:28:48:20 –> 00:28:48:29
Nice.
00:28:49:04 –> 00:28:53:08
And I mean, dude, he comes right at us, right at us, right under our legs. Well, you
00:28:53:08 –> 00:28:54:25
Even stopped filming because you were like,
00:28:55:05 –> 00:29:10:05
I stopped for a minute. And I’m like, crap, this is really good footage. I hit it again and hit record again. And as the lion comes by us, I mean, you shoot him on a run, made a perfect shot. And I filmed the whole thing. It was unbelievable. Two yards, a yard and a half. It
00:29:10:05 –> 00:29:12:14
Was on Unbelievable.
00:29:12:16 –> 00:29:13:17
It was unbelievable.
00:29:13:20 –> 00:29:27:12
It was, I was, I was scared. I’m not gonna lie. I, I really was because I’m like, this thing is running right at us. And I’m like, it’s gonna come up and paw me right in the face and knock me off the side of this mountain. And I
00:29:27:12 –> 00:29:38:18
Was nervous. ’cause I knew what your shooting skills were like. And I’m like, I don’t have any weapons with me. I got Brian. I got Brian. Oh god sake. I got Brian between me and this cat. What am I gonna do?
00:29:38:26 –> 00:29:40:22
Yeah, I know you were trying to push me at the cat.
00:29:40:26 –> 00:29:41:13
Oh, so
00:29:41:13 –> 00:29:50:28
Funny. And man, that was, that was unbelievable. I gave you guys some serious grief after that. ’cause I’m like, why weren’t you talking? Why weren’t you walking
00:29:51:03 –> 00:29:51:10
Me
00:29:51:10 –> 00:29:57:18
Through? Like, Hey man. Like get ready. The cat’s gonna come back at you. Oh, that was crazy.
00:29:57:22 –> 00:30:00:25
Get ready to draw. No, that was just silent. It was silent.
00:30:01:11 –> 00:30:06:00
I, it really was. And it, it was a, it was a phenomenal, I’ll never ever forget that.
00:30:06:09 –> 00:30:11:01
No. It was awesome. So this, so fast forward to this past year, you killed a couple of giant white tails.
00:30:11:14 –> 00:30:56:06
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I had a great season, man. I I, I’m very fortunate. Got a nice bull up here in Yeah. In northern Utah. Yep. And came back and got a mule deer. You bet. And then, you know, I love white tails. Yeah. I really do. Just growing up with them and Yeah. And been fortunate. Lee and Tiff Yep. Out in Iowa. Yep. Koski invited me out and so went out there and spent a couple days with them and I mean, what, what Lee has there as far as Yeah. How he manages Yep. The property and, and the time they put in. Yeah. And Lee is absolutely, he’s like you, man. Yeah. He’s
00:30:56:06 –> 00:30:57:02
Like to the white tail world.
00:30:57:11 –> 00:31:04:12
He’s like, how you are from yo deer. Yeah. He is of Whitetails. And just an unbelievable,
00:31:04:12 –> 00:31:08:04
He’s got a hit list. He’s raising them, he’s working with them. I mean, it’s nonstop.
00:31:08:14 –> 00:31:09:06
And I mean, he
00:31:09:06 –> 00:31:10:05
Named him. Oh,
00:31:10:09 –> 00:31:15:25
He, everything. He, he knows every single deer. And I mean, he has multiple properties out
00:31:15:25 –> 00:31:16:05
There. Yeah.
00:31:16:05 –> 00:31:50:11
Yeah. And I mean, he farms ’em. Yeah. But I’m gonna tell you what this guy and, and what I learned and, and you know, I’ve hunted with Lee over the years. Yeah. I love the passion that he has. Like, he loves these animals, man. Yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. Like, he loves them. This guy, when I was out there with them, we were just talking about, you know, he loves to feed them. Yeah. Like, he loves to feed these deer. Yeah. He will look for, and he’s like you to where he will look for every possible reason not to kill that deer. I’m telling you. Well,
00:31:50:11 –> 00:31:51:16
I wanna kill him. Well,
00:31:51:16 –> 00:31:53:02
I, but you’ll sit there. Well,
00:31:53:05 –> 00:31:54:19
You know. Yeah, yeah. You
00:31:54:19 –> 00:31:56:01
Know, maybe there’s another one. Maybe, you
00:31:56:01 –> 00:32:02:02
Know, break him down a little bit. Yeah. He’s got this weakness and maybe he’ll be better next year. Yeah. Is he maxed out? And how old is he? And
00:32:02:10 –> 00:32:06:18
I think the thing is, is the common thread of, I, I think he’s got another year in him.
00:32:06:26 –> 00:32:07:05
Yeah.
00:32:07:23 –> 00:32:14:07
And I think every, every, and it’d be like, well, Lee, he’s eight years old. Well, he’s,
00:32:14:13 –> 00:32:15:04
He might not come back.
00:32:15:25 –> 00:32:17:16
Yeah. He might not make it through. Yeah.
00:32:17:16 –> 00:32:18:25
He might not. Yeah. He’s like,
00:32:18:25 –> 00:32:32:18
Well, maybe we should. Yeah. You know. Yeah. ’cause he, he just loves him, man. Yeah. So it was really cool. Went out there. So actually went out in October and I only had a couple days
00:32:32:29 –> 00:32:33:07
Yeah.
00:32:33:26 –> 00:33:01:06
And it was warm and we were on a, a cornfield and they had this buck that, a really old buck that was coming in there that, that they had said, you know, we gotta take this one. Lee knows every single buck out there. Yeah. So it’s like, buddy, you better know Yeah. The animal that we’re, we’re going after. And, and you know, he’s pretty particular about that. But that’s how he manages, you know, his place.
00:33:01:06 –> 00:33:48:29
Passionate about it. Yeah. Man, he loves him. He caress for him. He’s passionate about it. He wants to grow the best that he can. Yeah. Control as many of the variables as he can manage. Mean you can can’t control disease or you can’t control sickness or, you know, other people hunting neighboring properties or the rutt when they go to make a walkabout and end up getting killed on a neighbor. Yeah. But, but the more variables he can control, you know, the better he is and, and the better chance he has at harvesting that animal. Totally. And that’s the same thing. It’s a common, like you said, it’s a common thread with what we got going on out here. It’s just we deal with a lot of public land and, and obtaining tags. Of course. You know, that Iowa tag wasn’t easy to get. No. You, we applied you, you know Yeah. For several years and gained points. That’s right. So you could go and you drew that tag. Yep, yep. And as a non-resident. That’s right. You’re not from Iowa, you know. No.
00:33:49:05 –> 00:34:25:00
Yep. So and so, you know, just fortunate to be able to go on that property, but yeah. I mean Yeah. You, you gotta go through the process. Yeah. And so went out there and had this deer. They named him lefty because he had like, messed up his left eye. Left eye was shut. Yeah. But it just a really cool, he was 11 point buck and Yeah. You know, just old great deer and made a mistake. Yeah. I went to shoot this deer. I got down on my knees, shot this deer, and I shot about four inches below him.
00:34:25:08 –> 00:34:25:24
Jeez. At
00:34:25:24 –> 00:34:26:27
40 yards. I’m like, what?
00:34:27:15 –> 00:34:27:24
Geez,
00:34:28:16 –> 00:34:29:09
What happened?
00:34:29:29 –> 00:34:30:08
Yeah.
00:34:31:25 –> 00:34:39:02
I felt sick. ’cause I was like, first I thought I hit him. Yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh. The worst thing in the world, you know, is wounding an animal. Yeah.
00:34:39:02 –> 00:34:39:11
Yeah.
00:34:40:09 –> 00:35:23:06
So I went back and looked at the footage and all that and, and I missed him, thank goodness. But went to shoot my bow and my bow was off. Wow. Yeah. So from, from travel and, and I don’t know if what I did, but it was off Wow. And so on that trip didn’t have another opportunity for deer. And, and Lee was like, listen, you need to come back for late season. Yeah. Like, come back here. You know, these deer will be coming pretty regular for, for food and let’s, let’s see if we can do it. If you can get back out. So I did. And it was, it was, it was great. It was so cold, buddy. It was like you and I in Canada.
00:35:23:27 –> 00:35:28:20
Oh dude. The Canada trip is, we gotta talk about the Canada trip someday. Oh yeah. A future podcast.
00:35:28:24 –> 00:35:46:28
We’ll do that as a future podcast. But it was cold buddy. Wow. And it was so it was, you know, it’s Iowa man. It was, it was negative 14. Yeah. And so they had this deer that they were calling crooked horned h I don’t know why. What what that, who knows that? Yeah. Crooked horned,
00:35:47:13 –> 00:35:48:22
You know, something to do with an h
00:35:48:24 –> 00:36:19:08
Yeah. With an H. And so this deer was just a really old deer. And so we, we went out and on a, on a cornfield. This, this deer was coming pretty regular. And I’ve had, you know, two days I put in and this deer did not come. Geez. And I mean, and I’m telling you, like sitting in a cornfield in a corn blind and you’ve got like a hundred deer right out in front of you. Some of them are like six feet.
00:36:19:28 –> 00:36:20:07
Geez.
00:36:20:23 –> 00:36:21:23
It’s so cool. Yeah.
00:36:22:01 –> 00:36:22:10
It’s
00:36:22:10 –> 00:36:26:25
Just great to be out there. Like Yeah. I can’t believe I’m in the freaking cornfield Yeah. The middle of
00:36:26:25 –> 00:36:27:19
Iowa with all
00:36:27:19 –> 00:36:29:23
These deer. Yeah. That don’t know. We’re here.
00:36:29:29 –> 00:36:32:08
Just wildlife, just being that close to wildlife. It’s
00:36:32:08 –> 00:36:51:17
Awesome. It’s so cool. Absolutely. And he’s got some giants out there, so I’m just like taking pictures. I’m like a little kid in the candy store. Geez. Like, I am here at this western expo and it was really cool. So the third day we put a full day in. This deer doesn’t come out and you know, most of the big deer are gonna come out real late. Yeah. In the
00:36:51:17 –> 00:36:52:06
Evening. Yeah.
00:36:53:06 –> 00:37:00:10
It’s about five minutes before dark. We see this freaking toad come out. I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s crooked horned h
00:37:01:21 –> 00:37:02:25
Here. He up up and smoking
00:37:02:26 –> 00:37:20:25
Comes here he comes. So he’s at about 80 yards and just not coming in is not coming in. And actually started just was a bully. Yeah. We called this other dear director Comey, that crook crooked horned h was going after and messing with him. Messing
00:37:20:25 –> 00:37:21:01
With
00:37:21:01 –> 00:37:26:24
Comey. Messing with Comey. And we’re like, gosh, this deer. So, you know, I’m, now I’m personal. Yeah. Like
00:37:27:13 –> 00:37:27:28
Crooked
00:37:28:01 –> 00:38:00:00
Horned h Yeah. You know, I gotta go after this deer. I had one more, so two minutes left. Yeah. And I’m with my camera guy. He is like, I’m like last light man. Like, I don’t like we, we probably can’t shoot. Yeah. And this deer starts coming in. Well, this deer is coming on a beeline right into us. And yeah, we’ve got this deer broadside at 20 yards. Yeah. And I’m like, like, I’m gonna shoot this deer.
00:38:00:06 –> 00:38:00:14
Yeah.
00:38:01:07 –> 00:38:24:16
I drew back and I’m like, I, I can’t see it. Oh, I can’t see. He’s, and he’s just like, well just, do you wanna shoot it? And I’m just like, yeah. I got Lee Koski in my ear, like, yeah, if you miss this deer, you know, so, you know, I let off and I was sick. I was so sick. I’m like, broadside 20 yards. Yeah. I could do that in my sleep.
00:38:24:23 –> 00:38:25:01
Yeah.
00:38:26:08 –> 00:38:38:07
And so I had to leave the next morning. That was it. Wow. It was over. It was over. And so I was all distraught. We, we went through the footage and Lee was like, it’s a right call man.
00:38:38:07 –> 00:38:38:29
Yeah. Yeah. Like,
00:38:38:29 –> 00:38:39:08
You know
00:38:39:08 –> 00:38:41:20
What? You didn’t feel comfortable. You would’ve killed it. Shit. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:41:26 –> 00:38:43:01
You, you just gotta, you know,
00:38:43:01 –> 00:38:43:18
Sometimes it
00:38:43:18 –> 00:39:05:19
Happens, man. It does. And so packed up all my stuff. And so one thing that happened that day for that hunt is Tiff came up to me and she said, here, I got something for you. I’m like, what do you got? And she’s like, I got a lucky horseshoe. She’s like, this horseshoe right here helped me kill all my biggest deer. No
00:39:05:19 –> 00:39:07:08
Way in Iowa. No way. She’s
00:39:07:08 –> 00:39:10:12
Like, I want you to have it, take it with you tonight and go out there
00:39:10:29 –> 00:39:11:24
And kill a deer.
00:39:11:29 –> 00:39:25:25
And she’s like, you’re gonna kill crooked, crooked horn. It’s gonna happen tonight. So I hang it up there and you know, this whole thing happens, you know, I let off. Yeah. I’m like, crap man. You know? And I’m like, you know, so I was all bummed out. Yeah.
00:39:25:25 –> 00:39:26:10
Packing
00:39:26:10 –> 00:39:44:08
Up my stuff. You know, I head back to Cedar Rapids, got a hotel, hopped on, you know, a plane that morning, had a flight out at 6:00 AM and we go to take off and we get halfway down the runway. You know, you’re back at your seat. Yeah. Yeah. And all of a sudden the plane lets up.
00:39:45:09 –> 00:39:45:26
Wow. The plane,
00:39:46:01 –> 00:39:56:16
The plane lets up. I’m like, what the, you know, what’s going on? I’m, look, I’m looking down the Yeah, I’m trying to look out my window. Down the, yeah. Down the tarmac. Like, oh my gosh, we’re gonna go off the freaking road. Yeah. Meanwhile, it’s snowing. It’s negative 17.
00:39:57:02 –> 00:39:57:23
Wow. Like,
00:39:58:16 –> 00:40:09:00
And the pilot gets on and he goes, Hey guys, we’ve, we’ve got some lights that came on up front here. We’re gonna turn this plane around and we gotta get maintenance to check this thing out.
00:40:09:19 –> 00:40:10:12
Wow. Like, no
00:40:10:12 –> 00:40:21:04
Way. So we go back in and he is like, all right, it’s gonna take longer than we thought. We need everybody to get off. Wow. So we get off and I’m sitting there and I’m like, no way.
00:40:21:22 –> 00:40:22:29
I’m going, I’m going back hunting.
00:40:23:02 –> 00:40:28:23
I call my wife and I’m like, this plane, we’ll
00:40:28:23 –> 00:40:29:11
Be here all night.
00:40:29:22 –> 00:40:35:17
I don’t know how long it’s gonna be. She’s like, don’t get back on that plane. You should probably go hunting. I’m like, what?
00:40:35:28 –> 00:40:36:29
Wow. What did
00:40:36:29 –> 00:40:37:12
You just say?
00:40:38:02 –> 00:40:38:26
Let me record that.
00:40:39:22 –> 00:40:42:29
I called Lee. I’m like, Lee, if I can my bags off this plane,
00:40:43:13 –> 00:40:44:25
Can I come? Let’s do it.
00:40:45:10 –> 00:40:48:10
I’m like, do we have another shot? He’s like, get over here now.
00:40:49:02 –> 00:40:49:08
Wow.
00:40:49:15 –> 00:41:05:19
So leave. I get my bags off at noon, fly back to their house. I mean, you know, driving, driving fast as crap to get there. I get, unpack all my stuff. Shoot my bow ready to roll. I’m back in the blind at two 30.
00:41:06:02 –> 00:41:06:08
Wow.
00:41:07:01 –> 00:41:13:10
Get out there. It’s 3 45. It’s early. I’m like, oh my gosh. There’s
00:41:13:10 –> 00:41:13:18
Crooked
00:41:13:18 –> 00:41:25:24
H Here comes this freaking deer. Wow. Here comes crooked horn h comes up right at 40 yards. Broadside. Freaking smoked
00:41:25:24 –> 00:41:27:16
Him. Whoa. Right there. Come on, come on.
00:41:27:18 –> 00:41:35:24
Smoked him at 40 yards. This deer goes 60 yards in the middle of this pasture. Dead lays down, dies dead as a doornail.
00:41:36:12 –> 00:41:36:20
Geez.
00:41:37:01 –> 00:41:44:10
And like we went back and Lee told me he was like, we went back. I mean, we were so fired
00:41:44:13 –> 00:41:44:19
Up.
00:41:44:22 –> 00:41:53:04
It was unbelievable. And so also that that, that night that I was leaving Luke Bryan flew in.
00:41:53:04 –> 00:41:53:12
Yeah.
00:41:54:05 –> 00:42:16:07
So Luke was there. He was gonna do a muzzleloader hunt. Geez. And I was like, Luke, I’m gonna miss you. I gotta take off and all this. Yeah. Well, I come back, we don’t even see each other. I kill that deer. And then he went out for a muzzleloader hunt and killed a deer. Geez. That same night we come back and Lee was like, I am more excited about you taking that crooked horned
00:42:17:03 –> 00:42:17:12
Deer
00:42:18:06 –> 00:42:33:13
Than me shooting Pete, which is the biggest deer, oldest deer that he’s, he he’s taken in in Wow. In 2016. And it was just a really cool moment. I went, looked in my backpack and there’s a
00:42:33:13 –> 00:42:34:05
Lucky horseshoe.
00:42:34:11 –> 00:42:35:17
That freaking horseshoe
00:42:35:20 –> 00:42:36:05
Come on.
00:42:36:16 –> 00:42:37:16
Was in my backpack.
00:42:37:17 –> 00:42:38:10
You were taking it home?
00:42:38:23 –> 00:42:48:28
I was taking it home. It had stopped that plane and brought me back to their house. I said, Tiffany, this freaking horseshoe, I forgot to give it back. And that’s why
00:42:48:28 –> 00:42:52:12
I’m here. Oh my gosh. They were like, ah, that’s amazing story.
00:42:52:13 –> 00:42:53:11
It was really cool.
00:42:53:15 –> 00:42:54:12
That’s an amazing story.
00:42:54:12 –> 00:42:57:07
And so I couldn’t get a flight home because the weather was so bad.
00:42:57:11 –> 00:42:57:19
Yeah.
00:42:57:28 –> 00:43:00:26
And Luke’s like, well, I could probably give you a lift home. I’m like, oh,
00:43:01:01 –> 00:43:05:00
Come on. So he did. Wow.
00:43:05:19 –> 00:43:10:10
So it was really cool. It was, it’s one of the most memorable for sure. Whitetail hunts. Yeah.
00:43:10:10 –> 00:43:10:17
And
00:43:10:19 –> 00:43:20:11
Yeah. And just, you know, being with, with great friends Yeah, absolutely. And family. Absolutely. Like that. I, I consider Loki’s family. Like I do you all. Yeah. And so, just a really, really cool time.
00:43:20:19 –> 00:43:42:14
So we gotta talk about Ridge Reaper a little bit. Yeah. We had the Ridge Reaper TV show and started filming for it in fall of 2012. Came out in 13. But let’s talk about it a little bit. I know I’ve had a lot of questions. People it’s gone from TV to now where it is today Yep. And you know, and what the future is of of Ridge Reaper.
00:43:42:24 –> 00:44:24:05
Yeah. You know, Ridge Reaper started, you know, basically with a few of us from, from Under Armour and, and you know, of course you as the host. Yeah. And it’s just been a phenomenal, you know, really an identity for us to have as Pinnacle product and you know, and and being a part of the West Yeah. And really what you stand for and, and what we stand for in this space. And so it’s been something really special to us. You know, the TV show and, you know, originally when we had worked with the Outdoor channel, I literally, you know, when we were coming up with the concept Yep. Sat down basically
00:44:24:05 –> 00:44:26:01
On your elk hunt. Yeah. Kind of it really
00:44:26:01 –> 00:44:41:01
Well that was the start of it. Yeah. Is we started filming then. Yep. You know, that was the year before we really came up with Ridge Reaper. Yep. But that was where kind of Yep. It really started where you and I were working on what is this? Yep. I remember going down in the basement of, of Jeff Wayne from Outdoor Channel. Yep. Yep.
00:44:41:15 –> 00:44:42:18
I’ll never forget that. Denver,
00:44:42:24 –> 00:44:52:26
I was, I was pitching them Yeah. Pitching them because I wanted them, you know, to be a part of this and, and, and really understand what we were trying to do. And, and they were, and they were a great partner to us.
00:44:53:08 –> 00:44:53:14
Yes.
00:44:53:29 –> 00:45:19:12
And man, you know, just a, a couple great seasons with the outdoor channel and you know, one thing at Under Armours we’re, we’re constantly trying to, you know, innovate Yep. And, and see also where, you know, the consumer’s going. Yeah. And, you know, we wanna be try, you know, try to be ahead of that. Yeah. So one of the, the biggest things is, you know what I think we’re willing to take some risks.
00:45:19:20 –> 00:45:20:18
Yeah. And
00:45:20:27 –> 00:45:39:24
One of those was, you know, we’re gonna take this great phenomenal Ridge reaper platform and put it digitally. Yep. And one thing we can, you know, as a company and digital is, is like every, you know, our, our target consumer at Under Armour, not just in hunting, but total Under Armour consumers 18 years old.
00:45:39:26 –> 00:45:40:06
Right.
00:45:40:12 –> 00:45:44:22
Where does that 18 year old consumer spend the majority of their time Yeah.
00:45:44:28 –> 00:45:47:08
On their device, on their phone. Yep. Yeah.
00:45:47:19 –> 00:45:53:17
So we wanted to try and get ahead of that. And you know what, let’s, let’s put it out there and test. It’s not to say we can’t go back to
00:45:53:17 –> 00:45:54:08
Tv. Right,
00:45:54:10 –> 00:45:57:28
Right. You know, but let’s, let’s try to do something cool here and it
00:45:57:28 –> 00:45:58:28
Also put it on YouTube. Yeah. Whatever.
00:45:58:29 –> 00:46:06:22
And, and, and you can track it as well. So let’s see what, you know, what formulas work and, and what, what the people are responding to and
00:46:06:22 –> 00:46:07:02
Right.
00:46:07:05 –> 00:46:31:12
You know, the great thing there is social too. So you can get, you know, good feedback on, on that side as well. But, you know, we, we’ve moved Ridge Reaper to digital. Yeah. We’ve seen some great success and, and we also feel like it’s, you know, it’s also an evolution to where we started in the West and now we, you know, we had Ridge Rupert started with Baron. Yep. And now we have some other camouflage patterns with, with Forest. Forest.
00:46:31:21 –> 00:46:32:00
Yeah.
00:46:32:07 –> 00:46:37:14
You know, we’re, we’re testing out some different ones that that could work for some other, you know, pursuits.
00:46:37:19 –> 00:46:44:28
So we’ll have like other shows such as whitetail shows or, or a lot of different things. Who knows? It’ll be a lot of a variety. I mean,
00:46:44:28 –> 00:46:58:26
You know, you know, the, the cool thing that we had this year we launched at a shot show was, you know, Lee and Tiff are now a part of the, you know, the family. Yep. So they’ll be wearing our camo. Yep. You know, and so who’s to say we, you know, we couldn’t have a whitetail Right. With, with
00:46:59:01 –> 00:46:59:20
Lee. Right.
00:46:59:29 –> 00:47:04:04
Or or Tiff on there. Yeah. And, but they love the West as well. So it’s not to say we couldn’t
00:47:04:04 –> 00:47:07:07
Do that. Oh. They’ve killed some good stuff out west. Yeah, for sure. Lee’s a good hunter.
00:47:07:24 –> 00:47:08:18
He’s a phenomenal
00:47:08:18 –> 00:47:10:10
Hunter. Yep. And he’s a good, good guy. So what do,
00:47:10:10 –> 00:47:12:20
Do you think his favorite animal is to hunt?
00:47:12:28 –> 00:47:19:26
I don’t, well, he’s gotta be white tail. I would think. I’ve gotta be white tail sheep. Really? Really? I
00:47:19:26 –> 00:47:25:06
Couldn’t believe it. We were hanging out one night and I was hanging out in his house. I’m like, what’s your favorite? He is like, I love to hunt sheep.
00:47:25:17 –> 00:47:25:24
Wow.
00:47:26:02 –> 00:47:27:05
He’s like, it’s such a, he
00:47:27:05 –> 00:47:32:28
Killed an amazing, I it was a looked like a doll sheep to me with a bow. Yeah. Like an, an amazing ram.
00:47:33:07 –> 00:47:35:23
He, you know, he just said the physical and the mental.
00:47:36:17 –> 00:47:39:20
Yeah. You know? Yeah. Just such a challenge, anguish
00:47:39:20 –> 00:47:40:12
That you go through.
00:47:41:01 –> 00:47:45:04
I don’t think you could take Whitetails out of his blood though. Oh no. I mean, no, no,
00:47:45:04 –> 00:47:45:08
No,
00:47:45:08 –> 00:47:46:19
No, no. You know, that’s,
00:47:46:19 –> 00:47:47:29
That’s his wheelhouse. Yeah.
00:47:48:03 –> 00:47:58:26
That’s his deal. He loves it. He loves it. Yep. Well, good. Yeah, I think we’ll continue with that. Of course. I’m still working with you guys on the Ridge Reaper side of things and continue to be filmed. We love you man. As well as you’re the Ridge
00:47:58:26 –> 00:47:59:07
Reaper,
00:47:59:19 –> 00:48:19:26
As well as Cam Haines Remy Warren. Yeah. You know, a few of these other guys that are super good at what they do and, and fit with Under Armour have been involved with Under Armour for a lot of years. So anyway, you can find it out there. Everybody that’s listening, you can find it out there on YouTube and also be on ua.com I’m sure at some point. Yeah. And
00:48:20:23 –> 00:48:48:06
Yeah, we’ve got, you know, pretty much, you know, YouTube is, is, you know, great place to find us with Ridge Reaper and yeah, we’re, we’re working on some different things for our website, so stay tuned to that. And we’re, we’re gonna keep, we’re gonna keep growing it. We’re gonna keep Growing Ridge Reaper and really excited and really appreciate everything you’ve done for us. Jason, you are the Ridge Reaper, and, and you know, now you just got a good family that surrounds you, you know?
00:48:48:13 –> 00:49:26:16
Well, we love it. So anyway, on behalf of Epic Outdoors, want to just appre say how much we appreciate you spending some time on the podcast with this course of all the viewers and everybody that’s a fan of Ridge Reaper, under Armour and Epic Outdoors, and just really appreciate the partnership we have with you guys. You’re awesome and very progressive. Of course we are as well. And we’re growing fast as a company and, and just gonna continue growing and doing what we do best. You know, and partner with good, solid partners and that’s what we’d like. And anyway, just can’t, can’t tell you guys. Thanks enough and really appreciate you spending some time with us on the show. Thanks
00:49:26:16 –> 00:49:28:01
Buddy. Really appreciate you having me on.
00:49:28:01 –> 00:49:36:16
Alright buddy. We do gotta, we do gotta talk about the Canada Hunt someday. It’s unbelievable. It’s a story. It’s a story that’ll stay with me for, so
00:49:36:16 –> 00:49:37:06
It’s a good one.
00:49:37:15 –> 00:49:39:19
All right, sounds good. Thanks buddy. Thanks buddy. Brian, you bet.
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