EP 43: Hunting Update from the Epic Outdoors Crew

so i mean that's the one thing about deer i mean you can predict little things but a lot of times they surprise you no question the wide range of where mule deer live there's so many differences throughout anything to do with western big game welcome to the epic outdoors podcast powered by under armor hey everybody jason carter here along with the epic crew the entire crew chris peterson jeff john john peterson as well as adam bronson's on the line with us um we're just gonna give everybody a little update of course update each other it's been a while since we've seen each other we've been out in the hills quite a bit before we get started we want to thank under armor for sponsoring all of the epic outdoors podcasts as well as uh some other projects that are coming out pretty fun to think about and work on so

anyway appreciate under armor there's the support of epic outdoors and us and all we got going and just want to let you know of a cool thing that we're doing we've teamed up with red rock precision they make some long range hunting rifles uh but uh their precision custom rifles uh they do a fantastic job we've went up shot guns out to a thousand yards with them of course we could have shot further if we wanted to um but anyway it's been pretty awesome they're they're amazing rifles um we did team up with them we've got the epic edition of the red rock coming out it is dipped in ridge reaper camo uh looks fantastic there's several different versions that you can choose from um my particular gun that i had built comes in at like just over seven and a half pounds with the scope it's pretty amazing and shoots a thousand yards and so anyway um it comes with custom serial number

um i think mine's epic dash 0001 we're doing a limited edition of 50 there's been quite a few rifles already ordered we haven't actually advertised these rifles in the magazine yet we're going to start doing that in january but they will accept your order right now if you'd like so anyway don't hesitate to call uh red rock precision uh they do a fantastic job and uh you can go to redrock precision.com to get their contact info give them a holler we've been starting to do these giveaways here during this podcast so during the podcast you can uh you know there'll be a little code you can go on our website and enter the code a couple little things your email address and whatnot and you're entered to win so there's no charge to win but uh anyway we did give a membership in one of the podcasts and that went to ty butters b-u-t-t-a-r-s here in utah uh congrats ty we really appreciate you

listening to the podcast supporting epic outdoors and for doing so you're going to get a full year's uh free membership subscription to our magazine and service and so anyway i appreciate that we also had another winner where we gave away a phone scope a fully uh phone scope unit uh good for any cell phone that you got as well as the adapter for the spotting scope you use and so anyway just want to thank jason arthur he won that thanks for listening to the podcast uh you did win the phone scope and we'll be getting with you on that and getting you in touch with cheston davis there at phone scope and get you all set up uh depending on the podcast we give away epic swag memberships phone scopes under armor boots uh we we're going to do all kinds of things we may even at some point you know where

you can enter enter to win just give you another name in the hat for uh something awesome uh in one of our giveaways down the road and so we've got some neat things that we're thinking about um so anyway feel free as you know if you're listening to the podcast anyway make sure you listen for that code go to epicoutdoors.com enter it follow a few instructions and you're good to go on this particular episode giveaway we're going to give away a pair of ua infelops cortex hunting boots so anyway under armor be sponsoring this giveaway uh they want to give away a pair of infelops model uh their cortex hunting boot they're awesome they're super lightweight very comfortable um a little higher they come up a little higher they're not a short boot but uh they're awesome they're an early season boot worn them quite a bit really like them um so anyway we're excited to do

that to enter to win obviously uh you'd go to epicoutdoors.com backslash podcasts on the right hand side is the podcast giveaway entry form enter podcast code which will be infelops i-n-f-i-l-o-p-s envelopes and uh your name your email your phone number hit submit one entry per guy or gal and we're going to give away here in a week so anyway we're excited to do it again we appreciate under armor for sponsoring this and uh it's pretty exciting great pair of boots uh 249.99 value so anyway somebody's going to get a free pair of boots this week anyway office has been a little slow guys of course it may not have been in that slow i just don't know because we just weren't here to answer the call hopefully you've been answering the phone calls how's business anyway well i haven't been here enough either honestly i'm in and out but uh john that's probably yeah we've been answering

calls and helping people out good good giving them hardcore hunting advice yes we have how about you chris how you been it's been good i have people asking me questions that you should be answering units that i i've been to but you know well you know you're hardcore you're hardcore what's an example of one of those questions well uh certain unit i won't say where i'm not entitled to divulge any of jason's secrets so i can't share anything you're under a non-disclosure exactly of course we all know what that means all right guys well let's see how you doing out there bronson i'm doing good i'm sitting out here in the middle of the biggest pine jungle i probably understand in my life in unit 27 in arizona it's beautiful it's incredibly green now it's unbelievable how much understory and grass and it's you can tell

it's rained all summer long but anyway how awesome is that yeah it just feels like you and i we venture outside you know our core areas and we're just shocked at the game and how pretty it is and it's oh it makes it's it looks good down here you know i've only been here a day but i've seen you know big coos deer today the first thing i saw that kind of got me sidetracked for a bit i was video of that thing my bulls are bugling and i've got an elk tag so go figure yeah uh so what else you seeing some mule deer down there yeah nothing too exciting not like henry mountains bucks or anything but uh yeah he went there he went there well let's just talk about the henry since well i guess since the last time we had this little five member powwow about what we're going to be doing this year some plans changed uh uh i got a call oh i guess it was less than two weeks 12 14 days

something like that um before the henry's archery hunt started that uh i was offered a tag and of course i took it and fortunately i'd been scouting several trips four or five of the time because i have some clients later on in the rifle hunt and also fortunately i do have this arizona archery elk tag so i've been shooting my bow all summer that's not something i don't have a great archery tag every year but i do this year so i've been shooting that so anyway things just more or less changed i took off straight to the mountain and basically ratcheted up the scouting was on that trip that i found the buck that i ended up hunting uh came home for about 36 hours did some laundry got my tag when it came in the mail got some groceries and headed back out and then you guys all joined me i guess it was a day or

two before the hunt and um anyway we we had a great time on the second evening opening day we saw the deer just didn't quite you know he didn't go the right direction when where we were the wind was or whatnot but uh second night it all came together and got an arrow in him with you guys all watching and uh it was an awesome hunt 221 inch buck 35 incer big frame and had has the look that i want i couldn't be happier it was awesome it's awesome to have you guys down there of course wayne brown was down there with us had a had an awesome trip it was it was awesome yeah it sure was it was such a stud deer it big old framey thing uh just you know of course um you know you always seem to take one or two clients down there and you've known the mountain forever and you've killed you know some of the biggest deer on the mountain and so there was no question in my mind

that you know you're gonna find some more big deer this year and then when you ended up getting a tag it was just kind of like game on you know we had to show up and at least watch yeah well jason i know you were hunting hard in nevada and jeff too you guys both had archery deer tags over there so you took a fortunately it was a brief i don't know maybe three day time out but i appreciated the help and it just it was awesome got a lot of video everybody was involved and more or less babysat the deer for those two three days you know when you guys all got there i'd kind of keep tabs on some other bucks too but basically we were all in on him it was him him or nothing type thing and uh it worked out so great it was it was awesome so anyway congrats on that um so now i guess well i think worth mentioning one of the fun things was right during that hunt underarm recall and ask you

to take over their instagram yeah and so we were able to do a play by play on their instagram and we've since loaded those clips to our instagram epic underscore hunts and so you can go through and watch the whole thing pretty much you know play by play it was yeah yep you can so it's all where is it all on facebook instagram instagram it's on our facebook as well yeah the whole thing is on our facebook it's nine minutes in youtube so find us anywhere basically you can find that kill scene was a little bit tough to get he when we were videoing him he actually went you know he would well it kind of happened quick like it it wasn't like it was you know letting adam creep down in like adam was just all of a sudden they were right there like staring at each other 18 yards or 19 yards or whatever it was it was i don't know i didn't even range it it was just jamming too close and

it turned out it was in behind the deer was behind some tall oak for you guys but yeah i can see sure yourself he sure as heck ran out of that tall oak really really fast after i shot yeah he took off

that's all on video and then we yeah went around and ended up getting you know i ended up seeing him there oh where did he go what do you think brownson a half mile or three quarters of a mile yeah maybe a half mile he's bleeding like crazy and but rugged country yeah yeah good stuff and jason glassed him up and he wasn't doing very good yeah i had to go around him yeah i had to go around him and on the ranger basically just glass him up with the 15s to get a different angle and yeah there he was and and anyway i was following the blood trail and when i caught up to him he he could barely he could barely go frankly and uh anyway drilled him again and that was history yeah yeah yeah it was an amazing huh your best deer i guess yeah it is and let alone with the bow and uh like i said just uh i don't know i i've always i mean he's wide but he's wide because of the cheaters

but i i i love the big foxy frame i like big frames on deer that's what i like the most and he's got enough trash to making you know a little bit a little bit neat you know fork cheater going out one side that's about a six inch fork cheater and anyway the pictures are all on our instagram and uh we'll we'll also as uh as the guys get some more time um put all the footage and what on our our youtube sometime probably this winter when when the hunts die down we can really dig into that but you can get a you can get a taste of it on our facebook and instagram right now was it a tough decision picking that deer how'd you go through that process no because you had some giants you had some big deer that you were looking well there was another deer that he was like a nine by eight not counting eye guards and more of a compact frame he had a more trash but i he's right out in front of the

whole world i knew there would probably other people all over him and there was another hunter ended up shooting him so we made the right decision it was the only hunter on this deer and you you can't ask for more than that no so um hunt a big deer and just you and the deer because uh heaven knows of the bow it just doesn't happen you know on the first try and and so the more chances it's just you and the deer sooner or later it's going to all come together and when you have to add other hunters or different things into the mix it's just prolonging that and sooner or later that deer might wisen up and you know go underground so to speak so we're just fortunate we had just us and him to contend with yeah there was a few people i know we had a few people come by and of course i think some other people had seen him and then of course you got rifle hunters that are scouting and

there was a lot of yeah a bunch of guys scouting us they're scouting people that are like oh that's adam brontine that must be a giant right here so anyway we ended up just fortunate there wasn't a bull hunter on the ground but there were people around yeah yeah that's gonna happen on the henry guys had a lot of people down there but remember the guys that were running a little bait station we had stop visit with them and here in utah you can bait you know so they were there i don't know exactly what they were putting out who knows might have been applesauce i don't know anyway but that's not that's the topic of another podcast yeah we'll have to dive into that deeper at some point maybe but spot and stock you were in you were in his bedroom for i mean yeah pretty much all day i think it was like nine or nine thirty till seven seven thirty that night

oh i know ten hours and it rained rained and every middle actually lost him for several hours right in the middle of the day yeah yeah yeah when that shower came up he fed to the bottom down into a thick thick draw and nobody could see him and in that shower the wind switch started blowing down down the draw so i backed out moved down the ridge about 100 150 yards just hoping my you know scent would be east of him and below him and not knowing really where he was going to be well just total total random luck that that the tree that i picked to be under that whatever that last what maybe four hours i'm just totally guessing yeah that he fed up out of the bottom more or less right to it and i had to step out five yards to the one side to get an opening and that was that's what you need to have

go right you know like i said the opening day we had you know and even even that that morning he we guessed what he was going to do and he didn't do it and uh and uh you know finally finally it worked out and the wind held yeah he came into a loop that's all she wrote yeah it's awesome well good well let's see jeff last time we talked to you we're headed to wait a minute wait a minute we can't we can't leave that because i've got well stop start talking buddy start talking so being next to jason jeff and i talked about this afterwards and jason's gonna deny it but it was uncanny we were watching the buck jason and go you know he's gonna get up in about five minutes you know his his hindquarters itch and he's gonna scratch it with his tine so five minutes later the deer gets up scratches his hind quarter turns around jason's like yeah he's probably gonna bet about 10 feet to the right

it was it was and it was three days straight jeff i i was on the other ridge i didn't hear all that i didn't hear all that like when you're sitting there staring at the story there's nothing to a there's no cell service we're sitting there staring at the deer i'm watching adam i'm watching adam bed adam's up and down up and down we're all ready to kill this deer i'm watching the deer so you end up watching every movement of the deer and you have nothing to say to each other you know what are we gonna we've already talked about everything and so you know jason accurately predicts every move the deer makes where he's gonna go where he's gonna go up the hill really i i did not predict actually we for the evening when when when wayne spotted him right when adam made basically the last time the deer got up and started feeding i adam i nor wayne or you guys nobody guessed he would be

where he was at that's the one thing about no not where he was he ended up lower he ended up lower and down the ridge a little bit we thought he would come up and kind of go where we've always seen him or at least adam's always seen him so i mean that's the one thing about deer i mean you can predict little things but a lot of times they surprise you no question on what they're gonna do so jason could predict when they're gonna scratch themselves in which direction they're gonna sit and where they're gonna feed and when they're gonna get up but it was uncanny i knew i predicted adam was gonna kill him too yes you did and where i knew adam was gonna kill him that night he was he was just in the right spot and we were all ready and adam was ready and and anyway and then after he hit him you even predicted where he was gonna go that he was gonna jay hook up around us and we missed it we

were watching for that you know him to go through that spot well the thing is he went did exactly what you thought he would well there was a ridge you know adam was on a ridge the deer goes down and it's natural for they don't just go straight away for four miles they they always hook well there was a natural hook that goes up over the saddle you know what i mean but it was thick trees and tough and luckily thankfully because and it had been raining and adam made a great shot the first shot was a great shot it didn't look like a great shot at first but he was running so hard we couldn't tell and just bled like crazy and adam could stay on his blood trail helped a lot uh blood trails are nice and then not to have it rain and wash out the blood that was nice you know that it held off for a minute

so jason's a little bit modest but you ever have a chance to hunt next to him and you get blown away just saying anyway and anything else you want to add on your hunt adam about that or no obviously this is a hunt of a lifetime tons of pressure you know it's one you made a couple of comments to me too uh a couple of times is you know you don't want to let the pressure of some of these tags get to you and actually ruin the hunt for you or or you know and it's funny in this social world that everybody knows everything that you're doing and so that adds that what did you kill and if you and if you fail you want to fail in peace and of course you can't fail in peace in this world anymore anyway and so you know there's something about this unique thing about this experience is like i said once i you know once i confirmed i had a tag i i went straight to the henry's and

didn't come i came back for literally 36 hours did some laundry got my tag that'd come in the mail and yeah and uh groceries went back so nobody really knew it was kind of a it was kind of a secret and i just decided you know no reason to get on you know social media and tell the whole world it was just like hey when a deer dies they'll find out and uh that's the way i kept it and i even know there's a lot of close friends that were like i didn't know he had a tag and i'm like well you didn't have to have to text you really no way no way and uh you know the last thing i'll say is just you never forget you know i've hunted that mountain for over 10 years now killed some some giant deer predominantly the majority of them with muzzleloaders or rifles yeah i've taken some great archery bucks

down there but uh the anxiety of killing a giant deer with a bow is off the charts there's nothing for me for myself there's nothing that that makes my anxiety higher of everything needing to go right and not always going right and you know i was dazzled at the end of that 10 hours i was and i had to drink it all day long because well you i knew i was going to be getting you walked up to me and you're like you can have this archery deer hunt i'm done and then like and this is after the deer's dead like he's in two days i can't handle it i don't like it and i'm like adam and then then about three hours later he's like forget what i said i love our tremula well i hadn't had a drink all day long i took to gatorade before i started to stop that was the only thing that i drank in 10 hours because

you get that close to a deer you can't well you can't use the bathroom 50 yards from the deer because that's not good you know yeah and you were essentially you can smell it within 50 yards of the deer for what yeah you're 60 10 50 or 60 yards for lots and lots of time yes yeah so what time was it that you shot it oh it was seven seven thirty something like that i forget exactly and when we found the deer at daybreak we watched that deer all day long he was within 50 yards for 10 hours oh there's no question i know and then that's what and that's what adam's saying is you know you roll a rock you snap a branch whatever open in your pack you unzip them packs aren't quiet pretty pretty soon you just limit what you're drinking it's cool it's semi-cool in the shade yeah it wasn't too bad over there with a beanie shaking i could see it you know yeah you know you don't have all your clothes

you know and all that but it's just uh you're reminded about how many things have to go right when you're spotting stock mule deer hunting for it all to happen and you know especially on a deer of that caliber not you know you're hunting one deer we're not we weren't deer hunting we were hunting one deer and that's typical when you got a special tag like that that and you're just you get a lot of a lot of anxiety all pinned up and part of it's you know self-imposed you know it's a unit like i said i've been on there 10 years killing a lot of great bucks for for clients and help them do that but when you're the hunter never for me yes right right my turn and i didn't have i didn't have the build up from may to you know see it coming maybe that was good maybe that was better i don't know but it

worked out i'm i'm very humbled about it all thanks for you guys help yeah yeah i think more than anything the patience was just awesome because it's so easy to get in a hurry and the day before you know we talked about sitting on the deer for 10 hours the day you killed it but the day before i i'm sitting there watching through the scope i have got phone scope footage you can see adam in the screen and the deer in the screen 40 50 yards 40 50 yards and adam's got the patience the wind you know turns and goes bad adam's got the patience to back out and not go after the deer and and just let him go and yeah no no sense kicking him into the next county you know if he winded you at 50 yards you may not see him for a day or two you know that's right you know right but anyway yeah this is pretty awesome and

then walking up on the deer of course there's nothing like that that's what we all know nothing like to live for and and he was exactly i mean we had him adam i know you and i discussed that you know down yeah like i was i said 219 to 223 and i don't know what you said exactly where he was yeah he was 220 and change 221 basically and 35 wide just a stud one of those you know just phenomenal deer one of the top on the mountain so that's all you can ask for but that went well so that was that was something new that we didn't talk about a month ago on every other podcast but as for the rest of stuff we're pretty much kicking off uh i guess you and you and jeff have been after it huh yeah yeah jeff jeff grind let's talk about jeff don't talk about me jeff we're praying that he makes it back alive every time yeah jeff jeff's gone through how many tires have you gone through two how many

tires your brother go through he went through two in one trip one weekend i've been through two through the season but i you know somehow my wife got word that he went through five of them oh no i haven't been through five now that's not that's two new tires so i had new ones on i've been through two new ones since then both toyotis toyotis that's not where i'm not going to get in a bash i told you to get different tires i know but i did have a mama's minivan tires i'm gonna take minivan tires on my hunt down there in 27 we're gonna get some hate mail i'm not gonna i mean i did i'm telling you i went through i did have to put two brand new tires on the truck i went through a few tire plugs as well are they under warranty or did you have to pay for them well they're under warranty at the store that i

bought them at which is a lot which it cost me more to get them back to and they're only prorated and pretty soon you just like the tires are thrashed they're just you know toys are just soft rubber and those that hard rock down there oh it's brutal on tires yeah but no it's been it's been a struggle but you got on some good bucks well eventually like i like i put plenty of time and money into it um hunting a particular you know one side of the unit yeah and i just you know we had that like 32 33 inch buck just that great deer great just a wide four point really crabby on the front he wasn't a great deer but no he's a pretty big deer but he's big and he's got the biggest he's got the biggest track i mean you got adam and i he's looking our chops jeffrey but but you know yeah 30 days ago we were giving you crap and now adam and i are like now it's the first choice gonna be archery muzzle

rifle first choice second and third jeffrey all three seasons and you know the problem is and jason you know this the problem is these desert deer are not they're very unpredictable they're very hard to glass it's not like it just doesn't yeah doesn't feel like places up north like in in more open sagebrush country or even high alpine it's a different type of hunting it's really terrain that shouldn't be hunted i mean honestly it feels like and and in temperatures right now and in temperatures that you shouldn't be hunting yeah i mean it's just it was 101 in my country yesterday down where you're at it's probably 110 115 yeah it was the other day i hiked back into a water hole it was 111 and it was like i realized at that point that you are taking your life in your hands like whether you like it or not like our brother-in-law said you didn't take enough water

and you kept wanting to go back to the truck he's like he's like i look back and jeff's like you know i know we're not well i'm sitting here let me see i'm sitting here let's go back to the truck and he's like no come on no i heard i pull up it like i look at the map and i'm like okay i know where the spring is and it's 1.8 miles and we start hiking and it's this soft sandy soil like so you're just like every foot step takes a little bit extra and i get back in and i just i left my pack i grabbed a trail camera grabbed a bottle of water and i just took off i'll just run up there get that set up and get back and we get back in here i realize that there's some forks in the canyon and i'm like okay where is we're at this point and this is after i've been hunting hard for three or four days yeah i'm a

little spent i'm a little ticked off the world right now anyway and i'm getting to this point i'm like i'm done i'm getting out of here because i ain't gonna freaking be dragging my butt off of this i'm gonna get in my minivan minivan yeah with my toyota and drive home i'm gonna drive home because because at that point dude you're you are you're stressed because you know you've been i mean three hours of sleep at night because you don't get back till 11 o'clock at night that's why adam camped closer to his deer yeah you know those those summer nights are short yeah days are long it's hard though when it's 86 when it cools off to 86 degrees you're like well i gotta get somewhere where there's ac so i can sleep so even if you're just going back for three hours yeah even if it's just for three hours you go back

like you go to where you can get ac what uh and so did you make the hike oh yeah we found it he said he encouraged well it was alan you know alan he he pushed me on because i was like dude like like this is this is grind point like we i've been grinding for a long time at this point and i'm like you know we need to go back we need to get the gps i need to know exactly where the spring is i need to know i'm not willing to sacrifice both of our healths you know the health of both of us to be up here just traipsing around for fun yeah like i so you got it set now you need to check it now i need to check the end of the season's like the end of the season this week yeah that's pretty much here kind of need to go check that camera when we get off this podcast yeah uh yeah i probably ought to yeah are you still hunting jeff are you you got to what the night what you got to the night

yep that that's that's that's the end of it that's four days or three or something whatever we're at i've lost track of days i know this hunt you know if i go back if i if i decide that there's a buck there worth hunting it's going to be a put the backpack on take two gallons of water in the pack and go and stay in there for the last three days of the hunt that's the only way to do it you can't go back and forth on this one it's just too far yeah yeah well it's a couple of nice bucks anyway it's a good experience for you i mean didn't have learned a lot for points and jason what about you i don't want to i don't want to tear a scab off or anything because i know it's been much the same but you've got to you got to give your report yeah we give north well it's uh you know it's tough out there and i get of course you know people out there in nevada pretty they want to know where

you're at you know what i mean and which deer you're hunting and how many other deer you got and so i'm always a little bit careful there but it's uh it's good it's just kind of a tough year like i think the april and may and adam you and i've discussed this a lot there was really dry april and may and you know it was a good winter it was a good fall good winter relatively good early spring moisture wise and then it just turned off and i've got a number of big deer that didn't come back and i've got a number of big deer that shrunk a lot from last year and so i mean we've got uh you know 235 inch deer that are now you know maybe lucky to break 200 and so it's really hard you know and so yeah i've been out uh hitting it pretty hard and we've got a little hit list uh of deer like this morning we glassed up everything but the deer i want um and we've done that two days in a row now and

and actually glassed up a new buck that i don't have on water i have no idea where he's water might maybe a hole in the rock or it's got some rain water from these monsoons or something but uh wide deer with big four or five inch eye guards and multiple eye guards and heavy based and but but just uh but not a a real stud and so anyway when you're seeing the shrinkage from year to year we also we always said that last year was a great moisture year is that age or is that definitely due to moisture this is this one's due to due to the year uh some deer obviously will shrink i mean you know as they get old they'll shrink a little or they have a little bit of a hiccup maybe they get wounded or or get injured in the hills or stuff happens and just like our health as humans but uh you know this one this one is is statewide it's a noticeable

across the board yeah it's bucks that you knew from last year that's right they're smaller this year and then obviously there was a governor buck killed that was 260 and there's a few deer that um you know where for whatever reason maybe they had a little more moisture in that particular five square miles maybe it's just the feed that they're on the spring that they're on however you know those plants are getting water i mean there's there's the it's not a hard fast rule but generally speaking it seemed to be down didn't you think adam from everything you've heard too from other people yeah it is and i and i would agree the last two years it seems like our our late april and may which normally are pretty dry have been incredibly wet except for this year wasn't and then going on into june it was baking hot so i think i think that was part of it you know they

get a good start and just then they kind of had to just survive after that and not that it was terrible it's terrible and other places like the strip and things like that or they're awesome awesome i would i would still say the henry but i would say the henry's um spent a lot of days down there this year obviously and it's an average to slightly below average year for the henry's by henry's it's not it's not stellar um you know and so sometimes mountain range to mountain range you know we think we have you know uniform moisture throughout utah or southern utah even you know poncegant versus henry's or poncegant strip henry's or nevada and it and it's not it's timing um it's obviously the mountain timing isn't the same and you know deer are more susceptible than than elk and things like that so so you say it's what it is you got to make the best of it

which months do you look at as being the most important when you're looking at you know moisture well you need you need all of them because if you have a really good winter you know you'll have your as soon as the temperature warms up enough that you're going to have any kind of green up which is normally depending on where you're at but march and april it'll green up and get going but then if you don't have anything to follow it up in in april and may then then that green up's kind of short lived and you don't have any really you know steady green yeah it cures out quick they end up having to go to their brows early sometimes which which is good and like i said some deer you know eat brows 365 days because there's not enough or very short green up periods maybe it's only cheatgrass or things

like that that they have in short you know different different places but you know from the wide range of where mule deer live there's so many differences throughout and uh we're just talking about a few of the places here that just seem to be a little bit off but still a good year and yeah it's still a good year you've got a you've got a landowner tag so you're still hunting i know you've got some clients you're going to be talking about i don't know if it's this week or whatnot so bronson guide service i mean you know of course i work under you and yeah it's uh we definitely do have a couple of really good friends of ours now that turn you know just known them for years and years and we're excited we got some big deer to hunt you know you still uh it's still a good year i mean i'm not i'm not

we got 20 bucks probably over 200 i mean that's a great that's a great figure but it's also been three months getting that it's it's a grind it's five six days a week and and the best deer i mean i you know kind of the one that you know i'm hunting a deer that i didn't recognize at first because he changed so much from last year he just dropped 25 or 30 inches and then i find his shed i find his shed and i'm like i didn't realize he's that big last year and i found the small side small side doubles 215 the big side's amazing and so you know i'm like all right i'm not going to kill him this year and so it's changed it changed everything it changes your plans it changes whatever and uh that's a bold thing to say um i'm going to pass on this 200 inch deer 200 and he's probably he's bigger than 200 right

he's he's what 208 210 you think right now i don't know but but yeah you just gotta you gotta you gotta let them go and and it's just like you know adam hunting big deer you guys hunting big deer you know if you don't let them go you know what i mean so they don't get really big not a lot of us are going to pass on to an injured jason i'm not i'm not saying i passed him i'm just not gonna hunt him you're passing on the buck and so anyway and and there's another deer i'm on to uh for myself that deer you know would you know would be probably for one of our clients or something uh adam and i's but you know like the deer that i'm on um i'm hunting a deer that i mean i've i've had him on camera since 2014 except for the water dries up the water dries up i don't get him water comes back boom i've got him again and so anyway i've had him since 2014 he's obviously maxed out ginormous body sway

back to pot gutted huge monster he looks like he has a 300 300 pound body i haven't even shown adam the pictures i don't think but uh just for timing wise and we've missed each other and been out in the hills a lot so anyway i'm probably gonna hunt him because he's maxed out and he's never gonna be giant giant like the 230 potential and uh and i like him i'm fond of the deer you know yeah i got a relationship with this guy you know put him on my wall so anyway um it's still fun we're hunting good deer it's a grind out there you know what's really frustrating and i think nevada should consider changing their law on this but it's hunting hours are half hour before sunrise to sunset and you know what it's like when you got a full moon right now we have a full moon it was 101 degrees yesterday and and in 101 you it's one thing to say 101 go stand out there for a minute yep and go hike when

there's no trees there's no greenery it's it's literal freaking desert and uh and so when when are the deer going to stand up you know are they going to stand up before sunset i mean so we they should go a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset that's normal state that's what you which is what most states that's what most states do or if you want to go to sunset then why not just start at sunrise it's you know why a half hour before so you know what i mean like be consistent if you're gonna it's plenty good enough to shoot the hours are plenty good enough to shoot after sunset just as it is before sunrise and my biggest buck he never stood up until it was basically a half an hour past sunset i mean it was just like and people are still killing people would kill them normal people

are breaking law you're they and they don't think about it because you can see for a thousand yards you can still see 500 yards or a thousand yards your dots are going in my in my opinion that's it should be changed it should be more liberal because you're dealing with that kind of a state august september especially those hunts are so brutal the deer are not well and you're talking about a bow you're not you still got to be within let's just say 50 yards you know what i mean yeah 50 yards to see your pin yes yes you should be able to let one rip we're not talking about fading light at 800 yards into the you know shadows somewhere we're not talking about that right right so anyway yeah but anyway it's it's it's been fun i just some years you kill a buck in a couple of days on an archery hunt out there in nevada and you're and you're just your luck couldn't be better

and it couldn't be easier it's just man archery hunter for life and then some years it's 20 days packing that bow and you can't wait to get rid of it and when you look at those 20 days and you look well the most valuable or sometimes the only useful part of the day is the morning yeah it's hard to put in that much effort like i come back today to do this podcast and to clean off my desk for a minute and grab some food and stuff because i'm out of food out there and you just say i wouldn't see i did not see a buck last night i didn't see a doe last yeah okay and and uh me and my brother-in-law and my boy were out there and so between three of us and sean's a dang good glass there with 15s we didn't see a deer you know that and that it's full moon that's not a hot and that's nevada and that's like when adam's giving us the report in 27 or we start talking about the henry's

keep in mind i was on the henry's for three days it's like i i never wanted to step back the garden of me yeah i looked at nevada and i'm like it really i wouldn't pay three dollars for attacking nevada it's true it is it's so true so different it is so hard people don't have respect adam adam and jeff and myself um we've been up in idaho and we go and hunt idaho yeah it's game rich it's amazing you go up there and you're and you're just like why do we hunt anywhere else why it's just like our plans in colorado next year adam like there's no i mean yeah we're already scheming on what to do and mixing it up and things like that and like said uh like alluded i'm down here in unit 27 in arizona it is unbelievable it looks like the garden of eden down here they had a bump of moisture it's i these elk the oak down here that's regrown a few of the burns

is incredibly tall they're they're whistling a little bit and that's always you know i haven't been in the elk mountains yet i got done with the deer hunt and and went straight to the desert scouting sheep and i've been doing that for about the last week or 10 days off and on and and roasting like you are in nevada and so this is like my first first day literally in the elk hills and pretty cool i got out of the truck today i was getting my binos out and i heard a vehicle from the truck i mean and my mic came here we go yeah and i know we're about 10 days before my hunt starts but yeah um but it's gonna obviously be good great yeah i mean they bugled till 8 30 this morning wow these bulls you know didn't have cows they were they were you know the bulls that i classed up and saw were were feeding bugling you know but they're starting to go down that road how nice is

that and that's cool so you're gonna change it up and i'm looking at looking forward to changing up my schedule too by the way it's nice to change species like and like what you were saying adam like you go in there you've been there for i don't know let's call it was today your first day actually being there yeah i drove down last night you've been there for you've been glassing for four hours right been glassing for four hours this morning you see it you see a coos deer that that beats the minimum by 10 inches and it's kind of a lot okay and it's over the counter tags you see what i mean you know what i mean like what are we doing what are we doing here i don't know we got over the counter tags that in those years that i have nothing going which doesn't seem very like very often but okay i'm watching 110 to 15 or maybe better inch buck and you know yeah game on and i and i saw

five or six coos bucks today i saw another probably 90 or 100 inches and you know a few mule deer plenty about lots of turkeys i mean it's just it's like wild kingdom down here and like it's like wild kingdom and here we are we're you're in it four hours we're coming out of utah you've never been there before although you know you have you do have a few good friends that have that have kind of get you started and people that yeah this before and pointed in the right direction and and people that have hunted it in recent years and i'm very appreciative of that but but yeah just basically because of that that uh you know that henry's tag that came up i i wasn't able to come down here in august and for obvious reasons so i'm here now i i you know i was going to go the week right after the henry's and then i found out the general archery hunt opened down here and then the next weekend was

labor day general and i didn't want to be over the counter here yeah like yeah people can hit the hills and with over the counter tags i didn't want to be down scouting my elk unit the opening week of archery general deer down here so um i put it off and now like i'm saying these these bulls are starting to bugle on you know if i find a bull here they might be here yeah that's the same spot that's the thing you can only scout the rut in the rut and so i think it's really okay that you didn't scout early you you know what i mean it's okay it's not the end of the world you're still gonna know i just mainly getting to know the unit you know finding some water go find some places where i you know can glass and bulls aren't you when i come back in 10 days days and uh so i can you know have a good

12 to 14 days i probably probably missing the first day or two of the hunt trying to take care of some sheep hunters right off the bat things are really looking good there we found some really really good rams we're trying to babysit frankly and so you know we got you know 10 days to to prepare for that and i'm down here for four days or so and then back back to babysitting and finding sheep in the desert there's uh yeah so you know we've got of course this is just the start of the season it's just kind of wanted to give everybody a little bit of an update uh we've got a lot more to come and a lot every day is a new day out in the hills and that's what we're all doing between us all anybody else got anything going on recently or upcoming no i think what adam said about he talked to people before he got there i think that's really important and it's part of what our members can do

with our member experience program if you draw a unit call in tell us and if we've got guys that have hunted in the past we'll send you their contact information that can be so valuable yeah i agree 100 yep so let's see how about you chris you're over there grinning what have you been doing well you've been seeing well i'm grinning about one thing and before we leave uh talking about the wild kingdom i uh saw a shell cam picture today that oh the wild kingdom let's hear about what you got on a camera down in your country well i'm out packing a chicken that coyote packing a chicken picture like a live chicken it's like a dead chicken it's like a rooster and we're talking not sage hen it's a rhode island red 30 miles how far from civilization is that jason 30 miles yeah at least somebody dumped a chicken off out in the hills i don't know how this rooster ends up on this and then here's a

coyote packing it in its mouth and i'm like yeah i'm kind of kind of hungry for some chicken too jeez you gotta post that on it it's got to be one of the best trail cam pics you've got this year well yeah a tough year it was kind of exciting part of the funny thing too is that rooster looks like it's still alive it's still his eyes i got three pictures of it is it's i've got it on a fast burst and yeah his eyes are open he's just like okay i get it do you see his spurs on that thing yeah i'm thinking that coyote might have taken a spur to the chin i don't know i don't know but uh anyway we'll be back at back in the hills shortly so what about you jeff what have you got coming up oh we've been uh adam's gonna need a packer yeah i'm i'm gonna i'm going down so i just gotta hear i gotta know when he's done sheep hunting and then

yeah we'll be jumping and rolling i got a couple guys i'm gonna go with more than likely on their elk hunts that are gonna be starting off the rifles just so just that first day or so i might go help him but then basically heading south with with adam good good that well and i'd be there i'd be there i'd be there too i've just got i've just that's the muzzleloader hunt which we got maybe you'll kill three bucks in five days it's happened it's happened i don't know it's been 30 days with a bow i'm ready to throw the bow off the cliff yeah i'm like adam you i i have i want nothing to do with archery deer hunting i want nothing to do with it you know i'm here give me a little rest give me some water i'm gonna be just like adam i love archery deer hunting where can i hunt next year yeah where can i go next year where can i use my points on an archery deer tag that's right that's

right it is a rush it is you're up close and personal that's what makes the anxiety level so high but it's a love hate relationship you know jace and i we've done that nevada well five years ago i think you hunted like 18 i hunted 14 days and and and we lost i i had an archery only i drew tag and fortunately you had a landowner tag and i think the first or second day he killed one of the bucks we were we chased all those 30 something combined days of the bow and never could kill but yeah oh in the muzzle yeah i killed one yeah the typical that one of the typicals they're chasing you know and of course everything else still lived yeah it was crazy it is it's crazy but it's fun and and of course it makes the success all that much better you know but uh they're killing some big deer here in utah that's for sure i know some big deer on on the on the strip giant deer on the strip have killed

some big archery bucks oh they killed some big bulls down there in arizona i mean there i saw one picture floating around just a giant 450 type bow wow i saw that governor bull or governor raffle stuff yeah that's about the only thing that's open but there i need one of those i need one of those i just i just need a 400 straight typical six not a big deal not a big deal yeah what about you bronson what are you gonna hold out for that's what i keep well this is uh you know this is 15 or 16 years in the making and so i'm you know i'm not here to kill an elk and so i just soon kill a good one or don't kill one or go down to the last to the end yeah well i mean not not as much of the bow though but but even then i mean i've killed a few bulls with my bow i haven't archery hunted that much we can't archery hunt in utah general season i don't normally make time to go to

another state but i uh you know i want to hunt for a big bull or you know hopefully the rut only gets better the deeper the hunt goes on so yeah it only takes once and and uh looking at this country you know borders san carlos and it's just giant so there's so much escapement here in september um i have no doubt there's a kind of bull here that you know if i get a glimpse of one or something like that it's probably gonna you know be all right that's the bull or nothing type thing if i end up seeing a special bull well and i know you're a lot like me in the fact that and but john's pushing us to do this podcast but i just like to not talk about my hunts until you succeed and then let's talk about it but but i like to fail in silence i like people to just be like well i wonder what jason's doing

and i'm over there like yeah i just failed 30 days and it didn't get jacked yeah but i don't like talking i don't want to prep everybody i got this up tag and then you go down there and you're like man you know and then you didn't get one and you feel yeah you know you're a lot like me like that you're like but then yeah john's on you and you're like all right fine let's talk somebody's got to drive it but you'll do good no question about it one way or another and you're learning a lot already first four hours i can't believe what you've learned so it'll be awesome and and uh i'm sure we'll end up snagging something in nevada and utah and a few other these states we're going to head to so it's gonna start happening fast here pretty quick yeah so one after another well sounds good anything

else anybody want to add next podcast we got to add a fair amount of fib and you know throw people off a little bit yeah we did we just didn't tell you we peppered it in all right it's in there john all right that'll be the fishing podcast i got some fish stories there i was there i was on lake powell rod doubled over you know using my sandwich meat because we ran out of anchovies never knew there were sturgeon in lake powell all right well sounds good guys guys be safe all right you too talk again yeah all right good luck man good luck all right talk to you later here at epic outdoors we publish a western hunting publication nine months a year the epic membership includes nine issues of the magazine where the first six months of the year are totally geared to breaking down all the western states draws their

application process their deadlines units kill rates drawing odds everything that we feel is very important for you to make a calculated decision on whether you apply for that state or not and how you want to apply for trophy for more opportunity hunts but but do it from a current year perspective we also have you know a bunch of different articles in there from biologists from the states hunter next door articles uh what else jason yeah the hundred dollar subscription you know includes uh consulting so we deal with our clients on a regular basis over the phone help them develop their hunting plans and uh any anything to do with western big game once guys draw tags they can call in we'll put them on a list give you a list of members who've hunted in the past or help you find outfitters and so and and we've got a

you know a lot of experience across the west and and it might be that you draw a unit that we've got experience in we have no problems helping you so anyway this is just a very interactive service 100 bucks a year try to be all inclusive on western big game and and of course on it from a trophy perspective you know we we all like the big stuff and uh and so we really try to you know capitalize on on the changes that are happening and some of the different great opportunities out there yep so if you're interested you can find us on the web at epic outdoors dot com or call us at 435-263-0777