EP 54: Our History. Past, Present, Future, of the Epic Outdoors Crew. In this Episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast We talk about our history in the hunting industry. Many listeners out there may not know how we got our start. All the way back in 1997 Jason Carter began his journey with his dad, Garth. They started out with a small newsletter of pages stapled together. Those pages were full of information on hunting big game in the Western States. Over time, the small newsletter transformed into The Huntin’ Fool Magazine. With growth, staff members were added including John Petersen, Adam Bronson, Chris Petersen, and others. The Service continued to grow with a hard working team behind it. In this episode we talk about parting ways with the old company and starting fresh with Epic Outdoors. We also discuss a lot of what we do here at Epic and help listeners to know what kinds of services we provide.
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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There’s a lot of people out there that are listening that maybe, you know, don’t know where we came from or what we’re doing or
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Didn’t work out. So we, we parted ways,
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Just wasn’t in the cards.
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A guy cannot just jump into a business
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Sector. Anything to do with Western Big Game.
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Welcome
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To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Hey everybody. Jason Carter here along with the Epic Outdoors Crew. Got everybody in the room here. Anyway, it’ll be kind of an interesting morning. We’re running on a little sleep, a lot of Monster and we’ll just see where we, where we go with it. But before we get started, we do wanna tell Under Armour how much we appreciate ’em for the sport they give us. Be able to do these podcasts, they sponsor our podcasts as well as the YouTube channel that we have here at Epic Outdoors. And they also do a run a back cover ad on our magazine. Yes, we do a magazine. It’s nine issues a year. Do a hundred dollars a year to get it. So anyway, it’s research based here in the West West, but we do appreciate Under Armour and the support they give us. Little shout out to them. And then also wanted to let everybody know that we’re gonna be at the expo, the Western Hunting Convention here in Utah, February 8th to the 11th. We’ll have a booth up there. We’ve got a 20 by 50 booth, number 2, 8, 4 5. We wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s one of our favorite conventions that we go to. Of course, you can validate for some tags, five bucks a tag. And it’s kind of another application system, which we’re all about applications. But anyway, you can go up there and, and validate. You gotta validate in person. And then you’re in the draw for a bunch of tags. So hunt
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Expo.com if they want more info on that. Yeah, and we’ve, we’ve got the full Curl Society social on Saturday at that event. We’ll all be there. We help sponsor that. Get to see, what is it about 10, 10 or 11 people win sheep hunts and yell and scream and act like little kids. It’s pretty fun.
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Sorry, I’m sorry guys. I,
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I’m sorry.
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I’m sorry. But the, the monsters are so good right now. But go, go ahead Adam. I’m sorry about that.
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I can’t top that. So there
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Are some free sheep hunts,
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So somebody’s gonna win
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’em. And you don’t, don’t
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Have to pay anything. You
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Don’t have to pay anything on any of those sheep hunts, which,
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Yeah, we just talked to, I just talked to one of our epic outdoors clients and licensed app clients yesterday. He’s from Oklahoma. He won the Rocky Mountain Big Horn hunt there last year and he’s fired up. Wow. He’s going there. He is coming again this year. Of course. ’cause somebody’s gonna win ’em. That was a hunt that anybody could win and he won it last year. One of our, just one of our clients from Oklahoma who came to the bank or CRO Society social last year and won it. So, so the
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Folk curl little gathering happens during the expo? Within the expo in an offside room, right? That’s right. What day?
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Saturday. All right.
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And we are sponsor
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Of that
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Event. It seems like she’s usually mid-afternoon Yeah.
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Ish midday or something. Yeah, we’re a sponsor of that. We’ll be there and fun time. It’s a huge event and you know, have a few speakers there usually that talk sheep, sheep hunting basically to draw out the suspense until they draw the names. That’s what we’re all there for. But
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It’s just a room full of hardcore hunters. There’s usually, it seems like a couple hundred, two or 300 people in the room, maybe even a little bit more, but it’s awesome. Oh,
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Probably like a thousand, 1500. Yeah, it’s full. No way. Giant. That really monster. Well,
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I lose track with the expo ’cause there’s like, what, 50,000 people walk the show and I’m just like, I always lose track at how many people can really fit in a room. So
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Anyway. Well, today we got an interesting topic. Alright. Right. What
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Are we gonna talk about?
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Where we came from? Why are we here and where are we going?
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So, all right, sounds good. You know, to start this off, we do wanna say hey to everybody and we appreciate how everybody listens to the podcast of recently Hunting out of Northern New Mexico and had guys, you know, approach me at the gas station. And of course they’re listening to the podcast and it’s just pretty amazing. All the awesome hunters out there and everybody that does give us a lot of love. And, and I did attend a hunter education course in Arizona to get that permanent bonus point for my kids and my wife and whatnot. Of course I did that clear back when I was just a little kid. And anyway, there was quite a few guys in the room, there’s like 30 total people in the room and like five or six came up and said something about the podcast. And a couple of ’em didn’t even know what we do.
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Like we don’t, we’re not just a podcast company, you know? And, and so anyway, they didn’t know what we do. And, and so we just kind of wanted to talk about that. Maybe give some people a little bit of our background. You know, we’ve talked to a lot of people that call in and of course here at Epic Outdoors, we do a lot of consulting, especially Adam and I, and Jeff. Jeff John’s my brother-in-law. So, and we’ll get into a little more of that. We wanna, you know, a lot of these guys are kind of know where we’ve come from and followed us for the past 20 plus years, I guess. Geez. It’s almost, yeah. 20 plus years. And so anyway, but there’s a lot of people out there that are listening that maybe, you know, don’t know where we came from or what we’re doing, or, you know, are just a couple guys on the mic that talk about hunting. And so anyway, just wanted to kinda give everybody a little bit of background of what we’re doing, like Adam said, where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re going. And so I guess I’ll just start it out.
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Everybody’s here in the room, but anyway, you guys can all chime in when you’re, when you want to. But, you know, I I, after I graduated high school, I went to college of course, and, and was going out into finance ’cause I didn’t know really what I wanted to be. And my dad was a game warden and biologist and whatnot for 20 years with the game and fish here in Utah. And so anyway, he always convinced me I needed to go get a quote, real job, you know, that could, you could afford to go hunting. They’re, there’s definitely a modest pay that is associated with biologists and game wardens and they’re also require a lot of time during the seasons. And so it, it kind of hampers your hunting. And, and so anyway, when he was, ’cause he was a biologist, he, we always did a lot of research on where to hunt in other states that wouldn’t conflict with the seasons here in Utah.
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And so that kind of started us off hunting, you know, across the west. And we’d travel all, all, every time we traveled, we traveled overnight throughout the entire night and, and made the most of every waking hour and, and just grinded it out trying to, you know, not be gone too much and, but yet still get in a lot of hunting. So anyway, we, we hunted a lot of neighboring states, you know, especially Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and those were kind of the main states that I remember as, as I was growing up. But anyway, when I was in college, we, Garth came up with the idea to start kind of a service to be able to service hunters and not just make money from booking hunts. Like how do you, how do you live in the industry, make money, how, and make a, make a living in an industry where it seemed like the only way to make money was to either guide or book hunters and be a booking agent.
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Well, and if, if, you know, going back that 20, 25 years ago, it was kind of at the time when more states, it was the very first, when the rasberry becoming, they were always around. Sheep tags have always been a draw. But more and more deer and elk tags even started to go, you can draw ’em or you or you don’t go hunting. That’s right. You know, it was kind of the, what was that? Early nineties, mid nineties. Mid nineties. And so it was when the, hey, go to Walmart or every sporting goods store and buy your deer and elk tags and go hunting in every western state was starting to go away. And so there more tags were be begin being issued in the draw. And so people that didn’t hunt their own state was like, how do you, how does New Mexico work? Or Colorado? Right. Isn’t that a little bit of help? That’s oh
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Percent. Like there was a demand for information and, and how do you Internet information?
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Internet had no internet really. I
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Mean yeah, there was no, there was no internet. There was, there was fax machines. And for you kids out there that don’t know what a fax machine is, it’s basically like taking a picture with your cell phone and sending it.
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Ask your grandpa. Yeah.
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Asks your grandpa. So anyway, and around there, information,
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1995 was, I mean,
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Email 1990, it just barely started 96. I mean, so, you know, Garth was, which Garth is my father for those of you don’t know out there, he struck a deal with Duns and, and became Western representative, booking agent for, for the western US for, for big game. And I worked under guard. So I was booking hunters, you know, as basically a kid and off yellow sheets, you know, yellow pads and pens and, and that’s about it. And just that was kind of how I got crank. And of course we were always hunting since I was a little kid, but, but then the actual business side of the hunting industry, booking hunters. So we kind of started with that and then he realized, hey, if a guy doesn’t book a hunt, I don’t make any money. And some of these guys just wanna talk about hunting. It’s like they just wanna talk. Yeah. They wanna talk about going to Colorado or they want to talk about going into Mexico or whatever.
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And or one of ’em tells you they drew a great tag and you’re like, oh, great, have fun. And you dearly had nothing else to do. Yeah, yeah. Had him on the back say,
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Go. And so how do I, how do I feel good about talking to this guy for a half hour knowing I gave up phone calls that my, for guys that are paying clients that might book a hunt. And quite frankly, I like to talk about hunting. I like to talk about the western draws and stuff and not necessarily have to sell a guy a hunt to keep the lights on. And so anyway, there was, you know, he thought about a 900 number, he thought about all kinds of different things and came up with the idea, let’s do a membership. Let’s do a membership. We’ll send out some kind of a flyer, it talks about hunting and we’ll go from there. And so that came about right when I was in college and, and it was a stapled in the corner and it said newsletter at the top and hadn’t even named it you
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Guys. Yeah.
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The Hunting Fool. At that point in time, we named that when I, the newsletter came to work, and it was even after a few years after I came to work. So it
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Was called the Newsletter. It goes to show you it wasn’t even Western name Game newsletter, which is newsletter. It goes to show you a name doesn’t always mean the company’s destined for greatness. Yeah. Or that it’s gonna fail. The
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Name is just a name like
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Pepsi at one point was a dumb name. We thought of a Pepsi
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At one point. It still is. Yeah. I, I I love it. But what does Pepsi mean? You know, Pepsi? Like, that’s not that exciting, right? Yeah. So anyway, you know, it, it is a name is just a name. But so we, we got cranking and he would, you know, they would first hear like, the, this newsletter or fax me the copy of it to proofread, you know, so I’d proofread it and go through all the statistics stuff I’m in, in college dorm. And I had all of the, you’re
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In Logan? He’s,
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I’m in Logan, he’s in,
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Yeah. Mine. No, Cedar.
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He’s here in Cedar City. He’s here in Cedar
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City, Utah State. You’re,
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I’m in Utah State, a university. And anyway, he’s working out of his house, you know, which had an office in the house. And then, and then they would fax me up the copy of the newsletter and, and I would proof it and whatnot. And then, and I would get all the regulations coming to my dorm, you know what I mean? Like Oregon and all these places I’m starting to apply and just, and just learning stuff. Just just reading the regulations. I mean, just started literally reading the regulations. It’s not like we had been to Oregon that many times. And so anyway, just kinda got going that way. It, it got going. And then when I came to graduation time, Garth’s like, well, why don’t you just come to work for us? Like, let’s just work together basically. And so in August of 97 was was full-time here in southern Utah working for Garth Carter Hunter Services, the Hunt full
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Finally picked a name. Yeah,
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Yeah. Well wait, Garth Carter Hunter Services was the name of the business. The publish letter. The newsletter was called The new, the newsletter was named the newsletter. And then we renamed the newsletter The Hunt full published by service. So anyway, and so we just cranked forward and we needed help. We started a license application service. We started of course basically selling landowner tax, basically
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All outta demand. I mean, these would all, you didn’t sit down and say, this is all what we gotta do. It was more or less people would call you and say, Hey, I wanna hunt in New Mexico. It sounds like you guys have been there. How do we get one of those elk tags that I guess you don’t have to draw. Yeah. And then you’re like, well,
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We buy some of those. Oh, all of that. Like, you know, Garth liked to buy and sell landowner tags and whatnot. Of course landowner tags became popular because you can’t get over the counter tags anymore. Keep in mind, this is like what Adam was saying, the every, there’s 25 years becoming a demand Yeah. For everything. And, and I mean, you could buy Arizona strip tags over the counter in the eighties. And, and he just slowly watched all these opportunities
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Whittle away,
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Diminish, you know, with, with the, the hunting population growing and, and the resource being somewhat challenged to, to maintain trophy quality. And so people demanded trophy quality. They wanted to be able to hunt some good areas. And so states were being forced to look at the way they manage. We used to be able to do over the counter hunts with a muzz or in Southern Utah, you know, and
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First 10 days in November. Yeah,
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It was amazing. And you were killing Buckheads. I mean, I, I was, I watched Garth kill a, a Buckhead with his muzz leader on that particular hunt and, and, and driving around in the pickup, like, it was amazing. It’s unbelievable that those opportunities used to exist. And so anyway, but having said that, clear, back in 96, I had a grundle of Colorado points and back then the eastern plains was the only place to go. Like, that’s the places
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Most of the west was. Over the
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Counter was over the counter. And Colorado had a few places on the eastern plains, 1 42 pin Canyon Army base was one of them. And I went in the worst drought year that I could ever remember when I was a kid and still, still hunted a 210 inch deer. I can picture the deer to this day, but, and that’s a whole nother podcast. I mean, I’m a college truck, we’re out tires getting there, change tie rods and broken glass in the parking lot of Napa, you know what I mean? And so anyway, that’s a, that was a classic. Lost my alternator out in the hills. Just classic. Shouldn’t have been there. Your
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Truck should not have left the Utah state line. No, no. Should not have crossed the
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State line. And, and, and my bank account said I shouldn’t have left town.
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Both of them. Bank account and your odometer on that truck.
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Yeah, it was, you should not very stressful hunt. And so, and I did it on my own, of course. Well, anyway, so any quite interesting, you know, building points, we built points before points were points. I mean, and that’s my point of that was it took a lot of points to draw the pin Canyon army base. And I had ’em like, you know, thankfully to Garth and, and bringing me up in that hunting environment and knowing what was important or what was gonna be important in my life. And that was being able to draw quality tags and so and so anyway, we ended up developing this business, you know, and, and anybody that knows, my dad knows he’s very aggressive and, and he’s an entrepreneur and always thinking and, and we just, you know, together, just kept working on find or refining this new business. And we did license applications. I remember filling him out by hand. Of course anybody that knows me knows I have the worst penmanship in the world.
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Well, in most states you didn’t have it online. The internet was brand new paper. You, it’s not like you did online apps and here’s my credit card. No, that was, it was like mail it in licking stamps and handwriting stuff, cash shares checks
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For, very similar to the magazine. Very similar. What? It wasn’t a magazine, very similar to the newsletter where we stapled it in the corner. I mean, down at Kinko’s
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And folded it hunk hunk folded
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Kunk. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, quite
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Is that why when I, when I staple something in my office and I look at you, you kind of twitch in your office because you hear that, you hear that sound and it’s like it elicits a certain response.
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Yes. So anyway, yeah. So we got, we got cranking forward and, and we hired a few gals to help us with the license application service and to, to augment what we got going. And, and anyway,
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You were, you were also, you were also guiding hunts on the side. I mean, you were doing all things hunting still. Yes. But in the fall you were hunting for yourself, but also you’d, well, there
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Wasn’t enough. You’d take, I mean, there wasn’t enough. I mean, there wasn’t enough money to pay a somebody like me, you know, a normal good wage. You started to do that where you’re always taking on side work and it’s very, and the businesses is in its infancy. I’m freshly outta college and, and I’m trying to, and I want to get my hands on these hunting opportunities, but I can’t, I only have so many points in so many states, and I can only afford so much. You’re newlywed and don’t even have our first house at this point. We’re renting and, and gee lived in the basement. I have my folks home there for a little while. And so anyway, just, just starting out on life and, and trying to get it all figured out and how we’d make ends meet. Of course, my wife was working too. She did teaching there in Minville and, and whatnot. And so anyway, between us and the guiding and the guiding, I got started guiding a little bit. I wanted to kind of pave my own way and just really, you know, just my own, my do my own thing a little bit and be able to put my hands on some of these giants when I didn’t, couldn’t afford to a, buy the tags or have enough points to draw the tags, and b, able to hunt ’em often enough. Or buy the
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Gas
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Or buy the gas, even go downtown and get a coco. Or if they had monsters, I’d have probably went bankrupt. But, but anyway, we did that. I started guiding a little bit. I guided San Juan Elk Southwest, desert Elk started dabbling in, in Nevada deer Clear back early 2000 and some of those
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Early bulls that you guys killed. Yeah,
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That’s that’s
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Phenomenal. That’s, that’s what really set it off. 2003 when we killed Goofy and Joshua. Yeah. Together. Same client. Yeah. One was on a landowner tag and Southwest Desert Goofy was 434 inches as a five by eight, five point on one side, had 28 inch thirds and just kind of a crazy, crazy story there. 26 inch fours like it, it’s a crazy bull. But, and then Joshua was a prominent Nevada bull and we actually had a governor’s tag and we hunted him and, and we ended up killing him like December 29th. It was after Christmas. The governor tag ended on December 31st, was one of the most stressful years of my life. He ended up killing him. He had a 10, 10 inches broke off a one third. And if that would’ve been back, he’d have been a 424 inch gross bull. So, anyway, and, and that just, you can’t get enough of those experiences. Yeah.
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You just, well, you’re hungry. You, I mean, you’re hungry now, but you, like you said a minute ago, you had kind of had something to prove, but more to yourself. You just, I wanna go hunt something big that I can’t do it, but I, I’m, I gotta do something with these giant bulls I found who wants to, and you find a couple guys that could buy a tag, go do it, and it all help, you know, help you learn some of these areas, portfolio.
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You’re still hunting. Just put my portfolio away today. Yeah, exactly. All I’m, so
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These deer areas, you’re in Nevada, like that’s the only elk Yes. You’ve ever seen really in that area, but now you hunt deer there. That’s
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That Yes.
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Of that caliber. Yes. Oh
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Yeah. Of, I mean, yeah, I don’t know another bull that’s been killed there ever since. I mean, it’s just, you know, and, and there might have been one, but it’s still a very struggling herd down there in the desert. But that’s why got there. And, and I started with finding his sheds like that. That’s a whole nother podcast. But, you know, started with finding his sheds and putting up a set of 420 inch sheds over my shoulder and hike it out and realizing, you know what, you got some, if you have to put ’em on your shoulder to hike out, those are upset of sheds. They’re pretty good. That’s what you want. Yeah. And, and so it just starts that addiction. And, and, and anyway, as we’re moving forward, the business is growing. People are printing in color, you know, we’re starting to grow. We’re thinking, okay, now we’ve blown through 300 members. We’re blown through a thousand members, maybe we’re blown through 3000 members. And we’re like, you know, the, the, the industry of magazines and, and we’re not just a magazine at that point. I mean, we’re research-based, but the industry demands color. They demanded better and we demanded better of ourselves and, and wanted to be the best. And so then we realized, and my mom can’t just do this on a little word document and hit print and go to Kinko’s anymore, we’re gonna need to hire a graphic designer. And I think that was roughly 2004 ish
00:20:40:15 –> 00:20:40:24
With
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John. Yeah.
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Well, and and for those of you who don’t know, I married Jason’s sister and so I met you
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Guys. So John, this is John eight Peterson. Yep. You met us in 1998.
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98. And one of ’em, the first dates that I had with your sister, we went and stuffed the magazine. Well, the newsletter, which was about 16 pages at the time. Black and white. Oh, okay.
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How
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Romantic. So we, yeah, we went to, it was wonderful. How romantic.
00:21:03:19 –> 00:21:08:17
Good times. Yep. Good times. And so then we decided, so you’re working for Franklin Covey? Yep. I
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Was a, a graphic designer. I went to Utah State as well and went in graphic design, was working for Franklin Covey. And at the time I was a graphic designer and art director there. We were doing leadership training for Fortune 500 companies like Pepsi, Microsoft. Wow. You know, stuff like that.
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Like what kind of name’s? Microsoft? I mean really micro, soft, dumb man
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Should just say computer software. Like light newsletter. Yeah,
00:21:37:25 –> 00:21:38:04
Yeah.
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Computer software company Ink.
00:21:41:09 –> 00:21:42:22
Anyway, sorry. Sorry. Your A
00:21:42:26 –> 00:21:55:25
D D’s kicking in this morning. So anyway, so then, you know, we were talking at probably Christmas or something like that and just about, Hey, could we go to color? So I was like, yeah, I could help you go to color, you know, we could do that. So
00:21:55:27 –> 00:22:03:02
Again, Cheryl didn’t wanna make this change. My mom, she’s, you know, any change tilt you, you know what I mean? You’re doing monthly, it’s
00:22:03:02 –> 00:22:04:04
A little unknown. Oh yeah. Anything
00:22:04:04 –> 00:22:05:14
You’re doing do is like, ah, is that
00:22:05:14 –> 00:22:13:02
Gonna look or do And it’s out of the normal control. Yes. Like Garth and Cheryl and you. It’s like you gotta rely on someone else to Yeah. Kind of turn it into something.
00:22:13:02 –> 00:22:17:20
Well, keep in mind it’s timely. Like this is a monthly publication supposed to be out before the draw. Well,
00:22:17:20 –> 00:22:36:26
It fairly stressful for her. I mean, she, she wasn’t into publishing or Yes. You know, trained in any of that. And so she’s basically publishing a newsletter every month. That’s pretty high stress with Yes. Getting it out on deadlines. And then the thought of going to color and doing an actual magazine Yes. You know, was probably pretty overwhelming. Yep.
00:22:37:02 –> 00:22:41:23
And so then we brought you on and, and all of our dreams came true. Yep.
00:22:42:00 –> 00:22:42:26
I fulfilled them all.
00:22:44:28 –> 00:22:51:22
And so anyway, John, John helps us, we start cranking full color mag in, I believe it’s oh four. I can go back and look,
00:22:51:25 –> 00:22:57:18
I think it was oh three that we started color. Was it oh three? And then oh four. It was really starting to get, you know,
00:22:57:27 –> 00:23:01:20
Goofy was on the color, it was on the cover would’ve been fresh.
00:23:02:05 –> 00:23:02:12
You
00:23:02:12 –> 00:23:03:11
Killed him in oh three.
00:23:03:15 –> 00:23:03:22
Oh
00:23:03:22 –> 00:23:04:12
Three, yeah,
00:23:04:12 –> 00:23:06:28
Yeah, yeah. So Oh yeah. Oh 3 0 4, somewhere
00:23:06:28 –> 00:23:10:00
Around there. Okay. And so anyway, we, we,
00:23:10:14 –> 00:23:15:18
Yeah. At that time, no advertising. We didn’t have, I mean, it was bare bones.
00:23:15:28 –> 00:23:25:10
Yep, yep. And so anyway, so we just, we started progressing. Of course you moved to color, then you, it opens up your options to advertising it, old
00:23:25:13 –> 00:23:26:16
Stories, hunting
00:23:26:19 –> 00:24:07:19
Stories, all that came with it, which augments some of that. And, and so anyway, there was just a lot of good that came from going to color and a lot of growth. It was just a heavy growth time in, in that business. And, and we just kept motoring forward. And so anyway, we added services and whatnot to a degree and, and just kept kind of growing and, and basically to a, to a membership that, you know, would sustain the livelihoods of several families. And so it, it was, it was great. But with growth becomes a little bit of change. I’m, I’m getting older. You’re getting older, John. Everybody that’s working for us, we brought on Adam, what year was that, Adam?
00:24:08:07 –> 00:24:13:12
I started the part-time in 2005. Okay. And moved, moved over full-time, 2006.
00:24:13:14 –> 00:24:35:04
And I think as, as I remember, you know, it was like, you know, Garth loved Adam because he was a, a wildlife biologist, not only a wildlife biologist, but had a master’s, well-spoken, loved hunting and, and was heavy into research and spoke his language. Garth was a biologist slash game warden. They spoke his language and he’s like, this is the guy for us. Yeah. Didn’t, didn’t see at the RAC meetings. Yeah.
00:24:35:04 –> 00:25:18:04
I didn’t honestly didn’t really know you. I knew more of you guys and who you were and what you did, but I didn’t, we didn’t know each other. I think the first time you and I actually met might have been face-to-face in the office. I remember coming over like, you know, Garth would go to a banquet or I’d be at a banquet somewhere. Maybe he was there to, you know, bid on a tag or just, just a southern Utah banquet. I think that was the only real association face-to-face. Yes. There was nothing. And, and I don’t think ever with you I’d had any, yeah, I was, so yeah, I was working for the Utah Division of Wildlife at the time, 2005. I was a wildlife biologist. Southern Utah had also went to Utah State. I guess I didn’t realize we were all Aggies here. Jeff. Yeah. Jeff, did you go there? True. A couple years.
00:25:18:04 –> 00:25:18:18
Yeah. True.
00:25:18:19 –> 00:25:25:25
Jeez. Did you? Yeah, I did. Are you crapping me? No, a five pack of Aggies right here. Okay. Anyway, so
00:25:26:11 –> 00:25:26:25
Destiny,
00:25:27:13 –> 00:26:23:06
I guess. Yeah. So anyway, so yeah, it was initially you, you contacted, it was, it was, it was the phase one. Garth was the magazine had gotten to the, the stage that you were gonna be going, doing either all of, or the majority of the writing of the states. Yes. And Garth was gonna hand over and Garth was gonna hand over research or the writing that part to you more. And you, that’s when he approached me about, Hey, would you conduct research? I still worked for the Division of Wildlife. I did that for a year. Research and give your stuff to Jason. Yep. And so I would do that independently, email it over and you’d use that, incorporate that however you felt into the magazine. And then after I, I guess it was about nine months or a year, then you guys approached me about, Hey, we want you to come over full time. Which, you know, initially was, I had a great job. I, you know, liked where I lived. We’d just built a new house. Just the timing of all that was like, no, I don’t think so. Just, but the more, I guess persistent or, no, I remember that first meeting.
00:26:23:08 –> 00:26:23:23
You were like,
00:26:23:29 –> 00:26:24:13
No way.
00:26:25:25 –> 00:26:26:01
Not
00:26:26:01 –> 00:26:28:12
At my job. It was pretty, it was pretty firm. But we
00:26:28:12 –> 00:26:30:14
Don’t take no for an answer. No, I don’t know.
00:26:32:08 –> 00:27:38:05
You know, we thought a lot more about it and just about not just the one or two years in front of us, but the five or 10 years down the road, my wife had some, some ties over here to Cedar City, which we were living only an hour from here. Yeah. So it wasn’t like we were moving across state or across from another state, ultimately decided, yep, let’s do it. So yeah, I came on board full time in 2006 after that year of, you know, helping and ba basically, I guess my job initially was to continue helping Jason with research, but then also I would, I would, I helped do the landowner tags, bookings a little bit. And now just, it was all, it was kind of getting learned. I mean, I was, you were learned fluent in, in the areas in Utah and the states around us that I was familiar hunting with, but had never done it from a, Hey, I got, got deepen this because now I’ve got consult on the phone about it. Yeah. You know, ’cause I never had to consult people outside of Utah, you know, and the hunters would call me nonstop about all my stuff in Utah. So it was that, but extrapolated all the other states. Yes. And so I would apply for all the Western states, but it was really, that’s the unit I want. And that’s all I cared about. Yes. And now I had to broaden that. So Yeah.
00:27:38:05 –> 00:28:01:18
And us knowing it was our way of, of filling me out. Yeah. Filling you out, knowing like, let’s test him. One of the first assignments we gave Adam was that we wanna know all of the zero point antelope units in Wyoming that are public land, that a guy can do it on his own because there was so much demand for it. We should have signed you like 30 inch bucks for five grand now nowadays, because there’s so much demand for 30 inch bucks cheap. But
00:28:01:24 –> 00:28:04:10
That would not, that’d be a short list. I know.
00:28:04:17 –> 00:28:05:00
30
00:28:05:00 –> 00:28:06:04
Inch bucks for five grand.
00:28:06:04 –> 00:28:37:20
Yeah. So anyway, but, but anyway, so we did that and, and then we just kind of worked with Adam and then he would give us his hours, so to speak, and then, and his research and the, and what he all, what he had learned and stuff. And it was our way of a, he would, he could broaden his knowledge and we could see how he, how he would perform in that particular environment. And then knowing like, hey, this guy had worked, worked with us like we, and we need him by the way. We keep growing at this point time. And we were impressed and we were impressed. You were impressed with this. And it was like, all right. And then, and so you made the plunge.
00:28:38:02 –> 00:30:01:05
Made the plunge, you know, moved to Cedar City. That was 2006. Been here ever since. Like I said, my wife and I had gone, we met in school here, so, you know, wasn’t a foreign place or anything like that to us. So, but yeah, been here ever since. Joined the company there. And, you know, it, it continued to grow. Eventually, once I got kind of the system down and deepened my knowledge of some of the states, or at least the, the depth of certain states that maybe I wasn’t as familiar with. Pretty much got to the point after a couple years I could consult and talk with anybody anywhere, much like kind of we are today. And saw the, saw the continued growth. But with that obviously was, you know, we brought other people on, you know, brought us to, you know, Chris, Chris, his, I guess he was finishing Utah State, like that’s a broken record by now in this podcast. Anyway, he was finishing up there and he had some, you know, background or some of his training was also to help help John and graphic design and whatnot. So as the magazine, you know, in a monthly publication, particularly in those state issues, when you’re, you’re getting timely information from the state and timely is meaning you get it. And you gotta go to print in a couple hours, meaning you have stuff written and you verify changes for what you anticipate the regs are gonna be. Sometimes Yes.
00:30:01:20 –> 00:30:01:26
You,
00:30:02:01 –> 00:30:20:23
You need help. Like Chris, in some cases helping John Yes. Do the stories, putting it together, boom. Getting it out. Because now you’re into print. Now you gotta go to print. You don’t photocopy ’em and staple the Kinkos and get ’em out that day. You gotta send ’em to a third party printer, then it goes out shipped. So everything’s adding slight delays. Well, and for very sought after timely
00:30:20:23 –> 00:31:01:28
Information. Well, we were, we were like, you know, we were begging secretaries to fax the Montana sheep and goat and moose units that we could apply for. That’s not right. Things like that. Yeah. You know, as non-residents, the non-resident units we could apply for. And they came in on fax. That wasn’t necessarily email and things that we used today, or just flat out mail or, or online. And so everything was time sensitive. We were just cranking Adam’s cranking through doing research, working with client owner tags, dealing with clients. I’m basically writing the magazine, doing all of those things as well with Adam. And we’re working together really heavy heavily. And then John needed a, an assistance. So he is like, well there’s nobody better than Chris. Like Adam alluded to, might as well have my brother here with me. And, and it just kind of kept growing that way. Yeah.
00:31:02:02 –> 00:31:19:04
And back in the day, remember we, we, it wasn’t you send the magazine to the printer through the internet. No. Yeah. Email was, its in its info. I forgot that the internet was in its, see you drove it up and I drove, I didn’t even have a laptop. I had a big tower. And I would unplug the tower, drive
00:31:19:04 –> 00:31:19:18
To Salt Lake
00:31:19:18 –> 00:31:21:05
And drive to Salt Lake. Proof
00:31:21:05 –> 00:31:22:24
It, proof it, plug it in, proof
00:31:22:24 –> 00:31:37:04
It there, plug it in. And, and this was all, we were waiting for the, you know, sometimes them to fax us the final changes and regulations from the state. And so as soon as we got that, we would jump in the car drive to Salt Lake, which was four hour drive. And
00:31:37:05 –> 00:31:51:08
Well, and we would write the magazine, like Adam said, we would write the magazine and as if there was no changes, just what they proposed. And then we would attend the Arizona game and fish meeting, attend Nevada game fish, and then call in the changes. Yeah. There was no, and John would go to the printer.
00:31:51:12 –> 00:32:46:07
There was no, now you can audio listen to ’em or YouTube, listen to ’em live. You don’t have to drive to Phoenix. You don’t have to drive to Denver. You don’t have to drive to Reno to Right. Which we were, we were running ragged. Yes. Because we couldn’t afford to miss one of those. Because oftentimes you couldn’t just call the guy up right afterwards of the week after and say, gimme all the changes. Sometimes it’s on vacation. You, you could not afford to miss what happened right there, right before your eyes. Because in the stroke of a pen, a unit that got proposed with a season X or permit, numbers X could get changed to either delete it all together, changed entirely. And you wanted to be on, you didn’t want to not know that and not print it. ’cause that’s what people were paying you to do. That’s right. So it was crazy. I remember. Yeah, you’d be in, I remember going to Denver the same time I’m there by myself. And you were at another state, maybe Nevada, I don’t remember. Yeah. The same time. We’re opposite directions just to get stuff Yes. Firsthand. Yes. And, and now, now we get a little bit of benefit. You can watch ’em live, but we still attend. Some of that’s
00:32:46:07 –> 00:32:46:20
That we have
00:32:46:20 –> 00:34:00:11
To go to. Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. And you learn so much by doing that and having the hands on. And so, so this, all of this research and all of the work that we put into it just helped us to where we could actually talk to our customers when guys wanted help. Who better than the guys that did the research? Like you’ve gotta, I mean, we knew it. We were intimately familiar, just like we are today here at Epic Outdoors, intimately familiar with the states that we’re riding. We’re right in the middle of it. Adam’s got an office next to mind. Jeff John’s cross the hall. But basically next. And we are all jammed together and, and gleaning information off of each other and what we’re learning of as we do the research, as we write the publication. And then as we talk to Hunters on the phone, and, and of course we’re taking, you know, 50 to a hundred calls a day on, on all kinds of crazy stuff. And, and we continue to learn. To this day, of course, you know, fast forward to 2018. We’re fast forwarding from oh five, you know, oh three when John started, oh 4, 0 5 when Adam started basically as part-time. And then, and we’ve been together ever since. And, and, and as we’re in those trenches and they’re deep trenches because we relied on each other, you’ve got deadlines. We’re working hand in hand with each other. We’re cranking this thing out. Late nights,
00:34:00:12 –> 00:34:01:16
Early morning. I mean,
00:34:02:07 –> 00:34:18:04
Stressful. I mean, early mornings. Yeah. Stressful situation. One and two in the morning type things. And, and, and we just, we’re just cranking. And we’ve got, now we’re building this well-oiled machine. It’s, it’s extremely well-oiled. And we brought on Jeff Warren at the time. What, what year did Chris come on?
00:34:18:05 –> 00:34:20:29
2007. So seven. I started years ago,
00:34:21:02 –> 00:34:21:11
Expo
00:34:21:12 –> 00:34:23:23
Years ago in 2007. So January of 2007.
00:34:24:07 –> 00:34:26:18
Okay. And so, yeah. Were we doing video
00:34:26:19 –> 00:34:30:14
At the time? Not we were doing anything. No, we hadn’t started that. I started out in a closet.
00:34:31:02 –> 00:34:31:25
Oh, that’s
00:34:31:25 –> 00:34:34:26
Right. My office was next to the bathroom. Yeah, yeah. We didn’t
00:34:34:26 –> 00:34:39:25
Have an office for it. And it, and it wasn’t because he was the globe man on the totem pole. We were outta space. Yeah.
00:34:40:09 –> 00:34:50:00
So there was one closet next to the bathroom in the back, and you could open up the doors and we converted it into a desk. And so I would open up the closet. That was my desk. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
00:34:50:18 –> 00:34:53:04
Sorry. Yeah. It wasn’t me, but, I’m sorry.
00:34:53:09 –> 00:35:16:19
That’s all right. It it was, it was fun. It was a good ti good memory. Yeah. At the time I started out doing just graphic design stuff. And for some reason, all of a sudden we decided to get a video camera. And I started going on some hunts and realized I really enjoyed editing the hunts and turning it into something. And then that’s when we started filming a little bit, doing
00:35:16:25 –> 00:35:29:25
A, a lot of self hot. You were in a lot of self-taught. We had Ray Lynch of Realtree offered to get you a spot into the video school, which is the only formal schooling you had. And that was about a week. Yeah, yeah. You know, or whatever. Well, it was
00:35:29:26 –> 00:35:43:12
Two days basically out in Georgia. And other than that, it was just something I, I wanted to learn formal, I wanted to do. So I taught myself how to, to use all the editing software and how to run the cameras over time. And just something I really loved. Well,
00:35:43:12 –> 00:35:56:05
This was also at a time, 2007, fast forward from then till now. Those cameras were good for one year. And then the next year, something awesome would come out. Yeah. Every year. I mean, it was like, you would learn it. And then like two years later we were buying, you’re buying all new stuff. Yeah.
00:35:56:07 –> 00:35:56:25
I started out, even
00:35:56:25 –> 00:36:01:29
You and I, Adam, we had these what, mini dvs, right? Mini dvs Cas. It was High eight. They were cassette
00:36:01:29 –> 00:36:03:08
Tapes. They that I started Cass,
00:36:03:14 –> 00:36:04:28
They were tape tapes. No chips.
00:36:05:00 –> 00:36:09:25
Yeah. We’re sitting there and there’s, there’s a deer, you know, and all of a sudden your tape runs outta space and you’re like, oh crap, I gotta change the tape.
00:36:09:29 –> 00:36:12:22
Or stop eject, hit rewind for a little bit. Dates
00:36:12:22 –> 00:36:14:13
You, Chris, dates you.
00:36:15:15 –> 00:36:15:24
Yeah.
00:36:16:04 –> 00:36:21:25
I mean, I know you’re dating young gals, but that dates you, do they call you grandpa? I just wanna know. No,
00:36:21:25 –> 00:36:23:00
No, no, no. Not
00:36:23:00 –> 00:36:43:12
Yet. How about daddy? All right. All right. So yeah, so we get cranking and, and anybody that knows the Petersons, which John and Chris, both the genetics are in them for anything artistic. And, and so, you know, Chris, you’ve drawn, you were doing well, I don’t know what you call it, but basically charcoal drawings, paintings.
00:36:43:19 –> 00:36:45:08
He designed some of our shirts and hats.
00:36:45:24 –> 00:37:14:17
Yeah. Designed the Logan logo, you know. Yeah. Did all kinds of stuff with the magazine. Of course John is with Franklin Covey, he’s doing graphic design. And then Chris decides he likes to sing. So he just decides he’s gonna self-teach himself and go singing. And then he learns a guitar on his own. And, and there’s nothing these guys can’t do artistically. And so it was a natural when Chris started to like videography to say, Hey, you know, not only are you gonna film some things, but you’re gonna produce ’em as well. And here’s a limited budget to do that on. So Chris,
00:37:15:05 –> 00:37:15:16
Chris
00:37:15:24 –> 00:37:18:10
Next to the bathroom went ahead and pumped out some DVDs.
00:37:20:06 –> 00:37:32:12
I remember getting those DVDs. They were, and you know, it was just kind of the right time too. ’cause the hunting DVD thing was big. And that’s how you did a little bit of your research too, you know? Yeah. Man, YouTube did not exist. Exist were,
00:37:32:12 –> 00:37:32:25
There were
00:37:32:25 –> 00:37:34:06
No YouTube. They were awesome.
00:37:34:15 –> 00:37:46:10
In this point in time, Adam and I, and as well as the guys are like in our prime, we’re freaking, we’ve kind of learned how to hunt. We’re cranking, and all of a sudden we,
00:37:46:10 –> 00:37:57:20
We drew some, we had a bunch to, into some t up too. Yeah. We were, we were in the driver’s seat. I, yes. You know, like 2008 you drew your desert sheep. Yes. You cast in your match points. You drew the elk. I drew elk in Utah. And I mean, it was just
00:37:58:13 –> 00:38:38:02
2007, I ended up drawing the deer deer out there on Arizona. Arizona in 12 feet. And, and we killed a giant. And then in 2010 we hunted. Well, in 2009 we hunted pretty boy who was running with Brutus 2010. We were hunting Brutus by this time. Chris learned how to film. He was doing great. And we were capturing everything on film. And, and then, you know, of course the Brutus story comes out. Some people you could welcome to Google that it still comes up. I love that. Actually. I don’t, but, but supposedly I shot over a guy killed this giant 250 inch deer with a bow and didn’t deserve it. None of that was true. And luckily we had it on film, luckily, and luckily Chris filmed it. Yeah. And so even, even over the
00:38:38:05 –> 00:38:38:07
Shoulder.
00:38:38:25 –> 00:39:11:20
Yeah. Basically. Yeah. I mean from a distance and then over the shoulder. And, and same thing with Pretty Boy, he got the kill scene of Pretty Boy Out the year before on that. And, and so Chris is just coming of age, so to speak. He’s, he’s in his groove and, and he’s on all these kill scenes, never missed a kill scene with us. So, and Garth and I are comfortable with him. Anybody that’s hunting with a videographer knows it’s a challenge. A you want ’em to be able to jive and have, you know, be able to, your personality’s matched to a degree. And then also that you comfortable that they’re not gonna screw up an animal and cost you an animal, but yet still get a kill scene.
00:39:11:21 –> 00:39:13:22
If Jason and Garth were comfortable with them, he,
00:39:13:24 –> 00:39:14:18
Anybody could, could
00:39:14:18 –> 00:39:16:04
Pretty much, yeah. Anybody, he could film anybody.
00:39:16:19 –> 00:39:19:07
I, I don’t know how to take that, but I’m just saying Chris was good.
00:39:21:03 –> 00:39:26:12
That’s the mess. That’s the takeaway message. Don’t focus on you or your dad, just focus on Chris’ ability.
00:39:26:28 –> 00:40:25:05
So we are a challenge. I understand that type a aggressive red. I get all that. So, but, but we were nice, weren’t we? And so anyway, thankfully Chris was there, he filmed it and then it was awesome. People got to see, oh, okay. That didn’t really happen that way. And, and there was a lot of value to video besides that as far as doing membership drives and here’s free DVDs if you join and renew and, and all of these things. And so, you know, they came on the, we got to show the membership that we hunt, take ’em on some of the hunts with us, so to speak, because they’re on D V D and they get to put it in their V C R and learn who, what we’re all about. And then, you know, just enjoy having those memories sealed forever on tape. And, and, and it was awesome. And so as we’re moving forward, we’re hunting a ton. And I’m in my groove. Adam’s in his groove. Adam’s starting to guide sheep hunters a little bit. He’s also getting tags of his own. Killed a 200 insurance 61 Colorado.
00:40:25:25 –> 00:40:26:22
2007.
00:40:26:29 –> 00:40:29:16
Yeah. What about the 43 buck? That was 200 inches.
00:40:29:17 –> 00:40:30:25
Well that was 2004. Yeah,
00:40:30:27 –> 00:40:40:16
Four. About the time we were hiring you part-time. And so it’s just in our blood, we’re just cranking forward. And anyway, where did we go from there, guys? Well,
00:40:40:16 –> 00:40:57:22
We had a couple, you know, Kurt Conley started, that was, it started getting into the phase, I don’t know exactly when it was, but let’s just say 2009, 10, I don’t remember when Jeff Warren started. Jeff came on to be primarily over the bookings. Yes. It became so much for you and I to write the magazine, consult the clients, and
00:40:57:22 –> 00:40:58:07
Garth as well.
00:40:58:09 –> 00:41:11:01
And Garth too. But, but Garth was also starting to get, and, and outwardly saying, so he was wanting to do, do less of that part and, and run and manage the business, work on the marketing and all that, and not as much.
00:41:11:01 –> 00:41:11:24
And he was awesome at marketing.
00:41:11:27 –> 00:41:53:22
Yes. And so we needed another person to help. You know, Kurt came along, we started the drawing odds. It was kind of that phase of the world where, you know, Internet’s picked up, obviously it’s here to stay, it’s not a fad, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And drawing odds online, Kurt and my brother Aaron start a business. So you, and you and Garth approached them, basically bought ’em out. Kurt came on, kind of helped bring that dimension work on our website, the e-commerce, all that part of a website, Kurt, on full-time, you know, he came on full-time, but he could also consult about, he came from Wyoming so he could very knowledgeable about Wyoming, Utah. And Jeff Warren helped spread the load for the calls that you and I and Garth were having to take about people that wanted to book counts. That was Jeff’s dedicated job. You know, it’s
00:41:53:22 –> 00:42:00:23
Nice to have somebody who takes track, keeps track of all the openings, all the photographs, what’s available, the prices, all of those kind of
00:42:00:23 –> 00:42:46:07
Things. Yeah, that’s right. And on that, so pretty, you know, we grew, we grew and grew and grew and, and got to the phase that, that Garth got to the point that he wanted to start talking about slowing down, I guess. Yeah. I don’t know, I don’t remember right when it was, but let’s say 2010 or 11, somewhere in there, something like that, you know, like that. And so, you know, got to that point, we had had to have everybody in place to maintain doing that. If Garth was gonna start slowing down, because he was integral from the very start, obviously. I mean, he was, he was, he was it him and you. So we got to that point and, and, you know, overall then this, I believe the talk started, well, how much do you wanna slow down dad? You know, and Yeah. You know, it was a point, well, maybe I’ll, maybe it’s time to sell out, you know, maybe you wanna take this over or whatever.
00:42:46:23 –> 00:43:43:04
Yeah. And so we would just kind of keep working on those talks. I’m working towards ownership from the start and just kind of working toward that. But, but at the same time, you know, you’d have to buy Garth out to own the place. And, and, and it was just that time. We’re right. I mean, we’re right in the heat of everything. We’re, we’re cranking hard and, and he’s wanting to slow down and just be able to hunt and maybe do it in private to a degree too. It’s like, I’d like to hunt and not have everybody know where I’m at. I’d like to hunt and not tell everybody have to tell everybody what I’m doing. I just kinda love to hunt and go back to that. And, and it was just a natural time in his life for that. And so we kept working toward that. Like how do we do it? Does it, is it me and Jenny that that works on binding out your sister? That’s that’s your sister. Which is my sister. Yeah. Yeah. Or, or John and I and Jenny or the entire group of us. And we worked on those combinations, you know, 20 or 30 times. I mean a a lot over years.
00:43:43:04 –> 00:43:43:10
Yeah.
00:43:43:10 –> 00:44:16:08
Yeah. Tried to buy them out multiple years. He announced to the membership he was gonna retire and we kind of brought in Adam to write a soapbox and a few things and just kind of worked toward that. Long story short, just wasn’t in the cards. Yeah. Just wasn’t in the cards, weren’t able to do it. And so we ended up just kind of doing our own things. John, you did diehard creative. Adam started guiding a little bit more his job, his wife’s got a a great job as well. And, and then I went and started working with Ridge and Gar was up selling to Crew.
00:44:16:08 –> 00:44:32:25
Yeah. It was still Garth’s intention to sell it, just more or less. Yeah. Our negotiations never worked out, you know, you know, his, his vision where we wanna sell and what we wanted didn’t work out. So we, we parted ways we, we left, but, but that meant you gotta do something. Yep. And we were so engrossed in the hunting
00:44:32:25 –> 00:44:49:13
World and it was a little, it was a little more complicated with, with my departure, but at the same time, at the end of the day, we did end up separating out. Yes. And you know, I went to work working with Under Armour and thinking, well, I mean, this is a way I can still be in the hunting industry. I can hunt more than ever. Which I did.
00:44:49:15 –> 00:44:51:05
They were gonna start a TV show at the
00:44:51:05 –> 00:45:44:13
Time and they wanted to start a TV show. Yeah. And we were thinking maybe we’d start a TV show. How do you tell the world again, the world’s in a weird spot. TV’s kind of hot, the social media’s just getting started and you just don’t know. It was just in a weird spot. Like now people are making livings on social media. Yeah. We, nobody made a living on social media when we started. And so TV was the natural thing. If we wanna stay in the industry, but we don’t wanna necessarily do, you know, compete with cars. Exactly. This is always worth done. Then we’ve gotta do some other things. And so we did, and, and I amped up a little bit of guiding as well as working with Under Armour Adam. You did, you did what you were doing. And it also, it, what the awesome opportunity it allowed us to do was hunt more than we’d ever hunted before. I mean, we were forced, we hunted some, some years I was hunting 15 different hunts. Adam was guiding that, or more on clients as well as doing his own personal hunts. Yeah. And so it was
00:45:44:13 –> 00:45:53:23
Busy. We didn’t slow down and we didn’t stop researching. That’s just, you can’t do this for, in your case, Jason, about 20 and mine, I guess it was close to, you know, well I guess
00:45:54:05 –> 00:45:55:06
10, 12 professionally
00:45:55:14 –> 00:46:19:27
For 12 or 13. And you just can’t shut it off and you’re, we’re always looking for the next place to go ourselves. So our research for us and everybody else isn’t gonna stop. And, and naturally we had clients right out of the gate when we left that got in contact with us, you know, and said, Hey, I want you to still take care of my applications and whatnot. So pretty shortly, within a year or so, we started a license, license
00:46:19:27 –> 00:46:20:20
Application service
00:46:20:20 –> 00:46:25:14
For the people that basically we just, they wouldn’t let us tell ’em no. That’s basically how it started. Yes. Personal
00:46:25:14 –> 00:46:25:20
Friends
00:46:25:26 –> 00:46:34:02
You are, I want you to do my stuff, take care of it. So we started that and, and we’re content doing that, you know, that that kept us busy, you know, for the winter months in the off
00:46:34:02 –> 00:46:34:17
Season. Yeah. For
00:46:34:17 –> 00:46:50:06
All. We’d do some applications in the, in the, on the off season in the winter months and then in the summer the draws are out. We were hunting and I was guiding from my clients. Jason, you were taking some clients, John, you, you started your own John and Chris. A diehard Kurt. Kurt at, at the time Yeah. Kurt. Yeah.
00:46:50:06 –> 00:46:50:18
We started a,
00:46:50:28 –> 00:46:52:11
A design business and marketing
00:46:52:13 –> 00:47:00:24
And, and still do that a little bit with websites and different things like that, but, but that’s on your side job now full-time. Epic. Yeah. So,
00:47:01:09 –> 00:47:04:00
Right. Just kidding. Right.
00:47:04:25 –> 00:47:06:15
So anyway, yeah. It’s just very,
00:47:06:15 –> 00:47:45:26
Very big transition period. I mean, a lot of what we did didn’t stop in terms, in terms of the drive to hunt and to drive to find the best No. And be on top of it. And then you still had the clients that relied upon you to take care of their stuff, research units, all the draw stuff didn’t change. And then eventually over two, three years, well, well, hunting full was end up being sold probably two, two years or so after we were gone. Garth did, did find a year 2003 e equity firm and bought the company. And so that, that was gone. And so that, that naturally probably had even more inquiries for people to try to get in, contact us, what are you guys doing
00:47:46:01 –> 00:47:58:19
Now? It also allowed us to think outside the box is like, well, you know, if he’s not involved in it and stuff, maybe, maybe there is something to that. And we weren’t ready to, to be done. Like we, we, this is all we knew. Well, we were, this is what we loved.
00:47:58:27 –> 00:48:01:16
We were 38 to 40 year olds. I mean that’s,
00:48:01:25 –> 00:48:03:22
And in the high prior earning potential
00:48:03:22 –> 00:48:11:02
We, your career Well and just, you’re not, we’re not retirement age obviously. It’s not like, Hey, we’d had a good ride and we’ll just go fish for the rest of our life. Yeah. You know,
00:48:11:03 –> 00:48:11:12
They
00:48:11:12 –> 00:48:13:11
Don’t pay you to wet a line. No, they don’t.
00:48:14:16 –> 00:48:18:22
I wish they did certain bas, although some guys, they, if they wear the right clothes, they pay you to wet a line,
00:48:19:03 –> 00:48:20:23
Wear the right clothes and drive the right boat.
00:48:22:16 –> 00:48:48:19
So anyway, we just, so, so it was a natural, we started up a, a publication here, epic Outdoors. We started Epic Outdoors. We were galvanized, we continue to be galvanized. We, and, and we’re just one of those things where we went back to research and heavy. We’re doing it anyway. And, and we love it. We love what we do. And so we started up Epic Outdoors, except for not monthly. It’s basically monthly. December through June. Well, well we
00:48:48:19 –> 00:48:55:25
Started the mag, we started a magazine. Yes. Yes. And so monthly, so it’s been what, a year now? Year? Yeah. We’ve been putting out magazines
00:48:55:25 –> 00:48:57:07
For a year, putting out volume three. And it
00:48:57:07 –> 00:49:33:24
Was largely due to, as we were, as our license application, service continued to grow because people knew we were doing it and, and trusted us, knew us. What by reputation, whatever. The natural question we kept getting overwhelming was, when are you guys gonna be back? You know, I do my own applications on my own. I just, I want be able to talk to somebody. I wanna be able to the whole thing, get the information and bounce that ideas. And so it just, it became too much for us to ignore. Yes. Basically, it’s no question. It’s like finally, alright, we’re back, we’re gonna back doing a magazine. We’re doing the research anyway for our app service clients and ourselves. Yes. Let’s broaden that up. We’re, we’re back doing
00:49:33:24 –> 00:50:18:05
It all. And within, you know, three or four months just by our reputations, we’re upwards of several thousand clients cranking with the magazine and research based. And so that was one of those times where it’s like, holy cow, I guess even though it’s been since 2012, there’s a need for it. There’s a need for personal attention and for the guys that are doing the research to actually deal with the customer and to get ’em what they want, and there’s a need for accurate, hardcore hard hitting information that’s coming from trophy hunters. Not guys that just go out and hunt, but guys that research it and do it as if it’s their last hunt. And so, and that’s what Adam and I do and as well as Jeff here in the office. And Chris and John, even though they’re graphic designers, they’re in the middle of it as well. And so, and they, and they love it. And well, and
00:50:18:05 –> 00:50:23:26
All that experience allowed us, I mean, we’re a year in and our last magazine’s 136 pages, you know? Yeah. I
00:50:23:26 –> 00:50:31:05
Mean with very little advertisements. No, none of the extra, extra fluff. It’s just non, it’s, it’s just hard information. And then maybe that’s
00:50:31:05 –> 00:50:43:10
People talking are paying you. Yeah. People are, our service is a hundred dollars a year to get, you know, it’s nine issues. And if you just look at that as a, that’s an expensive magazine subscription. I get ’em for 1999 or 29 9 plus
00:50:43:17 –> 00:50:44:23
All, all the time in a duffle bag.
00:50:44:23 –> 00:51:29:12
Yeah. Well, we’re not just that. We are, we realize we’re not a, we’re not a news stand here. You know, we do have stories, we do have stuff that we talk about gears and photo tips and different things like that, and a lot of personal application strategy. Yeah. Which you really can’t. Yeah. You can’t get in and off the, off the newsstand, but, but if you are charging a hundred dollars for a service, you it, it better be, it better meet the expectations. And so, you know, granted, when you start from scratch, you start with new printers, you start with everything. There’s gonna be a a, a slight adjustment getting back on track and on plane. And, and that didn’t take more but a few months. And now we’re in our second full year of doing the state write-ups in the magazine, which is really, the first six months is really the guts of what most people would be interested in getting.
00:51:29:17 –> 00:52:22:11
It’s research based. You know, if you’re not applying in the West guys might get it because we do have a ton of stories. We rival pretty much any magazine that just does stories. But, but, but for the most part, it’s guys that are hardcore, you know, western big game hunters. And I think that’s another thing that sets us apart. And there’s, from this industry and there’s a research-based industry out there. I’m not talking one or two companies, we’re talking multiple web-based companies and, and other magazines. But, but I think what’s a little bit different is we have one goal and that is, well, I mean, alright, so we have a couple of goals, but one of our main goals that drives the whole place is to be the best at what we do. And it’s Western big game. It’s not fishing, it’s not turkeys, it’s not upland game, it’s not Africa, it’s not New Zealand. It’s, it’s, it’s none of those things. It’s western big game, Canada, Alaska, and a little bit in Mexico. And we wanna be the best consultants in that
00:52:23:01 –> 00:52:27:23
Portion. And we’re fine of the industry, we’re fine not to be in those other places. We don’t
00:52:27:23 –> 00:52:30:10
Wanna own the world. Yeah. We don’t. And, and you,
00:52:30:16 –> 00:52:49:12
You try to know a little bit about everything and you’ll all of a sudden know not enough about the things that are really good. That’s really key. Yep. So we don’t wanna do that. We wanna, we wanna stay on top of what we are passionate about. It starts with what we really are most passionate about ourselves. Like I personally don’t, don’t have an interest in Africa yet. I, I don’t, maybe when I’m 70,
00:52:49:26 –> 00:52:52:02
Everybody says, if you go, you’ll love it. I never,
00:52:52:04 –> 00:52:53:29
I’m sure I will. I no doubt.
00:52:54:01 –> 00:53:08:10
But there’s no ne that’s a, there’s a need for a booking agent there not research. The part of the addicting part of hunting in the west is all the research, all the trail cam picks, all the outs, scouting, glassing, all of, by the way, we do have a set of cows for sale.
00:53:09:28 –> 00:53:10:29
Sounds like a commercial.
00:53:12:21 –> 00:53:17:13
So we are gonna sell, Adam and I have a set of cows for sale. A 32.
00:53:18:00 –> 00:53:19:02
Yeah. Highlander 32
00:53:19:06 –> 00:53:19:25
With the box,
00:53:20:05 –> 00:53:26:05
With the, with the silver official cow box box which lock, which is expensive, but
00:53:26:06 –> 00:54:28:07
It’s lock box, it’s, it’s expensive. So anyway, first $3,000 takes it and they’re cherry they’re cherry. But I’ve got, I’ve got some boots that I like to, it’s addicting. My my point of it all was no, no boots. My point of it all. We give those away, by the way, on these podcasts. But my point of it is, is that is, that’s the addicting part and and it’s not just a booking agency, is we’re want, we, we wanna know everything about how to get tags and it doesn’t matter what kind of tags. There’s conservation tags, landlord tags, draw tags over the counter tags, everything. And, and so, you know, people aren’t gonna pay you a hundred dollars just to know about general areas. They’re not. No, they’re not. You gotta have ’em. Although you need to know about ’em and we hunt them and some of our biggest animals have come from general areas. Yes. And, and, and maybe less than perfect areas in, in New Mexico, I’ve killed, you know, a couple, three 80 bulls down there. I’m not the best unit down there, but we highlight that in the magazine. And so anyway, there’s just a lot of demand for research base, the trophy quality, finding new stuff, learning about different areas and units that may not just be touted as the best.
00:54:28:16 –> 00:55:34:04
You mentioned, you mentioned minute ago goals. And, and that’s really, really what we’re here in business for. We’re not in business just to here get the information, read it, and, and go have fun. It’s really to help guys get on hunts that meet their expectations and criteria. Not everybody’s different. Some people only want 3 75 plus bulls. Yeah. Or they just soon not leave North Carolina and come west. Other people just want to elk hunt. Maybe it’s the first time or they’re like, I’m getting older and I realize don’t got a lot of elk hunts left here. I just wanna hunt elk for a few more times. Whatever the spectrum end of the spectrum you’re on. We, we view our, our consultant when guys call us and, and tell us about what they’re looking for, whether it’s a general season elk in Wyoming or you’ve got 22 points in Utah and your resident and you finally want to make the most of your elk points. That’s what we’re, we realize, we realize these are like money. They are money. They, they’re the equivalent of money if you had to go buy these tags. But in addition to that, landowner tags is another way to get guys on a hunt that meets their needs if they got the means to do it. And not all ’em all are expensive. You know, there’s That’s right. There’s $1,500 nine tags in New Mexico. Mexico.
00:55:34:07 –> 00:56:23:12
And we ly sold ’em last year. Yeah. We do it all the time. And, and so for guys that want landowner tags, we do sick Jeff on ’em, right? Jeff? Yeah. And so Jeff’s our research guy for that. Of course, Adam and I deal heavily in, in, in other tags, Nevada, New Mexico as well. And, and as well as in and help direct Jeff. But anyway, if you do want a New Mexico tag, feel free to call us. We take a $500 deposit and we get those cranking for you. But, but anyway, there’s a lot of, there’s a variety of ways of obtaining tags and that is what our business does help you get tags and then with the stories, it gives you the confidence that they’ve got clients that have done these hunts. And then we keep track of those clients, not just the story guys, but everybody that draws tags and, and, and keep that in a database and, and give that to the guys that are drawing tags as long as you’re willing to help the next, next guy.
00:56:23:20 –> 00:57:21:08
And, and, and that helps you on the tags that you draw as you’re going forward. And so this is very, very, you know, a community within Epic outdoors that, that everybody works together and helps from, from A to Z. And speaking of that, there’s a lot of guys that are intimidated about applying in the west and, and we know that it is, it’s hard to learn and it’s hard to get a grasp of, which I think the magazine helps alleviate some of that. And then, but our license application service is a great way, you know, to get started. And if after a few years you wanna start doing it on your own and just kinda like that research side of it, then by all means crank forward. But we are the cheapest. I don’t wanna, I don’t like the word cheap. I see late least expensive and most affordable, but at the same time we feel like we’re the best. Of course we’re biased, but we, Adam and I choose the units we apply our guys in after we’ve done the research after hours and hours of magazine and hours of writing the magazine. And so you
00:57:21:08 –> 00:57:26:08
Should not be paying somebody thousands of dollars to do your application. You should
00:57:26:08 –> 00:57:27:25
Not. It’s after
00:57:27:25 –> 00:57:27:28
Two,
00:57:28:03 –> 00:57:31:10
After you’re paying anybody to do it, you should pay somebody that does the work, you know?
00:57:31:10 –> 00:57:38:19
Yeah, you should. And and if you’re paying somebody that much, that’s a much of a guided hunt in two to three years Yes. That you’re just paying for the service or
00:57:38:19 –> 00:57:39:12
Landowner tax Yeah.
00:57:39:13 –> 00:58:38:18
Or whatever, or whatever. So diapers, you know, we’re, we feel strongly about because we’re doing the research and even though Epic Outdoors Magazine this, you may be hearing about it for the first time. You may be hearing about it just from the last year and wondering where’d these guys come from? Or geez, are they as good as everything else out there? Hopefully everything we’ve tried to just rattle off gives you the perspective, at least of where we came from and, and why we’re doing what we’re doing now. Yeah. It grew out of the demand and people, you know. Yeah. Hey, you guys get back. I wanna, I want, I wanna call you, I wanna pay you. There was how many years did we tell people just call us. You know, if you’re Yeah. If you got a question last minute on a draw, yeah, no problem. But now I’m not gonna take any money. And finally it just became clear and evident and largely out of us, I guess, having those hard discussions. You know, if somebody we felt was doing as good a personalized service and, and all of that, and meeting the needs of what we felt we could meet, we, we wouldn’t have done it. That’s right. We wouldn’t have jumped back in it. We
00:58:38:18 –> 00:58:47:14
Wouldn’t have, but but there was a huge demand for it. And it, and it was just like something we couldn’t ignore and, and it was something that we loved and we’d go hand in hand with Exactly do
00:58:47:14 –> 00:59:01:26
And we’re gonna be doing it. What do, anyway, we never flipped the switch off. We didn’t go away for five or six years in terms of not researching or caring about hunting and went off and became a plumber. Sorry Jeff. But you know, we, we didn’t, we didn’t do
00:59:01:26 –> 00:59:15:01
That. Jeff came from the plumbing industry. Yeah. We, speaking of witch, that’s a whole nother podcast too. Oh boy. Huh. Camp trailer fixing plumbing and camp trailers in the hills on a hunt, whatever. Anything, anything and everything while hunting a 200 inch deer. But,
00:59:16:16 –> 00:59:21:10
But we haven’t really talked maybe as much about that, but since we brought Jeff up that that’s another dimension here.
00:59:21:19 –> 00:59:36:22
So here we’re growing at Epic Outdoors, we’re growing today, we know how to work. And that’s the one thing I think Adam and I and John, you know, as we started Epic Outdoors really had heavy discussions. We are not oblivious to how much work this is.
00:59:36:22 –> 00:59:37:08
This is gonna be,
00:59:37:21 –> 00:59:47:01
It’s gonna be a grind. And like Adam and I coming in at 2 33, 3 34 in the morning for days on end, John, you’re spending until two and night sleeping on the cake. Yeah. And
00:59:47:07 –> 00:59:49:26
We all got couches in our office and it’s not to sit on
00:59:49:29 –> 00:59:53:25
It, it’s not for people to come visit. And so although
00:59:53:28 –> 00:59:54:08
We need a
00:59:54:08 –> 00:59:56:13
30 minute power nap, they get used.
00:59:56:20 –> 01:00:43:24
Yep. So anyway, it’s just, anyway, we’re growing, but, and we, when we had those discussions and we decided we’re gonna do it, but we’re gonna also hire good people as they come along. And so Jeffrey, Jeffrey comes along, my brother-in-law on another dimension, then John, he married my wife’s sister and he’s heavy into hunting. He’s got a great personality. He loves people, loves visiting and loves the hunt, loves he’s kind of an entrepreneur. He is always thinking and always forward thinking. And that’s what I love about Jeff. And so it would seem like a natural, he would be awesome. We’re gonna need a booking agent type guy to keep track of all these openings. And we’re dealing with hundreds and hundreds of outfitters. And, and so Jeff, what do you think so far you’ve been in the business for a year and a few months full time,
01:00:44:06 –> 01:00:47:28
Full bore. Well, yeah. So outside looking in, you know, years other
01:00:47:28 –> 01:00:49:05
Than your personal feelings about me,
01:00:52:17 –> 01:01:11:17
No. You know, when, when you look at the business from the outside and you really, you know, you just, you’re going through the magazine, you’re looking at numbers, you’re like, you don’t realize that’s the, I would say that’s the biggest thing. That’s the shock to me. You don’t realize how much work there is in between those columns to get
01:01:11:17 –> 01:01:12:23
Those numbers on piece
01:01:12:23 –> 01:01:21:08
Paper, to get those numbers. That means, I don’t know how many times I’ve had to ask you guys, how did you get that number? Like, ’cause you know, I’ll go through and just double check some stuff and look at things, you know? Well,
01:01:21:08 –> 01:01:22:14
You are a double check. Yeah.
01:01:22:14 –> 01:01:23:19
That, and I’m, that helps you.
01:01:23:23 –> 01:01:24:14
You research it.
01:01:25:05 –> 01:01:50:04
Adam, where did you get this number? Where’d you get 67% from Now you gotta remember, you gotta take the random, you gotta take the guys who drew out of this pool and put in this. And I’m like, oh, oh, shizz. Yeah. Really? Okay now, you know what I mean? And it, I think it, a guy cannot just jump into a business like this. You cannot do it. I don’t know how you guys begin to do all that stuff. We, you that for the last hour. I don’t even understand that
01:01:50:08 –> 01:01:50:22
We need to go
01:01:50:22 –> 01:01:55:18
Over it again. Like I No, but I just don’t, like you can’t, it’s not something jump you, there’s
01:01:55:18 –> 01:01:55:24
No college
01:01:55:29 –> 01:01:56:12
Degree
01:01:56:13 –> 01:02:14:25
For it. And that’s the one thing Adam and I and John have talked about too is, and every state different, we would like, we would like to bring somebody on, we would like to bring another Jason or Adam or John on Yeah. Or Chris or Jeff. But they’re not out there. They don’t make a college degree. It’s like Chris learning as he goes, we’ve learned as we’ve gone. I mean, they don’t make a college degree for that. That’s a very
01:02:15:01 –> 01:02:17:17
Unique individual. And you draw 1 0 1, they don’t
01:02:17:17 –> 01:02:57:26
Do that. Well. Well, and, and, and we we’re fine. And we realize this, this company, we realize and, and it’s what we wanted to establish it early on. It’s not about growing so big and just throwing magazines out into their whole world. You wanna be able to service your client, personal service, attention, credibility, being able to follow up, make sure that they adhere to you. Make sure that you, they know, Hey, how was your hunt with Outfitter X that you went on last year, getting the feedback. All of those types of things. So we want customers for life. It’s very important to realize we would not have jumped back into this full bore to do this for a few years before we decide what we’re gonna do next in life. No, it was such a big calculated decision.
01:02:57:26 –> 01:02:58:16
This is our final rest of case.
01:02:58:16 –> 01:03:09:25
It’s our only thing we’re doing the rest of our lives. Yeah. So it, that’s how big a decision it was for us. It’s, we would not have gone back if we didn’t intend to do it for 20, 25 more years, you know, until we’re done or whatever, you know, tell our kids that was our
01:03:09:25 –> 01:04:07:07
Intention. Hopefully our kids take it over and Yeah. And or whatever. Maybe, you know, we’re gonna, of course as we keep growing, we’ll we’ll add a guy or two. But you know, what’s interesting about our business and, and, and I’ve often been told this from my my own family too, is if you’re not growing, you’re going backwards. And you know, that is true in, in most industries, I just don’t believe in this industry. We, there is a number that would make this place go and go well, and just stick, stick to that and be happy. Like, you know, a customer service is something you can’t automate. Companies have tried to do it in, in our industry. They tried to automate service, automate service or automate, you know, product or whatever it is and just point and click. And we’re gonna point and click our way to a 200 inch steer. We’re gonna point and click our way to be able to draw with 12 points in Arizona and utilize our elk points is the best possible way by pointing and clicking. And that computer’s gonna spit out what unit I need to go to, to put inform
01:04:07:07 –> 01:04:07:20
What’s the
01:04:07:20 –> 01:04:08:29
Best and how to hunt it. Yep. Or
01:04:08:29 –> 01:04:14:24
Yeah, whether you take, whether you just extrapolate Boone and Crockett Trophy search on top of that and all right, you know, I know where to go and kill one.
01:04:14:27 –> 01:04:22:02
And thankfully, and now those, those are good tools. Boone and Crockett has a trophy search, by the way, since you mentioned that good tool. I love, I love using at it
01:04:22:02 –> 01:04:22:18
We look at nine to
01:04:22:18 –> 01:04:31:06
Time. Yeah, that’s right. But there’s nothing, and thankfully Adam, you can’t replace blue collar work. Right. And so, like, thankfully, otherwise we would work ourselves outta a job.
01:04:31:15 –> 01:04:33:00
Not in this industry, not in this niche. John,
01:04:33:01 –> 01:04:37:17
John would be hiring some robot to do our job and, and just say, Hey guys, by the way, go,
01:04:38:01 –> 01:04:39:10
Go away. Go hunt. I’m tired
01:04:39:20 –> 01:04:41:11
Of the red personality leave,
01:04:43:00 –> 01:05:49:14
Which I know you say anyway, but, but anyway. And so it’s just, it’s, it’s per very personalized and, and you know, again, they say service industry, you know, like the average length of time that a guy can stand to be in the service industry is like seven years and you’re burnout. Okay. That’s true. Except if you’re doing what you love to do. And by, by talking to our clients. Totally. We learn a lot too. I’m learning, I’m talking to guys about crazy stuff that I’m like, holy cow, maybe I do wanna shoot predators out of a sawd off top of a van with a night vision or something. You know, in Texas, you know, where it’s legal. I mean, there’s some cool things. We’re always learning, we’re always learning about different ranches experiences guys have had with, you know, units that may not have hunted. Having said that, we have hunted a lot of places in a, in a, in a lot of different states over the years. And so, but we love to learn and we love to keep going. And that’s kind of a side benefit Yeah. Of working here, you know, and owning Epic Outdoors. We get to be able to own ourselves, choose our direction and learn as much as we can, learn about the stuff that we love, which is deer, elk, antelope, sheep, goat, moose, buffle.
01:05:49:14 –> 01:05:51:01
And then pass it on to you listeners. So
01:05:51:03 –> 01:05:52:01
That’s, and
01:05:52:01 –> 01:06:11:05
Just to tout it a little bit more, just, it’s crazy and there’s been so many different changes and stuff and stuff like that, but you think about the a hundred dollars now, a lot of people will say a hundred dollars for a subscription. That seems like a lot in this day and age. I’m sorry, that’s less than a subway a month. You know what I mean? A subway sandwich a month will cost you more than that. Jeff, we
01:06:11:05 –> 01:06:13:28
Take you lunch about three times a week. Cost us 400.
01:06:14:15 –> 01:06:38:24
Yeah, there you go. You think about the a hundred bucks I’ll bring and the magazine’s great, but the ability to a call in chat with guys who, there’s a good possibility. You guys know something very particular about the unit A guy’s looking at. The other thing is our member experience is unreal. Thousands of, I mean, we’ve already had thousands of solutions.
01:06:38:24 –> 01:07:36:29
Well, and I think, and I think what I think like what you’re talking about, and you bring up a good point is our current membership, this is, this is guys that want to be affiliated with our core. Adam and I, you and John and, and Chris. They want to be affiliated with this and they’re extremely hardcore hunters. Yes. And, and so it’s tr the trendsetters. Our, our clients are the trendsetters. I mean, it’s one thing to have magazine subscriptions and I, let’s say we’re outdoor life and, and maybe a million, you do a million magazines or Army f you know, has 160,000 members. Their membership and clientele is a different membership than our membership. Our membership are spending thousands and thousands dollars on gear, applications, landowner tags, hunts, whatever. And they live for the western big game hunt. They live for it. Now, I’m not saying these guys don’t go to Africa. I’m not saying they don’t go to New Zealand. They do, I’m not saying all of these things other than our membership, they’re extremely hardcore. And I love that about ’em. They’re the ones spending the money. They’re the ones booking the
01:07:37:01 –> 01:08:16:18
Huns. And so by them doing that, they experienced a lot of stuff in addition to what we in the office have. And so we created that Epic member experience database, which is a tool we keep, it’s voluntary. These members let us know, hey, this is where I’ve done, I’d be willing to talk to guys. Many times they realize they’re never gonna go back. They don’t have the points to go back or they’re never gonna, you know, apply for that unit again because it’s too long to draw. But if you draw a tag and you want some information on it that maybe Jason and I don’t have firsthand and you wanna speak to somebody, we can share with you a phone number and email from one of our clients that’s willingly gave us multiple that information or multiple clients, a list, a list of people that have been there.
01:08:16:24 –> 01:09:09:23
It’s called the Epic Member Experience Program. Very good for the do it yourselfer that just wants another couple guys to talk to. Maybe it’s about lodging, maybe it’s not even about finding the big bull or buck in the unit. Maybe it’s like, how much, how much gas do I need to take to that unit? You know, how remote is it from a gas pump? You know, there’s a lot of questions you may end up having about it that yeah, we’re not gonna know every single thing about every unit in the Western us but that that’s another tool that our members get in addition to, you know, it’s all included in the a hundred dollars service, you know, so, you know, a a monthly magazine, nine issues a year, but wanted to reiterate the first six months of the year, monthly’s monthly, you, we cannot cover stuff timely and accurately without being monthly the first six months. And then we go every other month from then to the end of the year. Epic member experience is something, whether it’s a sheet hunt that you’ll never get again, or it’s a general season Wyoming outcome. There’s probably somebody in the database Oh yeah. For you to call and get information from. Oh,
01:09:09:23 –> 01:09:29:01
I’ll give you a, a shocking fact from last year, after one year, and I mean we barely rolled it out in time for the draws on average. I sent those letters out or those emails back to guys after they drew five to 10 names was average. Yeah. For units or you were a couple that, that we had less. But on average
01:09:29:05 –> 01:09:31:10
Obscure unit here, there’s not units, units
01:09:31:13 –> 01:09:32:29
Five to 10 guys that you
01:09:32:29 –> 01:10:14:12
Could call. And it’s awesome to give you starting points. You know, not, not everybody has the same, you know, hunting styles and abilities and whatnot, but it gives you a good starting point of how to hunt units. We also, you know, we also obviously book hunts. We, we, you know, help guys get landowner tags. We help guys book hunts with guaranteed tags. You know, we have the license application service, which is in addition to the magazine. And the maximum you can spend with this is $500, you know, it’s $50 per state that includes up to two species. And we jump to a hundred if it’s three or more, could be five, could be eight, whatever it is. And then you can, once you reach five, reach 500, it’s capped out. There’s nothing more you can spend with us on that. And it’s on the regular state draws.
01:10:14:12 –> 01:10:47:28
And so and so anyway, we, we apply guys from, from Kansas to Washington, California, Nevada, Wyoming, all of the different Western big game hunting opportunities. And, and, and we do a dang good job at it. You know, we love it. Our job is to get guys on hunts, whether they’re in our app service or not. If they’re just a hundred dollars member, our job is to get guys, clients, you know, if we didn’t draw anybody, is that good for business? No, that ain’t good for business. Now if we draw guys that are in bad units or units that don’t fit their needs or what they like, is that good for business? No, no. That ain’t good for business. You
01:10:47:28 –> 01:10:53:25
Wanna match what they’re looking for. That’s right. But you still want to take every angle you can into consideration to get ’em what they, what they
01:10:53:25 –> 01:11:22:23
Want. And some guys just want, I want the best two units. I understand that. And then there’s a lot of guys that are like, I want better odds, good sheep. I, you know, I, I want good units for sheep, but I want to be able to draw, and by the way, these are my physical limitations. I’m 65, I’ve got this, this, this, they’re are units for you. And that’s what we do. We tailor guys. And what does that does for us and our clientele is it spreads them out. We’re not applying multiple hundreds of guys for one or two units. We’re applying them across the entire state. Yeah,
01:11:22:24 –> 01:11:31:07
It’d be easier to do that. It’s definitely, you know, easier to just pick two units for everybody and get ’em done. Hey, wipe your hands and say everybody’s in the draw well’s.
01:11:31:07 –> 01:11:32:23
That’s not our job’s good for business. It’s not, it’s
01:11:32:23 –> 01:12:12:29
Not good for business. The next year you’re in the same problem. They’re all calling you back. They haven’t been on a hunt in three years. And, and not that we have the magic wand and make you draw, but I guarantee we’ll we’ll spend more time and put more thought into your application and meeting your needs and goals and expectations, whether it’s weapon type, whether it’s physical ability, whether it’s size of deer, elk, antelope, sheet, muco, whatever. I guarantee we’ll put more thought into that than the other services. And in the long run, that will allow you to draw more tags that meet your expectations. Again, we’re not gonna burn your points on something that’s mediocre if you only want the best. But, you know, we’ll put the time into, it’s our job to help you go hunting. I mean, yeah,
01:12:12:29 –> 01:12:13:17
It is. It’s an
01:12:13:17 –> 01:12:15:00
Unsuccessful year if we all sit home.
01:12:15:09 –> 01:13:00:28
That’s right. And so part of what brought this on this podcast today, just a part of we’ve been talking about it, is there’s a lot of you guys out there, members included that, that don’t really understand where we came from or, or somewhat new in the application game or whatever. And I was down there at the Arizona game and fish com Hunter Education course with my family. And, and we were talking and they were going over the parts of a gun or whatever, and we’re going over different ammo and whatnot. And I talked out loud and a guy turns around and he goes, do you do podcasts? And I’m like, yeah, yeah, we do. We do Epic outdoors. I knew it. I knew it. And recognize your voice. Recognize my voice, but had no idea that I even had a background in, in the industry like we have. He’d heard you had no idea of hunt. He had
01:13:00:28 –> 01:13:01:13
Heard you talk about,
01:13:01:19 –> 01:13:12:06
Had no idea that I helped build, build Hunt full with my dad. Had no idea that we did Ridge Reaper TV with Under Armour. Had no idea. We do Epic outdoors, although we’ve run a few 32nd ads on here once in a while when we, he
01:13:12:06 –> 01:13:13:23
Just missed them. Or you were talking to
01:13:14:08 –> 01:13:27:05
Whatever, you know, we get boring. I get that. And sometimes you turn it off. I I get that, you know, don’t, don’t tell us about it, but I get that. And then so it was like, you know what, maybe guys need to know a little bit about our background. It’s also
01:13:27:09 –> 01:13:45:10
The first of the year too. So it’s a natural, it’s like every, you know, it’s kind of the, the calendar turns yes. To a new year and the application season’s literally open. But it’s also everybody’s mind’s thinking about hunting. Yes. What can I do in planning next year? We figured this would be a good time to get out there. Let you really know in detail who is we do and where we came
01:13:45:10 –> 01:13:46:12
From. Who, who’s on the other end of the
01:13:46:12 –> 01:13:52:23
Mic? Who, when you, when you get the magazine, who actually wrote that stuff? Yeah. And, and why do they, why do they think they can write it?
01:13:52:25 –> 01:14:14:19
And for years and years, we, we wrote Hunting Fool. It’s not something we’re new at. This is something we’ve done. We’re well-versed and, and we know how these systems work. And so anyway, that’s a little bit about us here at Epic Outdoors. We’ve, we’re just, this is what we live for. This is what we do. Of course, you’d think, think we just live on monsters looking at this table. But anyway, it
01:14:14:19 –> 01:14:16:22
Is a magazine deadline week. So it’s not,
01:14:16:29 –> 01:14:17:07
It’s
01:14:17:07 –> 01:14:20:29
A little brutal. Come in 10, come in a week or 10 days, it’ll be pure water on the table.
01:14:21:10 –> 01:14:22:29
That’s right. Water. But
01:14:23:08 –> 01:14:27:08
Water like could tell my wife, that’s the number one ingredient in these is water. It’s true.
01:14:27:15 –> 01:14:46:13
How can you, how can you get mad at that carbonated water? It’s carbonated, but it is water. Anybody. And you know, by the way, I wanna talk about this a little bit more. Anybody that says that pop and monsters dehydrate you, they’re liars. Because some days I don’t drink any water and I’m not dehydrated.
01:14:49:20 –> 01:14:55:18
Some months your body can filter black water, Pepsi, Coke, it
01:14:55:18 –> 01:15:13:17
Comes out clear, get clear yellow no matter what, no matter what color it goes in as. Oh boy. So anyway, all right. It is not good for you. I’m just gonna say that out loud. And we don’t drink as much as we say we do. Kids don’t drink monsters. You should not drink monsters. It will stop you from growing. So anyway, other than that, just we, we,
01:15:13:17 –> 01:15:52:28
Yeah, we appreciate you members that are members and invite you that aren’t to give us a try. Epic outdoors.com is our website. Or if you’re interested in calling and just sign up over the phone. Don’t want to, you’re not around the computer right now. Our number’s 4 3 5 2 6 3 0 7 7 7. This is the busy application season. You’re gonna get somebody at the office. This is not September, October when we’re out hunting. And so we’re here, we’re here to take your calls, we’re here to fill your calls for application strategies and things like that. But we appreciate the support we’ve had at Epic. Wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be cranking forth, you know, without it. So we really appreciate those that have, you know, jumped
01:15:53:03 –> 01:16:34:24
On board with this first year. And I, and I, yeah, I, I agree and wanna reiterate that from Adam. Just that we, how much we do appreciate our membership and, and the support and the fans that we’ve got. And I just, I also wanna say, you know, you know, if you’re coming from somewhere else, had somebody else doing your applications, it’s not a problem. Your points stay with your social security number. They stay with your hunter ID number in a particular state. And, and it’s easy to make the switch and we’re happy to work with you on that. A lot of guys just send us in, you know, the old forms that they’ve got from, from somewhere else and that gives us a shell. We put you in the computer and then we call you and finish things up. And so anyway, that’ll about do it for today boys. Just appreciate everybody out there. Appreciate you guys get back to work. I’d
01:16:34:24 –> 01:16:38:11
Like to think, guys, for the reviews they left on the podcast too. We got some awesome reviews
01:16:38:14 –> 01:16:42:11
By Should we give away something? Yeah, let’s give away something. Yeah, let’s do it. What do you got Chris? We got a bunch of Under
01:16:42:11 –> 01:16:42:26
Armour gear.
01:16:43:05 –> 01:16:45:25
What, what’s, what kind of gear? What are we gonna throw out there you think Jeff? What,
01:16:46:06 –> 01:16:52:04
What do we wanna give away? Let’s do, I would say, let’s do some gloves and a beanie. Just kind of an accessory kit maybe.
01:16:52:11 –> 01:17:02:23
Okay. Throw it out there Jeff. What, what? What’s the code they’re gonna put [email protected] back slash podcasts? What are they gonna put in? Epic gloves. Epic
01:17:02:25 –> 01:17:04:07
Gloves. How about that? That’s
01:17:04:07 –> 01:17:16:14
Great. Okay. Yep. Put in epic gloves on epic outdoors.com/podcast and we’re gonna pick a winner, right Chris, that’s, can you tell, can you really tell who puts their name in there and who puts that little code in there? Yes.
01:17:16:17 –> 01:17:27:01
So we have a whole database and all those entries go into that database and we can see all of ’em. So then we drew a random number, random, random, random number and we pick a name from that and Okay. Send out the gear.
01:17:27:13 –> 01:17:30:22
So what if I’m a little feller? Can I choose sizes? I don’t know. Yeah,
01:17:30:22 –> 01:17:37:12
We have all kinds of sizes. Alright. I mean the last one we, we gave away a smaller jacket and okay,
01:17:37:13 –> 01:17:49:24
It worked out well. All right. So it is wintertime and so that kind of good for the season. Yep. Let’s crank that out. Be it gloves, beanie, and maybe even a little decal. We’ll throw a little something, something in there. Huh? Epic hat and a
01:17:49:24 –> 01:17:53:23
Decal. Yeah, epic gloves. Yeah, you’ll
01:17:53:23 –> 01:18:17:02
Be under gloves. Promo code. Epic gloves. Epic gloves and, and anyway, just wanna appreciate Under Armour and sponsoring this podcast again and, and see us at the expo. We are gonna be walking some different shows. We’re gonna be walking S C I, we’ll be at the Wild Sheep Show there in Reno. And then we will have a booth at the Utah Conservation Or is it a conservation? Western HU Western Hunting. Hunting and conservation. That’s what it is. Thanks John. Booth number 2, 8, 4, 5. Right.
01:18:17:02 –> 01:18:22:10
We’ll be there all week. Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see a lot of you there. Be great to see you there. Very, very busy show.
01:18:22:19 –> 01:18:36:25
One of the funnest shows of the year. Yeah, by far. Yep. So a lot of tags gonna sell. A lot of tags gonna be drawn. A lot of everything. And we got a little something, something a little surprise for some of the people to come by the booth and join up their buddies. So anyway, look forward to seeing you guys there. Thank you.
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