EP 57: Hunt Expo, Shed Tours, and Optics, with Kents Optics

So, we'll have three different sets of sheds there that have growth scores over 300. It's gonna blow your mind. There's nothing like it. It's not just something you go do for a quick weekend hunt. So, it just became a passion of mine. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson here at the Epic Outdoors Podcast. Just cranking along, it's January 31st, it's Wyoming's elk application deadline today, midnight. Anyway, we've been visiting with a lot of our hunters. It's that time of year where everybody's been applying. Speaking of applying, there's a couple of different things you can apply for in regards to winning some hunts, in addition to the state draws. We've got the Wyoming Super Tags. Guys can apply for those. They're $10 a piece. Or you can go for the trifecta for $30 a piece. It's 10 different species, 11 chances to win. You got to apply by July 2nd, 2018. You can apply online at wgfd.yo.gov backslash epicoutdoors. So, anyway, pretty easy to remember, wgfd.yo.gov backslash epicoutdoors.

Go on there and buy your chances to win. You can do it by July 2nd. So, pretty awesome opportunity. And then, we're also going to be hitting the expo, the hunt expo. Yep, February 8th through the 11th, coming right up here. Salt Lake City, Salt Palace Convention Center. We're going to have a booth there, number 2845. It's a great show. I believe this is in, what, Jason, about the 10th year? Yeah, a long time. We've been there pretty much every year. A great, broad variety of Western North America hunting opportunities there. Among other things, there's a bunch of hunts to apply for, 200 different hunts to apply for, Utah convention permits, every big game species, deer, elk, antelope, moose sheep, goat, bison. These are five dollars, five dollars a piece to apply for, and then you got to validate them in person,

which kind of, you know, encourages people to show up and enjoy the hunt expo and kind of cruise some of the different booths. So, anyway, it's in addition to the regular Utah draw, but they're the same kind of tags. They're basically, you know, you apply for a unit, particular season, if you get drawn, it's just like you drew in the regular draw. That's right. Also, coming up at the Western Hunting Conservation Expo on Saturday, February 10th, in conjunction with that, is the Full Curl Society Social. Just an awesome gathering there of sheep enthusiasts. They'll be giving away ten sheep hunts. Three stone sheep hunts, five doll sheep hunts, a desert sheep hunt, and a Rocky Mountain Bighorn, all fully paid for. There are a few contingencies upon them. Some of them you can't have ever taken a sheep. Some of them you can't have ever killed a stone sheep or a doll sheep.

Just to kind of affect the odds, kind of give something for everybody. You know, if you've already killed all four of your North American sheep, you've still got hunts you can win there. It's a great, great chance. You can go online at fullcurl.org and purchase your $50 or $75 basic membership there. You can buy additional tickets online there, or they will have a booth at the Western Hunting Conservation Expo. You can buy your tickets there, put them in the bin. Then on Saturday, February 10th, we'll be a sponsor Epic Outdoors will be, and just an awesome event. They meet together two, three hours, and draw all those on Saturday, early afternoon. It's a great opportunity where guys can win those. They're giving up, you know, free charge. Basically, you've got a hunt paid for. Probably have to pay a little airline fees here and there, but anyway, overall, they're basically free hunts.

So, if that's not enough, you can come by our booth. We're going to be taking memberships for Epic Outdoors, Epic Outdoors, and for new members and people that sign up their buddies, we are giving you a name in the hat to win a hunt here at Epic Outdoors that we're going to be giving away the first part of March. So, anyway, love to see all you guys. We do have some show specials going on, so come by booth number 2845. Love to visit with you. We're going to have world-class shed collections by our buddies, the Harrells, as well as they're selling optics. And then, of course, we've got Epic Outdoors where we do licensed application service, as well as memberships to our magazine. We're doing research publication and selling hunts. So, we'll have the whole Epic Outdoors crew come on by and let's talk some hunting.

In this last magazine, we did, some of you may have noticed, most of you most likely, a new advertiser for us. It's Kent's Optics. We've dealt with these guys for years and years. So, on page 11 is their advertisement there. They deal in Vortex, Nightforce, Swarovski, Zeiss, all the big names, and these guys are awesome. They've actually been selling optics for years, years and years, and sell a lot of them, and at great prices. Some of the best prices in Utah, they do in high volumes, that way they can pass that savings on to you guys. So, give them a call. Yeah, so with that, that is owned by David and Jeff Harrell. We're going to get David on the line and see what he has to say for the next 45 minutes.

Hello. Hey, you there? Yes, I am. Well, cool. So, we've got David and Jeff Harrell on the line with us, and we just wanted to kind of visit with them. We're going to be sharing a booth with them there at the Expo. These guys are awesome guys. We've known them for years and years. They're hardcore hunters in the January issue as Kent's Optics. And they were in my soapbox. I kind of did a little intro there and got them on the line with us. They're hardcore hunters. They've hunted many different western We've been in Southern states, dealt in optics for many, many years, and just thought it'd be good if we got him on the line and visited with him a little bit. And so, anyway, how you guys doing? We're doing really good. How about you guys today? We're doing good. We're doing good. It is the Wyoming deadline to apply for elk if you're just, you know, applying for an actual unit or hunt.

And so, you know, we've been jammed a little bit. But anyway, it's been a good day. Well, we're having a bunch of Cedar City weather up here. We've been hitting 50 degrees up here. I think it's the nicest winter we've ever seen in Tremont, so we've been enjoying it. It's like 65 degrees down here today in Cedar. Yeah. I mean, after the winter we had last year, for the deer to be able to have this, what a bonus. Yeah, you guys look at it as a bonus. I'm looking at the desert saying, I am not hunting the desert. Yeah. We got running water year-round up here, so we don't see what you guys, we don't have that problem. No, you guys don't.

Well, as we get started here, I just kind of want you to introduce, maybe David, you, you know, introduce you and your brother, kind of where you've been, you know, where you're going, what your plan is, maybe a little bit of your history as far as your hunting and background like that, so people can kind of get to know you a little bit. Well, you know, about, we've been in the grocery business our whole life. Our dad and our business partners started a grocery store here in Tremont, Utah about 35, 40 years ago. And so, me and my brother grew up in the grocery business. Well, that got boring to us. We both went to college, got degrees, and came back and didn't go into our fields of choices and decided to stay in the grocery business. Well, one thing led to another, and I decided,

you know, it would be fun to sell sporting goods for the store. So, I started selling Leopold and Burris and Redfield at the time. This was back when the Redfield Illuminator was a real popular scope, and so we started selling those type of items. And then, when the hunting market started demanding European Optics, Swarovski was our favorite. So, we went after Swarovski and picked up a full line of Swarovski and became a Swarovski dealer. And boy, it kind of took off from there. We started selling a lot of Swarovski, and we became real good friends with our rep, Paul Kendall. And then he switched over to Vortex Optics, and so we became the first dealer that he signed up here in the state of Utah. And it's kind of ran from there, picked up, you know, four or five other optic lines, and then it's kind of grown into small.

I mean, we don't have a large sporting goods shop, not like what most people are accustomed to, but we do a lot of online, not online selling, but phone calls selling, out-of-state selling. A lot of real serious hunters. We try to help them with their gun setups, you know, all their optic needs. And it's just grown into a fun and exciting business. Well, what I really like is your business model. Basically, you're taking the wives that grocery shop, and you know they're going to want to buy their husband optics and spend a bunch of money on hunting. So, I think it's such a natural that you did that. Well, you can't beat that. You know, here you've got a Thanksgiving week, and this grocery store is just rocking. Yes. You put out binoculars and spotting scopes for the wives and rangefinders and everything. Bam! There you go.

You get all those cells you otherwise would never even think you could get. So, yeah, it's been really beneficial. You know, it's odd. People, we get that probably more than any one thing. People say, really? You're in a grocery store? Yeah, buy bread and rangefinder. But it has worked out good for us. We've been here a lot. I've been here since I was 13. My brother's been here since he was 10. So, yeah, we've been in this place a long time. Well, not to date you, but how many years, roughly, you've been doing it? Oh, 25, at least, in the Optic N. Oh, wow. Yeah, 25 years. That does date you guys. Yeah, it dates as well. So, you've been doing optics, what, 20 years or 15 years of that, or the full-time?

Yeah, a full-time optic is probably about 15 out of the 25. The first 10 was just kind of for funsies here and there when people come in and call. It was funny, when we first started, you know, rifle scopes, I could count on one hand how many rifle scopes we would sell a year. You literally couldn't sell a rifle scope. People bought one rifle, one scope, that was it. They were done for life. And now, rifle scopes are the king of the optic market. You know, you just, there's so many different options. People are building multiple guns. They've got a gun to go hunt pronghorn with them. And a gun to hunt elk with, they got long range setups, short setups. It's just, it's really changed the optic market. Oh yeah. Well, and you guys, it seems like we live down here, so we know of you, and we've known you for a lot of years as hunters and whatnot, and we'll get to that maybe in a minute.

But for a lot of Utahns, especially up north, you guys kind of have the reputation of, I mean, you guys do a big volume. We've talked to Paul over years about some of the volumes you guys deal with, and some of the deals you guys are known to be super competitive on your pricing and whatnot. And so, tell us just a little bit about, yeah, why you're maybe a little bit different than just your normal box store, you know, place to go buy optics. And maybe that'll lead into a little bit about us having you there at the expo with us and what you maybe have there. Well, one, we really focus on inventory. You know, being not just in the optic business allows us to have other revenue sources, so it allows us to keep large quantities of product on hand.

And so, we buy it in bulk, we get a better price rate when we buy it in bulk, we try to turn it over into our customers. So, one, we try to have it when they need it. When a customer is trying to set a rifle up, or they need that particular pair of binoculars, or a spotting scope, or tripod, or whatever their needs, we try to have it. That's uno number one in our importance levels. Try to have what they want when they need it. Get it to them. Get to them quick, whatever. Well, and I can attest to that. I've been out in the field many times, and you know you've gotten a phone call from me. I remember we had to ship something across the country once. You were on the other side of the country, and we had to ship a pair of yells or something. Yeah, and it was like next day air, and of course, my credit must have been all right, because you guys just did it.

So, anyway, I can attest to that. You guys are amazing that way. Well, that's important to have in stock what people want, so they don't have to wait and wonder. There's nothing worse than somebody's going on a hunt that they've really looked forward to, 17 years of bonus points, or whatever. One got real lucky, and here they're waiting for something, and they may not get it. We try to get rid of that worry.

And then, like I say, we try to buy in as large quantities as possible from them. We sit down with all of our brands at the beginning of each year, try to say, what can we buy that you can give us special pricing on, or you might be able to help us on if we buy a certain number. And then we always turn that over to the customer. That's something that's important to us, is to try to give our customers. We're hunters, they're hunters. We try to give them the absolute best deal that we can give them and still survive. One thing I want to, you know, I guess going back a little bit as you were talking about that you had this modest little, you know, sporting goods side, and I just want to, I've seen what you call modest, and yeah, what the customer sees is modest, but the back room is loaded, you know, with crazy amounts of optics and inventory.

And so, you know, I just kind of want to interject that is, I've seen the inventory, I know what you guys are packing in that store, and it's not just all pickles and jam, you know what I mean? So, anyway, it's pretty impressive, and I can attest to that. You know, and that helps with keeping our costs down. We don't spend a lot out there. We try to keep it all back in, you know, purely what the customer's after. So, yeah, I think it's helped us. Like I said, we've done it enough years. We really try to get feedback from our customers. We listen to what our customers tell us they want, and we listen to what our vendors and our brands are saying, hey, this is what you guys are successful at. Keep doing it. Let's keep doing it. And they work really well with us. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be able to do the things, turn around and be as beneficial to our customers as we are.

So, we want to transition a little bit, and we do want to hear, you guys have killed some You've been amazing animals. You picked up some amazing sheds yourselves. But we do want to, I guess, I guess it just feels like the time to kind of jump into what you've got going for the Expo, some of the different inventory that you're going to be bringing, as well as the shed tours. So, I just kind of want to jump into that. And then, as you talk about that, maybe we can dive into what created this love for that. Sheds, hunting, yeah. Why do you like deer sheds? I mean, kind of actually. Why do you like killing 200-inch bucks, you know?

Let's jump into the expo first. The expo, me and Jason have actually talked about it for a couple years actually. You know, Jason would stop by and look at antlers and we talked about doing some things. And we've done very little advertising, very little pushing and doing things as far as optics are concerned. So, this was kind of one of the, it's getting a very competitive market with online sales, everybody's competitive on prices. So, it's just one of those things we thought, you know what, let's try something new. So, this year, we just committed to doing some new things. The Expo was a perfect fit with you guys. We've known you guys for years. We've done business with you guys for years. We've killed some giant mule deer because the landowner tags we purchased through you guys. So, it's just kind of one of those things. That was, I think, Adam's personal tag.

You had to bring that deer up. Well, I could have sent him a picture he could have been looking at during this, and I didn't. So, I kept it to it. We'll get to that in a bit. I kept it somewhat low-key. Okay, alright. It still hurts a little bit. Well, yeah, exactly. But going into the Expo, we've worked hard at, you know, there again, we've worked hard at having some products that I think people have had a hard time getting hold of. We will have the new BTXI piece available at the Expo. We'll have some killer deals on all of our optics. We'll give as good as prices as we can give.

But we'll have some fantastic prices for families. If families want to show up and dads and moms want to buy a pair of vinyls for their kids, we're going to have some unbeatable prices there. We're going to have, I don't think there'll be anything that was introduced last year that we won't have available there this year for at least to see or to purchase. We pretty well have all the product that I think people are going to be looking for. We're going to get rid of some discontinued items. Vortex and some other companies are coming out with new spotting scopes. We've held on to some of their older models to be able to blow some out down there so some people can get some really good prices. That's pretty awesome.

So, they can stop by and get the best of the best, see the best of the best. If they're not sure what they're after, they'll get to look from Knight Force, Swarovski, Zeiss, Vortex, all their different riflescopes, binoculars, and spotters. Their new rangefinders are coming out that are going to be fantastic, you know. I just want to let people know. So, we're sharing a booth with you. It's 20 by 50. But we just don't want to be the little guy in the booth, you know what I mean? Like, you're gonna come in there, blow things out, people are gonna come visit you, and Adam and I are gonna be over there in the corner trying out these BTXs.

Yeah, well, yeah, and I wanna emphasize that you kind of rolled through that, because anybody, Jason and I have had ours since last summer, but anybody that has tried to get your hands on one of those, they're not easy to get, and you rolled through that fast, but say it again, you're gonna have some BTX. We will have BTXI pieces at the expo. We're going to have as many as we possibly can. I'm not going to throw out a number. Yeah, you might sell some, but it might be double digit of some sort. You never know. Depends on what sells between now and then. Yeah, it'll be double digits. We'll have objectives there. You won't have to worry about getting an objective. If you need the magnifier, we'll have the magnifiers there. We'll have it all. We'll have different tripods. We'll have Swarovski tripods, Manfrottos, Pro GTs from Vortexes.

We'll have multiple tripod options. And so, yeah. There you go. You guys take cash, personal check. I mean, how are we going to do this? We're not going to do check. We're going to do cash, and then we'll have, we'll take credit cards. We'll be set up to do a credit card, any type of transaction. I'll ship it to you. I don't care pretty much where you live in the United States. We'll get it to you. No problem. Well, I want to get to the part I'm most excited about as you kind of blew through. I've been to your place, and your house, and And where you've stored some of these sheds, there's going to be a major amount of giant sheds there. And what I want to...it's hard for me to explain to people. I've talked to maybe just a couple of my close friends, even Adam and some of the guys here in the office.

I mean, it's unbelievable. I've never been in one room that had more big sheds and bone in it than yours ever in my entire life. And I don't know, you would know, it seems like you've got the number one shed collection in the world. I don't know how it could be beat. I don't know how many sets of sheds over 300 inches you have, how many sets of sheds over 250, but it's a lot, and that's going to be at the booth. Right, yeah, that's been a passion of mine since I started collecting sheds when I was about 14, 15 years old. I was down hunting the book list back when it was just a general tag, and I found a grumble of sheds, So, it just became a passion of mine. Then I went to school in St. George, was able to hit the strip, and all of Southern Utah, back in the middle and late 80s, when just nobody was shed hunting.

And then me and my brother had the good fortune, all of Southern Idaho, basically from Boise over to Wyoming, nobody was really shed hunting. So, we just had it to ourselves through the 80s and 90s, and just had a blast. We found some giant sheds, but just learned to have a huge appreciation and love for big mule deer. Hands down, we just found out that there was mule deer. There was very little big elk at the time, so we didn't really get into big elk, but big mule deer just became a passion of ours. And then we started kind of going to Jackson Hole to the antler cell and kind of seeing, okay, there's bigger out there than what we've been able to find and started getting into the collecting end of it. And we've been collecting big antlers for probably 30 or so years, too, maybe even longer, 30, 35 years. We have been collecting some of the biggest and the

best. And not just, there's always, it seems like there's a bigger antler out there, but We've tried to acquire some of the prettiest, best shape, dark brown from the Providence of Saskatchewan all the way down through New Mexico. I mean, wherever they were, wherever big mildew sheds existed, if we could acquire them, we've acquired them. We've put the collection together. It's been a lot of work. We're exceptionally proud of it. This will be the first time that probably, you know, that anybody's ever seen it, and we're hoping people enjoy it. We kind of want it to be entertainment. We're going to, hopefully, people come with their families and they're going to be able to see something otherwise they've never seen. Not only just see it, one thing I told Jason that I thought was important when we talked about

doing the expo together was that if a dad brought his dad or mom brought their son or their daughter in there, that they could have the opportunity to not only look at, say, a 140-inch single, but maybe even get a chance to hold that 140-inch single and get to hold what a You know, three to four pound shed with 20 plus points on it would feel like and get their picture taken with it and get to see multiple 300-inch sets of sheds. We'll have three different sets of sheds there that have growth scores over 300. Another one that's pushing the door of 300. We'll have a half a dozen or more 260, 70-class sets of sheds. And most of those are all brown, solid brown, cherry brown color, hard white, things like that. And they're going to be able to see them up close and see what 210-inch typicals, see what 215-inch typicals look like.

Well, everybody I know say they saw one, but when you put it in your hands, it's something else. Yeah, exactly. And I think, too, one thing I wanted to mention, you know, before I forget, because I forget a lot of stuff. But anyway, basically, you've got named bucks. Like, there's bucks of our generation that Adam and I have watched Governor Tags kill, or this guy kill, or that guy kill. And you're like, you'll pull something out of the pile, and be like, well, this is so-and-so's buck, and this is so-and-so's buck. And by the way, here's the second year, and the third year, and just stuff that my jaw just hits the ground. Like, these are bucks we know about. These are bucks we've read stories about. We've seen them on Monster Muleys or any other forum that's out there, bow-sight or whatever, and stuff that we, you know, dream about.

And then we go up to your house, and you pull the actual sheds out. And I'm just like, how does this happen? We've worked hard at not only acquiring the sheds, but we've worked hard at acquiring the literature or the magazine or some photos of these particular bucks. We'll have that at the expo, so in case they're looking at it and they think, oh, that kind of looks familiar, well, boom, they'll be a picture of the buck and go, oh, yeah, I know which buck that is. They'll get to see the sheds and see what the buck. And a lot of times, the sheds were actually bigger than what the buck was when it was killed. They killed it a year after, and you've gone downhill a little bit and things like that. That's what I say about all my bucks, is that they were probably bigger than the year before. But you kill them on the downhill. I kill all mine on the downhill.

That's what I say. You know, but hopefully nobody steps forward with sheds of my bucks. David and Jeff will be able to show you sheds of the bucks you've got. Yeah, they might have some. Well, they might not even have them at the booth. Like, our bucks aren't big enough for these guys. That's right. When you walk into our booth, which your booth, our booth, whatever, it's going to blow your mind. There's nothing like it. You just tell me, David and Jeff, you just tell me somebody that's got more big sheds than what you've got. I'd like to see it. Well, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen them personally. You know, there's a couple guys I know that have some tremendous shed collections. I haven't actually seen them. I've had people, so a lot of it's rumor here saying things like that.

But hands down, we've worked hard at acquiring the antlers that we have. I know individuals that have one or two that I'd love to have someday, but as far as somebody being able to come and see what they're going to see, I'm looking forward to seeing them together, because I haven't been able to see them put up together like that. And I've got different, I've got one little trilogy. There was a 237 deer that was officially scored and killed in Saskatchewan, and then that was in 2003. In 2001, his sheds were found, and they scored 301. In 2002, his sheds were found, and they scored 272. And then in 2003, he was killed, and he net scores 237. So, we'll have all three of those on one pedestal there with the story in the big buck magazine, that a Canadian big buck magazine, with different pictures, uh, something like that. Those are, that's just something I have, pretty unique. Yeah, pretty unique. And I haven't even been able to put it together yet at my house, so it'll be interesting.

I'm looking forward to seeing it put together at the Expo. People are going to be able to come in and see that. He's got 22 points on the one year, and they're cherry brown, Canadian brown. They have that chocolate color to them. Lots of $220, $230. You know, those are really hard sets of sheds to come by, but what are really hard to come by is 210-inch typicals. That's, I think, one of the hardest set of sheds to find, to stumble across, to see in somebody's collection is a legit 210-typical set of net typicals. We'll have multiple sets of them there. Doc Meyer killed a buck on the Poncygon. We have his sheds. We have a lot of different pictures of him. We'll have his sheds there. There was a Governor's Tag this year that we have his sheds too that is a high 200 gross, mid 200 net, typical. We'll have his sheds there brown and a couple others that are out

of Wyoming that have those 210, 208 type net frames. They're all just golden color and beautiful wide bucks. Some of them are 35 inch typicals and things like that. So, just a real- Basically, if you're a trophy hunter and you like big animals, you'll love this booth. If you're not a trophy hunter, you shouldn't even walk by. Well, that too. Yeah, and come in and just, you know, enjoy it, appreciate it for what it is. I'm hoping people, you know, we're not bringing it there to kind of, you know, throw a lot of stuff. I probably won't even have scores on it as much. Just, I want people to enjoy it, relax, have a good time, spend some time, talk about antlers, and just really appreciate what giant mules are. They're rare, they're hard to come by, they're hard to find, they're hard to kill.

Finding a huge set of sheds anymore is so competitive and so hard. So, I hope people can come and just enjoy their self while they're there and get to see what otherwise I think is pretty tough to come by. Well, there's no doubt about that, and it's going to be awesome. I'm looking forward to it myself, just maybe before the expo opens so I can fondle and drill a little bit in private at some of those sheds and enjoy them. So, looking forward and appreciate you guys wanting to team up and make an awesome booth and encourage everybody to come and see us. But you also, I mean, there's no question that collection for you and Jeff has amassed and taken a lot of time, effort, you know, money, all the gas, all that type of stuff.

But you guys are also hunters yourselves, and that's, you know, that's probably how Jason and I first got to know you back, you know, in the day when we were, you know, Selling landowner tags, or talking hunting and whatnot. So, tell us a little bit about what really you guys, I mean, you love big mule deer sheds, so it's a given. It's not like you're not gonna wanna hunt them too, but I've heard you love to hunt antelope as well. But tell us what you guys, what do you like to do as far as personal hunts the most? And let's maybe dive into a couple of those hunts.

Well, there again, yeah, it started with chasing big mule deer back in the 80s. Southern Idaho was phenomenal. General season tags ran into November, November 10th, November 13th. So, I had the good fortune of killing some really big deer when I was young, and it was hunting and chasing mule deer when tags weren't bonus points and tags were a lot easier to come by. So, I grew up just total happiness chasing and hunting big mule deer, and same with my brother. And then, as we started, kind of, mule deer started getting tougher and tougher after the 91-92 winter. Mule deer got really tough. A lot of tags in places got cut back. Getting a good tag got really hard. So, me and my brother got really involved in chasing and hunting and doing a crocodile and went crazy at it. I mean, we chased him everywhere. Some of yours, three or four tags apiece from New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho.

We didn't care. If we could acquire an antelope tag, we chased antelope, and we were very successful at harvesting a lot of Boone and Crockett antelope. Love hunting Boone and Crockett antelope. Our boys, we got young boys now, most of them have been successful in killing antelope and killing some big antelope. My brother's boy killed an 84 net pronghorn here a couple years ago, and he's probably one of the biggest that somebody under the age of 15's harvested. So, we just, we really enjoy hunting record book antelope, big elk. We've killed some big elk. Our dad's been fortunate enough to draw some tags in some great units, and we've had the opportunity to hunt and kill some Boone and Crockett elk with our dad. I killed a Boone and Crockett bullock this past hunting season in Idaho. Just had him officially scored. So, just love hunting. Wait, wait, what are you...

Don't just spring that on us like it's just after. I did see the picture of that, but I didn't know it netted. It grossed 399 and 5 8ths. The official measure could not come up with a couple 8ths to get me over the 400 mark, but he ended up netting right at 368 inches. Well, 367 and 6 8ths is what I think his official net was. He had a lot of frame deductions. He had like 16 inches in frame deductions, and he has a 9-inch cheater on him, but just an absolute gorgeous bull I killed here in Southern Idaho. You're working on a- I know you're working on a story for us, right? Oh, yeah. I've been writing it since last fall. It's an unbelievable bull. I don't know, what's the fifth on his right side going? I think it's 20 something. Yeah, he's got a crazy back end. Looks longer than a sword. Yeah, he's got a crazy back end.

So, there's lots of questions that we're going to have to talk to you about after this podcast is over regarding this bull, the tag, you know, the whole situation there that Adam and I want to know. And then, we'll bring it up. Let's bring it up. I'm back in probably about 2000, and I don't know if it was eight or nine, I acquired a deer tag through Adam and went over to Colorado and had a blast. It was a four season hunt. Had to work pretty hard. Didn't have a lot of weather. Had to work around private property. But Adam had given me some great info on the unit, and it worked out, and I killed a buck that gross scored 218 inches with a 202 frame. Yeah, I remember it. I'd been to that unit probably, I don't know, three or four years prior, and that was my first trip there. I got lucky and killed the 200-inch. You're kind of, you know, 2004, 2005 when Colorado was really ripe.

You know, the tag allocation system changed in like 99, 98 or 9, I forget now, to a draw unit by unit, and things just blossomed, you know, as harvest was reduced. And this was a leftover tag unit at the time. I was hunting third season. And anyway, I remember that tag, and I joked about it earlier in the podcast. It still stings a little bit when I see it. But not that I'd have found that deer, but it's like I end up buying the tag for myself. And that was back when you can buy a tag and resell it and whatnot. And I ended up just...had a sheep hunt that just kept lingering on and on. And it was one of those...the writing was on the wall. I've got to go back into the Escalante Desert with this guy, and that's not just something you go do for a quick weekend hunt. No. And so I remember, you know, unloading it to you. You took it off my hands, and so I had to go take care of that.

And then you killed an awesome, awesome buck. Inline 5x5. Wasn't it one of your best bucks? Yeah, I've killed some whiter deer, but as far as just absolute stud buck, palmated, just a beautiful buck. It was a fun hunt. Me and my brother were able to go over, you know, three or four days early, and then scout it hard, and learn new country, and had just a great hunt. It's just, you know, I've hunted Colorado for 20 years, basically, and it was just one of those hunts that everything fell together just the way it should. Not only did we kill a giant buck, we just had a great time, had a great experience.

Well, and Adam and I have teased ever since about this hunter that he had to take, and that whole, I don't know, if you've ever been out in the Esclany Desert when it feels like it's negative 40, you know, those deserts can get really cold, and that sandstone, and he's chipping away at ice trying to get water. I mean, it kicked his butt from the time you killed that buck all the way through basically to Christmas. Yeah. We killed a ram like December 17th. I mean, it was just one of those hunts that- It was a grind. Yeah, the hunter would end up, he missed rams every time, and just kind of ended up going that way. And the writing was on the wall after every trip in there. I'm gonna have to come back, and I'm not gonna be able to go to Colorado. David, take this tag, it's yours, and do good things with it. And he did.

Well, you know, I think to me, personally, yeah, some of my most memorable hunts have kind of ended up that way. Oh, yeah. Just short, kind of short notice, didn't have, you know, it seems like some of the times when I've had all, I killed a really big record book antelope in Wyoming one year. And I, it took me 17 days of scouting before I finally found it. Wow. And it literally, the night, I actually threw up the night before the hunt. I couldn't sleep weeks before the hunt. I look back at it and think, wow, how tough. And, you know, I mean, yeah, I do. I love it. I mean, it's one of my favorite bucks, but it was tough on me. And now I look back at some of these ones that things just kind of seem to fall together. This elk tag I had this year kind of fell into my lap short notice, and I was able to go and have a great elk hunt there again.

The morning I found the big bull, my 13-year-old son was with me, and my brother was able to come out with me that night and kill it with me that night. And we were able to take our boys out the next day, and we had to backpack him out. So, some of those things just kind of, I look at things with a lot different perspective than I used to. And so, it's funny how we get a little older, how we think about things, and we evolve. But it's all getting out there and enjoying it with friends, family, and that's what we're hoping shed towards, And what we're able to do with you guys down at the Expo is just everybody have a good time and come and see something. Kind of like getting to go to Colorado and seeing a giant buck will come to the Expo and you're going to see a 360-inch set of beautiful mule deer sheds. Yeah, it's going to be pretty amazing.

Well, we kind of wanted to get you on the line. I know you've got to go. We just kind of wanted to introduce you guys, basically let the world know what's going to be in our booth, both you guys and us as well. Anyway, just talk about a few things. Just let people kind of get to know you a little bit. Know that you guys are hardcore hunters. You're out there doing it. There's a lot more than just selling optics. We can come talk about hunting and all kinds of great stuff, and so we're really looking forward to it. I know everybody I've talked to, there's a lot of serious hardcore hunters, but, you know, mule deer hunters especially, that are way looking forward to coming and wasting a lot of time at your booth.

Well, and that's what we're hoping. If you're a mule deer enthusiast, and you love mule deer sheds, and you love really big mule deer sheds, hey, just come, have a good time, ask us questions about them. We'll have quite a few, some really big singles, like the Lopez, but Kyle Lopez killed that giant non-typical. We've got the single off of him from the year before. It scores 145 inches. Just an absolutely gorgeous shed. So, you know, come, ask us to look at a couple of those. If you've got questions about them, feel free to ask, and if it works out, we'll grab them, and they can even hold them and look at them. Yeah, and we deal with Kyle a little bit over there, guiding hunters and stuff, so he'll probably be over there fondling that deer shed, too.

Yeah, I'm not even sure he's actually seen the shed, to be honest. I don't know for sure that he's actually ever seen the shed antler off of it. Wow, that's crazy. That'll be interesting if he makes it here, and he can look at it, so yeah. Wow. I know Jeff's there in the room. Of course, we were having a little complications with the audio up there. Wanted to introduce him as well, but we didn't get to. We'll have plenty of time. We'll do more podcasts with you guys as we continue our relationship with you. I just wanted a little shout out to Jeff. I know he's right there. Let everybody know. Yeah, he's sitting right here by me smiling the whole time. Both you and Jeff will be there at the expo and have a lot to contribute. Yeah, we'll be there the whole time. Hey, we want to thank you guys too for inviting us.

We couldn't ask to be with a better group of guys. We're looking forward to it. We're a little nervous about it. Just that's our first time, but I think we're prepared. I don't think we're gonna come down unprepared, but we want to thank you guys at Epic Outdoors. We've been doing business with you guys and known you guys for years, and we look forward to being down there next week with you guys. Yeah, that sounds great. So, yeah, we appreciate you guys doing that, and appreciate you spending some time with us today. I think it'll cut to the chase, get people more excited to come see what What you got, that's kind of what this was, maybe a teaser. You guys have huge wealth of information when it comes to, you know, optics, what's best for people, their setup and all that. So, invite everybody to come to the Expo and talk with Jeff and David and their crew.

Yeah, we'll have some other guys there with us that know as much about long range shooting, long range hunting, doing it ethically, doing it smart. At least how to set your rifle up. You know, it's up to a customer to decide what they're setting the gun up for. But we'll do our very, very best to help them set it up correctly. So, yeah. Right on. Well, we sure appreciate you guys. We're packing the trailer as we speak. That's what we're heading to do this afternoon, get the trailer and get it packing. Okay, sounds good, guys. We'll see you next week. Thank you, guys. You bet.