EP 64: Getting More Tags in Your Pocket with The Epic Outdoors Crew

There's just no reason guys shouldn't be getting tags. Maybe you don't have a lot of points, maybe you're waiting for something awesome. What can you do this year? There's a lot of deer tags down there. If you just want opportunity deer hunts with multiple weapons. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter here along with the Epic Outdoors crew. Just got done working on the magazine all night. And we're right here, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed here this morning. So, anyway, we just thought, well, heck, man, we started talking about all the tags and what's going on here in the office and what we've got planned and stuff. And so, anyway, we just thought maybe we would start a podcast. Talk about getting tags and talk about some of these over-the-counter, easy-to-draw, awesome opportunities. There's just no reason guys shouldn't be getting tags one way or another. So, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast and everything else we do.

And, as well as Outdoor Edge Knives. Outdoor Edge Knives is on board with us. Of course, we've got, some of you have seen some of the private label stuff. We've got etched Outdoor Edge Knives coming in bulk. We do have a few here in the office, but they are coming in bulk. And we're kind of excited about that. Really excited, actually. So, it'll be a promotional item here later on this fall. So, anyway, as we get started here, of course, we're right in the middle of the draw process. There's just freaking tags and statistics and everything going every which way. Plans being made. Everybody's planning stuff. We got Jeff going to the Great White North, Jason going to the Land Down Under, not literally, but you know, he's going south. Not the Thunder Down Under. I wasn't thinking that. I must have missed something. What's this Land Down Under stuff?

No, just, we're covering it all, Western North America. That's what we were trying to convey, but we were talking, it seems like we get calls, or we hear other people talking about, oh, hunting sucks, you can't get tags anywhere, you know, everything's a draw, blah, blah, blah, and there is some truth to that in a lot of the cases of the West, but depending on how much you have time to do, you could have more tags to fill up your schedule than you're going to have time. That's the case for us.

More tags. Yeah, we can't have... More tags than you can use. And we can hunt, we can do justice. And yeah, not all of them are Henry Mountains or San Juan Elk tags, you know, those just come around when they come around. Yeah. But yeah, let's rally through some of the states. Yeah, so in between some of getting some of these awesome wazoo, crazy awesome tags, like an Arizona Strip or sheep or goat or moose or whatever, there's a lot of things you can be doing. And that's what kind of what we wanted to talk about this morning is things that you can do. When you're just starting out, maybe you don't have a lot of points, maybe you're waiting for something awesome, what can you do this year? Like, what can you do now? And can I only do one, or can I do multiple? How many opportunities are there available? So, we

just wanted to kind of talk about that. Arizona has over-the-counter deer tags. You can hunt in August, you can hunt in January. 95% of the state, you know, except for strip and kaibab, those areas are drawn, a couple of other exceptions, but 95% of the state is open. Yep, and so, and you can get a tag now, you can only kill one deer a year, but anyway, if you were to hunt, let's say you hunted January 2018, a couple months ago. You hunted archery, you went down there, you hunted coos deer, you didn't kill one. You can still draw a tag this fall and kill a deer this fall. With a rifle, yeah. Let's say you bought an over-the-counter tag in January, you killed a deer with a bow, got lucky, awesome hunt. You cannot kill one this fall. You'd be applying for points only.

So, anyway, but you can go. If you want to go, you can hunt some of the most premier coos deer units over the counter with a bow during the rut. So, anyway, tons of opportunities there. Same thing with Idaho. You can get over-the-counter deer tags in Idaho. And elk. And elk tags. Rifle and archery elk. Rifle and archery deer. That's right. They do have non-resident quotas. Some of them fill up for elk. Like Diamond Creek Zone's full for this year. It filled up, I think, December 14th. But, it's a first-come, first-served, non-resident quota. You can do that if you want to do that. A lot of areas you still buy tags right now that aren't in a sub-quota, they're just in the non-resident, lumped sum of non-resident elk tags. That's right. They come out of that. Same with deer. Deer have a quota, but it's so high, I mean, I don't remember when it's even been sold out.

It's sold out after the season started last year. And we can get a second tag of the residents that aren't filled up. So, you can get a second over-the-counter tag as non-residents. And so, you know, whitetails over-the-counter, mule deer over-the-counter, have at it. There's some limited entry units, obviously. Same kind of principles here in Utah, same principle in Wyoming. Some areas are more managed for a general status, not trophy status per se, but there's still some trophy bucks being taken And in lesser managed, quote, areas. So, anyway, so you can kill great bucks. There was great bucks taken in Idaho. There's great bucks taken on our, quote, general units here in Utah. And our general units here in Utah are easy to draw. Two-point system, one for the limited entry, one for the general. And you can get them both.

And you can draw the general fairly regular, even from a non-resident perspective, especially if you're well-versed in all the weapon types. Same thing with the dedicated hunter we've talked about. Easy to draw. Really easy. About a 40% draw on some of the even higher demand general areas here in Utah with zero points. And so, they do have points for the dedicated hunter. Just saying, there's a lot of opportunities for that, you know, here in the state of Utah as well. Montana, general deer and elk tags. The combo up there is like 90-91%. You get a general season deer and elk tag, good for both the archery and the rifle season in the majority, let's just say, of the state. You know, all of western Montana, with a few exceptions, is where the general season elk units occur. And so, if you have plenty of time, you got a six-week archery season, about a five-week rifle season, super liberal.

Now, yeah, some of the units you've got issues with wilderness and access, but there's a lot that you don't. You can do self-guided, go just research something, go learn it. We're going to do some of that this year as well as Idaho, just for the sake of learning something, because you need to line your schedule with things like this when you don't draw everything through the draw that's premier. Montana's a great opportunity. Deadlines coming right up. No. And we had a guy kill a 375 inch bull on a general Montana tag. Doesn't feel like he can do it every year. Felt like he got lucky. But at the same time, they're out there. So, these opportunities exist. Same thing with Colorado. We beat Colorado to death. So, I don't want to talk about it like way too much, but it's something we fill a lot of questions on every single day.

Maybe 20 calls apiece on Colorado every single day. Colorado has a lot of second and third choice type opportunities for guys to draw. We have stories in our magazines from guys that are killing big bucks on second or third choice hunts in the state of Colorado. If you draw those, you can still gain a point. So, in theory, I'm not calling them over the counter, but they're like an over the counter opportunity. All five of us here have killed bucks on units that take, at the time we drew them, zero to two points to draw that are 190 plus bucks. Yes. Every one of us. That's right. I mean, and multiple, most of the time. So, even though they're second- Jeff, 175. Let's just throw it out there. John, you hunted 63. I've hunted 35, 18. Not even hunt a big buck in 18. Yeah, 43s and all these weird ones. Bronson kills a 200-incher.

So, it's just, and even now, not having to just get a second choice, there's tags, the zero to two point unit options are endless. You know, you can go every year to every other year easily on units that, hey, have great genetics. If you get the right weather combination, you might have as good a hunt as somebody in a six to ten point unit if you get the right weather and snow combination. I've talked to a lot of members that have hunted units that aren't even on our radar. Stuff that's, you know, with one point guarantees you a draw. So, obviously, it's best if you're well-versed in any weapon type. If you're an archery hunter, you're gonna draw a lot quicker than rifle hunters, quote, quicker. There's still, like I say, we've been talking about a lot of rifle opportunities that are basically over-the-counter second and third choice. Depending

on the state we're talking about, Oregon, tons of over-the-counter opportunities. Not maybe It's definitely one of our go-to states, although we've had friends that have gone up there and done fairly well considering the state. But, you know, you can get over-the-counter opportunities for guys who like to go to Oregon or live close to Oregon. Say you're in Washington or something like that. Kansas, you can get tags for whitetails. They're generally 90% draw, 90 plus percent draw, if not 100, depending on the unit, in the state of Kansas for whitetails.

You can go when you want to go. We do recommend for guys maybe get one point, just have one point for the year that you want to go to make sure you're gonna get drawn on the year you want to go. You can't just get a mule deer tag when you want to get one. You do have to apply for those mule deer stamps, and they are fairly tough to draw. Generally, you know, just gonna shoot from the hip 20 percent-ish. But anyway, awesome opportunities. You can go when you want to go. So, what are you grinning about, Bronson? Just watching you go. All right, I'm done. It's your turn. How about it? You know, I think that's a pretty good wrap. You know, when you start to get to other states, like, you know, New Mexico, you know, there's some forced draw stuff down there with deer outside of the top handful of units. But, you know, they are draw tags in New Mexico, but there's a lot of deer tags down there.

If you just want opportunity deer hunts with multiple weapons, whether it be mule deer or coos, archery, muzzleloader, stuff in the central or southern part of the state, they're easy to get. And we realize that not all of them have great trophy potential, but our whole, I guess, reason for bringing this up is sometimes the draws and the drawing odds can get people down and discouraged, like, this is terrible. And for some people, if you're way on the East Coast or whatever, if you're even out West and you have a real busy job and leaving work is time and money out of your life to go do an average hunt, that's probably not something you're always looking to do. But these are all just maybe things for you to keep in mind that one year when you know you're not going to have anything, or even if it's mid-summer and you think about some

Some of these things like the Idaho or the Arizona. Keep them all in mind because things change, schedules change, and all of a sudden you weren't thinking you could go hunting, and now you're like, I wish I had applied for something instead of points only all year long. Well, here's some options for you. That's exactly right. So, another thing I want to talk about real quick is the guide draws within the state of Nevada as well as New Mexico, and it may be too late. Time you guys hear this for the state of Nevada as far as the guide draw for deer. But the odds are two to four times better in the guide draw for rifle deer hunters than they are in the regular main draw. So, yeah, you cannot, you know, there's no archery hunts to apply for. There's no muzzle hunter to apply for. But if you're a rifle hunter and you're going to go guided, just apply in that guide draw.

It is so much easier. And when you start looking at what the drawing odds are, they're brutal in the main draw, Especially compared to the guide draw. Yes, especially sneak peek this year to our April magazine, which we're working on right now. Finally, through a lot of requests and all that, the all five choices has been made readily available that depicts Nevada applicant choices one through five. It's a pretty sobering reflection of how hard Nevada tags are to get. So, for deer, definitely keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. It's gonna increase your odds dramatically, especially if you're gonna book somebody to begin with. Where are you going? You're reaching for resources and stuff here? No, I'm just grabbing a thought. Epic Magazine, makes me feel at home. I was gonna talk about the New Mexico Guide Draw real quick.

The Guide Draw in New Mexico is an unbelievable opportunity for guys that are gonna go guide it. The drawing odds are incredible, a lot easier than the main draw. You do have to be contracted with your guy, Whatever guy of choice that you want to use. So, it's kind of nice to find a guy that's versatile in multiple species because it just makes it easy to put in with one guy and several different species. And we've got that. So, if you need any of that, feel free to call us. But whether it's mule deer, elk, all different seasons, unlike Nevada, all different seasons within the different species, everything has a guide draw or guided odds, quote, guided tags, You know, within the state of New Mexico, residents and non-residents can apply in that draw, but generally speaking, as it would be in any state, the non-residents are the ones that are going guided, you know, for the most part.

So, tags, I mean, literally, before we really get into, I want to go through each of your schedules, I want you to tell me what tags are falling out of your pocket at the moment. It just feels like we are so jammed, and we haven't even scratched the surface on getting draw results. Like, it is barely starting. The opportunities are endless. And so, Bronson and I have been talking, so I wanted to hear from Jeff and John and Chris. What's up, guys? Oh, man. Well, that is kind of the name of the game for me for years. Like, you know, I wanted to make sure. My schedule was so jammed up every fall. Basically, when it came to having an opportunity to go hunt, I just wanted to be able to know that I had a tag. Like, two years ago, before I started here or anything, between me and my oldest boy, we had seven different mule deer tags.

So, it was just like, and I realized you can't do seven mule deer tags. True justice. But with my schedule, I was just too busy all the time that when I got a break, I wanted to go. I wanted to leave and go hunting. And so, you know, I loaded my tag, my pocket with tags, I guess you could say. And so, when that time came, I always had a hunt open. You know what I mean? Between me and my boys, I mean, it was basically, we could fill almost every single day between mid-August and, I don't know, a week into November, finishing up with Colorado. But, yeah, this year it looks like I'm going to be probably do, I'm going to try out some general Montana stuff, which is going to be fun. Yeah. I'm going to have the, I got my caribou hunt coming up. I'm going to have, so basically, archery is going to be tough this year, so I'm not applying for any archery anywhere. Strictly going...

Just because of that caribou hunt in September is going to conflict with archery dates. You're gonna crash the archery dates. You know, because of the lengthy Montana archery out dates, you'll hunt there even later, even October. But I still got to practice with my bow, because, you know, might do something, you know, of course, the Montana stuff, but then also my bear tag, you know. Oh, yeah. Got a bear tag in Utah after 13 years. About that. Those of you that are listening to this thinking, a bear tag for 13 points. I know. I know.

It's terrible. You're right. Okay, we agree with that. You're right. Yes, it's true. Absolutely true. We also apply for turkeys here. Yes, we do. I have turkey points. But, you know, I will have, I mean, I think I've missed maybe one year in the past, I don't know, 15 years, 13 years of hunting Colorado. I've either bought a landowner tag or a, you know, just a cheap landowner tag, just an opportunity to see something, you know what I mean? Or I try to draw a tag nearly every year. So, I very seldom miss Colorado. Not sure I might miss it this year. I don't know. Just depends. I really got to make my decision on that. But there's opportunities. I'll put money on that right now, and I'll say, no, you'll be there someday. Yeah, I'll probably be there. I'll take that bet.

I'll probably be there. It's hard to miss it, just because you get these zip codes, you know, that you can get these tags in. Jeff's like a kid in a candy store. Oh, man. He just looks around, he's like, I want, I want, oh, I can only choose one. You know? And then I buy two, and I only get to go on one. And then he ends up in Wyoming, and you don't want 28 without it. There you go. That's true. Looking at lots of dinks running. So. Now, dink is a relative term, Jason. You know, a lot of guys would be looking at 170 bucks, thinking, wow, this place is amazing. Now, granted. Were they 170? The better ones. The better ones were 170.

Oh, yeah. So, in and amongst, Jeff, I must say, you did draw a Henry's Deer tag randomly. Randomly. You did draw a Rocky Mountain tag in Utah randomly. Yes. So, you had your fair share of luck. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and you know, when you're looking at it, you know, I was only two years behind what the Max guys were drawing in Utah for deer, but that equated to over eight years, and possibly, if everybody jumped over, it could have been 12 years before I got that tag. Oh, yeah. So, even though you're that close, It's random. You're clean living will get you tagged once in a while. Yeah, I know. Ain't living clean. Come clean, Jeff. You ain't living clean. Well, you know, the monster in front of me kind of tells a little bit more than it should. So, all right. And so, you've got a lot of opportunities. You're cranking. You're going to do a drop camp in Alaska.

You're going to be up in Montana with the rest of everybody that's going to be up there. Yes. And that's not even starting with my kids. You know, my kids are going to be doing, you know, general tags in Utah, Idaho. And my wife really told me I gotta limit their hunts this year. Really? Come on. Oh, she's crushing us. Father-son time. What? Family time? Oh, I know. Jeff, you're not playing it right. Let me... I know. Yeah. Your wife and my wife are sisters. Yes. I'm gonna have a talk with you. Yeah. Do it. Let's see how that goes. Good luck with that. I'm scared of her. He's pleading with you. He's pleading with you, get me two more weeks in the mouth. Yes, two more weeks with my boys would be awesome. Just tell me what's in it for me, because...

It's quite a nerve-wracking experience. You're gonna have a busy fall with your boys too, with Colton. Oh, I know. That's the thing, and like last year, my kids had more tags than they could use. More tags, like school and everything else, I mean, literally tags went unused. And this year, it'll be the same way. I mean, Justin's gonna have a general tag here in Utah. Hopefully, they get a tag or two in Nevada. We're definitely playing those odds really heavy. They've just got plans. We're gonna be doing Idaho, gonna be doing

Colton's already drawn an elk tag in Wyoming. That was a six points. And a Utah Antelope at the Expo. Utah Antelope at the Expo right here behind the house. Like, I mean, I'm starting to worry about my own, honey. Yeah, quite frankly. Keep the pedal down. My youngest just turned 12, and it's the first year that I put in, and I realized I could have five deer tags in a five-day time period for Utah General. If they all draw five tags, what am I going to do? You're going to have to try to kill one or two. I'm going to fill it in the freezer, John. Which is great with the kids. It's not high stress. They're just having fun. You know, I don't know about the high stress, John, because I saw an Instagram post of you basically getting in a fist fight with another individual that wanted you to shoot over his head.

Yes, he did want me to shoot over his head. Word to the wise. If you see me on a point, don't set up right under me. You're like, I guess you just want me to shit over your head, huh? He's like, well, don't shoot over my head. Oh, dude. That's a whole other podcast. You got three kids, John, hunting age this year, so that factors in. I'm the same. Jason's the same. Oh, yeah. Jeff, John, you got two. What about your kids, Adam? What are you going to do with your kids? Utah General, I should be able to get that again, but yeah, just debating now. I do have some activity on a credit card for Arizona. The problem is, I got five of us on my card, so I have no idea it can be archery. Me again? I don't think so. But it's probably, I'm banking on it being one of my kids, a late rifle hunt. You know, kids don't have a lot of points, and so not that selective.

I have brand new hunters, haven't killed an elk, and one of my kids has killed a cow elk. So, whatever it is, it will be probably their first bull, if that's what it ends up being. So, that should have somebody excited. Kids are already fighting, as if they can control who gets it. It's mine. I tell them it's done already. You've got one kid mentoring another kid. Yeah, and if it's my wife, they're all fighting over who gets the mender tag from her because that's how she's willing to play the game there. So, anyway, so that'll factor in, but you know, Colorado, I'm weighing out that pretty heavy right now. Like Jason alluded, balancing out my schedule, knowing that they already are going to have Utah general tags. And so, they'll have a deer hunt here, but I'd like to get them, you know, they're talking about antelopes,

Maybe we'll do a Wyoming, can wait on that one until later in the year, end of May, see what they do or don't have anywhere else, and plan a three-day weekend to go do that. So, but no, it's, and they're a lot of fun. Yeah, and time is limited. Seems like, I don't know, when we were kids, well, and we couldn't even hunt until we were 14 to 15 in some states. So, but now when they're hunting at 10 and 12 in every state, and I don't know, I don't want to say there was a lack of emphasis on school when we were kids, but there's way more now. Our kids miss an afternoon, and it feels like they're two weeks behind in school. I don't know why it seems that way, but it just feels that way. It sure doesn't seem like they're learning more than we learned. I know that. Well, have you ever had them bring your math homework to you? Yeah, I just saw, I look at it like, that's Chinese.

Might as well be. Go visit your mom. So, they're learning stuff, but you're right. They're doing it between sports and just extracurricular stuff and everything, life. Kids are busy, but getting them on a couple of different hunts is pretty important because that's when you hook them. That's when you get them, and they're asking about it. I mean, they're involved every year. I mean, I know Jason's kids and Jeff too. You know, it becomes a lot of fun. It's a big deal to them. John, I know this year being maybe your daughter and your youngest son, both first year of applying. Yeah. So, yeah, they're looking forward to it. And you want to get them on some hunts so that they want to keep going with that. One thing about our license application service we do with a lot of guys, we also apply their kids.

And any kid that's under 18, we do for a hundred bucks, as long as their parent, guardian, or whatever is applying as well. And so, anyway, there's a lot of kid hunts, per se. There's hunts in Arizona, in large part, not the bull hunts. For elk, they're generally antlerless, but they do have some deer hunts, buck hunts. They're for youth only, and same thing with New Mexico. New Mexico's a phenomenal state, lots of kid opportunities, kid-only seasons, October 6th type stuff, stuff that's before the adult season. And so, they have opportunities to kill freaking giants. I remember Sean had him in New Mexico. We were hunting on a 370 plus inch bull, and I'm freaking out. He's got a muzzler. We got the ultimate muzzler, everything. How old was he at the time? I don't... Young. 10 or 12. I mean, well, there's no age limit. As long as you have a hunter, you're good. I mean, he's young.

It was his first big game animal, an elk. And so, anyway, we're down there, and we're all set up, Anyway, I've got that ultimate, and I just didn't have the bolt all the way down. It was partially down, and he just squeezes the trigger, and it was pop, nothing. And I'm like, you're kidding me. And it was just a small dent in the primer. That particular, it had to be all the way down. I put it all the way down, it gives you a little bigger dent, a little bit closer. Just puts the firing pin just a little bit closer. Freaking didn't get that bull. Ended up killing a bull. But anyway, great opportunity for kids, whether it be elk or deer, even sheep opportunities for kids alone, and the guided pool works for kids. So, if you're going to go guided anyway because you're a non-resident and you're going to hire a guide or whatever for your kids hunt, you should be applying the guide draw.

Some of the best deer and elk seasons in the state are for kids in New Mexico. That makes me jealous. Handicapped kids. New Mexico really does play, let's call it playing favorites. Yeah, well, they are. It's good, you know, for all species. They've got something for oryx and ibex and sheep and all of them. All species, antelope, everything's got it. Yeah, and we ate tags, antelope tags, everything. There's just not enough time, and kids can only do so much, and you don't know what you're going to draw, so you kind of play it heavy, and all of a sudden, you're like, whoa. Got a little intense. I got a lot of mail right there. I don't know where it's all going to be used. So, anyway, great opportunities. You know, Nevada changed their fees as far as You know, we always had to buy that expensive hunting license for kids to gain points, which I've been doing.

You put five of you in, there's a thousand bucks. Yeah, it was a grand a year. I mean, you're just like, you know, how important is it? And so, we did it. New this year. It's cheap, dirt cheap to apply them and get them points and start them on that process. So, anyway, same thing with Arizona, cheap to get them points. You might as well be doing it. Buy a dollar license instead of 160. Unbelievable. So, you know, Idaho, great state for that too. Reduced price license and reduced price permits if the parent has one of the same species, buys one of the same species, kids can get a reduced price one. And they've got youth-only hunts for deer that are really good. The elk, I believe most all of them are at unless it's up there as well. But the deer are awesome. My boy drew one of those. He drew one of those last year.

It was during the regular season. Yeah, it's a regular hunt, just a subset of tags. Here's 500 for adults, and here's 100 for youth only. So, the odds are a lot better for youth tags. You even got it on that secondary draw. Yeah. So, you know, it's great. And, you know, killed a great buck. Got up there, learned a unit, had fun. Killed a great buck. Made a long shot? Yeah, seven. He doesn't let me forget it, but, you know. I'm a better shot, my man. Yeah, technically, it's farther than what I've shot a deer.

But, whatever. He'll be listening to this podcast. Don't give him more power. Finally got Dad to admit it. Thanks for bringing that up, Jeff. Appreciate it. So, anyway, just, you know, before we get cranking too much further, I do want to, you know, a little shout out to Hilleberg. Hilleberg's been with us for a long time since inception of Epic Outdoors. The Hilleberg Tents, the Tent Maker, they are awesome. The first great tents we ever had were Hilleberg's. You could just roll them out on tundra, and you wouldn't even get wet inside. It was monumental. It felt like a major discovery back then. It's just awesome to work with some of these companies like Hilleberg, and they're so passionate about one thing, and tents. You can talk to her for hours about tents, and she can tell you about the right way to set it up and the wrong way to set it up.

She sees your pictures, and she's like, that's the wrong way to set it up. That podcast was great. That one we did with Heather. What she doesn't understand is, you know, you get in at midnight, there's rocks everywhere, you can't just set it up perfectly and make everything taunt and tight, you know what I mean? So, it is what it is. But it is nice, and a lot of our sponsors have been with us since the get-go. I mean, we started up and they're on board immediately. And so, I mean, that's a really good way to support us, support the podcast. Go check out our sponsors, visit their websites, tell them we sent you, and it goes a long ways. Yeah, so if you do like talking about tents, call them up. We're good friends with the people there at Hilleberg Petra. They're awesome. You can go to hilleberg.com, check them out, or you can give them a call at 866-848-8368.

Tell Petra we sent you, and if you're going to do something like Jeff is, which is a drop camp for caribou and anything else that he can kill that he might have a tag in his pocket for, He's gonna need a four-season tent, not a little Kmart, Walmart tent. Yeah, Jeffrey, have you told your wife about some of these expenditures that are coming up? No, but she warned me. She pre-warned me that there was gonna be extra expenses. I'm like, oh, it won't be that bad. And then I started adding up. I'm like, it's gonna be bad. Spread it out over time. So, start buying now. Even though our wives are sisters, I don't want them playing too close together. Because if your wife affects my wife, which affects my hunting and my expenditures, I'm going to have a problem with you, Jeff. I tell you, though, there are benefits, there are some great benefits of a guy like Jason being your brother-in-law.

Because, you know, when he's been gone for how many months, weeks, whatever. You can always tell your wife, you could have it worse. You could have it worse. Yeah, I'm going for two weeks, Jason's been gone for six. I'm hard to complain. Yeah. And now, guess what? She can't say, well, it's all just for fun, Jeff, because you work here, Jeff. That's true. You work here. That's true. I don't know if she sees it the same way. Yeah, but anyway. So, anyway, I don't know. Is there anything else we wanted to talk about? I think we need to hear from Chris. He's always the sly one around the office. Never quite sure what he's got up his sleeve, what he's working on. That Utah application went in without a word to any. Utah was pretty uneventful because I know I'm not gonna draw anything. I mean, I got dedicated, so I'm gonna go on that. That's my one hunt that I'm definitely gonna do.

I've been toying around with a bunch of stuff. I still don't know exactly because there's nothing that I know that I'm gonna draw at this point. I could draw a Colorado elk. The ones I really do I do want to go on, only require one to two points, and I've got ten. So, I'm trying to figure out, okay, well, do I just go this year and then start going on these ones that I really want to go on with one to two points? I've been on some deer hunts in the past where I've seen really nice bulls in Colorado, and they're one to two point units. That's where I want to go, but I've got ten points. So, I'm trying to figure out, I've got to get that off my plate. I may figure out how to do that this year. But I've just been looking at options on that. There's so many different things you can do. I've been just crunching odds and looking. Maybe there's a chance in some obscure unit

where I can have an elk tag and a deer tag in the same unit, so I can scout and get all that done for elk and deer. Yeah, he brought in some weird ones yesterday for us. There was some stuff in left field. You know, archery deer or something, wasn't it? Yeah. I came, brought it, and I'm like, whoa! The gears are turning in that other office over there. Some of that stuff getting brought my way. Thing going through stuff. Just trying to figure out, you know, there's just so many options, and it's worth taking a little bit of time to see what the possibilities are. Well, right now, you get a couple of early states like Wyoming elk out of the way. Boom, you get results back quick. All right, that one, I can plan around it.

Now, we're in the core right now, this six-week period where it feels like 75% of the states are all coming due, and you've got, you know, no idea what you're going to draw within those states. So, that's exactly right. So, that's exactly right. It's a lot of fun. We keep on planning, and then all of a sudden, you're just like, whoa, between a, you know, you're doing a sheep hunt, I'm doing a brown bear hunt, and then we, then you add on, you know, like Jeff's, you know, caribou hunt. So, you've got a couple, you do that, and then pretty soon, you add on a kid tag or two, and then you just start. Pretty soon, you're busy. You're fucked. And so, the one thing about Chris, if you ever... Do you remember being in high school?

Can't wait for this. Do you ever remember being in high school, and your dad wanted you to go hunting, and really, you wanted to kind of stay home because the cute girls were back at school and everything? Chris isn't married, and sometimes I'm like, I'm not sure he's ready to get out of the house yet, because he ain't married. We're ready to get out of the house and go on, right? Chris, he's like, I don't know if there's some cute girls back at home. I could do a date here and a date there. How important are these points anyway? The thing that's more accurate is I live out of the house. I'm never home. Like, I'm constantly doing something. If it's not hunting with somebody else, then I'm gonna be... He's a stray cat. And hunt with him. He's got a gal backpacking Wyoming for a bear in four feet of snow. How was that? It sucked. This is false advertising.

Well, on that note, you find out if they're gonna stick with you on the second hunt after you take on one of them like that. There you go. That's right. You weed them out pretty quick. All right. Well, that's about it. We just wanted to kind of do a quick podcast as far as just, you know, there's just a lot of opportunities out there. There's a ton of things you can do about anything, and you know, yeah, you're not going to be hunting the Henry Mountains every time, and yeah, there are guys with 20, 23 plus points in Colorado wondering what to do. Those are good problems to have. They're really good problems to have. I used to have a good friend of mine be like, you know, it's just terrible. I gotta pay a grundle of taxes. I'm like, well, how much? And it was tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds, you know, like a wealthy guy.

I'm like, well, that means you made a lot of money. You know, and so anyway, that's kind of the way it is here. There are a lot of opportunities in the hunting world, especially Western Big Game. So, anyway, that's about it. You guys have anything else? One of the things I want to highlight is don't be afraid to go on a lesser quality hunt. Don't be afraid to fail. Go learn something. I mean, I've killed actually my best buck on a unit I knew nothing about. At the time, it was an unknown unit, but just go out and learn stuff. Don't be afraid to go somewhere and fail. Just take it as a learning experience. Get out, hunt, and you may find a hidden gem or something like that. I mean, like Utah, for instance, it's the general. It's not known to be that great, but it is close to home for us.

So, somewhere you can go and spend a lot of time and put in the time, that's where you're going to be successful. So, if you live in Idaho, get out in Idaho on maybe a lesser tag. Just spend time. Just spend some time. But don't be afraid to get out there. That's the thing. One thing I'd also add too is in the last 10 to 15 years, there's hunts that I've rode off that are now good again within a 10 or 15 year period. And so, all of a sudden, I'm quick going there, whether it's Colorado or looking at it and, you know, Utah general units or something like that that were terrible. Just the stars realign. Some of these units come and go. You get a bunch of years of good moisture, a bunch of fawn crops, and four or five years later, there's a lot of bucks to be had again.

And we're seeing that. Colorado, we're seeing some of that. As we've talked about, there's a lot of good in Colorado right now. Not as much elite great units, but not as many of those. But there's some units that really took it in the shorts that are starting to get okay, pretty good again. Lots of big bucks coming out of them. That's 100% right, and I agree with you. I want to reiterate what you guys are talking about is things change, you know. Units, areas, regions, whatever. We've seen some major change in the last 15 years, whether it be like when I was hunting sheep here in Utah on my desert hunt, dang lucky to kill 160 in shrimp, dang lucky. Now, they're killing them, somewhat regular. Units that weren't good before are now really good. 160s and 170s.

With Nevada genetics, Nevada transplant, a few things like that. Burns, some of these elk units, Adam-127 burned off, you know, some of these burns in Nevada. There's just, things change, things become awesome, they kind of cycle a bit, and we're seeing that. And we're writing about that in the publication, and it creates opportunities. It creates opportunities for guys that do like to trophy hunt and do want to try to maximize their tags. And so, and I really liked what you guys were saying about don't be afraid to fail. We are going to have some podcasts in the future on, let's say, you know, I got a tag, I've never been there. How do you guys go about making the most of that tag? How do you start? How do you finish? What do you do, you know, to help yourself out? And so, we're going to discuss those. Probably with maybe some specific tags that we have here in the next couple months.

Maybe we'll take some specific tags we've got and say, hey, how are you approaching your Montana General, Jeff, or, you know, Idaho Generals, or Colorado Easy, whatever, something you've never been to. We realized a lot of people can get either overwhelmed or a little bit intimidated where to start. I've got this tag. It's an X around a couple highways and a mountain range. And how to really digest and break it down and find out where you should start looking for the specific season you're going to be there for. We have had a few requests for, you know, like that, like I was saying, from start to finish, starting up something new, and just going out and doing it.

We've also maybe had a few requests for guys to just slow it down a minute, teach me a little bit more, and especially from guys that may be a little bit intimidated to call Adam or I or Jeff and visit with us about some of their draw strategies, thinking their questions are dumb. I want you to know there's no question that's dumb. Just call us and visit with us, and let's get you started on a program or any particular tags that you have. We love talking about that kind of stuff. And like I say, in the next few podcasts we'll do, not maybe just the next few, but in the next short amount of time, we will have a few podcasts on how we do it. We've hunted. We're going to hunt new units this year. Everything we've done was new to us at one point in our life. And you just got to venture out and do it. And you do eat a lot of tags. And it is not so fun at times.

But at the same time, there's a lot of reward that comes from it. You know, a lot of satisfaction of going out See a new country and making it happen. And as long as your expectations are somewhat reasonable, you're going to have a good time no matter what. Well, that's one of the great things about these tags that are more available to get is you can get more than one tag, go with a buddy, and share that experience. Sometimes, even if you're not successful, you know, you have a great time. I remember a hunt with Kurt where we both had tags. He shot a 190-inch buck, and that was the only four-point we saw the whole time, but it was an awesome time. You know, I didn't shoot one. It's still lots and lots of fun. Some of these hunts you're talking about here, too, you don't have the pressure riding on you for 10 to 20 years of points that

I've got to milk every degree of enjoyment, trophy quality, everything out of this tag, you know. We have some tags like that that naturally are going to feel pressure. Sheep tags or elite deer and elk tags, they're going to come with that. It's self-imposed sometimes expectations. Sometimes we let our hunting buddies or whoever else kind of dictate, well, you ought to be able to kill a .380 on that hunt, and you're like, do you really realize how hard a .380 bull is to kill? And how many have you killed? Yeah, that's right. So, you know, but a lot of these is, you know, you're gonna have to. The reality of hunting the West is there's a lot of opportunities still out there that you can hunt regularly. And yeah, you're not always gonna hit a home run, but you're gonna learn stuff, you're gonna hit one now and then,

And that's just part of a hunting schedule as far as we're concerned. Eating tags and having stuff. Every year we go on a hunt or two that is just, I wish we had to just save that week off my life. But we've also hit home runs on, you know, stuff where we didn't expect to do it. Jason's done that on a couple elk units in New Mexico. We've done that in deer in Colorado. Sometimes stuff just happens. And it's not going to happen if you only wait for a great tag to come across your, you know, mailbox. It's not going to happen that often.

You know, I'm going to put in a little plug for the service here. That kind of sets us apart a little bit. You know, most podcasts, can you ever call in and talk to the hosts about a specific unit or a specific idea that you're bouncing around in your head? Well, I'll tell you with ours, if you're a member, call in. Or if you're not a member, get joined up, call in. You can talk to Jason and Adam about these. You can talk to me a little bit, you know. Just whatever works. But I will put that plug in for us that you might be listening to this, thinking, man, I wish I knew a little bit more about that Idaho thing, or that Colorado thing, or whatever. We expect members to call us. We expect guys to call us and talk to us about this stuff. So, don't think that it's just an invisible voice somewhere. You guys can call us and chat with us about this stuff.

I mean, that is what our service entails. Yeah, and if you're looking for a hunt, that's guaranteed tag. Email Jeff at hunts at epicoutdoors.com. Hunts at epicoutdoors.com. I do, as we're wrapping up here, I do want to also thank another advertiser of ours, O. Mark Thompson of Thompson Long Range. Anyway, awesome guys, him and his boy Scotty Thompson, they're awesome guys. Anyway, we did give a Thompson Long Range rifle away at the Expo. We bought it and gave it away at the Expo, and just appreciate them. We've talked to them many times. He swears he can have your gun in one week with a couple boxes of shells, and you can shoot as far as you dare to shoot. And so, anyway, we did have a guy that drew a couple of tags, didn't even own a rifle. He was a bird hunter. He was a waterfowl hunter. It's true. It's so awesome.

Last year. And I told him, hey, call Thompson and get a gun. It's the most affordable gun that can actually shoot any kind of yardage, whether it be 500. You need to have a gun that can shoot. And Mark did the job for him, and he went out and he freaking killed some deer and elk both. So, on tags, we drew him in the license app service. He's like, I want to go this year. Boom, got him two tags. And so, anyway, great guys, very affordable. Not all these guns are eight to ten grand. Very, very affordable. Super guys to work with, and they're using a reputable rifle, a Weatherby, in many different calibers. Yeah, you ought to go out and check out, on our YouTube channel, Jeff went up and went through his course, and there's a ton of information. Even if you're not in the market or not looking at that rifle specifically, there's a ton of information there on long range shooting,

on setting up rifles. So, just go to youtube.com and search Epic Outdoors, go to our channel, scroll through there, find the Thompson Long Range videos on there, tons of information. So, yep, I went through Mark's course. You know, it was the first time I ever shot a thousand yards with Mark Thompson, and a gun I had that I got from him. So, anyway, don't believe everything he tells you. You know, he does like to throw a few little pointers and tidbits out there about people here in the office, and it's just not true. So, but anyway, ThompsonLongRange.com, 435-713-4248. So, appreciate them and their support of Epic.

Anyway, that about wraps it up for today, boys. I just wanted to, you know, of course, we get on a rant. We're here in the office sometimes. Been here since, I don't know, 1.32, trying to crank out statistics and write in the magazine, and we're all very actively involved in this next April issue. And so then everybody comes in the office and get a break, and we start ranting about something, and we jump in the podcast room and just thought we'd throw a few ideas out there for guys that are looking for something to do without burning a ton of points. That's all I had to say. How about you, boys? Over and out. Bye.