EP 65: Record Book Sheep and Moose in Colorado with Mike Duplan. In this episode of The Epic Outdoors Podcast we talk with Mike Duplan about Sheep, Moose, and Elk hunting in Colorado. Mike has been involved in several of the current World Record animals in Sheep and Moose. We talk about those hunts and what it took to make them happen. This episode will help you learn more about applying in Colorado and preparing for your future hunts.
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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You can imagine hunting for a month and backpacking trips and having it finally come together. It was,
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Tell us about some of these big old, bold boots.
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There’s no point system for the desert sheet for non-residents. You can only have one pack.
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Anything to do with Western big Games.
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Welcome
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To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Hey everybody. Jason Carter here and Adam Bronson with the Epic Outdoors Podcast. Got a pretty awesome guest on with us here. Again, we don’t do doubles or at least we haven’t for a while. But anyway, we do have Mike do plan on with us. We talked about a lot of the different species within Colorado, but really honed in on mule deer last time quite a bit. And anyway, today we’re gonna kind of go over a lot of sheep and moose and, and a little bit on goat elk, antelope, maybe some more mule deer, of course, ’cause we all like mule deer. But anyway, super excited to dive into this. He’s got a lot of experience over there when in regards to sheep and a moose, and he’s one of them rare guys that just absolutely lives for moose, you know, as well as sheep and deer too. So anyway, before we get started, I’d like to thank Under Armour for sponsoring these podcasts, all that we’re doing here at Epic. Appreciate them and their support and from there we will see if we can get any. Mike, you on.
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Good morning gentlemen.
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How’s it going over there?
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Oh, it’s going good. Just had a little accident with the coffee in the microwave. I didn’t know coffee could actually blow up. Ooh, mine good. And wow
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In a mug and it just shattered or what?
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It just blew up all over the inside. The mug. The mug stayed intact, but it was the equivalent of trying to reheat a can of rer beans in the microwave. You know, those can just blow up no way. And make a mug. And I don’t know how this cup of coffee did it, but I spent the last 10 minutes cleaning the microwave so that
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My side. What did you, what did you do? Just trying to liven up some coffee from yesterday or two or three days ago, or what are you doing?
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No, just from this morning and I figured I’d get a little caffeine on board to keep up with you guys. So,
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Well, I don’t know if you can keep up with monsters, but hey,
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I saw that case of white monsters on the counter of the kitchen there at your
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Office. There was, there was five cases and they’re gone.
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It’s pretty humbling when that happens because that, that’s probably, you know, how many gallons that is? We,
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Well, all we know Mike is, we have a tropical smoothie here in Utah. I don’t know if you guys have those, but anyway, they make like a little shake that’s called antioxidant, yada, yada yada. It just makes us feel a little bit better when we mix Monster with tropical smoothies.
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I’m addicted to the purple monster.
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I’m Oh, those are good white.
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Yeah,
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Yeah, it’s got kind of the artsy fartsy light purple can, it’s kind of textured like the white one is. It’s kind of, oh yeah, it feels good in your hand.
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Ultraviolet is the
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Name of it. Ultraviolet. That’s the one.
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So, all right, as we get started here, I just wanna let everybody know this is Adam Bronson, his voice is a little messed up. Got a little too excited at his boys’ ballgame, so, nah,
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I don’t know what it was.
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You sound like crowd.
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Just I’m, I’m, I’m feeling good. I sound way worse than I feel, so how’s that?
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It’s good, it’s good stuff. So, well, how’s things going? How’s the first off, how’s the weather over there? How are you guys faring this winter?
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You know, the skiers are crying their eyes out, but anybody that’s a deer hunter is probably gonna be happy because it’s been the mildest winter and well over a decade. Yeah, decade and a half, probably since the winter of 2001, 2002. But 2002 is when we had all the forest fires and the summer drought, so, you know, that’s not very exciting on that end. But we’re, we still have more snow than we had that year. So yeah,
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We’ve got, we’ve had a little rain out here and of course every time it even looks like it’s gonna rain. We’re on in telecast, checking the radar current, hitting the live animation, trying to see anything we can see.
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Yeah, if I turn on my windshield wipers on my truck, I tell Jason about, Hey, I had to turn my wipers today ain’t enough to me to turn on my wipers.
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Yeah, we looked at each other yesterday it started hitting us pretty good and I’m like, well that put on an extra basal point on four or five deer.
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Yeah, I don’t think the drought affects the deer out here in Colorado as much as the desert climbs for sure. So yeah.
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Yeah, we’re, we’re definitely, you know, limited Yeah. To, to rain and snow and everything else, but, alright, well cool. I guess another kind of little interesting topic you guys got what’s, what’s up with the shed band? They’re not letting people pick up calcium on the ground or what’s the deal?
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Yeah, it’s kind of interesting because this is such a mild winter, you know, shed, hunters would have very little impact at all. And it’s kind of ironic that it happened to take place the year the ban is implemented. But last year was a pretty rough winter in a lot of places and we’ve had oh three or four pretty rough winters in the last 10 or 10 years here. And shed hunting’s just become so popular that I, I guess, you know, we make our own bed and you know, people were overdoing it in places and creating too much impact and, you know, it’s too bad that there has to be a blanket policy statewide west of I 25 as opposed to, you know, it being a little more surgical and you know, putting it in place in some of the winter areas that really require some protection such as Gunnison Basin and the Eagle Valley.
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And up here where I live in Middle Park, it’s, but I will say it’s made a, an impact already that I can see that’s noticeable just driving to crumbling the other day early in the morning. There’s deer in places down close to the highway that typically they’re not even in there right now because they just get bumped up from shed hunters and it’s become, you know, truly the last three, four or five years, it’s just become incredibly popular with people. So Geez, you, I think it follows social media and you know, the glamorization of it all, so, oh,
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You know, yeah. Browntown,
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Something had to be done, I think.
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White Town Browntown. Yeah,
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Chalk town. Chalk
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Down. Chalk down
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Peak cho town.
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Yeah.
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Well that’s it. Gate
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Town too.
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What’s the, so what are they gonna do to a guy if they catch him shit hunting, they gonna take away his gun or what are they gonna do to him, do you know?
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No, they take away your birthday. You don’t have your birthday the following year. Oh
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No, I, I, I read up that on it actually a little bit the other day and apparently there’s a $137 fine involved, but I think they can tack on some extra charges depending on how, how much you mouth off to ’em when they pull you over for collecting shit. So yeah, unfortunately I saw something on social media about somebody getting a $300 fine ticket and because there was a elk shed with a radio transmitter that was on the side of the road and somebody picked it up and took it home and then the no clue c p w showed up at their house. And I, I think I’m a little skeptical on that right now, but we’ll see
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What did that really happen? Like that you mean?
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Oh yeah, yeah. So
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That’s hilarious. Could you imagine game, how
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Did not notice a radio transport? Well
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It, they can inject this little forward in there, I guess.
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Put a little bondo over the hole.
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They inject the little tiny
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Yeah, g p s tracker I guess would be. Yeah. You know, probably the, but you know, the, the amount of effort and geez, that it would take to, you know, try to bust some
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Tap somebody through a 18
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Old kid driving around out there in his Toyota pickup and doesn’t seem worth it.
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Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious. Well that’s kind of like doing these decoys, you know, you throw up a decoy and have a guy shoot a headlights, you know, from the road or whatever, how they try to set a guy up, I guess. Yeah, that’s kind of a good idea. If they didn’t do it, it’s kind of a good idea if you threw something on a fence, you know, say like, just hanging off a fence, great big old 350 inch bull or something, who’s not gonna take it?
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That’s so unfair for some poor
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Teenage kid. It’s,
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It’s
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Not Mike’s role just have $200 bills just flapping in the wind out. They’re tied to a balloon and see if somebody goes and picks it up.
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Oh gee, I wonder if they could sell the shed to pay for the fine. I don’t know. Oh, that’s hilarious. Well,
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They did that. Speaking of that, you know, Jason, we, Nevada did the same thing.
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I know. So Nevada, they, they, they banned shed hunting until May 1st and they did it like within the legislature, but they did it and it was like that day all of a sudden they come out on social media and tell everybody they can’t, shed hunt. And it’s only within certain counties, which is what’s hilarious about it. And they have no winner in Nevada per se, like on the
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Driest state in the
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Nation. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, it, it is a, to me it just feels like, and, and I could be totally wrong, it feels like just a social law, you know what I mean? Yeah. It’s just, we just don’t want Utah guys over here crushing our sheds. That’s what it feels like.
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Yeah. There’s, I I I would not disagree with you at all. There’s a piling on effect and you know, I believe there’s an altruistic reason behind all of it by the state biologists that they do want to have some protection for some of these animals on their winter range, but they, which they actually do need.
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They do.
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Yeah. But it’s, you know, last, last year I remember telling my wife after driving up to Kremlin a few times, just, you know, every parking spot had a different pickup truck in it every day, you know, throughout April and, and in March even and you know, the guys were getting earlier and earlier and I remember pulling over and watching a buck last year and there was a guy up on this point and he was barking and howling like a coyote and trying to get these deer to spook and run. And I was just like, really kidding.
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That would be some funny video to watch. Like if you could video the guy just, oh geez. Trying to make quote, natural sounding predator sounds to alarm deer to get him toto up the mountain and drop their sheds or whatever. Yeah, exactly.
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Sometimes we’ll do that to get something to move or stand up, you know, so we can shoot ’em. But I don’t think, I never thought about that with sheds. So, so
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Let’s, so let’s see what happens. May 1st with, you know, one thing I think it’d be neat is if they made shed hunters wear blaze orange, so we can see how many there actually are out
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There. Oh,
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Out there on May 1st.
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Oh, that’s hilarious. That’d be a good idea. Yeah,
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I haven’t followed call it out. Or is it like at 8:00 AM or is it like 1201 midnight
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Unison’s got a time closure specifically for a sage grouse mating season. So to protect them in the morning when they’re doing their dances and yeah, so there’s that. I think it’s 10:00 AM or something like that. But as far as I know, there wasn’t a time restriction anywhere else. Oh
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No. Well let’s talk about something that doesn’t shed, let’s talk about sheep. How’s that? That’s,
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I love talking about sheep. Yeah. Either
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That or we could talk about your pretty little Toyota that got crushed the other day.
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Oh,
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Oh
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Yeah, yeah.
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Is
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That still a true shop? What did you do?
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Did you, did, were you running a deer down trying to get him to drop his antler? Or what did
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You do? Yeah, yeah, something like that. Just tooling down a county road and one just came boiling out of the ditch that it’s one of those that just, you had no choice. It just happened so fast. I didn’t even get to tap the brakes or jerk the steering wheel or anything. It was just boom instant. And all those plastic parts on the front of a tundra just absolutely explode when you hit a deer at 40, so.
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Oh yeah. Geez man, that was a nice looking truck there for a minute.
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Yeah, it’ll be good looking again in about a month. So,
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But
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Fortunately it didn’t push in the radiator or anything, so all that’s intact driving
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Drive it home.
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Yeah,
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Like to take a quick break and give a shout out to Ken Trek for sponsoring this podcast. They make some incredible boots and do a great job. And so anyway, if you’re getting ready for some extreme hunt or just need a new set of boots, give ’em a try. They’ve got summertime type boots, they’ve got sheep hunting type boots, they’ve got about anything you need for any kind of condition you’re gonna be in. So anyway, you can learn [email protected], that’s k e n e t r e k.com. Or you can call ’em at +1 800-232-6064. Give ’em a try. We’d like to thank the guys at Kings Cam all for sponsoring the podcast as well. They’ve got the X K G line layering system, L 1, 2, 3, 4, and five. And so anyway, they’ve got a couple of different camel patterns. Super good guys. Anyway, you might try kings camel.com/x kg dasher or call ’em at (877) 705-2266.
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Well, Liz, Adam was talking about maybe we’ll dive into some of these sheep. We know you’ve been, you know, spending a lot of time following specific Rams killing, helping guys, killing specific rams of big rams. I know you’re really good friends with Vic Clark and of course he killed a great rim and, and you helped him a lot on that as far as, you know, just where to go and what to do. And just because you’re right in the middle of it. And so, you know, with that application deadline coming up here April 3rd and you know, kind of the absence of people having to front the fees, at least from a non-resident perspective, you know, there’s definitely a lot more interest gonna gonna occur there and people applying. And so, you know, maybe start us off with, you know, your affiliation with sheep and, and kind of how you got going. I know you’ve killed, you know, a few rams yourself and so I don’t know, just started off with that.
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Yeah, I drew my first tag in 2000 in, in S nine down the Sanger de Cristos and, you know, I put in for that unit specifically just ’cause I wanted to go sheep hunting and I knew it was the easiest draw in the state for the most part. And I had high hopes of killing a 180 ram, but I was squarely mistaken about, well
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Back then there was the, the, I don’t know what’s changed, but those sheep, it was, it, well, a it’s tough country, but it just guys weren’t doing that well clear back then.
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Oh, no, it was a, it was a long process. I spent a fair amount of time scouting and, and you know, it was just a complete learning curve for me on, you know, how to go about it. I talked to sheep hunters and, you know, I backpacked him there on some scouting troops by myself and, and had a guy that, you know, volunteered to go with me. He was a sheep nut from his family’s experience drawing tags down there. His name’s Scott Bromfield and real nice guy just took upon himself to come along and help me out and nice. And so we went into a spot and it was two days before the end of the season and, you know, I think I’d been on multiple backpacking trips and hadn’t had an opportunity yet and had seen rams, but just blew ’em out or never got close or that kind of thing.
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And went into this spot and, and we were just going across this mountainside way up high, well over 12,000 feet. We were, timber lane was quite a ways below us and just going in through some rocky folds and I threw my binoculars up and, and I just saw a ram head and I, I saw the, the circle on the side and in the face and, and I ducked down and we looked back up and we couldn’t see anything I said, and this was like 500 yards away. I said, I, I, Scott, I swear to God I just saw Ram’s head. She said, well, how many did you see? I said, I just saw the head and that’s it, just the head. They’re like, yeah, that’s it. And so we sat there just kinda laying down in the rocks and watching, about five minutes later, a group of Rams started feeding out and there was four of ’em and two solid mature rams.
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One was a broomed off kind of flaring ram that was heavier based. And the other one, the one I took was a really, really a dark ram. I mean, his body was just striking how dark he was and he really stood out and he was seven eights on the strong side. And, you know, I didn’t care anything about score, it was just, you know, two days before the end of the season and Sure. So, you know, I basically started stalking in and just creeping along in the rocks and they’re, you know, doing the, the crab walk and you know, just trying to stay outta sight because they were just a little too far and finally got within range. And then the wind was cranking by then and, and made the shot and it was a little over 400 yards and, and allowed for some wind drift and some cowboy range finding technology
00:16:34:21 –> 00:16:37:22
Back in year 2000. Barely had primers back
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Then. Smack, I mean, just made a,
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When Didion grew up
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12,000 feet too, that’s a little different than Oh
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Yeah.
00:16:46:02 –> 00:16:48:17
You know, shooting down there at the valley floor. Yeah,
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Yeah. And he dropped and I literally, I jumped up on top of this rock and threw my arms in the air and just screamed. I was just so excited. It was yeah, you could imagine hunting for a month and backpacking trips and having it finally come together. Oh yeah.
00:17:04:25 –> 00:17:05:07
That’s
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Pretty, you know, it’s like, it’s, it was a tremendous feeling. And you know, I always, I think about it now, I kind of call it the moment and you know, when you put that much into something and you, and you walk up on that animal and you put your hand on those bases of those rams and it’s just an, it changes you forever. It really does. It’s, it’s made me enjoy sheep hunting and want to go as much as anything out there. It’s just, you know, I’m in the wrong tax bracket to do a lot, so
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Yeah, yeah. Like all of us. So, you know, that’s personally why
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It really fueled the fire in me.
00:17:38:23 –> 00:18:06:19
Yeah. And that’s why, you know, you alluded to it earlier and Ja as Jason did, you, you know, we, we hunt sheep vicariously through friends and others that we get to go with when they draw a tag or win a tag or whatever. And you know, that, that for you, was it, and you know, talking just the Colorado system there, you had to then sit out, but you didn’t, you could jump back in for desert sheep, right, right. Starting the next year. So
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With taking a sheep, you gotta wait five years to put in again. So during that waiting period, we were a few years into our desert sheep management system and, and had a few token tags and so you could put in for desert sheep during your waiting period and well, I think as on year number four or five in the waiting period, and I drew a desert sheep in 2004. Wow. Geez.
00:18:31:11 –> 00:18:34:04
And which one did you draw? Which, which area?
00:18:35:07 –> 00:18:38:20
SS 6 64 down by Cortez and Dolores. Yeah,
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Man, that’s awesome. That’s unbelievable. Yeah. The luck you have is unbelievable.
00:18:44:21 –> 00:18:51:07
Yeah. I can’t say it’s anything but luck right there. That’s just, you know, sheer dumb luck. So Yeah,
00:18:51:12 –> 00:18:52:17
That sure is. It was
00:18:52:17 –> 00:19:25:24
A, I had high hopes of killing a really good ram and, and that area had gone through a die off like the year before and there was very few older age class rams in there at that point. And you know, I basically spent close to a month in there looking at the same sheep over and over and over, and I could never find anything over five years old. So I ended up taking one towards the end of the season was Ram. I passed up a few different times and, and another ram I passed up on opening day because he was standing on the side of the road and I didn’t wanna shoot a sheep on the side of the road.
00:19:26:07 –> 00:19:33:24
Yeah. Is that the one that’s from slick rock down the river towards Paradox, that stretch of the river? Is that where you
00:19:34:00 –> 00:19:38:02
It’s from slick rock back to the south towards McPhee Reservoir.
00:19:38:03 –> 00:19:39:05
Oh, that way, yeah. And
00:19:39:18 –> 00:19:46:25
That other unit was made a a new unit. Yeah. And I think it’s a little further. Yeah. The boundaries are
00:19:47:02 –> 00:19:48:07
Changed since then. A
00:19:48:07 –> 00:19:50:25
Little further north from Slick Rock. But that’s a, a rough idea.
00:19:51:04 –> 00:19:58:12
I know what you’re talking. Yeah. Well, growing up there in Monticello, I back to shed hunting. I used to shed hunt disappointment and all that right over, that’s
00:19:58:12 –> 00:19:59:08
Why the law was made.
00:19:59:20 –> 00:20:02:13
That was in however long ago that was Utah
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Guy
00:20:02:18 –> 00:20:33:20
Coming to Colorado. Well, we couldn’t get enough. Well, at the time, truthfully, we would hunt the heck outta Utah. But then our sh our antler buyers right now there’s an antler buyer on about every other corner. Yeah. In southern Utah. They’re everywhere. But back then there weren’t a lot. Cortez, you know, was antler buyer back then. And so we’d go over there on the day we were gonna go to sell, we’d go hit disappointment and hunt all that country down there and then, you know, swing into Cortez and unload and geez. And drive home with Benjamin’s.
00:20:34:17 –> 00:20:46:17
Well, hey Benjamin, a couple. Yeah. All right. So, all right. So that you killed your desert. What did he, do you remember what he ended up scoring or obviously, like you said, you couldn’t find one of those older rams, but
00:20:47:22 –> 00:20:50:18
I I don’t remember exactly. It was around one 50. Yeah.
00:20:50:20 –> 00:20:51:11
Yeah. So
00:20:51:16 –> 00:20:51:25
I just
00:20:52:17 –> 00:21:02:19
Five, well, 80 desert’s a trophy and there’s just, there is a lot of, it’s, it’s just a, it’s just such a bonus that Colorado even has desert sheep for, you know, the amount of real true desert type habitat you’ve got over there.
00:21:03:17 –> 00:21:13:24
Sure. Yeah. I mean it’s like comparing a, you know, Colorado desert is like a, a Missouri breaks mule deer compared to a Colorado mule deer. I mean there’s
00:21:13:24 –> 00:21:14:01
Right,
00:21:14:05 –> 00:21:22:28
Right. You know, these, they just don’t get that big here in this state. Yeah. And, and I know Adam, Adam Black. Does that sound right, Adam? Yeah. His
00:21:22:28 –> 00:21:23:04
Wife,
00:21:23:14 –> 00:21:26:20
His wife killed a tremendous ram in that unit. Yeah.
00:21:26:23 –> 00:22:01:11
She killed one about four or five years ago. And no, Adam, he’s, he’s from over here in Utah, lives in Cortez now. But yeah, they, they filled, killed a great ram. They’ve killed a couple in that 56 unit at Grand Junction too. When I say bigger, you know, low one seventies, that’s those big desert. She’s giant. Yeah. And they’ve done well. But yeah, for, for the limited habitat you guys have that sand stores, the Utah line, you know, it’s, it’s unique and it’s great. You do have both, there’s no point system for the desert sheep for non-resident. You only have one tag and it rotates ammo units and gotta
00:22:01:11 –> 00:22:02:17
Choose. You can’t apply for both.
00:22:02:20 –> 00:22:19:13
Yeah. And like, like you alluded Mike, most people if you got started, were probably doing Rockies and are invested in a point system and, and stick with that. It’s probably what we’d recommend. The odds are far better than applying for just one tag, especially this year with that one desert tag. That’s right. The odds are gonna go through the roof for non-residents.
00:22:19:21 –> 00:22:29:26
So my absolutely. So did you, so did, I mean, did that obviously got you cranking or I mean, were you helping anybody, guiding anybody? How were you kind of, you know,
00:22:30:05 –> 00:22:31:10
Are you getting a sheep fixed? No,
00:22:31:10 –> 00:22:32:23
That getting your sheep fixed on that?
00:22:33:10 –> 00:23:38:23
At that point I was just, you know, I was trying to get a doll sheep. I ended up going, you know, on a couple of hunts up in Alaska with Steve Johnson and never had a, an opportunity and you know, that was a painful, that’s a painful thing to be sitting at the Anchorage airport after a unsuccessful doll sheep hunt when you have, you know, saved money and, and gone through all that. It’s, that’s probably the hardest part right there. But, you know, it’s, I kept going and finally killed a ram with another outfitter. Oh, 2007. And so that kind of scratched the itch for dol sheep a little bit, just enough to make me understand that I’d want to go about every year. ’cause that to me is the most classic spot in stock true hunting experience that a guy could imagine. I mean, backpack do sheep hunting to me is the pinnacle of North American big game hunting spot in stock. It’s just an incredible experience. Yeah. So that, and then I ended up winning the Colorado statewide raffle in 2009 for Big Horn sheep.
00:23:39:14 –> 00:23:44:06
That’s a good nine year stretch there. Four rounds. Yeah. Three of them in Colorado.
00:23:44:13 –> 00:23:45:08
It’s unbelievable.
00:23:45:17 –> 00:23:49:01
Yeah, three Colorado Rams from 2000 to 2009. So,
00:23:49:09 –> 00:23:54:28
And so tell us a little, I guess we can just might as well dive into the story on that one. I mean, freaking phenomenal Ram
00:23:55:26 –> 00:24:47:12
Oh, good friend of mine had won the raffle the beer before, so I spent some time helping him and just, he ended up taking a ram in, oh, I dunno if it was late, late November, I think down in SS 51 and a nice boon and Crockett Ram, I think it was 180 1, 180 2, something like that. And so I wasn’t actually with him when he got it, but, you know, I spent some time looking at sheep and we talked a lot about the whole experience and, and then when I run the raffle the next year, I had a good source of information. And you know, John’s the kind of guy that does a lot of homework and gathers a lot of information, then he keeps it and organizes it and, and it’s, so I had basically tapped into his information and I, I had another friend that, he’s an older gentleman from Durango area, his name’s George Vandenberg.
00:24:47:12 –> 00:25:31:25
And him and I became friends and, and he is so enamored with sheep. He’s, he’s a pilot also. He just goes up flying and looking at sheep just for the heck of it. Geez. And so that year at the banquet at the dinner, right after I won the tag, I’m sitting at the table with George and he starts telling me about this ram that he saw in 51 from the air that the year before. So this was the year before I’d even won the tag. And yeah. And he just, you know, it was describing this thing and he said it was the most beautiful, beautiful ram he’s ever seen. He, he said, you could just see those, the horns coming all the way around and cranking up. And he said he just looked like he was right out of Alberta. And so he said, you need to hunt for that ram Mike. And I’m like, well, okay.
00:25:32:20 –> 00:25:43:05
So you took your entire page for the next 12 months and put ’em to toward raffle tickets. I wanna know how many tickets you bought, but I won’t ask you.
00:25:44:02 –> 00:25:49:00
I, I drew or I, I bought eight tickets. Oh good. Geez. And I, I won on my number six out of eight.
00:25:49:11 –> 00:25:51:00
Geez. There you go. Alright.
00:25:51:27 –> 00:25:54:23
So anyways, George drew a tag that year too,
00:25:56:02 –> 00:25:57:23
A regular state tag in the same unit,
00:25:57:25 –> 00:26:42:18
Just state tag. And, and it this is interesting is when he was a, a board member for, well, I don’t know if he’s a board member for the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society for, he was on the Wildlife Commission ’cause he, he basically has done both on the State Wildlife Commission, but they introduced sheep back into this unit in north of Durango. And he was partially responsible for reestablishing that herd and they ended up drawing the tag and I think the first year the, the tag became available. And so he’s at the tail end of his sheep hunting career. And, and so I basically said, well, I’m gonna go with you and your sheep on, I’m not even gonna worry about mine for right now. And so I ended up going with George and, and we found one of the original rams that were reintroduced in there as a lamb.
00:26:42:18 –> 00:27:20:19
And he still had an ear tag and I can’t re I think he was number 22 or 21, 1 of that. But at any rate, they winded us and, and George missed. And, and then I had to go home. But George ended up seeing a, another ram later and he thought it was him and he ended up shooting this other ram ’cause he had a red ear tag also. And it, it was a mistake and he killed the wrong one. And, and, but long story short, that Ram ended up getting lion killed later and, and a lion hunter found him a few years later and he was over 180 net still even after laying there for a couple years. Wow.
00:27:20:25 –> 00:27:21:04
Ouch.
00:27:21:11 –> 00:28:02:22
So that would’ve been a tremendous story for George to kind of complete that circle, but it just didn’t work. So then I had another friend draw on SS nine tag the same year, and I went with him on a, a backpack trip into the sand grease and went back to the spot where I killed my ram. We didn’t see anything but it, you know, I was just interested in helping other people that year too. It was just, and I figured, one thing I did is I said that I’m not going to hunt during the regular seasons. I, I figured I had the raffle tag and I can hunt after everybody else was done. And so I, I actually made that promise to myself and, and told it to few others that I was not gonna compete with the statewide tag or the state tag holders.
00:28:03:02 –> 00:28:04:08
Yeah, that’s
00:28:04:08 –> 00:28:10:28
Cool. So I was, I was waiting, so, you know, and I got the kind of scratchy itch by going with a couple other people, so Yeah.
00:28:11:01 –> 00:28:13:19
So did your buddy end up killing M in S nine that year?
00:28:14:10 –> 00:28:19:02
No, he did not. No, that’s, that’s a tough place to find and kill a ram. It’s just,
00:28:19:09 –> 00:28:23:06
The statistics are pretty good on it now. At least the ram sizes, they’re, yeah,
00:28:24:01 –> 00:28:39:01
I think it’s, it shows that some of the guys that are trying to draw that tag or are putting some effort into it, so it’s a really tough unit to hunt because there’s not a lot of water up above Timberline. Yeah. So you’re gonna have pack all your water up high. Geez.
00:28:39:18 –> 00:28:48:08
Well, and it, and I think, you know, as sheep are more prone to this than anything, they can over a 10 year thing, they can go from the highest high to the worst unit in the
00:28:48:08 –> 00:28:49:13
State. Yeah. We’ve seen that a long places and
00:28:49:13 –> 00:28:59:16
I’m not saying that’s happened there, but, but you know what I mean, like, it just feels like 17 years or 18 years ago since you were there. Geez. It could have turned two full circles and come back. Oh yeah,
00:28:59:16 –> 00:29:03:26
They, the, the tag numbers are hald from when I drew a tag and
00:29:04:10 –> 00:29:10:19
Well, and they’ve been saying that some of these backpackers have been displaced and cheap, moving ’em around a little bit and I don’t know, I don’t know, you
00:29:10:19 –> 00:29:25:02
Know. No, that, that happens for sure. ’cause you know, any place where there’s lakes up there, there’s water and, and people backpack to the lakes and almost every lake up there has got a trail head to it. So naturally the backpackers are gonna go to the lakes.
00:29:25:06 –> 00:29:26:26
Are you seeing any big bucks up there? That’s
00:29:27:29 –> 00:29:39:26
And SS nine? Yeah. No, it’s, you know, there’s some nice bucks, but what I consider big I, that would be very, very low on my list of places to go. Really? Yeah.
00:29:40:24 –> 00:29:47:02
All right. Thought we thought we might have had some 35 inch eight by eight triple I guards 35 wide or something, you know.
00:29:47:21 –> 00:29:53:02
No, I mean, if you find out there more power to you, but yeah.
00:29:53:20 –> 00:29:54:05
Alright,
00:29:54:06 –> 00:30:03:16
Back to your, back to the, so November or late October, whenever comes and you’re like, all right, it’s time for me to kill some, get my game on, let’s go.
00:30:03:26 –> 00:30:33:22
Yep. So I started going down to SS 51 and seeing Rams and passing up rams, but never finding the one I really wanted to, to kill. And one of the problems with that unit is, is the spine of the ridge is the border of the unit. So, you know, you can imagine a mountain range where you can only hunt one side of it. And then, then the mountain range on the south end of it is all private. So not only can you hunt just one side of it, but only you can hunt the basically northeast corridor, the whole unit.
00:30:34:07 –> 00:30:38:18
They don’t let hunting mountain range, they don’t let hunting on the private or at least public. Well
00:30:38:18 –> 00:31:57:13
They do if you got a, a checkbook. Yeah. There’s, there’s a, a new big horn sheep access program that they’re allowing these landowners to have some tags. So, okay, so solter, the Hill Ranch, the bacon t I think they’re in the Ranching for Wildlife program, but I think they’re B gap now. Yeah. Also, but they’re all getting tags and they’re able to sell them. So Okay. Same sheep as 51, but you know, they just, you know, sheep obviously don’t know the boundaries, so they just go where they want to go. So yeah. But later on in the year, the rams are smart enough, they stay down onto the private for the most part. But later on in the year when there’s lots of UES up there in public, the Rams will start moving around looking for ues. And, and so I, I kept hoping and waiting and watching and looking and, and finally on December 1st I saw the ram I wanted in and he was on private when I saw him and he walked over onto public and it was a solid a hundred yards over onto public. And at the point I was thinking, it’s too far to go and, and I thought, you’ve been waiting the whole season for this, just go. And so I did. And later that afternoon I snuck around and made the stalk and ended up getting within range and dropped him. So,
00:31:57:19 –> 00:32:02:00
And this was a hundred yard, just a hundred yards, like by fence or whatever you knew he was on public?
00:32:02:04 –> 00:32:05:20
No, it’s, it’s just which way the water drains the spine of the ridge. Okay.
00:32:06:01 –> 00:32:06:10
Yeah.
00:32:06:11 –> 00:32:15:04
So Wow. There’s no, no markings, no fence, no anything, you just have to be cognizant of, of, of how the unit boundary is set
00:32:15:04 –> 00:32:20:02
Up. So you went over there and he, he hadn’t moved much or very little or whatever ended up, oh,
00:32:20:02 –> 00:32:29:08
They laid down all afternoon and then they got up and started feeding and I geez, scooted around them from below and came up around the other side and, and just peeked over a ridge and there they were. So
00:32:29:23 –> 00:32:32:19
Same Ram George, George saw you figure or
00:32:33:11 –> 00:32:57:08
Well, it, it’s, as he described it, I’m not saying there couldn’t be another one like it, but you know, it’s, it’s hard to say, but you know, he, he’s just a scot under 40 inches long and he’s broomed and he comes all the way around and he’s got the, the look that George described. So Oh yeah, he does. It’s possible. It’s, geez, it’s entirely possible that it was, there’s another ram like that in there too. So what
00:32:57:08 –> 00:32:58:13
Did he end up going?
00:32:59:22 –> 00:33:00:12
180 2,
00:33:01:04 –> 00:33:03:02
Man, pretty awesome. What an awesome ram.
00:33:03:08 –> 00:33:37:17
Yeah, he’s, it’s what a, what a tremendous feeling that was to, you know, the, the neat thing about him, he is really atypical for a lot of Colorado big horns. We, we generally have some rams that don’t ever make full curl no matter what. And, and you know, they’re just the kind of the classic Threequarter curl 1 65 rams, that’s a, that’s a pretty typical ram in, in Colorado. And so when you have one that makes a full wrap and, and then some and, and you know, I I think there’s less than 50 big horn sheep that have made Boone and Crock at all time from Colorado. So
00:33:38:06 –> 00:34:10:10
Yeah. What would you, I mean, and I know this is a little bit different, you’re talking about S 51, which for Draw Hunters is a resident only unit, and then obviously you had your, your raffle tag that allowed you to hunt anywhere, you know, that’s right. Later. But you know, from a non-resident perspective, you know, we don’t, I don’t know that you’d really say there’s a bonafide unit you kill a may be in the right year. Yeah. S 33 or 2121, maybe you’d kill a book grand, but really you’re looking at one 60 to 1 75 rams, aren’t you? For the most, most people.
00:34:10:10 –> 00:35:09:17
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just a completely unrealistic expectation for a, you know, in any of the non-resident units to think that you’re gonna go in there and scout and find and kill a, a, a book ram. It’s just Yeah, yeah. You know, those ram those units just don’t produce a lot of Boone and Crock Jeep. You know, I think in 2013 when I helped my buddy Jeff Demsky with his statewide auction tag, he killed a a 33 Ram and, and he was 11 years old and he was right at 180 and it was one of the biggest rams ever to come out of the San Juan mountain range. Yep. Yeah, yeah. Great. I think there’s only one or two big horns netted in the south of the San Juans more than that ram all time. And so the San Juans just don’t produce book sheep for the most, for the most part. So it’s, it’s not an expectation a a non-resident applicant could have. You just hope to kill an old ram. I think that’s, yep. Regardless of score, if you kill a 10 year old ram, you’re
00:35:09:17 –> 00:35:09:20
Doing
00:35:09:20 –> 00:35:10:26
Something, you’ve done something special.
00:35:11:14 –> 00:35:24:29
Yeah. Try to view it like a, like a Wyoming or something. I mean they’re, they do, Wyoming has a lot of sheep in some of the units and they do kill a few book rams, but it’s, for the most part view it the same way mature old Ram, it’s gonna be 1 65,
00:35:25:13 –> 00:35:30:06
We’re like Idaho or you know, just some of these places, not it’s, it is just not Montana.
00:35:31:05 –> 00:35:32:28
Nope. Or New Mexico. Yeah,
00:35:32:28 –> 00:35:39:04
Yeah, exactly. Well, cool. And so what year was that? And then bring us up to date, what you’ve been doing since then.
00:35:39:09 –> 00:36:36:16
2009. And, and so since then, my, my buddy Jeff Demsky and his wife have purchased three different statewide auction tags. So I went along with Jeff on, on all three hunts with me and him and his wife, obviously for the one when she decided that she wanted to be a part of it too. And then, so I was a part of all three of those rams and probably, you know, regardless of anything else, the most exciting one was certainly the one that he got down there in the San Juans just because of, you know, it’s not the highest scoring ram he’s ever killed, but, you know, the degree of difficulty and, and just the country that Ram came from is just so impressive and incredible that, you know, there’s a lot of bonus points for that with, even though they don’t count for anything. So yeah, Jan’s Ram was the one that I had watched for a few years and photographed.
00:36:36:16 –> 00:37:16:11
And so fortunately he was in a place where, you know, he was surrounded by some county open space park land, but there was also a, a private ranch that had a hunting lease to it. And through a friend of a friend, we found out that this ram was spotted by some elk hunters up on the ranch. And so we went up there and we ended up finding him and Jan took him and, and he had a big chunk out of the back of one, one side, but even at that, he still netted 180 3 and he would’ve been 180 5 without the chunk, but without yeah. Just a tremendous old ram. And, and he was 13 years old. It was incredible. That is
00:37:16:11 –> 00:37:16:20
Incredible.
00:37:16:26 –> 00:37:17:28
Get a big horn that age.
00:37:18:18 –> 00:37:20:29
Yeah. So yeah, that is incredible.
00:37:22:12 –> 00:38:12:22
Yeah. So that, that was one in, and then this year, I know the guy that drew the, or bought the state auction tag, Jerry Terrell from Washington State, he had hired an outfitter on the western slope. James, James den thi I might be mispronouncing that. But so they had looked all over for a ram and, and I knew of this other ram in the same area that Jan had taken hers. And, and we’d actually looked for him a few times and with Jeff and when he had his tags and, and this year with Victor Clark, another friend of mine who won the raffle, we looked for this ram, I called him Big Larry. And only because the back years ago when I found these three mature rams together, I called ’em Larry Moen Curly, just simply as a way of telling ’em apart, you know? Yeah.
00:38:13:14 –> 00:39:15:02
So the smallest ram was a tight curled ram, kinda like my sheep. And I called him curly just ’cause he had the most curl and Yeah. And, and Big Larry was a, he was a hammerhead, big old ram and he just seemed to be bigger in the head and body than the rest of them. And yeah. And so there’s no re reason or rhyme for giving him the names, but I just gave him those names. Yeah, sure. And so Curly died of old age and disappeared. I got pictures of him a few years back his last spring and, and I wish I would’ve known where he would’ve disappeared too, but never could turn him up. And so Joe Jan killed Mo and I think that was 2015. And then this year we’d been unable to find Larry every time we’d looked for him. And, and so finally he just happened to be there one day and I called up James, I said, Hey, I don’t know if you guys wanna do this or not, but he’s up on this private ranch and here’s what the landowner charges and if you want to do this, let me know and I’ll, I’d be more than happy to go along with you.
00:39:15:08 –> 00:39:37:24
Sure. So we did and, and a few days later, and we ended up completing that circle too. And, and so, you know, the Larry grew so little the last few years, you know, his age rings were literally as small as you can imagine on a, on a sheep and near as I could tell from photographs. I think he was 15. So, no
00:39:38:04 –> 00:39:40:13
Way. Yeah, it’s unbelievable.
00:39:41:01 –> 00:40:10:10
It truly is. And so, you know, the photographic evidence that I’ve got for a few years back, ’cause I’ve, I’ve been taking pictures of these rams for, you know, 5, 6, 7 years and, and so that’s the best way for me to, you know, tell for sure because looking at the, the rings themselves, but I will, I will give one division of wildlife guy biologist credit. ’cause he, he looked at the ram and, and the one guy age at 11 and one Jerry checked it in and the other guy said, I bet he’s 14 or 15. Wow.
00:40:10:11 –> 00:40:10:23
And so
00:40:11:07 –> 00:40:16:02
It’s not often you have guys go out on a limb like that and put, put a number like that on a sheep. No.
00:40:16:21 –> 00:40:19:19
Yeah. What did that ram end up scoring at 15?
00:40:19:23 –> 00:40:20:17
He was 180 3.
00:40:20:29 –> 00:40:22:04
Wow, that’s awesome.
00:40:23:29 –> 00:40:31:23
And so a little over 39 long, I think he was 39 and a quarter or something like that. And then I spent a lot of time with Victor Clark this year.
00:40:32:14 –> 00:40:36:17
Yeah. He’s a good guy. He drew that raffle tag out there and
00:40:37:13 –> 00:41:01:12
He did, he won the statewide raffle and I called him that night on the phone as soon as they announced his name. And, and geez, I actually called his cell and he didn’t answer. And then I called the house line and he knew the raffle was that night. And, and so he thought I was messing with him when I, when I told him he won. And so that was a, that’s a pretty exciting thing to be able to break Victor the news on that. Yeah.
00:41:01:12 –> 00:41:05:07
That’s one of those things that you don’t mess around with. No. Like you would No,
00:41:05:16 –> 00:41:07:24
No, I don’t, I just, I don’t play those kind of jokes, so
00:41:08:00 –> 00:41:08:28
No. Oh, you do.
00:41:12:18 –> 00:41:22:18
After I left the banquet that night, I, it’s an over an hour and a half driving home to my house and I spent the whole time on the phone with Victor. He just, he was just wound tight that night.
00:41:23:02 –> 00:41:42:29
Well he, he’s the guy, he’s the kind of guy, I mean he is, he’s retired and he can go do some, some things and he loves sheep and he’s the kind of guy, you know, and go over there, rent a house, he’s gonna spend every, everything he’s got on that task. Yes. That’s what was really cool about that. Do you know, I don’t remember how much time he said he spent, but it was, I don’t know, two
00:41:42:29 –> 00:41:43:28
Between travel and hunting,
00:41:44:09 –> 00:41:45:05
Hunting and scouting.
00:41:45:09 –> 00:42:01:16
Yeah. It was 50 something days between travel scouting and hunting. So I was obviously not with him on the travel, but you know, I did math and the time we spent together and it was well over 30 days over the period of oh five months I think. So.
00:42:01:16 –> 00:42:14:01
Well, and he gives you credit for it anytime I talk to him as far as, you know, just would not have been able to really, you know, cover the country and the rams and everything and where to go and all that without, without your help. So,
00:42:14:12 –> 00:43:05:00
Well I wouldn’t be able to do it with, without the job I have. And also an understanding wife that knew how special it was for me to have a friend like that draw it. And, you know, I, I really and thoroughly enjoyed all the time we spent together, you know, it’s, you know, the hunt itself, the, the final part of killing the ram was, you know, that was completing the circle. But, you know, we had so many days and in, in units down all around the state and just spending time up above in the alpine and spotting rams at long distances and getting caught in thunderstorms and all that. And you know, Victor and I became even closer friends after that. It was it. And he appreciated every minute of it. It was, it was truly a rare experience that you get to spend that much time with somebody trying to help them fulfill their dream and, and you know, it was, it was just a great time. So
00:43:05:07 –> 00:43:21:20
What, when you get a tag like that, is there just, you know, three or four units that you’re concentrating on? Is it Rams that you’re looking for from prior years or are you following ’em just, I mean obviously you’re following a few, but you know, kinda like we do mule deer, but how do you, what’s your plan of attack on those? You,
00:43:22:01 –> 00:43:45:06
You just don’t close any information to her. I mean, there’s people that are willing to tell you stuff and, and you know, some people have a tendency to exaggerate and you know, they also don’t know what they’re looking at. They see, you know, they talk about seeing a giant ram that was full curl and you know, there’s, you know, 160 inch rams that are full curl. So most people don’t really have a, a good idea of what they’re looking at. Yeah.
00:43:45:12 –> 00:43:48:12
Haven’t help get able to put their heads on help on any heat. Yeah.
00:43:48:17 –> 00:43:51:25
Curl and a half. Yeah. Right. I saw there’s a curl and a half.
00:43:53:13 –> 00:43:53:18
I mean,
00:43:53:18 –> 00:43:54:17
I’ve heard it, you don’t close any doors.
00:43:55:00 –> 00:44:04:25
I’ve dozens of times cowboys, you know, there’s a curl and hay comes around and comes around again halfway. I mean, yeah. Okay, we’ll go give her lift.
00:44:06:20 –> 00:44:25:11
The most important thing is time though. You know, just like with anything in, in hunting, you gotta have the time and be able to commit the time and, and it’s a difficult thing for, you know, if you won the raffle and you’re, you know, an average Joe Guy with a a 40 hour week job, it’s, that’s gonna be tough. But fortunately you’ve got, you know, five months to do it. So. Yeah.
00:44:26:23 –> 00:44:32:28
Well, and I think Vic, I think there’s that too. And he, he walked away from that ram and went home back to Nevada. Well
00:44:33:17 –> 00:45:47:11
Yeah, that’s a ram I photographed last year and, and so another friend of mine sent me a picture of him and so I knew he was back at that point and it was pre Rutt, you know, the Rams are starting to gather and, and so last year I figured he was, you know, 35, 36 long and, and you know, between 15 and 16 on the base, I I just said didn’t think he was gonna break 16 and you know, I just thought he was a real nice ram in the, in the one seventies and we, we looked at him and, you know, I, I still could not guarantee go over 180. Yeah. And I’m like, you know, I, I think it’s really important, Victor, I I said, there’s no other season right now nobody really to compete with other than the statewide auction hunter. And I, I said that I felt like he should be absolutely positive when he pulls that trigger and that, you know, it’s, I’m okay with whatever he decided to do, but, you know, we were hemming han about it at that point too. And you know, we had some input from some other people and, you know, on what the ram might score and everything. And it’s, you know, it’s not all about score, but you know, I think it’s a good goal to have if you have that tag to, to kill a boon and Crockett net ram. So Yeah. If if he’s not that he better be something else. Yeah.
00:45:47:19 –> 00:45:47:25
So,
00:45:47:29 –> 00:45:55:13
Yeah, so, you know, he, he got home and, and I think he was there for two days and turned around and came back. So I know
00:45:56:01 –> 00:46:09:12
That’s a long drive each way, but Vic Vic’s walked away from a lot of big stuff and he frustrates a few people here and there. He’s will, he’s willing to hold out on, on, I mean, oh yeah, he’ll eat the tag. He’d probably eat that tag if he didn’t see the right ram.
00:46:10:21 –> 00:46:16:25
Yeah, I wouldn’t have let him do that. He said that, I said, that’s not gonna happen, man.
00:46:18:14 –> 00:46:18:23
Yeah.
00:46:19:11 –> 00:46:20:24
I can promise you that’s not gonna happen.
00:46:21:03 –> 00:46:26:29
So he drives, drives home to Nevada, then drives back and the rent’s basically in the same place, isn’t he?
00:46:28:00 –> 00:47:08:22
Roughly, yeah. I mean, within, he’s on the same mountain. Yeah. So not too far away. And Victor Trujillo kicked outta work for a couple days and, and hopped along. And so he came along and filmed it and, and it just so happens that, you know, he, fortunately he wasn’t standing off the side of the road anymore, he’d moved up onto this mountain and I didn’t want it to be too easy. It’s just not supposed to be that way in my mind. Yeah. So he, he, he got up there in this really thick cedar covered mountain with some Doug fur on it, and, and we were watching him and it was in the evening and, and I said, you know, they’re not gonna go anywhere overnight, we just need to make this happen tomorrow. I said, that’s just crazy to want to go up on that mountain right now just before dark and try to kill a ram.
00:47:08:26 –> 00:47:52:06
I said, let’s wait for the morning. So we did. And, and he was, you know, within 50 yards, but they’re in the timber at this point. They’re in and out of some really fixed, deep rocky timber covered stuff. We’d lose him. And he was with a u and he was running her around. And so he, he left the U’S at that point and all of a sudden he’s just moving and, and we lost track of him and all. And then I spotted him going across a rocky chute and, and ran back to tell those guys that I saw him and lost him again. And, and we just watch him for probably 20 minutes and all of a sudden he’s at the very top of the mountain on top of this rock peering down. And he was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen this thing skyline against the blue sky on top of this rock pinnacle.
00:47:52:06 –> 00:48:34:14
And luckily Victor was, was along and he got some video of it, so geez, you know, geez, we’ll always be able to look at that part. But it was just such an incredible sight. And there was some other used bo me, he came down and worked his way into those and a little while later, Victor made the shot. And even at that, I, you know, I thought, man, he’s just right there at 180 and I’m not so sure about it. And yeah, I said, but I, but you know, he’s big enough and you want him, and he is got a dark cape and he’s beautiful and, and so he, he made the shot and the ram tumbled down a little ways and he came to rest with his head facing us and up on a rock. And I was looking at him through the spot ex scope and I thought at that moment, right there at that look, I thought, that’s a 180 5 ram
00:48:35:11 –> 00:48:35:19
Geez.
00:48:36:10 –> 00:48:37:10
And sure enough, and
00:48:37:18 –> 00:48:38:25
Then your night running. Yeah,
00:48:39:02 –> 00:48:39:11
Yeah.
00:48:39:13 –> 00:49:05:23
So he ended up being, I think he was 39 and five eights long and, and over 16 inch bases. And he really fooled us and we kind of figured out finally why it was, and his eye to nose measurement was basically nine inches. And that’s, that’s a pretty long head on a big horn. And so when you have that really long face, long head like that, it’s gonna make their horns look smaller. Fortunately
00:49:05:25 –> 00:49:08:00
They don’t look right. Yep. Yeah. Geez.
00:49:08:16 –> 00:49:12:18
And so mule looking at you straight on, you know? Yeah.
00:49:13:20 –> 00:49:14:07
Unbelievable. So
00:49:14:11 –> 00:49:15:13
That’s awesome. I
00:49:15:26 –> 00:49:33:24
It’s a learning curve and you know, he, he didn’t have a bad angle on ’em either. That’s one thing you, when you’re looking for big sheep, you know, you, their bases, their backs, the side, all of it looked good on, on the mast. And so when you have a ram like that, that doesn’t have a bad look to him at all you know, he is over 16,
00:49:34:13 –> 00:49:34:29
So he ended
00:49:34:29 –> 00:49:39:01
Up being over 16 and over 39. Not quite 40. So 40
00:49:39:01 –> 00:49:43:20
You got Well, all right, when I draw that tag this year, is there anything left?
00:49:45:26 –> 00:49:46:11
Bronson
00:49:47:11 –> 00:49:53:01
Is there are, are all your big rams, Larry Curly Mo is, they’re dead. I mean, Larry
00:49:53:01 –> 00:49:54:06
Curly Mo are all dead at this
00:49:54:24 –> 00:49:56:22
Point’s. What? I mean, is there anything left
00:49:56:22 –> 00:49:58:29
Gonna have to work Broon? Sure. Or should
00:49:58:29 –> 00:50:03:04
I, or should I sit out the raffle? What are you telling me to do here? I normally play.
00:50:03:13 –> 00:50:05:17
You can, you gotta be in it to win it. Alright,
00:50:06:14 –> 00:51:11:13
Like to take a quick break to thank sponsors of this podcast, red Rock Precision. We’ve got their rifles, they’re shooting awesome. They do have the Epic series rifle. It’s a limited edition long range rifle. This sing’s awesome. The four plate of the rifle is engraved with our logo. It’s a numbered series. There’s only 50 of them. And so it’s a first come first serve. So anyway, call these guys at Red Rock or visit ’em on their website. It’s www.redrockprecision.com or you can call ’em (801) 391-7840. I also like to thank Kent’s optics. They’ve got some of the lowest prices I’ve ever seen in, in optics. They’ll definitely work with guys. Really good guys. I can call ’em from the field. They’ll ship stuff out to me. No problem. They’ve got an incredible inventory of optics and so give those guys a call as well. It’s (435) 257-7014 or kents optics.com. Give ’em a chance to earn your business. He won’t be disappointed. Tell us about some of these big old bull moose. Once in a while you throw a photo to us and anyway, how’d
00:51:11:13 –> 00:51:19:16
You get that? You know, most people big love, big mule deer, sheep. That’s, he can’t even keep up with anything else. Well,
00:51:19:20 –> 00:51:25:01
He kills a big, he kills a big deer, walks away, doesn’t hunt him anymore. Then he kills a big ram, walks away
00:51:26:01 –> 00:51:26:17
He kills, wants
00:51:26:17 –> 00:51:30:04
To hunt him some more. He killed three in nine years, now he’s on moose. Nine years. That’s now he’s on moose.
00:51:31:07 –> 00:51:32:00
I dunno, how
00:51:32:00 –> 00:51:33:20
Did that start? Actually, I’m done with moose now. Are
00:51:33:25 –> 00:51:34:05
Are you
00:51:34:23 –> 00:51:35:01
Yeah.
00:51:35:10 –> 00:51:35:17
No.
00:51:35:21 –> 00:51:37:01
Too many moose quarters on your back.
00:51:39:13 –> 00:52:38:06
No, I drew a, I drew a moose tag in 2014 here in the, the county in which I live. And so, you know, I started that day I found out I drew my moose tag. This is one of the craziest parts of this whole story. I took my dog for a walk up this forest service trail, and I’m walking up into this open meadow with a, a band of willows going down the creek bottom. And as I just crested into the, to this meadow kind of going uphill, I saw something ahead underneath these aspens that looked like tin sticking out of the grass. And so the roll of the hill kind of got in the way as you, ’cause I continued to follow the trail, but you know, I saw what looked like antlers to me at about a hundred yards. But I veered off the trail, went over this little hump and here’s two moose antlers laying together right next to me to the wheels, like near, literally on top of each other. Like the bull stood up and the antlers fell off his head on top of each other. And when I say on top of each other, like they were actually on top of each other, either that or some granola head found ’em and stashed
00:52:38:09 –> 00:52:39:23
Em there. See that’s probably what happened.
00:52:40:17 –> 00:52:41:07
Never came back.
00:52:41:20 –> 00:52:45:23
Probably said, I’ll put these in a pile because this is, you know, maybe they thought they couldn’t
00:52:45:23 –> 00:52:47:28
Take ’em. Well maybe it was during the shit hunting. Well, I don’t
00:52:47:28 –> 00:52:57:00
Know. I don’t know. But they were laying there and I took ’em home. So, and long story short, I ended up killing that moose a few months later. Really?
00:52:57:07 –> 00:52:57:13
So,
00:52:58:05 –> 00:53:12:26
Yes. So it was quite the journey along the way though, there’s a lot of moose in this county and a lot of places to look and, and these bulls go up into the, into the high alpine in the summer and they spend their time right on the edge of Timberline. Isn’t
00:53:12:26 –> 00:53:14:02
That crazy? It’s
00:53:14:02 –> 00:53:42:04
Crazy. It’s crazy. And it was really fun spending that summer hiking and exploring all over places. I’d never even been in the, in the county here before. And so it was, you know, along the way I found a moose in my scouting trip that I really wanted that, that was the one I was after. And I found him and then he moved over the continental divide. As soon as he was over the continental divide, he’s into the, the next unit. So he’s ding
00:53:42:11 –> 00:53:45:19
Ridge tops. Seems like they’re a recurring theme with you. I know.
00:53:46:19 –> 00:53:46:28
It’s
00:53:47:26 –> 00:53:48:02
So,
00:53:49:06 –> 00:54:29:06
I spent a lot of time watching this moose. I figured he was over on my side once and maybe he’ll come back over again and No. And watched him all through August and didn’t ha spend a lot of time looking anywhere else because this moose that I found was easily over one 90 and, you know, it was just, you know, as big of a shy risk moose as you can imagine. Yeah. And so I called him Yukon Jack just simply because he looked like a Alaska Yukon moose. Geez. And I ended up never finding him again after he rubbed his, he rubbed his velvet on September 6th and that next day he was gone. And so he had never come back into to my unit.
00:54:29:13 –> 00:54:30:10
Kind of like after
00:54:30:20 –> 00:54:31:14
Elk, after about
00:54:31:27 –> 00:54:38:16
Elk can do, when they get thinking of rutting and drifting where they wanna rutt and where they’ve lived all year long, they’re gone. Yeah.
00:54:39:08 –> 00:55:25:18
So I, I spent over a week looking for him during the season when the season opened and I still had never, never found him. So we got a 14 day rifle season for moose. And when you burn a week and you know, all of a sudden, you know, it’s a, it’s a ticking clock and it’s, yeah. So I think it was on October 9th, I called a friend of mine and I said, and this moose that I found the sheds off of, another guy I knew got a picture of him the year before in cow elk season and in October and I reason since it was October 9th and the rutt was winding down that maybe he goes back to the same spot Yeah. And hangs out post rutt. And when you, when those moose flip a switch, the rutt is over. I mean it is just gone there.
00:55:25:19 –> 00:56:16:07
They’re completely worn out from over a month of walking and rutting. And so we went up into this spot and, and set up and this friend of mine’s drawn four shiru tags in four different states. His name’s Bill McEwen and really good guy. He’s, he’s got moose fever and so he elected to come along and, and so he starts doing a cow elk in heat call right next to this kind of swampy area. And all of a sudden we hear branches breaking and you know, this moose just had gotten up out of his bed and here’s Bill calling and he’s just coming on like he’s on a string and I then I see his antlers and the willows and he’s rocking it back and forth and the the rutting walk posture and comes across the swamp and, and I’m not gonna shoot ’em out in the swamp for obvious reasons. Yeah.
00:56:16:16 –> 00:56:20:05
So, well for maybe for a novice moose hunter, what would that obvious reason be?
00:56:21:11 –> 00:56:24:16
The obvious reason is you don’t don’t want to cut up a moose in a swamp.
00:56:26:01 –> 00:56:26:10
Okay.
00:56:26:17 –> 00:56:29:12
Just needed that said. ’cause some people might be scratching their head,
00:56:29:14 –> 00:56:30:10
You get a blow up bra,
00:56:30:19 –> 00:56:36:13
A swamp, they might be thinking you can wash your blood off off your hands. I mean, they might be thinking that sounds like a good, nice clean place,
00:56:36:17 –> 00:56:41:12
Bro. Don’t shoot a moose in a lake if you can’t help you. You don’t shoot one in a river. You don’t shoot one in a swamp.
00:56:41:21 –> 00:56:41:28
No.
00:56:42:23 –> 00:56:47:06
So you do everything you can not to shoot a moose in a miserable place to
00:56:47:06 –> 00:56:53:29
Cut around if they turn and head towards water, you keep shooting fast. Yes. Geez.
00:56:54:11 –> 00:56:58:11
Get two drivers and have them drive them back. Spin.
00:56:58:15 –> 00:57:45:08
Yeah. So at that point I told Bill to scoot on over to the right and he went over just to, ’cause the moose was coming right at us. And so Bill went back about 30 yards in the trees and kept calling and, and the moose changed direction just enough so he wasn’t coming right at us. I mean they’re, their hearing is so incredible. They just can pinpoint you exactly where you’re at. There’s Yeah, you know, there is nothing at all like a moose’s hearing in my opinion. They, they can hear like no other animal. Hmm. So he, he keeps coming and he is coming right across the swamp. And then he, he comes out of the swamp and he is into the, the lodge pole. And he is gonna come by me at maybe 10, 12 yards. And as he is, I’m like, I’m just gonna shoot him right in the neck and drop him right there. And so I did and, and he turns around and runs back out into the swamp.
00:57:45:27 –> 00:57:46:20
Come on.
00:57:48:11 –> 00:57:51:05
Whatcha using? Whatcha using? It’s
00:57:51:06 –> 00:57:51:11
Probably a
00:57:51:11 –> 00:57:53:29
2 43 45 pound
00:57:53:29 –> 00:57:54:18
5 2 84.
00:57:55:10 –> 00:57:56:20
Oh geez. Wow.
00:57:56:22 –> 00:58:05:19
It doesn’t matter what you got. I mean I was planning on s spining him right there. I mean he is, you know, 25 feet away, I didn’t think, but I probably shot high, you know. Yeah.
00:58:05:21 –> 00:58:06:07
Spine is
00:58:06:14 –> 00:58:06:20
And
00:58:07:01 –> 00:58:09:02
Runs for swamp. Went over the swamp, dies in the swamp.
00:58:09:14 –> 00:58:13:04
Yeah. And then I just shot him again and piled him up right in the swamp, so. Oh
00:58:13:07 –> 00:58:14:22
Geez. So you found out,
00:58:14:22 –> 00:58:17:28
Fortunately it wasn’t in a really big, it was only about a foot deep where we were
00:58:17:28 –> 00:58:36:23
At, so Oh, okay. It wasn’t good. What’s the, what do you think the pros and cons are that archery opening, you know, September 8th versus, you know, muzzle and then, you know, obviously kind of coincides there, but then you got the rifle October 1st. So what do you think the pros and cons are? When do they shedding velvet, things like that?
00:58:37:24 –> 00:58:52:06
Well, Colorado’s moose system is different than any other of their tag draws. So you put in for a unit and a season, whether it’s our tree, muzzle it or moose and they’re just pulling up your name and whatever season you’ve chosen, they give you the tack for. And
00:58:52:06 –> 00:58:56:06
You can trade, you can trade it in after the fact you can for a different season. Yeah.
00:58:56:12 –> 00:59:03:24
Yeah. But, you know, for some reason I think that’ll come to an end at some point. I think, I think they’re just gonna think, well we shouldn’t do that. That’s, that’s just, it
00:59:03:24 –> 00:59:08:11
Is, it’s odd. It is odd. It’s nothing wrong with it, but it is like there’s why did they think of
00:59:08:11 –> 00:59:09:20
That? Yeah, it’s a little little,
00:59:09:25 –> 00:59:25:13
I, I don’t know. I i it’s way I’m skeptical that that’s gonna last forever. Yeah. So maybe it will. But you know, the seasons are tough. You know, archery starts, it doesn’t start with the deer and elk archery season starts, it starts in later in September.
00:59:26:06 –> 00:59:30:12
September. So if it did you, if it did, you could probably hunt those bulls you’ve been watching.
00:59:30:17 –> 00:59:35:20
That’s what I was wondering. You the bull before he goes to ru before he moves, when does he move? You know what I mean? Yeah.
00:59:37:15 –> 00:59:50:29
There’d be some giant bulls killed with archery. There’s, there already has been. But you know, every year guys will pattern bulls and watch ’em and, and all of a sudden, two, three days before the archery season opens, they just disappear.
00:59:51:02 –> 00:59:54:10
Okay. So that’s why you didn’t go archery. I mean you’re figuring they moved Oh
00:59:54:10 –> 01:00:54:05
No, I I I was shooting the bow and hu planning on killing him. Well, no, he, where he was I couldn’t, but I’m assuming he was gonna move around then. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I, it just didn’t work out because for one, he disappeared and number two, he, he was in the wrong unit at that point. Yeah. So I couldn’t hunt that big moose. Okay. But, you know, I, I was shooting a bow, I was ready for it if it happened. And so, you know, I had drawn a rifle tag and my plan was to trade in my, my, my rifle tag for archery if it worked out that way. And, and same thing with muzzle loader, if that came on and, you know, if I ended, even if I ended up finding ’em with only two, three days left in muzzle loader season, I, I would’ve been tempted to run right down there and trade it in. ’cause when you find them, they’re gonna be there usually for just a day or two. Yeah. And so, you know, that’s, it just didn’t work out. But for the hunter to choose, I mean, just because it’s a rifle season doesn’t mean you can’t hunt with a bow. Right. So there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
01:00:54:15 –> 01:01:03:14
Just dates. Just dates. Moose are kind of meant to hunt with a, a bow in a lot of ways. Yeah. You know, and so you just, it’s season dates and differences of moose movements and rutt and
01:01:03:14 –> 01:01:19:12
All that. Yeah. I was just wondering like when it opens September 8th with, with archery equipment versus your, you know, rifle October 1st date, you know, if they’re moving, I mean obviously you found this bull move just prior to September 8th or, or if there’s a date they usually shed shed their velvet and move or,
01:01:20:18 –> 01:01:26:05
Well, the two years in a row, this bull moved on the same exact day, September 6th. Wow. So it’s
01:01:26:10 –> 01:01:26:26
Unbelievable said
01:01:26:27 –> 01:02:18:20
That was, there’s something to be said for that and yeah. Yeah. There’s a, a thing about these moose and, and they’re very much creatures of habit from a calendar standpoint. And, you know, I’ve heard the, the term opat and, and there’s a lot to be said for knowing what they’re gonna do when and how to hunt them at that point. But, you know, this, this season structure is, you know, I would say if you’ve got the time, archery’s probably the best chance of killing a really big bull. But they are moving a lot then. And you know, and you know, we, I’ve I’ve talked about the season structure with the state big game manager Andy Holland. And, and so I, I kind of complained to him about it. I said, I just don’t think it’s the greatest season structure and there’s no reason for these dates to be so short.
01:02:19:08 –> 01:02:50:08
And he says, well if you look at our harvest statistics, guys are only hunting two or three days to fill their moose tags. I said, that’s because they panic. And he says, well what do you mean by that? I says, they draw these tags and they scout moose and they find them and they watch ’em all summer and all of a sudden they disappear. And it’s like at that point you’ve got your once in a life time moose tag and you can’t find the big bulls you’ve been looking for and you don’t want to go home empty handed and people are gonna shoot the first decent moose they see. Yeah. And I still think that’s there’s, that’s what happens more often than not.
01:02:50:09 –> 01:03:11:04
Yeah. It’s more, but, but you know, if you wanna hunt a specific moose that you scout, like we’re kind of programmed that way on our sheep or our deer is that work all summer long, you find, and you wanna, now you’re, you’re got probably a week or maybe 10 days too late of an opening day to really hunt the bull. You watched all summer
01:03:11:19 –> 01:03:13:07
Open the archery in August. Why not
01:03:13:17 –> 01:03:23:01
August 25th? You know what I mean? Seventh or eighth or whenever the regular stuff opens. It’d, it’d probably, it’d be a no-brainer in your mind if they did that, wouldn’t it? What season you would personally want.
01:03:23:01 –> 01:03:24:00
Especially, especially had time to scout.
01:03:24:04 –> 01:03:25:06
Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah,
01:03:25:18 –> 01:03:25:26
Yeah,
01:03:26:01 –> 01:03:40:05
Yeah. And there’s no re no reason to, they could have season dates for different weapons, but you know, for a guy to draw that once in a lifetime tag, if he doesn’t fill his tag in archery season, why can’t he continue to hunt into the rifle field?
01:03:40:06 –> 01:04:03:04
Well, especially if they’re gonna keep this same system of we’re just drawing out of a pool of permits and you know, you’re not gonna exchange it, you know, after a hunt started. ’cause yeah, you got your butt kick with a bow and now you wanna muzzle or they’re not gonna do that. But why it’s all 20 permits issued. We’re planning on 20 dead bulls, we don’t really care how and when here’s, here’s a month, go do it. Yeah.
01:04:03:21 –> 01:04:13:29
Yeah. I think the season should run three months on these because it’s a once in a lifetime tag opportunity. So, you know, there’s Yeah. There’s no reason for it not to be that way.
01:04:13:29 –> 01:04:31:28
You can Well, and there’s always gonna be some big bulls, just the nature of, of the beast. You know what I mean? The thick, thick, thick fricking timber. I mean, it’s, it’s not like mule deer hunt mule deer for three months, you know, even including the rutt. You’re gonna have some, you’re gonna have a problem, you’re gonna kill ’em all. But not, it just doesn’t seem like it’d be the case with the limited tag numbers and whatnot. In Mo
01:04:33:05 –> 01:04:37:25
Montana’s got that season structure where it’s a, a real long season, doesn’t it, for Cyrus?
01:04:37:25 –> 01:04:40:23
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Two and a half months. Yep, it does. Yeah.
01:04:41:01 –> 01:04:49:08
Talk to us a little bit about like, I mean the, the Pope and Young Muzz little world records. I mean, haven’t they come from, from your state?
01:04:50:11 –> 01:05:19:11
Well, that, that was the bull Yukon jack that I had found during my scouting. And so after I, after I killed my moose in my season, I went looking for ’em. And, and then when I was driving up this road to go look for ’em and I come around the corner, there’s two cows standing, literally just off the road, 10 feet. I stop ’em looking at them and they’re looking past me on the other side of the road. And I look out the window on the driver’s side and here’s Yukon jack standing 10 feet off the road coming outta the quake. He’s on the other side.
01:05:19:29 –> 01:05:21:24
How far from where you saw him in the summer in
01:05:21:24 –> 01:05:22:17
The Alpine? Like
01:05:22:17 –> 01:05:24:16
How far, how far, how far did he moved?
01:05:24:21 –> 01:05:25:18
Six, seven air miles.
01:05:26:01 –> 01:05:26:10
Okay.
01:05:26:28 –> 01:05:29:18
And down, like down lower into Yep.
01:05:29:23 –> 01:05:30:08
Yep. Down
01:05:30:15 –> 01:05:32:05
Rock area, bottom spruce,
01:05:32:07 –> 01:05:36:01
Conifer forest, and in a big willow drainage.
01:05:36:28 –> 01:05:38:12
Wow. What’s the chances?
01:05:39:11 –> 01:05:42:13
Yeah. Wow. So I ended up, you
01:05:42:13 –> 01:05:48:04
Know, was that burning off after all the seasons were over? Like, or was it right still at the end of the rifle hunt? When was that?
01:05:49:06 –> 01:05:50:05
It was just mid-October.
01:05:50:13 –> 01:05:50:28
Okay. Yeah.
01:05:52:01 –> 01:06:21:02
So yeah, there was just, I ended up taking about a hundred photos of him that morning and, and so I got some really good stuff on him with my photo gear. And so I told my buddy Bobby, I said, you need to put in for this unit next year. I said that that moose is a giant and, and he’d been putting in for North Park. And so lo and behold he, he draws a one out 80 something odds and he draws the tags.
01:06:21:02 –> 01:06:22:06
Oh geez. How does
01:06:22:25 –> 01:06:26:17
Yeah. Story gets better. Keep going. Well, I
01:06:26:17 –> 01:06:47:00
Told him, I told him that, you know, we’re, we’re hunting for this moose and this moose alone, you’re not killing any other moose. And so that summer we, I, we didn’t start scouting till early August, which is, I think it’s kind of a waste of time until then. So he, we went right back up to where I’d seen him the year before
01:06:47:09 –> 01:06:57:01
And the neighboring unit and that high alpine stuff. Yep. You’re talking the na So he is, we’re scouting in the unit. He doesn’t even have a tag for just seeing how did this bull grow? What does he look like for grow? What’s he look like? Yeah.
01:06:57:18 –> 01:06:58:16
What did he look like?
01:06:58:19 –> 01:07:01:14
Well, that’s what I mean. How did he change? Did he get bigger? Did he shrink
01:07:01:18 –> 01:07:01:29
From the
01:07:02:08 –> 01:07:35:11
Oh yeah. He got a little bit bigger, but he was just so flipping awesome that Yeah. It, it was just absolutely stunning to see that thing. Yeah. We, we stopped and looked into another drainage on the way up there and saw a really nice moose in this other drainage. And Bobby said, I gotta tell you man, if I had a chance at that, it’s, this has been my dream tag. If I had a chance at that moose, I’d probably take him. I’m like, oh no, you’re not. So we looked at that moose for a little bit, went to where I’d seen Yukon Jack the year before. And he’s literally within a hundred yards of where I saw him the year
01:07:35:11 –> 01:07:37:25
Before. Come on off the side of the road. Yep.
01:07:38:11 –> 01:07:40:11
Or is he No. Is he in that alpine willow
01:07:40:23 –> 01:07:43:20
You talking? We, we haven’t moved into the hunt. We’re still up scouting. Yeah.
01:07:44:02 –> 01:08:29:05
All right. So this summer scouting, so we watched him, you know, almost till dark and, you know, took some digi scope pictures. He is well over a mile away and just absolutely stunning what this moose was. And, and so a few days later I had Travis and Troy Scott from Arizona Desert Outfitters. Travis is a concrete guy. So I was building my house and he came up to do my flat work for me in the summer, ’cause I think it was 840 degrees down where he lives. And so I said, well, why don’t we go look for this moose? And, and Bobby came up and the four of us went up there and looked for him again and, and found him again. And those two guys got to see that moose on the hoof and, and it was a pretty neat thing. So we kept watching him and you know, Bobby would go up and check on him every couple days I would too.
01:08:29:07 –> 01:09:20:06
And, and right on September 6th he disappeared again. And, you know, Bobby had his archery tag and, and it was set to open in a couple days and we could not find him the next few days. I said, you need to turn your archery tag in and get the rifle tag. And he could still, he’s, he hunts with a long bow so he could still hunt with a long bow and rifle season. I said, but if we can’t turn this thing up, you know, we might be looking for him for a month. And, but he will show up to where I got his picture last year. Eventually I said, there’s cows down there, he is gonna go down there to Rutt. So we looked all through September and could not find him again. And then October 1st the season started and, and Bobby was looking in a another drainage and he found a, a really a solid 1 75 Boone and Crockett class moose.
01:09:20:06 –> 01:10:02:11
And he passed him up an open on opening day. Hmm. And crazy. And so, you know, the, the amount of fortitude it takes to, to walk away from a moose like that, I mean this, this moose is standing at 30 yards looking at him and he’s a 1 75 to 180 moose. And, and he, he walked away from him. And so I told him, I said, you gotta keep going back to that same spot. I don’t know when he’s gonna be there, but he will be there again. And, and there’s cows in there and I know he is gonna show up. And so he kept spending time and, you know, it was, it was pretty frustrating. We never got to see him. And, and we’re looking and keep going back to the same spot. And you know how that is when you keep going back to the same spot, you feel like kind of my wasting second yourself.
01:10:02:14 –> 01:10:46:18
Yeah. And I told him, I, I don’t know where he goes, but I know he’ll be here. And so I’d gotten off work. It was, I think it was October 9th. So he is only got five days left in the season at that point. That’s stressful. And yeah, he calls me on my cell phone, he says, I think I found him. I said, what do you mean you think you found him? He says, I think it’s him. I’m like, wow. Well it’s either him or it’s not. There’s so many moose that look like that. Wow. He says, I think it’s him. So I met him and climbed upon this rock that overlooked his drainage and sure enough he’s laying out there right in the middle of his drainage in the sun and with three cows, I think a young bull. And so we watched him and I said, well let’s just stay here and watch ’em until the sun hits ’em.
01:10:46:20 –> 01:11:29:16
’cause I think as soon as the sun hits ’em, they’re gonna go into the timber. We can’t make it down there in time right now, but at least we’ll know where they’re going to bed for the day. ’cause it was this swamp area just surrounded by timber. So we did, and, and the sun came up and then they just started milling around and they laid down again. I’m like, oh great. I said, all right, well I’ll stay here and watch ’em. You go down there and get to the edge of the swamp and you get eyes on ’em. As soon as I see you’re down there, I’ll come down too. So half an hour later he’s down there and I see him, he’s on the edge and watching ’em. And, and so at that point I hustled down there and, and I get back there and parked by his truck and he came back to the truck. He goes, they’re just standing out there, they’re not doing anything. I’m like, you took your eyes off him. Why did
01:11:29:16 –> 01:11:30:00
You leave? He goes,
01:11:30:00 –> 01:11:34:17
Yeah, they’re not doing anything. I’m like, you never take
01:11:34:20 –> 01:11:40:00
Your eyes out stood you should have put him straight back down is what you’re thinking. Yeah. Geez.
01:11:40:17 –> 01:12:29:22
So we hustled around the, the other side where we could walk in on ’em and we’re walking in the timber and, and it’s at that point it’s, you know, the harsh shadows of bright sunlight and dark timber. And I look ahead about 75 yards, it looks like a moose standing there looking at us. And I threw up my binoculars and it’s him and he’s just standing there motionless watching us walking in there. And I’m like, holy crap. And he’s walking up this trail. And so I told Bobby, I said, you just stay right here behind this spruce tree and I’m gonna keep walking out at an angle and he is gonna just gonna watch me walk outta sight and then he’ll keep walking up here right past you. And so he did. And I, I took off out there and went into this clearing and I hear the moose just make one single grunt and he starts walking again and he walks literally within about seven yards of Bobby.
01:12:30:17 –> 01:12:31:18
Oh no way.
01:12:31:28 –> 01:12:34:12
He zipped an arrow right into him at that point and
01:12:34:22 –> 01:12:39:04
Still had the bow. He wasn’t, he was killed with the bow. Wow. Awesome. And
01:12:39:05 –> 01:12:49:20
Got him with the long bow and, and he went a little ways and crashed and, and that was it. And that’s the story of the Pope and Young World record. Yeah.
01:12:49:27 –> 01:12:56:00
What are some measurements on that thing for people that know what a big chiru is? Tell us about
01:12:56:00 –> 01:13:16:13
It. 56 wide. He netted officially 1 92, but we had him scored at 1 94. There was one point brow point that was broke off and you know, they measure moose points and, and so we thought it was a point and, and basically the point got denied. So
01:13:16:23 –> 01:13:19:10
’cause it’s wider than it is long type thing. Yeah.
01:13:19:10 –> 01:13:40:14
And it was, it was right on the bubble, but you know. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t really matter. He’s he monster, grossed 1 96, first measurement was a net 1 94 and I think Boone and Crockett had him at 1 94 Net and Pope and Young dropped it to 1 92. Wow. So, which
01:13:41:14 –> 01:13:41:28
Unbelievable.
01:13:42:06 –> 01:13:42:14
Yeah.
01:13:42:29 –> 01:13:48:23
I think Poppen Young has dropped the score on every world record moose that they’ve had gotten their hands on, so
01:13:48:27 –> 01:13:56:22
Yeah. Oh well that’s incredible. Any other crazy moose stories we need to know about? Swamp Swamp
01:13:56:27 –> 01:13:57:12
Donkeys?
01:13:57:21 –> 01:13:58:20
Swamp donkey stories?
01:13:59:13 –> 01:14:05:08
Yeah, the following, you’re another f friend of mine on the fire department, Eric Stoecker won the statewide raffle for most,
01:14:05:19 –> 01:14:06:25
Geez you guys know,
01:14:07:04 –> 01:14:10:02
He ended up getting the muzzle over world record. So
01:14:10:13 –> 01:14:13:04
Was that a bull you knew about at all or? Oh
01:14:13:04 –> 01:15:14:13
Yeah, that, yeah. Yeah. It was a bull. I got a, I got a cell phone pick of this bull that was sent to me and it was just freaking blew me away. I I wouldn’t have thought this bull was a, was actually a Colorado Chi’s bull. But he was, he was big and black and then there was a house with a basketball hoop in the background. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And so that’s the thing about Colorado, you know, there’s, we got a lot of people here and there’s a lot of places where moose live around people and there’s open seasons, so Yeah. Moose aren’t afraid of anything. No. They’re just absolutely not unafraid you guys. So they’ll go in around people and do the thing in towns and everything. They’re, they just grew up without grizzlies and wolves. So they’ve never known fear. They, they, yep. Now there’s an inherent aspect of fear being a prey animal, but Yeah. You know, by the time they get mature, they’re not afraid of anything. ’cause they’ve never had an experience that made ’em afraid. So Yeah. Then I found this woman’s mountain biking blog doing some internet research and I found a picture of this moose on her blog.
01:15:14:14 –> 01:15:15:13
Oh my God. Come on.
01:15:16:14 –> 01:15:16:25
I swear,
01:15:17:02 –> 01:15:21:01
Just admit it. You were stalking her social stalking.
01:15:21:25 –> 01:15:23:24
Yeah, I I can show you the blog and
01:15:24:08 –> 01:15:26:10
I’m just giving you grief. I’m just, yeah. We,
01:15:26:25 –> 01:15:28:22
This woman’s not interested in men. So,
01:15:30:27 –> 01:15:31:22
And anyway,
01:15:31:28 –> 01:15:35:16
Probably, probably is an anti hunter. And she led to the demise of a world
01:15:35:16 –> 01:15:42:26
Record. This is, this is a new way of scouting for moose Mike. We’re dropping some secrets on this podcast. There’s
01:15:42:26 –> 01:16:32:04
A, she just picked, got a picture of a big moose on the side of the road when she was out riding her bike. And I’m like, that’s that moose. Wow. I mean, there’s no doubt in my mind. Wow. And so when Eric won the tag, you know, he’d, I told him, I said, you need to hunt for this moose and this moose alone. I mean, this thing is an absolute giant, I think it’s bigger than Bobby’s moose. And so he, he basically dedicated himself to trying to take that moose. And, and so an interesting thing is, a couple years before that picture was taken, when I was doing my scouting, I still had this email from a friend of mine of these pictures, of these bull moose. And I kind of put two and two together and, and saw this picture and I thought, that looks like the moose Eric’s gonna be looking for, but at a younger age he’s got a real similar antler configuration.
01:16:32:25 –> 01:17:00:03
And so I figured out where this picture was taken and I told Eric, I said, if you can’t find this moose, I think he’s gonna go back there after the rutt. ’cause he was with six or seven other bulls in October. And so long story short, I really didn’t have time to help Eric. And he basically did this all on his own, but he ended up killing that moose and the place that we found where the other guy had taken his picture a couple years before and he dedicated, he dedicated himself to killing that moose
01:17:00:19 –> 01:17:01:29
Post ru in October
01:17:02:22 –> 01:17:20:02
Post rut in October. And he, he got him in the snow. Wow. And, and he really, both of these guys worked on the same fire department as me and we’re all friends and, and so, you know, to have two friends killed a world record archery and muzzleloader two years in a row is a pretty cool deal.
01:17:20:08 –> 01:17:21:16
Unbelievable. Pretty unbelievable. Yeah.
01:17:21:16 –> 01:17:25:04
And how recent is this till for our listeners? What years roughly? Or do you remember exactly?
01:17:25:13 –> 01:17:27:24
I think 15 and 16. Yeah.
01:17:27:24 –> 01:17:29:13
Just the last few years I remember. Yeah.
01:17:29:26 –> 01:17:36:01
Unbelievable. I, I drew my SHIs tag in 14 and Bobby Drew 15 and Eric won the raffle in 16.
01:17:36:08 –> 01:17:38:19
So what was Eric’s bull scored? What did it score?
01:17:39:05 –> 01:18:15:29
Eric’s bull netted 180 9, but it had broken I think four or five points off the one side. So right there you’re looking at, you know, mid one nineties net without those points broken off. And he was 58 inches wide, 58. And he has the single largest, I think Shar handler. He’s really unbalanced for a big bull. He is got a super strong right side side. And I think he had either 13 or 15 points on that right side. And if he was matching on the right on on both sides, he would’ve been a two 20 shiru. Oh
01:18:16:04 –> 01:18:18:00
Wow. Unbelievable.
01:18:18:26 –> 01:18:32:12
Yeah. Unbeliev, so I think it was 58 inches wide. Oh, what is that? 58 from two 20 is 180 2. So the, that strong side was a 90 something inch shiru antler on one side. So
01:18:33:19 –> 01:18:34:07
That is lop.
01:18:34:14 –> 01:18:35:24
It’s tremendous. That’s,
01:18:35:27 –> 01:18:55:26
Yeah. Well Colorado’s been producing, it seems like in the, in the era of Shiru moose in the west. Most states, Utah, Wyoming, parts of Idaho, Montana are flat out struggling to produce either moose in numbers or quality. And Colorado has been cranking ’em out, they
01:18:56:05 –> 01:18:56:20
Crank them out.
01:18:57:24 –> 01:19:32:06
Well I think both of those world records could be broken too. I think obviously the muzzle order’s probably a little bit more likely than the archery, but, you know, I was, I was listening to your podcast with Hoby Gardner and I think he was unaware of the new muzzle outta world record being from Colorado. And, and so he thought that Idaho could probably produce it. And I’m not wanting to talk smack, I’m just saying that right now it’s, it’s all Colorado as far as the top of the Shire Moose records. And, and I think it’s gonna get even better here pretty soon. So,
01:19:33:02 –> 01:19:40:08
So what are you saying? Are you, are you watching one that that’s gonna set the record? I mean, what are you saying? I’m just trying to read through the lines here.
01:19:41:01 –> 01:19:44:18
Oh, I found another moose last year that’ll go over one 90. Oh,
01:19:44:27 –> 01:19:45:06
Okay.
01:19:46:04 –> 01:19:46:11
So
01:19:46:15 –> 01:19:47:17
I’ll buy some raffle tickets.
01:19:48:24 –> 01:19:55:10
Well he, he was a 13 by 15 over 50 wide and over one 90, so
01:19:56:00 –> 01:19:59:05
Geez huh. Yeah. Still alive walking around.
01:19:59:28 –> 01:20:01:23
Still alive walking around. Yeah.
01:20:02:01 –> 01:20:03:02
That’s awesome. Yeah,
01:20:03:19 –> 01:20:50:22
You never know what’s gonna happen. But you know, the, the thing that’s interesting, I, I’ve learned a lot about these moose and a lot of it I learned from a guy named Jed Pendergrass who used to guide for Scott Limmer, but Jed is a, a moose nut and he really told me a lot about what to expect and moose behavior and what they do. But they are really amazingly philo Patrick in nature. They like doing the same thing at the same time every year. And so yeah, there’s a, there’s something about moose that, you know, they’re, they’re somewhat predictable, but the season structure is not conducive to, to, you know, taking advantage of these behaviors either. ’cause it’s just, it’s short and it’s, doesn’t quite start at the right times. And it’s a, it’s a little frustrating.
01:20:51:02 –> 01:21:00:20
You really, well it’s kinda interesting the, the last week in September you can’t even hunt ’em, you know what I mean? It’s like you start archery and then you got a week off of between
01:21:00:20 –> 01:21:01:10
Archery and rifle,
01:21:01:23 –> 01:21:09:27
Arguably the peak ru week, you know what I mean? Or one of the, one of the two or three peak ru weeks is, you know, not even huntable. It’s kinda interesting. Maybe
01:21:09:27 –> 01:21:10:12
That’s, yeah, they’re
01:21:10:12 –> 01:21:14:24
Managed. Maybe that’s why you got some of these giant bulls walking around. Be careful what you wish for too.
01:21:15:04 –> 01:21:28:27
Well, yeah, I I think there’s, you know, there’s, it’s quite evident that Utah’s put too much pressure on it. Shiru moves. Yeah. You know, by the, by the size. You know, I think you’re, you guys have killed quite a few big bulls in the late nineties, right? It’s
01:21:28:27 –> 01:21:30:15
Yeah. Really dropped off.
01:21:30:18 –> 01:21:31:29
They’re all unit. Yeah,
01:21:32:11 –> 01:21:45:20
We’ve, yeah, we’ve either shot ’em or they had some disease issues. Moose are prone to that and some of these mild winters, as big as they are parasite wise, they’re prone to that. And that’s, you know, I know part of Wyoming’s issues too, but they got wolves and they got other issues.
01:21:47:00 –> 01:21:48:15
A lot of moose hair and wolf crap up there.
01:21:48:22 –> 01:22:14:27
It’s really fun hunting these moose though I really enjoyed all the time I’ve spent hunting moose. It’s, it’s something different than, you know, your typical spot in stock and you know, you’re creeping around the trees a little bit and, but they’re so captivating when you’re around them. It’s, they’re, they’re just in a really incredible animal and it doesn’t help that, you know, we’ve got the biggest shiru going down here right now, so Yeah. That’s a pretty exciting aspect.
01:22:15:02 –> 01:22:38:09
Well what’s cool about it is these patterns, you know, usually people don’t hunt ’em enough to, to really understand ’em and it just feels like, you know, you’ve got to where you’re kind of understanding them, following ’em, you’re getting to turn ’em back up six or seven miles away or whatever the case may be on a particular bull. But, you know, that’s what’s, that’s what’s kind of cool about, it’s, it’s hunting these particular animals and then being able to follow ’em, you know, year to year for a couple years.
01:22:39:05 –> 01:23:09:29
Yeah. I, I haven’t been in on that many shirou moose getting killed. Only four of ’em. But every one of ’em has been a, a big boon Crockett moose and you know, I, I think the most important thing to do is if, if you really want to kill a big moose, you gotta be able to pass up mediocre animals and you gotta be able to spend every day out there hunting of, of the season and yeah, just put the time and miles in because it’s, it’s not about just simply sitting on the side of a swamp and waiting for one to walk by. It’s Yeah. You really, really have to put a lot of effort into it, so Yeah. You can’t walk ’em down either.
01:23:11:07 –> 01:23:37:11
No, their stride is giant. I think Bronson’s stride’s giant, but no, the moose are big. They gotta, they can cover some ground. So Yeah. Tell us about, you know, we’re coming kind of to the end of it, but I want to, I did want to, we did want to talk about some of these big bulls you’ve, you’ve been following over the years, you know, of course you got over the counter elk, we’re talking elk. Yeah. That’s what we’re talking over the counter elk opportunities and whatnot and that you’ve been capitalizing on here and there.
01:23:38:05 –> 01:23:51:22
Yeah, I I think there’s a couple things that have contributed to some bigger bulls in the state and one has been the, the mild weather patterns of, of our hunting seasons the last few years. And you know, it’s
01:23:51:27 –> 01:23:53:14
Lower success, harvest success,
01:23:53:24 –> 01:24:29:02
Lower success just in general. And it’s, and I think, you know, it’s not so much on big bulls, but it’s just bulls in general. Guys are Yeah. You know, it’s warm the elk are in the trees in typical moose or elk country. Yeah. And, and then you combine that with the increased use of four-wheelers and a lot of people are really content on riding the four-wheeler around during the day and, and just enjoying the, the weather, the sun and the mountains. And, and I think people, there’s a certain group of hunters that just don’t put as much effort into it anymore because of their fo four wheelers. They’ve gotten lazy.
01:24:29:21 –> 01:24:54:07
Well, and when the weather’s nice, what we found even on some of our deer hunts is if it’s bluebird nice people got the week off work and it’s nice they’re gonna stay out there and hunt camp, drive around all that and they’re going to, you know, you know, keep the animals, I guess you’d call ’em pressure. But when you get, sometimes you get snotty weather, we start getting excited ’cause the hunting might start getting good and a lot of other people go home when it gets like that. Absolutely.
01:24:54:13 –> 01:24:54:22
Yeah.
01:24:54:23 –> 01:24:57:05
Usually the hunting does get good. We love snow.
01:24:57:09 –> 01:25:03:17
It does. Yeah. I’ve, I’ve haven’t seen it happen yet where it’s snowed and the hunting didn’t get better. Yeah,
01:25:03:17 –> 01:25:20:25
I bet. Exactly. But it just keeps everybody out the whole season. I, it seems like when it’s nice, it’s like the summer slash fall’s coming to an end and I’m gonna milk it for the weather’s beautiful. It’s 70, 75 degrees the hunting’s terrible and they’re, yeah. You know, everything’s just holed up tight in the trees and you’re not gonna kill
01:25:20:25 –> 01:25:23:00
Them. Colorado Jeep boss are out. So
01:25:23:29 –> 01:25:57:20
There’s part, part of this thing with the elk too, I think has, you can contribute it to the beetle kill of the lodge pole. Pine forest and you know, those cover a lot of the high country in Colorado and we’ve gotten to the point where our dead lodgepole forest, the trees have fallen down and just created a network of down dead deadfall and, and trees everywhere. And part of it, you know, the edge effect is grass has grown up for the elk and in the deadfall and it’s also created a barrier for hunters where, you know, there’s just places you can’t hike through anymore.
01:25:57:20 –> 01:25:58:22
It’s just miserable. Yeah.
01:25:59:00 –> 01:26:02:05
It’s just a yeah, it’s, it’s a horrible thing.
01:26:02:21 –> 01:26:08:17
Try so I knew what you’re gonna say Mike, and we agree. Yeah. It’s thick.
01:26:09:08 –> 01:26:10:05
So it was very
01:26:10:11 –> 01:26:10:19
Frustrating.
01:26:11:04 –> 01:26:16:20
I think those two things are factors, you know, the ATVs and the, and the deadfall so well and
01:26:16:26 –> 01:27:04:05
With you guys, you know, I’m rough rounding, but you know, roughly say 75% of Western Colorado has over the counter archery and second and third season rifle tags. Right. You’ve opportunities everywhere. And so how do you, how do you narrow it down? I’m, I’m sure with you you’ve found specific bulls hunting deer or looking for a moose or something weird by accident and there’s things like that. But, and that’s probably gonna be the key to, to maybe kill overachieving if you can use that term on an over the counter tag and killing a, a big, you know, a three 50 plus bull like I know you have over the time. But, but for the most part, I mean, how do you, how do you narrow it down? ’cause the focus is so broad, you can go almost anywhere in western Colorado. How do you narrow, gotta have your favorites, narrow it down,
01:27:04:14 –> 01:27:05:26
Favorite go-to areas,
01:27:06:05 –> 01:27:15:06
Get pressure. Yeah. And I’m not really asking you to divulge yours, but how would you approach that if you’re somebody looking to hunt in Colorado when you can hunt so many different places? I mean, how do you,
01:27:15:18 –> 01:28:05:26
I think the biggest thing you need to do is look for places you can get away from other people. Yeah. When you have good access and, and camps and campgrounds and good hunter camping spots, you’re not gonna find elk around there. Yeah. They just, you know, it’s a, it’s a, a factor of elk just effectively get bumped away from hunters. They just have zero tolerance for people. You know, mule deer can get bumped and still be creeping around the same canyon you bumped about of elk will leave the neighborhood and go drainages away. And so by the time a bull gets to be, you know, at least seven years old where he is gonna be a big mature bull, you gotta figure he’s survived four rifle seasons a month long archery season and a muzzle loader season. So effectively six seasons a year plus there’s a lake cow season he’s not getting hunted, but he doesn’t know the difference either.
01:28:06:19 –> 01:28:57:16
So when these elks get bumped that much, by the time they reach seven, he’s, he’s basically survived over 40 hunting season opening days. Wow. And so crazy. These things are smart. They’re the smartest thing going in my opinion. Yeah. And they, they know exactly how to get away from people and, and they go to places where they don’t get messed with. But, but their achilles heel is they still gotta eat so they go to places they don’t get messed with and that they can chow down because these things are just absolutely chowing down before winter. They are got their heads on the ground and they’re feeding. And so, you know, I I I’ve I’ve basically discovered places from, you know, miles away through a spotting scope and, and seeing yellow dots and, and that’s, you know, it just takes effort and time like anything. But so
01:28:57:16 –> 01:29:10:22
What are you doing? Are you hunting, you know, I know you’re liking to hunt deer second and third season at times. I mean, are you, you know, obviously you can combine those and and hunt ’em, have a tag for both or are you just dedicating one of those to elk, one of them to deer? What are you doing there?
01:29:11:09 –> 01:29:37:04
Well, the go to the place I call their nest and they, they’ll go there year after year to these same places and, and they just kind of set up there for the fall. And they might, I mean, when I’m talking about a, a spot they could be in a five acre place and you know, as long as they got everything they need, food, water, and shelter, a bull will not go anywhere. ’cause he knows he’s safer just staying where he is undisturbed and wandering around the forest. So
01:29:37:14 –> 01:30:00:28
When do you, when do you normally find, I mean we don’t hunt. We’re from Utah, so we don’t, we don’t hunt multiple years over the counter bulls heavily pressured all that. When, when we have a gap in our schedule, we’ll come to Colorado, we’ll go to Idaho, we do something like that. But when do you find that these bulls like that have left the cows? Totally. And they’re going to their, what you call ’em the nest, what time of the year?
01:30:02:09 –> 01:30:12:07
You know, I think most bulls flip the switch by about, you know, the, the second starting the second week of October, they’re, they’re done the mature bulls, you’ll still find, you know, little
01:30:12:07 –> 01:30:13:05
Bulls tearing it up
01:30:13:22 –> 01:30:51:08
One to four or five year olds, you know, messing with the cows and things. But generally the, the big old bulls, they, they flip a switch and they’re done and they start making their way to where they need to be. And, and you know, I I’d say by mid-October they’re, they’re where they’re gonna be for the fall in a lot of cases. And you know, some places you have a more gradual movement and other places of the bull will just walk to where he wants to be. And, and I’ve seen bulls in the second season already in their, in their nest so to speak. So Yeah, it, you know, they, they figured out there’s only one reason some of these things survive is ’cause they, they get smart and they get educated. They’ve
01:30:51:08 –> 01:31:02:04
Done it before and that worked last year. Yep. I’m doing it again this year and all of a sudden. Yep. Wow. I’m hunting deer and there’s a big bull in that pocket way back there. I’m gonna hunt here next year. I don’t have a tag, but next year Yeah.
01:31:02:19 –> 01:31:18:00
Have seen you could go to town and get a tag, you know. That’s true. We’ve, I’ve been out deer hunting and seen, you know, a 3 20, 3 30 type bull. But, you know, I don’t know, it’s just, it’s over the counter, you know, I don’t think a lot about it, but I probably should, you
01:31:18:00 –> 01:31:28:23
Know. Yeah. I remember this teenage kid from Utah, I don’t know, four or five years ago that killed a, maybe it was a little longer than that, but killed a tremendous bull here in Colorado. I think it was close to three 80 something gross.
01:31:28:26 –> 01:31:33:05
Seven, eight. Yeah. Over the counter think they found it during the hunt hunting deer was his dad.
01:31:33:05 –> 01:31:38:29
Exactly. They found it on deer hunt and went back to town and got a tag and Yep. I mean, what a tremendous bull that was. Yeah.
01:31:38:29 –> 01:31:53:22
Yeah. It was. Yeah. And that kid tags a hundred bucks, so the dad’s like, well, we’ll get one for a kid ’cause it’s a hundred and instead six a hundred and something for a non-resident. So It’s true, it’s true, it’s true. I mean, why not get it in your kid’s name Yeah. If you, if he’s there with us. Yeah. So, so
01:31:54:06 –> 01:32:34:23
Yeah. But so, you know, there’s, there’s some factors allowing elk to get old, but they, like I said, I think they’re the smartest thing going. They, they don’t make mistakes generally, and it can be a, a tough animal to hunt. So, you know, there’s no substitute for putting in the time and you know, you’re not gonna, these aren’t gonna come easy in places. You could just, you know, walk two and a half an hour. I mean, you generally, everything I’ve taken as far as some of these over the counter bulls, I’ve had to cross a canyon in the dark, go up the other side and you know, that kind of thing. Or walk two hours in the dark and to a place that you just can’t see from. I mean, you can’t see from the road that’s nearby. You can see it from five miles away, but you know, it’s
01:32:35:15 –> 01:32:35:24
Yeah.
01:32:36:04 –> 01:32:37:28
These are not easy spots to get to.
01:32:38:08 –> 01:32:54:11
No, there’s no question. But there’s a lot of big country, there’s a lot of wilderness, you know, crazy wilderness, even if it’s not designated. Just crazy roadless. Yeah, roadless brutal thick. I mean there and, and large, you know, populations of elk. So it stands to reason there’d be a few of those big bulls.
01:32:55:04 –> 01:33:15:01
Chris Nanni was out here a couple years ago on a deer hunt, and I talked to him right after I got my last nice bull and he, he said they’d found a, a really good bull. He figure he, he was close to three 50 and he told me where he was and I said, well that’s a commitment. And he goes, that’s a good way of putting it. That that would be a commitment.
01:33:16:01 –> 01:33:18:00
There’s no question, nothing’s gonna come easy.
01:33:18:18 –> 01:33:33:01
Well, and it’s, it’s not like finding a deer somewhere and you gut it out, bone him out, get him out. Now you got a dead, you know, six to eight year old bull and you got, and it’s like, man, I’m done for a couple of days. Yeah. This thing would
01:33:33:01 –> 01:33:40:28
Across the drainage and it would involve a, a overnight stay just to hunt him. Yeah. And you know, you could do it. Yeah.
01:33:41:02 –> 01:33:41:08
But
01:33:41:14 –> 01:33:43:13
It’s a, it’s a commitment, so. Yeah.
01:33:44:11 –> 01:33:48:25
Right on man. Well, cool. Anything else you wanna, as we wrap up that you wanna,
01:33:49:21 –> 01:33:50:04
That’s
01:33:50:22 –> 01:33:51:18
Is it about No,
01:33:51:18 –> 01:34:10:04
That’s, it’s kind of up to you guys how far you want to go with this, but I just do, I do wanna say, I, I’ve been listening to a few of your podcasts and I think you guys are doing a great job and, and I’m really enjoying some of the guests you’ve had on, you know, the one you had with the two biologists. Yeah, Philip Tuttle and
01:34:10:12 –> 01:34:12:13
Yeah, Josh, Josh Pollock. Yep.
01:34:12:23 –> 01:34:50:13
Yeah, that, that stuff with the, the pongan and the deer and, and the radio collar stuff is just absolutely fascinating. It’s really interesting to hear about all that stuff and yeah, you know, Hobie Gardner’s stuff where he is hunting elk and moose up there in Idaho, you know, some of the same stuff that he was talking about is exactly what I’ve been experiencing with moose down here and, and I really enjoyed Troy SSON and, and some of the stuff that they’re talking about. But, you know, I think it’s you guys getting some quality guests on and kudos to those guys for wanting to be a part of it and you guys for having some interesting people to talk to so Well,
01:34:50:13 –> 01:35:22:28
And we learn a lot from you. Keep it up. Yeah. We learn a lot from you guys as well. You know, it’s, it’s fun to have good dudes on and, and there’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of people out there working dang hard and, and we can stand to learn a lot from all you guys. So it is good. And, and we appreciate, you know, your time. Of course. You know, you’ve, you’ve done it, you’ve done it in all the variety of species Colorado has to offer as well as other places and, and helped a lot of guys. And so it was, you know, our pleasure to visit with you again and, and learn a little bit more before it’s time to apply here.
01:35:23:25 –> 01:35:25:04
Yep. Sounds good.
01:35:26:01 –> 01:35:35:04
Well, if we didn’t miss anything like, I mean a soft underbelly for antelope or something that you have, I guess we’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll get you enough.
01:35:35:05 –> 01:35:40:12
No, I, I think I said in the email antelope and mountain goat, if you will, if you wanna talk about mule deer, we could do that.
01:35:42:10 –> 01:35:43:29
Oh geez. You’ll be on to
01:35:44:03 –> 01:35:48:05
Need animals and I, I just, I do love to hunt ’em, but you know, we’re gonna talk about stuff.
01:35:48:15 –> 01:35:55:18
Well if you’re gonna, you only have so many days in the year and so what are you gonna dedicate those days too? And that’s, we all absolutely prioritize to a degree. So
01:35:55:29 –> 01:36:01:06
Some point you’ll find an 85 inch antelope and it’ll tucked away spot there and you’ll draw the tag next year and we’ll
01:36:01:11 –> 01:36:02:13
Have you on again. Yeah,
01:36:03:08 –> 01:36:03:17
Yeah.
01:36:03:17 –> 01:36:04:00
We’ll see.
01:36:04:27 –> 01:36:05:08
It’s awesome.
01:36:05:09 –> 01:36:33:17
Appreciate it Mike, though. It’s, it’s always fun to talk with you and, you know, I guess one parting thing I wanna leave is, you know, you Mike, you’ve, you played the draw system in your own state, obviously you live there and you’re gonna do that and that’s a natural, but, but you’ve gotten lucky by just throwing other names in the hat and some of these weird things, both you and some of friends raffles and things like that. And we, you know, the odds are that nobody should draw one of those. I mean, it’s not something you ever plan on or count on, but
01:36:33:26 –> 01:36:35:18
You guys have proven that it can be done.
01:36:35:18 –> 01:36:41:11
Yeah, it can happen. And you’re not, you know, it’s not like you’re spending five and 10,000 bucks on tags. I mean, we don’t do that either.
01:36:41:11 –> 01:36:42:20
You gotta be in it to win it. That’s
01:36:42:20 –> 01:36:45:00
Right. Yeah. Puts your name in as many of these things as you can.
01:36:45:29 –> 01:37:13:28
Yeah. So, and, and you know, in theory the, the money on these raffles, the state raffles goes to conservation projects for that animal. So, you know, there’s that Hopefully they don’t go to buying new pickup trucks for state employees and they actually go to projects on the ground, but Yeah. You know, you gotta be in it to win it. I I tell people that. It’s like people say, oh, I never win. Well I’ve never won a gun or anything at a, at a, a banquet. I’ve been to lots of them. Yeah. And I know guys that have won multiple guns, so
01:37:13:28 –> 01:37:20:10
Oh yeah, yeah. We got a buddy. You never, Kurt Connelley never walks away from a banquet without two or three guns it feels like. Yeah. But,
01:37:20:11 –> 01:37:26:00
But the same principle applies. He’s, he’s applying to win it pretty heavy. Yeah. Like he goes to a lot of those,
01:37:26:00 –> 01:37:39:20
So a lot of little banquets, so. All right. Well, sounds good Mike. Well I appreciate you man, and you know, anything else that comes, you get any other wazoo pictures off of women’s blogs of Giant Moose, why forward ’em on to us?
01:37:40:25 –> 01:37:41:01
Absolutely.
01:37:41:28 –> 01:37:42:05
All
01:37:42:05 –> 01:37:44:06
Right, well good luck in the draws. Wish you the best.
01:37:44:08 –> 01:37:45:08
Keep up the good work guys.
01:37:45:13 –> 01:37:46:12
All right, thanks. Sounds good, man.
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