EP: 78 Hunting Arizona with Jason Carter and Adam Bronson. In this episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast we talk about applying and hunting in Arizona. Arizona is a state with some of the most coveted tags in the west. With tough draw odds in most trophy units it helps to have a better grasp on how the states system works before you apply. Jason and Adam give a lot of insight into the application process as well as a lot of the better units in the state when it comes to deer and sheep.
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They got some of the best meal deer in the world. We all have heard of the Strip and the Kaibab, and
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That takes away from our non rose quota of the 10%.
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Your first two choices get looked at.
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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 and Adam Bronson here with Epic Outdoors Podcast coming at you from Cedar City, Utah. So anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve been on this podcast. We’ll see if I can even get one out the door here.
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Jason’s still Justin to sunlight,
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But up in Alaska. Yeah, Adam’s pretty much right. We had horizontal rain. Anybody ever experienced that? Well, if you’ve had a brown bear, you have. But anyway, I experienced an abnormal amount of wind, wind and rain. Yep. And I’m glad to be back here in 90 degrees. So,
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Well, there’s stuff to talk about.
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Yeah, let’s talk about a
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Few things. One of the last states of the year. But before we dive into that, all right, let, let’s thank a
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Few people. All right, well let’s think Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. All that they do for us, sponsoring Epic Outdoors in many different ways through the podcasts or YouTube as well as in the magazine. So anyway, appreciate them. I also use some of their new 2018 gear up there on this brown Bear hunt. Pretty amazing. Of course, we had to layer up, layer down, that’s kind of the name of the game up there, but it was 30 degrees and rain nonstop and it was awesome. So anyway, look forward to that. Coming out here, usually it comes out, well usually forecasted for July. Sometimes we see it in July, maybe first part of August. But anyway, looking forward to that. So appreciate Under Armour and all they do for us here at Epic Outdoors.
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If you’re like most of us, you’re getting to the time of year where you’re running out of potential draws. It’s getting to that, the thank
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Goodness, the
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Stark realization is hitting us in the face. You may consider the Wyoming super tag. They’ve been a partner sponsor support of ours here at Epic Outdoors. They’ve got their super tag. Raffle is still open until July 2nd, 2018. They sell one tag per species for all the big game species. Sheep, moose, goat, deer, elk, antelope, bison,
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Good grief. That’s probably don’t they have
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Up there about one of everything. And then they also set that those are $10 a piece and then they sell chances for a trifecta, which if you win that, that’s a $30 entry. You get to choose what three species you want. So consider going online to wg fd yo.gov/epic outdoors. And again, you got told July 2nd to do that and keep the draw dream alive in one more way.
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Yeah, and, and while we’re talking about there raffle, let’s talk about our raffle. We’re giving away stone sheep hunt here, hearing about, what, two weeks, a week and a half ish? Yeah, something like that. So anyway, you can go online epic outdoors.com and buy some raffle tickets for the hunt we’re giving away. It’s just barely came available. It’s a $40,000 stone sheep hunt and it’s, you know, it’ll be very good drawing ons because there’s a short window to apply and you have to be in sheep shape right now. This isn’t something you can prepare for a year. It’s gonna come down the pipe at you here in the next few months. So anyway, epic outdoors.com, wild, the Wyoming game. And fish, obviously you can get, get into their raffle as well. So a couple other ways to win a hunt if you don’t have anything going.
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All right, one other thing I wanna talk about, I guess I was up at a Thompson Long range course this last weekend. Pretty awesome. Well, mark Thompson’s a good friend of ours. He’s been a good friend for many, many different years. He’s kind of what I consider one of the pioneers in the long range shooting industry. He started doing it. He was one of the first that I ever knew that was doing it. And, and there was just kind of when the turrets were getting going. And then the holdover verticals, mark specializes in a holdover redle. He worked with Leopold, got his own radical, I guess we could kind of call it a, you know, Mark’s personal line of rifle scopes. But anyway, he gets pallets of ’em at a time and, and works with Weatherby as well. And so he’s developed a long range system and several different calibers and they’re awesome. They’re awesome rifles. You can go on to YouTube, check out our weekend. We had a great, great opportunity to spend a lot of time with them as well as some guys were going through the course. So him and Scott Thompson, good people. Scotty’s another fellow mule deer freak guru, he’s knocking down some big old bucks and, and so anyway, I wish him the worst of luck this year. So anyway, you can go to thompson long range.com. Good guys, super good guys, good hunters, they’re good people to be affiliated with.
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One quick, I guess we’ll do, we usually do this time of year, a quick announcement of the upcoming application deadlines. By the time you hear this, you may think the Idaho deer, elk, and antelope deadline has come and gone. It normally is the 5th of June, but has been due to technical malfunctions of, pardon the pun, epic proportions. They have extended it by $40.
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Don’t use our name with mistakes. We’re gonna do it
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Otherwise
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Frustrating situations,
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But it’s been a cluster cluster, let’s just leave it at that. And they’ve extended their deer, elk, and antelope deadline till midnight or 1159 I guess on the 7th of June. So keep that on your calendars moving forward. That’s about it. And then might as well jump into Arizona, just diving right into that. The deadline is June 12th coming right up here in a week or so. That is for the sheep, deer and one of the bison opportunities. And so, I don’t know where you wanna start, Jason, but let’s, I don’t know, let’s tear that apart. You know, it is a great deer and sheep state from a quality standpoint. I mean there’s, it’s not one of those states that you can build consistent hunting plans around unless you’re Franklin, unless you’re hunting COOs deer on the earlier hunts. Those can be done rather easily. But if you’re a trophy trophy mul deer hunter or a sheep hunter, it’s a long time in between tags generally.
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That’s right, a hundred percent. Adam and I have been applying for Arizona for, I don’t know how long, ever since we were little kids, you know, geez, I guess we were little kids in the nineties it feels like. But anyway, maybe even, maybe even a little earlier than that, late eighties, nineties. And still have yet to draw a sheep tag. So we got a lot of points built up. It is a great opportunity, great op, a great state to apply in if you’re looking to kill a desert sheep, which most people are and, and so anyway, it’s a must apply for a state in our opinion, very inexpensive to apply as far as, you don’t have to, you know, front their tag fees. You are in a $160 hunting license and then a minimum, you know, state or application fee per species. So anyway, well worth gaining points. Once you buy that hunting license, you can gain point for anything you apply for for those three species. And so, except with, and kind of interesting in regards to the bison, you can get two points a year. And so this is one of those application periods. It’s not like got their awesome wazoo units to apply for bull bison. It’s more of like a cow and and designated bison hunt. And so we’ve kind of explained that on page 61, but nevertheless, well worth getting a point.
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Yeah, we recommend right now for bison just do points only on this application period and come October when the other one opens up, that’s the time they offer the, that’s the time the better hunt. Just real quickly, as far as maximum points and how the point system works, maximum points for, for sheep right now going into 2018 is 29 and there’s only like 69 people yeah. Left. And you know, they’re roughly taking 20 a year out because there’s about, there’s about a hundred, 110 sheep tags a year. Arizona issues 20% of their tags to the people with the most points. And when they run that run that sheep maximum point draw first, there’s gonna be roughly 20 of those people get their, get their tags and the rest of ’em go randomly. Now in the case of Deere maximum points is 21 and when it comes to running the draw for deer and a unit with say 80 permits and they run a maximum point draw, non-residents are limited to 10% of an individual deer unit’s hunt quota. So which would be eight when they run the maximum point draw first non-resident can only gobble up half the non-resident available quota in a hunt in the maximum point draw and make the other half available to the random draw. So now in a unit with 80 tags, non-residents could draw up to four of those in the max point draw and up to four in the, in the random draw. It’s
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Really a great opportunity for guys that don’t, if you don’t even have zero points, you can draw one of these coveted tags out on the strip or something like that where kind of a change, those guys that do have 21 points feel a little bit bad for them. ’cause when they did make that change, actually decrease their drawing odds of, of getting one of those max point tags, nevertheless they, they, they had to kind of fix it. It was one of those things where, you know, there’s two residents with 21 points is the time we printed this when basically we pulled the data from March 15th of 18 and then there’s 121 non-residents with that same number of points. And so as you can see, we pick up our non-resident quota entirely in the max point tier in, in the best units. And so there was just no opportunity for some of these better units, let’s call ’em the five six best opportunities and you just end up, you know, meeting our quota in that max point tier.
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And so anyway, they did have to change it at some point and then they changed it. People that still had max were just hold, you know, kinda holding on and, and, and obviously they still have, as then Adam talked about the 80 tags and the four, they would still have four that would go to them versus eight, which went to them in prior years. And so anyway, kind of interesting, a little bit frustrating for people that have been waiting for a long time, but also a great opportunity for people like me that have kids that, you know, obviously would never have had Max and never will have Max.
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Yep. It’s something to keep in mind. You can draw the first year and in essence how, how the draw works. I guess your first two choices are considered for both sheep and deer before moving on to the next applicant. So a lot of states around the west, your first choice, it’s kind of one and done. There’s a couple that do three or Nevada does five, but Arizona, your first two choices get looked at before moving to the next applicant. Now they will allow you to put a third, fourth, and fifth choice down on there. For sheep. It’s totally a waste of time, but for deer, if you put a third, fourth or fifth choice down there, it, it would be a unit that was a hundred percent draw for all first and second choice applicants and there were still tags left over. If you draw to the third, fourth, or fifth choice, your points are still gone go
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To zero with a leftover tag. So be careful of that.
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That’s so don’t, you know, we, we highly recommend, unless you’re really trying to get a tag, we recommend going for and we’re all, that sounded stupid, but we’re all trying to get tags. But if you’re trying to get any tag, whatever tag, you know, an average Mule Deere or COOs deer tag around the state, fill it up with five. Okay. But if you’re pro protecting points to some extent and and waiting for what you want, only list two choices. Like we said, they run the maximum point draw first and then the random draw for deer. Maybe let’s dive into that unless you got something else. I wanna talk Deer talk to you. Let’s dive into deer.
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Oh yeah, let’s talk about deer before we talk about sheep.
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Don’t think, you know, they got, they got some of the best mul deer in the world. We all have heard of the strip and the kibab and and and units like that that have the reputation unparalleled pretty much. And that’s, you know, understandably where most of the attention and most of our questions get as, as, as how, how was the strip, how was the Kaibab? And I guess in this year, how has the rains been? Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s one of those of those, it’s had spurts throughout this spring.
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Who knows what’s gonna happen this year
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Of, of some flurries and when it rains at all down there we’ve, we’ve been excited, I guess hopeful, but in general terms it’s pretty dang dry. I know we spent time Jason with our kids and wanting down on the Kaibab hunting turkeys and we’ve been there last five years or more in a row. I don’t, and there was like nothing this year, no snow. Well you’re usually, you’re busting drifts and there’s roads you gotta, you can’t get to and there was none of that this year.
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There wasn’t. And you know, it’s been a little bit dry and tough down there this year. It’ll be interesting when they did get some rain it did hit the strip and so, you know, it’ll, I guess we’re gonna find out, it’s just a matter of time to figure it out. I know there’s some of that country like that 3 8 3 seeds been producing some big bucks. You know, one has been producing a few big bucks, they’re extremely dry dealing with forest fire danger and all kinds of stuff shutting down the forest already. And so anyway, kind of interesting, you know, before we move along too far, I just want to note Nicole Rim’s buck on the front cover, what a giant come off the strip and then that Larry we Wharton B in in kind of my take there at the front article. We spent some time with him and that was on 12 B and a lot of Adam and I both spent a lot of time on 12 B, especially back when I drew my tag out there and was an awesome hunt, a lot of fun.
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And Larry, we killed a stud of a buck with Sam Derringer Derringer Outfitters. He’s a good guy, good friend of both Adam and I and we have a lot of respect for him. And so as you can tell, I mean there’s just two 200 inch deer in Arizona go together. You just can’t quite talk about one without the other. And so anyway, awesome opportunities for guys. You know, we do have like, like Adam talked about the kibab a little bit, there’s some easier to draw archery kibab hunts and those are just kind of tough. They, you know, guys see ’em or or whatnot but it’s just tough to actually knock one down. They’re just a lot of thick country and
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They give a lot of tags. I mean the Kaibab archery hunt, you know, they give 450 that’s down almost half of what it was four or five years ago. And I mean by all accounts and from the Bucks coming off of it, the Kaibab Jason is probably in the last 10 years or so, it’s not been better than it has been producing right now.
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This last year, those early hunts, like what we on that 12 B West early produced some absolute giants And so, and and I don’t know if there’s a rhyme or reason to it, guys are just like a little shocked. Yeah, some of the best bucks came off the early, early rifle season. Well
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It had a little bit of white right weather combination, got more of the deer drifting into where the mid to lower parts of those unit, they’re not high elevation to begin with, but they just got ’em moving so they weren’t spread out quite as much from tot to bottom. And like we talked about earlier, they got the best genetics in the world there and and if you’re in no man’s land somewhere between zero and 21 and you’re not able to earn a maximum point tag say with 16, 17 plus points and you see that coming on a muzzle order or a late rifle, then you gotta be somewhat realistic because at at least maybe put a late hunt as your first choice. But you might consider in the right year a lean year, you don’t have a lot of tags putting an early kibab or early 12 B West early hunt down and strapping your boots on and going for it. Yeah,
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I wanna talk about the max point tag when we just kind of define that a little bit better for some of these guys that are listening when we’re talking about a max point tag, it doesn’t just mean 21 points, 21 points is max, but it it, it all depends on who applies with what points. There’s some of these units and you can see in our magazine you can go to whatever, let’s go to like, you know, anything. Let me look here. How about a six A cos deer rifle. We’ve got a December 14th hunt, you know in the max draw last year it was guys with nine points were max, so max points means nine
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As relative to the unit you applied for
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For unit. Yeah. So it’s just based on demand and
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Some of the kibab late hunts, you know the, the 12 A west late hunts, I mean they took, they took one off of max, true max last year. Max was 20, you needed 20 to be in the running on 13 A and 13 B, but, but if you had 19 you were on the running with the 12 A west late, you did need 20 on 12 B late. But 12 B Westlake needed a 19 there. So pay attention to the tables if you’re one or two behind. Keeping in mind you, you they’ve got the loyalty point. If you’ve ever broken five years of con consecutive application within the last five years, you lost that until you get it back. You’re not gonna get that point. Or if you’ve never taken an Arizona game and fish hunter education course and gotten that point, you don’t have max if you’re missing, you know, either one of those and, but you have the ability to get it, it’s a pretty big deal to go get it. So
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You need, wouldn’t, would’ve needed to apply to have true max 21. You would’ve need to apply for 19 years, had the loyalty if you’d have done so and then also taken their hunter ed course. So anyway and and their hunter ed course again, I guess we’ll just kind of run off on that tangent for a minute. That hunter ed course is well worth getting. It, it gives you a point for all species you apply for forever. And so anyway, if you were to draw a tag and you, and you had your loyalty point and you had your hunter ed course point, you would have two points the year after you, you drew.
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It’s just a hoop you gotta jump through. It’s their system. If you have a hunter education card from another state, it’s easy to sign up for a, it’s a one day, usually an all day, I don’t know if it’s 10 hours, but an all day Saturday deal and we’ve all done it with, with our kids and ourselves and yeah,
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I just took my wife and kids down there this year and it was a little grueling, I gotta say
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Jason called it a vacation and they called it something else.
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Yeah, exactly. But anyway, awesome opportunity. Another thing I guess why we’re talking about the, the rain and the moisture and the levels. Yeah, we’re gonna digress just a little bit, but they do have a point guard program, you know, where you can, you can apply for that. It costs you five bucks and for one time per species until you draw, you can, you can participate in that. If you were to draw it and you go out there and you find out that it’s a super bad drought and not, there’s not the quality of elk, deer or whatever it is that you’re looking for, you can turn that tag back Yeah. And get all your points back plus one as if you never drew. But then the next time you draw, you’re gonna use that tag. They’re not, it’s not eligible, you’re not eligible for that.
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Unlike other states, if you want like Utah or Nevada, if you wanna surrender your tag, it’s in your court to do that up until, you know, a couple of days before the hunt and you do it Colorado 30 days here you have to have enrolled in point guard by June 12th, the deadline. There you go. And you have to build your portal and enrolled in that. So if you haven’t done it already, go online, create your portal account, you’re not gonna be able to check your draw results normally or as early if you don’t have your portal account anyway. It’s just their way of forcing you to go do this. You’re gonna have to do it and, and a year like this specifically, if you have maximum points or 18, 19, 21 points for Deere, you’re gonna want to have a point guard option on there if you draw something. And it turns out to be a really, really off year. Because if you’ve drawn your 13 B Tech, we’re not telling anybody right now to stay away from 13 A or B. We’re, we’re not. It’s a little too early to tell it’s been dry, but sometimes you cannot totally predict what it’s gonna be like. That’s right. That’s a hundred percent. And so apply for it but point guard it. That’s the safest. There you go thing
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One other thing is we’re talking about deer. Deer points or deer points. They can be used for muer or coo deer and they have both and they have units for both and they have limited entry draws for both. And so make sure when you’re looking through these, some of these guys we’ve talked to guys all the time, Adam, 12, 13 points and they can draw these late hunts that are awesome for COOs Deer for example. That 23 guy has 12 points last year. He’s got it for the 23 late season. That’s right. And they’re amazing hunts. I had a really good friend of mine, Russ Young, actually probably one of the first guys I ever guided clear back in nine or year 2000. And anyway, he drew that 23 late, we hooked him up with O Ty Goodman and he knocked down a fricking monster.
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One of the last, very, very end of the hunt. And so anyway, great use of his points. He’s, he’s, the only other options he’d have is one of these early rifle deer hunts. Yeah. And even at that, most likely he’s not gonna draw for a few years. And so what a great use of points if anybody that’s out there that wants a big old coo deer and you’re kind of in that mid-range and you’ve got Colorado points, Utah points, Wyoming, whatever, Nevada, you’ve got other plans going freaking go to Yeah. The Arizona knock down a big old deer.
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Well, and we, that’s what we kind of encourage people to do frankly, is if you’re not, if you’re in no man’s land, you’re not going to get a a a maximum top end point tag in the max point draw and you want to hunt mule there, go for it, draw, draw an early kibab, draw an early 12 B West on, draw the muzzle loader hunt on on one of those same units, 12 a east, 12 B west something Go, go have at it and then either go back as often as you want or do the early archery hunt on the Kaibab or look at the coups. I mean, I realize there’s half the United States or more that hunt regular eastern white tails all year long and they look at these little western rats as, as dinks as a hundred inches are like
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Bucks for a regular white tail. Yeah.
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So I mean, we’re talking about 200 inch bucks for mul that we’re talking about 100 inch buck plus bucks for COOs deer. But, but for us western guys that aren’t, aren’t as white tail savvy, they are a lot of fun. They’re a kick in the butt. You glass, you hunt ’em like we do, you know, sheep and giant mule deer. We glass and sit, you know, long hours just glassing for ’em. And, and they’re really, really fun and and to hunt and encourage you to look at those, if you are caught in the middle, you’ll probably gonna enjoy it. Even though don’t be too intimidated by never having hunted them. They are a different species obviously, and they’re not as, you know, they’re, they’re not, you don’t drive around a pickup truck and hunt ’em like you can a mule there, but, but there’s a lot, there is a lot of animals in some,
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But they’re prolific. They’re, there’s a lot of tags. And don’t let the tag numbers scare you either. Some of these earlier seasons, I mean you can see there’s upwards of 400 tags in some of these earlier seasons and, and just crazy amounts of deer. But anyway, just like anything you’re gonna, you’re gonna pull outta there what you put into it. I hunted one of those earlier hunts got my butt kicked. But not that I couldn’t have killed deer, just chose not to. And anyway, looking for something good. We also have, real quick, we’ll talk about some of these over the counter opportunities. You know, worst case scenario, you come to the end, you applied for everything you can get an over-the-counter, especially some of these archery deer hunts, they’re archery COOs in the rutt dead center, Rutt, they’re amazing hunts as well as these archery mul deer hunts. So anyway, good opportunities, you know, in the state of Arizona, as far as deer are concerned, they
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Are, you know, you, you normally will have an August or September archery season to hunt if you’re unsuccessful. That same tag can be used in some units in December or then you may have to buy a new tag and, and start in January. Just wanna point out you can kill one, one antler deer per calendar year. So if you did that last January and you kill the buck, you’re gonna be looking at doing points only now. Or likewise if you, if you want to go down this January and you kill a buck, it does pull you outta the draw so to speak for the next year. But you know, that’s doesn’t a point doesn’t cost you anything, you just gotta do points only. But it’s something to be aware of, think about. But it’s also, there’s a lot of opportunity they give you. You’re able to hunt the rutt for a lot of all the desert units down there in December, January. Either one of those months with a bow. Wow. We
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Both remember those days when you could hunt over the counter. 13 a Yeah, 13 A and one of those things. It’s just, this is the same kind of thing. This is, we’re all gonna look back and say how dumb were we? Why
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Didn’t we do that a little bit more?
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Here we are now we’d do anything to get one of them over the counter old over the counter type opportunities. So anyway, pretty fun. I know we’re going crazy, but we do get excited when we talk about big stuff and, and of course we’ve been on quite a few hunts there in Arizona. Should we just jump into desert sheep for a minute?
00:23:51:00 –> 00:25:14:20
Let’s do, you know, sheep points kinda like deer. Sheep points in Arizona are just sheep points. You can use them for either desert sheep or rocky mountain until you’ve drawn one or the other, then you’re committed to the other. That’s your once a lifetime, then you’re committed to the other one. You can mix and match. You can do a desert first choice an Iraqi second or vice versa. By and large, 90% plus of the state has desert bighorn sheep. We, we generally label it as a desert sheep state, but only because that’s what they have the most of. But if you’re somebody that has a desert sheep from any other state and you need a rocky, they’ve got some great Rockies. So keep that in mind. And you can mix year to year. It doesn’t matter what you do this year has no bearing on next year. The one thing that they do a little bit different on the sheep draw is non-residents can only apply for hunts that have at least two permits. And we’ve listed all of the non-resident available units in our table. So there’s no unit we left uncovered. That’s just, that’s the way they do it. And non-residents are also limited to no more than 50% of a individual hunt units quota quota. So if there’s four tags issued in a unit, non-residents could draw up to two of those. Now non-residents are limited. There’s an umbrella. Further limited non
00:25:14:20 –> 00:25:16:10
Non-residents are just limited. They’re limited, let’s call that
00:25:16:15 –> 00:25:59:22
They’re limited to no more than 10% of the statewide, the entire quota quota. So you know, you’re talking about 10 or 11 permits. That’s what we’re limited and we’re not guaranteed. They’re not set aside. And people ask us what units are they gonna draw on this year? It’s a little bit like Idaho, you don’t know. It’s simply you apply for the units that meet the criteria you’re looking for, whether that be the size of rams you’re looking for or the drawing odds you’re looking for or a a a mix of both. And when your number is picked, if your first unit is filled and your second unit’s filled, you’re unsuccessful. Or if your first unit’s filled your second unit, oh you got a tag, but oh, they’ve already drawn 15 non-residents so you’re, you’re kicked out and it’s gonna go to residents from that
00:25:59:22 –> 00:26:42:13
Point on. That’s right. One thing I do wanna talk about, so we were talking about non-residents picking up some of those max point deer tags. It just isn’t the case with the sheet sheet opposite. Yeah, you’ve got the opposite. You got 66 residents and three non-residents max points. Yeah, it is possible one of those three will draw of the non-resident quota or maybe even all three I guess. But having said that, very small chance that a non-resident is gonna pick up one of those tags and that people that draw on the max point tier that are non-residents does take away from our non-resident quota. Yeah. That takes away from our non-resident quota of the 10% in statewide as far as the entire state’s quota. That’s, and then they do give up to 10 20% of the entire statewide number of tags to people with max points.
00:26:43:01 –> 00:27:14:28
Now with that, Adam and Adam spelled it out very well when we talk about all of these things, there’s all these stipulations residents, non-residents who’s gonna get kicked out, who’s not. It’s very simple in our tables, we tell you right in there, you know, that there was, for example, here’s your random drawing odds and then number of potential non-resident tags in a separate column. And then we also have a column for max point tags drawn in 2017 year. Yeah. And you can see where there says there’s no tags were drawn in the max point pool, that means they’re available to everybody, which would be all us they
00:27:14:29 –> 00:27:19:12
Were last year. Yeah. And there’s no, they don’t set that prior to the draw. We’ve had people last
00:27:19:12 –> 00:27:19:20
Based on
00:27:19:20 –> 00:27:45:02
The demand, we’ve had people say what units are all the, are the max point tags coming from this year? Well that’s totally based on those 69 people that we talked about that have max points and what they wanna do and where they apply. Now we could probably speculate and we might as well a little bit, it’s not hard to do here. Yeah. And and say the units that those 69 people keeping in mind, they’re the 69 most unlucky people in the world for Arizona sheep or they
00:27:45:02 –> 00:27:45:06
Just
00:27:45:08 –> 00:27:55:01
Yeah. Or they’ve been doing points only, but they’re the last standing and for the most part That’s right. That’s right Jason, they’re, they’re applying for exactly what they want and they’re not deviating Well it’d be don’t bounce around
00:27:55:01 –> 00:28:00:28
Once you have max points and speech like in Deere, if you have max points, you’re not gonna go use it on a six a early season co deer
00:28:00:28 –> 00:28:08:25
Hunt. No, you’re, you’re sticking to the strip you want where you’ve been to with a family member or That’s right. One that you know has giant rams and you only want that, you know, 22 south or
00:28:08:25 –> 00:28:11:19
22 south, you know, that’d be a prime example or That’s
00:28:11:19 –> 00:28:26:25
Right. Both of those tags are likely gonna go in the maximum point trust. So it’s possible and that’s why we, it is technically eligible for non-residents to apply for. There are two permits and so it does, it is not, it is not impossible, but it’s very,
00:28:27:00 –> 00:28:35:14
Very unlikely but it’s very improbable. That’s right. Okay, so 22 south, let’s just take that one, two tags. So you got two tags. Both of ’em have been drawn on the max point tier, let’s say for the last five years. Yeah, that’s as far as
00:28:35:14 –> 00:28:38:29
I can remember. It’s one of the best units in the state. And if I had max points, you know,
00:28:39:25 –> 00:28:40:01
Be
00:28:40:02 –> 00:28:42:26
Applying right, I’d probably plan there or one of the 20 fours myself. So
00:28:42:26 –> 00:28:55:22
Let’s say it is possible that nobody of those 60 some odd people or, or draws the 22 south Yeah. And they go somewhere else and then you and I’d be available. You having said that, I would not make one of my two choices.
00:28:55:25 –> 00:28:56:04
No I
00:28:56:04 –> 00:28:56:11
Wouldn’t waste it.
00:28:56:11 –> 00:28:56:23
22
00:28:56:23 –> 00:28:57:02
Wouldn’t
00:28:57:02 –> 00:29:22:17
It? That’s right. 28 7, 8 and 28 last year only had one of the two tags go there. But it, that’s one that’s, they killed the giant and it’s got some big sheep, not a lot of sheep. That’s one that only one of two went to it. But that one is a little bit volatile. That one could go that way. We’ve talked, you know, 31, 32 Ara vipa. It normally will have one just because Ara Vipa has the name, it has the, the following. They aren’t necessarily, it
00:29:22:17 –> 00:29:47:02
Could be 160 inch type potential and at times it feels like it’s a little bit off, but they still have, it still has the name. It’s produced Monster. That’s right. 37 a on the first ton obviously. I mean there’s just, and you can go through this, it’s very simple, very spelled out Adam. Remember there was years that for some reason the, the, the people that had Max were really wanting Rockies. Oh yeah. And there would, there was hardly even one rocky available outside of the max point
00:29:47:02 –> 00:30:01:22
Too. Yeah. And that’s changed fortunately a little bit. You know, that changed a lot. You got these, these ones we just talked about, the 2220 eights, 31 37 A, then you get to 44 B North and south and normally we’ll have some max point applicant attention. Very
00:30:01:22 –> 00:30:02:18
Popular last few years.
00:30:02:18 –> 00:30:30:14
Very popular. But then, yeah, then you get to the pool of people that over the last 30, roughly 30 years of a point system or or beyond that before points they’ve drawn their desert and they’re locked into only Rockies. That’s all they can do. That’s right. And it can be volatile, you know, unit one and 27, I know that bumped up to two tags this year. The tag last year went to a maximum point holder. I couldn’t tell you with a whole lot of degree of certainty that both of those tags are gonna be left for a random
00:30:30:14 –> 00:31:08:00
Guy. Well they killed, they killed 190 inch or in 2016 and the, and there’s rumors of another awesome ram and so who knows, you know, you just never know what’s gonna happen as these go on. You’ve got 185 inch killed last year in that 27 south, 28 north hunt. I mean just that. I think a lot of it and, and, and again, I guess we get talking so fast and we’re so excited and everything makes us even antelope we could be excited about today. But, but anyway, you know, a lot of this is dictated, you know, is is the swing kind of bends with where these giants are killed. And quite frankly there’s a lot of these rams that never see people. Yeah. That stuff is rugged.
00:31:08:00 –> 00:31:09:02
They’re all awesome horseback,
00:31:09:02 –> 00:31:09:12
Upper
00:31:09:15 –> 00:31:22:14
Blue river. I spent time in that country last year hunting, hunting elk and scouting for elk and saw rams and saw where they’re living and there’s plenty of timber and you just can’t kill, there’s plenty of seclusion and refuge so
00:31:22:14 –> 00:32:12:05
To speak. So who knows where the next 185 is gonna come from. It could come from any one of those. And that’s I guess what we’re, what we’re talking about. Some of these desert sheep you can see, you can look at some of the history and you can tell, and we made a few of these comments that are very personalized. You know, the known giants were harvested last year in the Taha Altas, doesn’t matter really. ’cause they move around so much and they, they go come from unit to unit to unit. There’s a lot of, a lot of travel in some of these places and and whatnot. And so you just don’t know, even though we do personalize it from year to year as, as our research dictates, you just never know. But, but you can tell what you’re available to draw and what and depending on the points you have. And so it does take a little bit of thought, but we do kind of break it out for you guys. Of course you’re always welcome to call Adam and I, we visit with guys every single day about this kind of stuff and as you can tell we’re kinda get excited about it.
00:32:12:08 –> 00:32:36:04
Well, and we’re coming up on the deadline and it’s, for all intents and purposes, the last deadline of the year, there are some points only applications and some Yep. Kind of some oddball stuff for the summer, you know, things like that, Texas and that to come. But for all intents and purposes, Arizona sheep and deer kind of finishes it off’s a little bit. That’s about, it’s nice in a way, but it’s a little bittersweet for if you’re wanting to have, you know, more hope. And so
00:32:36:10 –> 00:32:38:05
I’m so excited to get out scouting. How about you?
00:32:38:09 –> 00:32:47:08
Yeah, it’s good to be be that time of year. It’s getting hot. These desert sheep down in Arizona, they’re starting to rutt, believe it or not, here in June it starts getting a hundred, 110 and they start saying, hey, it
00:32:47:16 –> 00:32:47:26
Start
00:32:47:29 –> 00:32:52:01
Running around, you know, chasing you use and buttoning heads and I don’t get that
00:32:52:02 –> 00:32:54:02
Hundred 10 triggers something. I don’t know
00:32:54:18 –> 00:33:25:10
It’ss kind of exciting. No that the same way. And I know we’ve, you know, you’ve spent some time in the 22, 24 in some different country, of course 12 B, we both spent time in seeing the sheep over there, 41 east. We’ve spent a bunch of time in killed a nice 176 there years ago with my dad. We just, we have spent some time out there. Anybody that’s looking to apply for deer, mule deer, cous deer or desert sheep, we figure and, and you know, say that Arizona is a must apply for states. So apply, apply, apply for that particular state.
00:33:25:13 –> 00:34:20:16
Well, and if you didn’t apply earlier for elk or antelope for whatever reason, maybe it snuck up on you, whatever. If you apply now and you buy their license and decide I’m gonna apply for deer and deer and sheep. Your hunting license will be valid next spring when you, it’s time to apply for antelope and elk and you will not have to buy it. It’s not a calendar year license. So you can apply for both draws on one license if you time it right. You can’t get a two for one like Utah. But it is one that if you set it out and you wish you hadn’t, you wanna do it now. You can apply for deer and sheep now and have a, have a chance to draw there. Come February next year, you can apply for elk or antelope for both and only pay the $15 application fee. $160 license to apply, $15 application fee to apply. No point, no permit fees unless you draw. So big, big something we might wanna bring up that’s kinda looming. It, it it’s happened in Nevada. Yeah. Is
00:34:20:19 –> 00:34:23:02
Elimination of truck cameras in a certain degree of fashion.
00:34:23:05 –> 00:34:49:22
That’s right. That is, that is looming right now in Arizona. It’s still going through the public comment period. Commission has not met and acted or adopted. I think Jason, both you and I probably feel it’s whether it happens this year, it’s gonna happen. This year’s gonna happen. It’s probably gonna happen. Something’s happen it did in Nevada. And for those of you that are hearing that for this for the first time, August 1st through December 31st. Choke cameras are off limits in
00:34:49:22 –> 00:34:53:13
Nevada. No truck cameras not even on trails. Not trails water. Nothing. Nothing.
00:34:53:25 –> 00:34:58:20
No, no water cameras, no trail cameras, no crossing cameras, just no whatever.
00:34:58:29 –> 00:35:01:14
Don’t even put a truck camera in your house spying on your kids or
00:35:01:14 –> 00:35:19:05
Something. So this could be a potential big deal for air for Arizona, obviously with some of these very AED areas like the strip and things like that where a lot of the inventory at least of what’s there and the pulse of, of, of how antler development was that year. It’s gonna change some things. It’s
00:35:19:05 –> 00:35:19:18
Gonna change, change
00:35:19:18 –> 00:35:25:29
Some things. It’s, it’s gonna be difficult. It’s gonna, it’s gonna require a lot more effort and glassing and frankly getting a little bit more lucky.
00:35:26:08 –> 00:36:14:12
Arizona’s still talking about they’re going to, trying to figure out the verbiage and you know, they were first talking about manmade water and springs were okay. And, and so who knows, who knows where it’s actually gonna end up. But could be very challenging. At least in Nevada, you gotta quit August 1st. Well, July 1st if you want to use the 31st kind of picture, throw throws pictures on your cell phone, but 31st or July or August 1st for, for any type of trail camera. And, but prior to that you can put ’em anywhere you want. And so anyway, you can still get a little scouting and it’s gonna affect some of those later season hunts. You know, we used to use ’em no matter what. But anyway, I don’t know. Chris is, Chris is for some reason wanting us, I see here on this outline that we very rarely use tell a story about a deer. And so anyway, I guess let me, I just wanna talk about this Larry. Yeah. Warby story
00:36:14:15 –> 00:36:16:19
We’ve talked about chief a few times I think so
00:36:16:25 –> 00:37:01:29
I don’t wanna talk about chief anymore. Yeah. Although it was an epic time and Adam and I’s life when we killed a buck that we felt like we had the governor’s buck and we’re out there by ourselves. But anyway, Larry drew this tag out on 12 b, it’s a late hunt rut hunt and went out there, Sam did a lot of preseason scouting, did his work and we, I was just there just ’cause I love it out there and I really liked Sam and his guys. So anyway, just, and they, they were gracious enough to let me show up. I took my kid out there and my brother-in-law, Matt Wolfley, he’s a good kid as well anyway, and they were showing me a few truck camera pictures and I’m like, that buck is a good buck. We need to find that deer. And so anyway, those guys, we all spread out and we could not locate this deer.
00:37:02:17 –> 00:37:37:05
And you’ll read in his story, but I don’t know if it was six or seven miles away, you know, from where he was the night before he had walked overnight and, and was retinal dough six or seven miles away. And Adam, you know, where we ended up killing him, clear out on the end. Oh yeah. Anyway, pretty impressive way, got way lucky. Ended up knocking him down in such a stud of a buck. But these deer walk and go hard, if you read that story in this particular magazine, you’ll see where there sand had rubbed holes in his feet. Yeah. All four of his hooves had holes in them. Just that abrasion of the sand, I guess.
00:37:37:07 –> 00:37:59:02
Yep. Yeah, it’s like running on a beach your whole life in parts of that unit out there. It’s, you know, yeah. Just, you know, just grinding on your feet nonstop. Especially when you’re trailing doughs or straight line and trying to cut a fresh hot dough track that you wanna run down. I mean they’re, they’re like hound dogs out there that time of year. They’re just nose the ground and they’re, they’re going hard. So it’s an awesome buck. I just
00:37:59:02 –> 00:38:07:12
Wanna know where you’re applying because it’s something we talk about all the time every day. We’re just like, what are we gonna do? Archery rifles, I COOs
00:38:07:14 –> 00:38:16:08
Mule deer, you know, I’ve not gone got my one. I’m stuck to the mule deer until, but until I get my one, I’ll call it my one big one,
00:38:17:05 –> 00:38:17:14
One big
00:38:17:14 –> 00:38:45:01
Opportunity, my one big, big opportunity tag. Then I’ll probably like you have Jason, you’ve, you’ve either gone after the coo deer, the coo deer hunt, or you’ve gone the early Kibab archery just ’cause it’s close to us and the genetics are there just kind of whatever your year to year you feel like I’m kind of, I’m committed until I get that, get that one. And I know a lot of people that call us with the, let’s say 17, 18 plus, that’s kind of where they’re at. And I’ve not done my app yet, so, but I’m,
00:38:45:25 –> 00:38:46:07
Me neither.
00:38:46:19 –> 00:39:00:20
I’m, I’m, you know, me neither. We’re, we’re running here to the deadline, but I usually wait towards the very, very end here like we’re doing now, getting some Colorado results out, Hey here these next couple of days. That’s right. So that might alter something and getting some emails. So
00:39:00:25 –> 00:39:32:22
Do wanna thank everybody for help us put this magazine together. As far as all the stories, there’s, it’s incredible the amount of stories we actually, you know, even have to table for a minute to get some of these stories in. So we appreciate everybody that’s willing to submit. Of course, you can always email [email protected] and submit your stories and pictures for anything you got. And as you can tell, these magazines are dang near 150 pages with very few ads and nothing but content. And so just really impressive. And, and the majority of that goes to thanks to our members. We appreciate you guys.
00:39:33:20 –> 00:40:59:00
Yep. Al And one more shout out that we want to give since we talked so much about sheep in Arizona. Want to give a shout out to the Wild Sheep Foundation. Big advocates, obviously of bighorn sheep, of all, all different species around North America. They’ve dumped $13.4 million into wild sheep and wild sheep restoration efforts in just the last three years. Geez. And their mission is to basically enhance wild sheep populations and promote scientific wildlife management and educate the public on sustainable use and conservation benefits of hunting while, you know, promoting hunting and, and sheep and putting and keeping sheep on the mountain. We highly encourage our members to become members of We Sheep Foundation. You can do that by [email protected] or calling 4 0 6 4 0 4 8 7 5 0. So anyway, we, we love Arizona. I mean we ca California is, is done and gone. You heard that one that, that June magazine covers ca, California and Arizona too. But you guys have covered, covered, and we covered that one a little bit, but we love Arizona. We love the dreams of Arizona. How’s that? We, you don’t hunt it as often as we’d love to. The quality is off the charts and it’s great and they got got it for all species, but it’s one of those that we we’re never gonna get dreaming because the, the upside is so high. If you get something, it really is
00:40:59:23 –> 00:41:49:29
Anybody that gets a tag. It’s like, I mean we, you can hear us in, in cross three or four different offices for anybody that draws it, calls in some of these tags are so hard to get and they offer such great potential anyway. It’s, it’s awesome. And so everybody should be applying. If you can’t, can’t get around to it, give us a holler, we’ll be happy to help you. That’s what we do here at Epic. And, and, and I might say we’re pretty good at it ’cause that’s all we do. So anyway, do want a little shout out to Kings Kings Camel? They’re awesome. Good, super good guys. We’re friends with everybody that’s there and have been for absolute years and years. They got the X K G series. It was born from an idea that kind of use the most realistic camel patterns and combine ’em with lightweight technical fabrics and they, and they build comfortable high performing hunting gear and it’s very affordable.
00:41:49:29 –> 00:42:38:05
That’s the one thing about Kings, they’re here in Utah. We love ’em for that obviously and lightweight, great performing, very affordable and, and just a great camel pattern. In fact, they were one of the first that came out with, you know, something that was really patterned for the west. We always had to use Masi and some of these other, I wanna call ’em crazy patterns for, for guys out here in the west. And so anyway, Western big game is, is kind of their specialty. They’re obviously branching out and they’re doing all kinds of stuff with whitetail as well. But we love them for the Western Acts aspect. And so you can go to kings camo.com, check out everything they got going. They sell a ton of different things and products as well as calling 1 8 7 7 7 0 5 2 2 6 6. Appreciate them and their support of here, all of us here at Epic. So anyway, I’m about wor out. How about you Ron?
00:42:38:09 –> 00:42:43:29
Yeah, I don’t know what else. We could break ’em down unit by unit, but that’d take too long. And it’s in the magazine. Our members get it. We
00:42:43:29 –> 00:42:54:05
Could go through the most boring podcast ever. But we kind of wanted to give a break a a rough overview of everything. Get you excited about it. We’ve broke it down very well in the magazine and then happy to visit about it as well.
00:42:54:09 –> 00:43:38:14
That’s right. So wish you luck. Got a bunch of draw results still pending right here. Give us a call, let us know what you draw. You know, we got Idaho moose, sheep and goat pending. We got Colorado trickling out all week this week. You know, moose, sheep and goat results in Montana coming out here soon. So yeah, let us know if you get something great. If we can help you set it up however it is. Whether it’s putting you in touch with other Epic outdoors members that have been there in the past, we’ve got a list of those, we can do that. Or if it’s you need a guide or an outfitter based on the tag you have and the lack of time you have to put into the scouting and preparation, whatever, let us know. That’s what we’re here. It’s what we do all day. That’s our job. So give us a call. 4 3 5 2 6 3 0 7 7 7. Awesome.
00:43:38:29 –> 00:43:55:23
One last thing before we stop. If you don’t have a hunt or even if you do have a hunt, go to epic outdoors.com, buy some raffle tickets for this stone Sheep hunt. We’re gonna be giving it away in approximately 1.5 weeks. So that’s about it. Anything else? Nope. Chris, you don’t have a mic? I guess you can’t talk.
00:43:55:25 –> 00:43:56:20
Thumbs up. All right.
00:43:56:20 –> 00:43:58:02
All right. That’s about it. Talk to you later.
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