EP 101: Hunting Back in The Good Old Days, 60 years on the Mountain. In this episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast We talk with Ron Jenkins who has been hunting for over 60 years. Ron tells us stories of the “Good Old Days” when you could buy an over-the-counter Grizzly tag in Montana. He also tells many unbelievable stories including being arrested in Mexico and spending Months in a Mexican Jail. Ron’s story is truly unbelievable. Ron also talks about the many changes he’s seen in his life in hunting. How things were and how they are today. This is one episode that you don’t want to miss.
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
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You’ve seen everything from 1940s or fifties, all the way till nowadays. You
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Just have to love the outdoors, have the world to hunt and, and get out there and do it.
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Anything to do with Western Big Game.
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Welcome
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To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Hey everybody. Jason Carter here with the Epic Outdoors Podcast coming at you from here in Southern Utah and got an awesome guest on the phone. Super excited to get started into this. I’ve tried to get this guy for years and I’ve known him for a long, long time. Clear back early two thousands. And anyway, he lives in Montana. Mr. Ron Jenkins, a wealth of hunting experience, spent tons and tons of time out in the field and hunted a lot of different animals. So anyway, super appreciative of him taking some time out of his schedule and visiting. Before we do get started, I want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring the podcast and really appreciate them and all that they do for Epic. We do wanna throw a little shout out to Kent’s Optics. They have great prices, the best of anywhere I’ve seen, been out in the field and ordered up Binos and had ’em sitting in my house in one day.
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So anyway, give these guys a call. It’s 4 3 5 2 5 7 7 0 1 4. Tell ’em Jason and Adam sent you, I’m sure they’ll make you a screaming deal. You can also go to kents optics.com. I do want to also thank another advertiser of ours, Thompson Long Range, and we appreciate them and their support. You need an affordable rifle that can shoot a thousand yards. You ought to look at ’em. They’re using Weatherbee rifles, 33 70 eights, the three hundreds, seven mm 2 76 5 3 hundreds, two 50 sevens, two forties wide variety of options there using low pole optics and a radical system. Great guys, well worth visiting with. Very affordable and it kills a lot of stuff. I kill my 270 inch mul deer with their rifle. So anyway, don’t hesitate to give ’em a call. It’s thompson long range.com or 4 3 5 7 1 3 4 2 4 8. Let’s talk about outdoor edge knives. We’ve partnered with Outdoor Edge, they’ve got some incredible knives coming out.
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What a great product. And so anyway, you can check out the different knives they [email protected] or ask an outdoor edge dealer at your local sporting in store. So anyway, let’s get started with Ron here. Killed a lot of sheep, tons and tons of sheep and elk and deer and, and guided along the way as well as taxidermy still does taxidermy by trade at 77 years old. And so he’s one of those guys. He is a prime example of a guy that never quits, and he’s still lying hunting by himself with his dog and, and still out hunting, do you know, all the time. So it’s pretty impressive. He is putting in the time year after year after year and, and never gonna quit. So anyway, let’s get started. Ron, you on the phone? Yes. Maybe just give us a little background and kind of what got you started and then we can kind of dive into, you know, what you love to do and, and some of your favorite animals to hunt. So,
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Okay. Well, I was born in a, in a small town, you know, probably a 500 people. I live now in Augusta, Montana, which is, which is, you know, the people that are familiar with Montana would be West of Great Falls, about 50 miles. And this town I was born in with Fairfield, it’s about 20 miles from, from Augusta, and it’s in the irrigation district. This country basically is, is in the middle of what they call a Sun River country. The Sun River drainage comes out of the, the national forest to the west of us here. And it’s, it’s a big drainage and, and runs for like, from the mountain front to grade falls or flows into the Missouri. It’s probably 75 miles, but there’s a plateau and it’s Fairfield. They call it the Fairfield bench. It used to be great pheon hunting. Yeah. And, and the, there’s, it was all irrigated to land from the Sun River.
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They built a, a big canal in the, probably the 2030s, the C c C, civil Conservation Corps. Anyway, I guess. So I grew up and went to school in Fairfield, but I basically kind of grew up in a mountains too, because it, when, when I was about eight or nine years old, my dad and uncle, which were they, they were orent hunters and like the outdoors, they, there was some cabin permits came up in the national forest here, right on the edge of the Bob Marshall. But wilderness, it’s from the mountain edge boundary back in the mountains about 20 miles. It’s the farthest into the mountains anywhere along here. There’s any cabin. Yeah. You know, public cabin sites giving out the public. And anyway, my dad and uncle built a cabin there. So I grew up, we were up there every weekend, you know, during the summer and the winter it was snowed in.
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Of course you couldn’t get there, but it was a great area for elk. There was a lot of mule deer at the time. There isn’t now, you know, at the time there was a lot of mule deer. Yeah. There’s four or five different major herds of the big horn sheep in, in the sun of country. And, and the one that was furthest to the southwest was the Fairview Willow Creek area herd. And it amounted at the time, probably to a hundred sheep, maybe 125. And these sheep, the rams, there’s a big plateau and there sits back in the middle of the mountains there where these sheep basically lived. And it, it, this country is the, the mountain front mainly is a series of reefs and valleys. You know, it’s kind of hard to explain unless you’ve actually seen it, but there’s reefs run parallel to each other and, and it’s a great cheap country.
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Anyway, the, the Rams in this particular area would migrate as soon as the snow left would migrate back into the, the continental divide. You could get up on a ridge behind her cabin and and see the, the whole divide. And it’d, you’d drop into the west. You know, the, I’m sure the people on the phone probably are familiar with the continental divide and what Sure. Anyway, I used to, when I was a kid from that hill behind the cabin, I used to watch those rams move down and into here, into the timber and cross the river and, and it’s like, I don’t know, as the crow flies, maybe 20, 25 miles. And where they summered was a, you know, pretty neat. There was a big reef there and a basin. They called it the head of Basin Creek. And that’s where at, at one time when I was guy for route fitters, I’d seen as many as 60 rams in this, in different pockets in this basin.
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But that’s kind of where I, I got wound up with, with big horn sheep. And then there was an outfitter, well-known outfit that, that had a ranch probably three miles from our cabin. And we all hunted a lot. And he, he was the only outfitter at the time. And we had horses, but we didn’t have, we, we were not that great of packers at the time. So we used to have Dan Neil pack or Elk out, and I got to know him pretty well. And at the time, packing, you know, it was probably six, eight miles into this place. We had a hunt elk, you know, it was pack country. And, and he would pack, he would bring a string horse. There was a lot of elk in there. And what everybody usually filled up in the first two or three days and, and you’d bring a, a meal was in there and packed those elk out for like $10 a piece.
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What year? What, what year are you talking? Well,
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That would’ve been in the early fifties.
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Okay. Okay.
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It, well, not too early. 52 through 56, 57. And even in, you know, nearly 60, he was still charging like 15.
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And so you’re talking, you’re, you’re probably in your teens or 20. Well,
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Right. You know, I first started hunting elk, I guess, with my dad when I was about 13 or 14. And it was a yearly deal, you know, when the seed didn’t open, that’s where we were at. Yeah. Because it was, it was a big, a big open hillside and you had to go back up a big can and it was kind of a major deal getting in there, but you came kind of had it all ourselves. Other people didn’t know about it, and it was too far off the road for anybody to hike in there. Did
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You have to deal with grizzlies back then? I mean, still dealing with all those? Well,
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You know, it was the grizzlys around, but not, you know, they weren’t, it wasn’t a problem, you know, you’re in the heart of grizzly country. It was, and I don’t, I don’t remember at the time seeing a grizzly Yeah. They were there, but, you know, you just don’t see them very often. Yeah.
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Kind of
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Non, they’re, they’re smart animal and secretive and you just don’t see ’em that often. But they, they were, you know, I’d go fishing down river from the cabin down the south fork of the Sun River on the trail. There was always big drizzly tracks, so they were around. Yeah.
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But you very seldom ever, you know, there was not a problem with them. There’s a period of time, I don’t know, in the sixties and seventies where they had a lot of problems with grizzlies and there wasn’t as many around then, but I don’t know what the deal was. It just, they, they killed mostly calves. You know, this is a big ranch in area, so there’s a lot of cattlemen around and, and you occasionally a cow. But calves were the biggest breed. They were easy to kill at the time. You could buy a grizzly tag over the counter, but, you know, there wasn’t very many of it shot.
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Wow. You could just buy a grizzly tag over the counter. Oh yeah.
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I had a grizzly tag every year because it, you know, it was the most fun animal to hunt that there was really, you know, your chances of getting one were next to zero. But just the, just the, the adventure and, and hunting a grizzly, you know, especially if you had it snow on the ground could track ’em. Geez. But you know, about 999 times out a thousand, they’d hear you coming. Or, you know, they’re, they’re a smart animal, really smart. They’re, you know, I have no doubt in my mind that they can reason like a man, you know, they’re, you, you, you would, if you seen a grizzly, it was maybe a glimpse. Yeah. Your best chance of getting one was probably to, to find one or catch one. And that’s basically where most of ’em were killed. You know, people would kill elk and then go back in the next day to pack ’em out or whatever. There’d be a grizzly on the gut pile or geez. On the quarters and, and they’d get a chance to get one. But
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Did you ever, did you ever end up killing one when you could, when you could hunt them?
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Not at the time. I, you know, I had the opportunity more than once, but not, yeah. The first grizzly I got would’ve been, I don’t know. And I tracked, as would’ve been in the seventies, we used to pack into an area here that was pretty good elk hunting. And, and, and we had one picture morning. It was a fresh early track on the divide. And, and a friend of mine, well, I tracked him mean it was, you know, it was perfect ’cause it was, was fresh and know it was snow, and it was about a foot of snow. And, and his tracks went in into, you would come off down off the top of a mountain, they call Caribou Mountain, and right down the divide on the old horse trail. And, and then went down into a, a drainage. And we, we of course knew, you know, we had had grizzly before.
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So, but it was perfect. It was quiet. Anyway, friend mine and I got within about, we could see where they went under a big spruce tree to lay down, and we just, we stopped probably 50 yards from the tree. And, and, and he, he, he knew where the, you know, even it was quite as he were at that distance, a little bit of the snow fell off a branch right above where he was beded there. And he stuck his head out. And I, you know, I, I was ready and I shot him right under the chin, and he never knew what hit him. Geez. Geez. It was a nice bear. Probably seven, seven and a half foot. He probably weighed 400. Yeah, maybe five. Just a really pretty grizzly. Yeah.
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When did they quit letting you hunt them? Do you
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Remember? I do. It was like the last time he could hunt ’em was in like 91.
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Okay.
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And they had a, they had a spring season, and I think the year before they, they, they, you know, possibly it was before then, but I can remember this was, this was an opportunity to hunt berry yet, but it was, it was a permit. It issued 40 tags and it was for males per boars on the mountain front here in the spring. It opened in April. And anyway, two friends of mine drew tags. I didn’t have one, a local ranch. A friend of mine had a tag, and it was on the mountain front here. So of course he got ahold of me right away after he drew a tag. And, and I told him we were after a bear that was, I had seen him, I used to spend a lot of time in the spring riding with my horses and picking up be counters on the front here.
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Yeah. Anyway, it’s every spring, see this grizzly track. And, and we were headed over there to hunt this particular bear. And on the way it was right at daylight. It was about, I don’t know, 15, 20 inches of fresh snow. It had just dumped a bunch of snow. And there’s a ranch, that big ranch just out of Augusta, or, well, their land starts on the edge of Augusta, but it’s probably 10 miles out. And we hit a ridge and we, we could see a spot right over on these open hillside. We, it was after the 88 fire. They used to be all timber, the 88 fire just de timbered this country big time. You know, it burnt. I don’t know what, what, you know, it, the fire started in the back country and burnt the whole damn mountain front here. Yeah. Thousands and thousands of acres.
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Geez. So it was all open, but this bear evidently just come outta hibernation. We could see he was working his way around the frontier. So we, we watched him and he battered down in, in a, a big thick of a or an old, it was all fir trees all burnt, but you could see him laying down in there. So I stayed there and watched the bear. Well, my friend and, and my other buddy went back to town to talk to the rancher to get permission to going after this bear. So they come back and, and we, we got as close as we could and parked and took off a foot and we got, it was actually perfect. It was a big ravine there. And this bear was laying in this burnt timber, probably 300 yards from us. And, and we got up on a point where we were kind of hidden.
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There was some green timber left there, and Yeah. And watched this bear and Mark didn’t want to attempt to shove him laying down. So we just, we just watched that bear for, I don’t know, two or three hours. And like I said earlier, these, these bears are tremendously smart animal, and he, he could, even though the wind was was right, but he had no chance of winning us. He said something was wrong. Yeah. And, and I, I’m sure he could, you know, at that range. He didn’t see us. We were careful about movement. And, and, but he got, he started swinging his head, and this is probably an hour or two after we first started watching him. And he got up and Mark thought about shooting then, but it wasn’t really a, a good shot. But then the bears started moving fairly fast up to the timbers.
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So we lost that opportunity. Yeah. And anyway, he didn’t want to shoot him moving, but, and it was, you know, it was too far. So it had a moving animal. Yeah. Anyway, we, as soon as he broke out of sight, we run like a set of a gun across this canyon and up on the next ridge. And by that time he was down in a another pocket and moving up toward the high ridge. And, and he, he, he knew we were after him. It was, it was that simple. Wow. And he never, he had never seen as far as, as far as I know, you know, it just kind of weird. But like I say, there, there bears are something else. He was the last chance Mark had to shoot him. He was actually moving too fast. And he got way up on this. Mark was a, a fan of a three 40 Weatherby. Yeah. A cannon. And anyway, his bear was, was going up a pretty steep slope. And he stopped for a minute. Mark was laying down in the snow and he was ready for him. He shot, and I can’t remember where he hit, but he, he was, he didn’t hit the bear. And the bear got up, run up, and he stopped again and he shot, and it, it was good. The bear dropped. Wow. You know, like a dead, immediately he meet a hell of a shot on him.
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Wow.
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Beautiful bears about, I don’t know, the bear probably weighed five, 600 pounds and he’s a eight, eight and a half foot bear.
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Geez. Wow. Beautiful
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Grizzly.
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What a trophy. Unbel. Unbelievable. Yeah.
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G yeah. They, they are, they, you know, the ultimate really. Yeah. As far as mountain ERs. Yeah.
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Did you, so did you guide, like did, when you were younger, were you, did you start guiding for a living or just get into taxidermy or? Well,
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I did, you know, I, I, I was, after I got outta high school, I was in real sure I wasn’t, wasn’t that great a student, you know, I didn’t care about school that much, but I, I’m trying to remember when I went to work, this officer I told you about that had a ranch close to the cabin there, I started working for him. And it was before it would’ve been in the 1960,
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Just right after high school. And
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Yeah. And that, that’s when I first started guiding sheep hunters. And that 1961, I think we had three or four sheep hunters that fall. And, and at the time there, it’s hard to explain, but there wasn’t really any big sheep in the Sun River. Yeah. You know, if there was, it was, was abnormal. And even after that, you know, I started doing taxidermy, I guess in 1965 here in Augusta. And, and for several years, you know, seven eighth curl was huge. You know, most of the Rams they’re bringing in were three quarter curls. But yeah, that first year, that, that second year I guess I did, there was a hunter from my hometown had a tag, and I don’t think he’d even been hunting yet. They were left, they were waiting for the ram to start rutting. And the season at that particular time, I think closed the 15th of November.
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Yeah.
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Now it’s open till around the first December. But anyway, it was, we’re right down at the wire, and we’d been seeing quite a few sheep because we’ve been hunting elk pretty heavy up in this area where there, there are quite a few big horn and, and, and these guys are, are, were partiers And Augusta at the time was, was well known for, for that. It was, you know, the hunters would come here. A lot of ’em would, wouldn’t even make it out of town to go hunting. They’d just get a hotel and drink. You know, there was a lot of whiskey drinkers at the time. Yeah.
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Anyway, these guys, I called ’em up and, and, and told ’em that they needed to get up there. They had two days left this season anyway, they made it to Augusta and I, hell, I had to come to town and get ’em. And it was, they made it up there last, we went up that afternoon. It was snowing heavy. And, and, and I don’t know this, this guy wasn’t watching. He had his rifle slung back and, and it scabbed and anyway, it be caught a branch and he had to, he pulled out of the sc and there was other rifles he could have used, but he didn’t want to hunt with anything but his own rifle. But the next morning we went out, we had to spend about three hours trying to which of his tracks. We found his gun eventually, but
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Geez.
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Then we went up on a, on a big mountain, we called Fairview Mountain and, and it was snowing pretty heavy. And there was, there’s a big canyon with about 30, 40 sheep down there. And it was, it was a half a dozen ramp, but there was two rams, and we don’t know where the hell they came from. They probably came at the time, there was a small herd of big horns that had been there forever back in the wildness area. And, and they had evidently pulled in there to, to Rutt to, we had never seen him before. And he hunted that, you know, forever. Yeah. But they were both giant ram, but one was, was pretty spectacular. Anyway, we, we went down the ridge where we were close enough to get a shot and, and this guy started shooting at this ramp. He was some shaky, couldn’t hit him. Yeah. Finally. And he stopped again. And, and that, that’s when he killed him. We got down to that ram. Well, the ram was huge. The Ram ended up, I think it, I don’t know what it is in the record book now, but scored 196.
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Geez.
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And it was like 45 inches on both sides. And Broomed, you know, probably six inches Broomed off and the round would’ve would’ve went way up in the record book and over 200 inches. But he was, he was really light base. He was only like 14 and five eights on the base, you know, and still, and still scored 1 96. That’s when I get hooked on, on on Big Horn.
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Geez. What, you talked about a lot of mule deer back when you were really young. Do you remember seeing any just giant non typicals or anything crazy? You know, well,
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I did, you know, at the time, I guess a person already didn’t know that much about, you know, you didn’t see that much in write-ups or whatever on a big meal, deer bucks. You didn’t know what was big and what, you know, of course you knew. Yeah. You know, when you saw a group of deer or one or two bucks, if there was something really big there, you knew it, but you didn’t, you didn’t know what, what the extent of big was. But anyway, yeah. I think one of the first hunts they went on, there was a, between the, between the town of Fairfield and, and, and Schau is the next town over from Augusta, or there’s a couple of buttes they called Priest Butte and Rattlesnake Butte. Well, we used to hike on and beach when we were kids. And, and I was, I can remember seeing some really nice field deer bugs.
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So the first year that that opened up, and I think I was 14 or 15, I I talked to dad into, into hunting there, opening morning. So we went, went out there and took off a foot and got up there. There’s kind of a, this butte there’s got a rim of cliffs around it, and the tops fairly open, but there’s different rock out croppings that we were walking along the top this cliff and these mul deer bucks was bed at the bottom of these cliffs. Well, there was a nice four point jumped up and, and the rifle I was using at the time was they had bought an roll armor rifle, I think it was 7 65 mauser and, you know, open sight and maybe it had a pee sight. But I, anyway, when I shot this, this buck, I hit him in the head and hell it, you know, his horns just flopped over. I’d about cried when I got over there.
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Yeah. You know? Yeah. I would’ve, my first decent deal deer buck, and they ruined it, but they were fixable, but it was just wasn’t the same. Yeah. Anyway, we, we took care of this deer and walked on around the beautiful ways and dad shot an, a nice four point. And when we were walking, going down to, to get this buck, I looked up the canyon. It was a kind of a pass there, and there was a buck standing in that notch that was absolutely huge. And I can still see that, you know, it’s the type of buck you were talking about. It was a big non-typical, and I don’t know, you know, it was just giant. And I begged dad to let me shoot that deer. Of course. You know, he wouldn’t do it, you know, it was, yeah. It was stupid for me to ask. I’d always fill, I’d already filled my tag, but that’s probably the first. Really, really, and that, you know, it’s probably one of the biggest bucks I’ve ever seen. I don’t know whatever happened to that buck. He probably died old age and he Yeah. Horns withered away out there in a, in a canyon somewhere. Yeah. But there was, there was big herdz of mule deer then on the mountain front that were, you know, amazing. Just lots and lots of deer.
00:26:54:13 –> 00:27:02:07
Well, Montana’s got great genetics. Some incredible genetics. It’s just their management doesn’t allow these deer to get old anymore. You know,
00:27:02:16 –> 00:27:31:24
You know, for, for anybody that has a tag, you know, there’s very few areas in Montana where you have to, where it’s restricted, where you have to apply, you know? Yeah. Maybe a half a dozen at the most. Yeah. But most the seeded wide open. Well, to have a season that runs for the first, about the first December every year, you know, for the last 10, 15 years, how can you expect to be any, any decent bucks left?
00:27:32:01 –> 00:27:34:23
Yeah. Rifle rutt hunting over the counter for you guys.
00:27:35:26 –> 00:27:36:14
Well, right.
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Well, they’re just, they’re just, you know, they probably feel some pressure to make, you know, some of the residents just wanna make sure they have a tag in their pocket. Well, that’s, they don’t care, you know, about quality. And so that’s who they’re catering to. You know,
00:27:50:25 –> 00:27:53:19
That’s, that’s where it is. But I, I don’t understand it. Yeah.
00:27:54:06 –> 00:28:17:09
What’s your favorite, I mean, obviously you’ve, you’ve hunted a lot of different species. We’ll get into your sheep, you know, or you killed all four species of sheep and whatnot. But what’s your favorite, what’s your favorite to hunt? I know you had a tag here in Nevada, and you still apply in Utah. You and I were talking about where to apply today and, and use your points. You’ve got a lot of points built up, but what’s your favorite species to hunt?
00:28:17:21 –> 00:29:12:09
Well, I, I, you know, I’ve only hunted stone sheep once, and that was in 1973. And actually I lucked into that. I was guiding hunters for an outfitter here. They had used to have, they used to have late season hunts here because they figured, you know, they wouldn’t get the, the kill on their, on their elk, you know, during the regular season. So they’d have the seed run clear into January and February, and, and they were still coming out of the mountains then sometimes, you know, if we hadn’t got any weather. So yeah, it was 200 from Minnesota that I guided up there, and we were hunting. It was 40 ball. Geez. It was unbelievably cold. You had no business out there hunting, but you know, people for a chance. And the elk were moving out in mass. It was easy to kill an elk.
00:29:12:23 –> 00:29:18:03
Well, that, that was back in the wool and flannel days, just straight up flannel, you know?
00:29:18:16 –> 00:29:21:07
Yeah. It was different. Yeah, right. Exactly.
00:29:21:14 –> 00:29:22:07
40 below.
00:29:23:20 –> 00:30:05:24
Yeah. Yeah. Before these fells left, they told told me they had a hunt booked for stone sheep in northern British Columbia, actually on the towed river for that fall. And that winter, they called me up and they, they said, we’ll make a deal with you. We’ll, we’ll pay, we’ll pay for you stone sheep hunt, and you can come up and hunt with us if you kick us hunting there in Montana, whenever we come out with hunt elk or deer. Yeah. And I, I agreed to that in a second. So that, that fall in September, we, we drove up and we were hunting with Southwick.
00:30:06:20 –> 00:30:06:29
Okay.
00:30:07:11 –> 00:30:34:08
Southwick had the Ariana two river. I can’t remember who’s got it now. Yeah. I knew they out through, they had it had it, they bought it from, from Southwick. I can’t remember his name now. But anyway, we, it, it was tremendous. It was an all species hunt. And they had bargained with this outfitter was, was evidently needed hunters that fall. And you know what the, this whole species hunt cost. What
00:30:34:08 –> 00:30:34:16
Was that?
00:30:35:01 –> 00:30:35:24
$1,800.
00:30:36:21 –> 00:30:36:28
Wow.
00:30:38:23 –> 00:30:45:18
We, we just killed a, and we got, I got a, like a 41 inch stone ram, A beautiful ram.
00:30:46:05 –> 00:30:46:12
Wow.
00:30:46:23 –> 00:30:55:14
All three of us got stone sheep goats, two caribou, two moose, you know, for 1800 bucks.
00:30:56:13 –> 00:30:58:26
Unbelievable. Yeah. 1800 for all species.
00:30:59:28 –> 00:31:00:08
Right.
00:31:01:06 –> 00:31:02:12
Unbelievable. This guy. So
00:31:03:02 –> 00:31:03:14
He was,
00:31:04:04 –> 00:31:06:18
Wow, unbelievable.
00:31:06:23 –> 00:32:27:00
And I’m trying to remember the first, okay. The same guys, I guess it was 19 76, 1 of the fellas, he said we need, he had a chance to go up and hunt doll sheep in the Brooks range. So, and he, I talked with the officer, this officer said if I could line up three or four hunt hunters for him, he said I could come hunt for nothing. Yeah. And at the time, you know, being a taxi nurse, I didn’t make very much money. So, you know, hunt like this was, you know, was out of the outta reach for me. So we went up and, and that was my first doll sheep, and it was in the hula river. And the h the river at the time had the highest concentration of doll sheep anywhere in North America. Yeah. I think they figured it was 25, maybe it was high as 2,500 doll sheep in the, in that drainage. So it, you know, it was, it was a tremendous hunt. We’ve, I think the, the ram I killed was only like 36, but it was a full curl sheep, but nice ram. It was an experience. So that was my first doll sheep. And the next one was a trade hunt. I knew a, I knew a fellow, and you’ve probably heard of him, guy, the name of Dick Ile. Yeah.
00:32:28:05 –> 00:33:24:01
Yeah. Well, they, they got to know him pretty well, and at that time he was wheel dealing big time in whitetail horns. You know, I can remember some of the loads of whitetail horns and a, a cabin, a residence over at Sea Lake. And he, he would buy like a whole truckload. You’d find these old timers that collected whitetail horns and buy ’em for little than nothing. And it was just unbelievable. Some of those racks you brought a truckload from, from an old timer, collect them in, in Maine. And, you know, I, I’ve got a bunch of pictures of the aler that they were, you know, it was, it was something else. Wow. Anyway, he, he knew, I think Dick had been a taxidermist in Alaska for a while, so he knew a lot of the outfitters and people up there. And I told him I liked to hunt doll sheep again.
00:33:24:05 –> 00:34:21:06
So he knew a fellow that would take me doll sheep hunt trade for antelope and deer Montana. And that’s basically how I worked most of these hunts of the time. You could, you could trade with people in, you know, they like wanted to come to Montana down. Well, yeah. So anyway, I went up and, and the fellow, I went with him, his girlfriend, they were sheep hunters. We flew, I had no idea where we were gonna hunt. We ended up going to a place I dreamed about hunting. It was where the biggest sheep, biggest all sheep in the world come from. Yeah. The head of the Chi River. Yeah. And, you know, and the ran glacier and, and Bernard Glacier. And, and it was, I believe Ram glaciers where the world record were, was killed. And in the first Rams we saw there was a, a huge ram there.
00:34:21:14 –> 00:35:14:11
And the Rams run down off this plateau onto a big cliff. We went after this ram. Well, we got down there, we looked down on the rock ledge down about 50 yards, and there’s five rams standing there. And that one ram was, I didn’t realize how big this ram was, but anyway, he said, you need to shoot that sheep. And, and I said, I’m not gonna shoot that sheep. I said, that Ram’s gonna fall off that ledge down into that rock pile down there and gonna probably pop his horns off. Yeah. You know, we, we can retrieve, we can retrieve it. And if he tears his cape up, we’ll get you another one. Yeah. Well, I, I didn’t shoot the sheep, and I had, we waited him out and he just stayed put. Anyway, the next day we left, it got got dark, we went back to camp, and, and next morning he and his girlfriend took off.
00:35:14:11 –> 00:36:09:10
He wanted to get her a ram and no sheep had left and he couldn’t find him anywhere. So, yeah. So we lived, anyway, this other fellow and I went back to McCarthy to get fuel. We got back and, and this other fell. And his girlfriend had killed a, a nice ram. And he told me that there was, there was three more rams there and that they were all, all nice sheep, but they were actually bigger than one sheep hill. So we, we went after the sheep, but there were, there was three, three rams. You know, one was, you know, maybe, you know, they were really nice sheep. There was 1 36 or 37. Anyway, I ended up, we were shooting, I was shooting uphill really, really steep. Yeah. Ended up with just a, a 36 inch ram. But yeah. And that was my sec, second doll ram.
00:36:09:10 –> 00:36:58:00
And the, the next one, next one was a trade on. I’d taken a, a pilot from Alaska, had come down here with one of the same guys that arranged this hunt before and took them, I took them whitetail hunt, and they, they killed some really nice whitetail bucks. And I, I told ’em that I, you know, I, I loved hunting doll sheep, and I wanted to get a really nice ram at some point. Yeah. He said, well, I can help you out on that. This this fellow, this fellow, at the time, he had done a lot of flying at the time. He was, he was flying for a, a well-known fisherman out there. He’d just spot sardines or herring. Yeah. You know, they used to fly and spot those big schools of those big groups of hearing from the air, you know, so they could Yeah.
00:36:58:04 –> 00:37:47:07
Put nets around them. And, and anyway, he said that there was a ram in a walk-in area there that was a Rudy dandy ram. And he’d been watching him. So that fall, I, I went up, okay. His full plane was broke down because he was gonna fly me into a high mountain lake to go after. Yeah. You go after these, these ramps we spotted and his full plane broke down. So he had, he had Sam fly me in there. Well, Sam was supposed to land me on a glacier up there, so I didn’t have to hike through a, a tremendous amount of haulers and, and rough country to get there, you know, which would’ve made it actually too easy. But, and he, he, he knew about the sheep up there and he, you know, I knew, I knew what he was, what he was thinking.
00:37:47:25 –> 00:38:29:18
He didn’t want it to be that easy. He didn’t know me from Adam. Yeah. He didn’t want it, want it to be that easy for me. So, and he flew around, made a bunch of loop to loops up there, and he was trying to, trying to make me sick, what he was doing, you know, or, you know, but I don’t know. He, he just didn’t want me to hunt there. Yeah. He said, well, I can’t land up here anymore. I’m gonna have to take you back down on a Copper River land on a, on a gravel bar there. And I knew better. Yeah. It would’ve been easy for him to land up there. So I didn’t say anything. So he did. So I had to hike through about the next day. I hike through about, I dunno, five miles, alders to get to where I wanted to be.
00:38:30:04 –> 00:39:16:26
And I got up there and set up camp and, and made a hike up the canyon trying to locate these sheep. And I didn’t. And I got back down to camp. And Sam’s uncle was an old, he was a World War II pilot. He had a, a ca lived down on a, on the Pitner River and had a, a place there. And he, he was in the air all the time. So he flies over the next day. And he said, well, he said, there’s a big storm coming in. You’re gonna have to, you’re gonna have to get outta here because this is supposed to last for a week. Holy cow. I had to pack up camp and, and walked back down to all that. He picked me up on the river there the next day. And I went back to Anchorage and a week later, this buddy of mine had his float plane fixed up.
00:39:16:26 –> 00:40:10:12
So he flew me in, he flew me into this lake and I started hunting. I think I was, I was in there six, seven days. The group of Rams that I was after, I wasn’t the one after these sheep. There was other people knew about ’em. Yeah. And a, a anyway, the weather still hadn’t cl cleared up. I had to turn around the top of this mountain range and, and couldn’t find these rams. And, and the next morning I glass at, it was a big, huge mountain side there. And I glassed at, and it was, I could see the spot I left there. I thought it was a goat to begin with because it is actually in goat country. But yeah, anyway, I got my spot and scope on him and I see, you know, he was really nice for him. It was, I think he, he ended up being 42, 42 inches, but geez, he was in a hell of a spot to try to make a stock on.
00:40:10:12 –> 00:41:08:06
And those, those old ram have been hunted many times before. So they, they live in a place where it’s, it’s next to impossible to try to get within range of them. Yeah. Well, I, I spent two days trying to, trying to get to this sheep without sping him. And finally like the third day, then there was some clouds moved in. Yeah. There was another front moving in. Well, this is perfect ’cause it would sock in. And then the wind had rolled clouds out. So I started up that Long Ridge and I got, I got up there about noon, and it was in a perfect place. The clouds had kept me undercover. So I got sort of this ridge and outta sight and I made, made it up within 200 yards. And this ram was bedding on a pin right on in the middle of this big open mountainside where he was living and feeding it.
00:41:08:21 –> 00:42:18:11
Just a, just a, you know, it’s a hard to explain to somebody, but it was just an ideal place for a big old own round of bed on a, a pinnacle rock where you could see everything. Yeah. But I was within 200, 250 yards. It was, you know, actually an easy shot. I was just hoping that I could kill him and he wouldn’t fall off there because, and he did, you know, it killed him dead. But he, you know, sometimes he’d give one last kick or two and Oh, they go over the edge. He went and he didn’t turn himself up to Yeah. He didn’t, you know, it was still sable. So I took the life-sized skin and anyway, it was a hell of a hot. So I, I can probably say that the most exciting, and, and i, I doll sheep are, are really, you know, even though they’re so easy to see being pure white, they’re, they’re not, they’re one of the smartest animals there is. Yeah. And they’re not easy to hunt, you know, especially the older rounds. But, but Dell sheep is, is, you know, if I had a lot of money, I’d hunt ’em every year. Yeah.
00:42:18:29 –> 00:42:26:29
Wow. Tell me about, I, I, I know you’ve been to Mexico, you know, and had some crazy experiences. Tell me a little bit about that. Well,
00:42:27:08 –> 00:43:23:12
Long story, but I’ll, I’ll try to shorten it up. I think it was 1975 being addicted to sheep hunting pretty bad already. Yeah. I knew the only opportunity to ever get a desert sheep at the end of the time. All I had was a stone sheep. I didn’t, I didn’t have the doll yet, but, you know, but I, I knew how difficult it was to try to get a desert ram. Well, there was an outfitter, a friend of mine from Bozeman had learned about an outfitter, Mexican American outfitter. This guy actually left, lived in Ula Vista, right. On the Mexico, California border. And, and he was taking hunters into northern wall on sheep hunts. What had gone on there is there was a, a big shot from Mexico City that worked for the fish and game. Yeah. Had got transferred to Tijuana, to, to immigration.
00:43:23:15 –> 00:44:11:01
And he took a, a stack of, of federal permits and a and a federal stamp with him. And he was selling these permits for less. Wow. Well, anyway, it’s also red a sheep up for me to out. And he told me about the hunting, the contact. Well, I used two guys that I hunted stone sheep with and that I told you about, you know, that bought the stone sheep out for me. And I’d taken hu several times here in Montana. I knew they wanted desert sheep, so I called ’em up and they went down. Right. I believe it was, had to been the spray went down and, and they both got nice rams. Yeah. Well, and when they got back, they, they said, if you can send him down six hundreds, you can, you can go on this hunt for nothing.
00:44:11:14 –> 00:44:11:23
Yeah.
00:44:13:00 –> 00:44:26:28
Paid for. So I jumped at that opportunity. ’cause I, I, it was no problem getting six hundreds. Right. So the next hunters I got, they both went down and they killed nice rams and,
00:44:28:27 –> 00:44:30:01
And made it home. You know, had,
00:44:30:02 –> 00:44:30:18
Look this,
00:44:30:29 –> 00:44:33:22
You had set him up, they went down, killed nice rams and made it home.
00:44:34:05 –> 00:45:20:23
Right. Right. So the next, the next in line, I can’t remember what I, something happened, this guy couldn’t go. So Carlos said, well, he said, you sent down enough harness, he can send down those other two guys after he goes, so I, he said, you, you can come down this next hunt if you want. Sure. So I, I got, I got ready and, and yeah. But I got down to, to San Diego and Carlos picked me up. And the next, the next day we took off and went through and started down in New Mexico. And these, these hunts, I believe were close to with familiar where San Philippe is. Yeah.
00:45:21:02 –> 00:45:21:09
Yep.
00:45:21:29 –> 00:46:20:09
Okay. Well, that, that part range of mountains there, but they were hunting in was where the world record deam came from. Yeah. Outta San, you know, it’s a big range of mountains, but it was in that particular range of mountains. So anyway, we took off the next day and, and we got into Mexico at the border. You know, there it was, there was some people followed us through ways and I asked him about it. He said, well, that’s nothing to worry about. And we got down to Mexico a couple hundred miles, and there was a roadblock. Geez. And it was, there was a pickup on the side. It was a big emblem, says El rego. In the back of this pickup, there was about 10 or 15 Mexicans with armed with every kind of a gun you can think of, from 20 twos to, to automatic rifles.
00:46:20:29 –> 00:48:01:20
Geez. And anyway, they stopped him and he got out and jabbed to him. And I asked him when he got back, there’s a problem. And he said, no, I said that, that happens every now and then they, they wanna check people out. So we got down couple hundred more miles and stopped this small cafe. I remember they had had grass fetching on the roof and just an old building. And we went inside and Carlos went in the back room and was gathering with this guy. And, and I see a big cloud of dust on the road out there and look, and here, here’s, here come the two vans and, and that pickup load of Mexicans with rifles. And they, they pull in there streets to the stop and what the hell’s going on? Geez. So anyway, all these Mexicans march in there, and they, and I’m at gunpoint and I think, well, this don’t look good. And this, this other Mexican Spaniard and, and the two other guys went, but this, this fellow name is Gio Rug. He was head of the fish game and ball. Yeah. And so they, they marched in the back and, and they started jabbering with Carlos. And pretty soon their Carlos is, is getting hurt. I know. Just what they, they twisting his arm or something, but, you know, he was squalling.
00:48:04:09 –> 00:48:58:29
Yeah. And then this rug comes out and he says he spoke good English. He said, well, did you come out here? We want information from you. So he sent me down a chair out there and had all these Mexican had their guns in, in my face. Like I was gonna try to get away, you know? Yeah. Nuts. He said, you write down the names of every hunter, you know, that’s come to Mexico to hunt. He said they were, they were, they were not hanging legally. I said, well, hell, they weren’t. He said, well, don’t argue with ’em. Do it. I said, so I did. I cooperated with ’em. And then I sat out there after I’d done this, he took off again, him and his other big shot in the van. And they, they come back about half an hour later, and they had a, a Mexican tied up with Lariat in the back of that pickup.
00:49:00:01 –> 00:50:02:11
Geez. And I said, well, Carlos, they had, they had him tied up inside and that was the, actually the guide that they’d went and gotten. Oh, okay. And they said, well, you’re in deep trouble. So, so they tie me up with the lt and I lay in the back to that pickup, you know, with my legs tied to my hands behind my back on my belly gun to point of that. You, you know, like, like, you’re gonna get away. Yeah. You know, stupid. We’d drive three or 400 miles well into the night to Mexicali. Well, when we get to Mexicali marching into the, into the jailhouse and, and took everything that I had and into, into the jail to go a a anyway. Geez. You know, it was scary.
00:50:03:20 –> 00:50:07:00
Wow. So what happened once you were in the cell?
00:50:07:26 –> 00:51:02:05
I, they wouldn’t make a, they wouldn’t let me make a phone call the next day, the next day, the big shot Lee and the big shot, I can’t remember his name now. He was the head of the fish and game from Mexico City. They marched me outta jail and started interrogating me about, about, about this hunt and the hunters. And, and I, you know, I told ’em everything I knew about, I cooperated with them. Yeah. And I go back in the cell and, and it was two more days and they question me again. And, and I, they, they wouldn’t let me, let me make a phone call. Yeah. But there was a American that had pneumonia that had been in jail, and he was sleeping on the couch. They had an old beat up couch out there next to the jailer. They found out his parents had money, so they were bleeding him.
00:51:02:18 –> 00:51:59:08
Yeah. Well, anyway, he said, I, I’ve got access to the phone, I’ve got to know the jailer said, I can, I can, I can call. So, so I, I, I knew my wife and would like to know what going on. Well, yeah. Anyway, I had him call my wife and my wife and dad come down the next day to try to, they went to the American consulate, you know, to try to get me out. While they couldn’t do nothing, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t do anything. So there was more interrogation involved. It was, I was in there for five weeks. Five weeks in jail, five weeks. And they, they, they, they don’t feed you. I mean, you, you have to share food with, with, there’s a bunch of Mexicans that are thrown in there for whatever, you know, I don’t know, crossing the border illegally or whatever.
00:51:59:16 –> 00:52:53:20
And they, their family would bring in, you know, they’d bring in food for ’em. Well, they’d share it with me. That’s how I got by. I had a little bit of money that I had stuck in my sock. And I, I, I spent that right away. And then occasionally they’d let my wife and dad come in and they would bring me something to eat. But then they transferred me to, to the prison. And Ezio, he said that that’s, that’s where you’d, you spend the rest of your time. And he said would probably be extensive. Geez, that was a good year. A anyway, as it turned out, another week in this scale. And they did feed you there, but it was, you know, it didn’t amount to much, it was a green, they called it ora. It was, they’d bring it in in big bags and dump it in the vat and it with boiling water, and they’d stir it with a, with a canoe paddle.
00:52:55:06 –> 00:53:54:12
Geez. And everybody’d get a, a cup full of it, you know, morning and evening and that, that was it. Wow. But at least you were, you weren’t in jail with with I was in jail with an older fella. They’d stuck in jail for, he, he’d been in an auto accident and his son was killed. And I guess if, if you’re at the wheel down there, you’re guilty. You know, somebody gets killed. They, they put you in jail, do they? Well, and his son was killed. You know, it wasn’t intentional. Yeah. So I, I went to the judge was a, was a woman. And she said that if I could get one of those hunters that had hunted in Mexico, come down and testify for me, that’s the only way they’d let me out. I don’t know what was behind this, but yeah. This Doug Peterson actually risked getting arrested and thrown in jail, and he come down and testified.
00:53:54:29 –> 00:53:55:06
Wow.
00:53:55:18 –> 00:54:12:17
Yeah. And told, and I thought he was ever gonna, I, he, he knew I, I told him, you know, my wife and dad to tell him what, you know, the chances were pretty great that he was gonna end up in jail. Well, he took a chance on it to help me out. Anyway,
00:54:12:21 –> 00:54:13:29
That’s a good guy right there.
00:54:14:27 –> 00:54:29:13
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Him and I were lifelong friends. Anyway, three days later, they released me after, after my dad and wife had paid the lawyer $10,000.
00:54:30:05 –> 00:54:30:14
Yeah.
00:54:31:20 –> 00:54:47:03
It was a whole year before I had to go to trial here in the us. And, and the, the judge knew what was behind this whole thing. And he, he threw the homeworks out. He, he told these feds, he was a federal judge, and he said it was, was the whole thing was entrapment.
00:54:47:13 –> 00:54:48:23
Wow. Crazy.
00:54:49:05 –> 00:54:52:02
Yeah. Wow. So he threw everything out. Think so.
00:54:52:02 –> 00:54:56:27
Did you, I mean, have you had no, any more trouble or does it all go away and,
00:54:57:01 –> 00:55:01:16
No, that was it. Good. That was it. Good. That was enough.
00:55:03:05 –> 00:55:10:11
So then you ended up drawing this one more for four here in Utah. Got another Mexico desert sheep hunt.
00:55:11:12 –> 00:55:11:22
Right.
00:55:12:06 –> 00:55:13:03
And went back to Mexico.
00:55:15:18 –> 00:55:15:26
I did
00:55:17:20 –> 00:55:19:15
Tell send that hunt turned out good.
00:55:21:11 –> 00:55:25:22
Yeah. Well, you know, sure. She better you take risks.
00:55:26:18 –> 00:55:26:27
Yeah.
00:55:28:01 –> 00:55:32:08
But you know, I, I had no worries. I, you know, that was wrong in the past.
00:55:32:29 –> 00:55:37:16
Yeah, yeah. Your wife was probably like, really? Ron really
00:55:37:22 –> 00:55:44:28
Well, right? Oh, she, she, she thought I was nuts, but
00:55:46:25 –> 00:56:16:12
Oh yeah. Wow. Well, cool. Well, what, you’ve seen everything wrong from 1930s, forties or fifties, whatever, all the way till nowadays you’re applying online. We have online applications. Everything’s limited draw, you know, except for like your deer up there we talked about, but you know what I mean, it’s crazy what hunting’s come to and the, and the changes and you’ve seen it all. What’s your opinions on some of that?
00:56:16:20 –> 00:56:21:22
The hunting’s deteriorated, just like everything else. I don’t, you know, we still got good elk hunting here.
00:56:22:02 –> 00:56:22:11
Yeah.
00:56:23:01 –> 00:57:22:23
And the deer hunting, you can go hunt deer, but, you know, it’s not like it used to be. Yeah. There’s lots of white deal around and Yeah. And, you know, it’s, it’s still really good. We’ve got a lot better off here than other people in other countries. You know, it’s, it’s, the opportunity is, is here. And even if you don’t have a lot of money, you know, you can still, you can still hunt quite a bit if you’ve got a lot of money. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s unlimited what some of these guys have done. You know, look at the Grand Slam Club book. You know, you’ve looked at, you know, some of these hunters got 30, 40, 50 sheep and, you know, it’s pretty unbelievable. But, you know, the, their people have got a ton of money. Yeah, of course. But you know, you still, even somebody like me, if they work things right, has got the opportunity to, and luck plays a big part.
00:57:23:08 –> 00:58:15:06
Yeah. Opportunity to, to kill a grant. Well, you know, I think that’s pretty much out of the, out of the picture for the majority of the hunters anymore. It’s gotten, you know, what, what they’re, you know what they can maybe get in a big horn unless you live in a big horn states and they’re lucky drawing a tag. It, it’s, or fairly good desert sheep is, you know, kinda outta the picture. And stone sheep with a price tag of 40 to 50,000 is ridiculous. Yeah. Doll sheep is still kind of in the ball game. You know, you can maybe go for 15, but still, how many, how many of these guys have got, especially people with a family’s lot, they’ve got $15,000 No Right. To spend on the hunt.
00:58:15:16 –> 00:58:16:20
Right. I agree.
00:58:17:02 –> 00:58:31:24
Yeah. So it, you know, getting a grand slam anymore is just about outta the picture for the biggest majority of people. Yeah. You know, it’s pretty sad. That’s the way things are. Yeah.
00:58:31:27 –> 00:58:32:04
You
00:58:33:08 –> 00:58:42:11
And there’s other, I don’t know, it’s, you know, it costs more. Of course. Yeah. But you can do it if you, if you work it right.
00:58:42:27 –> 00:58:55:11
Yeah. Well, well that’s awesome. So you’ve also seen the introduction of wolves and whatnot. Of course you’re opinionated on that. But tell us just a
00:58:55:11 –> 00:59:25:11
Little bit. Well, I tell you what, I, I don’t, something should be done. You know, they’re, they’re, it’s, they’ve decimated the wildlife in Montana, they’re, the west side of the mountains is pathetic. They’re, yeah. They’re, they’re elk and deer herds are down to nothing. And I, I just don’t understand the fish game letting this go. You know, they don’t, the agreement to begin with was, was it 1212 breeding pairs, or 15 at the most.
00:59:26:03 –> 00:59:26:12
Yeah.
00:59:27:26 –> 00:59:55:07
And that was the agreement they made with the feds. Well, why can’t they hold it that Yeah. They could if they wanted to. Somewhere. There’s a, there’s a big bunch of money, you know, there’s money involved and, and our game wildlife is suffering because of it. Yeah. You know, because, you know, they don’t, there should be either why it’s open, you know, it should be open three or 65 days a year and there should be no restrictions on killing wolf.
00:59:55:23 –> 00:59:56:01
Yeah.
00:59:56:05 –> 01:00:00:26
You know? ’cause they’re gonna, no matter how much, how hard the hunting is, they’re still gonna thrive. Oh
01:00:00:26 –> 01:00:02:00
Yeah. They’re smart.
01:00:02:12 –> 01:00:08:24
Yeah. Right. It’s really pathetic. Yeah. You know, I, I don’t, there’s nothing you can do about it.
01:00:09:02 –> 01:00:09:28
Yeah. Nothing you
01:00:09:28 –> 01:00:10:23
Can do. It really bugs me.
01:00:11:03 –> 01:00:25:12
Yeah. Yeah. There’s nothing you can do. And, and you’ve, you’ve experienced everything. I know we were talking earlier, you’ve spent a lot of time in the ponson clear back in 1988, went back in the heyday of some of this country. Well, we’ve seen some just giant mule deer. And
01:00:25:25 –> 01:01:20:05
It, it, it was, you know, I, I never dreamed that there was a place like that. You know, I don’t know. I, I would venture to say that, that we, that we had to have seen two or three bucks if they weren’t world record. They were, they were close to it and maybe exceeded everybody. And I hadn’t heard it was a bull that much, you know, I couldn’t, I’ve got a, I’ve had my arm busted up really bad and I couldn’t, I had to quit shooting a bow, you know, when I was 21. And I, because I, my hand was only caught a nerve, nerve damage. But then I found out I could shoot a compound after I started hunting with Jimmy Ron. And, and so I, I started hunting with a, with a compound to, you know, and I hadn’t hunt that much, but I even shut a buck.
01:01:20:18 –> 01:01:20:26
Yeah.
01:01:21:26 –> 01:02:15:16
But the, it was like I told you day yesterday, you know, when we, that first morning we were glassing that from a couple miles away, there was a, like a, the sage brush was moving right at daylight while it was, I don’t know how many bucks were there, but there was, you know, a huge number of bucks and lots of big bucks. And it just looked like the, all those antlers just looked like that, that seed brush flat was moving. Geez. You know, it, it was, it was unbelievable. There was just hundreds of them. Geez. And I guess, you know, shortly at that time period, that’s where they summer that they, and it, and I think in a two or three weeks time, the majority of ’em move into Arizona. Yeah. And they probably still do that.
01:02:15:24 –> 01:02:34:28
Yeah, they still do. They summer up there in Elton where you hunted there with Jimmy Ryan to Hoffman and those guys, and then, yeah. Right. Then they winter, they winter down there on the Utah, Arizona border. And some of ’em go into Arizona. So Same pattern. Same pattern. Just maybe not quite the giants that you were seeing. Right. You know?
01:02:35:22 –> 01:03:01:00
Right. But, well, I had heard after that, you know, ’cause I wondered after hunting down there, you know, I kind of kept track of the what’s going on with the deer. But the poachers learned about it and there was some big time poaching went on down there. ’cause it was so many huge bucks. That’s true. I don’t know if you remember that or heard, heard, you know. Yeah. Heard about it. But that had, that had to have been what happened.
01:03:01:11 –> 01:03:04:26
Well, and I think my dad was a game warden over there. And you, you met him. Well,
01:03:04:26 –> 01:03:05:11
He would know
01:03:05:15 –> 01:03:07:05
You, you met him in the field, I think.
01:03:07:26 –> 01:03:09:08
Right, right. Did.
01:03:10:17 –> 01:03:12:05
Yeah, he did. And he, yeah.
01:03:12:10 –> 01:03:17:04
You know, there’s still still a lot of deer there, but I’m sure it’s not like it was then.
01:03:17:14 –> 01:03:23:17
Yeah. Well, it’s still good. It’s good. By today’s standards, maybe one of the best, you know. Yeah,
01:03:23:28 –> 01:03:26:20
Right. Well, it’s quite a, quite an area. Yeah,
01:03:26:28 –> 01:03:35:29
For sure. So what else have you, have you, have you been to any other countries or you just, other than what we’ve talked about or mostly just deer and elk and cheap?
01:03:35:29 –> 01:04:38:05
Well, I don’t, you know, one, one of the hunts that I went on, I’m really glad that I did foreign hunts. I haven’t been on many, but I did go on only one that was probably, you know, pretty exciting would be any sheep or a friend of mine from Wisconsin, governor of Rogers had lined up a hunt for High Tai Rams in Mongolia. And he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Well, I, I jumped at the chance and went over and I think we hundred 15 days or 18 days. But it, it was, it was something else. You know, it was, I had always dreamed, you know, I looked at pictures of these giant rams and thought it’d be fun to see ’em on hoof alive. Well, I got to, I got to do that. Wow. And it was, it was, I, Roger, Roger screwed up.
01:04:38:05 –> 01:05:23:25
He had the chance to shoot a really big ram. And anyway, he missed out on this big sheep. He ended up killing just a, just an average sheep. And he, he was actually shooting at a, or supposed to have shot a ram that would’ve been, you know, way up in the fifties. Yeah. Horn length wise. But anyway, and I shot an I, the Ive at the time were, were pretty reasonable. I think it was 4,500. Wow. But on this over hunting sheep, I, I had spotted up, there was a group of, I, it was like a half a dozen of ’em way off. We had to come in from the backside in these cliffs. So it was pretty iffy that this big Outbacks would be in a spot where he was suitable and he wasn’t.
01:05:24:13 –> 01:05:24:22
Yeah.
01:05:25:04 –> 01:05:42:11
So we tried, we waited it out, Roger and I, at different points to where we could stalk him and, and without spooking him, and finally got toward the end of the day. So I just shot, you know, it was a decent iex, but nothing like a a 50 plus.
01:05:42:29 –> 01:05:44:01
Yeah. Wow.
01:05:44:20 –> 01:05:54:19
But that’s a, that spread an experience, you know, to, to see that country and, and, and see was a big sheep.
01:05:55:16 –> 01:06:14:01
Is there anything on your bucket list? You’re, I know you’re, you’re still, we talked about archery hunting the other day. You’re still, you’re still willing to hunt with a bow, you know, at this age in life. And you’re still working hard, you know, doing taxidermy and whatnot. But is there anything that’s
01:06:14:07 –> 01:06:42:26
Well, yeah, I, you know, I stay busy all the time. I still, I still hunt cats. Some, you know, I can’t get around like I used to, but, but I’ve got a, a good hound and I just hate to sit that, see that hound sit there, not do anything. But yeah. You know, it’s been a few years since I used Snowshoe, and I don’t wanna have to hunt lion on snowshoes. I don’t know if they could handle it, you know, because lion hunting can, can, I’m sure you’ve done enough to know that’s probably one of the toughest sports there is.
01:06:42:28 –> 01:06:45:28
Yeah. And you’ve got one, you’ve got one dog, one hound.
01:06:46:13 –> 01:06:48:00
Yeah. That’s all, that’s all you need.
01:06:48:13 –> 01:06:53:02
And will they, will that dog tree lion, do you tree lions every year with it? Yeah,
01:06:53:05 –> 01:06:56:24
She, she’s a, she’s got a hell of a nose on her every
01:06:56:24 –> 01:06:59:21
Year’s. You’re tree, you’re tree and lions every year with her.
01:06:59:24 –> 01:07:52:22
Well, you know, I did, last year I treated one female. Yeah. Before that year before that I treated two or three. I haven’t killed a lion in the last three or four years that I don’t care about killing one. You know, unless it’s a really big tom and they’re, these cats get hunt heavy around here. There’s, this season is usually open well after, when they filter quarters on the west side, all’s hoed hunters from the west side, they come to the center or not. Yeah. And there isn’t, there isn’t hardly any older Toms left, you know, if you have a three or four year old Tom, that’s about it. Yeah. You know, them big toms are about non-existent, you know, I don’t know what’s going on there. I think over hunting and I think in wolves play a part in it because they, they will follow these cats around you. You probably know that. Yeah.
01:07:52:29 –> 01:07:53:08
Yeah.
01:07:53:20 –> 01:07:58:23
Take their kill away from all the cats. Maybe get tired of that after a while and leave. Yeah.
01:07:59:12 –> 01:07:59:18
Huh.
01:08:00:04 –> 01:08:01:18
I know. It’s, it’s different.
01:08:01:25 –> 01:08:04:04
So you still like to lion hunt though? Hunt?
01:08:04:14 –> 01:08:33:12
I do. I do. You know, it, it, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a funny experience. Get you out, you know, a time of year when a lot of people don’t, you know, out in the woods and, but it, you know, it, it, it can be, it can be pretty difficult. Do you, you know, now it, it’s, it’s sort of, you know, I’m not gonna snow in the mountain front here’s is two, three feet deep. Yeah. You know, it’s just tough. Yeah.
01:08:34:04 –> 01:08:39:02
Do you, do you go by yourself? Do you take a satellite phone or anything like that? How do you
01:08:39:22 –> 01:08:45:06
No, you know, I should, but I don’t, you know, if I, I’ve thought about it. I don’t even have one.
01:08:45:09 –> 01:08:47:26
Just go by yourself and go You and the dog. Yeah.
01:08:47:28 –> 01:09:07:29
Right. You know, there, there’s, there’s some friends that hunt your cats here that, that I hunt with at times. But most of them, well, the main two or 300 list don’t want to go anymore. They’re getting too old and they don’t, they don’t, you know, so it’s kind of a do it yourself deal,
01:09:08:14 –> 01:09:09:20
But they’re not older than you are.
01:09:11:06 –> 01:09:11:29
A couple of more.
01:09:14:19 –> 01:09:16:10
Oh, well, good.
01:09:16:17 –> 01:09:30:05
I’ve had, I’ve been busted up pretty bad. The only thing that’s haven’t been busted up bad on, on me is my legs, my back. I’ve had my back broke three or four times and both arms get over and that catches up with you.
01:09:30:20 –> 01:09:32:04
Yeah. That’s unbelievable.
01:09:32:11 –> 01:09:33:23
Yeah. It’s no fun.
01:09:34:02 –> 01:09:37:06
Well, you’ll keep going. You’ve got a heart boy, there’s
01:09:37:12 –> 01:09:44:13
Well, yeah. As long as the guy, as long as the guy can still walk. Yeah. But it’s, it’s, it’s pretty easy to put off.
01:09:45:12 –> 01:09:59:14
Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, is there anything you’d tell the young hunters out there that are listening? Anybody, anything, any experiences or things that you, you know, would, they could learn from you for being Well,
01:09:59:17 –> 01:10:09:23
I don’t, I don’t know. You know, you just have to, you just have to have the, have the will to love the outdoors. Have the will to hunt and, and get out there and do it. Quit playing,
01:10:09:23 –> 01:10:12:19
You know, if quit playing video games, quit playing video games.
01:10:12:27 –> 01:10:18:26
Yeah. Right, right. There’s nothing better really. You know, the outdoor experience.
01:10:19:06 –> 01:10:38:04
Yeah. Well, good. Well, I sure appreciate you Ron, spending some time with me today. And, and what a wealth of knowledge and experience you’ve had over the course of, I don’t know, 60 plus years of hunting, isn’t it? Over 60 Yeah. Years. Right. Of just hunt, just hunting and doing it, you know. Yeah.
01:10:38:26 –> 01:10:58:10
Well, I, I grew up in an area where, you know, this, this part area is probably, probably one of the top areas in the, in the country, you know, as far as outdoor experiences and, and just the, the country itself is unique.
01:10:59:13 –> 01:10:59:21
Yeah.
01:11:00:29 –> 01:11:06:11
So that, that’s some incentive Yeah. Too, to to enjoy it.
01:11:06:15 –> 01:11:21:23
To enjoy it. Yeah. Right. Well get your applications in, in Utah and, and Okay. Keep applying in these places. You got a lot of points and I’m sure you’ll have a lot more, you know, hunts coming, so.
01:11:22:18 –> 01:11:23:23
Okay. I hope so.
01:11:24:13 –> 01:11:28:18
All right, Ron. Yep. Call me anytime. Anytime you wanna visit and we’ll go from there.
01:11:29:21 –> 01:11:30:20
Okay. Thanks a lot.
01:11:30:23 –> 01:11:32:07
Thanks Ron. Appreciate you.
01:11:32:21 –> 01:11:34:14
Yeah, yeah. It’s so long. Alright,
01:11:34:20 –> 01:12:40:26
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So anyway, it’s nine issues a year. It’s a hundred dollars and that is for the magazine as well as being able to call in and get hunting advice, consulting, whatever, whether it be tags, hunts, whatever you need. As far as Western big game hunting. We also have a full service license application service. This is for guys that just don’t have the time to apply themselves. So while the basis of our business is draws throughout the west and obtaining tags, whether it be landowner tags or guaranteed tags through outfitters, we also have a license application service. And this is, you know, where we apply guys throughout all the Western states for big game species and acquire points, tags and what have you. So anyway, that is an additional service above and beyond the a hundred dollars and it’s per state basis with a $500 cap. You cannot spend more than $500 with us in our license application service. And that’s doing every species throughout all Western states. And so anyway, for more information, you can go to epic outdoors.com. You can get on there, feel free to give us a call. There’s some sample magazines on there, as well as some different tabs where you can see what the different services are that we offer here at Epic Outdoors.
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