EP 97: Living the Hunting Life with Kip Fulks. In this episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast we talk with Kip Fulks Co-Founder of Under Armour. Kip has now moved on from the corporate world and is living the hunting life. Kip talks about business, life, and hunting, and shares his most recent adventures on the road. Kip also shares his current ventures and gives us some great life advice. “If you love something, pour everything you’ve got into it. If you don’t love it, stop doing it.”
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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Speaker 1: If you love something fricking pour everything you got into it. If you don’t love it, stop doing it.
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Speaker 2: They’re crazy big. That’s what they are. They’re, that’s the world’s greatest Elk hunting. Anything to do with Western big Games.
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Speaker 3: Welcome
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Speaker 4: To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Speaker 2: Hey everybody. Jason Carter here coming at you from the Epic headquarters, Cedar City, Utah. Got an awesome guest on today. Kind of goes hand in hand with our title sponsor Under Armour. We appreciate them and all their support. Got a lot of great gear out there. Putting out new products. Seems like every day right now, which is good because the hunts are on and we need the gear. Appreciate them all that they do, making great gear. And they’ve been an awesome sponsor of ours, supporter in about everything we do. So we’re super appreciative. And anyway, we got a great guest coming on with us. It’s Kip Fos. He was co-founder of Under Armour. Really appreciate him spending some time. Of course, he’s not a busy guy right now ’cause I tease him about being retired. But anyway, super good friend. And you know, when they were getting cranking really heavy with UA Hunt and I was in business with my dad, we met with them at Shot Show and whatnot and, and there was no question, I mean, when we dealt with kipp, he made things happen and no excuses and makes decisions now.
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And he’s a deal maker and so are we. So we get stuff done and, and worked dang hard at it. And so anyway, we jived well and we’ve worked together ever since with Under Armour. So been work working with Under Armour. I don’t know, it feels like 20 years, but let’s call it 12 to 15, somewhere in there. I’d have to look. So we also work with Hilberg tents, the tent maker, Hilberg the tent maker. They’re awesome. They make a wide variety of tents. In fact, catalogs dang near half inch, six full of options. So anyway, we’ve used them very aggressively. Laid the tents straight out on tundra water. Doesn’t come up through ’em. Pretty impressive. Anyway, a lot of sheep hunts up there in Canada, Alaska, as well as even my desert hunt down here in the middle of this county desert. So we’ve used them in all kinds of environments.
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We love ’em. They’re, they’re good people and we’re really proud to be associated with them. So go online at hillberg.com/epic. So H i L L E B e r g.com/e P c and and you’ll be able to go on there and, and purchase a tent. I do wanna also thank another advertiser of ours, all Mark Thompson or Thompson Long range, credible, accurate rifles out of the box Weatherby with the Mark Thompson spin on it. And we appreciate them and their support. You need an affordable rifle that can shoot a thousand yards. You, you ought to look at ’em. Anyway, give him a holler at 4 3 5 7 1 3 4 2 4 8. Be Scotty or Mark, give him a holler. Anyway, it’s awesome. Hope you enjoy this podcast. Let’s get him on the phone. Well, let’s see. Must be kind of nice being retired, huh? I thought
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Speaker 1: Might. It does feel a little good. Unfortunately. I don’t know how to do that. Well,
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Speaker 2: I know you’re not retired, that’s why I was just, just jerking your chain here a little bit. What, so what have you been doing? Well,
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Speaker 1: You know, trying to, trying to hunt a little bit. I always seemed like I was short on hunts. Three days here, four days here. So spending time with the family, doing a little hunting. So just, you know, trying to relax a little bit. Getting my game plan together for what I want to spend some time on. Yeah. But I got my fingers in a few things. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: You always do. Basically you were intimately involved with Under Armour and the creation of it and, and product development and running the place. Maybe you can, you know, kind of expound upon that a little bit and, and you know, tell everybody a little bit about that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s, it’s a crazy story to be able to sit back and not very often do I actually talk about it. Yeah. But you know, you, you, you rewind a little bit and 21 years at a fast growth company. It’s like an American dream. I mean, it really is. And, and you got, you know, gotta give the people there a lot of credit. I definitely did, yeah. Was there from the beginning, but we just had so many great people along the way that made it easy. But rocket ship, you know, garage to multi-billion dollar company, I did, did everything, you know, did all kinds of small jobs, big jobs. And there was never a job that was too dirty for me. So I did a lot of different stuff, tend to focus on the production and product and yeah. Sourcing. But later in my career ended up being the chief marketing officer and kind of chief product officer, which was fun and just amazing people to work with. Cool place as you know. ’cause you do a lot with them.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And, and when we got cranking on the Ry TV show, a lot of that came from you and, and you know, ideas that you had over the years and you, you really were heavily involved in hunting side of things. And of course, you know, you’re, I you know, correct me if I’m wrong, but basically you started the UA hunt side of Under Armour.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well at first it was like we made a mock turtleneck and then we were like, oh, oh, we can make it in green or let’s make it in camouflage. Yeah. And you know, once the consumer started using it, we realized, man, we need to give them better product. You know, we were waking a football shirt with mock turtleneck doing it in Realtree and Mossy Oak. Yeah. And Hunters were buying it, but it was exactly the same shirt, exactly the same fabric, same cut, same pattern. And so then I, I went to my partner and I said, we got something here. I wanna run a division and I want to create a division. And it’s never been done before at Under Armour. And I want sales, I want marketing, I want want product, I want innovation. I wanna run my own thing called outdoor. And we did snow sports as well, as well as hunting. And we launched the whole outdoor group. And that was a while ago. And you know, it, it’s done well over the years. And, and the Ridge Reaper stuff with you is to me, is just like the pinnacle of it. ’cause it was just some really great people and product. Yeah. It
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Speaker 2: Was awesome. I learned product. Yeah, it was awesome. And then, and that kind of, once we got cranking on Ridge Reaper 2012 ish, it just felt like, you know, everything was coming together. It was a viable part of the industry as a viable part of your company. And, you know, people there was getting to be a little bit of horsepower behind it and taking it to the next level.
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Speaker 1: And I think timing in life is, is everything. Timing and, and hunting is everything. Right? Timing in life. The whole industry was moving away from cotton and fabrics that didn’t do anything. And we were, you know, performance oriented and we wanted this product that was always doing something for you. We spawned this idea. I mean, when we first started selling mock turtle next to some of the big retailers, they were still selling cotton camo and selling a lot of it. Yeah. And we spawned this idea took a lot of, we took a lot of hints from the climbing industry and seeing what was going on in the climbing world. They were using performance fabrics, going to the top of Everest and all these crazy people needed life-saving fabrics down that didn’t get wet and waterproof, breathable and, but gosh, man hunting took forever to come around. But my God, look at it now. The product is best in class and there’s some great companies out there making unbelievable stuff. And I think Under Armour are still doing great things. Yeah. But there’s a lot of people making good stuff now.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And so, you know, I guess so bring us up to speed. Your affiliation with Under Armour. You’re taking a little bit of a break and maybe wanting to do, maybe wanting to do some things on your own or, or whatever.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think people have asked me this question if people are listening to it and maybe wondering, like, I had a perfect job. I mean, I had the best job and, you know, I wasn’t, you know, perfect. And I probably made some mistakes along the way and I have to own that. You know, it’s hard man. It’s hard being at a Yeah. Fast-paced company and, and, and being publicly traded and, and I think eventually I just, I I I liked the small company mentality and, and the big company wasn’t for me anymore. And if maybe I wasn’t for them either. And so now I’m not there anymore. Love the place, love the people. I know they’re gonna do amazing things. And you know, my partner Kevin is, you know, never, never place, say never with never. He’s gonna, he’s gonna blow people’s minds away. Yeah. So, but I’m just doing my own thing, just taking a little time. I got my fingers in a few things here. I bought a, I bought a small company that does custom auto renovation and my brother and I started a brewery. Just some things that aren’t, aren’t too stressful, but definitely fun for me. I’m making hunting rigs. The guys in the shop more like all you wanna do is make a truck that can go anywhere. That’s
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Speaker 2: Right. We do a hot ride. There’s big money. There’s probably some big money in that. Really.
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Speaker 1: Do you think guys spend some money on the trucks, don’t they?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we all, yeah. Geez. Even just regular off the shelf type trucks are 50, 60, 70 grand. So
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Speaker 1: It is crazy. Yeah. I mean, I think I was looking at a statistic where they sold like 250,000 of some expensive truck. That was a lot of money. People were putting some money down for trucks. Yeah. But anyway, I’m just having fun. I’m just having fun and kind of taking my time. But what a run 21 years.
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Speaker 2: Well, and it’s not, you know, you put in your dues, you’ve, there was not like, you didn’t have a little stress over there, you know? Yeah. I mean tell tell us about that. Tell us, you could probably do a whole lesson on stress management, you know, and how you, you
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Speaker 1: What? Yell and scream and throw shit. No. That’s why usually what I do, I, I don’t wanna give anybody advice, but yeah, it’s hard. You gotta work with a lot of different personalities and, and you gotta, you gotta appreciate what everybody brings to the table. You gotta bring a team atmosphere and you got a lot of different competing people and your job is to keep everybody on the same page. It, it’s tough. Brutal. Not everybody wants to be on the same page.
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Speaker 2: Well, and when I was there, you know, working with Ridge Reaper and come see you guys quite often, I mean it was, there was a lot of changing of responsibilities all the time too. Like one day, one day I’m hearing that you’re running the shoe division and the next day you’re the chief marketing officer. And the next, I mean just crazy the change all the time and keeping everybody on their toes and it’s just changing things up all the time.
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Speaker 1: You know, it’s interesting. I think my dad was in the military, we were military brats. My dad was in the Marines and we bounced around a lot and we, two years here, three years here. And we moved around mostly in the States. But we had some overseas. We lived in Bermuda, we lived in Hawaii and change. I love it. Yeah. I mean I love it. I mean every two years I was a new kid in school and me and my brother, we, that was our plan. We had to go find the toughest kid and get in a fight. And that’s what we did every two years.
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Speaker 2: You and Kobe gotta
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Speaker 1: Set the tone. Yeah. So I like to change, but change is hard on people, you know? Yeah. And it doesn’t create a lot of continuity for an organization when you’re constantly changing. Yeah. For me, I liked it, but it’s not always the best. You need to get some, you gotta get a rhythm to your business. You have to have a nice drum beat and people need to know what to expect so they can go do their job. Yeah. So change can be upsetting. It can be hard to deal with.
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Speaker 2: Well people like stability. They like to know when they come in, they’re gonna open the same door. They got their desk, it’s not gone. You know, I mean, people just like stability overall and if they’re good
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Speaker 1: At it. Yeah. I think the magic is, is is how can you get growth and stability at the same time? And those are the two competing factors. ’cause usually when you’re growing, you’re going out and getting new consumers and you’re coming up with new product ideas and you’re changing the way your company looks because you want to grow. But at the same time, you need to standardize all these processes and procedures that people know how to do their job. Yeah. So not every day they’re going, okay, well I’m gonna do it different than I did yesterday. ’cause that’s not scalable. And we learn that real quick. When you’re going from 500 million to a couple billion, none of those processes can be the same. They all change. They’re not scalable. Yeah. You know, and I’m sure you guys figured that out as you guys have done a great job of growing your business. It’s some stuff you did at the beginning just to get it done. It’s not really what you do when you’re bigger.
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Speaker 2: Right, right. No, it doesn’t. Definitely changes. But it’s nowhere near the volume we’re talking about with Under Armour. But maybe someday, huh? Maybe maybe here in the next couple years.
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Speaker 1: I thought you guys had a billion others on your platform. We’re
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Speaker 2: We’re, we’re close. We’re really close. So, no, I
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Speaker 1: Don’t know what you guys do. I was excited when you asked me to do this with you. ’cause you know, I’m a huge Carter fan and a huge epic fan and use you guys and just love hardcore hunting. I mean, that’s what, you know, corporate America doesn’t really reward you for being a hunting freak. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: That’s right. Well I know you’re nonstop on my phone asking me for more hunts. More hunts. More hunts. And dude, dude, I don’t tell us a, I guess we’ll just jump into, okay, it’s, so let’s just fast forward to retired life, which there’s no such thing with KIPP folks and we all know that. And that’s why I give you a hard time about it. But anyway, you jump in your truck and trailer, you’ve, you’ve booked hunts across the west, including Canada, Arizona, I mean, all kinds of things. You’re in my hometown for half a night and I’m, and I’m in the middle of trying to, you know, got kids going to homecoming date and this and that. So couldn’t see it. I know
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Speaker 1: I didn’t, didn’t give you much advanced notice either,
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Speaker 2: But, but you’re nonstop just crushing the place, trying to kill everything that walks and, and I can’t even keep up on keeping you in hunts. And so anyway, maybe just kind of start us off, I guess this is probably the one time in your life you haven’t had to answer your phone in two in the morning and Yeah. Answer to all these, I mean, at home
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Speaker 1: Myself,
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Speaker 2: You’re usually in China, you’re usually on private jets and crazy places. So anyway, it’s probably been kind of fun and and whatnot.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s been amazing. And you guys did a hell of a job helping me out with a few of ’em. The, you know, I got the opportunity, which most guys have this vision of what they want to do. The, the fall’s coming up. You want to go hunting? Oh, well if I could just do what I wanted, if I could just go to each hunt with no obstructions with not worrying about it and just have my own gear and just hunt across the west. Yeah. And that’s what I would do. And I think a, a lot of us think about it and, you know, it’s hard maybe financially or maybe work commitment family. And I just told myself this year I’m gonna do it. And you know, I took, I got, it was obviously a selfish thing to do ’cause you’re just hunting for yourself.
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So I said, you know what, I’m gonna start the first part of the trip and I’m gonna have my kids and my wife. And we did some fishing and some camping, but then they flew back from Calgary and then I just started hunting and I went from Alberta, the North mule deer and Northern Alberta had a leftover bear tag. Then I went to, drove all the way down to Utah and elk hunt and then elk hunt again in Arizona. And then I gotta go back and meal deer hunt in Colorado and just booked all the hunts I wanted. And I’m just crazy about elk and mul deer. And that’s really all I wanted to focus on. And I wanna do a hundred percent with my bow. And thank God I killed a bear, a mule and a a just an unbelievable elk in Arizona. I ended up losing an elk in Utah and I’m sick about it. Yeah. But that’s bow hunting.
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Speaker 2: I lost a, well I didn’t, anyway, I lost a, a deer that I wish I sent you a picture of it. I wish. Yeah. I have some do-overs on a few things, but
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you learn that way. Right. What would you do differently? And and that’s what I wanna do. Just commit to the whole thing. So I had my own rig. I built this truck, I jacked it up, big tires, bead locked rims, wenches, air compressors, extra tools. And then I bought this little trailer outta Utah called Borderland Trailers. It’s a tiny little thing that has pop-up tent and a little pullout kitchen, air
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Speaker 2: Conditioner
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Speaker 1: And you can actually sleep inside of it too. And man, I just, I was just light and fast and hunting everywhere focused on bow hunting and you know how hard it is to bow hunt. Yeah. So it was, it was a blast.
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Speaker 2: So you started, you hooked onto this trailer. So tell me what, what truck did you buy?
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Speaker 1: I got, you know, I’ve been through about every damn truck, but I wanted the durmax diesel. Yeah. And then I said I’m gonna, everything else I want, I’m gonna put on it. And I redid the suspension and I put a wench on the front and they make a little, your compressor that runs off the durmax diesel. So it actually runs off of the diesel. So you always have air and you got a lot of air. So you can run air tools, you can air your tires up and down. You can clean kids’ toys off blow tents out. So I just built this and I put an extra 30 gallon tank where the, where the spare tire goes. I pulled the spare tire out, I put a full-size spare in the bed and then I put an extra tank in. So I got 900 miles at one trip without filling up
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Speaker 2: And an air compressor that can run 9,200
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Speaker 1: Miles on it in one trip.
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Speaker 2: And so you got an air compressor that can run an impact wrench or anything?
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I pull my tires off in two seconds. I feel like I’m on a pit crew on the side of the road if I have to change a tire. Geez. I had to plug a, a guides tire. He, he, he was laughing the amount of stuff I pulled outta my truck and literally I plugged his tire for him and he blew it back up. I have an off-road airbag that you put underneath your axle and blow it up with air so you don’t have to put a jack if you’re on off-road conditions. Putting a jack on rocky soft ground. Yeah. Is is dangerous. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: They make is an orange. I got one airbag, I got one of those. It’s an airbag but you gotta blow it up. Either your exhaust, you can do it with your exhaust or a air compressor. Right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I do mine with the air compressor. The der max exhaust. Yeah. Actually it was too much for it. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Holy crap.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, I had a pun rig. You know, guys love trucks. So I built the truck that got me across the west 9,200 miles. I’ve never had a liquor problems with it. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So you buy a truck, you’re at 70 grand, you put another 70 or a hundred in it. That’s what I’m hearing.
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Speaker 1: No, no, no. That’s why I bought the sh that’s, that’s why I bought the shop to do all the work so they didn’t have to charge me.
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Speaker 2: That’s a good point. That’s a good point. Truck too much. Let’s buy the shop. So anyway, the
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Speaker 1: Borderland trailer, the, the borderland trailer is the fun part. That thing was worth its weight in gold. And it was probably about 25 26 K.
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Speaker 2: Oh, that ain’t bad. Tell us about a little bit. No,
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Speaker 1: It’s a, it’s like a super light package. It’s got big off-road tires. It’s got a good suspension on it. It’s got a pentel hitch instead of a ball hitch. ’cause you know when you get off road and your trailer is on a different angle than your truck. Right. Your ball can pop off real easy. So, and it’s got a little, a little pop-up tent and it actually has a storage unit that you could crawl in and sleep. It’s got two propane tanks, a fire box on the front and it’s got solar. Yeah. It’s got an electric water heater and a propane water heater. Yeah. And it’s got 40 gallons of fresh tank in the tank on the bottom of the trailer. It even has a suction that if you go over a fresh stream, it has a filter that you can suck fresh water into the 40 gallons.
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Speaker 2: Come on. That’s,
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Speaker 1: I’m ready to roll man. I’m ready for the zombies YPs now.
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Speaker 2: I love it. That’s awesome. And so what did you put on an extra that it didn’t come with? I know you told me you, you were gonna customize it a bit.
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Speaker 1: I did my first welding job ’cause I couldn’t carry enough firewood, which didn’t work out west because there was so many fire bands out west this year. Yeah. I didn’t really burn too many fires. Yeah. So I did that and then we put a little ac heater unit, so, which worked out well in rainy conditions when I’d get back from a hunt after rain, I’d hang my clothes up inside the little box and I’d crank the heater on andd, dry all my clothes out. Yeah. Which is, which is nice. That’s awesome. Obviously wasn’t in conditions where I actually needed to sleep with the heat on a sleeping bag was plenty. I was, God, it was hot out there this year.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So you hook onto everything. You’re back in. Are you gonna stay in Baltimore? Are you in Baltimore? I mean, what’s and then hook on and Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Right now I made it all the way back. I did this big triangle across North America and then I’m back now in Baltimore and I got a meal deer hunt with the Whitaker brothers out in eastern Colorado with my bow. And they’re awesome guys. And then we got some stuff here locally. Pennsylvania just has a new season where they have archery bear and archery deer at the same time, which is the first, last year was the first time they did that. And I got lucky enough to get a bear and deer in the same day. But jeez, that’s a fun hunt. You can sit in your tree stand hunt a nice white tail and if a bear comes by, you can smoke it.
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Speaker 2: That’s awesome. So tell me about this deer hunt up there in Canada. You killed a freaking stud. I know you, I know we’re gonna talk about, well
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Speaker 1: You guys gave me Anthony. He did a great job. He’s got a good crew. Yeah. Real good crew. I had never done that. I mean, I know you, I, I called you and you said, Hey, you gotta go here. And so I went and, and those, you know, the bean fields that go forever and the deer that just lay down and their buck, their antlers are sticking up and stop. You definitely gotta put some time in and glass and weeded through the, the deer. But when you, there’s plenty of big deer out there. Plenty. And there’s not that many hunters.
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Speaker 2: Well I just can’t figure out how he keeps producing 195 inch, 210 inch type deer every single year. I i other than maybe there’s just so limited pressure. I don’t know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, that early archery season I don’t think has as much pressure. It is huge land. I mean, we’re talking, you know, a, a place the size of like, it’s three quarters of the size of Texas. I mean it’s enormous. Yeah. Alberta’s a big, big area that southern Alberta with all those beans and crops. It’s just amazing enough cover for the deer that I think, you know, people say there’s not a lot of cover. I I saw a lot of cover where they can definitely hide from you. Yeah. Smoke was hard, you know, was hard to glass with that. Smoke
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Speaker 2: A lot of fires this year.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. But he does, he produces some big one mines scored out at 1 97. Kind of a weird non-typical. And I had never shot a velvet deer before,
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Speaker 2: So
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Speaker 1: That
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Speaker 2: Was really, I talked to Bobby from, called yesterday and visited about some different hunts. And anyway, he said he was up there with you and he killed a great buck too.
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Speaker 1: Oh man. His was a stud. Yeah. He killed a day after I had left and I drove up to Northern Alberta with his bear tag with Johnny Rivets. But he sent me a picture, he killed a slammer. I think he, you know, he was definitely patient. He was looking for a bigger deer. I think he had passed on some smaller ones. Yeah. But yeah, he sent me a picture. He is a great guy, great great shop in San Diego. I want to go by and visit him. Yeah.
00;23;40;10 –> 00;23;47;06
Speaker 2: Tell me about killing these deer. I mean, did you just bet him and stock him when the wind came up in, in the middle of the day? You know, when they,
00;23;47;13 –> 00;24;49;17
Speaker 1: I’m infatuated with archery mill deer. I just think it’s a tough, challenging, very strategic thinking hunt. You know, there’s a lot of factors in the deer just, you know, they, they obviously you can get ’em on an early feeding pattern and they’re a little bit easier. But I, I just never, I never find meal deer that easy to stick an arrow in. So yeah, we’ve got a glassed an area pretty cool story actually. My young guy, Dane Hillenbrand, we glassed up some good bucks. We kind of took an inventory of ’em and we kept going back to this one non-typical thing. Hey, we need to go back and find that one. Yeah. ’cause we think he’s the better that we’ve seen. And, but we didn’t have any permission on that land. And so we had to find the landowner and we had to go visit a few houses and talk to people. And we found a, a very nice old lady. She was up there in age, I think 96. Geez. She lived in a little house and, and we went and talked to her. We told her where the buck was and she said, you know what, I think that’ll be okay.
00;24;51;10 –> 00;24;51;23
Speaker 2: No way.
00;24;53;08 –> 00;25;28;21
Speaker 1: And, and we crawled for an hour and 45 minutes up a drainage and got to about 50 yards and he had us pinned, but we had tall grass and a lot of wind. So he didn’t really know we were there and we had to wait for him to get up. And it’s one of those waiting games. Yeah. He got up and did exactly what we didn’t want him to do. He walked completely away from us, but we didn’t realize at the time, he just went behind a little knoll and he was actually walking towards us. So I had stood up like we were done. Like he was walking and I needed to run after him. Then I saw these fuzzy tips coming over the hill and he’s walking towards us.
00;25;28;26 –> 00;25;32;16
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just getting up to feed for a minute and then come back. The guy
00;25;32;23 –> 00;25;54;17
Speaker 1: Yeah. He get, get ready, put an arrow in and the guide was behind me with the camera and we took 20 steps forward and literally he walked right to us. I drew and I actually tried to draw, the guide was so close to me, I had to turn around and tell him to back away from me so I could draw. Yeah. Because he was over my shoulder with a camera. Yeah. I said, I turned around and said, I said back up.
00;25;56;27 –> 00;25;58;06
Speaker 2: I can imagine I drew,
00;25;58;29 –> 00;26;17;26
Speaker 1: All I can see is ears and fuzz. I got no vitals. That beans are so tall out there. Yeah. That I thought when I stood up and drew that I would see vitals, I saw nothing but neck and ears. And I just pointed it down where I thought it and I shot at six, seven yards right through the fricking beans.
00;26;18;19 –> 00;26;20;05
Speaker 2: Smoked, smoked six or seven yards.
00;26;21;08 –> 00;26;22;23
Speaker 1: Yep. No, all on camera.
00;26;23;10 –> 00;26;26;02
Speaker 2: Come on. Crazy. I didn’t know it was that close.
00;26;27;03 –> 00;26;54;18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Guy had no idea. We were there. Didn’t. And my shot was not the greatest because I was picking my angle and I didn’t realize he was quartering away so hard and it kind of went a little high long back into the base of his neck. Yeah. Cunning his quarter and really hard away from me. Yeah. And he fell over rock solid, stuck another arrow in him and, and we were dancing and jumping and Wow. It was a great time.
00;26;55;06 –> 00;26;57;25
Speaker 2: That’s awesome. Yeah. I wanna see that footage. That’s crazy.
00;26;59;08 –> 00;27;01;21
Speaker 1: It’s not Jason Carter footage, but it’s pretty good.
00;27;02;18 –> 00;27;11;06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I’m sure it’s awesome. Six or seven yards. A hundred basically 200, you know. Well guys around here call it two 10. So.
00;27;12;08 –> 00;27;16;00
Speaker 1: Well I thought I got a lot of credit for the fuzz. Doesn’t the fuzz make it like two 40?
00;27;16;00 –> 00;27;18;03
Speaker 2: Oh, oh yeah. Yeah it does. They look
00;27;18;03 –> 00;27;19;10
Speaker 1: Huge in the velvet, don’t they?
00;27;19;16 –> 00;27;23;10
Speaker 2: They’re awesome. Absolutely. But so
00;27;23;12 –> 00;27;33;28
Speaker 1: I was so excited that you guys, you guys turned it on to me. You gave me Anthony and I, I think Anthony has got some availability over the next couple years and he’s kind of grown his business and doing a good job killing big stuff.
00;27;34;07 –> 00;27;47;29
Speaker 2: Big stuff. It’s awesome. And for good price compared to, you know, deer hunts are expensive. You get a, you get a deer hunt that’ll kill you, you know, 195 to 2 0 5 or something like that regularly. I mean, they’re $20,000 hunts if you can find them.
00;27;48;17 –> 00;28;07;19
Speaker 1: No, he’s, he’s very reasonable when you compare it to those kind of hunts and, but he can’t guarantee it. It’s, it’s a lot of open land and it’s a lot of land that’s, you know, you’re gonna have to go and get permission. It’s, you know, you’re, they’re not allowed to have money take place between the guide and the landowner. You can’t,
00;28;08;09 –> 00;28;09;15
Speaker 2: You can’t lease property. I didn’t know that.
00;28;10;18 –> 00;28;17;01
Speaker 1: No, not in that Southern Alberta. You literally have to have written and verbal permission, but it’s illegal to pass money.
00;28;17;12 –> 00;28;19;10
Speaker 2: So you couldn’t have given, you couldn’t even have given,
00;28;19;10 –> 00;28;21;06
Speaker 1: And someone don’t quote me on that, but that’s what I was told.
00;28;21;13 –> 00;28;25;17
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it’s like you couldn’t even have given this old gal a few bucks really legally.
00;28;26;03 –> 00;28;33;05
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know what, we came back and we gave her some milk and some eggs and we stalked her fridge and we talked to her again and, and said, thank you very much. Wow.
00;28;33;11 –> 00;28;41;10
Speaker 2: That’s crazy. That’s awesome. And so then our, our buddy Johnny Rivet, you, you go up there and make good on a bear tag.
00;28;43;11 –> 00;29;05;01
Speaker 1: So in Albert Northern Alberta, like past lesser lake, you get two tags for spring bear. And so I had a leftover tag. I’d killed a bear in the spring and had a leftover one and I actually had a wolf tag too. So yeah. I killed it with Anthony in my first day out on my first stock. So I had six days and I drove straight up to Johnny.
00;29;05;06 –> 00;29;19;11
Speaker 2: I we’re doing something wrong down here hunting Nevada and dealing with some of these spot and stock deer. I mean one day half, let’s call it half a day Really? And you know, first try, I mean, it just makes what we’re doing look stupid.
00;29;21;05 –> 00;29;27;13
Speaker 1: Well you need some, you need you, you need about five and a half feet of beans Yeah. To cover everything we do. Geez.
00;29;27;28 –> 00;29;30;00
Speaker 2: That’s awesome. Yeah. All right. So
00;29;30;08 –> 00;30;07;28
Speaker 1: I was lucky. And the guys in camp that stayed there, I think they, you know, like Bob, he killed it on the fourth day. So I definitely feel grateful to get a good stock in early. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Shot a nice bear. It’s a fun place up there. I don’t know, I don’t really like being on the ground with black bears. Matter of fact, I dislike it. I’m very uncomfortable. I put myself in that situation over the last three years. ’cause it, I don’t like it. And I booked them out for a week every year for the next three years. Did you? Because I freaking did. I did. I wrote ’em a nice big check. I said, Johnny, I love you. I hate these bears. Put me on
00;30;08;03 –> 00;30;14;04
Speaker 2: ’em. I’m gonna kill ’em all. That’s hilarious. So are you gonna do, are you gonna be on the ground or in a tree stand?
00;30;15;12 –> 00;30;19;01
Speaker 1: No. Yeah. We’re, we’re kind of strictly on the ground with these things.
00;30;19;20 –> 00;30;21;10
Speaker 2: And that’s, that comes from Ken.
00;30;21;10 –> 00;30;51;27
Speaker 1: You’re 20 yards from the bait and there’s bears all over the place. They’re like mosquitoes. You got, you know, we had SALs and Cubs and, and you know, snapping jaws and fake bluffing each other. And you’re right in the middle of it. And matter of fact, when the big Bo came in that I ended up shooting the alw that was really kind of had an attitude kicking all the other sows off the bait. She, she got out of there quick. So you know, something good’s coming in. Yeah. And she ran close to us, like we’re her friends
00;30;52;26 –> 00;30;55;19
Speaker 2: We’re gonna And she knew you were there because she,
00;30;56;13 –> 00;31;11;21
Speaker 1: She bolts off the bait. Yeah. They all kind of know you’re there. Yeah. I think they just think you’re another bear. I think they think you’re a weak bear. Yeah. But they’re not gonna mess with you if you don’t mess with them. And so she stood right next to us and I had to come full draw with her at five yards to my right.
00;31;12;09 –> 00;31;12;17
Speaker 2: Geez.
00;31;14;11 –> 00;31;28;29
Speaker 1: And you know, Johnny carries a shotgun, but I, I’m still asking him if he puts shells in it. Right. Because he’s so cool with these bears. He’s been around them a long time. Right. And I’m like, he, he puts the shotgun like 10 yards away. I’m like, could you keep the thing on your lap please? That’s
00;31;28;29 –> 00;31;30;07
Speaker 2: Hilarious. Can
00;31;30;07 –> 00;31;35;08
Speaker 1: You keep it safety ready? Like ready death. I want to know that you
00;31;35;08 –> 00;31;42;03
Speaker 2: Got a real backup. I got, I got a real backup here. Holy crap. So I guess
00;31;42;04 –> 00;31;47;09
Speaker 1: Come to find out that whole area’s now got big, big inland grizzlies.
00;31;48;01 –> 00;31;48;14
Speaker 2: Really?
00;31;49;28 –> 00;31;57;13
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they’re debating in that area when they’re gonna start selling resident tags not for out of, you know, non-resident.
00;31;58;04 –> 00;32;01;27
Speaker 2: So does Johnny Johnny see him? Like is he seeing them up there?
00;32;02;18 –> 00;32;32;24
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Down where he’s at. He’s, he’s seeing them not on all the black bear baits. Is he seeing them? But the ones that was a little bit south of the lake, he showed me some pictures of some monsters. Wow. And I was terrified they were gonna be be in there when I’m going in with a headlamp. Yeah. I guess the largest inland grizzly is the Alberta Grizzly. The things are, they get six, 700 pounds easy. Wow. And they’re big and sloppy looking. And the ones on trail cameras looked like a kid’s cartoon. They were so big.
00;32;34;06 –> 00;32;35;02
Speaker 2: I had no idea.
00;32;36;25 –> 00;32;41;26
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess the biologist is really considering offering resident hunts.
00;32;42;26 –> 00;32;43;03
Speaker 2: Wow.
00;32;43;17 –> 00;32;45;04
Speaker 1: So they got, they got a lot of them.
00;32;46;07 –> 00;32;47;11
Speaker 2: That’s crazy. So I guess
00;32;47;11 –> 00;32;47;19
Speaker 1: They’re
00;32;48;22 –> 00;32;49;16
Speaker 2: So following
00;32;49;16 –> 00;32;50;23
Speaker 1: The mood into the bush.
00;32;51;02 –> 00;32;55;04
Speaker 2: So is he baiting in the fall as well as the spring then? I mean the same tax.
00;32;56;17 –> 00;33;11;14
Speaker 1: Johnny pretty much focuses on spring and then for only select clients that didn’t get both tags, he’ll do a little bit of a fall camp. But I think he’s really focuses on spring bearers. Yeah. But it’s nice ’cause the fall bear’s got more weight, they got a nice coat.
00;33;11;25 –> 00;33;21;01
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that’s cool. So then you, you cl you clean house with Johnny and you take off and you head back to Utah or was that your next stop?
00;33;22;05 –> 00;34;00;18
Speaker 1: It was fun because Johnny and his wife Jen, they had to go to Utah for an elk hunt. So we actually caravan together from northern Alberta all the way to Salt Lake City. And then they went on their hunt and I went on my hunt. I met up with Cam and picked up my buddy Shane Dorian at the airport and cam at the airport. And we hunted hard for a week in Utah. Shane and Cam Cam killed a, his, his video has been unbelievable, but he killed a nice 365 or 360 9 bull. And then Shane shot a stud five by five. So those guys had a great hunt. And being in camp with them is, you know, awesome couple Taylors. Taylors
00;34;00;25 –> 00;34;03;27
Speaker 2: What? So how many guys were in camp?
00;34;05;24 –> 00;34;54;08
Speaker 1: You know, we were hunting a pretty, a pretty nice ranch with the Wild Country Outfitters with Tom Land and his son Austin Land. Yeah. And Colton and those guys do a great job. So, you know, we’re, they have tags that are through the division of wildlife and so it’s any weapon. So there is some rifle hunters on a certain part of the ranch. They kind of cut the ranch in half and put the rifle hunters over there. And then there was about four or five of us that were archery only. So we had a blast. We, we had a, a bunch of nice rifle kills that we saw come in. But I’d say the archery guys did as good as anybody. Cam shot the biggest bull there for a while. I think the biggest bull been shot on the ranch since I shot my, my 2 75 there. 3 75 with my bow giant.
00;34;54;13 –> 00;34;54;22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00;34;54;29 –> 00;35;12;26
Speaker 1: A few years ago. And so Kansas is the second biggest on that place. They’re pretty good at that 3 40, 3 50 range. But once you get 360, 3 70, there’s not as many. I think Brian lineman from Cabbel was a few years ago, shot a three 90. So they do have some big boys on there.
00;35;13;06 –> 00;35;27;28
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that’s awesome. I didn’t, I didn’t know Kim’s hunt, Kim’s bull was, you know, ranked that high. I didn’t know it was like the second largest. You, you killed an absolute slob. It was a giant with featured on Ridge Reaper and awesome kill scene. It was pretty,
00;35;28;03 –> 00;35;39;20
Speaker 1: Pretty nice. Yeah. Good. That one was one of those long times, not a ton of mass, but just had the length, you know, super long. The thirds were like huge swords and you know, length carries like
00;35;39;23 –> 00;35;44;08
Speaker 2: A 60 yard kill or something. Just a just a you just smoked him. It was pretty awesome.
00;35;44;26 –> 00;36;02;25
Speaker 1: Yeah, he fell in the wallow. That was good. That was a good hunt. But I, I got a big wide five by five this year and you know, I think for all the archery hunters that are, you know, really pride themselves on waiting and being patient. I, I passed up a lot of animals. I wanted the right shot and then I ended up making a bad shot
00;36;04;16 –> 00;36;06;26
Speaker 2: On the five by, on the five by you made a bad shot
00;36;06;28 –> 00;37;12;20
Speaker 1: On the wide five by five older bull, probably 10 year old bull. Just nice old wide kind of heavy. And, and we decided we were gonna shoot him and he came in and he kind of got hung up at like 45, 50. A lot of guys that are cow calling to, you know, a lot those I, I can tell you those bulls know exactly where that sound is coming from. They know the exact rock you’re standing on. They’ve stood on that rock before and they can hear and pinpoint location and when they hear a sound and see no sight, no decoy, no cow. I think they get hung up a lot. Yeah. And so if you’re calling and they can’t and they can see what their eyes that there is nothing there, they get hung up. And so he did, he got hung up at about 40, couldn’t see anything. We actually had a decoy in the bag. We didn’t use it and I was kicking myself for it, but he turned around to leave and he presented a perfect quartering away shot. And so I took it right when he turned his head to move, I drew and he gave, but he took one step too hard and it was almost like a going away shot.
00;37;12;27 –> 00;37;14;14
Speaker 2: Yeah. Tight, tight. And
00;37;14;20 –> 00;37;41;06
Speaker 1: I wish I could have taken that back, tracked him for a while. You know, one of those gut wrenching things where you make the decision to back out and come back in the morning and hope you get right back on it. And we did. We got back on blood and once you get into that dark pine and that dry the blood was really hard. And so we had to grid it out and try to bump him or find him or find him dead and, and brutal. My god. We put some hours in, but we never found him.
00;37;41;12 –> 00;37;50;08
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s brutal. So it was brutal. Yeah. So, and then you, and like did you and Cam head direct to Arizona from there?
00;37;51;25 –> 00;38;08;27
Speaker 1: Well, Shane got in the car with me. Shane actually came to Arizona with us. We drove, we road tripped from Utah to Phoenix and then we went to San Carlos and then Cam flew in and we picked him back up and then we all went out to San Carlos, which is just a, it’s a mystical place.
00;38;09;03 –> 00;38;11;06
Speaker 2: That place is the world’s greatest
00;38;11;15 –> 00;38;19;18
Speaker 1: Elephant. They charge you money for the tag. Yeah. And I want people to know that. ’cause I’ve had all kinds of people ask me, well how do you get on the San Carlos? And I’m like, you write a big damn check.
00;38;22;23 –> 00;38;23;11
Speaker 2: A big check.
00;38;23;21 –> 00;38;26;22
Speaker 1: It’s free game check and yeah, it’s free game.
00;38;27;01 –> 00;38;27;12
Speaker 2: And these,
00;38;27;12 –> 00;38;29;01
Speaker 1: The elk wild and crazy.
00;38;29;15 –> 00;38;38;08
Speaker 2: They’re crazy big. That’s what they are. They’re, that’s the world’s greatest elk hunting that, that I’ve ever, I mean I think it’s pretty well known that they’re the number one.
00;38;38;25 –> 00;38;54;11
Speaker 1: I think they had a tough year with drought and the way the moisture came maybe early but not late. And so a lot of the back ends didn’t have the growth and I don’t think the guide was blowing smoke up my, you know what? Yeah. He told me in a regular year my bowl was a 4 15, 4 20 bull.
00;38;54;13 –> 00;39;03;11
Speaker 2: Oh I think so. I mean he’s three 90 this year. And in Arizona everybody knows it’s really, really tough this year in Arizona. Yeah. Growth wise.
00;39;03;15 –> 00;39;28;15
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I didn’t know that per se going in, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. And it’s not like they’re gonna give you your money back until you can come next year. Right. So if it’s a bad year, you just deal with it. But we saw hammers, we saw bigger bulls than mine and we saw bigger bulls than camps. Wow. So there’s, you know, there’s some hunters out there that I think have a couple rifle tags until the end of this month. And I’m sure they’ll shoot a smoker, but it’s a special place.
00;39;28;23 –> 00;39;32;00
Speaker 2: So you saw bulls, saw bulls over 400, you feel like?
00;39;32;11 –> 00;39;36;12
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We, you know, just try to get ’em into bow range is tough.
00;39;36;17 –> 00;39;40;01
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just tough. Tough. That’s crazy.
00;39;40;05 –> 00;39;52;04
Speaker 1: Maybe an odd year for the, the Rutt was not exactly like just, you know, when it’s, when it’s on, it’s on. We never really had that except for maybe one morning.
00;39;53;00 –> 00;40;02;07
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, so that wraps up Arizona. You guys both killed mid to upper three nineties it seems like.
00;40;03;13 –> 00;40;19;02
Speaker 1: Yeah, cam was, mine’s like 3 87 and you know, these are just rough scores. But Cam’s was in that, you know, three 90 zone and, and had a broken time. So his is a 400 inch bowl. It had a, you know, probably an eight or nine inch time that was broken.
00;40;19;12 –> 00;40;21;10
Speaker 2: Crazy non-typical looking thing.
00;40;21;14 –> 00;40;29;15
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s super heavy. I think he’s posted a bunch on Instagram and even when I look at it, it looks like a modern day dragon. Yeah. It’s
00;40;29;15 –> 00;40;32;15
Speaker 2: Just, it’s kind of crazy. It’s crazy.
00;40;32;28 –> 00;40;49;11
Speaker 1: Your, your listeners appreciate it, but when you talk to folks back east that don’t do a lot of elk hunting, you try to get all excited at a cocktail party telling them what cam shot and they’re like rolling your eyes trying to get more cheese dip and I wanna strangle ’em going, don’t, don’t you understand? That’s an enormous bull.
00;40;49;11 –> 00;40;57;03
Speaker 2: Yeah. Let me, let me reiterate, this was a dinosaur. It’s hilarious. Well, we just try not to talk to guys back east. How about that?
00;40;58;07 –> 00;40;58;26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that works.
00;40;59;10 –> 00;41;00;28
Speaker 2: Oh. So let’s see what else.
00;41;01;03 –> 00;41;02;25
Speaker 1: I’m gonna have to move my home. Home location.
00;41;03;07 –> 00;41;44;23
Speaker 2: So you’ve killed about everything. You’ve killed giant bulls, bears, you’ve done literally as far as deer and elk and your, and that’s what you really like. You’ve killed two book book meaning Boone and Crockett net four point Mule Deer, that official at 1 95. I I sent you the paperwork on that one. And then same thing with a book non-typical if you want to enter ’em. And so that’s, that’s the pinnacle. There’s not, I don’t know very many guys that have killed a book net non-typical mule deer book net, typical mule air course. We hunted you on that typical and it’s a pretty awesome experience. That’s one. I think that was even maybe your first mule deer.
00;41;46;26 –> 00;41;52;17
Speaker 1: Yeah, no it was, it wasn’t my first. Oh yeah, no yours. Your the Nevada buck. No
00;41;52;17 –> 00;41;54;11
Speaker 2: Nevada buck. Yeah. The typical, yeah,
00;41;54;24 –> 00;42;17;20
Speaker 1: Typical was that I thought. Yeah, I thought you said non-typical but yeah, the typical with you guys was amazing and cool to have. Jason and Garth, your dad was there too. So that was fun for me. Not knowing you guys just, just meeting you guys and you know, the hospitality you guys showed me and helping me learn how to hunt Nevada. I mean that was, that was a big learning experience. I was sicker than a dog too, remember?
00;42;17;27 –> 00;42;39;21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I totally remember you were sick. It was snow. Do you remember the snow? Like it was, and that it’s very rare to get snow in a, during a regular season in Nevada. You know, you obviously get snow in December, January, February, whatever. But it snowed the last day or two days, day and a half a year hunt, two days a year hunt. And that just, that was amazing. It, it changed everything.
00;42;40;20 –> 00;43;10;12
Speaker 1: Well it kind of ruined that one evening ’cause we had to go back to town ’cause it was a white out. We couldn’t glass anything, anything. But we knew the next morning was gonna be good. Yeah. And, and when we went back it was like a spotlight had been turned on. I mean that, that snow just makes it unbelievable. And we ground and pound and we found a man. He’s a beautiful, he’s the, he’s the pride and joy, you know, that typical deer to me is everything. So he’s right in prime location in my barn. There’s a lot of dead animals in that barn, but he’s right above the door.
00;43;10;19 –> 00;43;13;12
Speaker 2: Yeah, no. And he should be. He’s a milder. He should be.
00;43;13;22 –> 00;43;14;01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00;43;14;15 –> 00;43;26;16
Speaker 2: So, and then you killed, you killed a giant non-typical in northern Utah. Course that’s a buck that I struggled with quite a bit. And I know you, you relished it freaking knocking him down and, but, but
00;43;26;27 –> 00;43;42;22
Speaker 1: Deserved. Well if we played in the N H L, you would’ve gotten an assist on that one because you stuck a few arrows in him. But I see is not an assist because you made him so darn crazy. Yeah, that’s crazy that we’d be glassing him and then he would get up and run two miles for no reason because like a, a bee flew by him.
00;43;43;07 –> 00;43;56;12
Speaker 2: I know, I know. I had him at 10 yards and, and but the wind was so heavy there was no way he, he knew I was there and I was just beyond a little rise. He just takes off, takes off running. I mean all the time. He did that all the time,
00;43;57;10 –> 00;43;59;15
Speaker 1: You know, after. So he was like that when you were hunting him? Oh yeah.
00;43;59;18 –> 00;44;24;06
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well after, you know, after I just thought it was because an arrow after, after an arrow, he was definitely changed his life a little bit. So, and he ducked, he ducked my arrow on video. Like he, you know, you know, I remember as soon as I released he, you know, just ducked and it just went right under the spine, right in the void. Nothing, of course when you killed him, what, three weeks later he was healed up and fine and gonna live. He
00;44;24;06 –> 00;44;41;15
Speaker 1: Had nothing. Yeah. We had hardly anything on him. It’s amazing how tough these animals are and listen to some of your other podcasts and there’s definitely a common theme on just animals have a will to live and they’re just, they’re just stronger dealing with. Can you imagine someone sticking an arrow through you and you getting better eyes? No. That just doesn’t
00;44;41;15 –> 00;44;42;14
Speaker 2: Work in the No, no.
00;44;42;19 –> 00;45;25;17
Speaker 1: The world we live in. No, but he was a gorgeous deer and it was fun. I don’t, not doing a lot of rifle hunting anymore, but that was probably my last one. And you know, a challenging shot, you know, 550 yards across a ravine with a good, good, a bit of wind and you know, he, him not wanting to present a shot, he didn’t like being out in the open. He was kind of hung up in the bush just ’cause he was a kind of a head case of a deer. Yeah. So, you know, don’t do a lot of rifle hunt anymore. But my last rifle hunt was that it was fun. Nice, nice. You know, nice long shot. Makes you feel good, confident and just put him down. And it’s amazing, you know, a rifle put in the right location just does so much damage.
00;45;25;26 –> 00;45;56;07
Speaker 2: It’s crazy. And he, yeah, he ended up for, you know, guys that are listening, he ended up like grossing 2 45 I think, you know, net net in the mid two thirties hard horn. And so velvet wise he’s over two 50 and yeah. Having a two 50 bucket, 10 yards rattles a guy. So anyway, that doesn’t happen very often. He’s such a stud. It was one of the biggest deer in northern Utah, especially in that area I think than they since the 1940s or fifties or something. I can’t remember the statistics.
00;45;56;09 –> 00;46;08;07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the ranch history there gave us a little bit of insight that they, they, you know, since they had been recording books, I think he said like 52 or 53. Yeah. That it was the biggest they have from the ranch. Yeah. From when they were recording
00;46;08;13 –> 00;46;19;01
Speaker 2: Special deer special genetics. So anyway, what, what are you doing? So tell us about the rest of your year and I mean what, obviously we talked about Whitaker Brothers, you got a little bit there.
00;46;20;12 –> 00;46;57;12
Speaker 1: Yeah, that eastern Colorado is in my blood. I love that. Just hard hunt. Just, you know, early November could be cold, could be warm, could be windy, could be calm, you know, it is just hard and not a lot of cover and you know, spot and stock mul deer. And then I have a spot in stock, mul deer coming up here in a couple weeks for South Dakota, which is kind of a, I didn’t know that. I think I’ve been looked overlooked a little bit for both whitetail and, and Meales. We’ve seen some nice big meales. Last year I didn’t get a connect, but I was hunting the same ranch last year and I’m going back. Oh, didn’t
00;46;57;12 –> 00;46;59;22
Speaker 2: Landowner, what’s the potential there? I didn’t know that.
00;47;01;07 –> 00;47;17;14
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty reasonable too, that you can get a tag, an east and west tag and you can get a meal deer tag and if you tag out you can go to the counter via a whitetail tag. Wow. They got some nice white tails running the river bottoms.
00;47;17;28 –> 00;47;23;19
Speaker 2: That’s crazy. So is there 180 potential or do you think I mean better or Oh
00;47;23;19 –> 00;47;44;03
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, they’re killing deer in the 200. You know, not a lot of ’em, but I think that 180 to one 90 is definitely feasible. Wow. I will say that. Archery hunting, mul deer. I have never focused on the number getting close to a big mature deer. He’s 1 61 71 81 9200. Yeah.
00;47;44;16 –> 00;47;44;27
Speaker 2: 40.
00;47;45;12 –> 00;47;47;07
Speaker 1: He’s getting an arrow every day of the week.
00;47;47;12 –> 00;47;50;00
Speaker 2: Yeah. One 60 to two 40. I’m killing him.
00;47;50;25 –> 00;47;52;05
Speaker 1: Yep. He’s old. It’s,
00;47;52;13 –> 00;47;53;03
Speaker 2: Yeah. That’s awesome.
00;47;53;11 –> 00;47;57;15
Speaker 1: Big chy shoulders and a big tummy. Looks like he’s been eating Twizzlers and
00;47;57;18 –> 00;48;13;24
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s right. That’s awesome. Cool. So you’ll do South Dakota, the eastern plains out eastern plains will be cold. I remember when Kobe went out there, you, I think you were with Kobe. You and Kobe, but anyway, and I don’t know, was it like negative 10? I can’t remember what the windshield was.
00;48;13;28 –> 00;48;19;16
Speaker 1: The windshield was crazy. Yeah. The wind can just hammer you. Yeah. And it makes shooting hard. Yeah. Because you gotta get closer.
00;48;19;28 –> 00;48;20;05
Speaker 2: Yep.
00;48;21;16 –> 00;48;28;21
Speaker 1: Makes stock a little bit easier. But you know, who wants to shoot with 40 mile an hour winds? Your arrow just does funny stuff.
00;48;29;05 –> 00;48;35;20
Speaker 2: Yeah. So what are you, what’s your future plans? Tell us a little bit about, I mean, you can’t,
00;48;35;20 –> 00;48;43;04
Speaker 1: Well I’m gonna bug you guys for, for canceled hunts and landowner tags. Every hour of every day I send you an email saying what’s out there.
00;48;43;11 –> 00;48;47;24
Speaker 2: I know, yeah. And anytime we send out an email, you’re like, Hey, hey, is that sold? And I’m like, oh yeah, it’s sold.
00;48;48;26 –> 00;48;54;06
Speaker 1: I’ll tell you your guys that listen to you, man, they scoop those things up quick. I gotta be faster on the draw, dude.
00;48;54;06 –> 00;49;00;11
Speaker 2: They’re like, within five minutes they’re sold usually. But I just, I get nervous with you. Well, I think it gives
00;49;00;24 –> 00;49;01;10
Speaker 1: You guys a lot of,
00;49;01;17 –> 00;49;07;03
Speaker 2: You’ve killed everything and you’re killing big stuff and so I always get nervous sending you places. I just, I want it to be perfect.
00;49;08;13 –> 00;49;55;00
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I, I just like being out in the woods. But I think it’s a credit for what you guys built that so many people believe as you guys as an authority on being experts and being able to trust you. And I’ve been on a lot of hunts. Yeah. Or guides or outfitters or booking agents are like, oh, this is this and you can kill this. And man, you go there and it is like the exact opposite and it’s like life, you know, it’s like traveling from city to city. Yeah. Every city’s not the same and every unit’s not the same and every potential’s not the same. So I give you guys a lot of credit for building a name that people will scoop up hunts that quick. ’cause they know if you’re recommending it. Yeah. And you’re pretty honest about what, what it, the potential could be. You’re not trying to oversell stuff. Right. You know?
00;49;55;02 –> 00;50;46;25
Speaker 2: Right. Well, it’ll sell the way we look at it, it’s gonna sell. There’s just, it needs to be the right fit. You know, some guys wanna Yeah. Make dang sure they’re gonna kill a giant. And we’re real careful with that, with that guy. ’cause you know, you only, the certain hunts will work for him, but there’s other guys that’ll, that are willing to kill, you know, whatever. Or, well, you know, maybe a hunt fits him a little better. And so anyway, it’ll sell no matter what. You just wanna make it, you want it to make it the right fit. So he is a customer forever. And anyway. But tell us, you know, know just a little bit about, you know, obviously you’ve got you, you can, you never quit thinking. You’re always, I I’m just excited to see what you’re gonna come up with and do in the future. And you, I know obviously you’re developing beer and you’re probably responsible for, you know, drunk drivers and everything else out there right now because you’re selling so much.
00;50;48;16 –> 00;51;53;14
Speaker 1: No, responsible. We only serve a little bit of a time. But yeah, I like products and, and right now I’m kind of on this, this mission to just see what’s out there. And yeah. I’m using a lot of different brands. I’m trying new boots and packs and really I’m just, I’m just really kind of opening my eyes to what are the potential holes, what can be better. Yeah. I’m trying to do it from, from using the product, you know. And so for many years I had lots of people that worked for me that were out there doing it. But not always was it me. And so I’m out there just grinding the gear that’s, and I see lots of holes and lots of opportunities and, you know, I like products. So I, I, I envision myself making some, some hunting cool stuff and outdoor product. I just, I want it to be cool. I want it to be innovative. Yeah. I want people to use it and appreciate it for the right thing. And so I’m not gonna launch anything that doesn’t, doesn’t feel right. And doesn’t feel like a game changer. Yeah. Right on. But that would be my goal in the future.
00;51;53;29 –> 00;52;39;26
Speaker 2: Right on. Tell me, let’s talk about maybe just a little life advice. So there’s a lot of guys that wanna make a living in the hunting industry or, or not. They want to, they want to make a good living and then hunt a lot, you know, and so you’ve just, you’ve accomplished a lot. No. Anybody can google your name and figure that out. I don’t wanna, you know, we don’t have to go in on all that. And we’ve talked a little bit about it the first of the podcast, but just life advice. I mean, you’ve been, you know, there’s times where you were on the hook for 24 hours out of the day and of course didn’t have a lot of family life. And then, and I know you appreciate your family and love them and, and spend time with them, but just, you know, just life advice for guys that are in the middle. Like they’re, they’re already, you and I are about the same age. I mean, just, you know
00;52;40;09 –> 00;54;00;00
Speaker 1: What, yeah. I’m getting ready to turn 46 October 13th and, you know, 21 years at Under Armour maybe gives me a condensed view of the world. By no means I have all the answers. I, I will say that I am one learn and I want to grow. And so I’m pushing myself. And so I can only pass on stuff that I, I feel is, is has worked for me. I would never just, you know, sell people something about life that I di I don’t really know, I don’t know everything. But what I do know is you surround yourself with people that are better than you. And that’s a good recipe. When people are better than you, better emotionally, better physically, better mentally, better at business. When you surround yourself with better people, the equation just seems to be weighted in your favor. Yeah. If you wanna surround yourself with people that are lesser than you, maybe not emotionally stable, maybe not physically the same as you, maybe they struggle in business to make the right easy decisions. Well that, that track leads a different direction. And maybe you have an ego and you want to feed your ego because you don’t want to be around people that are better than you. But I tend to try to challenge myself. I, you know, I’ll use Cam Haynes as an example. I love being around him ’cause he is better than me every day of the week. Yeah.
00;54;00;16 –> 00;54;00;26
Speaker 2: Right.
00;54;01;13 –> 00;54;35;03
Speaker 1: And so he is gonna push me. And I recently just had a great time with Shane. He’s been a hero of mine. The guy held the record for the largest wave ever surfed. Yeah. I mean he’s, he’s a big wave surfer doing crazy things mentally and physically. So I learned a lot just from being around him. And what I did learn is he’s positive, he is one positive individual. He is always got something good to say, encouraging. And so maybe my life advice is just that, just be positive and be around people that are better than you. Wow. That seems to work well for me. That’s
00;54;35;03 –> 00;54;36;03
Speaker 2: Awesome. There’s
00;54;36;03 –> 00;54;42;02
Speaker 1: A lot of advice that, you know, you could take or leave, but that one seems to be pretty sticky.
00;54;43;01 –> 00;55;16;27
Speaker 2: You know, Cameron has killed a lot of stuff and he’s been in the industry a long time. That guy’s paid his dues. He’s was, of course we all know with Eastman’s and, you know, integral part of their business there for a long, long time and self-made just kill. Yep. Killer. Just kill her. That’s the one thing, you know, Cameron and I, we were going on a hunt together and I was teasing him. I’m like, it’s all I’m okay to hunt with you, cam. I just want the biggest animal. And he goes, that’s all right. I just, he just likes, he likes the whole adventure and he loves to kill. That guy is a killer.
00;55;18;05 –> 00;55;50;16
Speaker 1: And I think it’s a process for him. Right. And the process has a beginning, middle, and an end. And the beginning is the training, the middle is the endure, the hunt and the end is make the shot perfect. Yeah. And the whole thing, he loves every piece of it. Yep. You know, and I’ve learned a lot and I want to continue to learn. You know, I think people that stop learning or feel like maybe I’m a good hunter. I’m, I’m a horrible hunter. Carter’s seen me in the woods. I got lots to learn. And I like it that way because every time I go, I’m gonna feel like I got a little bit better. Yeah,
00;55;51;03 –> 00;56;14;16
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well you’re not, you’re not horrible, that’s for sure. But you know what’s cool about Dorian? Do, Dorian lives in a place where he’s killing. He, he just has a lot of kills under his belt. Like when to be a good archer, you need to have a lot of experiences. You need to have, it’s hard to get a lot of kills. I mean, he’s got all those animals up there in Hawaii going crazy. You don’t need tags and just trying to kill the pigs
00;56;14;23 –> 00;56;16;20
Speaker 1: And muon and access and
00;56;16;28 –> 00;56;31;05
Speaker 2: He’s got everything. And he, and he, and he’s just a hunter. Like he relishes in the hunt from what it seems. I I don’t know him that well, met him up there at DT years ago and whatnot. But man, he’s killed a lot of stuff.
00;56;32;13 –> 00;57;04;19
Speaker 1: Yeah. And he, you know, it’s interesting because, you know, he’s, he, he, he never really had a rifle and he’s always been both from the beginning and, and he recently has switched over some techniques and is using a different setup. And just seeing how he used, you know, his archery equipment was a little eyeopener for me. And honestly I was, I was like, darn that is, he’s, he’s good. Wow. And he’s actually changed his whole setup after being a killer for so many years. So that tells you
00;57;04;19 –> 00;57;08;19
Speaker 2: What’s he like, for example, just give us, maybe I don’t, you don’t have to give all of his, well
00;57;08;19 –> 00;57;27;19
Speaker 1: He’s using the silverback release, you know, so he’s going to kind of more of a, I guess I call it the Olympic archery guys that are, you know, using those releases that are just, to me, I I don’t understand how you use ’em for hunting. My mental capacity is not there to control my body and mind. Well,
00;57;27;19 –> 00;57;27;29
Speaker 2: They’re super
00;57;28;00 –> 00;57;29;13
Speaker 1: Something until it releases.
00;57;29;21 –> 00;57;30;10
Speaker 2: Yep. I, I
00;57;30;22 –> 00;57;31;08
Speaker 1: I have to have a trigger.
00;57;31;19 –> 00;57;37;05
Speaker 2: Yep. But you punch a trigger and that’s what I think they’re getting away from is, is,
00;57;37;11 –> 00;57;44;24
Speaker 1: Yeah. And he’s doing a great job at it. So I, I definitely wanna challenge myself to maybe look at it or practice with it or at least explore it, you know.
00;57;45;00 –> 00;57;58;14
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. Right on. Anything else you wanna leave us with? I know there’s so much we could dive in. Each one of these things that we’ve talked about, you could do a whole podcast on, if not a few of them. So anything else you wanna leave us with?
00;57;59;28 –> 00;58;14;27
Speaker 1: I don’t know, just, just people that are listening. I mean, I’ve just been blessed and, you know, thanks for having me and you guys do an amazing job and if you love something fricking pour everything you got into it. If you don’t love it, stop doing it.
00;58;15;13 –> 00;58;19;20
Speaker 2: That’s awesome. It’s good, it’s simple, but it’s good advice. It’s simple but it’s good.
00;58;19;28 –> 00;58;22;06
Speaker 1: Yeah. But I love what you guys do, so I appreciate everything
00;58;22;06 –> 00;58;41;23
Speaker 2: James. Thanks. And we appreciate all your support. You know, I’ve, we met you years ago and you were the, you were the guy that made the decisions and really moved. We moved forward in a lot of directions back when I, you know, Garth and I were in business together and, and did a lot of cool things and it started our relationship.
00;58;41;23 –> 00;58;48;04
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s been fun. Hopefully we got some more chapters to put in the book for the future. Oh one, let’s get out and hunt and send me some pictures.
00;58;48;05 –> 00;58;53;29
Speaker 2: There’s a lot more chapters. One, one thing I wanna talk about right before we quit here, tell me about this old Ford
00;58;54;08 –> 00;58;55;02
Speaker 1: I got all the time in the world.
00;58;55;08 –> 00;59;05;04
Speaker 2: Tell me about this old Ford. I love them. Hi boys. And you know, obviously your shop kind of did that custom truck for you. Just tell, tell, tell us a little bit about it.
00;59;06;26 –> 01;00;14;14
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean, I’m a truck guy but I, I, my truck is not only I use it, but you know, looking at these classic trucks has always been an interest of mine. But you know, who wants to deal with some of the headaches of an older truck? So I took a, I took, looked for years out on the east coast. We don’t get a lot of four door high boys, which is a 4 2 50. Mine’s a 77. You see a lot of two door single cab, but you don’t see crew cabs, which, you know, in 77 crew cab, a lot of ’em were out west. A lot of ’em were, from what I understand, were park service ranchers and all those trucks got shipped out west. I found one in Illinois that was kind of needed a little bit of love and I renovated it, turned it into a beast, put a Cummings diesel in it out of a school bus, put a front and back wenches on it. Took a interior out of a 2015 King Ranch F one 50. It was so when you get in it, it feels like a new truck. And it’s, it’s
01;00;15;04 –> 01;00;20;02
Speaker 2: Original pages. All digital, all digital readouts in the inside or, or original?
01;00;20;06 –> 01;00;46;01
Speaker 1: No, I went old school gauges. But you know, for the, the purest it does have a Cummings and the Ford guys gimme a hard time about that, but I don’t really care ’cause the engine’s like a tractor. It’s like a workhorse. Yeah. But it’s, you know, got 30 sevens and fricking steel wheels and I’m gonna drag elk outta the woods out of it. I don’t build stuff to look at. I build stuff to use. I will say that I’m nervous about driving it in the salt out here in the winter.
01;00;46;25 –> 01;00;47;17
Speaker 2: I’m telling you I
01;00;47;17 –> 01;00;48;06
Speaker 1: Haven’t done that yet.
01;00;48;14 –> 01;00;55;04
Speaker 2: Back east, I’ve never seen anything like it there. There’s new vehicles that are rusted out. I’ve never seen rust like, like back east.
01;00;56;08 –> 01;01;15;20
Speaker 1: Well you spend a GB of money to renovate something and you, the last thing you want to do, you want to go play in the snow obviously when it snows. But my, they dump so much salt here and chemicals on the road. Yeah. So maybe I’ll ship it out to you. You can, you can run it around for me. Yeah. But I think I’ll get it on an elk hunt next year and see if I can get some, get some blood on this baby blue paint job.
01;01;16;00 –> 01;01;19;18
Speaker 2: It’s awesome. It’s a good looking truck. What’s do And
01;01;19;18 –> 01;01;23;00
Speaker 1: We have a cool shop. Yeah, we have a cool shop called Lucky Seven.
01;01;23;21 –> 01;01;25;07
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead with that.
01;01;25;11 –> 01;01;46;23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s Lucky seven rod shop. We’re gonna change the name here in a little bit. It’s gonna be called Steel Farm Customs. But right now we’re in southern Pennsylvania and York County and we do everything from hot rods to classic vehicles to four by fours. And the guys are talented and I fell in love with them so I bought the shop. I love it. Yeah,
01;01;46;23 –> 01;02;05;11
Speaker 2: That’s awesome. Yeah, for anybody out there, of course most, most guys do have Instagram. It’s Lucky seven, the number seven rod shop and anyway, you can go check it out. Of course KIPP’s Ford’s on there and a bunch of other vehicles. So anybody that has any, any projects, I guess you’re taking on new customer’s Kipp?
01;02;06;16 –> 01;02;26;24
Speaker 1: Yeah, all the time. We have an interesting build right now. I built a scout, a 68 scout and I put it on top of a 2017 Nissan Titan with a Cummings engine. So it’s a brand new truck, but it looks like an old truck. So we’ll do anything we, we, oh cow, we’ve got some guys in here that are magic with their hands.
01;02;27;07 –> 01;02;31;04
Speaker 2: What was that vehicle you had? I, I was back at your house and it was that
01;02;31;21 –> 01;02;50;27
Speaker 1: Oh, the a e v brute a guy outta Montana. That thing was unbelievable. Four by four. If anybody wants a Jeep, I would highly recommend go to a e V and buy one of their custom jeeps if you can afford it. They’re, they can get pricey, but they do have some basic models too. But Jeeps out in the woods, they go anywhere many years.
01;02;50;27 –> 01;02;58;04
Speaker 2: Well you had a water, has water, has water bin, water bin, gas bins. I don’t know, in the bumpers it seemed like, see
01;02;58;04 –> 01;03;04;16
Speaker 1: You gotta, you gotta have a snorkel for that one river crossing you do once every 60 years. You gotta have a snorkel.
01;03;04;16 –> 01;03;11;12
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So anyway, and it seemed like the bumper held water, I can’t remember.
01;03;12;04 –> 01;03;20;26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s right. It had expedition water. So if you were kind of overland crew or you’re back country and you needed it had 30 gallons extra water that’s stored in the bumper.
01;03;21;18 –> 01;03;22;20
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sick.
01;03;23;03 –> 01;03;25;12
Speaker 1: You Nevada boys need some bumpers with water.
01;03;25;17 –> 01;03;50;14
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Front back, you know, under the, where the spare tire goes. We’d have water in every one of those. So. All right. Well it’s been fun man. I appreciate you, appreciate your support. You’ve been awesome to us over the years. Can’t thank you enough and really appreciate you having you on and we’ll have you on again. Of course we’re all holding our breath seeing what’s what KIPP folks is gonna do in the future. ’cause you definitely turn stuff upside down and we wanna be a part of that. So
01;03;51;12 –> 01;03;56;04
Speaker 1: Yeah. Cool. Jason, I appreciate it. You guys at Epic doing an awesome job and look forward to talking to you again.
01;03;56;07 –> 01;03;57;07
Speaker 2: Okay, sounds good buddy.
01;03;58;05 –> 01;03;58;29
Speaker 1: Alright, Jason,
01;03;59;14 –> 01;05;33;11
Phone Scope, P H O N E, SS k o p e. They’ve changed the industry. We get to video stuff through our phones through about any optic You got binocular spot and scopes, even now Rifle scopes with Scoped Vision. So anyway, check ’em out. Chesterton Davis, his dad, they’ve been doing incredible things. They’re great guys and innovators will be affiliated with them for years to come. We have a lot of respect and appreciation for them. Their support here at Epic. Give ’em a holler or check ’em [email protected] scope.com. P O N e ss K O p e.com. You know, you can obviously go on there. Hashtag scoped vision is a thing now. SS K O P E D, vision, V I S I O N. So lots of cool stuff going on. The scope Vision’s kind of the new product they’ve got going out. You can watch yourself kill stuff and if you’re guiding people, you can tell ’em where they hit and obviously you got it recorded. So kind of cool. Really cool actually. So anyway, don’t hesitate to check it out. Phone scope.com. Incredible boots. We use Kenreck Mountain Extreme Boots, pretty regular. A lot of sheep hunts as well as some of our aggressive deer and elk, even some of their lightweight hikers, incredible products. We really love and appreciate Jim Winham. Think he’s doing a great job. You ought to check him out. www.kentrek.com. K E N E T R E k.com 1 802 3 2 6 0 6 4. Jim Windhams his name and does a great job there at Ken Trek, providing people with incredible hunting boots.
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