EP 99: The Next Generation of Hunters with Jason Carter and Jeff John.

And when you're there with a 12-year-old and you're trying to get him dialed in on a buck. We take some time and he ends up making an incredible shot. Rarely do you. Go scout, make a plan and it works perfectly. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Jeffrey and Chris are all here today. Coming at you from southern Utah. Just right in the middle of hunting season. Really shouldn't be in the office. Don't know why we are other than the phone keeps ringing. And these guys are tired of answering it, that's for sure. So I come in to give them a little two-hour reprieve, I guess. There you go. So anyway, we've been out hunting all across the West. Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico. A little of everything. And so anyway, just thought we'd kind of give you an update. Before we do, we want to thank Under Armour. Appreciate them. Tons and tons of awesome gear on UA.com. You can type in, I like to just type in Baron. Because that's the camel pattern that works for me. And up comes a lot of options. Everything, you know, hunting-wise.

So anyway, the Raider pant, we've had incredible reviews. The Alpine jacket, the stuffable puffy type jacket. It's incredibly warm. It's one of my favorites. Plus that Enfil, what is it? Enfil, Enfil Ops Windstopper jacket. That's an amazing jacket. That's great. It's a good one. And so what other pieces of gear do you like, Jeff? That early season jacket's really nice. I've had a lot of good compliments on that. It's awesome. I, you know, I got a little pair of those thin gloves even. I like, you know, a lot of times. The liners. Yeah, the liners. I use them all the time on the outside. I mean, there are so many different. They have some awesome lines right now. The Raider line, the Enfil Ops line, the Alpine jacket, the parka. You know, they're just nice. They really are. It really is a step up in gear, I think, you know, compared to a lot of the other gear you can try, you can use.

They are, you know, they're hitting the top shelf stuff, you know, the stuff they're using. So I'm really excited about it. I've loved it. I love the stretch in the pants. I love the easily, you know, good mobility. The reversible wool shirt and bottom are awesome. Really like those. I mean, I got out of the truck, so I was up in Montana. We'll talk about this. But I'm up in Montana. I get out of the truck. I'm wearing my Raider pants. I've got my, you know, it's snowing and blowing and nasty. I got my wind stopper jacket on and I just used my Raider pants and threw the reversible wool underneath. And I felt like I walked out in pajamas. It was so comfortable. It was warm, too. But it was just comfortable. You know, it's... You're right. Those Raider pants, the Raider pants are extremely comfortable. They're amazing. I haven't used that combination yet, but I should. That's...

Sounds amazing, Jeff. It is.

Anyway, yeah, I just want to throw a shout out to them. They've got a lot in stock right now on their website. Of course, you can go to your local sporting goods store. Good chance they carry Under Armour. But having said that, it's kind of nice. We all are used to online shopping nowadays. And so, anyway, it does come to you within three or four days. It's crazy how fast it gets there and whatnot. So, anyway, we're constantly ordering gear and checking it out. It's pretty awesome. So, anyway, let's start it off. We kind of went through... We're right in the middle of hunting season. Got a lot of hunting left. And done a lot of hunting. Some killing, but a lot of hunting. And so... Amen to that. Anyway, so, well, let's see. Chris or Jeff, why don't you kick us off with... I don't know. I'm almost thinking Chris should start us off here. Oh, yeah?

He's had kind of the biggest success there right off the bat here in October.

I'd imagine. I mean... Killed a big old bull. Tell us about it. Yeah, had a good time. Decided to go down to New Mexico a few days early. And I went down probably... Same unit. Let's see. I drew it when it first opened. Yeah. Been there. Hunted it a couple of times with you as the videographer. Yeah. And then I've also done probably two deer hunts down there. Never killed anything, but I spent quite a bit of time down there. So, I know the unit pretty well. And anyway, I decided to put in there. Ended up drawing a tag. And went down there. Decided to go four or five days early. And ended up finding a bull. Probably three days in that I liked. You had a few bulls. You had your choice. I had three good bulls. But the one just looked the best to me. Just built really pretty. Just not... Wasn't like weak anywhere. Some of the other bulls had small fronts and big back ends.

And this bull just was pretty solid. Had good fronts, good thirds, good backs. And just a pretty bull. And so, ended up trying to get on him opening morning. Made a plan. And it worked. Like, rarely do you, like, make a plan. You go scout, make a plan, and it works perfectly. Well, it worked perfectly. While I was scouting, I went up, filmed him. Got good footage of the bull. He was with some cows in this little ravine. And... You went right back to that spot? Right back to the exact spot where I had filmed the bull. And he wasn't 100 yards from where I'd filmed him. Just feeding with the cows. Wow. So... I whipped out the gun and made a shot. Yeah. It was good. Turned out great. It's nice. You put in your work. You did some preseason scouting. And you saw him before the season. You had a few bulls that you had in there. Yeah, that's the way you do it down there. It's good. It's good.

Short season. So, Chris and I went in there last year. At least... I don't know if you told me exactly where you killed it. But you're a little secretive on that. No. I told you. Anyway. I told you. We did see elk in there last year. And so... I told you in text exactly where it was. Anyway. So, we spent some time in there last year. And it was good. We saw bulls last year. In fact, one that Chris thought I should have killed. Or was, you know, heavily leaning toward being a good bull. And he was a good bull. But we were after, you know, maybe that next layer up. So... Ended up working out. I wasn't quite as selective. Jason always holds out to the last day and waits for... It's terrible. The top end. And I just... I saw this bull. It was a nice bull. And I thought... He's gorgeous. No reason wait. No, I'm just going to shoot this bull. But it paid off for Jason. Because on the last...

Very last day, we're basically done hunting. And we ended up finding the bull that he killed. Yeah. We were leaving to go pick up trail cameras. Call it a hunt. It's only five-day seasons down there in New Mexico. Most of you know that. At least for the rifle and muzzleloader hunts. And so... Anyway. Five days isn't that long. And that's why Chris went down and did some pre-scouting. And you try to do the best you can to put yourself in a great position right off the bat. And it's awesome. It works out good.

Anyway. Good times. Well, in New Mexico this year... I mean... That's a great bull. Especially for the year. Being such a drought. Oh, man. It's brutal. Brutal. Just talking to guys. You know, bulls that they... You know, known bulls. These guys are going back and seeing again. And they're just... They're smaller. They're just smaller than they've ever been, you know. Or not ever been. But, you know, smaller than they've been in the past couple years. So, pulling a good bull out of New Mexico this year is a big deal, I would say. Yeah. You know. Huge. I mean, some of the guys did... Did see some good bulls in 16A. And killed a good bull or two. And whatnot. There was a good... Really, GT killed a great bull out of Unit 13. Knows what he's doing. Great outfitter. And, anyway, they killed a stomper there. And so, there's still a handful of great bulls that are going to be killed.

But, for the most part, it just seemed down a little bit. So, still well worth going. It's hard to... You know. You can get a tag in New Mexico. And no point systems. Not like you're using 10 or 15 years worth of points. Or 20. Yeah. You're... You know, you can kind of apply every single year. You draw there, you don't turn it back. Yeah. There's no reason to turn it back. There is no turning it back. So... It's just... You go hunt it. Yeah. So, anyway, that was awesome.

Well, we're next, Jeff. We can jump to... Tell us about some of your hunts. Tell us about Montana elk. Well, so... Let's see. We went... I did... I haven't hunted Montana, I don't think, since I was... I think I went when I was a kid. Like, maybe 13, 14, 15-ish, somewhere in there. I might have gone up with me or my dad. Honestly, I can't even remember for sure. I don't know if that counts. I don't... I don't know if it does either. Anyway, so I was like, you know, we talked in the office. I wanted to try it. So, ran up there and hunted the general. Knew I wanted to go a little bit later. I was on... How come? Why were you thinking later? Just to avoid pressure. I talked to the biologists and I talked to you guys and you guys had talked to people and archery in September up there is... There's a lot of people and there's a lot of people working hard for bulls. You know what I mean?

And so... And this year, the rut was a little bit later. Everything worked out. It just made sense to hunt a little bit later. And I ended up getting pushed off a couple later days than I even wanted to because I had to replace tires on my truck. And... Just two, though. Just two, though. Just two. Oh, jeez. And my... Should we just jump right into the tires? No. We don't... Anybody that knows Jeff, especially family members, give him such a hard time.

I'm scared to even bring it up most of the time. Let's just say Jeff likes to wait until the tires are ruined and off the rim before they get replaced. That's not... Your brother-in-laws will vouch for that. They'll vouch for that. At least that's their opinion. And you know, we know what... Yeah. ...about their opinions. They're aggressive, very hard on both of us. I promise. Anyway, so... Got to get tires replaced. I've been on an elk hunt in Utah with a buddy of mine that went a little bit later. And so it ended up being a little bit later than I even wanted to be going up there. That's a beaver muzzle. Yeah, the beaver muzzleloader hunt. I was on that a little bit later. And so it was just like, get done with that. Hail Mary. Get everything together. And, you know, launch up to Montana. And I'm telling you, you don't even realize how good those guys have it up there. Yeah. Spoiled.

They're spoiled. I went up there. In two days, in two days, I found bulls to hunt. Well, you were thinking about hunting a lot of grizzly country until I sent you that little meme of that guy getting robbed. I mean, he was getting crushed. I get lit up over my text. So I sent you this text, and you're going by yourself. And I'm like, I sent him this little, and I mean, this guy's getting ate. And I'm like, hey, how about this one? Is this where you're going? Well, and it's even worse because how many bear attacks? There were like two or three bear attacks within the last like two weeks before that. And so anyway, it just worked out where I went. There just happens not to be a lot of grizzlies there. And I think, yeah, I think a lot of it was your snow conditions and weather. Remember, the weather was brutal. Yeah, it was terrible. And you're like, you know, a little pup tent. Yes.

In the middle of this kind of weather, like why at some point, right? It's just, it's not, you're not going to be an effective hunter if all you're doing is trying to dry out clothes. I've done that in the Colorado backcountry. I've done that. So you worked on the block management a little bit. So I worked on the block. Yeah, there was areas that, you know, I could hike into four miles, try to work that way. But I kept getting in that high stuff. You can't see. It's snowing. It's fogged in. So I went down, hit the roads, kind of regrouped and did some traveling. But the block management program in Montana is, it is amazing. Like, I can't explain what a wonderful job the Montana Fish and Wildlife Parks has done on putting that program together. You're talking detailed maps that you pick up at the sign-in box. I mean, just all these little things that are just, and there's critters. Yeah.

And there, I mean. And there's access. And there's access. And you can get through that to get to the state ground or the BLM or forest behind it. And you're just like. Is there ever limited, did you ever come across any that were limited to a certain number of people or anything like that? Certain species. Now, you have to read the regulations on those, like, and the nice thing is it's very detailed. It tells you exactly, okay, there are this animal here. This is open to this. There is an exception. You can't hunt this during this time. Like, so one of the block managements that I went on, you cannot hunt that during the rifle. Like, basically, as soon as the rifle hunt, like, it shuts down to elk hunters. But in archery, it's open. So it worked out great. I was able to go in there. I was able to hunt bulls. Now, I was not able to connect. The wind was blowing pretty bad.

And I just couldn't. You were on them. I was on them. You were texting us video clips. Yeah. I was there. I just, you know, maybe a little bit more help, maybe another couple days. And I feel like I could have made it happen. But it was a quick five-day trip. Four days with driving. Yeah. Four days with driving. Yeah. Five days with driving. Okay. So it was like, you know, you're really only hunting four days. And it's snowing and blustering the whole time. Half the time, you can't glass. It's pretty aggressive. But the feed up there, you take what we've dealt with down here, and you go up there, and you feel like you walked into the Garden of Eden. Yeah. The grass is three feet tall, and it's lush, and all the animals are just rolling fat. I've never seen anything like it. I mean, it's just phenomenal feed. Phenomenal feed. Wow. I mean, just the difference. I can't believe it.

So going back up there, no hesitation, great opportunity. Great opportunity. Good. Absolutely. Good. Didn't see, like, you know, I wasn't chasing 340 bull, 340-plus bulls. But, I mean, in two days, I found six-point bulls that were coming into one group every night. You know, and you're just like. That's better than a lot of guys kill up there. We've been watching on social media. I mean, some guys, I mean, first-year sixes. Oh, yeah. And we know guys that are consistently successful on great bulls, too. Yes. And I think once you get going, it's just like anything we talk about on these tags. Tags and time equal success. And I think it's just a matter of hitting it multiple times. You know, your first year, you're getting your feet wet. You probably knew. Good chance you wouldn't kill one. But you're learning. Yeah. And then next year, you're going to hit the ground even harder.

And once you get rolling with that, and you're hunting the same. It's just like Chris has some of his go-to hunts, or we have our go-to hunts. I mean, you're building knowledge upon knowledge upon knowledge. And pretty soon, you know. And then we found that block management's interesting program. We got that access, yes, there in Idaho. And how it allowed. And we'll get to Idaho. So, and how it allows for guys to hunt awesome country. And even units that may be 50% private are really 70% huntable. Yes. You know what I mean? It's much more huntable than you. Than it looks on paper. Than it looks on paper. Well, and it's the advantage you have to. You have to do your research. You know. You have to put in a little bit of time into the backside of things to be successful on the front side. It's a must. You know. On the access, yes, in Idaho. On the block management in Montana.

These are things you, if you just drove down the road, you wouldn't. You wouldn't be dialed into what's, what the opportunities that are there. You know, you've got to do a little bit of research. You've got to get it out in front of you. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And so, well, let's talk. So how was this beaver elk hunt? The beaver elk hunt was a blast. The beaver is known for limited tags. Lots of bulls. Yeah. Big bulls. And that's. But a little bit of an off year, didn't you? It was. It was. I think for sure it was a little bit of an off year. I think there was a lot of pressure. And there was a lot of broken bulls. I think the way things worked out between the drought and everything. Boy, there were a lot of big bulls that were just broke. I mean, I saw so many main beams, swords, you name it, just broken right off.

And you were just, you know, it was really obvious that something was off. You know what I mean? Yeah. Now, quantity of bulls, it was ridiculous. I mean, you just don't, you don't feel like you can walk into an area very often and just see six points and six points and six points and six points. But you're competing with the general deer hunters, too. And that's a big deal. I wish Utah would change that. I mean, that's, you get a two-day head start. What? Two, three days? Two-day head. Yeah. Head start on those guys. You start on Monday. They start on Wednesday. But when you have a general hunt with how many hundreds of tags? Busted loose here. And I'm telling you, I don't know if it's, I'm noticing it more and more. Yeah. People hunt hard. Yeah. Much harder than they used to. Oh, yeah. It feels like, to me, guys are hiking. They're crushing the mountain. Especially Utah.

It's really good. I get tired of Utah guys. They're good. They're good at what they're doing. They're good. They have the. It's like they don't drink. You know, when you don't drink and have bad habits, you put all that energy into glassing with tripods. Yes. And all that money you'd spend on smoking or freaking chewing or alcohol, you're putting right into optics. Yes. And it's competing with guys like us. And it's very frustrating. And you've been going to the gym and working out. So you've got to have, you know. Oh, you've got to get healthy. So you're pumped up to walk up there, you know. So I'm going to prove it. So these guys are just crushing the mountain. And you're sitting here like, you know what? It used to be I was sitting here by myself. You know, I'd hike out along this rim and down this place. And I was by myself. And now you're sitting there. You're like, I'm surrounded.

Like, I'm the lazy guy on the mountain. I went on a couple three-hour hikes last week right here. Yeah. Three hours. And I'm hiking. I started at four in the morning. There wasn't a hill that I went up that I didn't find boot tracks on. Yeah. Yeah. It was insane. And it was probably raining every day washing the boot tracks out. Yeah, exactly. So they were here yesterday. Like, guys are working. Hours ago. It's amazing. Guys are working. And it's good. You know, I mean, it's good. Like, you like seeing people who are earning animals, you know. I mean, I hope they're killing something and all the work they're putting in. And maybe they're not. Who knows? It's just like this morning. I take my kid out. And I'm thinking, oh, you know, it's general. Utah general hunt. The rifle's going on. We just got back from Wyoming elk hunting with Colton, my son.

And so I take him out of school for an hour or two. And we go out there. And all we did, we just drove to the glass and points. And there's a truck here. There's a four-wheeler here. There's a four-wheeler here. There's a truck here. And I check my Instagram messages. And this guy's like, hey, Jace, I just saw you. By the way, there is a 20-inch four-point. If your daughter wants to shoot it. I'm like, well, it's my son that has a tag. And I appreciate it. We just made a quick loop. Didn't want to bug anybody. And I mean, it's like. You can't do nothing. How do you know? How do you know it's me? It's time to go back to the days when you had to roll trucks to keep people from following you. I mean, it's just that. It's expensive. It gets expensive. Well, I get tired of paying the sales tax on the trucks. It's not the rolling trucks that's the problem. It's the sales tax here in Utah.

At least in Nevada, you don't have that sales tax every year. It's true. Or every single purchase, you know. Can you imagine, a little off the subject, take the tax, that truck gets sold how many times in its life? Like 15 or 20 average? I don't know. Possibly. You'd be interested to know. Yeah. And you pay sales tax every time. How much sales tax was collected on that particular vehicle compared to the original purchase price? No. Retarded. A retarded amount. It really does piss me off. But let's keep going. So we talked about this elk hunt. He ended up killing a great bull. Jeff. Yeah, on beaver. Super good guy. Great bull. The bull was, you know, he's only like a 355-inch bull, but he's got the, I mean, some of the best mass I've ever seen on a bull, you know. You get his brows on his, you can't touch your fingers around the brows. Even three-fourths the way up. Oh, it's true. I held.

They're broomstickers, man. Even maybe bigger, double broomstick. Like, they come out, and there's something to be said for mass. It doesn't matter what you're talking about. If it's antelope, which we don't really want to talk about antelope, but if it's deer, if it's elk, if it's sheep, there is something to be said about mass. We all like length and pretty and all this. When it's freaking mass, there is just. Jaw-dropping. Yeah. It's got a wow factor. Even better than width on deer for me. I mean, mass is number one. Multiple eye guard is number two. Width after that. And then we can talk about all those fine little details that we like to talk about. But anyway, so awesome. So that elk hunt was awesome. We're going to check that out. Way fun. And then, anyway, we did. I love talking about Nevada. I don't know why.

I love the state of Nevada because I used to, I'm going back to this whole guys drinking and having other hobbies other than hunting. You'd be out there by myself in the middle of nowhere, and now you're in the middle of nowhere with everybody else. But this particular year was just tough. You know, the desert units didn't produce, didn't put on the antler growth. There's a few key units that did, and the units up north, you know, had some great deer that people were seeing, and Governor's Tag killed one of them. And anyway, so some significant antler growth up there. But anyway, a little bit tougher this year. I've had a lot of guys hitting me, wanting to go back with outfitters, outfitters not having space, just things like that. And looking for other options and whatnot to make good on these tags because you're not getting those tags very often. It's tough to draw.

No, it's real tough to draw, yeah. So when you draw in a tough year, again, same thing with Henry's. I know Adam's boy had a Henry's management deer tag. Killed a stud, a 28-inch deer. Yeah, neat buck. Really neat buck. Yeah, killed a stud. But, you know, because he had that tag and whatnot, and they scouted every year anyway. They know what's there. They know what's there, and there was one pretty significant deer. But honestly, it was just brutal, brutal year, even on the Henry's. And you just think, man, you know. These tough years are a major reset. They're a reset for the outfitters that got when the big bucks were coming easy, and every client's happy, and I can't blow up my Instagram enough. And then all of a sudden you have a drought year, you're like, oh, I want to quit my job. You know, I hate guiding. In fact, these clients are whiny.

I don't get it, you know, and it boils down to numbers of big deer. When there's big deer, you can't do anything wrong. It doesn't matter how your food is. It doesn't matter how your camp is. You kill a slug. They're happy driving away. Yeah. You kill, if you don't show them good bucks, especially on tags that are tough to get. And you grind a guy out for however many days. And then you go back to. And you put a 180 in front of them. Average food and well tip, they're pissed. Oh, yeah. I don't know. It just makes it tough, and it kind of is a good reset. It makes everybody appreciate the good years. But droughts are, I think the biggest thing to learn again from this year is droughts are significant. It's a significant issue. Yeah. Like, it's a big deal. Like, what's funny is it affected it all different. Like, even Nevada had great elk. They had great elk. Yeah.

But the deer in the same areas. Well, timing maybe. It's just different timing. And elk growth, they finish out faster. But they're also, they summer in, it's different. You know what I mean? We talk about desert units for deer. Those same units don't have an elk, a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. Or five elk or whatever. And those are your best, I mean, you know. Best deer units. Best deer units. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you do have a little bit of difference. Although, you know, these guys say the antler growth, score-wise was good. The breakage was bad. Maybe it was the bone density was a little bit off. A few things like that, you know, that made them more brittle. But that's all a little bit of speculation. Nothing ever that I've seen, you know, proven and scientific. But, man, it's hard to refute 10 and 20 years.

A lot of these guys have been doing it for 20-plus years and have significant knowledge about it. And when they say it, I tend to believe it. Same unit, year after year after year, looking at those same bulls. Yeah. So, anyway, Nevada deer is tough. I haven't filled a tag there. Did take my boy Sean on his hunt there. Went and hunted a brand new unit. And, of course, these kids only get like, you can only take them on Friday after school, Saturday, and Sunday of Mambo Leto. And this is even the kid that lives. Sean. Lives for it. Mr. Sean Muley Carter lives for it. On Instagram, yeah. But, anyway, he, and he's good. He's good. He's a killer. But, anyway, we make a trip over there. Friday night, we don't see much. Sleep out in the old canvas cutter, literally. And storming like crazy. Next day, we get up, go in there, and glass and glass and glass. And we don't see jack.

I mean, we see elk and stuff, but not much for deer. And I'm like, well, let's go, when we go back to the truck, let's cut the hill below us where we can't see under us. And then work all those fingers. These draws that run to the north, we'll hit all these fingers on the way back. We bump a group of bucks. Yeah, we bump a group of bucks at about 80 yards. One of them's heavy and a cool deer. Sean doesn't get to see them. But then, so we just kept working them because they busted so hard. We just kept glassing about 10 minutes. Caught them moving out. And, of course, I've got a, I wanted to get a few kills with this 338 Remington Ultramag under the belt. So, it's got a 25-pound night force on it. So, Sean's like, I'm like, Sean, you've got to look at him. You've got to look at him and decide. Sean's like, I want a 170-inch deer. Well, what am I going to say, you know?

Like, well, we've got to analyze every point and go through it all. And I said, Sean, you've just got to decide. And so. And with the time allotted, can you. What's logical here? By the way. By the way. It's been raining freaking buckets, you know. And you've got 12 hours left, you know. And so, anyway, he ends up, he looks through the scope and he's like, Dad, I'm taking him. He's giant. But, you know, and so he hammers this deer, hammers him. How far are we? It's like 360 or 70 yards or something. You know, not extreme shot. He, that Utah bull, I guess, jumping to that, he drew the Utah Youth General. And, you know, our general's like basically over the counter for adults and whatnot. A little bit later. Not the September rifle season like we get. Not on the limited, yeah. And so, anyway, he drew that. And it's kind of cool. But, anyway, I put a little pin on a phone.

We've been going out a little bit and didn't see what he wanted. And, anyway, put a pin on it. I sent him a pin via text. I was sitting here. This was epic. I mean, if you could videotape this and put it together. I mean, it was like writing a fairy tale. Like how it just all worked out. It was brutal. So, yeah, it's just like he's like, Dad, where am I going to go? So, I'm thinking, thinking, thinking. I sent him a pin. And, anyway, and he's 16. Here in Utah, you don't have to have an adult after you're 16. So, he's 16, drives, which thankfully, good grief. And I'm in a little church meeting in the evening. So, I couldn't go with him that evening. And he ends up texting me and calling me. And he's like, Dad, we had a couple spikes come out. I know we're going to get on a bull here. I know we're going to get on a bull. I'm like, all right. And you're like, shoot the spike.

I'm like, why is he not dead? You know, you've got to provide for your family. It is a general attack. Like, anyway. Yeah, just shoot him. Just shoot him. You know, get some experience under your belt with these kids. And so, anyway, he ends up calling me. And I'm going over it with him. I'm like, Sean, here's the deal. You have to have a rest under the front. So, you have to have your bipod out or it has to be on a backpack. And you have to rest the back. And then, and I says, if you squeeze. And he's using his own gun, 300 Ultra Mag, out of the box. A Zeiss Rapid Z800 reticle on it. And it's Acubon going 3,100 feet a second. Matches full power. That Zeiss Rapid Z800. All the reticles match at an average elevation of, you know, 55, 6,000 feet. And so, plus or minus five yards. So, anyway. And it's numbered out to the side. So, it's kid proof. Like, there's seven. That's 700.

There's seven and a quarter. Seven and a half. Seven and three quarters. You can kind of get a feel. And so, anyway. That's why I set those up for him. And they're affordable. You know what I mean? Kid can shoot 500 and he's affordable. So, anyway. Long story short. He's got his gun. And the reloads that we've reloaded. And I said, so, if you rest the front, rest the back, and you squeeze. And it surprises you. You will be a hero. If you don't squeeze, you're going to be a zero.

And so, anyway. Pretty soon, a rag bull comes out. And he's dead set. Knows what he's doing. Ranges it himself. Huge proud moment. In fact, I shouldn't even be telling the story. Because we're going to have the kids on a podcast. But I'd like to get his rendition of it. Ends up arranging him. Gets the rest. He's 500. And smokes him. And his buddy's coming up from school. His buddy comes in from school. And they're texting and whatnot. And he's like, dude. And he happens to see the bull. Yes. And Sean's like texting. And says, get down. I'm going to kill this bull. And so, he sets up his phone scope. And videos the whole kill scene and everything. They're probably 150 yards away. These are 16-year-olds, man. 16-year-olds, man. Just smoking it. Speaking of which, he goes out and kills a coyote this morning. Calls in a dog. Freaking hammers him. His buddy, Sean Adams, hammers him.

On his way to school. Oh, yeah. Late start. Late start. So, they're out coyote hunting. Oh, my goodness. Huge proud moments, right? And so, anyway. This kid's a killer. Hammers this bull. So, we get done with our meetings. And go out there. And break the bull down. And get it out. And whatnot. So, anyway. Kind of fun. These kids hunts. This year has been the kid's year for me. Like, it's been nonstop. Ashley. She went up to Idaho. Of course, you have huge family ties as far as your traditions and whatnot of hunting Idaho. You got me started going up there. Yeah. Killed Justin's first buck. Sean kills a buck. Sean kills a buck. Yeah. Now, Ashley's first buck. Yes. And then your kid's first buck this year. As well as one of your biggest bucks. So, we got Idaho's like one of our favorite states. It's been good.

Now, I think you're really seeing an effect this year with what the winter kill was a couple years ago. I agree. There feels like there's a missing age class of deer. I mean, and they're just. Maybe missing two. Two age classes. Almost. Feels rough. Almost two. And the unfortunate part is a lot of guys are shooting the little teeny two points like crazy. You know, we were seeing caps full. Now, hashtag warning here. Lots of people. You got to deal with people. Well, basically, this is basically a general season. Yeah. And unlimited. Unlimited pressure, really. And so, you end up with a lot of pressure. Oh, a lot. A lot of out-of-staters, too. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots. You can talk about where you were kept. I mean, it's like you have doubled the size. I mean, you are the size of a small city. Yeah. You're starting each other's generators. I mean, it's just dumb.

And what was hilarious? Oh, this is so funny. So, you know they got the pavilions. Yes. I'm camped at a reservoir. Okay? This is where people come to frolic and play. This is the picnic table set up. They're out in their little pontoon boats and just, you know, kids are playing in the fire and burning each other, doing whatever, right?

Everybody uses this. You can't make this up. Everybody uses the pavilion to hang their deer. Are you serious? There's deer hanging from every pavilion, draped over propane bottles, wide open, freaking gutted, hanging. Some deer are just laying on the ground, tarped up. Seriously. These are state park canopies. No, it's a state park canopies. I cannot believe that. Oh, dude. Metal roofs with picnic tables underneath it. You come and you do a picnic with your family around the reservoir. There's deer hanging from them. I mean, there's boxing. Oh. You got to love it. It's the craziest thing ever to do. Having forkies, two by threes, three by threes, you know, just a little everything. And anyway, kind of cool. Went in there early. Went in and pre-scouted. Went in on a Monday. I think it started on a Thursday. Thursday? I can't remember. Wednesday. You killed on a Thursday.

And so anyway, went in and pre-scouted. Found a great buck. I thought he was what he was. He was 29 and a half inch or he felt like he was that big. I called him 28 to you. I'm in Montana. Jeff's in Montana. Driving south. Thinking of watching the bear meme that I sent him. Wondering when he's going to get mauled and when he should write his last letter to his kids. Do I just send this? Do I type up this text and I just have to push send? Send. What am I going to do here? And then I'm like, Jeff. I haven't made a will yet. That's right. So our kids are in school. We can't, again, so tired of this freaking school. Yes. Jeff's kids are in school. My kids are in school. They're coming up together. Of course, Jeff and I married sisters. And so my daughter's jumping in with his caravan and coming up. And so she can't get out of school any earlier.

It's not worth the drive for me round trip to go get her. So I'm like, Jeff. Jeff's like, well, I'm going to hunt for myself the first day. I'm like, for the first day, day and a half. I'm like, all right. I got to. Let's do it. Let's smoke this deer. And so we go in. And go ahead. I'm going to let you. I come rolling in basically into southern Idaho there the night before the hunt. And Jason's like, I got a buck. There's like seven other trucks here looking at him. But he's a pretty nice buck. I'm like, well, heck, that's the best thing we've got. Right. I know of another buck that ended up being a really nice buck. But he's down. You didn't like him. I kind of like him. You were like. You did. You did mention. You were like, wow, he's heavy. And I'm like, yeah. And I'm just like. I'm like, are you going to shoot that buck? And you're like, yeah, if I was interested.

I'm like, what do you mean? I'm not interested. It's just hard because he's at a spot a lot. I knew a lot of people knew about him. I'm just like, I don't want to be in there with people I know trying to smoke a buck out from underneath him. You know, I just. It just felt wrong. It's not normal, Jeff. The Utah guys will compete with anybody. I know. I know. That thought process didn't even register with me. I was like, what are you talking about? Let's get in there and elbow it out. Yeah. I was just like. I just don't want to. And we had history with that buck before because Cutler missed him the year before. And I should have been a little bit more wound up to kill him because he actually. But he was on a piece of private. He was on a piece of private. I never would have got. The kid. The guy I know ended up killing him. The buck never even left the private. He was.

He was standing there on the private. Killed him within. Makes you feel better. At 714. You know what I mean. 714? No. 714 in the morning. 714 in the morning. Like. We should look that up. It's shooting light. It might be not shooting hours. You never know. He says. I looked. It was a minute after shooting. Illegal shooting hours. And I shot him. Okay. And I'm like. Well, that was easy. But anyway. So we had this other buck. We go in there opening morning. And it was like. I'm hiking in the dark. Well, we pull up to 14 vehicles first. Yes. Okay. Again. Access. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Allowed us to get into some BLM. Awesome. I mean. It ended up. He was on BLM. Glassing across private. So I'm. I'm running glasser guy. I'm the running gun glasser guy. I'm hiking along. Like running into people as I'm hiking. Jeff. Jeff ends up 14,000 feet above where he's supposed to be.

Because I kept trying to walk out. And if I walked out right here. I was like. Right underneath this guy. If I walked out right here. I'd walk right in front of this guy. So I'm like walking clear up around. Trying to get like. Again. Hunter Orange. Hunter Orange is optional in Idaho. But these guys wear it. For a good reason. Jeff doesn't. And I'm like. You're a dummy. I probably should have had it on. They made Hunter Orange so you don't get shot. Oh my gosh. And I should have had it. I should have. There was. I don't know how many people. There might have been 30 people on that hill. On that one hillside. So I. There might have been 30 people. So I put you on that knob. Where he was. Where he was. Where he's been when we pre-scouted him. Yes. Hoping. Some freakish. Opportunity arises. That he would be there again. And we didn't see him. And he's in my hay. Yep.

But we see everybody else. And it's cool. People post up. And I mean. Dude. There was one guy. He's getting a lot of action. He was chilling. And I'm watching him. And I mean. And all of a sudden. I could see deer bounding his way. And he's got to be getting. Into earshot of them. And pretty soon he perks up. This is moose guy right? No. The moose guy had the moose behind him. But he wasn't in a good spot. He was kind of on the side. He had the moose. I wonder if the moose pinned him down. They pinned him down. There was two bulls. Like. On top of this guy. There was. And no. And no deer. And he selfied. That guy had no deer. He selfied. He selfied with the moose. And I was like. Okay. Well. But there was a guy above him. That had all the action. I mean. Everything kind of blew. And I'm like. Honestly. That's a pretty good spot. You know. Yeah. Forkeys. But still a good spot. Yeah.

And so. Anyway. Nothing come of it. That evening. We kind of separated. And the next day. You were like. And I mean. You know. We're like. We didn't have a better buck. Yeah. You're like. Dude. We need to go back in there. And I'm like. I don't know. Who's the best buck we had. Do you want to wear orange? I don't want to. I don't think I wore orange again. No. I didn't wear orange. No. No. I just went again. I just thought I was going to have to quarter you up. Pack me up. So. Anyway. He's. Jeff gets back in there. And I glass him. There's not really. I mean. We're not seeing much. But we also didn't see many people. The people. The trucks were there. I mean. It was. There was a third the amount there was the day before. And I think the pressure might have just had everybody like. Evacuating. But there was no deer either. Like there was a few deer. But. Right. So then I went around.

And this is where those BTXs I got from Harrow's. Oh. Clear down there. Yeah. Kent's. At Kent's Optics. I picked up that set of BTXs. I went clear around. What was it? Three or four miles. Long ways. To glass back. And I picked him up. Going under. Cutting that same hill. Yes. That you were on top of the day before. Yes. But there's so much vegetation. You can't. Yeah. You can't get on it. A lot of brush and whatnot. You've got your onyx out. You're figuring out exactly where the property boundary is. Because it does jog up in there. I'm. You're. So anyway. One thing leads to another. You're like. Next to that giant. There's a giant pine. I'm like. Yes. Between the giant pine. Yeah. And the top of the hill. He's going to come between that. Yes. And you're like. I got him. It was like. And I'm like. Okay. I just see this horn going through the brush. Yeah. And I. He was on public. He was.

He was just about killable. But not quite. Just couldn't get a body shot on him there. Anyway. We had to play with him for. I don't know. How long did we play with him in there? Long time. An hour? Probably 45 minutes or an hour. 45 minutes to an hour. Well. He went in there. And went into a. Kind of a draw. A big ravine. And you're like. Dude. Do I cut above the ravine? Do I cut down the ridge he was on? Do I back out? And it's. You're. You're three miles away. I'm like. We're not backing out. We're not backing out. I'm like. Let's. Let's kill him over here. Let's make a play. So you go down. And you pick. You pick above him. And walk down it. And you're glassing into the ravine. Of course. He comes up on the ravine. Back down to the tree. Something was bugged. He. He didn't like you in there. I think there was just enough deer. Extra deer floating around. That they were just.

They were bouncing around. I had something jump really close to me. When I was in the thick. Thick. Trees. And so. I think something bumped. Down. Turned him. Maybe it was the sounds of Armageddon. Dude. It was. It was retarded. Ka-pow. Ka-pow. Ka-pow. Like the day before. I bumped those two bucks. They go over there. And boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. They're toast. Yeah. Two of the better bucks that were over there. Oh. Good. Heavy. I mean. Yeah. Three by four smoked. Yeah. Those guys. We were late. I'm like. Jeff. You got to walk over there. This is hilarious. I mean. We watched them yelling. And then walk up to the deer. The deer jumps up. And they hip shoot him. And freaking smoke him at like point blank. And the fence. I mean. I'm like. This deer is going to jump that fence. Oh. And that's private. He ended up dying. Like. Well. And the problem was. Downhill. Yeah. Was the fence.

Yes. And that buck's hauling butt down. And they smoke him. It was just. It was a rodeo over there. Five guys. Guns. Deer. Shots. Fire. Is this a good one? Oh. It was great. It was great. Good times. It was fun. Anyway. Anyway. You got in on that deer. Yeah. The buck ended up. Working it down. And across. Just a little bit of a ravine. And he was out front of the other bucks. Luckily. So there was not. I didn't have to worry about getting interrupted there. With. You know. A different buck's he and me. I was able to work in a spot. And just got a nice clean. Oh. I don't even remember how far. How far. It was. It was like 300. Yeah. Or no. It was 258-ish. Wow. I think something like that. Just across the river. Boom. Done. And. Anyway. It just. It worked out perfect. I have a Jason down there. I'm like. I'm like. This is why I need a pocket Jason Carter. Just to hunt with me all the time.

It's awful handy. Having a guy out with you. With BTX's. Three miles away. Watching the deer. It comes in awful handy. Well it's funny. You're like. There's like 14 fence posts. And I'm not sure. I was a little bit tight. My onyx says I'm. Pretty close. My onyx says I was good. Like. I was looking at him. I'm good. Dude. I shoot him. He hits the ground. Oh. I gotta get over there. And just see. I gotta stand. Right where he's at. To make sure. Luckily. I was. Like. There was. Like an old fence line. And a new fence line. And luckily. The property boundary was. On the new fence line. Not on the old fence line. Ten and a half feet away. Plenty of room. I was. I was awful nervous. I got a little bit more nervous. When I saw those fence lines. Well that's what happens. When you're hunting Colorado. Or Idaho. Or Montana. Some of these places. That are heavily private. You know.

And I'm just getting. I get anal anymore. I'm even checking unit boundaries. 14 times. You know. On the 10th day. Even though I know. I'm well aware. Of where the units are. It's just. You know. You just get nervous. And things. You want to make sure. You don't do something stupid. Because they don't. They want to take your first born. And 14 kids after that. You know. Make an example. Make an. Yeah. Making an honest mistake. And so you just try to do the best you can. And. And that's why. Onyx. You had Onyx on your phone. Yes. I have the Onyx maps. You know. The cards. Go on the GPS. And you update the cards. And you got a card for every state. Plus you. You know. You get the. You get the Onyx on your phone. It's easier to read on your phone. It's just. Sometimes it's a hassle. Because you got to download the maps. If you're out of service. And sometimes my unit boundaries.

Don't pull up automatically. You got a little glitch in the phone. Or something. So. Anyway. The old standby GPS always works. The phone. It's nice when it's working. Yeah. And so. Anyway. You were fine. All is well. 29 and a half inch. Freaking stud. You're going to see a picture soon. You can see it on. Keep tracking. His Instagram. Yeah. Keep tracking. Check it out. Freaking giant. It is great buck. Great buck. It worked out awesome. That's the one deer. He's talking about holes in the H class. That's the one deer that lived in somebody's barn. And didn't die. Yes. He's eating. Alfalf. He was eating something good. You know. He just ended up in the right brush patch. And was able to make it through the water. Brush patched right inside the barn door. Inside the barn door. Whatever it took to keep him alive. Because. Because in all honesty. Because after that.

We didn't see much over a three point. There. There. There was four points running with him. But. Keep in mind. Remember. We talked about the ones that got smoked. About everything running with him got smoked. Yeah. Not much time at all. It was a gauntlet that not many deer were going to make it through. It's just. That's the way it was. That's the way it was. And you know. You almost feel guilty killing a deer on those deer. Oh yeah. You killed the breeder. Dude. I killed. I killed the one that was left. How do you feel about that? I changed the dynamic of the deer in southern Idaho. That's right. So anyway. Good times. Ashley. So Ashley comes up. Of course Jeff's kids come up too. And. And. Boys. You know. It's just a challenge. She's 11. Left eye dominant. Hasn't shot a rifle much. But we. She has shot her 17 with a scope. And we shoot it fairly regular. She knows her way around a gun.

But. It's a challenge. You got bipods. Trying to get them to find a buck in the scope. And all of this and that and the other. She's shooting my Red Rock. And. It's shooting a Acubon. It's a 30 nozzler. Anyway. Great gun. Doesn't kick a lot. Just a great gun for her. Had those earmuffs. She's. So kids. Kids are. Kids are. Nervous about kick. And sound. And. You don't want to ruin them. And so this thing doesn't kick much. It is loud. And so we put on earmuffs that are. You know. They. You can talk. It's the whole. Electronic ear. She had an amazing amount. Of. I don't know. Self control. Like. Like. Calmness. Yeah. But I'm talking to her calm. For the most part. I got wound up there for a minute. But. It was just. There was so much going on. She can't. She didn't get him in a scope of 80 yards. 80 yards. You know what I mean. And then. It's thick. There's thick trees. The burn.

Standing burn trees. Yeah. And then just. You know. There moves off. 467 yards. And she's dead rest. Dad. I got him. And I'm like. And she did. And I look at you. And I look at you. And I'm like. She's got him. I'm like. Dude. I don't know. This is 467 yards. And you're like. Oh. You shoot him. And I know. The gun is amazing. So. And she is. This. Okay. She is dead rest. She is bipods down. Butt of the gun is solid. On a pack. Solid on a pack. And she's prone. Yeah. And it's like. If you're going to take the shot. Yeah. This is one to take. This has to. It has to be set up like this. Yeah. You know. So. I dial. I hit the. The six hour. For 2400 is amazing. Just. It tells you where to dial. And it calculates. Angle. Temperature. It calculates. The yardage. And you've got your gun profile. Built. From the app. And your phone. And it bluetooth to your phone. And so you download that.

And you just dial. It doesn't matter if you're at 9000 feet. Which we. We kill the bull at an incredible distance. At 9000. And with the same range finder. But a different gun profile. Yeah. The 338 realm. You know. Yeah. And so anyway. Dialed it. And she hammers this thing. I mean. Oh. Hammers it right through the chair. And your boys are watching. And they're like. Wow. My dad. I have no excuses. From now on. My dad's on the hill. Actually 11 year old. Did you. Did she just shoot that from across. Yeah. She did. Yeah. She. And she's so happy. It was funny. Because we had. A gal ask her. Ashley. How did you feel? Wondering. You know. If you were good. Because she's. Not sure how she feels about hunting. Right. This other lady. And Ashley's like. It felt awesome. No crying. No nothing. She felt awesome. And it was. It was. It was awesome. It was awesome.

We had three or four days together. Of course we camped in my camp trailer. And she got to choose all kinds of things. Snacks. And dinner. And teas. My wife hates Hamburger Helper. She hates Hamburger Helper. Why do women hate Hamburger Helper? We've talked about this. It's amazing. It's a big. You got carbs and meat. With a little seasoning pack. And it tastes awesome. And it's ready in 10 minutes. And you're loaded. You're loaded. You're loaded. You can't even eat it all. No. It always fills you up. It always. Tell me. Every time. I love that stuff. And girls have a problem with Hamburger Helper. And if you have a salad. You have a salad. Oh, it's disgusting. Meat and carbs. How can you go wrong? No. And she. Janet. Janet just goes berserk. And the boys. They all come home. Mom. Can we have some Hamburger Helper? You know. And Ashley's like. Ashley. So we had some other.

There's some other like. Tuna creations. I don't know. There's some things up in the. Up in the cupboard. That is made similar. You know. You add Hamburger. And similar to Hamburger Helper. And. And we had Rice-A-Roni. Right. Which is made out of a box. Same thing. Comes from the same cabinet. And we're sitting there. And Ashley's like. Everything in that cabinet is awesome.

I'm like. Hey. You need to tell mom that. Tell your mom that. Oh yeah. Janet's like. Oh I get it. I get it. I'm. You know what Janet's takeaway is. I know. I'm the worst cook in the world. Everything. Hamburger Helper is better than anything I do. I know. And I'm not saying that. But I love Hamburger Helper. It's just don't be so down on it. Yeah. It works. It works. And it's quick. And I don't have to be a cook. You know. On the nice thing for me. Like. Is this a. This is. This is a terrible trade secret. I don't pack milk with me. I don't pack butter with me. Dude. It's good without it. I know you're supposed to put half a cup of that stuff. Dude. I cook it without it. When I was in Montana, I cooked it for myself. It was fine. Yeah. You kidding. Because it's hearty. You know. Yeah. But anyway. That's true. But. But put milk in it. It's better. It's better.

It takes a little bit of the seasoning. And mac and cheese needs butter. It's pretty amazing with butter. But. It's great. So anyway. That was Ashley's first deer. And then Jeff. So Jeff gets his boy's course case in. He wants a big deer. He's killed some deer. He's. He's. He's pickier than a 14 year old should be. Yeah. Because. You know. At this point. He killed three deer and a bull. And all of them were. You know. Four by. Well. One was a four by freak. You know. We called him four by freak. But. The other two are both four points. So. He. He's. 14. But he's like. I'm. I'm. Holding out for something bigger. And they just weren't there this year. You know. Just weren't there. So we hunted hard. And we just couldn't put together. Cutler. Wanted to. Kill something. And I held him off from a few bucks that were. You know. That. It was like. Ah. That's. Let's keep hunting. You know. And.

And I tell my boys. And. I. I really only want them to kill one deer a year. They're going to have multiple deer tags every year. But I really only want them to kill one deer a year. Because I'm like. How many deer do you really need a year? Like. And how much room. Like. Your freezer. Is full. Before you even try to kill anything. It's full. But it.

It. It. It. It. It. It is experience. It's getting another elk in it. And I can't wait. It's still. It's still good. Now. These next deer. I like getting. You know. Those processed foods. I call them processed meats. Like. All the stuff that you just pull out of. Yeah. You pull it out of the freezer and eat it. You don't cook it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Deer and antelope.

Colton killed an antelope. And I mean. It was the. That's a great buck. Yeah. He's a great buck. I don't want to jump off this yet. So. Cutler. Okay. Cutler. We. We ride hard for. I mean. Throughout the. Days that they could hunt. Yeah. Weekends. Weekends. And. I pull them out of school. On Monday. And we finish up. And. We finish our last night in Idaho. The hunt's still going. Of course. But. He's got an antelope tag. In Wyoming. We just couldn't put it together. In Idaho. On a deer. That we really like. You know. We never found one. We never found a good deer. That we really wanted to kill with them. And. So then. We just. Hightailed it. On Sunday. Up to. Wyoming. For a one day. Middle of Wyoming. Six hours. To get there. Antelope.

And. And there's like. Two sections of public. And there's two sections of public. Look. It's a tag you can draw with. I mean. One point. Guarantees. You see the tag. It's a nothing tag. Yeah. And there's people everywhere. And everything like that. But. The great thing about. Okay. The great and bad thing. About an antelope hunt. Here. Let's go. Great thing about antelope hunt. You can see them. They're out in the open. They are. Easily findable. It's an all day hunt. They're not crawling into a hole. That you're never going to see them again. You are hunting from dawn till dusk. There's opportunities all day long. That's a great thing. The bad thing is. Hey. Don't quit moving. And when you're there with a 12 year old. And you're trying to get them dialed in on a buck. And there's 60 adults. Trying to get dialed in on the same buck. Boy. It gets westerned in a hurry. Finding. Now. Now.

Yeah. Now. I mean. We had. We had bucks everywhere from. You know. 800 yards. These guys are lobbing shots into a herd. I was so disgusted with the humanity of the people hunting right then. But. We had that. Everywhere from. We had a buck. We had a buck come by at 30 yards. Through the sagebrush. We were set up in the right spot. The bucks blew. They came up. Because of course. We're lined up on them at 200. Ready to kill them. And guys come over the ridge. You know what I mean. And spook the antelope. And they end up running right toward us. And here my kid is. And I'm trying to adjust scopes. And you know. Because the buck ends up like 20 yards from him. You can't have him at 14 power when he's 20 yards from him. With your Thompson long range. You know.

Anyway. We don't even get a shot off. We don't even come close to getting a shot off. He goes out to 300. And he stops. And the great thing about that Thompson at 300. Is you're dialed in. Like. That's your main crosshair. That's your main crosshair. So. And. He's got a doe. Touching his butt. He's got a doe. And another doe. Touching his front. And I'm like. He's like. I can pound him here dad. I'm like. Nope. We are not. We're not having this issue. Right here. If you miss. Or jerk. Or whatever. You dump a doe. You're ticked. Yeah. It's a bad day. That's a really bad day. So. Sign your title over to Wyoming Game. Yep. That's what you're doing. And it's just not worth it. It's just not worth it. So. It was. You know. We had. He had multiple. Probably. He. He had buck antelope in a scope. Ten times. In that day. In one day. He had that. And. That's the beauty about that antelope punt.

It is. Getting those kids dialed in to get them in the scope. Lots of opportunity. Yes. To learn how to. Learn their way around that rifle. Yep. And just. Just getting on them is a really big deal for. For these kids. These youth hunters. So anyway. That is. That's a hunt that. That you know. You got to take your kids. Go try it. Because. It is. I mean. I felt like he got a couple years worth of experience. Honestly. In a day. Yeah. Of hunting that. So then. We swung and missed. We drove home that night. Got back to the office at seven in the morning. So. So anyway. It was just a. You know. It was a long day. Hard hunt. As far as. The travel. But. Wyoming. Once again. You have an opportunity there. There's a lot of those units. That you can draw. That are. Pretty easy to draw. Like. You can draw zero. One. Two points. You. You can get your kids out hunting. The youth fees. Are much.

Are much more bearable. Than the adult fees. Unless you apply the special elk. And $1,300 later. Colton's wondering if he's even going to be able to leave school. Because you want to make it happen. Because this is the year. He's 18. You had to go. Anyway. You had to go. So anyway. All. All back home. And now. We had hit. I had hit. Three states. In. A week. Boy. Those new tires were well worth it. No. They. They don't look new anymore. Are you? But you don't. But anyway. You can't beat the experiences. Hunting with those kids is the most stressful thing. But one of the funnest things too. So Cutler. Cutler goes in. And kills his first. So in Utah. You strike out an antelope. But now he's got a Utah tag. He didn't find a buck in Idaho he wanted. Was a little bit picky. Could have killed Ashley's buck. Ends up in Utah. And that's. That's where it comes together for him. Yep. So. On a deer.

On a deer. Yep. So he's back in Utah. He's got. So he had the two deer tags and an antelope tag this year. So. Ate the first tag. Ate the second tag. Now he's on to the Utah deer. Luckily we got a little bit of private ground we could hunt. Which. You would think it would eliminate all the competition. But it doesn't. It doesn't. There are so many people trespassing and putting pressure on those deer. And what's crazy is you're kicking people off. And you would think. Like if somebody were to kick me off. You. It would be plastered on social media. I might even hit jail. You know. And you're kicking people off. Nothing is happening. No. There is no. No. Ramifications for doing that. Like. No. It just. And you can't. You. Honestly. If you. If you really ground it. On. On those. Those particular pieces of property that we're hunting right there. You know. Like family ground. What not. Is.

It's just right along main roads. There's just too many people on them. And so it. It kind of feels like public property. But. But it's private. For sure. So. So anyway. We. We get set up. You know. The first day he can hunt. Which is actually Monday. Three days after the opener. Because of course. We got school. And we got football game in Mesquite. And then we all. And then we got to get to northern Utah. To hunt deer. Anyway. First days there. You know. We get up. We're. We're set up. And. We had a. Had a two point walk out. That. Was obvious. Was in bad shape. We thought he'd been shot by another hunter. When we're looking at him. He's hopping. He's got one front leg. That he's just. You know. Not. Can't put any weight on. He's hopping with the other one. He's underweight. He's. You know. He's still velvet. In fact. Because. You know. I just. He's not growing normal. And.

As a first year hunter. We were looking at him. And. You know. His older brother always brags. That he's never killed anything less than a four point. Right. So. You know. We're sitting there. We're sitting there in an awkward situation. And I think we've all been here before. Where there's been a deer like this.

And. What's the right thing to do. What's the right thing to do. Do you. And. I go out to this deer. He needs to be put down. He needs to be put down. Cutler's like. He just flat out tells me. He's like. Hey. We got a deer right. A buck here. He needs to die. And. It's better than a buck. That we might not get a chance to hunt later. They have one day to hunt. It's a. It's Monday. They got the day off school. They have that day to hunt. He's like. I want to shoot him. Good. And. And he's kind of. Been wanting to shoot anyway. He's kind of. Yeah. I've been. I've been holding him off the trigger a little bit. On the two points. But this is finally one that it was like. I couldn't. I couldn't hold him off the trigger. You know what I mean. And he took one for the team. And he killed this deer. 308 yards. Boom. Down. It was. It was a great experience. He was all smiles. He was wound up.

He's like. He's like. He's like. Dad. I've never been so calm when I pulled the trigger. And I'm like. Wow. Wow. Practice. Yeah. Not practice. He shot a bunch. But. You've been doing something right. Yeah. And. And anyway. We walk on him. He's just. Just a. Nice little two point. You know. And then Kaysen goes on to shoot a. And then later on the day. Another four. And Kaysen killed a four by freak last year. It's a buck that we'd seen for a couple years. We. You know. We were on him. We killed him. And then this year. I don't know. I don't know what it is. He kills a four by three. You know. Kind of a heavy little buck. Yeah. But. But the three is goofy. Like. Narrower. I mean. Another four by weird deer. And. We're just the king of those. They call us. You know. We're. We're improving the herd health. I guess you could say. But. But anyway. Kaysen killed another.

One of those that night. You know. That's his fourth mule deer. And he's. He started out really picky. Like. He wanted a big deer. And he wasn't going to pull the jerk. Will you grind through Idaho. And you're going into Utah. And you got a four by three. Sitting there. And you didn't scout all summer. Yes. You know. He can't drive. Yeah. So it's not like he's scouting. He's got to go to school. He's got a couple of weekends. How picky are you going to be boy? How picky are you going to be? You know. And so it's like. Anyway. Finally the last night. We're on him. And we just. We glassed him up. Bedded in the sagebrush. We're able to work around a side hill. Get on top of him. The dang thing blew out on us. The wind was blowing. And I knew the wind was bad. But it was. You know. Rain was coming in. We had to make a play right then. Didn't have a choice. Anyway. He went at us. Ran out.

Dude. 455 yards. Stopped. Turned. He missed the first shot. Oh he did. Yeah. Missed the first shot. Buck turns. Takes a few steps. Stops again. And boom. Right through the. Right through the chest. Hits him on the second shot. I don't know exactly what happened on the first shot. I think he probably jerked. He probably got a little wound up. And jerked the trigger. Because he did blow out on a run. Which you know. Your heart's racing. Everything like that. You know. And for a 14 year old. That's a lot. For an adult. It's a lot. That's a lot. You know. It ended up just working out. Perfect. We were able to kill him. In the middle of. You know. The downpour started right after we pulled the trigger. And got over there. Luckily grandpa came and saved the day with a four wheeler. And we got him off the mountain real quick. And got him taken care of. Yeah. Truly great hunts. I mean.

Hunting with your kids. It's just. It's hard to. Yeah. It is so rewarding. It really is. It's unbelievable. And I know. You know. So. Colton's got this. Elk tag up in Wyoming. And I almost. Anyway. Almost. You know. I know. People are tired of hearing about kid hunts. I get it. Like. They want to hunt themselves. It's hard to get tags. You know. It's part of a time of life. Before we're in. It is. But it's also. It's so near and dear when it's your own. You know. It's just kind of crazy. But. Anyway. We get. Colton's got six points. He's going into this year. He's turning 18 in the middle of December. Graduating early from high school with his associates. And ends up. Going to go on a mission. You know. For. For the church. And so we end up. You know. This is it. This is. This is his last main. Hurrah. For two years. And so. Yeah. So. He ends up with an antelope tag here in Utah.

We freaking go out for a half a day. Which is all he had with his 21 credits he's taken. Ended up smoking like the second buck we saw. Which was awesome. Which was a great buck. Just smokes him. It was just a great evening. You know. Him and Sean and Ashley were. And myself were there obviously. And. And. Smoked that here on Southwest Desert here in Southern Utah. We got some good bucks. Just considering the state. It's not one of the best states. But. Awesome. And then. And then he's got this elk hunt. And we can't go for the first week. And opening day is like. October 15th. Goes to like November 4th. Or whatever. If I remember right. And. It's like. Up to your crotch snow. The first day from what I hear. I mean. Literally. And these guys were killing elk. And. It was. It sucked for a lot of dudes. It was. It was bad. Bad. Bad weather that way. But good for hunting. You know.

Snow's good for hunting. But. Anyway. Late season elk up there in Wyoming. We ended up going a week late. Because of. I was schooling. And. Of course. Utah gives. Gave Monday out for. I don't know what they call it. A harvest holiday. Basically. Yeah. Fall break. Fall break. Let's call it the deer hunt. You know what I mean. That's what we always used to call it. And so. Anyway. Ends up with that. And can take Tuesday off as well. I load up him and Sean. Sean's now 16. Of course. He's the one that's. Killing stuff too. And so. We go up there. And. You know. We start from scratch. I mean. Basically. You know. A phone call to one of our outfitter buddies. Gave me a couple of places. Just check this. Check this. That was simple. Not. Not. You know. Where to go. But just basic drainages. Not that I've seen this bowl in here. Yeah. No. Just basic drainages. Try this. Try that. By the way.

If you need horses. I know a guy. You know. And I'm like. Okay. So I grabbed the paper map. And of course. My onyx. And we. And we head out. And. It was. It was pretty awesome. Lots and lots of people. Lots of deer. We were up in the bighorns. Did lots of deer. Crazy amounts of deer. To get deer hunts going. The elk hunts going. Cow hunters. Bull hunters. I mean. It was just. It was. You know. Death central. Pretty much. Wow. And so. Bullets flying. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a week after the hunt. Yeah. A week after. But there's like. 225 or 250 tags. And just for bull. Just for bull. Type one. And. You know. So anyway. Ended up. You know. Getting out of. Some country. And going into new country. Which was. Where you need horses. And it was. I mean. It's canyons. Thousand foot. Fifteen hundred foot. Straight down. Snowy hillsides. That have been frozen. Warmed. Frozen. Warm. Frozen. Warm.

For seven days. You know. So you get super slick. And it's a lot of downfall. Deadfall. And. And. These bulls. You're not. You're not walking up. Sneaking up. Anything on these bulls. They've been hunted. You know. For a week. And. And. And it's big country. And it's a lot. A lot of it is roadless. You know. A fair bit of it. Plenty of access overall. But. But roadless type country. And so. Ended up. Getting in there. We found a great bull. And Colton kind of had his heart set on him. And. Couldn't get him. Went in that night. Blew a couple of bulls. Glassed up every other bedded bull in the world. Within. 300 yards of where these others blew out. And. But we didn't know if he was in with these others that blew out. We thought. Well. He's got to be still right here. Just didn't feel like he was there. But. Dude. We didn't find him. And he's passing up sixes. And this and that.

And I'm like. You got a day and a half. Yeah. You know what I mean. And this is your first elk. You're probably going to have to make it happen. And. Not like we can live here for a week. Like. Normally I can go. On my own hunts. I can go. He doesn't have that luxury. You know. And so. Neither does Sean. I mean they're both in school. And. So anyway. He's going to hold out. So we come back in. And. In that morning. And. Nobody's going out to the end of these ridges. And looking into all of these big draws. Most people aren't thinking long range. A lot of them don't have binoculars. You know. Around their chest anyway. And so. You know. They're just not thinking. They're. They're. They're road hunting. A lot. I mean. There's some that are pretty aggressive. But not a lot. And so. You know. We're looking long. We're glassing long. And. Looking into a lot of this crazy timber.

And big canyons. And whatnot. And we glass up this bull. And I'm like. We didn't look at him close. We just knew he was a great six. But. He wasn't as big as the one we had. But he was good enough. You know. And. And it's Monday morning. We're leaving Tuesday. And so. Anyway. We set up. And. And. It was looking into the sun. The sun's in the scope. We had all kinds of issues with that. The range finder can't range. Exactly. Because I can't see them. It's a. It's a long glass. With the sun in your eyes. With glare. With a heavy glare. And. And snow. Lots of downfall. Reflecting. Dead trees. Standing. Standing trees. It's a cluster. To put it lightly. Okay. And we're getting the phone scope set up. Sean's on the 15s. Colton's on the gun. He can't find him. I get on the gun to get it lined up. Basically. Find him after about seven minutes. Or something. Colton gets back on the gun.

Can't find him. We go through this routine for 35 minutes. 40 minutes. I mean. And they're going to bed. You know. And it's like. Finally. We get everything together. Phone scope set. Record. Sean's on the 15s. Colton's on the gun. He's got the electronic ear muffs. So I can talk to him. But the. His ears rang for a week and a half. After he shot his antelope. So. I'm like. You know. As a dad. You don't feel good about. I know what my hearing's like. You know. Missed a lot of college tests. Sleeping on the wrong ear. So. Literally. Literally. And he gets old. And I didn't know what was going on. Until I got married. And my wife's like. You hear your alarm? I'm like. No. I got up. Put one finger in one ear. Hear the alarm. Put finger in the other ear. Don't hear the alarm. Then I learned. That was my problem. Yeah. I failed college. Because of my ears. That's not true. I didn't fail.

But still very frustrated. So. He ends up. We. We take some time. And he ends up. Making. An incredible shot. Two of them. Right. And I recovered the slugs. Unbelievable shooting. Wow. And. Just couldn't get closer. Couldn't have made it happen. Big deep canyons. It's not like you can just walk in. You know. Walk it to a closer spot. Yeah. Big deep canyons. And. And he's capable. And the equipment's unbelievably capable. And so. This. Six hour. 2400 range finders. The guys at Red Rock told me. Said. You need this range finder. You need it. Yeah. You know what I mean. Anybody that's legitimately serious. Needs it. You can all. You know. You can always. You know. Print out charts. And. Monkey with it a little bit. And you can. And there's a lot of ways to shoot long range. And long range meaning anything over 300. Because you got to compensate. You got to. You got to aim high. And.

Either you're going to guess. Or you're going to do it with a calculated. With mathematics. Yeah. Which tells you. Mathematics. Along. You know. With the shape of the bullet. The weight of the bullet. The speed of the bullet. It's all math. How. How that falls. And so. With the range finder. With gravity. It does it. And it's math. Yeah. And the range finder is unbelievable. I guess. I just. Can't say enough good about it. But. It a little range. Range to the curvature of my front windshield. Okay. That's amazing. I. So. I'm excited to figure out on sleet. You know. Sometimes you're in a light snow and stuff. And it won't range. So. Anyway. We go over there. We. We end up finding a. Trail. That allows us to bring a four-wheeler in. That you know. There's. There's 50 inch or less trails. There's trails for. For. Side-by-sides and trucks. There's. You know.

Motorbike trails in a lot of the forest up north. Idaho. And some of that country. Northern Utah. Top. So. Anyway. Luckily. We can get fairly close. It was still a brutal pack out. Gave the boys a healthy respect for dad. There you go. Colton. Sean couldn't lift my pack off the ground. He's like. He went to lift it off. He's like. That must be 200 pounds. Well. It wasn't. But it was heavy. And so. Anyway. But they. They can pack some weight. Boy. These kids are packing 70 pound packs. Getting out of there. It was. Kind of nice. It was. It was an awesome trip. It was one of those trips. That's what hunting does. I think for families. And for. Kids. And dads. You know. You get to talk about things you don't otherwise talk about. Because there's a lot of windshield time. Yeah. And going state to state. And how blessed they are to be able to do that. How blessed we are. How. Lots of things.

You get to talk about girls. And school. And. And life. And where you're headed. And how you're going to get there. And what do you want in life. And. And. And it just gives you that opportunity to go over some of these things you want to as a dad. But you don't know how to otherwise do it. You never get enough time after school. Hey. So I'm getting a truck. We're going to talk about some things. You know. It never works out that way. But when you go on a long trip. You got their captive attention. Well. And you're building a bond that is. That you hope. Maintains. For years. Right. So. So. You know. I mean. One of the. I mean. With my dad. You know. One of the things we talk about the most. Do the most. It revolves around hunting. You know. That's what. That's a connection that we have. You know. It was like last night. We were up there. On that hunt. You know. On that Utah hunt.

We went. We ran into Kent's Optics. Because. Good friends with Dave and Jeff up there. And. Kason had been hounding me. He won a 22-250 last year. And he wanted a scope for it. And I said. Just go and talk to Dave. Go talk to Jeff. And. They're going to tell you what the best bang for your buck is. What scope you want. So we went in there. Sat down. Chatted with those guys at Kent's Optics. They helped him pick out. Handed him a couple different scopes. Helped him pick out which one he wanted. He went out. Looked through them outside. You know. They're super good. Working with a 14-year-old on which scope he wants to buy. They pick a scope. And last night. First. I mean. I'm trying to unpack the truck. And clean up. You know. And he's like. I'm putting my scope on right now. And he. Next thing you know. He's got stuff. You know. Tools pulling out. Covering the kitchen table.

And so anyway. I just can't say enough about those guys up to Kent's Optics. They are so helpful. So what scope did he land on? He ended up with a Vortex. It's just a Diamondback. But. But. Those guys at Kent's buy so many of them. They get a great deal. Great deal on that Vortex. You know. What guns he put it on? He's got a 2250. Just a. That Remington American. It's one that he won last year. Like a 700. At the family party. Oh. Okay. The family party. Yeah. The family party guy. So. We can't bring up the family party without talking about. Anyway. We put on this family party. And there's one big gift each year. And. It was between Sean and your boy. Was it? Yeah. Yeah. And your kid won it. You know. Matt gave it away. Yeah. Jenna's brother. Of course. Jenna and Angela. That's awesome. Brother gave it away. And so this year it's our turn. I guess. Jenna and I's. But. Anyway.

One big gift. And the kids. It's just. Kind of a white elephant thing we do for Christmas. So anyway. Won that gun. Couldn't have been. Awesome. Couldn't have been better. Yeah. And so. Anyway. Ended up with a vortex. That's awesome. Well. So that kind of. Brings us up to date. There's a couple of hunts. Probably won't talk about. That were a lot less than perfect.

But. We will talk about them. It's just going to be. When. When we conclude. And are. Wildly successful. So. Anyway. That's about it. We've been talking forever. Chris. What do you want. A three. You want. One. One thing I do want to talk about. It's on the top of my mind. And then. I'm going to turn the time over to you. Chris. It would be the Kinetrek boots. I was wearing Kinetreks. And those. Those steep hillsides. Like. I've had boots. boots and either the compound of the rubber is hard or the track the particular tread pattern or whatever they're unbelievably slick like super slick and and dude i was throwing this pack on it was on that north face here i'm talking about super slick and uh man unbelievable those those boots are unbelievable and they're of course they're made i had the mountain extremes and

they're uh they're made for loads man they're made for support loads rocky nasty country got a great compound on the on the rubber sole and uh anyway jim winjim does a great job with designing those boots he takes a lot of pride in it of course it's his company and uh and so you might get on the web dial up kenetrek www.kenetrek.com k-e-n-e-t-r-e-k.com or calling it 1-800-232-6064 um but i was super impressed with it great gear you know the gear nowadays is is letting us hunt harder of course i look at all those old time photos of people that were basically wearing the boots they wore to work and uh you know flannel and and levi's and and hey i've hunted in levi's and sometimes it is nice but uh a lot of times it's not the gear nowadays it's truly is gear it truly is gear the guys we're working with for it the guys we're working with they're not producing clothing they're producing

gear and um so anyway appreciate him and his support here at epic all right chris all right so to just to end off today i want to do a giveaway we're going to give away a phone scope and if you haven't used one they are amazing um super fun you can you can record whatever you're looking at through your spotting scope or your binoculars they've even got uh to where you can film through your rifle scope now as you're shooting whatever you're going to shoot you can film it uh that's pretty awesome that's called scope division um but we're going to give away a phone scope kit for whatever phone you've got whatever scope you've got so you want to give away one or like two or three let's let's give away two we'll give away two this time but how you enter um we've got a post for this podcast um and this is

episode 99 so find that post on our instagram page and repost it and hashtag epic outdoors and hashtag phone scope p-h-o-n-e-s-k-o-p-e and you will be entered to win one of two phone scope setups so we'll give those away in the next seven days so um look for that episode 99 on our instagram repost that with the hashtags and you are entered to win right on well there's a few stories we've got more stories some stories we didn't cover bronson's out killing sheep guiding guiding hunters he's got a few stories of course we're going to be hunting together in colorado and uh got a lot more going on uh been up to idaho general deer hunting i don't really want to talk about that yet it sucked okay so anyway a lot more coming we're going to be out of the office uh just we're learning we're going state to state and that's that's what we do and we get tags coming and going every which way so

hopefully you guys are doing great right in the middle of our license application renewals um guys want us to apply you get your stuff in it's uh you can email us at hunt apps at epic outdoors.com h-u-n-t-a-p-p-s at epic outdoors.com and uh we'll get you set up we got pauline here she's cranking through she works full time of course somebody's got him between pauline and mindy you know chris chris works a lot doors open chris works a lot too here you know in and out of hunts and whatnot john as well but but those girls you know we make sure they put in their 40 so anyway feel free to give us we want to definitely work with you on your on your applications now's a great time and then adam and i go over them personally and we'll give you a call if we need to uh when we come in we do have a i've got a desert sheep hunt coming up a december 1st we'll be out for

the first week of december hopefully we knock down something uh significant in a short amount of time and get back to work yeah it's gonna be awesome i'm excited of course kind of the last little hurrah and good weather down there so even though it's december hopefully it's great weather but anyway appreciate you all out there listening um it is not powered by monster today thankfully trying to quit but uh maybe you're drinking a pepsi and i'm drinking a diet pepsi how about that there you go we're gonna roll that we're gonna roll something with my vortex koozie and chris's got a red bull what's that that's the cranberry red bull chris i feel like we've been kind of my favorite one cheated on here what was that energy you don't how do you bypass the white monster weird red can i've always been what is that i've always been a cranberry red bull guy it's basically 91

octane it sucks it does i told my kids they're like well and a they're not supposed to drink any of the energy drinks so i told them i said you know and they're like dad you know have you tried the red bull and i'm like yeah it's turpentine oh it's terrible and so they're like no it's not that white monster it's turpentine i said white monster is 91 no ethanol okay your crap is 85 octane from the cheapest pump there is that's the bottom line that's the bottom line there's some snowmobiler out there thinking that's a good point oh well red bull pays my bills but i don't drink it yeah we know that's true we know what goes on back there all right guys appreciate y'all hope everybody's having a great season uh please send in your photos you can send them to john's email john at epic outdoors.com photo stories let's get you slated uh get you set up for the

issue we'd like to cover those put those stories and photos in the issues that we cover those states of course we cover the states state-by-state analysis and give you everything you need to know to draw tags and to figure out where to apply for 100 bucks a year it's nine issues a year uh monthly december through june bi-monthly when it's later in the season we're supposed to be in the hills or scouting and so anyway we got you covered for everything western big game canada alaska mexico jeff works with the outfitters guaranteed tags draw tags landowner tags we've got it we do it that's what we do everything western big game anyway give us a shout give us a try go to epic outdoors.com you can join up goes for 12 months after the day you join up so it's not a yearly uh on the calendar it's it's from the day you join so it's 100 bucks a year and then of course we do the licensed application

service it's a separate service costs a little bit more to do that and have us actually handle your applications choose the units if you'd like and work with you on a specialized program and portfolio of being able to apply and get tags so anyway go to epicoutdoors.com right on sounds good you