EP 112: Applying in Utah, New Mexico, and Oregon. In this episode of The Epic Outdoors Podcast, Jason and Adam review the contents of the February issue of the magazine. Inside we cover Utah, New Mexico, and Oregon. We cover all the important details that you need to know when applying in these states and while making decisions on where and how to apply. Each state is unique in its system and it is important to understand them if you plan on drawing and hunting quality tags.
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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Any unit can produce a three 50 bullet. Those
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Bulls, a lot of ’em will be with the cows. High
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Days can be over and done with really fast, but it spreads out the hunt applicants on different hunt codes.
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Anything to do with Western Big Game.
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Welcome
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To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Should we start this mess? Let’s
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Do it.
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Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson here with the Epic Outdoors Podcast coming at you from southern Utah. Got some snow on the hills. Bronson’s excited. Can hardly get him to quit talking about it just because last year sucked so bad. It was
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Rough. But yes, we are, we’re full of optimism right now. It’s early February and it’s white everywhere. So lot of snow.
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Lots of snow. We’re actually headed out to the Wild Sheep Convention out there in Reno. Jeff, and I’ll be driving Adam’s, Adam and his wife are flying, which is a smarter way to go. I just hate sitting next to people in airplanes, so,
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So he’d rather sit next to Jeff for 10 hours. Yeah,
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Well, eight plus, yeah. Snowplows breaking the window. Last time I cracked my window a few times. Jerks.
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Anyway,
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I think they enjoy it. You gotta admit those snowplow, they know when the rocks are flying behind them, they know it and they’re like, here comes this nice little Tacoma, brand new, we’re gonna crush this guy.
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Yeah, that was brand new last year and
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Dude crushed
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It. Broke it in on Highway 50.
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Oh yeah. The Loneliest Highway in America. Yep. Anyway, do wanna thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. They sponsor all our podcasts right here, front and center, working with them on everything we do. We’ve been working with them for many years. Got a lot of great products. Anyway. Good people, good products. Support ’em ua.com.
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We’re also getting ready to head up to Salt Lake here in a few days as well to the Western Hunting Conservation Expo. That is February 14th to the 17th. We will be at booth number 2 7 4 4 like we always are. Same position. We’ll be right there next door. And in conjunction with the Kents optics guys. And so stop by, visit us there. Booth number 2 7 4 4 will be there all week. Great place to come and mix and mingle with hunters and, and apply for some extra tags. They got 200 extra Utah big game tags to apply for, for $5 each. And somebody’s gonna get ’em. Might as well be me or you or both. Yeah, Jason’s boy. That’s right. Jason’s boy. Drew an antelope tag there last year.
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Something. Yeah, he did. He drew an antelope tag. And so that’s awesome. Especially where, you know, being a resident, you gotta choose species you get to, you can’t apply for all of ’em. And so that, you know, drawing an antelope tag through the expo isn’t something he normally applies for. So, pretty awesome. Great opportunity to go out there, smoke a goat, DGU truck chasers. Anyway, so other than that, yeah, we’ll be out there. Of course, you’ve probably seen on social media, some of you guys that kind of get on Instagram. You love Instagram, you’ve seen Kent’s optics and of course they’re showcasing all kinds of sheds that’ll be in their booth. Yeah, and that’s
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A good idea. It got me fired up. It got
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Me fired up. It made me not even wanna post anything.
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You Yeah, I’m, yeah, 2 30, 2
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Twenties, two
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18 typicals or whatever it was. Yeah.
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So anyway, they’ll, they bring quite a, quite a show, of course, right? Basically we share a booth. So we also have the full Curl Society that’ll be happening during the expo February 16th this year they’re giving away 11 sheep hunts. And so anyway, you can sign up for the, for the event and buy your sheep [email protected]. So go on there, get your tickets, attend the event, it’ll be Saturday. It’s awesome. It’ll be a room full of people full of sheep nuts about sheep nuts. That’s pretty funny. Sheep enthusiast
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Enthusiasts. Sheep.
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Sheep enthusiasts. I like that. Anyway, probably a thousand dudes in there. I don’t know. Somewhere between 500 and a thousands.
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Not gonna, there’s gonna be an oyster fry. There will not be that. It’s not gonna be full of sheep
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Mountain oysters. All right. So anyway, you know, support the hunt expo. It’s an awesome event. It’s where a lot of western hunters, the serious western big game guys get together and just visit. And there’s a lot of tags for sale, a lot of tags giving away raffled, whatever. And so anyway, we’ll be there. Come visit us. Let’s talk hunting. All right, let’s get this thing started. What are we gonna talk about today? We’re gonna
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Break down, I think in a general overview, the February issue of the magazine. Keeping in mind there’s way more than we can cover here in even 30, 40 minutes that we’re gonna take the time to do that. So we might as well break down just a couple real quick alerts to remind you of. We will be covering the deer and elk in Montana in our March issue of the magazine. That is pending commission approval on February 13th. And just by way of notification, we are gonna put that in the March issue. You’ll have a short turnaround time, but keeping in mind the March fifteenth’s, the application deadline for Montana Deer Elk, but you do now have a new points only application period for the last couple years they’ve had that. So if you’re only gonna do points only, it’s no big deal. Do that in the summertime. And
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We also, yeah, we also, there’s
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A teaser. They are, there’s a bill in the legislature in Montana right now to push the Deer Elk application deadline to April 1st, 4, 20 20. So 2019, it’s still gonna be March 15th, so stay tuned. Maybe we’ll cover a little bit later next year. We’ll
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See. That’s awesome. Yeah, hopefully they do that. So anyway, we also had a Nevada guide draw alert, meaning for mule deer. They have a guide draw, you know, that’s for mule deer only and for rifle hunters. So you, you, you know, archery or muzzle or, or none of those seasons will be available in the guide. Draw only for mule deer and only for rifles. So anyway, we have calculated out the odds. It’s generally two to three times better to apply in the guide draw if you are a rifle hunter for those specific tags. We did print the application deadline being March 4th. That’s the, that was the proposed date. Never in history have we ever seen them adjust that date. And we wanted to get this alert out just to let guys know that it was fast approaching, the commission actually changed it. It’d be March 11th.
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And so anyway, from February 11th to March 11th, you got basically 30 days to apply for that. If you do want to go in for that, get ahold of an outfitter or if you don’t know a guy, you want some recommendations, call us. That’s what Adam and I do every day, all day long is recommend outfitters, hunts applications, strategies, whatever. And so it’s right up our alley. Happy to help you, you know, give you a name and phone number or two or three and you can call some guys and, and see if you can’t apply and get applied in that draw. They do need to apply you. You can’t go online and do it yourself. They’ve got a pin number and all kinds of ways to keep normal guys out. That’s
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Right. And if you, if you know you’re gonna hire a guide when you draw anyway, you should apply and you’re rifle hunter, you should apply with a guide. Your odds will be Jason, I, we worked pretty much every unit, probably three quarters of ’em last year, and it was anywhere between double and maybe four times is better drawing odds going in the guide draw. So four
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Times. Yeah, that’s right. It was significantly better. So
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Definitely worth your time to do it. So well, let’s, let’s jump in and do a highlight, I guess of Utah. Best, I guess way to characterize that is Utah’s probably, it’s not something you plan on short term hunting unless you’re gonna do the general season deer ever in
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Your entire life. How about that?
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That sounds tough to draw. Pessimistic. It’s tough, it’s
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Tough. I wish to
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Draw. It’s tough, although
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We love it, but it’s
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Tough. All right, so we’ll talk to, mainly I guess from a non-resident perspective, it’s a $65 hunting license in Utah as a prerequisite to play the game. $65 for adults, 18 and up. And if you’re, if you’re a youth, I think it’s 25 bucks, but as a non-resident and then it’s $10 per species after that. So if you’re gonna make the commitment to do Utah, apply for Utah, definitely add as many species as interest to you to get more out of your license and the application fee purchase. But
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Adam and I talk to guys every day and we definitely, you know, we recommend applying for units versus points only, just because it’s so tough to get drawn. You need to have your hat, your name in the hat many, many years. And you know, they do offer tags on a random draw. So you can draw with zero points, one point, whatever. And you obviously get more names in the hat with the more points you have. And so definitely be applying. It’s the same fee as well. So you know, whether it’s points only, whether you’re applying for a particular hunt, then you know, same fee, you might as well be doing it. And if you were to be successful and you wanted to get your points back and turn it back in, you could even get a refund if you do it early enough. So there’s no harm, there’s no risk in applying for a tag.
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No, there’s not. And we highly recommend that Utah tags are very hard, they’re hard for residents to draw. Residents have to choose either to apply for deer or elk or antelope. And then one of the once a lifetime species, which are desert sheep, rocky mountain sheep, mountain goat, moose or bison residents have to choose one once in a lifetime. And one of the others, non-residents can apply for every everything. So to make it worth your time, once again, apply for everything unless your schedule just can’t allow it, like Jason said, put put in for the draw. We talk to people every year, multiple people every year that draw when they don’t think they should or they didn’t even have a prayer, but they decided not to do points only and they drew. So definitely do that. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not a state. If you’re looking to start today, that’s probably realistically one you’re gonna hunt, hunt very often, but it has great quality on elk and, and, and deer compared to the west. I mean, it’s one of the top four or five elk states and top, top three to four deer states in the, in the limited draw units. So it’s a good state from a quality standpoint. All the once in a lifetime species have excellent hunts if you’re able lucky enough to draw ’em.
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One thing we talked to a lot of our clients about Adam is, you know, we go through all the Western states and we’re kind of comparing each other and which ones to apply for and which ones not to. The one thing we like about applying in multiple Western states is everything’s different. There’s no two states alike, whether it be, you know, some of ’em are similar in the application process and procedure, but everything’s different. And that’s what we like about it. Utah’s one of those. It’s very, it’s in, like Adam said, inexpensive to apply, you’re gonna get get points, but we kind of use that as more of a long-term program. Whereas, you know, maybe New Mexico or one of these other states, we, you know, you have more short term programs and strategy in making your applications there.
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There’s one loophole I guess in applying for Utah go their licensing system. Secret, not really a secret. It, it’s the only state that really lets you do this, but they’re li hunting licenses are good. They’re valid for 365 days. So if you apply this year and, and don’t draw or whatever, you can apply next year before that license expires and they won’t charge you another $65. So you can kinda get a two for one on the hunting license fee. So if that softens the blow for some of you guys, you get a two for one, you do have to kind of plan that out a little bit. Generally I’d wait tell you to wait towards the latter part of the application period the first year, and then you got more time the second year to make your decision. But just something to consider, you know, 65 bucks is 65 bucks, I guess. Yeah,
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There you go. I like it. And, and like Adam said, wait toward the end of the application period and then you’ll be just bumping that date, calendar shifts forward a day. Just keep bumping that date and at some point it’ll catch up to you, but for the most part you can get a two for one there. So as Adam talked about earlier, you non-residents can apply for everything and, and should apply for everything that makes sense. For $10 additional, you’re gonna have the non-refundable hunting fee, hunting license fee anyway. You might as well for 10 bucks be applying for anything and everything. And, and we outlined those species within our publication, whether you got desert sheep, rocky mountain, big horns, mountain goat, moose, bison, those are what we consider to be our once in lifetime species.
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That’s right. When it comes to elk, part of the reason that makes Utah a very tough state to draw is they give archery tags, start the end of August and go for 28 days. Then they follow it with like a nine day rifle elk hunt and then a muzzle order hunt right after that. So literally every day of September, elk are being hunted. Consequently, tag numbers aren’t, aren’t high. They, they have good quality. It’s not as high as it was 10 years ago. Still solid quality in the best units and, and any unit can produce a three 50 bull. It really can, even though there’s a lot of units, probably more known for 300 to three 30 bulls. The fact that you can hunt with a rutt in the rutt with a firearm, but be it a rifle or a muzzle loader, those are pop who doesn’t want to do that?
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They’re very hard to draw. The late season hunts are, are probably most forgotten. We’re used to those in other states like in New Mexico or Arizona where that’s their big opportunity. Hunts Utah, they still don’t give that many tags in November. They give more, but they, those are still really good hunts. And I guess just to impress upon people’s minds, if you’re in no man’s land on the points chase and you want to try to use points, look at some of the late rifle hunts. They are, they’re high kill rates and they’re good hunts. They really are. The dates are, you know, early to mid-November, but you’re, you’re not there with three to 500 people like you are in Arizona. I like
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It. Yep, you’re a hundred percent right. And and you know, we found that the muzz or season dates seemed to be the best for quality. The September 23rd, October 4th, those bulls really are Rutten. I hunted, oh a few years back. 2015 hunted out here, Southwest desert killed a 3 85 bull, but on truck camera, that bull didn’t come in until about September 23rd. And then we killed him a few short days after that. And so anyway, don’t be afraid of that. Even though, and like Adam said, there being hunted nonstop, but from, from the archery on through the first part of October, don’t let that stop you from thinking that muzzle hunt’s a good hunt. It’s a great hunt. The downside is from non-resident perspective, very few tags, half the tags go to people at the most points. The other half go on a random draw. And really, I should have said it the other way around.
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If there’s one tag, it goes on a random draw. If there’s two they’ll split. And so you can see when you look through our drawing odds within our publication, we have non-resident bon bonus point odds, then we also have non-resident random odds as well as the residents. But anyway, sometimes we say no tag, that means there was only one and it went in a random draw. And you will see random drawing odds associated with that. So anyway, keep that in mind. It’s definitely plays into the strategy and your application process as well as deciding if you’re gonna apply with, you know, on a group application or not. Yeah. ’cause there just might not be enough tags to even be relevant in the
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Draw. That’s a group of two in Utah for limited entry has to apply, apply for a unit, has at least three permits to where one of those three is gonna go to the max point applicant. The other remaining two could go in the, would go in the random draw and you could be the first name outta the hat and get ’em. But keep that in mind. Group sizes of three or that that we just generally non-residents especially don’t do, there’s a couple of units don’t like a Wasatch or Manti that you might be able to get it, but you really limit
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Yourself. You could on that, but, but overall you get down to those last couple and you’re just not really eligible in the draw. I guess we’ll just throw this in there. Wyoming is the only state we know of. If they get down to one last tag and they pull your group, no matter how big your group is, obviously as long as it’s within spec, they will give you all tags. Yeah. So they will issue extra tags and, and that’s the one place that it’s happened. I’ve actually had friends that do it and, and for a fact it did. Yep. You know, did it. So anyway, just keep that in mind. They don’t do it in either state.
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Utah, you’ll get skipped if you get down and you’ll never know. But, but it’s better if you apply individually if you’re down to a low low tag unit in Utah. Let’s
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Talk about something important. Let’s talk about some yield.
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Yeah,
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Actually we, we love elk and sheep and everything else too, but yeah,
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Deer, deer in Utah again, they, the issue, oh let’s just say 90, 95,000 roughly general season deer tags in the state. And there’s two categories of, of deer applications. They’ve not merged the point systems in Utah like they have in other states. Like a Colorado is just a one point system. They went from a general season to li and limited entry and, and just made it all limited entry. Utah, you do and can apply for two different applications for deer. The limited entry draw is, is conducted first. So don’t worry about that. You, the hunts that you apply for for Henry Mountains, a a book, cliffs, ponson, whatever, those are all conducted first. And so you are considered for that hunt before any of your general season deer applications are, are considered for limited entry deer. They, they issue, I don’t know, a thousand or two limited entry tags, you know, one or 2% all the deer across the entire state. Yeah. One or 2% of the total deer tags. That, that creates a huge log jam for applicants. It really does for, for the deer hunts. And, and it’s even worse for non-residents. Many units like a Fillmore Oak Creek, like a Henry Mountains, most of the seasons, they don’t even give a maximum point tag. It’s one tag on some of those same and it goes in the random draw. So same
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Principles, what we talked about with elk. When you’re down to these very low tag number numbers within a particular season, you know, like one, like a San Juan Elk Ridge, you know, archery deer, there’s one that’s gonna go random. Odds were one in 158 doesn’t mean it’s an awesome unit. Just means there’s just not very many tags. Meaning one for non-residents. And so Adam’s exactly right. Basically in Utah, we’ll just throw this out there. You know, your first choice counts, they go to the next guy. So, you know, don’t, don’t think you’re gonna do your first and second and third. It’s your first. Yeah. That’s what counts. They go to the next guy. As far as, like Adam alluded to with the general, they do have a split system. You get preference points with the general bonus points with the limited entry. Limited entry. We’re gonna call our good units, our trophy, our really managed units and our general season is a draw as well with limited tag numbers. But they manage it under a general status. Meaning, you know, they’re not looking to kill giants, they’re just looking to provide opportunity and not kill our, all of our resource. Yeah. And it is preference. So the guys with one point or two points have preference over those with zero versus the bonus was more names in the hat.
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Well, in these general hunts are they used to be years ago over the counter, then they started to cap ’em and, and they still, there’s hundreds or in some cases thousands of general season tags in, in, in, in individual individual units. So these are not like, these are opportunity hunts. There are some big deer that come off the general season units usually by people that scout hard, have a bunch of time or just get flat out lucky. But there, there’s something to fill your schedule with a deer hunt. They’re probably better right now than they have been 20 plus years. They really have, since we went unit by unit weapon by weapon, they’ve been able to control hunters a little bit better. We,
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It’s a natural tendency to manage for quality even if they’re under general status. And that’s what Adam’s talking about is, is they are, they’re breaking it up. We do have some, you know, units that have the early rifle season versus late splitting up the pressure a little bit where 30%, roughly 30% of the tags go on an early rifle. 70% of the available rifle tags within a general unit would be allocated for the, for that ladder hunt. And so anyway, great opportunities, like Adam says, there’s some giants, some of our, some of the best bucks we see come outta the state, come outta general. Having said that, it’s kind of a numbers game. Yeah. When you
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Have 95,000 tags, when
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You have that many tags, you can kill couple and, and so, but you can make it happen if you, if you live here or if you make it kind of your whole program here for your fall hunting plan and, and you can make it happen. The one thing we do like about the general is that’s a place you can go kill 160, 170 inch deer, let’s call it 150 to a hundred seventy, a hundred fifty, a hundred seventy inch type deer. Pretty, pretty handily without burning up your, your special, let’s call ’em special. Your limited entry deer points. That’s right. And so you can come out here what, every other year, every two years,
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Depending on you come Yeah. Most non-residents. Every one to three years. Yeah. Some, some of the residents can go every year if you, if you go on our tree or something like that. But yeah, it’s a regular, regular deal.
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Our license application service guys, I’d say 60, 70% of ’em we’re doing general points for ’em just because it gives them an opportunity to come hunt with their family, friends, whatever, and have a low stress, low key gonna That’s right. You know, put meat in the freezer type hunt. That’s
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Right. Last and least Utah antelope and least. Well it’s true. Truck cha.
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Let’s
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Talk truck chasers. Let’s
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Talk about these truck chasers. Oh, we love antelope. Actually, a lot of fun for everybody. You get to come, I mean, you’re gonna be successful if you put in a decent amount of effort, you are gonna be successful. A lot of fun. Having said that, like Utah just wasn’t made for antelope. It’s, we do have quite a few units. We, we list them out pretty, pretty heavily even allocated up to four pages to antelope within this publication of 150 pager. But anyway, lots of opportunities out there. Non-residents, they get to apply for ’em and it doesn’t, doesn’t keep ’em from applying for deer and elk residents. I mean, if we apply for antelope, that’s our, that’s our species. That’s right. With the exception of once in lifetime. So
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You’ll see the resident odds are really good for antelope because of what Jason just said. Most people, 80, 90% plus are gonna choose deer or elk to apply for as a resident. Non-residents 10 years ago when you could add everything, every, almost everybody just started an adding antelope. That non-resident drying odds in the random especially are terrible. They really are. And it’s just simply a product of too many people jumped in at the $10 cheap application fee when they could. And consequently poor drawing odds. Solid hunts. Fun hunts. Like every antelope hunt for the most part. Lots of public land on our Utah antelope units. So if you liked hunt antelope, put it in as an afterthought and add on to what you’re already thinking. Yeah.
00:22:04:19 –> 00:22:50:23
All right. One thing did bring us to this story of this archery buffalo hunt. You know, it’s bison listed bison, buffalo, whatever. Ryan Wilden, good friend of ours, smoked it with a bow. I wanted to kind of talk about that Adam A. Little bit. You’ve spent a lot of time on the Henry’s as I have, but not, not as much as you up there guiding and whatnot. It was an interesting situation this last year with the drought and pushing everything up high and, and with the New Seasons and, and within the Epic Outdoors Hunting magazine, we cover everything, you know, new stuff and new opportunities and new opportunities create usually, you know, a lot of trophy potential comes from new opportunities and whatnot. And we’ll get that into that, you know, more so in New Mexico. But talk to us a little bit about some of these changes real quick and then we’ll move
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On. Yeah. Mainly because of the drought and pressure from livestock. Es out on the Henry’s, the Utah Wildlife Board received a lot of pressure and the, some one of the public meetings and they actually went to the alternate list last summer, fall and issued about a hundred additional permits over what they drew last year in 2018. And, and that had to add some hunts even into January. So this year, I guess just kind of as a carryover to that, they’ve, they’ve added additional bison opportunities, not just there, but also in the, in the book Cliffs. And so you’ll see those, I mean what was once in the past, Jason, one or two bull hunts, maybe a cow hunt. Three hunt choices. Yeah.
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Nothing. The
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Table is a page and a half in Utah for bison. It’s pretty
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Impressive.
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And, and this, these bison are, are free range, genetically pure bison. They were brought from Yellowstone Park in 1940s to the Henry’s. Some of those have then been transplanted to the book Cliffs. Yep. Which have mixed with the Ute reservation tribe herd on there. And both of them give a great experience of a true hunt. These are not, they’re
00:23:59:01 –> 00:24:06:12
Not held, held in with four strands of barbed wire. No. You know, they’re not, it’s not a private herd, it’s nothing like that. This is a legit opportunity and
00:24:06:14 –> 00:24:45:11
That’s a legit hunt and sometimes very difficult. But, but look through those, they’ve added some additional hunter’s choice. We’ll just call those bull hunts. You can shoot a bull or a cow, some additional cow hunting only opportunities, which give you the same experience. Just, you know, yeah. Smaller animal, still great meat, but same overall experience. But they’ve also added a couple of archery only opportunities. One for cow only and, and the hunter’s choice, which has been around for a couple years, but now that’s been moved to September. If you’re a bow hunter and have that in your schedule, those are awesome hunts. They’re the first hunts on the Henry’s. Those bison have not even been, not been bothered all year long. And the archery hunters get the first shot at ’em. So Isn’t
00:24:45:11 –> 00:25:22:04
It crazy? Yeah. Just crazy how things change and whatnot. And we’ve watched it before our very eyes. I drew Buffalo when I was 15 years old. That was about 1500 years ago. And you know, it was truly was special opportunity. And it, and it still is, there’s just so much more resource at this point in history. And of course we could even do a podcast on that with conservation groups and, and the things that have happened and the changes we’ve seen in our short, just in our life, short life. But anyway, great opportunity. There’s also been some additions with some archery hunts for sheep and different things. Of course we do talk about those within our publication. Yep. Some of which may or may not be available to non-residents. That’s
00:25:22:04 –> 00:25:22:22
Right. So
00:25:22:26 –> 00:25:24:00
Where are we at Buddy? That’s
00:25:24:00 –> 00:25:47:19
Kind of a crash course on Utah. So deadline to apply is March 7th, then you got two additional weeks after that. I believe. If you’re doing do points only, but if you’re applica wanting to be in the draw this year for Hunt, March 7th is the deadline. So online application, pretty simple to navigate, shouldn’t have too much of a problem. If you do let us know or look at the application instructions in the magazine. So
00:25:47:27 –> 00:25:57:00
Do we have anything to break this boring podcast up? Any kind of stories or anything we just throw out there? What were we on rant about this morning or yesterday or the day before? Who knows?
00:25:57:23 –> 00:25:59:04
That comes and goes fast.
00:25:59:04 –> 00:26:49:04
Alright, let’s, let’s dive in then. Let’s just keep churning. We did also cover New Mexico within this publication. This is the February issue again, you know, to reiterate, we, we’ve got the Montana alert, which is Prep preps. Everybody, the Nevada guide, draw Alert, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah. So New Mexico’s just an awesome state. We actually had the game and Fish personnel, good friend of ours, Craig Sanchez, we did a podcast with him. Super great guy represents the state well. He’s a serious hunter, good friend. Just one of those kind of guys that you wish the, the entire department was made up of. Although there are largely made up of good people, it’s just nice to have a real serious hardcore hunter within the department that actually cares. He’s a guy that’s out photographing, filming, hunting, applying for, he’s applying across the west. And so he kind of gets the whole program.
00:26:49:20 –> 00:27:24:00
You guys, anybody that missed that, go check it out. We just did it here last week and a half or so. There was a lot of changes with New Mexico every four years they kind of revamp everything. It’s just basically, and they’ll change some things within those four years, but it just gives ’em an opportunity to, anything’s on the table. Everything can be cut or changed or whatever. And, and this four year, I would say this four year, you know, whatever you want to call it, change up review may, you know, may make history is one of the most changes made in a, in a, in a four year span.
00:27:24:07 –> 00:28:07:26
It feels like that. There’s a lot, there’s a lot of new, a lot of them aren’t procedural as far as, you know, the draws and the guide draw. We went through that a few years ago. Some of the percentage splits and all that. The, the, I guess the main thing worth pointing out Jason, is the hunting license fee, right? Yeah. It’s also, I believe it’s $65 like Utah. It’s, but in the past you’ve been able to check a box when you’ve applied that says, if I don’t draw, I wanna refund ’cause I’m not going to New Mexico, send me my 65 back or credit my card. And they do that. Yeah. That’s, that’s no longer, that’s no longer how the game’s played down. There. You, that’s an investment. Now you give up at the time of application $65 for non-resident adults. I think it’s $15 for kids, if I remember right. For
00:28:07:26 –> 00:28:08:28
15 bucks. Yeah. Under
00:28:08:28 –> 00:28:09:07
Under
00:28:09:12 –> 00:28:37:05
18. And it’s one of those states unlike, you know, Utah where for residents at least you have to choose your species. You can apply for everything. And unlike Utah where you don’t have to front the tag fees, you do front them in New Mexico, of course Adam’s good at finding these 0% credit cards and I bum bum his promo code off him to try to get my 0% cards between me, my wife, my 1400 kids. It’s unbelievable what the expenses will rack up in a state like New Mexico, especially if you do sheep for one or two of ’em. Yeah, you
00:28:37:05 –> 00:29:01:01
Do sheep and an iex, you’re at five grand right there and not, and then deer and Elks another grand. So yeah, you’re, you could be five or 6,000 pretty easy down there per person if they all put in for those. So yeah, it’s a, it’s a serious commitment at this time. Unlike the Wyoming, which we talked about a month or so ago, that they’re dinging you for 2.5%. They currently aren’t doing that in New Mexico. Otherwise that would stinging a lot harder.
00:29:01:09 –> 00:29:42:07
Well, and when these credit cards and a lot of you business owners know when you, you know, do refunds, a lot of times you’ll get that two and a half percent back that a credit card come company charges Wyoming, just decide they’re gonna keep that with New Mexico. Of course it’ll come back to you. So they, they do give you a refund on your card and they don’t hold it for too long. If you can find a 0% offer, we’d definitely recommend that. Even guys that are well off, so to speak. I mean it’s, it’s, it’s just a lot of money to have cash laying around in your account. So anyway, make sure you apply. If I don’t, if we forget to tell you the march, it’s a March 20th deadline and so draw results will be out April 24th is what they print sometimes a little bit earlier, a couple other changes. The eTech kind of a weird thing.
00:29:42:23 –> 00:29:53:13
Yeah, I’m a, I’m a paper notch. Cut it with, cut it with my knife over a branch kind of guy. But if you, if you want to have an app, get the app and get an EAG on there that they have a keep your phone
00:29:53:13 –> 00:29:53:23
Charged
00:29:53:23 –> 00:30:06:14
System and all that. Keep it charged so you can do all that basically timestamps the time you kill when you get it and they, they know, hey, show me your app or whatever when you get there and you gotta have it stamped that, yeah, you punched your tag electronically. But
00:30:06:28 –> 00:30:50:05
I think there’s some kinda little authorization code once that happens and you mark it down and put it on some flagging and goes and attach it and then it, you put it in the back of the truck and it flaps in the way in and it flies away. And who knows what happens. Maybe you go to jail or something and cross state lines. Now you got a lacy act. I don’t know. Yeah. But anyway, great opportunity there in New Mexico. We’re gonna move on from that. There’s just a few other changes here and there. However, some of the most prominent changes, again with the truck chasers, they did split up all these antelope units and allowed guys that draw the public tags to hunt public land. Imagine that just like every other state, being able to hunt public land with a public draw tag, where in the past they’ve assigned you ranches and so significant changes there. We’ll leave it at that. Let’s jump into sheep Adam.
00:30:50:26 –> 00:31:19:25
Yeah, sheep, I didn’t see a whole lot dramatic this year in terms of sheep. They do have two species of sheep that you can apply for both Rocky Mountain and Desert Big Horn. They do not charge you the $3,200 application fee for both species. They have two separate hunt codes, the B h S 1, 2 0 4 and 1 2 0 1 for Rocky and Desert. But but they don’t charge you twice. That’s, that’s important to know. You might as well apply for, apply for both of them. Apply
00:31:19:25 –> 00:31:27:12
For both of ’em. Yeah. And within that choice they’ll give you three units to choose. And so there’s so few in non-resident tags we’re we say apply for the best ones.
00:31:27:12 –> 00:31:59:14
That’s right. Because there really, it’s only between the guide draw the regular draw one to three total non-resident tags, you know, depending on the species. So you’re, you’re not talking about very many permits. They instituted that that hard quota a few years back that, you know, we get, you know, 10% or 16% of the total sheep tags now in the state, you know, we can’t really get 16% of each unit’s quota. So they do it collectively in the state pretty much. You got it spelled out. I think this year Jason, is it gonna be two and three? Is that what we’re looking at?
00:31:59:14 –> 00:32:05:17
Yeah, it looks like we’re, we’ve, we’ve gotta allocate it up to, you know, two non-resident tags and then three in the guide draw for, for
00:32:05:17 –> 00:32:06:02
Deserts. Is that
00:32:06:04 –> 00:32:29:18
For, for deserts and Yeah, with one tag increase. And so it’s just the way they split ’em out, of course they gotta give 84% to residents and the rest could possibly go to non-residents, possibly meaning residents and non-residents can go in the guide draw. I don’t know why a resident would do that, but they can. Yeah. And then with Rockies, they did have a net overall decrease of three tags and so that’s a reverse effect. Now we’re cutting to one and and two in the guy.
00:32:29:23 –> 00:32:43:02
Yeah. So very tough odds used to be that non-residents, our residents were in the same hat and some years we’d draw all or all, but one of the sheep type, when I say we’re non-residents and so the residents got that changed who caress
00:32:43:02 –> 00:32:43:23
About the residents
00:32:43:27 –> 00:33:25:17
Anyway. And yeah, that’s rightfully so. They got it changed and we still know and we’ve drawn every year we draw clients in the, in the New Mexico sheep draw. So it happens. They’re real people, not just statistics. Great quality for both Desert and Rocky Mountain Bighorn in New Mexico. Highly recommend doing it. If you can swell the $3,200 on your card. Again, like Jason said earlier, if you, if you wait towards the end of the March application deadline, you know, the last week or so, it’s not, they’re not gonna keep you as money if you go your money as long, if you go early, they’re gonna keep you an extra month. That’s right. You can pay interest on that. But wait till the last week or so. Maybe not the last day or two. Sometimes their state coughs a little bit. It’s been known to cough and churn the last day or two.
00:33:25:17 –> 00:33:27:24
Wait Don till the last day, but maybe the second to last day. Yeah.
00:33:27:24 –> 00:33:34:05
Or they’ll even just within the last week and then, and then they’ll only really keep it for four to six weeks, something like that. Your money on the card.
00:33:34:22 –> 00:33:49:05
Love New Mexico Elk. There’s one of those things that’s New Mexico. Yeah, it is a chia Pet year. Yeah. When when you water it, it grows. Do you know Chia Pet was probably what in the late eighties that really time dates us. We’re talking to millennials that don’t know what Chia Pet is. Yeah,
00:33:49:05 –> 00:33:56:04
I see one every once in a while. You do in some t in some weird store. And I’m like, wow, they’ve been holding that inventory for 10 years because I’m sure
00:33:56:04 –> 00:34:01:18
Theyre man one basically sprouts and all of a sudden sprouts come up through the cheap pet and it’s like a furry little, you know, porcupine whatever.
00:34:01:18 –> 00:34:03:04
Like a Yeah, exactly. That’s what it’s,
00:34:03:19 –> 00:34:24:10
So basically just for the millennials that are listening. So there we have it, we think it’s a cheap pet year. I think, you know, some of the bulls that didn’t get killed that may have otherwise would’ve or another year older on top of the fact, and, and this goes for deer too. The moisture’s just gonna make ’em grow. Like chia pen’s gonna be off the charts, we’re gonna have drop tanks and freaking points going everywhere. So yeah,
00:34:24:28 –> 00:34:51:01
I, I think the same thing. We’re really optimistic. Some of this winter moisture that we’ve tracked through Arizona, parts of Eastern Arizona especially, and then New Mexico is really, really good compared to last year. Couldn’t be further further opposites. So we’re, we’re anticipating good things. The good thing about New Mexico is they don’t have a point system. And so what I mean by that is you can treat every year as a new year, be as aggressive or not aggressive or
00:34:51:01 –> 00:34:54:20
Don’t apply it, don’t don’t getting married or something bad happened to you. Just chill out,
00:34:54:25 –> 00:35:24:18
Set it out. But if it’s a year like this and it looks like a good moisture year, maybe ratchet up the aggressiveness. Don’t just throw in for the 16 A and d and call it good. I go, I’m swinging for the fence. Be creative. There’s gonna be some bulls killed in lesser mid-tier units or even average units that are probably pretty good this year. Yeah. So in a good moisture year. Something to consider like that. The one thing about it is the archery hunts are in September, they split ’em up. You have two, you you have three hunt choices in in New Mexico. All
00:35:24:18 –> 00:35:25:19
Of which count they all
00:35:25:24 –> 00:35:35:25
Get looked at. Yeah. So you, you can put, put all all archery hunts for the second archery hunt, mix and match between first and second or mix. Mix and match three different units. Yeah. Or
00:35:35:29 –> 00:35:36:18
Or weapons
00:35:36:25 –> 00:35:37:14
Or weapon type
00:35:37:14 –> 00:35:38:11
Archery. Muzzle rifle,
00:35:38:21 –> 00:35:57:22
Lots of combinations. But the archery hunts in September, you got one from the first to the 14th. The other one is from the 15th to the 24th of September. A little bit shorter on the second hunt. You generally get more bugling activity, but sometimes Jason, you and I talk about a lot that early hunt the first of the 14th. I don’t think enough people put enough put priority into that hunt enough.
00:35:57:22 –> 00:36:41:24
That’s a great hunt. It’s actually one we’ve hunted pretty aggressively. And those bulls, a lot of ’em will be with the cows and you know, they’re bugling like crazy. Actually killed a really good bull on that hunt as well as the muzz hunts. We’ve hunted those the October 5th to the ninth. Some, some season. Every unit’s different. It’s not just set up October 5th, the ninth. Every unit has a muzzle around then that’s not the case. But we do highlight what we figure are the best archery muzzle. And we give you also good as well as the rifle, but also good options. There’s hundreds of, we can’t, we would have 20 or 30 pages on New Mexico Elon, if we covered everything. However, we do cover the bulk of what we feel like are opportunities for three 20 plus bulls, good bulls,
00:36:42:01 –> 00:36:52:04
Lots of opportunity. The archery hunts, you know, just the archery hunts. There’s a lot of opportunity. Then you get to the firearm hunts. Some units don’t have any center fire seasons at all. It’s, it’s
00:36:53:01 –> 00:36:53:05
Muzz
00:36:53:18 –> 00:37:48:01
17. Yep. 13. 13 units just like that. If you’re more of a firearm hunter, keep in mind muzzle loaders in New Mexico, you can put pretty much anything, anything goes. Sabbaths pellets, magnified scopes, all that. Yeah. So very effective muzzle loaders, especially this day and age. So don’t be too intimidated by that. The biggest thing that New Mexico gets away with by offering so many firearm opportunities is they’re only short five day hunts. And that’s the, that’s awesome. If you could say one downside about if you get a tag, five days can be over and done with really fast. But it spreads out the hunt applicants on different hunt codes. You know, between early October, mid-October, even into November, hunts spreads out. The applicants gives you so many different hunt combinations. Like Jason said a minute ago, our elk table tables seemingly never end in this magazine to give you the option. They don’t, they are, they go on and on and on. You got so many combinations there to look at.
00:37:48:10 –> 00:37:54:00
And for the record, we like the five day seasons honestly with, and that’s, that’s only with muzzle and rifle to
00:37:54:07 –> 00:37:55:13
Maintain quality. It’s it’s good
00:37:55:13 –> 00:38:38:18
Tree. The archery. Yeah, the archery does give you a 15 day upfront and then a 15th September 15th to the 24th. So, you know, it gives you a lot longer there. You know, in as far as the archery hunters, the muzzle, it is nicer and the rifle, it’s nice to, to have an a quit. I’ve, I either, you know, succeeded or I failed and I can go home and, and there’s a finite date and there’s a finite season. I don’t have a month long season to decide I’m gonna be a weekend warrior or whatever. You, you go, you’re done. And the next group of hunters come in and so it’s, it’s, it’s great for the resource, it’s good for the hunters, you know, it gets let’s, it lets you know exactly when you’re gonna go and it spreads out pressure that way. It just spreads out pressure and allowing for more hunt coats with the same net effect as far as dead animals.
00:38:38:20 –> 00:38:57:22
That’s right. New Mexico also for a variety of species has some, some great youth only hunts that you can apply for. And elk is really, they got some awesome opportunities for amazing the most part. These are the first firearm hunts in most units. There’s a couple exceptions, but for the most part you’re hunting the early part about
00:38:57:22 –> 00:39:13:13
October and it ticks me off. I said it to Craig, why are you giving the kids and you know, mobility impaired, I can understand, but the kids give them more opportunity, not trophy hunters. These, they get the trophy dates. It’s unbelievable what they give the kids, dear elk, everything. They get the trophy
00:39:13:14 –> 00:39:22:06
Gate. Yeah, they get set aside hunt codes for sheep, for orx, for ibex. And so antelope if yeah, antelope. Everything. Everything. So, but
00:39:22:09 –> 00:39:25:02
They are promoting the youth hunting. They’re, and that’s awesome. But
00:39:25:18 –> 00:39:53:20
These elk ones, these elk ones, I, I couldn’t not address ’em because these October 5th to the ninth dates, those may seem late in New Mexico. Those are usually still really strong rutt hunts. Yeah. And whether you’re a muzzle loader rifle hunter, you should look at those for your youth. If they’re old enough to go, you can start hunting in New Mexico when you get your hunter safety card. And I think we took, I remember I took my, my boy when he was nine and yours were like 11 and 12 or something back in the day hunting deer that one time they were,
00:39:53:21 –> 00:39:55:05
That was a terrible hunt. They were,
00:39:55:05 –> 00:40:17:14
They were little. I mean they were all little. I think it was, well two of ’em, one of your boys and one of mine maybe their first deer hunt. Oh yeah. I can’t remember. Yeah it was. But anyway, it’s, it gives you opportunity if your kids are old enough to go hunting and, and aren’t 12 like most of the western states with exception of Arizona and Idaho, which are 10. Yeah, you might look at New Mexico again, no point system. They’re not late to the party and they have youth own the opportunities.
00:40:17:14 –> 00:40:42:06
That’s right. As long as you have a hunter ed card, you can apply and hunt in that state. And so it’s awesome. I had a tent, not a nine year old boy, kill his first deer there, Colton. And then Sean killed his first big game animal, which was an elk with a muzz loader and he would’ve killed it like a three 70 bull. He is on unit 15 and you know, it’s one of those Remingtons had the bolt and the bolt wasn’t all the way down, but it still went off. And so because it wasn’t all the way down, it appeared that that 32nd inch dent
00:40:42:16 –> 00:40:42:28
The primer.
00:40:43:03 –> 00:41:26:16
Yeah. Dented the primer but didn’t hammer the primer. And anyway, we still, he still ended up killing a bull. But just one of those great opportunity states for everybody. Youth, they have mobility impaired. That’s one. And, and you know, we didn’t cover that in this particular publication. We do cover it in writing but not in table format. But there are mobility impaired options for guys that qualify. You can get with New Mexico, figure out how to get a card and then, and then there’s some seasons that are awesome for guys that are mobility impaired. So let’s jump right into deer and do it crush this thing. As far as deer, we, you know, it’s a good state for Deere, it’s not a great state for Deere. They do have some great, a few great seasons and opportunities and units two C five B to name a couple of them.
00:41:26:21 –> 00:42:12:14
They have some, a new option there on the White Sands. They’re gonna give five tags. If a non-resident wants to get that, you’d be going in the guide pool. There won’t be a tag given in the regular pool. The two B has traditionally been had some big deer. They just, they just don’t have a lot of big deer right now. They’re giving too many tags this year. They’ve got a youth season. Again, those dreaded youth, you kids killing me right now. But anyway, rifle hunt there at the end of November with 150 tags and that season used to be in October with 150 tags. So they made it better with the migration and everything comes in and left. The tag numbers the same and you just don’t manage quality that way. And I don’t know if they knew they were know, paying attention to that necessarily. Not, not always. As it game and fish that makes those decisions. There’s commissions that make decisions. So
00:42:12:14 –> 00:42:58:12
That’s right. So, you know, I guess to boil it down, deer, if you’re an elite trophy mule deer hunter, there’s not, they’re not deep in hunt options. North northwestern, new Mexico’s got a few units, two, two and five most notably to really where you’re, you’re likely to get it done around the state. Big deer can just kind of happen, pop up, you know, anywhere southeast, northeast, southwest, wherever. They do also have COOs deer opportunities primarily over towards the Arizona border. And some of the units like 23, 27, 24 most notably probably if you, if you don’t, if you wanna put a couple of mule deer options and then put a COOs Deer option as your third choice, that’s just fine. It’s just deer hunting codes and deer hunting codes. You get three of ’em as well. Just like the others we’ve talked about. So, and I
00:42:58:12 –> 00:44:07:06
Think the coo deer get overlooked a little bit. We do see guys pulling out some big deer every single year. Arizona definitely takes the cake so to speak. And also the limelight when it comes to COOs, deer and, and so anyway, great, great opportunity, great drawing odds, things like that. So definitely look into that. We, I do want to, before I move on, just let you know that there are some changes. There’s an additional five b r tree for mule deer five B muzzle. It’s never happened before. And with, you know with this we don’t know what the drawing odds will be. Tags are very limited. However, we just wanna say that a lot of changes with elk as well. New seasons and units that have never seen these kind of seasons. Rifle hunt and unit 18, things like that for elk. And so we’ve highlighted that in the publication. You can get our publication epic outdoors, go to epic outdoors.com and and get signed up and we’ll get a magazine out to you. Of course Adam and I are here to console all the time. Changes equal big animals in a lot of cases and New Mexico is no exception. Some of the better. We’re gonna see a, we’re gonna see animals come out of Mexico. It’s gonna be amazing as, as Adam and i’s prediction in a large part ’cause of the changes.
00:44:07:15 –> 00:44:13:06
Got some changes and then you got the water on top of it. Things are just, they’re ripe this year. It feels like it’s, yep.
00:44:13:06 –> 00:44:13:14
Feels
00:44:13:14 –> 00:44:14:12
Good. Time to get a tag.
00:44:15:02 –> 00:44:17:28
Let’s see, let’s antelope, we covered that real quick. Yeah,
00:44:18:08 –> 00:44:19:28
We kind of did cover the changes.
00:44:19:28 –> 00:44:20:04
Give
00:44:20:09 –> 00:44:29:19
Enough time. You know, we did kind of cover that. Let’s maybe go into some of the exotics. We’ll call, alright, it’s close to Texas so let’s get exotic here in New Mexico.
00:44:30:14 –> 00:45:02:28
Okay, run with it, Bronson, run with it. Let’s talk about IEX in New Mexico, they do have a once in a lifetime rifle. Of course it’s, that’s November 15th to the 29th. Meaning once in a lifetime if you draw it, you got one, you’re gonna kill one in your life. And there’s great kill rates on that. You’re talking between 78 and 90% kill on that great opportunity. Very steep, rugged, nasty country. Doesn’t have a lot of giants in there like it used to have, but still plenty of great good animals.
00:45:02:28 –> 00:45:39:11
That’s right. These are the bees or IEX that were native over in Turkey and they were introduced to down in southwestern New Mexico and, and that, that rifle hunt is the only once in lifetime hunt. And they do have a muzz loader hunt that follows that a little bit later in December 6th to the 20th. Still very tough to draw. We tell a lot of people, the Ibex are, they’re not quite as hard to draw as sheep, but they’re sheep like the odds, you know, one in two to 600 depending on, you know, if you’re playing a regular or the guide draw, if you really fill up to a challenge, they do have an a couple of archery hunts. One in October and one in January. That’s how
00:45:39:11 –> 00:45:40:28
Big a boy are you because
00:45:40:28 –> 00:45:41:10
That’s
00:45:41:10 –> 00:45:54:08
Right. Those are those, those hunts basically run between 4% and 16% kill. And guys, some guys they won’t admit it, they’re shooting 125 yards on a freaking 20, 30 degree angle. Something crazy. Yeah,
00:45:54:08 –> 00:45:59:11
Just, just getting, you know, instead of lead in the air they’re throwing aluminum and carbon and, and
00:45:59:17 –> 00:46:03:05
Anything else they can find but the time that quivers empty. So it’s one of those things, it’s
00:46:03:05 –> 00:46:19:22
A tough hunt. Tough. Very, very tough. Difficult, tough, tough. So but and a great experience Jason and I would love to have ’em. We generally apply for ’em every year just ’cause they’re unique and whatnot and you know, that’s it on that very tough to draw. They do have a youth hunt for those as well. A little bit better odds. Still pretty tough for the youth. And
00:46:19:26 –> 00:46:20:28
We got front the tag fees.
00:46:21:02 –> 00:46:53:19
You do got a pro, it’s above over 1600 bucks for a non-resident. So barbery sheep, that’s another one of those exotic species that New Mexico has through throughout a lot of the state. But most prevalent down in the south, the east corners of the state. They do have some units there. Unit I guess 29, 30. Those are probably the most notable public land, heavy public land units that you do issue draw tags on. They’re gonna have multiple shorter seasons within those where in the past they’ve drawn one big long month, long season I believe Jason. Yeah,
00:46:53:19 –> 00:47:12:16
Definitely spread ’em out. Definitely spread ’em out. I know that even that October season they, they’re ru there in October. It should be good from everything I hear. So we’re kind of excited about that kind of spreads out the pressure a little bit. But having said that, there’s a lot of over the counter type tags. They’re spread throughout the state. Yes. Private land, land, Adam you’ve killed one on private. Yeah. I went
00:47:12:16 –> 00:47:29:24
Down there just, you know, through, they, they issue tags in, in units that with predominantly pri private land, you can buy one over the counter. And then, you know, I just worked out a deal and on a ranch down there and, and went down there on a three day weekend, killed a nice, nice ram and came home fed the family
00:47:30:01 –> 00:47:31:17
On the wall. Speaking of that, tell us about the meat,
00:47:31:29 –> 00:47:36:28
Adam. They, there were some people down there that wanted it, and I signed the donation slip fast.
00:47:36:29 –> 00:47:39:16
No, I mean, and I gave it to ’em. And why though? Tell us why
00:47:40:12 –> 00:47:42:25
I, I didn’t taste it, but I was told it. It’s not
00:47:42:26 –> 00:47:44:12
Halina like Yeah,
00:47:44:13 –> 00:47:51:01
I don’t know about that Musky gamey, but tough and not the most desirable. Unlike the orcs, which
00:47:51:04 –> 00:48:41:26
We’re talk about the orx is amazing. Yeah. And we’ve had a lot of members that have drawn that, including my dad went out there and, and smoked a good bull, great opportunity. They’ve even got, they’ve changed some things up, added some things, increased the tag numbers, quality experiences, you know, if you reference that podcast I did there with Craig Sanchez, he talked about it a little bit. It’s kind of known as that, you know, we start at the gate and it’s, it’s all dust and rubber, you know, nonstop trying to, you know, drive as fast as you can to get to the orx. And he says, once you know that initial 20, 30 minutes or few hours is over, you actually have a very high quality experience. Those are short dates, very short season dates, meaning, you know, three day type hunts and you can go out there and get the job done. Very high kill rates and great quality meat. I, I assume it’s very similar to, you know, the French eating horse. They love it. It’s a delicacy, huh?
00:48:42:10 –> 00:48:44:25
Huh? I don’t know how, where that assumption came from.
00:48:44:29 –> 00:48:46:24
Well, they’re horse like, no, they’re,
00:48:46:24 –> 00:48:52:11
They’re light. But I, I would dare say these are better eaten than horse, but I’ve never eaten horse. All right. Or burrow? Burrow.
00:48:52:13 –> 00:49:11:23
No, no. All right. All right. Anyway, great opportunity there. So definitely be applying on there. We covered those in our, in our publication. I guess that moves us to Oregon. Your favorite state, favorite state always apply for Oregon. In fact, if none of you have ever heard before, Adam and I have drawn sheep tags in Oregon. We’ve only mentioned that 1400 times.
00:49:11:24 –> 00:49:14:11
I wonder, I’d like to know the count of how many times we’ve had.
00:49:14:17 –> 00:49:15:10
Well, and here’s why.
00:49:15:21 –> 00:49:28:23
Only reason we, why It’s the only thing glimmer of hope that we, we, we usually tell people, especially now that they charge $167 for non-resident hunting license to apply Back when we drew, I think it was like 70 bucks. I know
00:49:28:23 –> 00:49:29:06
70 bucks.
00:49:29:09 –> 00:49:43:04
It’s a little bit more to swallow, easier to swallow. But when we talk about it and the fact that there’s no point system for the goats and the sheep, some people like that option and then they ask you, well what are the odds? Like, well, one in two to 500, you know, for the most part
00:49:43:04 –> 00:50:20:07
It’s $175 raffle ticket. That’s right. Okay. For sure. And you’re looking at, you know, one in 300 type drawing odds. Mine was one in 400. Again, a lot. Largely why we talk about it is people often ask about it and of course we tout that you should be applying in every western state for the rest of your life to try to get the tags you deserve. Having said that, Oregon’s one of those, you gotta look at your pocketbook and really decide as well as your, your wife and family budget and everything else that can may constrict you that you definitely need to, to look at, you know, is it worth it for you? Yeah. And you know, considering the limited quality game in other species.
00:50:20:21 –> 00:50:46:16
Yes. Or the opportunity to get a tag, unlike Utah where it’s 65 and then 10 for every, every species and you got some incredible quality. If you were to draw the way Oregon does their, their deer and elk and their antelope draw with giving, you know, either five or 3% of their tags to non-residents. And unlike Utah and Arizona where the first tags go randomly, it’s not that way in Oregon.
00:50:46:20 –> 00:50:48:07
No. 75 25 split.
00:50:48:11 –> 00:51:01:22
Yeah. And they go, the first tags go in the preference point draw. So there’s a lot of units, and you’ll notice this in our elk table and our, and our deer table. This tag, there’s expect a tag not available this year. Year. No
00:51:01:22 –> 00:51:03:11
Draw tag in 2019.
00:51:03:17 –> 00:51:04:08
No draw tag
00:51:04:18 –> 00:51:22:05
Zero. But we still gotta cover it because guys will say, well why didn’t you cover it? Well, you know, so we do cover it and, and so when it says no draw tag in 19, you can expect there is one in 2020. They, they flop that every other year available to the outfitters versus to to sell to us. Yep. As
00:51:22:05 –> 00:51:22:10
Not
00:51:22:17 –> 00:51:22:23
Residents
00:51:22:23 –> 00:51:24:23
Or or a maximum point non non-residents
00:51:24:23 –> 00:51:42:28
Nonresidents to apply and draw for for free. That’s right. So kind of interesting. It’s a little bit hard, you know, to stone the outfitter. Yeah. And we love the outfitters there, but give outfitter tags to sell to us with versus letting us apply in the draw. And I don’t know, what do you say? Not everything’s fair in life. How about that? Similar to,
00:51:45:02 –> 00:51:45:06
I
00:51:45:06 –> 00:52:24:23
Can’t wait wild us hunting in Wyoming or whatever where you have to hire a guy. There’s just some things you just feel aren’t fair and, and anybody wants to take on that fight. We’re all behind you except for when it comes to a pocketbooks. Gonna take a lot of cash. Alright. So having said that, we have hunted deer in, in multiple different units, mostly back in the day, been on Juniper and a few of these mal here and beah and all kinds of steams. There are a few quality deer hunts. People will say that we bash Oregon and yet they kill giants and they do. And if you do live up there, you can spend a lot of time, just like on our general here in Utah, make it happen. A hundred percent agree with you, you can make it happen. There’s the, the genetics are unbelievable. They just, they just
00:52:24:23 –> 00:52:35:08
Don’t numbers game is is kinda like Utah general. Yeah. You get 95,000 hundreds a field and there’s gonna be, the odds are the biggest deer in the state are probably gonna come from that pool versus the thousand limited entry guys. Yeah.
00:52:35:20 –> 00:52:50:25
The downside. Well you know, and with the elk we have a problem with like spy hunters being just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tags being issued during the, the what we would call the trophy season. And so you just deal with a lot of pressure. Adam, you talked to a guy the other day, the hundred sled springs. What did he tell you?
00:52:51:23 –> 00:53:00:23
Pressure was unbelievable. He did kill 300 inch plus bull on his own and on the later rifle hunt. But yeah, the spike hunters and all that, A field, it was people
00:53:00:23 –> 00:53:01:12
Everywhere.
00:53:01:14 –> 00:53:35:20
He said, I don’t, I would do that again. No, I don’t. I would. Unbelievable. But, but it goes back to what are your options? If you really, if you’re gonna apply and you’re gonna apply for sheep and goat ’cause there’s no points and you’re gonna be building points for deer and elk and at some point you have 15 or 20 of those, it’s like, what are you gonna use ’em on? You could use ’em on one of those hunts we just talked about and they’re not gonna be clean easy. You’re all by yourself. The archery are a little bit different, but, but even then you’re, a lot of times you’re going for the one tag that year to a non-resident one. And so it’s not justifiable to start applying there for deer, elk. And simple
00:53:35:20 –> 00:53:38:20
Enough. Having said that, and your points don’t purge. Right. And so
00:53:39:22 –> 00:53:40:01
I got
00:53:40:08 –> 00:53:46:17
Re I got points. I mean Adam, I got a significant point number very similar to my Colorado antelope points. Okay.
00:53:46:17 –> 00:53:47:24
Which we’ve all talked about before.
00:53:48:07 –> 00:53:56:14
And so anyway, kind of funny, well last year I’m like, ah, I’m gonna apply back into that state especially. And guess what? Because of the premium tax, these premium
00:53:57:08 –> 00:53:57:18
Those,
00:53:57:20 –> 00:54:08:12
So the premium hunts are an additional application for eight bucks. You can apply for those just another way to extort money out of us. I get it. And they won, I not only applied for the $8, I also had to buy the hunting license like
00:54:08:16 –> 00:54:15:02
A mini governor tag August 1st and November 30th within individual units. Yeah. And you can only put in for one of ’em. So Yeah,
00:54:15:02 –> 00:54:32:25
Well your first choice counts, right? No, no other choices count. So same thing. So now since I’ve got the hunting license and I applied for the premium deer, well geez, I might as well be doing antelope. Oh by the way, I might as well add that elk point and pretty soon they’ve got me 250 bucks and I’m the guy telling everybody not to do it. So I don’t know what to say. That’s
00:54:32:25 –> 00:54:40:00
Why they can draw you in. The premium tags are like, well we won’t go there. They’re, they’re alluring. So
00:54:40:00 –> 00:54:42:14
How’s that? You were going back to the New Mexico exotics?
00:54:42:15 –> 00:54:44:04
No. Alright. No,
00:54:44:04 –> 00:55:19:23
No. Anyway, so there we are. We’re gonna talk about Oregon till the day we die. We als we work with outfitters in each of these Western states. If there’s anybody you wanna visit with or you’ve got enough points to draw, please call us. We’ll be happy to help you. We did have a guide draw Antelope kill a great big buck that Tom Zimmerman, he’s on page 1 36 of our magazine. Went with our outfitter, had a giant great hunt, giant killed, killed a giant, killed a great buck. So anyway, lot of, a lot of opportunities there in Oregon. And it’s one of those that again, we’re gonna be covering that state when we get done talking about Oregon. You’re still gonna be confused and you’re still not gonna have a decision whether you should spend the money or not. So just,
00:55:19:23 –> 00:55:27:04
But it’s all in the magazine and they do have unique stuff. They do have some blacktail stuff, which you don’t need to draw. There are some units
00:55:27:04 –> 00:55:31:14
There. I you have to, I went up there and not only did I go once, I went twice that’s right. Asked me how I did. Okay.
00:55:32:08 –> 00:55:34:00
It was, do you still need a blacktail? Another one,
00:55:34:00 –> 00:55:41:19
Another, another one of those tags I choked on. I mean it was terrible. So gas receipts, I mean I choked on a couple grand. They
00:55:41:28 –> 00:55:50:28
Got Columbia whitetail deer, which are, which are unique to Oregon as well. Yeah. If you wanna apply for those, the odds you, you’ll probably never draw ’em unless you have a bunch of points built up for.
00:55:51:02 –> 00:55:55:00
But if you want to just buy a hunt, they do give landowner tags we work with without out
00:55:55:10 –> 00:56:13:13
There. So with, yeah, same with the Black Tail, same with the Roosevelt Elk. They got Rocky mountain elk in the northeast corner, which are primarily the units we cover heavily because they take the bulk of the points to draw. But if you want to go to Western Oregon along the coast and hunt Roosevelt, they have a few dryers, but you can also hunt them with landowner over the counter tags and different weapon tags. You
00:56:13:13 –> 00:56:25:10
Wanna go get lost in the thick forest and be rained on 24 7, do the Roosevelt. Alright. I don’t know, we’ve given that plenty of airtime there in Oregon. We love you, hate ya. And otherwise have to talk about you every year. So
00:56:25:10 –> 00:56:26:25
Thanks for my sheep and Jason.
00:56:26:27 –> 00:56:32:13
Yeah, my sheep too. Thanks. In fact, it’s California big horns, huh? That’s right. Now we technically got Rockies. Let’s
00:56:32:13 –> 00:56:33:17
Get a rocky and we’ll
00:56:34:03 –> 00:57:18:18
Yeah, call it a day. Call it a day. Anyway, so yeah, we do appreciate everybody that listens to this. We talk a million miles an hour. We get it, we understand it. I’ve had a monster, Adam had a monster and a Mountain Dew and it’s stuff that we talk about every day, all day long. We have, there’s no notes, there’s no agenda, we have no outline, we’re just, you know, just sit down and crush it because this is all we do full time. So anyway, we are headed out today. In fact, we’re gonna be headed out to the Wild Sheep Convention. We encourage everybody to support these conservation organizations. We love the wild sheep and everything they do for sheep. And it’s another reason to get together and visit with other hunters that are like-minded talking about elk, deer, and other important species, including sheep.
00:57:19:04 –> 00:57:48:13
That’s right. And like we said earlier, we’ll be gone to the Western Expo next week. So if you’re calling in and bear that in mind, we’ll be back the week after that. But it’s just a busy time of year. We’d like to see and visit with a lot of you guys at these conventions. So hope to see you there. One more plug, I guess if you listen to these podcasts and you’re not a member of Epic Outdoors and you want more information than what we just rattled through off the top of our head here in a, in a 35, 45, I don’t know, hour, Chris podcast, whatever it’s been
00:57:48:21 –> 00:57:49:12
One hour. Good.
00:57:49:23 –> 00:58:14:25
Alright. Geez. All right, well we’re gonna wrap this up, but go to epic outdoors.com. If you join by the end of February, you’ll be entered into our Doll Sheep Hunt giveaway. We’re gonna be drawing that just the first couple days in March. So you’ve only got another couple of weeks to be entered in for the Doll Sheep Hunt giveaway with lets and guide service there. Great outfit, fully paid for by Epic Outdoors for just a renewing or joining our service. So
00:58:15:00 –> 00:58:38:26
Also within our membership drive, we’re gi we’re giving, gonna give away six other hunts. And so it’s a great opportunity. The drawing odds are gonna be phenomenal. It’s been fairly quiet. It’s not something we push as you know, our, the main crux of our business, however we do run membership drives it’s smart business. And of course we want to get the word out that we are cranking and, and who we are and what we’re doing and so’s anyway, tell us a little more about those. Well,
00:58:38:27 –> 00:59:22:02
If, if you wanna purchase tickets for those, the doll sheep hunt, the only way to enter is to either renew or join your member, join membership. If you want to refer somebody to our service and they join, you can receive a ticket for one of the hunt giveaways that we’re gonna give away. Or you can purchase tickets away for these other six hunts. Those hunts are a British Columbia stone sheet hunt this August 1st hunt, 2019 Alaska Brown Bear Hunt in the spring of 2020. Nevada mu unit wide, 2 31 guided mule deer hunt with eight mile outfitters, New Mexico Unit 15 archery out hunt with landowner, archery out landowner voucher there. New Mexico private land antelope hunt for, you know, 85 inch plus giant
00:59:22:04 –> 00:59:23:00
Big bucks, giant giants
00:59:23:13 –> 00:59:32:08
Or a Colorado mountain lion hunt. You got those six additional hunts there. You can either purchase tickets or refer members to our service that join and pick which entry you wanna be in for those hunts as well.
00:59:32:13 –> 01:00:41:22
And I might say that Colorado Mountain Lion Hunt’s, no slouch of a hunt. They’re black timber outfitters are great guys and they’re, they’re hunting big cats. So anyway, with that and then also we do, you know, yeah to, well before we leave, that you can join and also purchase tickets [email protected]. You know, we’ve got a mailin entry form, oh first 10 pages of the publication or you can call us at (435) 263-0777. One last thing. It is complicated to to apply in the states. And so anybody that wants us to do it for you, it’s similar to having a tax accountant do your taxes. You’re still liable for all the tax fees and whatnot. But we will do the work for you, keep track of your points and also choose units if necessary. You can be as involved as you want to be. You might even have units that you, you want to tell us to apply you for in Hunts. And we deal with that all the time. Or a lot of guys just tell us for us to choose and get creative. And we do that as well. It’s a lot of fun. You know, we, when when our guys draw, it’s like Adam and I draw and we’re excited to check the results and we get to check them hundreds and hundreds of times. So anyway, it’s kind of fun, but All right Bronson, I’m about tired of this.
01:00:41:25 –> 01:00:45:22
Do it? Yep. Good luck. Good luck to you guys. Draw tags, let us know about it.
01:00:45:22 –> 01:00:46:13
Thanks everybody.
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