EP 122: State Draw Systems and Trad Bows with Harold Fahrenbrook. In this episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast Jason and Adam talk with Harold Fahrenbrook. Harold has been hunting traditional archery for most of his life and is very close to completing the North American 29. Harold is also very passionate about state draw systems, especially in his home state of Colorado. We discuss opinions on what states could do to improve and how we can each navigate the various draw systems that are available to big game hunters. Harold talks of frustrations with how the draw tag system is set up in Colorado and how he feels it could be improved.
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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I’ve always hunted with a, a recurve. Tell
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Us how you really feel about these state draws.
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Like right now, if you’re gonna be applying for other species for nine bucks, get an out point for non-resident.
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Anything to do with Western Big Games.
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Welcome
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To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Hey everybody. Jason Carter and Adam Bronson coming at you from Southern Utah with the Epic Outdoors Podcast. We try to do these every week. Sometimes we do a couple a week this time of year, and sometimes when we’re out in the field, we barely squeak in one a week, maybe once every week and a half. I don’t know, Chris stays honest about it. But anyway, we appreciate you tuning in. We talked about a little bit of everything with Western Big game Hunting. So anyway, before we get started, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. They sponsor about everything we do and we appreciate them. What a great partner they are.
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Also want to give a shout out to o a Rifles. They’re a partner of ours here at Epic Outdoors. If it’s a new long range rifle, something in your plans, give them a call m o a rifles (541) 526-1820 or visit ’em online, m oa rifles.com. Their newest ascent rifle is a 2000 yard mountain rifle under six pounds. And talk to him about that. Or any other rifle needs that you might have.
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We’ve got a special guest on coming on. It’d be Har Harold Faren book. We had him on The Hunter Next Door article that Roger Smithson does for us. We appreciate Roger and his diligence with that. He has some great guests and kind of gives you an insight to their lives in a few pages there within the Epic Outdoors Magazine. Anyway, Harold’s a longtime resident there in Colorado and has a lot to offer. He is, been, been there, done that, so to speak. He’s killed almost everything in the North American 29 and he is hunting almost exclusively. I don’t know for sure. We’ll find out with a, with a Recurve. So anyway, he’s drawn a lot of Western big game tags. Let’s get him on the line. Hey, is this Harold?
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Yes.
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Hey, it’s Jason Carter and Adam Bronson with Epic Outdoors. How you doing?
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I’m doing good. You?
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I’m doing good. Let’s, let’s start from the beginning. Just give us a little brief summary and history of who you are, how you got to where you’re at and, and where you’re at.
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Okay. Well, starting as far as an outdoorsman, it was started at a young age. I was a trapper at a very young age. Just a kid, you know, had muskrat traps, few meek traps, few beaver traps, that kind of stuff like that. I was nine, 10 years old and eventually after going to a couple rendezvous, sailing my muskrats, which were, you know, nothing compared to man, these rendezvous are big. The guys were showing up at two, 300 coyote pelts and wagons full of just, you know, animals that I could just no way figure out how to trap and, and whatnot. ’cause Kyles were so smart and don’t wanna get off on the trapping thing too much. But as far as my experience into the outdoors, it, it had a lot to do with it because when I was like 13 years old, I saw my dad.
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There was this old man that always showed up, just had all these furs and he fleshed them. I mean, he had ’em, you could tell it was, he took real pride in what he did. And I was always at awe with this guy. And one day I saw my dad over there talking to him, and I never got to talk to him. And my dad comes back over, he goes, well, as long as it’s all right with your mom, you’re gonna spend Christmas break trapping with this old man. So next thing I know, I’m spending Christmas break and along with an extra two weeks trapping with this old man up on the western slope in Colorado. And he showed me everything. So I guess what I’m getting at is, you know, I leapfrogged from knowing nothing other than setting a condo bear trap in front of a muskrat
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Hole. Muskrats to Yeah. Living off the land,
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Anything. And this guy here had, you know, 50 years experience with all the do’s and don’ts and what he’d learned. And, and I, all of a sudden, of course I was, you know, at that age, kids, I think all kids at that age are a sponge if people just take time to feed them. And it, I I, I captured all that and, and the following year, I, I was off to do my own thing and got, my dad got a letter and I got a letter and he, he passed away that very following year. Wow. But he willed everything to me. All his traps come on.
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Geez.
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His furnace, his trailer, everything. He had no family. So I, I, the, the ranch that he kept his stuff on and did a lot of trapping ended up on the western slope, allowed me to continue his legacy. And, and so I really got into just, just living out of a backpack, being in the woods. And, and it really ingrained me before I even had a driver’s license. And of course hunting follows, you know, very close pursuit right into that and everything in regards to the outdoors. So that’s, that’s kind of, other than my own family being hunting family, they’re all, they’re rifle hunters. And my wife and daughter are both rifle hunters. And I’ve always been a bow guy. But it just, it just put down the foundation of just enjoying the outdoors, anything it had to offer. And it started from trapping.
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Well, that’s a cool introduction. That’s not, not typical there to be immersed like that as a young young man and something like that. And then have somebody pass away and, you know, more or less felt like, I guess you’re gonna keep up what he taught you more or less and then expound it to deer, elk, everything like that. So did you start hunting big game, you know right then as well? I mean, you’re 12, 14 year old. You’re after, as soon as you could legally hunt your dad. Oh yeah. And filling tags. And was you bow hunting from the start pretty much? Or did you rifle hunt for a few years till you got archery hunting?
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I started off rifle, 14 years old at that time in Colorado, that was the legal age for youth. Now it’s 12. Yeah. But at that time, so I’m, I’m, I’m going bon bonkers, you know, I could legally go shoot a, I could legally go shoot a coyote with my 2 43. I just couldn’t go shoot a deer. But I finally got to go. But my first season was deer and elk and 14 years old. And I was up there scouting my dad. And this goes back to something else in regards to when we, I’d go up with my dad, my grandpa, and we’d go up there and look at this, this prec scout and figure out where we were gonna camp and that kind of stuff. Once we found animals and we had everything all set up. And that was just so cool to be, and they’d leave me up there and I, there was a drainage, we always drove by. I could look up from I 70, kind of in the Vail area and I’d like, God, that looks good. Back in there. Well, I was always hounding, hounding my dad to just drop me off and let me go see what it was like. And he finally called my bluff and let me do it. And some people I guess that read the article thought that was kinda like child abuse. ’cause it was a young age, know, 14 years old.
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Yeah. But you’ve been living outta your backpack before. You know what I mean? This was
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New to you. I mean, nobody knows how of a, a focused or anal kid I was in regards to that kind of environment. And, and most kids maybe wouldn’t be. And, and I know why some people kind of took it the way they did, but it, it, you just have to know me and, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, I mean, I, you hear the word hounding my dad day in and day out to try to let, let me go up. There wasn’t child abuse. I mean, I’m, I’m wanting it. Yeah. So he did drop me off, went up there and looked in the drainage and, you know, backpacked into it and got there and there was nothing there hardly any sign. Went to the next drainage you couldn’t see from the highway. Still no sign. Got in about the fourth drainage and they all looked, modeled each other as far as looking awesome.
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Like, why ain’t there animals here? Got it. Then all, all of a sudden I got into the mother load. I mean, there was everything there. And later on I learned, you know, by working with a biologist in Colorado and I was keeping track of their bighorn sheep and in the unit and several units, his groceries tastes different. Yeah. That drainage has the same plant life. Same everything. Yeah. But the one you finally found, the animals in the mineral content and the soils and everything that’s in that area, for whatever reasons no different than you find gold. One drainage. You don’t find one in another. The, the plant life has a different taste and different nutrient value to it, so therefore the animals desire it more. So they’ll walk by two or three awesome looking drainages to get to the one mother load. But man, if a hunter’s lucky enough to stumble onto one of those, I mean that’s, you, you found your jackpot.
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And, and that kind of, kind of just fed into everything. So I just, for that first rifle season, opening day, I shut my bull and my buck and I’m like, and I still was up there with my dad and everybody you see the whole rest of the week. And I was helping them. And that was all fun. And I still gotta stay in the woods, but I got to, to appreciate those animals two, three weeks before season. And I, I couldn’t wait for my dad to take me back up the following week to keep an eye on ’em and know what I was gonna do. And, and that was all great, but it was just anti-climatic for me at the end with just being able to harvest them that quick. I mean, the, the fun part was scouting, seeing those animals educate myself about those animals.
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No one whose initials I pasted to ’em and on who I wanted to shoot. And that was all great. But I, I wanted to hunt more and that was what brought me into the archery deal. And I still gotta spend as much time scouting and, and admiring them and figuring out their habits and what they were doing. But once season started, I was still doing a whole lot of that and not so much shooting until I got in a, in a, you know, particular inst, you know, got in range and those kind of things. And, and that’s what really just degraded in my body. I just, I just didn’t want it be over so quick. I mean, God, if I could shoot a great big buck or a bull with my bull opening day, I’m on cloud nine. Yeah. But what a lot of people don’t realize, I had five, six weeks into that animal, you know? ’cause I would been watching him, I’ve been scouting him. I’ve been seeing everything that he does. So I, I mean, might say opening day, but it really wasn’t. I mean, I, I already had, yeah, a thousand dollars worth of fuel into it and how many miles on my, on my boots and my backpack and so
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Well, and a thousand dollars of fuel back in 1970 something that’s a, that’s a lot of gas.
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That’s an exaggeration.
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But
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Driving around
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A little local station wagon to
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Get up there, you know. So one thing you did blow by real quick, and I wanna go back to it just for a quick second, is basically when you were talking about the mo the, the, the soil and the vegetation and, you know, the animals desire it more and that’s why you find ’em, where you find ’em at the end of the day. A takeaway from that is, is there’s certain areas that are good forever, so to speak now, now game management, animal quantities, things like that, populations whatnot, change and fluctuate a little bit. But my takeaway from what you were saying is, and and you can, and I want you to expound upon it in your theory on it, is, you know, you, there’s nothing, nothing, nothing. And then in particular, draw, there’s a ton and you went in on the soil content and it is that your, you know, theory as far as where the animals will be, and is it consistent? Do you find it be consistently good? Is that that particular canyon consistently good year after year,
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All things being equal. And I, I totally validated that through plenty of other stuff. Doing, working with the Colorado Division of Wildlife and, and doing the stuff with the sheep and, you know, mineral lakes or sheep. There’s no, everybody’s familiar with that. And there’s certain places they go on the hill because of that. And they walk miles and miles to do that. And it is like, so obviously there was no mineral rugs on the way, otherwise they wouldn’t have waste their time to walk so far to come get here. So it’s the same way in these strangers that I’m talking about. And they’ll always be good. The difference being, and you touched on it already, is game management. And, and the stuff that I found old school is, you know, seven minute topple maps, man, I, I, I sit there and look at it, the topple maps of where I wanted to go and look at them like, man, here’s the intermittent stream.
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It probably doesn’t run year round, but this looks like a boggy area according to this green and white map that I have. And I’d, I’d go in there, I’d hike in there and go try to find it. And whether I ever found the exact spots that I was looking at on the map, I don’t know, I’d like to think I did. ’cause I learned how to do minutes and everything and try to figure out where I needed to be. But now, today with today’s technology, with, you know, Google Earth and Hon Onyx and those kind of things, people can, there’s no, there’s no, you can see it before you get there and you kind of just know the whole stuff. So now these little areas, no cliche of getting a half mile mile off the road and you got the road to yourself, those are over.
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I’m seeing as many pe I mean, I’m seeing people where I’ve never, ever in my life seen people before where I’ve always had it to myself. And animals get used. They, they’re not used to that pressure. Or there’s places people go. I go, the animals are used to pressure. I try to use their pressure to my advantage. But the animals that aren’t used to pressure, like these little honey holes that I’ve found, and all of a sudden they get the pressure, they don’t like it, and then they don’t revisit it. And it’s, it, it changed the dynamics. Like those spots are always be good. Those groceries will always be good to them. A lot of animals turn nocturnal and still get in there and do it. But they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna be hassled by the pressure. They just, they, they seem to learn and adapt very quick is my experience.
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Gotcha. Yeah. That we could definitely agree with that in many cases. So jumping forward a little bit, tell us how you started bow hunting, what animals you’ve taken with your bow. And I know you’ve, you’ve favored a large extent traditional archery and how that, maybe that’s been from the start, but what do you find unique to bow hunting that, that does it for you, so to speak? And and why specifically then to the recurve? Well,
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I’ve always hunted with a, a recurve. I’ve won a, i, when I was real young, I used to shoot a few rendezvous. I won a couple compound bows. And, and I, I remember firing, I think it was P F C is what I first compound bow that I ever shot. And I won in a rendezvous up in Una Vista, Colorado. And, and you could shoot it. I mean, it wasn’t, it was, it was back when they made compound bullets, you could pull back to your face and, and shoot instinctively or whatever. Now everything’s with that overdraw and you get, you use releases and stuff. So I could shoot it like I would shoot my normal recurve. The only difference was, was holy cow. I mean, I just told myself, man, I could used to this in a hurry because there was no arc in my arrow.
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It was slapping the target. Didn’t get to see the arrow all the way from the boat to the target. I mean, it was a whole different experience. And it was like, this is nice. But it was heavy. And, and, and talking to other friends of mine that hunt with compounds that the, you know, cables coming off of limbs. I’m sure they’ve got that thing down to a science now that what than they did back in the eighties. I had that happen. But there was a lot of mechanical problems. Like, oh man, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t wanna deal with this. I not that I use my recurve as a walking stick, but it’s pretty plain Jane. There’s really nothing gonna happen to it. And, and I, and I was good at it. I I, I never, probably the majority of animals I’ve shot, probably 89% of them have been inside of 20 yards.
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And, and I, I won’t claim to be a good target shooter, but I’ve always been able to be a good, you know, game shooter and, and I’m always stump shooting, hitting pine cones, an old rotten stump, always kind of playing, make believe as an adult as you can imagine in the woods. Because I think a lot of mistakes my fellow hunters and friends that were doing is God, they practice all year long and then come hunting season. They never shoot their bow again until an animal steps in front of them. Yeah. And I stay consistently while I’m hunting. And you can, with the recurve a lot easier because of the fee per second. And you’ll, you’ll ruin arrows or not find ’em with a compound where I can go put a judo point online and pull ’em outta the dirt and, and shoot another pine cone and I can stay dialed in while season’s going on.
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So it was just a funer bow for me to shoot. And the way I hunted, I, I always, people look at my photo album, they say, didn’t notice you were using a recurve. I’m like, you know what? I don’t consider it that way. I consider for the way I hunt and I like to get close. It’s the best tool I could have. I mean, I, I’m shooting inside of 20 yards and I am shooting, I like hunting thick stuffed where I got a window through the scrub oak two inch window. It helps me focus between there and the kill zone. And I’m good at that kind of scenario. And I, I love getting close. ’cause getting close, I, there might’ve been one buck I was going after. He is beded down, it’s perfect time. I know he is not gonna get up for a while.
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He is not, you know, everything’s perfect. And by the time it takes me another 45 minutes to get over there, another bug, another bug joins him, then another bug joins him. And it was, I, I got to see a lot more because I took so much longer to get over there. Which is another thing that brought me from rifle to, to, to archery is this, I ended up seeing more gain because I wasn’t pulling the trigger so quick. And it, and I had, don’t get me wrong, I’m a hundred percent for my wife Hunts a rifle. My daughter hunts a rifle. I’m not, I’m not, for me personally, I, I enjoyed the bow hunting. So as far as the recurve as being a tool and people thinking it’s a little more stuff, a little more, you know, challenging. It is everybody’s, nobody can argue that. But it’s not the reason why I do it. I don’t want nobody pat me on the back as I’m using traditional equipment. It’s my choice. If I thought I had better chances of doing things for the way I kind of hunt with a compound bow, believe me, I’m gonna shoot a compound bow. Okay. But for the style that I’m hunting, it’s not, it’s the recurve the traditional, you said it’s
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Under 20 yard shots, I guess. I mean, even when you’re out practicing, are you still just under 20 or give us the, you know, kind of how you site, you know, what you’re using for a site or how are you doing it and how far you’re truly effective at, you know, accuracy
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Wise, I’m, you don’t want me shooting at you inside of 30 yards. Okay. I do practice, you know, just plinking around. I go stump shooting all the time and, and, and I can, you know, I, I can hit you at 40, 50 yards. I don’t know where I’m gonna hit you maybe. Hmm. Yeah. I’m not as confident at those ranges, so I don’t shoot those ranges. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I’ve, I’ve let, I’ve let you know, some animals walk because I couldn’t get close enough. They just weren’t in an environment or the, in a, in a kind of situation where there was enough structure between me and the animal that could get any closer than 40, 50 yards. And, and so they walked, they lived to see another day. And is it
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Truly instinctive? Is it just instinctive? You just a hundred percent
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A hundred percent instinctive? Yeah. I don’t
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So do you believe in practicing every day every other day? Like at home on paper? I know we gotta practice on paper. You, I agree with you a hundred percent. We’re, when we’re in the hills, we’ve got a, you know, kind of a, an arrow that you just use for that. And it’s, and usually it’s just a, a dull broad head that, you know, you’re sinking into a soft dirt or whatever. And we do that all the, all the time. I totally agree with you. But what are you doing in the off season? You’ve gotta be practicing on paper or are you just truly going out with a judo tip and out in the
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Yeah, I, no, I, behind, I live just in the foothills, just in Colorado living just outside of gold. A little town called Coal Creek. And I’ve got seven acres here and I may, I got some targets set up to where I can, you know, every day I’m, you know, get up in the morning. Okay, shoot, you know, 40, 50 arrows, but you can shoot 40, 50 arrows in, in 15, 20 minutes. And, and then I’ll do it again a couple times a day. If I can do it a couple times a day. That’s pretty normal. And, and so you stay, I stay dialed in all the time and what I love and this canyon get some hellacious winds up here and, and weather and that’s what I love to go out there and, and still stay dialed in because Yeah. You know, I love hunting and real bad wind because animals shut down.
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They can’t really distinct movement because everything’s movement. They can’t hear stuff. So they, they like to stay, you know, kind of to themselves and, and not, and be vulnerable. And as a bow hunter, when I got wind cover my sound and I got everything in the wood shaking along with me trying to get over there close to an animal. I love that opportunity. So yeah. I practice in that in the most stringent winds I can find because it’s, it’s incredible what that air will do. Yeah. It looks like it’s gonna like hit that target broadside, but the broadhead still goes in where I was aiming. It might go in at an angle because of whichever way the wind’s blowing. But you know, you practice that, you get used to it and you, you get comfortable with it. Yeah. And obviously you don’t want the wind to your, to your back because the animals are gonna smell you shooting directly into the wind doesn’t affect the air a whole lot, but there’s always a crosswind. Yeah. And so I, I like to shoot in every condition I can, whether it’s snowing, it’s amazing what just moisture and that kind of humidity in the air can do sometimes to an arrow. Yeah. Shooting through snow or when it’s raining and Sure. Not that I practice. I know what to do if it’s snowing. It’s not like I practice, I know what to do when it’s raining. I just practice. Yeah. And it, which means I’m just comfortable
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Comes an extension of your arm. Yeah. Well you know, I know you’ve taken, you know, as, as of went back when we had had you on the hunter next door and Roger Smiths and interviewed you, you’d taken 20 of the North American 29. Pretty, pretty impressive. A lot of it. Most of it on public land. You’ve probably taken a few more since then, but what has been your most memorable hunt? Tell us about, you know, maybe your, I mean brown bear or, or grizzly or bison or what is it that you know that you remember the most?
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It’s kind of, it’s, you know, when Roger was interviewing me and he ended up being in my buffalo hunt that, ’cause I drew a just ever since I was a little kid. When I look at cowboy and Indian movies and stuff like that, I mean I, it just, when I think of bison, I think of buffalo, I think of archery, I think of, you know, that that kind of, I don’t know why it stings in my head probably. You know, probably 90% of the buffalo that were shot were shot was Henry’s and stuff like that. Yeah. And black powder guns. But when it comes to, I, I just, in my mind it was like, what more of a trophy could I get to compliment what I do with a bow than a buffalo?
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Yeah. The ultimate primitive experience, you know. Yeah. Did you use a, did you use a flint broad head or did you use steel? How did, how, how well did we keep I used steel.
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I’m, I
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Don’t wear leather
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Underwear and that kind of stuff.
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Alright. Just on
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The back of a horse. No, but yeah. Well
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Tell us us about that. Keep going. That’s, those tags are rare, but fill us in on that experience in Arizona. Well
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What what was is a real close second to my, to the brown bear experience I had too, but, and bighorn sheep and everything. But I guess yeah, well we’ll worry you if that size on the buffalo is how it started out. And it’s kind of a funny story is I bought, I bought four R well five raffle tags. But you got, you got, if you spend a hundred dollars, you got a fifth one for free. So I went ahead and did the Arizona deal and I had four for desert sheep. And I had one for Buffalo. Wow. That was my extra one for spending the a hundred dollars. Wow. So a couple, you know, you know, two or three months later I get this phone call and the guy introduced himself and he left a message, Hey, I’m so-and-so from the desert she foundation and apparently you’ve bought some lottery tickets and you need to gimme a call back, a s a p. So in my mind, I got a year at a hunt, a desert sheep. You
00:23:37:12 –> 00:23:48:02
Are like, this is, this is awesome. I got a sheep tag, sheep association did the drawing. I I I remember buying those. That’s what I put ’em in for. And then you called him and he told you, well
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When I called him, he said, Hey, you’re sitting down. I’m like, I can’t sit down. I, I got a piece of wood in my teaso ’cause I’m clenching so hard. What do I got going on here? He goes, well you got your buffalo tag.
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Geez.
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I felt deflated.
00:24:01:00 –> 00:24:09:14
Well that’s a love hate deal. That’s a love hate deal because you’re probably gonna get a divorce after 14 months of trying. I mean those hunts are not easy dealing with them
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In Arizona especially.
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Especially.
00:24:11:11 –> 00:24:54:00
No, and and the whole thing is I thought I had a desert cheap tag and I ended up with a buffalo, which still was great, but I just, it was a little bit of a downer at the time and then it started sinking in. And so I bought one lottery ticket and geez got, and I got pulled outta the hat. So it was for all you guys out there that buy these things and you’re, and you’re telling yourself or your wife’s telling you, why do you waste your money putting in these Well a lot of the draws are better than putting in for the unit itself. And, and, and that real, they’re not fixed. I mean, a guy like me can win and anybody can win it. And what was unique about it is I had a year to do it and this is like the governor’s tag is how it treated and it included the tag. So I, it saved me $5,000.
00:24:54:22 –> 00:24:55:24
That’s, I know that’s a
00:24:55:24 –> 00:25:06:05
For five free, free ticket for all purpose. It was your free ticket ’cause you bought four for a hundred and you got a fifth for free. Yeah. So free. We’ll just call it that sounds better. So,
00:25:07:21 –> 00:25:08:13
So anyway
00:25:08:26 –> 00:25:13:24
That the price tag on that te on that, that’s awesome. Buffalo tag is unbelievable. Definitely. Yeah. And
00:25:13:25 –> 00:25:41:10
The, the, the bad and that part about it is I, you know, I, I guide in Alaska and I head up there the end of July to Alaska and I’m up there August and September guiding for DLL Sheep and Grizzly Bear. And so I got this tag and I’m like, well I got a year to do it, so I’m gonna go ahead and guide in Alaska and when I come back I’ll, I’ll go back there and figure things out. Well instrumental time to get Buffalo is when they’re doing their ru they’re doing their red in July and August. Yeah. And
00:25:42:00 –> 00:25:45:22
Plus it’s hot. They come out and they come outta the park and get water, you know.
00:25:45:29 –> 00:26:47:24
Yeah. And the, and Arizona used to have, well I’m sure you guys have all the science on this. They used to have a spring and a fall hunt and they had like 30 plus tags on each, on each hunt. But the buffalo had no idea where the boundary was of the kebab or the Grand Canyon National Park. They were 20 miles out of the park. They, there was no line because they just never got hunted except for in a month in the spring and a month in the fall. So next thing you know, the, well, however they come up with the science, they found out that the, the buffalo wasn’t native to Grand County National Park. They’ve only prove they’ve been there 900 years instead of a thousand. Therefore they didn’t want ’em there no more. Yeah. Yeah. So now they told the d o w to get really aggressive ’cause they wanted that herd from I think at that time was right around 900. They wanted it down to three 50. So they got really aggressive and it backfired on ’em. ’cause now they’re hunting ’em year round and so they never gave the buffalo a break. And now
00:26:47:26 –> 00:26:55:00
Pretty soon they’re gonna find their like elk or even worse, they’re gonna find the place of least resistance. They’re really good at that. Oh
00:26:55:00 –> 00:27:08:22
Yeah. Yeah. They, they totally, even though they, they, they totally built buffalo. They were trying to hurt ’em out of the park. They were trying to get ’em out there with, with cow dogs and wranglers and stuff. And boy, they’d hit that line and slam on the brakes and turn around and circle behind
00:27:08:22 –> 00:27:26:02
Them. And I’ve heard on knew where it was at and I’ve heard on drought years because the water catchments and, and different things outside of the park. You know, we can’t do anything in the park per se that those buffalo would come out on dry years. You know, they’d come out in water and that would help the hunters at times, I don’t know, I haven’t done it. I haven’t experienced that myself. Yeah.
00:27:26:02 –> 00:27:36:04
So, and it was lucky that I had a year. So because it, I was, I, I went, I went, I went six times 77 days. I shot my buffalo on the 77th day, seven
00:27:36:15 –> 00:27:37:13
Seventh day.
00:27:37:20 –> 00:27:39:02
Are you still, are you married?
00:27:39:08 –> 00:27:42:01
Yeah. She, I think we get along better the more I’m gone. So,
00:27:42:26 –> 00:27:46:17
Alright, well you can take Arizona for the healthier marriage.
00:27:47:06 –> 00:28:49:22
Yeah, there you go. So a free tag and a healthier marriage. That’s right. But no, I got a great wife that supports me with this. I knew how important it was to me and I hung him in the snow. I went out there with a snow machine, bought a, bought a snowmobile, 80 plus inches of snow pack up there, driving around there. I saw one buffalo outta the park in the winter. I got a picture of him. You guys have a picture in the Epic outdoors last year? October issue. That’s the picture that was in there. Yeah. One buffalo outta the park in, in the winter. And then I saw one buffalo outta the park, which is the one I killed. So I saw two buffalo in 77 days out of the park. Wow. And the only thing that saved my rear end is there was a two week lull. The division of wildlife screwed up and didn’t have a season. So everybody’s last day, all the hunters last day of their season, the following day was the opening day for the next season. They were all two week seasons. Yeah. For a whole year. So they, they skipped two weeks. There was a two week low where the only people that could legally be out there hunting buffalo was me. And the guy who bought the governor’s tag was
00:28:49:26 –> 00:28:50:23
Governor tag and you. Yeah.
00:28:51:23 –> 00:29:39:03
And so that, with that little bit of a break, those buffalos started sticking their nose across and it wasn’t getting shot. They got kicked their whole head across that line, throw their front foot out there. They started coming out of the park. Well, this one did anyways, and through the help of a, a guy up there named Rust Jacoby, who’s an outfitter for the buffalo. And probably the reason why 99% of the buffalo get killed that I harvested is because of him. Yeah. He’s, he, he ended up kind of adopting me. We kind of scratched each other’s back. I helped him and, and he let me hunt those things. He couldn’t keep me familiar with it anyways, but I’m not somebody that’s gonna step on somebody’s toes. And, and, and I found this camera that, that put the SD card in my camera and saw that this buffalo was coming out the park, but not during the daytime.
00:29:40:03 –> 00:30:15:18
And I’m like, shoot, I gotta find this thing. You know, I just have to pray that he comes out, you know, when I can shoot him. So I’m looking at, I go back to this thing, I’m there at five 30 in the morning and nothing in the camera. And I’m looking at the trails on which one he might be using. And then I hear a, a branch break and I look up and I see a hump of a buffalo in a whole year’s time, this camera’s been here. This, the first time it would’ve gotten a daylight picture of a buffalo. And I’m standing right here in his way. So I’m waiting for him and I’m watching him come down and he stops right where I was on my hands and knees, kind of figuring out if that was the trail he was using to go in and out of the park.
00:30:16:25 –> 00:31:03:05
And, and he smells me and I believe me, the personality out of a buffalo in the park, we could walk up, take pictures of him, try to feed him. It’s, they turn inside themselves outside the park if they smell a human. Thus again the whole park boundary and hunting ’em year round so they know that human smell is bad when they’re on the wrong side of the line. So he gets there and he reacts just like that. He turns inside himself, takes off wolfing and puffing. Well, he wound that salt so bad, he turned back around and went back in a different way. Geez. And got the salt. And he’s 20 yards from me facing me, nothing to shoot at for like 15, 20 minutes. Licking, licking, licking and licking. And, and by that time I was able to get past the jitters that I had when it was first all happening and adrenaline that was going through my body.
00:31:03:24 –> 00:31:46:21
And then finally I’d calmed down, like now, okay, now the thermals are starting to change. I kind of feel some different textures against my skin when the wind’s starting to blow. And I’m like, oh crap, I’m gonna have a millionth of a second when he smells me. He’ll be broadside for a second when he whirls the turn. And that’s gonna be my opportunity. Well, I was locked, arrow knocked everything ready and it did exactly that. And when he caught my wind, he whirled the turn and then he caught my movement when I stepped out behind that tree and he stopped and arrow was already on its way and it just center punched him. Perfect. I mean, I, I know I got the heart and the arrow blew completely through him. And I don’t, I didn’t know if it was illusion or if I shot too low because he had such a Maine, like did I get old hair?
00:31:46:24 –> 00:32:40:11
I I wasn’t picturing my arrow blowing all through all the way through him. The buffalo. Yeah. Wow. And, and, but I did, like the story says in your, in the magazine, I did pull my old 70 pound Recurve Palmer recurve that I used for 30 years, blew the dust off of it because after a bad accident I couldn’t pull it back no more. But I healed up enough to where I could shoot it again. And I, so I was using my 70 pound bow versus my 58 pound and it blew completely through ’em. I balance, I had my arrows, you know, I think I was shooting like 1200 grain arrows, so geez. They had a lot of weight behind them. Blew through him. He ran about another 20, 30, 20 yards and stopped. And I blew another one through him and just above the heart. And then he went another 30 yards and kind of acted like he was drunk and got dizzy and fell over dead. Oh. In my eyesight. It never went 60 yards. He found my first stereo till he died.
00:32:41:07 –> 00:32:44:08
Unbelievable. That’s an awesome story. That’s crazy.
00:32:44:13 –> 00:32:59:01
That is, that’s 77 days your first opportunity. I mean, we’ll just call it that for what it is. And geez, you made it count and now you got 2000 pounds and a hump of a pile of meat there and you’re by yourself.
00:32:59:29 –> 00:33:39:14
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, and that nest way I was looking at it. I, I mean in Arizona you can, once you have an onal harvested, you can, you can’t cut down no standing trees and things like that. But you can kind of work your way through the forest if, if, you know, with a vehicle, well the closest I get mine was where I was parked, you know, probably three quarters of a mile away. I wasn’t gonna, I mean I got a, I got an extended cab and a eight foot bed, so I need a football field to turn around on those things. So it is four wheel drive. But you know, I was like, I mean this is you, this is what my backpack’s for. And I got ahold of Russ who said, Hey, if you kill a buffalo, make sure you get ahold of me.
00:33:40:00 –> 00:34:16:28
And so I radioed him and he said, Hey, I’m on my way. And he wanted to take pictures of me and stuff with the buffalo and he’d done a lot to be the reason why I was, was he know able to get it. And so he shows up and he is flagging all the way there. I’m like, what the heck’s he doing? Yeah. He goes, I can get my truck all the way here I go. There’s no way. Well he did, he got his flatbed all the way to the buffalo. So I’d like to say I lost 10 pounds packing this thing out and I had, you know, this many miles going back and forth, back and forth to the truck to make it as glamorous as possible. So, but I can’t, truthfully, would you
00:34:17:02 –> 00:34:21:20
Probably, you probably gained 10 pounds on pistachios in all them trips in 77 days.
00:34:22:16 –> 00:34:42:15
Yeah. Yeah, good point. So he saved me that task though that I helped him with a couple of his other clients pack out, you know, pack out buffalo. So I did have buffalo on my back. That’s awesome. On a couple other occasions, but mine, I didn’t have to, no, I got the luxury of being able to winch it up on top of a flatbed and, and drive it out of there.
00:34:42:18 –> 00:35:05:13
Well you’ve obviously done a lot, of course, you know, you’ve harvested a lot of different critters, you know, so just kind of wanted to dive into maybe a little bit of your application strategy. What other tags maybe you’ve drawn outside of your home state there in Colorado and how many states you try to hunt each year and and manage that and just kind of, I don’t know where you want to go with it, but we just kind wanted to dive into that.
00:35:06:05 –> 00:35:42:19
Well, strategy. I, I have no strategy. I, I’m pretty much buying general tags. I have a ton of preference points. I had 26 elk points for Colorado and I burnt them two years ago on a, on a unit that only took six points. But a client that I had in Alaska for doll sheep, he owned this one heck of a ranch in Colorado. And it, it and it there, I mean he has a lot of big bulls on it. And so yeah, I had the tags to be able to, to do it. I it
00:35:43:00 –> 00:35:49:12
Nebraska early to do it. Was it a ranching, like a ranching for wildlife that you, you res you know, that are available to residents to apply for? Or what was it?
00:35:49:22 –> 00:35:54:06
No, it’s not. No, no residents are able to do it. It’s just his private property.
00:35:54:13 –> 00:35:55:06
Okay. Okay.
00:35:55:19 –> 00:36:08:11
And, but he said he couldn’t, I mean he, I mean he sells like the, the landowner tags for 12 grand and he goes, I ain’t gonna give you one of my landowner tags, but if you have enough points to draw the unit, I’ll let you hunt my ranch. Oh,
00:36:08:16 –> 00:36:08:26
How’d
00:36:08:26 –> 00:36:16:29
That go? So I obviously I could’ve drawn it four or five times over again. I had enough. So it was good that I had the points because when the opportunity presented itself Sure.
00:36:17:03 –> 00:36:21:17
You never know I was able to jump on it. That’s a lot of points for a resident. So, so how did it turn out?
00:36:21:24 –> 00:37:11:23
Well, it didn’t turn, I mean it turned out awesome in the regards to, man it’s gonna, well I’m probably not awesome in, in this respect. I’m used to hunting public land and, and, and general Eunice to boot. And it was, I don’t know that I could ever do it again after being on this private property. It was just, I’m, I’m running away from bulls that’d be hurt bulls anywhere else I went. Yeah. I didn’t run into a single bull. It was definitely bugle smart. I’ve been pressured and it, it was, was awesome. I never had so many encounters in my life with 3 20, 3 30 plus bowls day in and day out. It was like an elk orchestra. They never quit. They were 24 7, never not bugling And I, I messed up on a, a really nice bowl. I’m guessing he’d been done that 3 75 class and
00:37:13:29 –> 00:37:14:25
Geez, it’s
00:37:14:28 –> 00:38:03:18
Stu and just messed up. I mean I had been, I turned down some bowls I would never turn down in my life. I’ve already got a three 50 plus bowl on the wall and I had the opportunities at those, the reason why I dumped 26 points to the chute, something bigger than I shot already. It was my only opportunity to do so. So I I, I’m still not kicking myself in the butt. But yeah, I had a really giant class bowl that I, I mean been kind of keep an eye on him. I recognized his bugle, knew his bugle knew the, the satellite bowls that were chasing him around. And so I knew I was always in his hip pocket ready to, you know, to be in, to take my opportunity. But it presented itself and, and one day I just, it was about one o’clock and I’m then, you know, running all day long trying to catch up with this bowl and he was always running from these satellite bowls and finally I’m like taking a break.
00:38:03:18 –> 00:38:46:16
Everything’s kind of quieted down a little big. You tell elker bugle outta their beds. I’m like, well that don’t sound like a bad idea. Yeah. And so I’m sitting down and eating a sandwich and I bugle and I get a bugle back across the canyon. I go, got it. And have, I didn’t recognize it was being the one that I was after. And then next time he bugles he’s still bugles from the same spot. Well he’s in his bed. I’ll keep him occupied until I get done with my sandwich here. Anyway, so I bugle back and then I didn’t hear nothing for like five minutes. Now all of a sudden he’s on the, the same hillside that I’m on and I recognize the bugle and it’s him and he’s like 80 yards away and he’s coming and came in quiet all the way down until he got right in my hip pocket.
00:38:47:16 –> 00:39:32:28
And so there was a falling down pine tree that was the root sticking up. And I was down there in the shade of where the branches were still there eating my sandwich and I just had held this debris. There was no way I could get an arrow through it. And so I wanted to get down to that root pattern before he came up, but I didn’t get there in time. Yeah. And so there he is 20 yards away and he’s looking from where I was bugling from and he is and everything’s perfect except for I am tangled up in this damn fallen tree and the only thing keeping the trunk from the ground is because of the branches holding it up. And so I kind of got in there close and I’m pulling back my string to shoot and there’s this little tiny branch that’s falling my string all the way up to my face.
00:39:33:07 –> 00:40:40:25
Yeah. And it was so distracting. I’m like, and I lit down the string once and pulled back again. And I just couldn’t get that, that I couldn’t get outta the way. So I was able to move over a little bit and drop a little lower so that, that, that limb is in front of my, that the, the limb tree limb is in front of the limb of my bow. And I, but what I wasn’t concentrating on was all the debris for my lower limb. And so I let go of the string there, went out there about 10 feet and because my lower limb hit the dirt in front of me and therefore I, I didn’t get the bull. So, but I chase him all the way till the final hour, the final second. And a good friend of mine, Jonah, the guy that I worked for, he was also hunting the ranch as well. Both of us. He traded a dolhi plant to hunt the ranch and I, I got mine for a gratuity for guiding the guy. So Jonah already had his bowl and he, so he is doing a lot of bugling for me. And final day, final hour we, we called in a bull and it was probably one of the smallest ones that I could’ve shot. He was, he was like a 3, 3 18 is what he ended up killing. But nice. I didn’t wanna come
00:40:40:25 –> 00:40:42:04
Home handed. Yeah.
00:40:42:10 –> 00:40:55:29
And it’s all on video. He, they took great video of it, it all turned out really, really well. But it looks a lot bigger. Video looked bigger bull than it is in the video ’cause he got everything. He’s just a, a younger bull and didn’t, you know, wasn’t, wasn’t the bull I was after, but it was a great hunt.
00:40:56:01 –> 00:41:32:24
Yeah, well you, that’s another reason I guess you had just have points in your case you had 26, but I mean points never know you change. Yeah. Certain never know what you’re states we’re not that high from a non resident perspective on folks applying in Colorado because of the log jam of elk applicants at the top tier units that everybody might think they want to go to. But it, you know, like, like right now if you’re gonna be applying for other species for nine bucks, get an out point for non-resident and even if you don’t know where you’re gonna use it someday. But it’s kinda like what you said, the system’s a little bit flawed in the fact that, you know, this preference point
00:41:32:28 –> 00:42:05:18
System’s been in place so long and there’s really, you know, this hybrid doesn’t do much for non-residents. You know, ’cause we meet our quota generally speaking in the, in the main draw. So, you know, it doesn’t do a lot for us having, I mean you can’t live long enough to get some of these upper, you know, top end units. So you gain points for the exact reason you did and you just never know when those opportunities come, come along and you’ll end up on a private ranch somewhere that or whatever, some kind of unit, you know, something gives and you find an opportunity and you’re prepared because you have a few points. You know, or
00:42:05:18 –> 00:42:51:23
Even just, you know, when I got to, not to interrupt you there, but just, you know, you meet new people all the time. My best friends, the guys I’ve met in the field, I mean, yeah, it was kind of a joke at my wedding, you know, we probably have 10 tables out there and I had a lot of guests and after about the fourth, fifth table though, I introducing my wife to, she goes, let me guess you guys met when you were elk hunting. I met when you guys were deer hunting. And you just, you keep that bond. So as you meet people and as you’re scratching somebody’s back and they’re scratching yours and, and they, they know a really good spot. And you know, the hunting ethic in this world has really gone downhill. And, and you know, there, there’s a chet you know, somebody takes me to their hunting spot and even though it’s national forest and it’s anybody’s land and I appreciate that, but if someone’s taken me to their spot, I’m, I’m grateful.
00:42:51:28 –> 00:43:36:17
I’m I’m, I’m not, I’m not gonna be somebody that’s gonna go back the following year and tell all my buddies about it. Therefore the guy who told me about now has to find a place to hunt because I’ve lost friendships over it. But what I’m getting back with the points, when you meet people in the field and they come to be your friends and you, you end up having beers with ’em and you end up, you know, having dinner with ’em and, and just being friends and scouting with ’em and they, they have a real honey spot and, but it takes four or five points to draw. And, and, and if you don’t do what you just suggested, like, you know, it only costs $9. Do it put in for the point. You don’t have no idea where you’re gonna go. Don’t know anything about the state, but just have ’em, because you might meet that special, you know, guy in the field or just sitting at a table being invited to a party and you know, you got a common bond.
00:43:36:19 –> 00:44:11:24
See the, you know, a a an archery, you know, sticker on your truck or something like that. Like, hey, you bow hunt or whatever. And you could, you know, that you could have an opportunity if you got enough points and say, look, you or an invitation, the guy says, Hey man, if you, you oughta put in with me, this is a really good spot. I do good here all the time. And if you don’t have that bank of points, then you, you don’t get to capitalize on those kind of invitations. And so it’s always just, you only live once. So it’s not so much the money or the preference point, it’s the year off your life. So That’s right. Just, you need to keep ’em, you need to keep ’em going. That’s right.
00:44:12:07 –> 00:44:27:28
Alright, well before as we start winding up here, we, we’ve got several other questions we want to ask you just with some things that you use from gear to favorite species and things like that. So let’s start off, if you had to pick your favorite species to hunt, what, what, what would that be?
00:44:28:29 –> 00:44:29:10
Sheep.
00:44:29:20 –> 00:44:32:08
Okay. When’s the last time you hunted cheap
00:44:32:19 –> 00:44:33:20
Last year? Was it
00:44:34:00 –> 00:44:34:20
Whereabouts,
00:44:35:22 –> 00:44:36:02
Alaska?
00:44:36:16 –> 00:44:37:29
Is that guiding or for yourself?
00:44:38:20 –> 00:45:24:04
Well, I, I get, I hunt every year guiding I’ve been, I’ve been, I’ve been guiding Alaska for 34 years, but the Joan of the guy I worked for, let me hunt last year for myself. And because I’m a non-resident, I gotta have a guide. So even though I’ve been doing it for 34 years, we had a, a young kid that was a licensed guide. He hadn’t done a whole lot of his sheep, he’s done mostly with brown bear. And so he was kind of getting his feet wet with me and to make it legal. Which it was legal. He was my guide. Yeah. I was, I got to hunt myself and awesome. I didn’t capitalize but I was, I was into sheep. Like there was, you know, just into a particular ram that we’ve had our eyes on for years. And he was a, he was a dandy and I just, I never got it to happen.
00:45:24:13 –> 00:46:16:00
Gotcha. Just, just, I was snake bit like I’ve never been snake bit in my life, but I would do it again any day of the week. Yeah. I get to live sheep hunting through clients. I mean, I have like four sheep clients a year and, and that’s, you know, you know, Alaska, I also guide for sheep in lower 48 if, if somebody needs some help and some stay un familiar with or units draw units that I’m familiar with, let’s put it that way. And I’ve, so I get to live, I get to have that adrenaline rush through other people and, and it’s really rewarding with the backpack hunts and stuff, you usually break out, you usually got the true hunter, the guy that’s been, and Jonah does a phenomenal job, you know, picking his clients and he’s good enough that he can, he is booked out three years and never had to do a show in his life.
00:46:16:00 –> 00:46:59:17
And we’re a hundred percent on sheep. Not with archery, but a rifle. We are. And so it just, the quality people that I’ve met were guys like, Hey, for my birthday and for Christmas, don’t get me no gifts man. Just stuff the envelope with whatever money you wanna spend on me and ’cause I’m saving up to go sheep hunting. Yeah. And when you get those kind of personalities, there’s nothing you won’t do for ’em. Yeah. Because they’re just like me. Yeah. And that’s awesome. The only way I’ve been able to afford to go sheep hunting and kill my doll sheep in Alaska was because I just worked it off in labor. I guided multiple clients so that I could help myself for free, you know, guided for changing, changing labor. It’s only way I could afford to do it. What and what states, so I really, what,
00:46:59:17 –> 00:47:02:06
What states do you apply for? What other states do you apply for?
00:47:04:06 –> 00:47:27:26
I, I got, I put it, put it for New Mexico, then Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada. Okay. For every species they offer Montana, I’m probably not gonna put in for Montana no more. It’s just, and just looking at, I mean, I got in on the ground floor, I got max points as a non resident could have for like the big horn sheep and stuff. But you’re
00:47:27:26 –> 00:47:28:20
Gonna give it up when you’re,
00:47:29:05 –> 00:47:32:17
You know, the numbers better than me. I mean, it’s less than a percent of a percent of a percent,
00:47:32:22 –> 00:47:35:16
But, but you’re the guy that won a state raffle.
00:47:35:19 –> 00:47:38:17
You know, that’s, you’re right. I need to buy lottery tickets
00:47:38:17 –> 00:47:46:24
Too. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. That’s right. Let’s, let’s, tell us how you really feel about these state draws. Let’s, let’s just flesh it out real quick. How do you really feel? Well,
00:47:47:07 –> 00:48:00:00
You know, I’ve, I’ve gone to like Mule Deer Foundation meetings. Elk foundation meetings and shows in all these different states. I was just at your Utah Western Expo, you know, just when I met you. Yeah.
00:48:00:22 –> 00:48:46:24
I just played around and the subject comes up and I really feel like Nevada probably has about the best system out there. And then Arizona is a close second. It’s they’ve, when I go to those place, I go to those meetings and go to those dinners and you start talking about, you know, drawing tags and things like that. At least the people that I’ve talked to, it’s not, it’s not the subject matter. It’s always a, it is always a good thing. It’s always like nobody’s complaining, but, and Colorado’s gotta be the worst. Yeah. We don’t model any state. We don’t talk to our neighbors. We don’t do anything in regards to trying to figure out a way to make it more accessible for a brand new hunter or a youth hunter. Because, you know, we all know there’s a third of the state, they could never live long enough to draw.
00:48:47:00 –> 00:49:14:17
Yeah. But like Nevada, if you’re there, you’re Arizona, you at least got one chance. So if my daughter puts in with one point, that’s right. She has a chance. I might have 20 points, I got 20 chance, but she has eight chance. So every day when that draw time comes out and then you’re starting to get rumor that hey, people are getting hits on their credit card, man, she could run to the computer and she can see if she drew. Yeah. And though that’s not the case in Colorado and that’s, that’s I think very unfortunate. But
00:49:14:17 –> 00:49:35:24
I, you know, one thing I do like about Colorado is like for, especially for Deere, you can tell when you can get drawn. You know, I was applying my brother-in-laws and father-in-law and whatnot and they’re gonna get a tag. I know they’re gonna get a tag, you know, and so that’s kind of nice. I mean, you know, having said that, you gotta deal with some of the other, you know, the system isn’t the same necessarily for sheep, goat and moose and whatnot. But, and I agree,
00:49:35:25 –> 00:50:15:24
You can do it, you can plan your vacation like, hey, this how many points it took this year? Yeah, yeah. And that kind of stuff. And I, and I a hundred percent agree with that, but they could, they could kind of accomplish both by just rewarding, like Arizona does. You took the best, like if you just rewarded the people you’ve been, your longevity, your customers with 20, 30 points, you put them in a max pull, have 25% of your tags go to the max pull. And if they don’t draw on the max, then give ’em a second chance for drawing in the general. Yeah. And that way they’re kind of rewarded for being such a longevity type customer. And yeah, at the same time they can kind of tell when they’re gonna draw and the rest of the people also could have a chance to draw ’em from day one.
00:50:15:28 –> 00:50:47:07
So you can scratch everybody’s back at the same time. If you would just kind of take the best, I think you could take the best of Nevada, how they square their points and take the best out of Arizona in regards to the reward your, some of your max point holes, even though they dropped it down from 30% to 15%, what pissed a lot of people off. Yeah. They had to do something. What was neat about it is they did something. Colorado knows they need to do something too, but they’re digging their heels in and they’re not gonna do anything about it. So Yeah. Thus the average hundred age of a Colorado resident is 51 years old. So
00:50:47:14 –> 00:50:52:13
We’re kind of enjoying states that don’t have a point system. Like it’s kind of nice, you know, like that’s another good
00:50:52:13 –> 00:50:58:05
Point. The mixture, the mixture of it all. You know, the randomness in some states and planning and others. I put for
00:50:58:05 –> 00:51:11:17
Idaho, I forgot to mention Idaho and, and that’s how they are. I know there’s a little bit of rumors that they might start trying to do it and I’m kinda like, I hope they don’t, you know, I’ve, or if they do, I hope I get on the ground floor of it along with another a hundred thousand people on the ground floor.
00:51:11:23 –> 00:52:13:11
States have enjoyed the additional revenue by selling those hunting licenses without a hunter stepping foot into their state. You know? And you gotta get something for that. What are you gonna get? Well, not only are you in the draw, but you get a point and there’s a subconscious value with a point. But having said that, with so many applicants in the draw and the way things have gone, I mean initially it’s nice to reward the guys who’ve applied for 20, 30 years with points. And so they have a better chance at drawing the sheep tags. We understand that. We get it. Having, you know, and that’s, that’s good in theory when it started out. But nowadays we’ve still got guys dying of old age that haven’t had a sheep tag. And in Nevada, I mean they can get two sheep tags. I know guys that have had two desert sheep tags and there’s guys that are dying without having one. So there’s a lot of change that needs to happen here and there. It needs to be once in a lifetime in their, in their particular situation, you know, but telling them that and having ’em change and doing that, you get a lot of people that are whining. ’cause they’ve had, you know, three family members get two sheep tags and they, you know, that’s gonna ruin their chance for getting two in their home state. So, I don’t know. We
00:52:13:11 –> 00:52:57:28
Can, I don’t know the answer. I don’t either make sure. I mean, I, I, I, like I say, I try to and, and I do. I’m very cordial. And when we go to the things you gotta be, you don’t wanna have people turn their back to you. You want people to give you some time to give you some suggestions. And, and I think an awesome thing they could do is average points. So what Colorado’s the only state, if you put in a group application, it go to the person with the least amount of preference points rather than averaging. So you, you get opportunities with a, a little kid that now is old enough to hunt. His dad has 20 points, his grandpa has 30 points, he has none ’cause he is a brand new hunter. Man. If you average that 20 in that 30 and all three people are involved, well now grandpa isn’t a max point holder more, he’s, he’s down to zero, dad’s down to zero. He don’t have 20 no more. Well,
00:52:57:28 –> 00:52:58:25
In your, in your state
00:52:59:01 –> 00:53:12:08
Up to like a hunting, a unit that takes 18 preference points. So you get solid into his blood system, an awesome hunt. And three generations of family got to hunt together. Well, as it is right now, there’s no way grandpa’s gonna put in with his granddaughter. No. ’cause his bringing down to zero,
00:53:12:20 –> 00:53:18:24
Your state’s one of the very few, I think the only one where they don’t average, they don’t average the points. Yeah. And you mentioned that. And that’s,
00:53:18:24 –> 00:54:17:11
That’s, that’s, that’s one thing I’m really pushing hard. It’s like, it’s, it’s a win-win. You’re the Colorado, the, the state people that I’m talking to at the D O W is like, well our problem is that people are banking points and they’re making this stuff ridiculous. I’m like, well then give ’em some opportunity to burn ’em. Like say if they, they have a friend, their neighbor, they’ll wanna take hunting with ’em, but they’re waiting for him to build enough points to draw. Well they’re building up more and more. So now they’re even qualified even to put a better unit. By the time the neighbor finally gets the points to draw the unit. They originally were talking about five years ago. So I go, yeah, it’s this, it’s this. You’re never getting anywhere. But if you allowed now all of a sudden the neighbor to pull the other neighbor with him and average the points, both of ’em are happy, both of ’em are doing it and they’re doing it voluntarily and they’re gonna go able to hunt. Now you’ve taken those people that had a lot of points back down to zero, then reflex it in for somebody else and somebody else. And you do four or five years of averaging points where people can start hunting with their friends, hunting with their families and start averaging, then we wouldn’t have this 20, 30 year or once in a lifetime hunting.
00:54:17:11 –> 00:54:29:10
But, and, and initially you and, and initially in theory you’re right. But then what happens is, is everybody’s gonna apply grandma and, and mom who doesn’t hunt because you’re gonna point average with them. I mean, that’s just, and that’s what’s happening on these other
00:54:29:10 –> 00:54:43:00
States. And then sitting and I’ve done that with them. I’m like, Hey, you just have a special note in there and disclaimer in there. ’cause Colorado, if you return your license, you keep your preference points. As long as they keep your money, well just say, Hey, no, you put it on a group applications that’s null and void. If one person wants their money
00:54:43:00 –> 00:54:46:10
Back, you get one time, a one time burn, a one time average type thing, you know,
00:54:46:20 –> 00:55:41:16
So to speak. Then everybody has to burn ’em, everybody. So you could easily fix that side note. So that’s kind of what I’m doing and I’m trying to do it. I’m doing it for everybody. I’m doing it for, because here I am, you know, I’m a non-resident in six other states, if I ever draw and I I hunt Montana, they’ve, they’ve taken away the, the preference points for the outfitters. They put ’em back into the public draw ’cause they realized what it was doing to the state. And, and now, so there’s more available for me. So I’ll selfishly, I’m, I’m still putting it for points, but I’m still hunting general and it’s a great hunt. And they’re doing things in Wyoming and things like that. They’re, you know, you can still go hunting. So I would never discredit a non-resident because I am a non-resident. In fact, I do more hunting outside my state than I do in my state. ’cause I can’t draw a tag. So I want people to put in. And then, so with this whole thing with the averaging the points and stuff like that, I’m doing for everybody to get everybody a fair shake and to utilize a hunt with people you’d really like to hunt with.
00:55:42:06 –> 00:55:57:17
Well, in closing here, what, what goals do you still have that you haven’t done as far as in the hunting world? What do you, what’s on your list still? Is the 29 a goal of yours or is that just kind of happened because you’ve hunted in a lot of different places? Or what do you have for a goal here before we wrap things up?
00:55:58:14 –> 00:56:49:23
29 is not a, I mean, it’s just kind of worked out that way. I mean, I would, I mean, I’ve been saving my money whole, whole life and then things come up, a daughter going to college, things like that is I, I really want stone cheap hunt. And that would be a climax of mine to, to figure out a way to get that done. So I, I buy my weekly lottery ticket and, and, and hopefully, you know, someday that’ll come true. But if there’s something I still look forward to, would be the grand slam. And I know I got, I mean, I got max points in Arizona. I’m, I’m good friends with Randy Omer. He’s, you know, man, we’re in the max point pull. I got 29, he’s got, well he’s got 28, he’s one point from it. So eventually I think doing the math, I’ve almost gotta get a tag before, you know, I dive all day, just put it that way.
00:56:50:29 –> 00:57:23:26
So we’ll just see. So I think I can get the, the desert sheep tag. I’m sitting there with 33 in Nevada Desert sheep points. So I think I can do that just regular, that’s stone sheep one that’s gonna take coin, that’s gonna take, which is something I don’t have a lot of. So I am, I’m that. So to answer your question, it would be a stone sheep and a grand slam. That’s the 29. Awesome. But to get a grand slam was my recurve traditional equipment. The way that I would have to do it, I think would be a dream come true.
00:57:24:15 –> 00:58:01:06
Well, if you can believe it, we’ve been on here for an hour and five minutes. It’s blown by, it’s crazy what happens when you’re passionate about big game hunting. And we start to visit, we could dive into each one of these subjects we’ve talked about, you know, 15 different subjects for an hour a piece, you know? Right, right. So anyway, we just want to thank you for coming on the Epic Outdoors podcast. Just visiting, you know, there’s a lot of little takeaways here and there. You know, we’ve talked about a little of everything from, you know, a lot of hunting stories, clear down to point systems and, and applications and whatnot, which is really where these hunting stories originate from. So, you know, we appreciate your, your theory on it. Yeah,
00:58:01:06 –> 00:58:31:29
Yeah. We do appreciate it. Insight. The, I still go back to the 77 days on your bison hunt. I don’t know that I’ve heard from somebody. I know there’s people that have hunted stone sheep or hiking mountain bake horn in places multiple years. I’ve had to go back 2, 3, 4 times, but I still don’t think they’ve approached 77 days that I’ve heard. So that’s a story worth telling All right. To stick to it in a tough situation. Yeah, that’s a, that’s a, that’s commendable. So thanks for being on with us today. I appreciate
00:58:31:29 –> 00:58:32:01
That.
00:58:32:19 –> 00:58:36:04
All right, thanks a lot. And we’ll have you back on maybe one of these days.
00:58:36:25 –> 00:58:37:28
Okay. Take care gentlemen.
00:58:38:01 –> 00:59:22:23
All right, talk to you later. Alright, we wanna throw a little shout out to Outdoor Edge knives. We, they’re a great partner of ours here at Epic Outdoors. We appreciate them. You know, they got a lot of products out there, but the one we use often all the time, every door pouch in my truck, everything in my packs, my kids’ packs, Adam’s packs, everybody is the razor light knife. And so anyway, it’s replaceable razor knife that with replaceable blades, they’re big blades. They’re not gonna break on you. Anyway, they’re awesome. Jeff got me using them on one of my hunts and we’re like, Hey, we need these guys as a partner. So anyway, feel free to give ’em a holler at 1 804 4 7 3 3 4 3 or go to outdoor edge.com, check ’em out. Great products.
00:59:23:04 –> 00:59:55:10
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