EP 137: Bring on the Application Season

Sometimes the stars align on places you don't expect them to align. Make sure you draw. Make sure you draw. Nothing stays the same. You've got winters, you've got droughts, you've got hunting strategy changes. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Chris Peterson. Chris is at the computer making sure we don't say dumb things and when we do he mute them. So anyway, coming at you from Southern Utah. We're back in the office. Been crazy. Been in the hills a ton. We're going to cover some of those experiences. Been a lot of fun. We've got everybody. We've got an office full of people. Phone calls are coming in like crazy. We're writing the magazine for January. Of course, December is just hitting the streets right now, Bronson. Ben. EMAG's been out for probably two, three weeks. I don't know. Awesome cover. Crisp, giant, Arizona bull. Feels like it's 3D on there. Oh, it does. It's a good looking bull. Absolute monster. Anyway, Vince Bloom freaking smashed a giant. Raffle tag hunter, Arizona, 365 day raffle tag.

I believe he had it the year before and so he had to kill by August 14th this year. Technically hunt two years kind of. Technically hunt two years of bulls, but the second year they're probably going to be velvet, which he did, just an awesome non-typical bull. Thanks, Vince, for putting that story together for us. Drawn an awesome governor tag equivalent on the raffle tag there. Awesome bull. So, yeah, back in the office. I'd like to thank Under Armour for sponsoring these podcasts. Of course, they sponsor about everything we do here at Epic Outdoors. Thank you, UA. You can go to UA.com, type in Baron in the search, and up comes all the hunting gear, at least that's made in Baron. And that's what we like here in the West. So, anyway, they do have a forest pattern. It's awesome. Kind of a green version of the Baron.

And it comes in a wide variety of the different models of clothing they're making. Yeah, we're back here full time now. Hunt season's over. Haven't quite hit us yet. We're still kind of thinking now maybe there's still something to hunt, but there's not. But we're not in the desk mode fully, but we are. But what this also means is we will be more consistently here in the podcast room. I don't know if we want to box ourselves into a corner yet and commit to how many. But one to two a week. I think I was going to say that. Easily one. Some days two, depending on if we're on a rant and we have 30 minutes to jump in here and capture something on film because once in a while we're getting on some good rants. There's topics of discussion, you know, around this office that are podcast-worthy sometimes. We'll try to capture some of those things as we're going off on a topic.

Well, the interesting thing is sometimes in the morning it's the only time the phones don't ring, at least for a minute. Or we don't answer before 8 o'clock. Yeah, there you go. Except for this morning. But anyway, where we can kind of talk about our own hunts. Of course, we're doing what you're all doing, and that's thinking about next year. It was funny. I hit you, Bronson, in mid-November, and I'm like, I'm tired of this year, but I can't wait for next year. You know what I mean? I'm tired of my own plan, this current plan, and I'm ready to make a new plan. This week we've been... Buying and selling. Well, we've been in every state we've had scenarios that we're thinking of this year. Maybe not Oregon and Washington, or California, but about every other state. But, you know, there's some big deer there in Oregon here and there. Oh, we did. We did look at picks this morning.

We did have Oregon. Never mind. All you Oregonians, we don't feel left out. We're thinking about you this year, maybe. So, anyway, a couple deer that get you excited here and there. But, yeah, it's just funny. You know, the slate's clean. 2020 calendar's not got a date on it yet for hunts. Maybe one or two. Well, maybe for you. I don't know. I don't think I do, but maybe I'm not aware of something. Maybe I'm overlooking something. How about Colorado 3rd? Well, I'll be there. But, yeah, not a specific hunt yet. But, anyway, we're all full of optimism. I guess that's the other thing, too. New years bring optimism and a lot of planning, and it's that time of year. So, we just kind of want to talk a little bit about the year wrap-up. Jason had a couple of hunts that we'll get into. We're terrible. We're terrible. That were probably trucks.

There are hunts that you could have gone through two or three air filters on the hunts because we had. Should have. It was so dry for southern Utah, northern Arizona, Nevada during the hunts. I mean, the antler development was great. So, the deer grew, elk grew what they needed. But, man, we had a two-, three-month period that was dry, dry, dry. It was crazy dry. And, like, I think I even Googled, like, St. George. We live near St. George, Utah, right? So, I Googled St. George, you know, dry spell or something like that. Up pops 157 straight days of no rain. 157. So, we have an amazing spring antler growth off the charts. Then we have nothing but dry. These animals are vulnerable. No monsoons in our part of the world. Yeah. Didn't happen. It was, we had a couple late August, or late July, early August. But, when it doesn't hit certain places and then doesn't hit you.

But, even Cedar City was dry. Nevada was dry. Guzzlers all over for sheep are dry, bone dry. Drying up by the guzzler. That's right. Drying up. One by one. It was crazy. And then it didn't rain until the 20th of November. And then when it rained, it poured. It hasn't stopped. And so, then we also had snowstorms in Arizona. We had those late bulls coming on, bull hunts coming on. And, you know, everybody's excited. I don't know if the rut, if you'd call it soft or whatnot, but the rut was just a little bit off. Bulls weren't broken as much. And then they're going into this late season thinking this is going to be amazing. They're going to be awesome. It's been bluebird weather. Take the lawn chairs up there. And then they had a foot of snow. Or three feet. And there was guys being airlifted. As I'm learning and talking to guys, you know, across the state of Arizona.

There was guys airlifted out. Camp trailers crushed. Wall tents flattened. I mean, crazy stuff. In places like Unit 10. We're not talking Montana and Wyoming. We're talking Arizona. Yeah. Between Flagstaff and Kingman. How about that? That's right. That's right. 10 inches. 8 to 10 inches out there in 1 and 27 on the east side of the state. So, you know, those guys, a lot of them didn't kill elk. And a lot of them turned tags back at the last minute. Game and Fish is having a hard time divvying out tags, especially when a snowstorm hits. There's a lot of bulls saved. There's a lot of bulls saved. Tons and tons and tons. Because there's, like 6A has 700 late tags. And if you have half the take you'd normally have or less and quality. It's a short hunt. And you can have a, you know, those Thanksgiving storms that rolled through Thanksgiving Day,

day after, which is when these hunts started down there. And the aftermath for a day or two, you start chewing two or three days of storms, you're almost, you know, 40% or halfway through your hunt. And then you go to Colorado. Let's just jump right into the mess. Dust and freaking warm and brutal. Huh? It was tough. And it feels like three or four years in a row that Colorado has squelched hopes and dreams come November. It feels like you get a little bit of a storm, a couple snows in the second season. Everybody's, all right, here we go. And then nothing else happens. Silence. Yeah. Silence. Nothing else happens. There's like two bucks killed that are monster. And we all hang on to that and go, yeah, Colorado's the next best state. There was two out of how many thousands of tags. Yeah. It was another tough year. I actually set out Colorado this year. I ended up.

Violated the cardinal rule. Yeah, I did. I violated my own rule of never sit home from Colorado. But once in a while, things come along and you have to do that. I had a desert sheep tag. And so that caused me to sit out Colorado this year. Should we dive into that? I'd rather dive into that than Colorado deer. We've ping-ponged all over the place. So I guess we could. Probably one of our last podcasts we talked about was in early October. I'd gotten home from New Mexico and killed a big bull. Jason killed a giant deer in Nevada. We talked about both of those. So if you're intrigued about those, look up one of the earlier episodes, right? Two or three episodes ago? Yeah. I don't know. Something like that. But yeah, that put us into all these hunts we're talking about. Mid to late October through early November, I guess. And yeah.

I killed the sheep. You killed a great sheep. Yeah. Not only did you kill a great sheep. I mean, this is what's interesting about this particular hunt. Oh, here we go. I've had. Well. I milked it. I milked this hunt for all I could. All it's worth. It was about 60 days. About 60 day season. Not quite, but about. How many days of those did you? I hunted 25. Wow. 25 solid days. 25 solid days. So I came in. I came in for, I don't know, maybe eight or nine. Probably close to half. But I'd say maybe 10. Two different stints. You were out there for four or five days at least on a couple stints. And actually, we all got to watch the ram you ended up killing all the time. Oh, yeah. Any day, every day. Yeah. Yeah. There was. Called him the backup. We called him that. And the only reason I called him that, it was, you know, as many of you know, I do guide hunters too.

And my last hunter, I think we killed a ram like the 11th of October, which left me almost a full 30 days. The season went until November 10th. And I'm like, I'm done. And this is my chance. And A, I'm never going to get a chance probably with the Utah Desert Sheep tag in. That's it. Or maybe another state. Who knows? And I've got close to 30 days. I'm going to take them. Make the most of it. So we were tag teaming. Me, your brother, your mom even. Your dad. My mom. My son came down. Wayne. Brad. Brad. Gary. Steve. I mean, it was just a revolving door of people because I don't expect anybody else to come out there. There was one stand I was out there for 10 or 11 days straight. Yeah. And, you know, people would come and go. And I appreciate it. I owe everybody a lot of days on their future hunts. That's on record. I do. I do. And I'll tell that unlimited sheep.

Well, you can't cash them in on that, Carter. No. I owe you on, you know, your Wyoming antelope hunt. Okay. All right. So, but in all seriousness, I owe a lot of both family and close friends, you know, for, you know, that's what you do on sheep hunts. That's what you do. I know I've done it with Jason on a couple of his. Yeah. But, but in all seriousness, I owe a lot of people, you know, time on their hunts coming up. Because, yeah, it was, it was not that I thought I was going to kill a 180 inch desert ram in Utah. No. That's not possible. But I just wanted to, I wanted to hunt. I didn't want to be in a hurry. Um, so probably four or five days after I'd really gotten serious for me, we did find this ram that I ended up killing mid-October and just wasn't ready to be done with three plus weeks of hunting season left.

But, but, you know, you can't just put one on the shelf and say, I'm going to pick that off later in the season and I'm going to punch my tag on that. You, they're, they are live animals and they're, you know, sheep and they wander and they're rutting and who knows? He got, he got into it with some other rams and chipped up himself a little bit between the time we found him and time we killed him. He got a fresh big white one. Oh, he did. He did probably a week after we found him, but we were just having fun. We're having a good time. You know, learned a lot of new country that I, I personally hadn't hunted. With clients just because some, you know, some clients, maybe you're not able to go backpack into some of the country and stay and hunt like that, like you want or whatever, or you don't have to, cause there's sheep in areas you find that you don't have to do that.

But I just milked it. And you hunted for pre-rut, rut and figure, it feels like post-rut. Kind of post-rut in certain times. Yeah. I was there long enough to experience a little bit of everything. Hunted a little bit in September in between hunters. Um, but then, uh, like I said, you know, killed hunters and neighboring units. And even in the unit I had mine in and neighboring units and just had a really fun hunt, really fun experience, experienced rain and some snow and, you know, hot. I mean, it was a bit of everything over those 25 days and ultimately it got into November. And that's where, where my November, you know, plans, I ended up, um, you know, deciding color route, you know, not biting the bullet on the landowner tag and, and setting it out. But I ended up November 4th deciding it was, it was time, you know, had my, my bow on my hunt with me, my, my rifle on my hunt.

We could have killed that, Ram. Were we 25 yards from it one day? One time. I was close that day. I mean, a group of us. Yeah. And we're like, just rounded a bend and ran right into a group of sheep. And it was like stupid. And I had this conversation with, you know, after 23 years of applying 23 years ago, if I would have saw the Ram, that Ram, it would have been something in elbows getting out of the truck and let me kill this thing. I mean, he's an upper sixties Ram. Yes. And that 23 years ago, a 160 Ram was like a 175 Ram in Utah. Come on. And we talked about how spoiled, you know, I'm kind of being, and I get it. And, and all the guys at camp cooking. But you hounded a 171 incher with a client. Yeah. And set a bar, an invisible bar. Yeah. You know, and, and just, just, we've done it with other clients, but just, just was looking

for something that might be crazy, a unicorn, but just really was having a fun time hunting. Everybody at night would joke with me. But anyway, finally it was time. And I, you know, it was time, you know, the hunt does end November 10th. And, and it was the fourth. And I decided, you know, you know, I'm probably going to leave the bow home now and decide it's time to kill the Ram. And, and, and anyway, had a great, great stock that day. Got in there and, you know, bedded them down. Made it happen. And anyway, the rifle I had on that hunt was a MOA rifle and 6.5 PRC. Performed awesome. One shot kill. Check them out at MOARifles.com. Make it great. Either, whether it be a lightweight sheep rifle or any other, you know, rifle, long range capabilities. One shot with an MOA rifle. I don't know, 375 or something like that. And, and, uh, it was over. It was great.

It was kind of surreal in a way. Uh, I, I don't know. I wouldn't call it anticlimactic at all. Bit, but it was very calm, calculated. But part of it was like there was, I'd been there a long time and, uh, seen this Ram a bunch and had a lot of different pictures of the video of him and all that. Before Chip and after Chip. And, uh, that's right. And, uh, anyway, it took them pretty neat to walk up on your own desert sheep after walking on right at nearly a hundred of others with, with clients. And it was pretty fun. And finished my, my grand slam of North American wild sheep. And that was also kind of a weird thing because at the time, like you, Jason, um, we grew up in Southern Utah. Desert sheep are kind of like, I want to hunt a desert sheep someday. And somehow in your mind, you think that's the first one you're going to hunt. And, uh, for you, it was probably your third.

Mine was my last of the four. It was just the way things happen. You know, you don't, you can't predictably think that, but, but went from, you know, and finished with the Utah desert sheep was pretty fun. Pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. And, uh, had a great, great experience. You'll see some pictures coming up in the magazine here, probably in the Utah issue, February issue, but 11, 11 year old Ram, just kind of was all he's going to be. Just what I wanted an old Ram, cool Ram, busted up nose, scarred nose on the tip. Just, just everything I wanted. So it's got it. I got everything out of that hunt that I hope to get. I got a text, which was unfortunate. I just got a text and Wayne was like, he's dead. And I called you and I think it was 33 seconds after you killed him. Yeah. We, it was in a spot on the unit where we had some cell coverage.

And of course I'm not texting anybody right there and I'm just cleaning up my gun, getting my, you know, stuff loaded in my pack and my, and my film, my phone, phone ringing, buzzing. It's not ringing. It's buzzing. And it's you. And I'm like, okay, I'll see what he wants. And he's like, dude, congrats. I'm like, how did you know? And apparently Wayne had already texted him and with, this is literally within 60 seconds. And so, yeah, I had like, dude, I killed him. Jason's like, how good is he? And I'm like, what do you mean? The, the ringing and the smoke of the smell of burnt powder is still right here. He, we, we've got 30 minutes before we can get to this thing. And I'm like, yeah. Anyway, so it was pretty fun, but. He's awesome. Yeah. So he was around. Everybody had kind of seen him been a part of it. Took part in it. So it was kind of cool. Yeah. It was fun. Gary and everybody else.

I mean, everybody. Anyway. It's awesome. Appreciate it. I have a lot of people to thank. It was fun. But in the end, not everybody's there, but it's everybody was part of the hunt. So it was pretty special. So after that, we got to go to Colorado third, third season. And, you know, kind of the season was getting cranking right in the middle of it. Wyatt, Wyatt here in the office. And I went up there and, and kind of hit it as long as my wife. My wife was with us. We got, uh, you know, people to take the kids and anyway, ended up going up there and. Hopes and dreams were shattered.

Couldn't find a 26 inch heavy four point. Couldn't even find one. Yeah. You thought at least we're going to find a good solid buck for Jenna. You know, 170. 75, 80 older buck or whatever. She, and she was ready to shoot. Oh, she was ready. Jenna's, Jenna's. I mean, it's, we're talking, you know, a lot of you guys out there been married a long time and we're talking over 20 years and diapers and raising kids and not being able to go. And finally we're able to go. And, and, uh, at some point she was just like, you know, I don't want to shoot one just to make it die. Like if it's not something respectable and mature, like I'm, I'm fine not to kill one. And it was so, such a huge relief for me. I was like, Oh, we can just enjoy this. Yeah. You know what I mean? And not, not get bloody. Yeah. Keep the truck clean, you know, except for the air filter.

And so anyway, just hit it so hard and couldn't make it happen. You ever, we've all been on those hunts. You can't make some hunts happen. Yeah. There's some, you feel like you can just, sometimes you can grind it out and make something happen. And other times you're doing that and it doesn't matter what you're doing. It's not happening. And, uh, part of a lot of a big part of it was the weather, warm, dry, just, uh, no rut initiation from what it sounded like, you know? No. Very little migration. And then within every unit, it's a little migration. Even if it's five, 10 miles, you just got just down onto some winter range type country. If they're in the middle or they're in the super thick or maybe they're nocturnal cause it's hot, whatever you just, I know it for those of you haven't experienced it. I get it. You're thinking the deer in the unit. I don't know the problem.

You lift up your binos and glass and you should be no different than any other year. And it just is. It's not that way. It's tough. What was your experience, Chris? Mine was terrible. You went a little earlier. Yeah. I went a little on the second. It was just, it was the same type of thing. I just, I couldn't make anything happen. Uh, finally we ended up getting on a decent four point with a little kicker on it, but it didn't work out. Just, and I was the only, the only mature deer in an entire week. Wow. Crazy. Yeah. You had a little weather, if I remember, during, I don't remember what point. Right towards the end. You had a little snow, right? Yeah. Right toward the end. It started to snow just a little bit, but that was, yeah, like we said, in the second season. And after that, it just warmed up. Crazy. Teased you and then crushed hopes and dreams. Yeah.

And there's going to be a lot of, uh, questions about Colorado. A lot of people have viewed the five-year season structure that's coming. You know, they, they shift a little bit later this year, just with some changes in the lengths of seasons and, you know, gaps between hunts. Yeah. Gaps between hunts that have been lengthened a little bit between like, you know, first and second. Some of those that have, they're pushed a little bit later just due to that. Um, but I don't know the best way to characterize Colorado, Jason, deer situation right now would be what? In your opinion. Um, we had the worst season. 2019 was the worst season I've ever remember seeing in Colorado. I would, I would agree. And, and so. Trophy wise, the pictures that come in. But we still view Colorado as a must apply for and hunted often state. No question about that. But it's just a lot of good.

It's not, we're going to field a lot of calls later in the year on what do I do with my Colorado deer points. And you still have to go, but this is what you do. Just be there somewhere, but I can't tell you this is, these are the no brainer places. And that's a hundred percent right. But this is what you do. You go there expecting to get your butt whooped and then you enjoy it once in a while when it doesn't. That's what you do. And you got to go. And you go repeatedly, meaning as often as you can with minimal points. If you have a lot of points, the problem, the big problem with people that have a lot. And when I say a lot, I'm talking maybe 14, 15 plus, right? Yeah. I'm glad I'm not in that pool because you feel like you've got to get 15, 20 years worth out of it. And you just can't even, you draw it in a year.

You got to turn back tags 30 days in advance in Colorado, which you can't, you don't know what the weather's going to be like there. It's either you roll the dice or not. And there's not no brainer. These are the can't miss places to go, even in areas that you feel like are that way. I had people this year burn 15, 16 points on third seasons. Yes. And they didn't kill a deer. They came home. And that feels like it's a tough, tough thing to swallow. But it keeps going back to the point. You just got to go to Colorado more often. If you go more often on average to mid-tier units and go repeatedly or pick up turn back tags or whatever price landowner tags you can afford, just be there more often. When the stars align, boom, you're going to get one. You don't kill one every single time you're there. That's the kind of deer that we all dream about.

I was going to, you know, I texted a buddy of mine. He used 17 points in Colorado. Okay. And as a consultant, we take it personal when guys don't have the hunts they want to have. I mean, we love it when you're successful. Has 17 points. He says, Colorado was not what you spend 17 points on. And meaning my Colorado hunt. And that, and it hits. Like, that's a good friend of mine. And it is true. And sometimes hindsight's 20-20. There were a couple units that seemed to produce a little better than others. Just like you would have that behind sight is 20-20. I wouldn't have guessed that those couple of units were the ones that were the good producers. Seems like, yeah, you've got, and I'm going to say almost no top elite stuff. And you have some bad, just masses hunts that they throw thousands of tags at. And everything else, the 80 or 90% is in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. Of average to good.

And great potential. But it's all average to good. Yeah. It feels like, to me, in the last couple years, it's been a little tougher. And I don't know why. Maybe that's just my perspective. But it feels like, man, 10 years ago, you could go and it felt easier. Oh, yeah. There were units that, there were, hey, you've got 10 plus points to go here. You're going to have an awesome hunt. Some of the Gunnison units, and some of those are good, and you could, they're frankly now some of the, what I'd say, better, but they're still inconsistent. But there's no, there's no cut and dried. No. There's no 100%, and there's never 100%, but there's no, oh, you go here, you've got an 89% chance you're going to call 185 plus buck. You can't say that about any way. We've had three or four years, everybody's spooked. And everybody's scared to use points, and this year they're going to be even scared

to use them more, because the next year's dates are even later, and then you've got point creep going to just crush the world. And everybody overthinks it, because they've got so many points, you've got to overthink it, because you're not going to have them again. We've got guys that are just, you know, what do I do, and when do I use them? And like, we're looking at 2021 third season dates, November 13th to the 19th. November 13th to the 19th. Third. That's in 2021, right? 2021. 2021. And so next year, it's going to be the 7th to the 13th. People are looking at it going, I'm going to wait a year. I'm going to wait a year. Well, everybody's going to wait a year. And guess what happens? If I have 12, I'm going to choose a unit that barely some people got in with 12 and 13 points. And it's going to take 15 that year. And it's going to jump again, and you sit out again.

And use them on a point, on a unit that takes 10. Make sure you draw. Make sure you draw. But to do that. And the other thing to talk about, you mentioned the third, read the fourth season dates in 2021, Jason. 2021, 4th, November 24th to the 28th. Wow. Okay. We're talking Thanksgiving. If you can hunt Thanksgiving, that's governor tag seasons. Okay. But it's also going to be hard on some deer. It's going to be after the third. And you get thirds and fourths. Yes. Go hunting. They may overdo it. If we get snow a line on some of these units, and we've been underachieving, and all of a sudden it happens, 2022 and 3 could be rough. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about that. 2019, the worst season we've ever seen in our lives. And 17 and 18, for all intents and purposes, were average and below average. Okay. They weren't great. So we're bottoming out. Okay.

They're giving lots of extra tags because of CWD, and they're trying to clean out. Yeah. They don't want to be too top heavy, you know, like they were in the late 2000s. Mid to late 2000s. So let's make dang good and sure we don't have any four-year-olds. Right? So we're going to blow it out with tags, and then we're going to change season dates. And we're going to push you into November. We're going to let you be more effective. Second, third, and fourth are all going to be rut hunts. Okay? Okay. Second season. Second season in 2021. October 30th to November 7th. Wow. Second season. Okay. Most likely, good chance you're going to have a snowstorm, right? They're going to be vulnerable. And we give tons of tags on second. We load it. Right? So you think that's the year to go fourth. After everybody got cleaned out. Second and thirds are both in November. Indeed.

How would you like to be the third guy? And then let's say 2022, what's left? We had the worst season. I had bad seasons 2017, 2018. The worst season 2019. Next year? Who knows? Right? But we're all getting ready to save our points for 2021. 2021's going to annihilate anything we had. If we have a normal snow year in 2020 or 2021, they're going to annihilate bucks. Normal snow year is a slight die-off in some areas. That's right. That's right. Well, what I mean, but normal snow years prior to or during the hunts, which we haven't had for three or four years, and they come down and they crush them and they kill them and they go back in pickups and everybody's sassy and fat and happy. And it was the best time of my life. By 2021, when the dates move late, they finish them off. Just be careful what you're wishing and asking for. That's where some weird stuff comes in.

That's where you just like, okay, I'm going to try some weird stuff. I want to do weird, obscure units that the trophy hunters with great optics and teams don't annihilate the place. Yeah. And maybe Game and Fish doesn't care about them and you got a guy that happens to, maybe that's hard to survey and they don't understand how many deer are there. You look for some of these weird anomalies that might produce a monster. That's right. So there's a lot to be considered about and we'll talk a lot more detail in Epic Outdoors Magazine about Colorado in that March issue. But now put yourselves in our shoes and you're a consultant with a guy with 12, 14, 16, 18 points. What are you telling him? What are you telling him, Bronson? I'm 65 years old and this is my last chance to kill a 185 buck. Or 195. And I'm, what do you, what would you do in my shoes?

Duh. I'm just being honest. It's a tough go, but hey, well, I don't want to paint the doom and gloom. We will be in Colorado every single year, except for Adam's sheep year, happened to be this year. Every single year for the rest of our lives, we will be. Yeah. It's just be there, alter it, do weird stuff. If you go, you know. Be willing to eat tags. I eat tags, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona. How about that? I ate tags this year, 2019 alone. No fun, right? No fun. And so you've got to just say, hey, that's nobody's fault. I get it. Hindsight's 20, 20. I'd take all that tag money, gas money, time, put it back in my pocket. I'd be husband of the year, I'd be dad of the year, and I'd be richer. That's right. You know what I mean? That's right. But you've experienced some things. You weeded some stuff out that you know you don't want to go do again, or not recently,

but you also- Chalked it up to bad weather. Yeah, we also, you accept that. You accept that this year was rough. Yeah. I mean- Tough year. You started the year killing a 220-incher. Okay. In Nevada. Okay. And it's like this, so here we go. I got three more deer tags. Well, I guess Arizona. Arizona was, and Utah, archery stuff, you know, didn't happen, but you had a dedicated hunter in Utah. You could have still killed it, but my point is, it started off awesome. New Mexico elk was super tough. I went, I did the New Mexico elk. Chris, you were with me. Huh? I got my bug kicked, too. Yeah, you had an elk tag. Back in early October, rifle. You were our true, Jason. Yeah. Eight. How did it taste? I was on two tags in New Mexico that we ate. Two elk tags. It was terrible. I mean, it's a unit I've been to several times, and it was just different. I was not the same experience. So green.

Not the same place. Well, and I don't know what it was like in your unit. My unit, which we already talked about, so green, water everywhere, feet everywhere. I think elk could just wherever they wanted to be. And you smash and grab a .380. I did. I did. And I'll take it. I took it. And I gladly took it. And drove home. Yes. Happily. Happily. And started back on my sheep hunt. And I'm grateful for it. Sometimes it goes that way. Other times it goes, you guys are eating paper. I'm sitting there for the entire hunt not seeing a mature bull on public ground. And it's not like that unit was mismanaged. Same tag numbers overall. Even they put a new early hunt on it, Chris. Okay. But you were there a year or two. The year before or two years before you were there? Both. They didn't even have a good season on the early. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. It was just. It was just. Well, think about this.

Weird. New Mexico, Arizona. Remember the moisture. Utah, Nevada. Amazing. We were off the charts. Yes. Like that. Everybody was just predicting an amazing antler growth year. What did New Mexico kill? Okay. There were a couple highlights. There were. But nowhere near what we thought. Yeah. You know what I mean? Arizona was off the charts. It was off the charts. I think part of New Mexico's is it's thick and tough. And the rut was just. I want to call it soft. I don't know what to call it. Well, and you've got a flatter, thicker. You've got some units in Utah or other places. There's elk habitat. And then you hit a border like there's no elk anymore. New Mexico's not like that. It feels like there's really good stuff and a lot of marginal. And I think elk just scattered into a lot of marginal, tough, thicker, thicker stuff.

Thicker, flatter, thick cedars, pinion juniper stuff that in drier years is not near the water sources, don't have great feed. In wetter years, you could bail the grass on rangeland in a lot of parts of New Mexico this year. It was unbelievable. I don't know what it was like. Well, one of the things that I ran into was some of the places that usually have a lot of feed. I got in there and there was no feed. Oh. And the elk were not there anymore. I think there's always a number of cows in there. Yes. But this year it was just overgrazed. You can tell the difference. They just left them too long or something. I don't know what the deal was, but there wasn't feed in places that they're getting. Yeah. Well, who knows? Who knows what the change was in that regard? Stocking rates left them there longer because there was more feed? Who knows? Just different.

It was just a tough year, you know, but at the same time, that's my point. Now bringing us back to minute two of the podcast. Hi, Adam. I can't wait for next year. I hope this year ends soon. What are we going to do? Let's start with a clean slate. I'm so excited for next year. I'm so excited right now. Every day. Right now, we have two antelope punts that Jason plans to use his points on. I thought we'd cross that board. No, it's true. I think Colorado, Wyoming. Done. All right. Done. So that's where we are. We've already got on the calendar two antelope punts. I've got one for me, probably one of the same ones Jason's going to go on somewhere in Wyoming or nearby next door. You're going to smash and grab. And, you know, we're to that point that we've already planned antelope punts. Jason, two of them for 2020. I can't be stopped. You know, hasn't had antelope in four or five years.

And now we've got two of them. In my defense. You do have 20 antelope points in Colorado. Okay. And in my defense, we saw like that was a bright spot. We saw some big bucks. Well, yeah. When you're driving to find a deer, we're shooting somewhere. Anyway. 25 antelope. And you had three kids. Oh, yeah. And two of them killed bucks. We did have a good, our Wyoming deer hunt. Okay. Two of them killed. I'm going to put this carefully. The hunt sucked. But I was with my family and Ashley killed her second deer of her life at 12 years old. Yeah. Five by five. Five by five. Inlines in the front fork. And we were up to within a couple of hours of when she had to leave because she had a volleyball the next day and you have to drive home. Right? Yeah. Like 10 hours or whatever that is. The Carters had three vehicles in Wyoming.

Because mama need to bring some kids home and me and Sean, Sean can drive and of course he's an animal. And him and I have neighboring units. And so we're in constant contact and I'm helping him. Some days I give up my hunt and just go help him. And then, you know, and then come to my hunt and we're cranking, cranking, cranking, eat lunch together, crank, crank, crank. And it was a lot of fun. Hunting with your kids when they can finally, and Sean's very capable and done it on his own several times. But it's kind of a new level with my family. And so it was a lot of fun. Having said that, both of us got our butts handed to us. And Sean's missing school. Of course, he's happy about that. But at the end of the day, he was like, Dad, let's end this and go home. Let's pull the plug. Because he's a trophy hunter. Let's pull the plug.

I mean, I knew it was really close to over when I saw seven Forkies in the same group. Wow. Seven Forkies. Have you ever seen seven Forkies running together? I'm pretty sure I have. Seven of them. I counted them and not one of them was a three by two. They were all Forkies. Wow. I've never seen more Forkies in my life. It was pretty impressive. It was. That year was, they were prolific. It was just like, wow, they had a great one year, year and a half ago. It was unbelievable. Having said that, tough, but awesome at the same time. Great experience. But knew that it was the year. I'm not blaming the unit. That's the one thing I think it was a takeaway for part of this podcast.

Barring Colorado. Colorado's been mismanaged. Having said that, just the year, you've got to say sometimes, the unit was tough this year. I got screwed because it was tough. I couldn't control the elements. Not this unit's terrible. And so you've kind of got to look through that a little bit and say, the history says it's awesome. I had a tough year. There's no reason I should have had a tough year other than the weather. That's right. You have to be willing to accept that. And you've probably heard on our podcasts, and we're probably going to talk more about it. But we're going to say you have to be willing, or not be willing, be willing to accept you're going to get your butt handed to you sometime. And eat tags. And just get back after it again. I mean, points don't equal dead animals that meet your expectations every time. That's 100%. They just don't. That's my point.

That was well put. Well, I don't know. It's just because you have 20 points, 10 points, 15 points, and that's why we're saying use them often in certain places. Some places, the Arizona Strip. Yeah, if you've got max points there, don't deviate. We get it. Don't deviate. Utah, you're sitting at 20 to 25 elk points. Okay. We understand you want to use them. Arizona, you're sitting at 23 to 5 elk points, and you're waiting for early rifle. Okay, you're knocking on the door. Okay. When you're in no man's land, or you don't archery hunt, so you don't fall into the archery category in Arizona, you're either going to... Late rifles. Yeah, late rifles. Or obscure something. But just don't die with a lot of points. Don't. Don't do it. Use them. Okay. Use them while you can. We have a good friend of ours, Adam, and client. Went to Arizona this year, 27.

Didn't end up with a giant, and it was less than he expected. Tough, tough. And he had, like, I think 23 points, I want to say. Doing early muzzle. Muzzle. Early muzzle. And just... But, you know, looking back on it, if he were to say he was ecstatic, you know, understood that it was circumstantial. But you could say, that's not worth 23 points, I'm pissed. You know what I mean? And so... Blame the outfitter, blame whatever you want, but he didn't have that attitude. And in some ways, you could say that that is enough points to entitle you to a 380-plus bull, 400-inch-plus bull in a moisture year like this. Right. It just doesn't. Things are tough in the West. Tags are tough to get. But, and everything, sometimes the stars align on places you don't expect them to align. Yes. My deer hunt. Yes. In Nevada. Yes. Some of your elk hunts in Nevada, or New Mexico, I mean. Just weird tags.

Wonderful experiences. Weird. Smash and grab. Yeah. And mine this year was like that. You've had a couple like that, Chris. And not in 16 A&D, which some people say is the best to and where you have to be. Right. I've never drawn a tag there. No. Well, sometimes, and I think it was well put by a good friend of mine, but sometimes the best animals are taking in the worst units or off-the-wall weird stuff. Or mid-tier stuff. Weird stuff. Low-density stuff. Stuff that isn't known. It doesn't have a lot of landowner tags where you've got guys that are spending the money with outfitters and things. Okay. Another case in point. Let's look at the Utah general season bucks this year. Okay. For general season deer, which if you're to have me write in writing for masses to read about expectations, we wouldn't say great place to kill a 200-inch buck. Okay. We would not say that.

Would never say that. And I'm not saying that now. Be a stretch to hit 180. Yes. Even in a write-up. Okay. More 170s. But how many? 160 to 150. 150 bucks. There's hundreds and thousands of tags around the state. And it's been going up and going up. But how many true, I mean, giants killed on general tags this year? I can't name them all. But having said that, percentage-wise, still a very low percentage of big deer were taken. But unbelievable. The very, if you were to just line up the bucks and say where they were killed. They would rival the strip if you just looked at the bucks. Not per tag issued. We're not trying to compare them. And not the top 250 bucks. I mean, we get all that. So the obscure or average stuff can produce is what we're trying to say. Hunt them every three to five years and view them for what they are.

You know, they're opportunity hunts with a chance to maybe bring something great home. But, you know, thinking on, let's just talk about Utah for a minute. There were some changes that happened. Yes, there were. And where we're going. Monumental changes. The reason why we're probably, we've taken, admittedly, Jason and I especially, taken it for granted more because there is the tendency, perhaps many of you feel the same way, that a general tag in your own state can't be as good as a cheap landowner tag or turnback tag in Colorado or some obscure tag in New Mexico you draw or an Arizona archery kaibab tag or a Nevada tag. Because they're all non-resident tags and I'm going to go, you know, spend without. The further I travel, the bigger the day will be. I'm driving by 200-inch deer. Just because it's Colorado and it's got to be better. It isn't always better.

And we're not, we're done doing that. We're going to make, we're going to dig our teeth in, and we're going to sink our teeth into something this year. Yeah. Whether we eat a tag or not, it's fine. It doesn't mean we expect to kill a 200-inch deer. We don't. No. But we're going to, we're going to treat it a little bit more. Yeah, you undervalue the easy-to-get stuff. And the stuff that's closest to you. Yeah, or Idaho general occasionally or Wyoming general season tags. Nobody wants to burn their 10 points on general season tags. Why not? That's right. Where else is better? G and H. Where else is better in Wyoming to use your points? Something that takes non-resident six, seven points to draw, and it's over the counter for residents, the residents probably ought to take no and hit it. Yeah. And many of them do. And many of them kill great deer.

And that's kind of our point is if something is producing. Idaho, Oregon residents. You guys, us, Utah. Yeah. If you have, if something's producing, it doesn't matter how many points it takes to draw. If it's hot right now and producing, get a tag. It doesn't matter if it takes three and you got seven. If it's hot and producing, get a tag and go hunt it. It doesn't matter.

Nothing stays the same. How many times do we say that to each other? Nothing stays the same. It doesn't stay the same. Deer, elk, antelope. You got winters. You got droughts. You've got hunting strategy changes. Pressures. You alluded to some of the changes in Utah that are maybe going to happen this year. Nothing stays the same. No. Tags are hot right now. They up numbers. Three to five years, it may be down. Yeah. And we talked about what potentially, we're not calling, predicting a doom and gloom in Colorado in three or four years. There's the potential for it to be crushed. So I guess part of that is guys that are going to hold their points waiting for 2021, 2022. You may or may not be doing the right thing. And that's, you know, don't. There's a lot of guys, I'd just use them. I'd use them as fast as you can use them. That's just me. Go often. Use them. Get them out of the way.

Get that pressure. I've had guys use those points and go, I didn't have a great hunt, but I feel so much better without the pressure. These points pressurize a guy, pressurize you. You want to make the most of your Utah desert. Yeah. And that was a little. Slight pressure, not bad. It is. And it's different because it's very controlled number of tags on sheep versus, hey, I burned 23 deer points on a Henry's tag, you know, and then you have, you know, a very limited number of really elite deer on the Henry's anymore, you know, really elite deer. Yeah. And everybody's after the same deer, and that's going to come with a lot of pressure versus a sheep tag. But you're right, 23 deer points in Colorado. I don't want that. I don't want to be in that position. I'd be praying for point, what was it called? Point banking. Oh, we did. Remember that? Why are you bringing that? That was years ago.

10 or 12 years ago, they did it one time. They let you only use the points that it took plus one. Man. And then you got to bank the remaining balance. Yeah. So if you had 20 and it only took 10, it was probably before you. I don't remember that. It'd take 10 or 11 points from you and you'd still have 10 or 11. Yeah, you'd play for one with five and you'd come out with six, whatever. Nice. And so anyway, it was crazy. And so, yeah. Somehow people thought that was better, and that's what we're trying to say. If something's hot, you have an in on something, you have a buddy that's hunted it, it's great. So what if you're giving up a few points to get it? You're getting it. Yeah. You're getting it. Yeah. Utah's going to do away with being able to just turn back tags and not have any repercussions. The day before the hunt. You're going to use all your points, not even get one,

if you turn it within the 30 days to when your hunt starts. Prior, if it's more than 30 days, you could get all your points back you had prior to the draw, but you're not going to get one for that year, so it's going to set you back a year. Very similar to Colorado, basically. In fact, they mirrored that. They called Colorado. They used them as their template for their proposal 30 days prior, and if you turn it back 30 days prior to your hunt, you're getting your points back that you went into the draw for and not one for the year, which could set you back on certain hunts five to 10 years. But within 30 days, who knows what the weather's going to be. Things still happen within the 30 days. Sorry. Sorry. You're out of luck. And it's a pretty hard-set rule unless you were to do something drastic to your body. Yeah, or a death in the immediate family.

There are some really extenuating circumstances, but we'll talk about that, really emphasize that in the February issue. And Nevada's going to come out with the same kind of changes. They're trying to adjust the point creep and just to adjust it a little bit to where they can keep up with it and not just let us all be a democratic society and just freaking do whatever we want because we've earned it and we decided we deserve it. I'm in the max point share and I'm going to draw it 10 years in a row and turn it back until I... The night before and then screw the next guy. They can't reissue the tag to somebody else. That's right. And on and on. But I deserve it because I have the most points so I can do what I want. It's just those days are becoming obsolete. It goes back to the things that we said nothing stays the same.

A point, that point change is going to dramatically change how people apply in Utah this year. The people that have been getting an elk tag or a deer tag every year waiting for the stars to align, waiting for moisture, waiting for the right bull to be under a tree bedded at 3.30 in the afternoon the night before the hunt and I can drive to the office and be there by 5 if I need to turn the tag in. But no, I'm going to... I mean, those guys, they're out of luck now. They're out of luck. They're out of luck. And so anyway, not fun. I like having options just like the next guy. But at the same time, it did need to be addressed and I actually, you know, agree with it. And so it's fine. It's fine. Although it affects us too. And so anyway, kind of some fun stuff coming down the pipes for everybody. A lot to talk about. I know we're all over the place now.

But we'll get specific on these things. Application strategies. As we start talking about these states moving on. Weekly, a couple times a week. We want to encourage you guys out there. Send in your photos, stories, things like that. We're looking at right now the Utah, the Oregon, and New Mexico for February. So if you've got those right now, send them in. If you've got them for other states that we cover in the March, you know, April, May, June, and you want to get off your plates, on your mind, send it in to us. Now, we'll catalog them for later on. But like I said, more imminent pressing need for those magazines where we cover the states already where the application periods open up first. And we pick cover photos 10 months out at times. So if you want to be considered, get it in. The quicker you get it in, the better chance you have at something like that.

And we do, you know, put on there must prints this month, that month, and whatnot. And so anyway, if you get it in late, you know, we always try to fit them in. But you just better chance to get it in. And as of right now, we've already got a few covers slated already for the rest of the year. If not, most of them. Yeah, so get your stuff in early. Yeah, get it in early. Best chance you got. Let me give a shout out to one of our advertisers, St. James Sporting Properties. If you're in the buying or selling of hunting ranch or recreational properties in the western United States, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, or Wyoming, give the guys at St. James Sporting Properties a call. Based in Colorado, 970-596-6089.

Or sjsportingproperties.com for St. James. sjsportingproperties.com. We know Blaine, a very avid hunter. Again, if you're selling or buying recreational or hunting properties, give them a call. I want to throw a little shout out to our own little hunt giveaway. You know, we're giving away doll sheep, Yukon moose, Alaska grizzly, Nevada mule deer, New Mexico elk, Utah mountain lion, Hawaii, and then we have some bonus items. And so we also have an exclusive hunt with us. We're going to guide it. Nevada, if we're referring your buddies. You cannot buy your way in. The only way you can get in is be a member, be a current member, and refer your buddy. The current member that referred him is going to be in for this. That's right. Or if you want, it's coming up on Christmas time of year. If you want to purchase a gift subscription to a family member or a buddy,

maybe he's still in your magazine and you can't find it because he's taking it from you at work, taking it home. Maybe this is the time. All right. You're going to get your chance to be in for a fully guided $20,000 guided package, landowner tag included, guided by the Epic Crew, November 1st to the 5th, 2020. That's right. We're going to be there. Somebody else is going to be there, too. Might as well be you. Yep. Do your buddy a favor. That's one of the most premier tags you could have. That's right. Chris, you and Jason have both hunted the unit that we're going to be in and smoked giant deer. What was your 36th? 34 1⁄2. 34 1⁄2. Might as well be 36th. Unbelievable. Yep. So, yep, do your buddy a favor, help him feel like he's not such a cheapskate, and buy him a membership. How about that? Anyway, just wanted to, you know, but all the other hunts, that hunt specifically,

you cannot purchase tickets for it. The only way to get it in, like Jason said, is to refer somebody that joins, or if you want to, you can purchase a gift subscription. And you can buy a couple of them. It's not like one guy. You know, one guy obviously gives you one name in the hat. If you buy three, you'll have three names in the hat. That's right. So, the other hunts, you can actually, you know, buy tickets for. They're all on our website at epicoutdoors.com, or they're obviously in the magazine. Some of the hunts are for this year. Some are for next year. Wide variety of them. This is just, we're tag junkies ourselves. You know, we apply for some of the other state raffle tags and things like that. And great response of these. We like to maybe throw some hunts in there that a lot of people view as bucket list items. But, you know, they're $20,000 to $30,000 hunts.

They're hunts we would want to go on ourselves. In fact, some of these you can't buy your way in. And, Adam, I mean, we could go on for four hours, and I don't want to. Let's just go real quick. These are hunts that are booked two and three years out. We cannot, some of the quality hunting opportunities, I don't know, I call it Trump money. The economy's good. And the good deer, sheep, anything. You can't buy your way in right now. Some of these, if you had $20,000 burning in your pocket today and said, I want to call and buy the hunt. Sorry. We're sold out for 2020. Yeah, you're two to three years out. Yeah. Unbelievable. Doll sheep hunting Alaska. That was, I killed a great ram there in, you know, 2018. Ultimate Tuley Outfitters. That's one of those. Have a hard time getting your way into that hunt. New members can choose.

They can be in one of these hunts, or you can purchase tickets for those. I want to throw a little shout out to Outdoor Edge Knives. They're a great partner of ours. You know, replaceable blade knife that we're using on every one of our hunts. They're sturdy. They've got kind of a backbone that you, you know, attach a long razor knife to. Awesome, awesome knife that you can get here at Epic Outdoors. Part of the ticket package. Yeah. You spend $200 or more in tickets, you're going to get a knife. And it's etched with our logo. So it's awesome. Anything else, Chris? Yeah, it's one of those things we always talk about, how hard it is anymore to get a tag, and how valuable these opportunities are. And this is just one more chance to be able to get in on something that gives you a shot to get that once-in-a-lifetime hunt. So definitely get in on those hunts. Let's give something away. Yeah.

We got a whole bunch of pyro putty we can give away, and we just talked about these Outdoor Edge Knives. So let's do a couple. Yeah. Throw it out there, Chris. What are we going to do? All right. We're going to do three different winters, and we're going to give you a package of one of our custom Outdoor Edge Knives with our logo on it, and then we're going to give you a little pyro putty kit. Tin of the pyro putty. Pyro putty and Outdoor Edge Knives. And I'll plug this. We just did a video on this, but Jeff and I were out hunting. We were hunting with you guys in Nevada, and we got hiking up. We're in Nevada. We're not expecting it to be cold. This is snowy, rainy, miserable. Yeah. Five inches of snow. Yeah. We were not expecting snow. Desert sheep. This is mid to late November. We got up in this pass, and it was just bitter cold. The fog moved in, and Jeff's like, I'm building a fire.

Well, everything's soaked. He's kind of a pyro man. Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't the first fire I saw him build.

He starts working on it, and he used the can of pyro putty, but we were able to get the fire going. Everything's just saturated wet. It had rained for two days, three days straight, and then snowed five inches. Wouldn't have happened without the pyro putty. No way. Stuff stays burning. It's not like it's just a dry piece of paper towel from your pack out of Ziploc. Yeah. This stuff has a flammable substance within the resin there that you're lighting up, and it burns for, I don't know, five, ten minutes at least. It's been awesome. Anyway. There's not been a time we haven't started a fire that it doesn't go with pyro putty. So with that, we're going to give away some packages of pyro putty and Epic Outdoors knives. To do that, we're going to have you go to, we're going to do a post with this podcast. Go to that post and tag two friends, and you'll be entered to win that package.

The post will be on our Epic Outdoors Instagram, right? Yep. Okay. Instagram only? Details will be on there. Anybody that's listening that doesn't have Instagram, you should. It's a great scouting tool. Lots and lots of people post pictures they shouldn't. And so you're going to see some things and learn some things, so go do it. It's a free way to learn a few things. And then you can also follow Epic Outdoors. Epic underscore hunts is our official Instagram. And, hey, you might win something. We're even giving away Kenner Truck boots right now. Yeah, right now, actually. But, yeah, go to our Instagram page, epic underscore hunts, and look for the post about this podcast. And you can enter there to win. How about that? All right. We good? Let's go eat.