Sometimes it is hard to know which direction to go when it comes to getting tags in the West. In a changing world it takes flexibility to make things work. Here at Epic Outdoors, we live to find success where it may not be common. In this episode we record live from the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo in Salt Lake City. We (Adam and Jason) put on a seminar sharing our personal theories in applying for tags across the west. We talk through some of our favorite states and share our thoughts and strategies when it comes to getting tags and making the most of them.
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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Talk about Western big game hunting strategy. How
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Am I gonna keep my kids involved in hunting? You wanna
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Hunt off,
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Be willing to adapt, be willing to eat some tags. Nobody
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Likes eating tags. They don’t taste good, they don’t feel good. Anything to do
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With Western Big Game.
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Welcome
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To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
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Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson here. Coming at you. Well, Southern Utah. Northern Utah, a little bit of both. We’re doing a little intro to a seminar that we gave up there at the Western Hunting Expo.
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Yep, it was a fun show, awesome show, awesome beach. So many of our members, friends, fellow hunters, et cetera. It was an awesome show, bigger and better than ever. And we had a great time. Had a good seminar there. We kind of talked more like philosophy of our application strategy and how that’s changed over the last maybe 20 plus years. It’s not the same things, things evolve.
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We went fast in this particular seminar, we had less than an hour. The Galil Forest, a little long-winded, but she’s awesome. Christy tied us, did a great job. But anyway, we were cranking along. It was dinner time, it’s five 30 Friday night. And anyway, so we, we cranked it out and it was aggressive. Went through a lot of, like, Bronson’s talking about a lot of theory and philosophy on application strategies. This wasn’t an A, B, C, so we, we blow through all that. We don’t talk about necessarily point systems in all the states and things, but we did talk about some of the crazy thoughts and ideas we have behind getting tags and applying in, in all these different states. And so anyway, just more of a theory might help a few guys that are got some points to burn and maybe think outside the box. So anyway, pretty awesome. Good time with guys up there, good people, great audience. Appreciate your support up there. And we’d like to give a little shout out to our friends at Red Rock Precision. They were there at the expo as well. Super good guys. I’ve got a gun from them, of course, Bronson, you do too. And we’ve smashed a lot of big stuff with them. Never have missed, actually. So anyway, you can go to Red Rock Precision do com. Did, did
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You see Never that with a hot mic that’s on recording, Chris?
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Never, never have, never
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The
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Word even Ashley. My daughter’s 30 nozzle’s, her favorite rifle and we did a smash and grab with her just under 500 yards.
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Well, as long as it’s true, keep saying it. Keep them back it up. Order.
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Red Rock precision.com. 8 0 1 4 2 5 6 5 7 4. That’s 8 0 1 4 2 5 6 5 7 4.
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Wanna also give a shout out to the folks over at Phone Scope. Been great supporters of ours over the years. Obviously a game changer as far as Digi scoping for, for many years now. Phone Scope, P H O N e ss k o p e.com. Pretty much revolutionized the way we capture video and photos through our vinyls, through our spotters, whatever. Check ’em out. Got some great products on there and it’s not too soon. Got something to fit Any, any phone? Pretty much any phone, unless you’re using some old flip phone. Probably not gonna get something like that. No. But anyway, great products, so go check ’em out. Another one of our supporters here at Epic Outdoors, we have a knife that we made actually through them. This is Outdoor Edge, the Razor Light series. Epic Outdoors Knife, re changeable blade. Check ’em [email protected]. Make some great products in addition to the Epic Outdoors Knife that we have a lot of other great products on there. Another great support of ours here at Epic Outdoors. Go to
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Epic outdoors.com for all your dreams and needs of the West Hunting environment. All right guys, let’s get onto this. Let’s get a little more serious. Put this seminar on. Tell us what you think. If you need some help, we’re always here.
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4 3 5 2 6 3 0 7 7 7.
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[email protected]. [email protected]. We’ll take care of you.
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Hey everybody. Jason Carter here, Adam Bro and Epic Outdoors. We appreciate you being here today. Kinda like with our podcast, we’re gonna shoot from the hip. Actually, Adam and I haven’t even discussed our presentation today. Doesn’t mean we’re not prepared. We’re always prepared for Western big game hunting. It’s all we do. It’s all we live for, and we talk about it nonstop. Adam and I are in the office cranking, as a lot of you guys know, three, four in the morning. We, and we stay there till six or seven at night. And this time of year, all we’re doing is statistics and, and in the office talking to hunters and, and getting prepared for the fall, which is what we’re all doing. Kind of what we’re here for today. Talk about Western big game hunting strategy.
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So just in the interest of time, because we’re, we realize there’s everybody gotta go somewhere tonight, there’s a banquet and things like that. We’re gonna keep it right at an hour, not maybe talk about a lot of what we do at Epic Outdoors. We’re gonna make the general assumption that a lot of you maybe know that, but if you don’t, there’s maybe time after that, or we have a booth out here in the exhibit hall. You can come and talk about our magazine service, our license, application service and whatnot. Really what we wanna talk about is a quick overview of, of hunting the west. And we’re gonna talk maybe about how hunting now 21st century, 20, 20 decade, I guess is different. Drawing tags are tough. Sometimes you have to make more with less. We’re ourselves talking about that as we draw tags. We’re gonna go through a lot of slides today to talk about a lot of the draw tags and opportunities we’ve had.
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But after you draw tag and you’re back in, back in the pile so to speak, it’s a little more daunting to just say, I want what I had before. When it’s a 20 year weight, making more with less, whether that be general season tags or being willing to eat tags. Don’t be afraid to go hunting. You might have heard a little bit about us. Talk about that theory. A lot of people are, maybe the points almost hold you hostage at times. And people are afraid to use ’em, pray, afraid to push their chips to the middle of the table and say, I’m gonna hunt my guts out. You know, within reason. You pick the right year, pick the right season dates, things like that. But try to get the most outta what you got. But be willing to live with the results. There are no guarantees. So
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Yeah, as we as Adam’s talking about, I can’t believe the number of people coming up to the booth and how many points you all have, not just you guys. I mean, everybody walking down that hallway, you’d be shocked. We’re talking 15, 20 points plus one after another, after another, after another. And I feel like part of that is what Adam’s talking about is people are afraid to push their chips to the center. We’ve had guys come in, they’ve, they’ve got 15 points applying themselves or 20 points applying themselves, and they hire us to do their applications. So we get to make those choices a little bit. And they, it’s almost like when they hit send on, you know, as far as applying for themselves, it, they just don’t have the confidence to hit sin. But if we do it, maybe we ratify that choice. And so, and, and I understand it, it’s, it’s their little savings account.
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And here I am, I’m gonna buy a house, but maybe I’m not sure if there’s sinking problems and maybe this part of the subdivision struggled and this didn’t. And ah, you know, and so they don’t do anything. And then the housing market keeps going up and pretty soon they can’t buy in. And, and that’s with point creeps the same similar situation. We’ve gotta be just using them. Having said that, nobody likes eating tags. They don’t taste good, they don’t feel good. We hate it at the same time. That’s part of the risk. It’s part of the risk. It’s, it’s, it also makes the successful hunts that much greater. Arizona, Arizona’s one of those states. We love Arizona. Having said that, tags are few and far between. They don’t give us non-residents a lot of tags. And, and this is one of those prime examples of, of pushing my chips to the center, had a maximum points here.
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I’m gonna be the, the one time I might get a strip tag. I didn’t go to the strip. I went to 12 B and a lot of you guys may know that did that, didn’t know that this deer was alive, but it was. But we knew another deer that was alive. Kid had found the sheds. Great. He’s a great hunter, great shed, hunter knew that deer was alive. It was coming off the ca Baab went for that. Couldn’t find the deer. Adam and I, and the crew, Adam and I, and and another friend of ours went out in the middle of the desert, drummed up this deer. This deer ran by Adam at like 50 yards or 75 yards lip curling a dough. We didn’t even know what he was. I said, what is he adding? He’s 32 inch, two 15. I’m like, perfect, let’s kill him.
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And he turned out 270 inches. And, and I’m just saying that’s just, that was one of the successes of pushing the chips to the middle of the table. My only opportunity to have max points and not go admit, possibly go to the Arizona strip, the famous strip. And I didn’t ever, I’ve never hunted the, the famous Arizona strip, but yet we made good on a tag. So there’s those opportunities that come around that are maybe in non-traditional perfect areas. Having said that, it’s an, it’s an awesome area, we know that. But, but it was going out on a limb a little bit for me. I is is pushing ’em to the center and, and making good on that.
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You know, if, and if you’re in a maximum point situation, it’s a natural to say, all right, I’m gonna hold to my stick to my guns. But Arizona deer, there’s roughly a hundred people left with maximum points, 23 points. And they’re almost all on residents, if not all. And it’s natural to say, I want what I want out of it. I see a head nodding back here. ’cause I know, I know you got 23 points. So having said that, many people don’t, most people don’t. We’re talking to a hundred people in the world when we’re talking about maximum point holders. So there’s early season tags, there’s COOs, deer tags in Arizona. You may have, everybody wants to hunt the strip in their life. The reality of it, if you just say, that’s what I wanna hunt and you don’t have maximum points, you gotta be prepared to maybe never getting drawn for a deer tag in Arizona.
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If you say, I’m going for the strip only. And, and if that’s, if that’s fine. If you have plenty of deer hunting opportunities in other places, it’s fine to view Arizona that way. But there’s other opportunities. Here’s, you know, there’s COOs Deer had my son, he’s only 13 years old. You know, it’s hard to take kids sometimes on outta state hunts. I put ’em in for December, COOs deer hunt as an afterthought. You know, we went down the day after Christmas, got a great wife. My wife’s there in the front. We, we sat there, me and my son, we open presents Christmas morning and we’re just waiting for the, the nod like, hey, we can run outta the house. And we, we got that finally about noon. We were gone Christmas day we drove down and we hunted till the, you know, 31st. You got last five days.
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But had an awesome opportunity on there. You gotta just, sometimes, you know, especially in the mule deer world in Arizona, I had, there’s some reservations down there that I’ve been able to draw tags on, but my boy just got lucky and drew a random tag. You know, what can happen, you know, the elk application period just ended here this last week. And Arizona’s known for big, big bulls. And it’s another one of those things which, you know, a handful of years ago, Arizona made a change. Non-residents can draw 10% of the total unit tag quota. And for many years when they draw the maximum point draw first, which allows 20 total percent of the tags to go to maximum point holders, all of the non ENT quota would be met in that maximum point draw leaving no random tags. And the equity or fairness of all that was kept talked about and kept talked about.
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And so it was changed that hunter tag unit non-residents can get 10, but no more than five of those can be issued in the maximum point field. The other five have to go randomly. What that did to strip hunters, what that did to early rifle or archery elk hunters wanting to draw the best units was it doubled your, your rate of point creep. You know, now you’re, instead of taking six strip tags, 13 B tags, zero, you’re taking three or now instead of taking all 10 early archery tags outta unit nine or 10, you’re taking five. And so what we’re saying is when changes things like this happen, you gotta be able to adapt. And I had my heart set on unit 10. I really wanted hunt 10. I’d gotten lucky and drawn a random antelope tag down there and I wanted hunt unit 10, but I burned him on 27, pushed the chips, the table killed a great bull, had a great time, Jason, he, he’d burned his elk points maybe 15, 20 years ago on an early rifle. So he’s back in the, you know, kind of the points chase and you know,
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Yeah, I’ve been able to draw two elk tags in Arizona, did an early rifle in one, did an archery in one and had great hunts killed 3 50, 360 something, 3 55 bull with a bow. And anyway, on my 360 something on the first go round, but what a great opportunity. And now I’m applying for late archery. And I laughed when they came out with the late November archery hunt. I’m like, who does that? I mean, good grief. But these late archery hunts are before the late rifle in many cases. I get to hunt the first broken bulls, right? I get to hunt the bulls that are, you know, obviously we’re gonna hunt broken bulls post rutt, but at the same time there’s not that many tags and there’s an opportunity to go in there and, and draw with eight points or less, right? Five points. And so now I’m doing that.
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Now I know I’m an idiot and I’m gonna have a tough hunt. I’m, I’m signing myself up for a tough hunt. The weather’s amazing this year we’re expecting an off the charts andler growth year. What else am I gonna do? Well, I, I can wait, I can, and I could possibly draw another archery tag or I can go now point boost with a friend. He’s got less points than I do. I help him out a little bit. Maybe we go hunt together. That’s what we’re gonna do. So maybe another third tag elk tag coming my way. I don’t know. We’ll see how the draw plays out. But, but anyway, there’s just, I guess like Adam was saying, to do more with less, that was not a viable opportunity when it first came out in my mind. You’re not supposed to hunt elk with a bow in November and now that’s what I’m doing.
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So I guess our mindset’s changing a little bit. We’ve also learned how to hunt elk late. We all, I mean there’s a lot of things change. The optics change. We’re aggressive and we’re also willing to put a little time in. People have a little time and money and they’re willing to just really sink their teeth into some of these quote once in lifetime tags and making good on tags that are otherwise not great. But they’re in great units on great moisture years. And so anyway, just taking that leap of faith to try to bring, get something good outta something that’s not so great. Many of you know I killed a desert ram in, in Arizona. I had 22 points. So it was a random, it was a random tag. It was, I had 22 names in a half plus that year’s application. All fine and dandy, still very tough long drawing ons.
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Non-resident tags are given 10%. We’re talking nine tags. I get one of the nine. But I go in a unit when it was first opened to non-residents. If there’s two tags or more, that’s something that we can, as non-residents can apply for 16 A 18 B opened up with two, two non-resident tags. Just so happens, I lucked out there wasn’t a lot known about 1618 base, still not a lot known about it. They were given one tag. A lot of the success rates, and Adam and I have talked about this in podcasts, success rates and size is predicated upon whoever happened to draw and, and they and who knows how hard they hunted the unit. And so what you see on paper may not always be indicative of what the quality really is. However, this particular unit we did see on the checkouts, you know, one 70 rams at six years old, five years old, one 70.
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And so we’re like, man, there could be something real special there. Went there, grinded it out without ’em. We spent a lot of time in, in the matter of three or four days, felt like we had classified what half of what the Arizona game of fish figured the population was and settled on what we felt like was the best round we we had seen. Wasn’t the genetics wise, look-wise, didn’t have the look I wanted the fister twister, just amazing sexy ram, you know, just one of those. Ugh. And and that’s not in that unit. However, he did have 17 inch bases, was 34 and six eights long and, and went 180 3 net. So anyway, ended up with a great ram but on a less than perfect tag, nobody would’ve known that that unit might produce that or have that capability.
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Yeah, that’s right. We’ve been a part of some other hunts down there on sheet hunts. But in interest time, you know, I this, I mentioned this earlier, I drew a random antelope tag in, in, in Arizona, I think it was probably 10 or 12 years, maybe 15 years into applying. Jason gave me a hard time one time at the office and just said, why you’re not spending the extra seven 50 at the time, $7 and 50 cents to apply for antelope and now it’s $15. And I’m like, no, I’m just not that into ’em. But he guilted me into it. So, and six years later I drew a random tag in one of the best antelope years down there and killed a, a giant antelope. And we still talk about it, just an afterthought. You buy a license in Arizona, you’re in 160 bucks now. $15 per species.
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Their antelope tags are literally about like sheep tags. Jason drew a sheep tag in a random draw. I drew one in 800 like antelope and I drew an antelope tag. I would rather the sheep tag. But hey, I killed the big antelope. Probably the biggest I’ll ever kill in my life. Stuff happens when you don’t expect it and apply and some extent forget about it. So, you know, we probably, we probably get more calls, not probably, we do get more calls probably from Colorado deer hunters wanting to burn points perhaps than any other thing we can consult about all year long. Part of it is the great genetics for, for mule deer in Colorado. Part of it is that since they went, you know, into the late nineties unit by unit draws in the early to mid two thousands, it was phenomenal fast. It got high buck door ratios.
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They were probably under not, they were under hunting what they had. ’cause remember they were going from over the counter tags, you know, and you know, just go, go buy ’em like you can the elk to oh, let’s try to set tag quotas and what we feel like we should have. A lot of ’em, they underestimated probably what they could have taken. And some elk or deer hunting got really, really good. So we, you know, we spent as much time as we could. And once we started hunting that in like 2004 for me, Jason, probably around the same time when it started getting good, Colorado became something we tried to do as often as we can. They have a landowner tag program. You, you know, you could draw tags a lot better back then, but it’s become, it’s become a situation now where points and the quality of the deer in Colorado as they’ve increased tags collectively. And, and the quality’s generally come down. You have some hard winners, got c w d places in the state that the state’s being real aggressive trying to increase harvest just to minimize the, the spread of that threat of wolves. Now coming into Colorado in the next few years, it’s like a lot of pressure on mule deer big, you know, big deer, mule deer, hunters. It, it’s tough. So it’s kind of changed now. 2020, our perception on Colorado mule deer hunting, everybody
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Should be doing Colorado. Having said that, 2019 was the worst season we’d seen in Colorado. We’ve had less submissions, less big deer. We ate tags, not so fun. Kind of frustrating. We’re watching season date changes. We’re we’re, as you you guys know, it’s gonna turn really late in 2021. And everybody’s nervous that they’re gonna finish off what they, what’s left the, the bit of quality that’s left. And, and we, it’s hard on us. We, we, we love to kill deer in the rutt. We freaking love it. We love seeing giants lip curling like, but that’s not smart management to hunt deer in the rutt. We’re hunting a pre rutt, mid rutt post rutt. There’s just so many pressures with it and at some point it’s catching up even with the mule deer factory that Colorado is. So, you know, we still gonna do it. Absolutely gonna do it every year if we can.
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We’ve hunted, you know, 21, 22, 44, Gunnison, swatch a lot of these different units. Adams hunted 70, 71. I mean we’ve just done a lot in Colorado and we love it. It’s incredible. I’m just saying it, it’s hard. There’s no perfect answer. In Colorado, you can kill great bucks on second choice tags. A lot of you have done it. We’ve done it. And so use your points often. Don’t hold and hold and hold and hold. I had, I, I bet you I’ve had 10 guys today with 13 to 17 points come to the booth and wanna know what to do and I don’t have the right answer. Maybe you do something that you can almost get or be glad you got 67, had a great year 67 third, maybe you wait. If you get it, great. If you don’t, 2020 one’s now got late dates. Let’s have a new plan.
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And so there’s just a lot of things in Colorado. A lot of variables depends on your, you know, second season, 2021 might be a great season. It ends November 7th. So those are things going through my mind. Worst case scenario, we do 2021 with your points, but after that, no promises. Like Adam’s talking about c w d, they’re now given extra tags when they know it’s not good for age class ’cause of C W D as well as season dates and different things. Wolves are coming obviously we had a podcast on that. And so we’re just, I hate to paint a grim picture be, but we’ve seen, well we’ve all seen what it can do. Mid two thousands, we’re all waiting for mid two thousands waiting for that snowstorm. Waiting for this, waiting for this. Maybe the deer just aren’t there. Maybe they’re not there. We haven’t had a good year for how many years and we’ve had a couple of rough winters, 16, 17 things like that this year.
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Kremlin’s got covered up, covered up all the sagebrush and we’re looking for another storm by Monday. I’m just saying there’s just no right answer, which is what we’re trying to talk about, about making more with less. Maybe maybe we go more often and, and try to do something special over there. Adam and I came in one day and I told Adam, I said, I contend Utah General was better than the state of Colorado. We, we had a 2 33 net on the floor in the office the other day officially scored. We’ve had, I don’t know how four or 5, 2 15 plus there’s just, and so all of a sudden you start going, wow that does paint a pretty good picture of the quality in Colorado. And it’s not that, again, we’re guests in their state, we’re non-residents. We just have seen what it can do. And so it’s just a little disheartening. Having said that, we’re part of the problem. Yeah, we’re telling people to hunt in the ru with a rifle because it’s an amazing opportunity.
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Well, and adapt. You know it’s, if you have 18 points, 20 points, they are holding you hostage right now. There’s probably not something that that’s worth that. You can, you know, buy points only and wait for another five years and hope something changes. Or you can push your chips to, to the table, go get the best hunt you can and take what may take it as it is and be glad maybe at the end that you don’t have those points around your neck anymore. Sinking you, holding you hostage, you know, making you whole thoughts for all of your fall revolve around it. I just don’t know that Colorado in the near future, I don’t foresee it getting tremendously better. I I don’t wanna be, but, but the genetics are there. They can grow big deer and our contention, if you go more often, even on moderate to average units, if you can label ’em that way, you’ll probably find success with the kind of deer you’re looking for more often than once every 15 or 20 years.
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Elk. We’re gonna breeze right through that. It’s a terrible bottleneck, especially for non-residents when it comes to the trophy elk units. They simply do not give enough trophy elk tags in Colorado being a preference point situation meaning no random draw, hybrid draw that they have only really applies to residents. Non-residents aren’t drawing that for deer elk. So if you’re trophy elk hunter, don’t consider it. Jason And I’ve each drawn one elk tag in our life in Colorado. Both, both in unit 40, somewhat close to the Utah Colorado border. You know, we don’t base base out plans around. We still build points. I can’t tell you what I’m gonna use my elk next elk points for. I may, may not, I’m building them, but this is what it is. Jason, he’s company a buddy of his Roger Smith on a goat. They made some changes to their, their sheep, mose and goat draw a couple years ago they allowed everybody to apply instead of sending a paper check in for over two grand and all that.
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It was like, apply $3 you’re in and the whole world stampeded to those three species. And we were disheartened ’cause you had to fill out a paper application and send ’em a check for the previous 20 years. And it kept things somewhat in, in check. The next year they kind of went, went back the other way. Made you start buying a hunting license. A hundred dollars point fee. I’m sure that stopped it. But those three species are great hunts in Colorado. I do think there’s still a big surge of applicants ready to hit that applicant applicant pool. ’cause you gotta build three points, preference points before you’re gonna draw on the forest year for those species. Little hard to maybe tell you to say start that today. That’s a great idea. At a hundred bucks a species. So
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We love Idaho. Idaho makes you choose sheep, goat or moose. If you do one of those three, you can’t do deer, elk can antelope. Adam and I each year, some years I’m doing deer, elk can antelope. Some years I do sheep. Good, great drawing ons for sheep. Our members draw a lot of the sheep tags in the state of Idaho. I I I’ve played the super tag. That’s how I killed that. Big deer super tag allows you to hunt open seasons with that weapon. That was unit 45 buck with a rifle just in the regular draw season. I’ve all, I’ve drawn a couple of super tags. I played that raffle pretty hard before it got way popular and went up and I’ve hunted the chalice and some of these better units and I just got to learn a lot about some of the different units in the state of Idaho. Adam’s kid drew a a youth tag on actually a secondary draw.
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Yeah. You know that Jason’s kid too. We’ve taken our kids up there. It’s a state where you can take kids now when they’re, when they’re 10 it’s not a point state. So it’s not really one you need to be on top of like Arizona, which allows you to put your kids in when they’re 10 years old and build points for New Mexico. Doesn’t have an age as long as they have hunter safety they can apply there in, in Idaho. But you know, first year my kid could hunt in, in Utah I drew Utah tag, we took ’em to Idaho. I drew that. Jason I think probably was, was that Justin’s first, but Justin’s first. But you know, Utah and a lot of the other states are 12 and everything else opens up at 12. But it’s a great state to be able to take your kids up and take ’em.
00:26:32:26 –> 00:27:15:17
Hunting. Daughter drew an antelope tag last year. Once again, some years I apply salt for sheep based on my schedule and how I’m feeling that year for kids. I generally play the deer, elk and antelope ’cause they get three entries to draw something versus one sheep entry. Again, if you do sheep, Mr. Goat, that’s kind of it. They got, they get good quality hunts for pretty much all species. Jason drew a shiru moose tag. This is the same year he drew that tag in Arizona. We we for deer, we each put in for, yeah for a deer tag. And we each put in for the northern panhandle at the time for the wolves had crushed him quite so bad. Hiro tag November 15th, that deer probably started around the 20th and we’re like, oh geez, how fast can we go up there and kill a moose and
00:27:15:21 –> 00:28:00:22
How fast can I get the once in lifetime over with? So we go hunt deer and and that’s what, and that’s what it boiled down to. Went up there. He was a 42 injured. Again, not a great bull, right? You saw it. Having said that, they’re not rutting. We just, we went up there, did it. It was good. And so when you see the statistics, that’s a 42 inch shi you think man. And when you’re looking at the pretty legit, not necessarily so, you know, but at the same time we did it, it was awesome. No problems. Got down, killed a deer that was even better. And so anyway, great, great opportunities in Idaho. One thing about Idaho, the first choice counts. That’s it. And how awesome is that? It helps keep our drawing odds low. We like Idaho. There’s no point system. You do have to buy a hunting license to apply.
00:28:01:19 –> 00:29:16:24
But we’re a fan. We’re a fan of it. Now could their management be better? Could their deer be better? Have, have they been better? Can their elk are their elk under, you know, siege so to speak? Yeah, all those things, right? We’re all dealing with that in all the states. All the states are a little bit suppressed as far as quality. Having said that, we apply in Idaho, there’s some great opportunities. There’s a ton of elk opportunities. There’s velvet hunts. I talked to the guy today, killed a 400 inch bull on the, on the velvet hunt in Idaho and not in, not in unit 54, right? ’cause there’s no velvet hunt there. So I’m just saying there’s so many different opportunities. There’s these late December hunts, again, not a great time to hunt elk so to speak. We’ve been out there, I’ve hunted 42 and there’s herds of hundreds of elk out there. It’s pretty impressive. And so making more with less, there’s so many opportunities. You take something off the side, again, you’re not burning any points. Why not hunt there As many times as you can go kill stuff while you’re, while you’re saving your points in Arizona, saving your points in Colorado, whatever, smash and grab Idaho as many times as you can because you’re giving up nothing. You’re giving up the price of a tag. And so we get a kind of aggressive in Idaho, it’s not, not risking the farm. So go off to ’em.
00:29:17:10 –> 00:30:02:16
Yep. Obviously when these, when the wolves came off the endangered species list, it was something that was on our radar right off. You know, who doesn’t wanna have that opportunity? We went up there, Jason went up there first and and smashed one and we’re like holy cow, that can, you can actually kill one. There’s no recipe to killing a wolf. You just go try. You go be out there where, you know wolves are target the big herds. Well not big what’s left of the out curds and you target them on the winter range, obviously they’re a little bit naive back in the time you could maybe how ’em get ’em haul call. Mainly you’re just glassing ’em up. You’re getting in an area, you’re cutting tracks, you’re finding some wolf sign. You just gotta get lucky. You know, we’ve been up there before. I mean Jason, I think you killed him the first time.
00:30:02:20 –> 00:30:35:22
I went up there the first time and killed one. Then my brother who’s sitting in the back, I think it took him like 18 days over two or three years. And now he’s crushed a couple there and couple, you know, he’s killed four, he is killed a couple in Alaskan. So it’s, you just gotta, it’s another opportunity to get outta the house in the winter to go go try to kill wolves. And we did a great podcast on that a couple of weeks ago too. They’re definitely not as naive. Not, they’re not dumb, they’re incredibly intelligent animal. But it’s something to get a house of the winter. And one of my most valuable trophies for the rest of my life will be be wolf. So
00:30:35:22 –> 00:31:29:06
There’s nothing like the feeling of killing a wolf. So if you wanna do it, you should go. It’s unbelievable. But what an a credible trophy do, does that mean we want ’em? No, we have a ton of respect for him. It was amazing to see the damage. Again, like Adam saying, you, you glossed him and whatnot. Tracks sign we were howling. And the feed, you follow the feed, they like to kill stuff. So we just saw the big herds of elk and pretty soon you can tell when there’s a wolf around ’cause they’re all staring in one direction and they’re herded up like a school of fish. So, and then we, we did a podcast with a guy who didn’t like to shoot long range. ’cause people get wound up and miss and train them and pretty soon they get harder and harder to kill. But we shot ours long range. We wanna shoot ’em when we see ’em and, and and have good rifles. And so, you know, I shot that first one at 722 yards and freaking awesome. The best thing ever Adams was five six. Yeah,
00:31:29:06 –> 00:31:30:14
Five 30 or something. Yeah, yeah.
00:31:31:01 –> 00:31:34:17
So anyway, off the wolf subject, but it’s fun to kill ’em.
00:31:35:17 –> 00:32:13:14
Kansas will breeze through that really fast. It’s a, it’s a state. You know, a lot of the people that live in the west, you know, you can go to Montana, you can go to Idaho, you can go to Wyoming, Eastern Colorado. But Kansas and Iowa are kind of some of the states that some of us think of maybe about hunting. Trophy, trophy, white till deer. They do have either species there. The mule deer tags are hard to get kind of a, you gotta get ’em white till tag through the draw first you’re on the hook for 400 some odd dollar white till tag. Then they’ll throw you in a random stamp for a mule deer to make an either species tag. I’ve been out there only once, killed a really good mule deer. You know, Jason’s been there. He, he’s killed a white tail. It’s not something we base our fall around.
00:32:13:16 –> 00:32:58:26
But for, for us that live in the west, the state you should probably look at at some point hunting. If you don’t have a closer opportunity to go hunt white tails in Wyoming, Montana, you know, Idaho. So speaking of Montana, this is an old picture. 2003, once a lifetime species, they drew a mountain goat up there, had a great time, didn’t know what we were doing. But it’s one of those that you start applying for not knowing if there’s ever an end in sight, you know, you just, you just forget kinda like sheep tags. Goat tags aren’t as hard, but they’re just, just about as hard. Created a great tag, great memory. Drew a tag. You probably shouldn’t have drawn math tells you when you’re one in 50 or a hundred odds or 200 odds that that’s not enough years throughout your life to probably draw it.
00:32:58:26 –> 00:33:39:13
But somebody’s gonna, and if it’s within your means and you can wrap your head around it. This is obviously early on in their point system. I had started at the ground floor. Now it’s 20 years into a point system that’s squared. It’s probably a little harder to justify towing a first timer to start applying for moose or goats or sheep. We’ve been up there a couple of times, hunt elk. It’s not a state. We, we build points for archery, elk hunting to like the Missouri breaks. We also apply for bighorn sheep, Jason and I. It’s kind of the holy grail dream. We’ve all seen Montana rams our whole life. It’s never happened for us. It doesn’t mean we’re gonna quit trying. It’s one of those we simply apply for and hope, but we don’t, you know, when it happens, you react and make a plan.
00:33:40:01 –> 00:34:17:23
Ry elk, they have general seasoned deer elk tags that do have to be drawn as a, as a non-resident ry elk hunting there can be really, really good. A lot of times you need to have access to, or some of the private land or really work OnX maps your g p s in the, in the central or eastern part of the state. We’re gonna make that a more of a priority in our lives because we can do it every three to five years. We’re talking about Rio tags in Arizona taking 15 to 20, Utah, 15 to 20. Some of these other states, Montana, three to five, three to six years. So keep that in mind. It’s not as easy. You do have to work with an onyx or you do may have to hire an outfitter, but you can hunt there often and hunt big bulls.
00:34:17:23 –> 00:35:01:17
There’s a bottleneck. We’re talking about sheep real quick, Montana before we get into more fun stuff like deer. But there is a bottleneck on Rockies and, and it used to be deserts, we couldn’t get desert tags. How do you get desert tags? And now with Mexico and different, different opportunities, the bottlenecks are rocky and, and you got even guaranteed tags. As a lot of us know in Canada and whatnot, you’re dealing with 25% kill rates or 30% kill rates in many cases. I’m not saying there’s not a few guys doing great. They are, but, but it’s hard to find a good rocky tags. So like Adam’s saying, it’s again, we’re not taking, we’re not planning vacation and family trips to Montana to go scout a sheep unit because we know the chances are slim to none that we’ll get drawn. Somebody does get the tags and we apply most everywhere.
00:35:01:17 –> 00:35:44:28
There’s an opportunity to get a rocky tag and we do have max points. Max, max rocky points doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Gives me more names in the hat squared system. Can’t give it up because the bottleneck’s there. It’s so tough to, you can’t even hardly buy your way in Nevada. So deer I killed this year with a muzz loader tag. I drew, drew the tag place I’d never really hunted before. I’ve never drawn a tag there before. But it’s kind of forced us to look outside the box. Am I ever gonna draw a two forty’s tag? No, I’m gonna have to buy my way and buy a landlord tag. Not averse to doing that. Done it many times. I’m a huge fan. The the landowner tech system you can hunt, archery, muzzle, rifle. So if that’s part of your plan, it’s in your finances, do it.
00:35:45:00 –> 00:36:37:20
It’s awesome. That system may go away at, at some point and maybe they make you choose your season or whatever. It’s pretty cool. They’ll be able to hunt, archery, muzzle, rifle, a lot of enjoyment. August 10th, generally till November 5th or October 31st or whatever, depending on the particular unit, you can hunt every single day. Pretty cool. This, this was a September. I didn’t even hunt the first week. Had trail cameras really hard. You can’t run cameras after August 1st. Knew the deer was in the area. Was was helping a good friend of mine in a better unit and hunting bigger deer and couldn’t get the deer killed. He took a break. I went and spent a couple of days with, with good friends, located this deer right off the bat and open sight muzzle killed him. So anyway, just nevada’s such a, I mean August 10th, what else is going on?
00:36:38:10 –> 00:37:24:06
I mean it’s a, it’s an awesome archery state. We love it for, for that reason. They don’t give very many tags in the muzzle season. Most of ’em start September 10th, go to October 4th. Big long seasons, you’re kind of out there by yourself. It’s hot and dry and miserable, but at the same time there’s great deer roaming around, especially on wet years like this. So anyway, we love Nevada. It just, the, the drawing odds are tougher and tougher and tougher. And so now it’s forced us to look outside the box. Miserable country. But we’re finding there’s big deer and lots of units. And what’s nice about Nevada is you got Vegas and Reno, but really there’s not a lot of population base in between. And so there’s a lot of untapped country. It’s giant what and what drew me to Nevada for years and years was being by myself.
00:37:24:08 –> 00:38:10:02
I got to go be with me and the deer by myself for long periods of time and it’s, it’s so addicting. And so anyway, spend a lot of time in Nevada. Love it for many reasons. Squared point system, all five choices count right now. They’re looking at changing that. But all five choices count. And so you get to scroll in a couple of the top few units and then kick in for what you might accept or be willing to accept, you know, as your fourth and fifth choice. It’s a great state for kids cheap, super cheap hunting license fee to go ahead and start getting ’em points. Get your kids points. They need ’em, they have to have points. Get ’em points. It’s cheap and, and what a great opportunity this is my niece, she drew a tag in a resident oil unit. It was, it was, it was, it wasn’t an awesome hunt.
00:38:10:02 –> 00:38:43:01
It was freaking hard. They were, there wasn’t a lot of sheep. It was kind of odd. There was a lot of moisture this year. Spread the sheep out. I don’t know, it felt like we saw 50 caliber cases everywhere. Round guzzlers from helicopters and different things. Doing maneuvers and having fun out there kids, young kids having fun. Kind of felt like maybe they had been displaced. I don’t know, right? We’ll never know. But that was tough. That was a tough hunt. Just barely happened. We killed that ram in January. But what a great opportunity. And one of those places a guy might draw a desert in his life.
00:38:43:25 –> 00:39:32:25
Yeah, you know, desert sheep, you know, they’re just as hard as they ever were to draw a tag. There’s more places if you’ve got some finances to go buy a tag to do that, you know, with Sonora, you know, and the other prob states in Mexico to do that. But Nevada gives more desert sheep tags to non-residents than all the other states combined. That doesn’t mean they’re easy to draw. A lot of people make that claim of 28 to 30 non-resident desert sheep tags a year. Which is true. And that that naturally should be a state that you consider playing if you need a desert sheep that a lot of people think that same way and the odds aren’t great one in six to 800 or a thousand plus. They’re not easy to draw just because they have a lot of sheep. They issue over 300 sheep tags a year for, for desert sheep, roughly 10% going to non-residents.
00:39:33:12 –> 00:40:22:16
We’ve been able to, you know, be on some fun hunts down there with people that are those lucky ones. Whether they’re licensed application clients, some friends Jason’s family, things like that. It’s, it’s an awesome state. Should be. It’s kind of like, you know, the Arizona, Nevada are to desert sheep. What Montana are to Rocky Mountain Bighorn. It’s where, you know, they, they grow beautiful desert bighorn sheep in Nevada. Some awesome hunting opportunities. There’re just some incredible rams and it’s another one of those states. If you’re gonna make the commitment to start applying in Nevada, buy the hunting license, you know, 10 to 15 bucks per species, you should be doing more than just, you know, deer. It’s a great deer state. It’s a lot to spend 175 or $85 to apply just for deer and for 30 bucks more you get an elk and a and a sheep point too.
00:40:22:20 –> 00:41:15:17
So anyway, it’s a great, you know, Jason’s boy this year, antelope, they got some great antelope in in Nevada, you know, beat some long odds. They grow some big bucks in for antelope. Not easy to draw an antelope tag in in Nevada, but if again you apply for antelope ’cause it’s cheap to add on and, and forget about it. So moving on to New Mexico, probably without question the number one species that most people think about as far as you know, their sheep are awesome and we think about big deserts and Rockies, there’s just not a lot of ’em down there. And when it comes to elk, that’s probably what most people think about kind of like Idaho, no point system down there in New Mexico you can apply accordingly every single year differently. I usually apply, I I I I normally favor a hunting elk with a bow in the rutt mainly because that’s fun, right?
00:41:15:29 –> 00:41:56:26
Some years my schedule in September with what I have personally lined up doesn’t line up, doesn’t line up is up. So they got their rifle and muzzle load of hunt hunts in October, November. It doesn’t matter. I view every year differently in New Mexico. Some years are the same year to year, but I just wipe the slate clean, look at my slot that fits best. I generally still apply for units so that I can, I can go hunt three 50 plus bulls. You know, Jason’s somewhat the same. If we’re gonna, you know, in invest the time to hunt out both of us probably enjoy it. Not probably do enjoy hunting mule deer more and maybe a two or three states. And if we get a elk tag, we want it to be a good one. That’s just me personally. Other people are different. They wanna hunt Ry elk in three states and only hunt mule there if they get one great tag.
00:41:57:20 –> 00:42:47:22
I view New Mexico more of a, of a three 50 plus bull hunt. I apply that, but I apply totally different every year based on moisture, which last year was great. Jason’s drawn some awesome elk tags down there as well. Killed some awesome bulls and we’re, we’re, we’re willing to go go weird places. We’ve both drawn some units and, and and that, that weren’t proven. I mean I drew a unit last year and never had a rifle tag ever. So had some archery tags for the last 10 years or so. But they put 10 rifle tags for the first time ever, ever in there. And I made that my first choice ’cause it wasn’t October hunt. October is better for me. I drew the only non-resident tag in my, in my pool. I shouldn’t have drawn it right? I shouldn’t have drawn the tag. Odds are I shouldn’t have drawn it but somebody’s gonna get it and you can just apply in New Mexico, forget about it.
00:42:47:26 –> 00:43:23:17
Jason drew a great tag here he is drawn three or four, killed some of his best bulls. So I think we’ll get to those here in a minute. Here’s a great archery bull. He killed Chris who’s in the room somewhere, Belman over here. Chris has killed a couple, a couple elk too on some of these oddball units. You get three choices down there. All are valid. A lot of times we’ll put something like I did last year, my first choice, maybe that’s the tag I’d really want. But then put something that’s maybe less proven but might have a big bull in it and put that as your second or third choice. There’s an awesome three 80 plus bull, Jason think we’ll come to another. So maybe tell ’em about your general approach when it comes to elk as well. Yeah,
00:43:23:29 –> 00:44:14:10
I guess over the course of time we all have, there’s always been the favorites in Arizona for example, you know, nine and 10, 23, 1 27, whatever. There’s certain units all the time forever that are good. 44 in Colorado for deer. But there’s so much more out there and I think that’s what we’re, our mindsets has changed the last five to 10 years because we’re forced to, because tags are premium and they’re super tar, tough to draw. So that’s a unit 38 bull or or a unit 23 that I killed. Like there’s some weird stuff that still has great potential. The one thing we like about New Mexico is the bulls aren’t named. You know, here in Utah we got so much pressure guides, whatnot. We name ’em, we follow ’em, we pick up their sheds and, and in New Mexico it’s just not that way. There’s bulls people don’t know about and they’re awesome.
00:44:14:10 –> 00:44:59:20
There’s bucks people don’t know about. There’s Rams, people don’t know about. We love New Mexico, we love it for a number of reasons. No point system, three choices on the application. You can do, you can do things and not sweat it. Price of a tag in a little time and and maybe a guide fee. And so there’s just opportunities. What’s funny, I ate a 16 D tag, best unit in the state, arguably 16 a 16 D, 16 B. I’ve hunted 16 B and 16 D as in dog and I ate ’em both. I haven’t ate a 23 tag. I haven’t ate a a 38 tag and killed three 80 bulls. Just interesting, right? And but yet we could send our normal client base to those units and they would think we send ’em to hell where there’s no good elk. And so I think it’s a mentality.
00:44:59:29 –> 00:45:49:20
There’s not many good elk. I’m gonna find the one that’s here and guess what? I’ll probably hunting by myself because there’s not many tags and that’s what, that’s kind of the case that’s happened. The, the nuances, the little changes mean big animals at times. We have a few new changes in Utah. That’s what we’re keying in on. A few new seasons. You’re the first guys in there, the first four years. It’s awesome. Now those deer that migrate are whatever are gonna be been hunted cream’s a little age off him. Things change a little. This bull we just happened to be riding on the four wheeler on a two tracker and the bull was breeding a cow on the road like October 13th. I mean crazy. So you just never know what happens. I guess that’s the kind of New Mexico’s a prime example of just taking advantage of little things, being willing to do different things.
00:45:49:22 –> 00:46:52:22
We put ’em in the magazine, we put the units in there, but we are realistic on, yeah, they’re, people expect a lot I guess. And so it’s hard not to send ’em to 16 b 16 a, 16 D 15, 17, some of the traditionally best units. But at the same time there’s just great opportunities. This was a youth hunt. I started applying Sean, anybody that knows about podcasts and whatnot, my second oldest is sick for, for, for hunting. He’s sick about, he just lives for it. So anyway, I got him a youth tag January one, youth, youth opportunity. What keyed into me was the youth success archery. Deer was like 40%, 45% kill, like archery kids killing 45%. I’m like, my kid killed a deer. That kid’s a killer. And that’s his first archery buck. What an amazing experience. Had a 200 inch, 50 yards and he can shoot 50 and he, he hit a branch and it deflected the arrow broke the arrow went over and we had fletching and he ended up with a, with this deer.
00:46:53:25 –> 00:47:43:08
But at the same time, what a great opportunity they have mobility impaired used seasons that are incredible. The seasons are, are, are are unbelievable rut, rutt, elk hunts and different things. And so anyway, this is a, an auction tag. It was a good friend went down there. That’s a unit two C buck. B l m. Just proof that 280 inch deer can live on public land and b l m and crappy country. And what an amazing experience, great opportunity tag. I’ll never have. I got to go along, be there for the kill. I had nothing really to do with it other than I had to hand feed his rifle and find it a couple of times. So, but I didn’t know the deer prior to getting there. The other guys that found it are, are super good at what they do. I guess for the last bit of this conversation, I, we got 10 minutes.
00:47:44:29 –> 00:48:30:18
I was wondering if we should shouldn’t just talk about 5, 10, 15, 20 year plans. Is is, there are so many times Adam and I, all day long in the booth yesterday, today, tomorrow are gonna be talking about plans like how to get you guys, how to get everybody, how to get us. Every day Adam and I come in, we give about a, we waste about an hour just spewing to each other about weird opportunities and this and that and this and that. Which re is reflective in our podcast and in our writing, you can only write so much. The podcasts kind of give you a feel for our personalities as well as different opportunities that we’re thinking about that day. You just never know what you’re gonna hear on the podcast. They’re unscripted, but you wanna hunt often. Utah Gen for example, Utah General, it’s general deer.
00:48:30:18 –> 00:49:05:20
They don’t manage for giants. But we, we can build points for Utah general. We can build points for limited entry. We can build points for dedicated hunter, dedicated hunter for non-resident. It’s a little expensive. Grandish, it’s a little expensive plus buying the, buying the hours. But that allows you to hunt muzz or archery rifle till you kill a deer, two deer every three years. Just little things that might get you out hunting while you’re saving for a Henry’s Ponson, Oak Creek, San Juan short-term plan with a long-term plan embedded in there, you know, different things like that. And so there’s just plenty to do while you’re gaining points or saving points.
00:49:06:14 –> 00:49:58:14
I, I think one thing you also keep in mind, like I said, it’s 2020 and with a lot of these states that have had well established point systems for a long, long time, there’s newer, younger generation of people coming up looking to apply. We’ve heard about the strip their whole life. They’re finally, they may be this position to start applying for maybe more than one or two western states. And you can get discouraged really fast if you just look at drawing odds of the best in every state you can. And so it’s a different, it’s a different world we live in. We’re what’s what’s opened our eyes to that, to a large extent is, is our kids. You know, as I have teenage kids, Jason’s got teenage kids of hunting age. You see the hunting in 2020 or 2015 to 2020 as we’re playing them now through a totally different, you know, and of course kids are much happier with, with just having an opportunity to kill a legal butt bull, whatever.
00:49:59:03 –> 00:50:51:24
But, but also just the whole concept of what, how, how am I gonna keep my kids involved in hunting? How am I get ’em, get ’em hooked on hunting, but also then take them hunting more often. You’re gonna have to be willing to settle for, for less than maybe you did 20 years ago and every state was starting to point system and you’re on the ground floor and now you’re at 20, 20 plus points. These guys, Jason and I keep talking about that come to us in the booth, they can command a lot more, but, but as you burn those points, now you’re back in the newbie seat, right? You’re like, what do I got now? You’re gonna have to be willing to accept less, go hunt, more opportunity hunts like Utah, general Idaho general, one to three point deer units in Colorado, you know, more opportunity outcomes where there’s a occasional chance of the giant granted it, it’s hard for me to just spew that and have every, some of you might be saying, well, I don’t want just little stuff and all that.
00:50:51:24 –> 00:51:59:13
I want big stuff. Okay, then you better be prepared for the other end of the spectrum. And that is long weights and this day and age 2020, there’s gonna be long weights. If you only want three 50 plus bulls and one 90 plus deer, there’s gonna be long weights. So be willing to adapt, be willing to eat some tags, be willing to, you call it fail, but we, you’ve seen picture after picture for us over the last 20 years. You might say, these guys kill something every time they go. That is not true. It’s not, we don’t show you all of our piles of tags that are in my drawer at the house, but I wonder why I’m keeping ’em. But maybe my kids will believe me that I hunt. You know? Or whoever grandkids will say, Hey look, I didn’t know you hunted here. That’s right. I don’t tell you about the places I get my butt kicked, but I learned something. I learned that either I don’t want to go there or the unit next door while I was there was awesome and I went there the next time. You learn something just by hunting, you learn something by going out there. And you’re gonna have to be willing to do more of that in the in, in the, in 2020 decade. You’re gonna have to make more with something that is maybe perceived as a lesser tag. So that’s
00:51:59:13 –> 00:52:47:07
A, I agree a hundred percent. And, and like I was in 16 b I freak, I found mule deer with cheaters, inlines, mass, Chris, impressive cos deer. And there’s just, and so here I am on an nail camp, but I’m learning something about deer and that deer tech’s pretty easy to get. And so pretty soon one thing leads to another. And that knowledge expounds upon knowledge. Now if I go tell the guy, Steve, hey you 16 B, that’s your ticket. You would go there and hate me forever. And so you, it’s a but it’s a mentality. It’s just a mentality. And our mentality’s changing. I love the Utah general thing. This is why I don’t do it justice. And I’ve killed giants. I kill a 250 inch deer with a bow on a Utah general two 20, his buddy running with him. I haven’t killed a deer since.
00:52:47:07 –> 00:53:31:22
Haven’t really put any time into it. Like that’s my problem. And if I treated Utah general, like I treat a landowner tag that cost me 10 grand in Nevada, I would be killing giants in Utah. And I think this more with less, I’m not saying go out and get crap tags and drive around and get ticked that you not seeing big deer. I’m just saying, crap, let’s take the crap tag, treat it like an Arizona strip. Put everything you got into it and you might find that we’re a little more successful. The one thing I like about some of these weird places is they don’t have teams of hunters. We don’t have teams of guides because they’re crappy places. Now I go to the gold, the gon I, my wife’s got 22 points in Utah. It’s on my brain at the moment. She wants to kill a giant.
00:53:32:00 –> 00:54:13:24
I want her to kill a giant. But do I want to go compete with everybody with the high dollar tags you’re gonna see going tonight? Do I want to compete with those people that have hired hands and they’re good at what they do? Or do I want to go have a great hunt with my wife and still kill a giant? Well, I want to do that, so we’re gonna do something weird. And, and, and these weird things are where, you know, nobody puts the value in it. Nobody’s gonna hire a guide on general. They’re gonna go out and be weekend warriors. And there’s this giants being taken, as we all know on some of these things because there’s not the teams of hunters that are paid to be there. And so there’s, there’s some big deer and, and it all comes full circle. There’s some of these places in Colorado I’m looking to, going back to some of these units.
00:54:14:08 –> 00:55:06:12
I mean, have we even heard of anybody talking about 61? That was one of the only places that we’re big deer existed. 61, 21 and 44. Nobody’s talking about those units. There’s a couple of big deer companies surfacing. And there’s just some of these mindsets. And we’re always willing to be, to be moldable, changing our plan, changing our system. And we’re self-checking all the time. Self-checking all the time. Man, this, this last year sucked. I killed one animal, killed one animal. I ate Wyoming, I ate Arizona, I ate New Mexico, I ate Colorado, I ate Utah. I killed a Nevada buck. But, and that’s great everybody, man, you had a great year. Oh, oh yeah, I, I killed an animal. I would kill a special deer. I did. But there was so much time and energy and money and everything else. So quote wasted. But I learned tons of stuff.
00:55:07:00 –> 00:55:49:07
I learned where I don’t want to go. I learned how I would do it different. And, and just one of those things that you gotta self-check and, and be willing to jump out to step out on a limb. Try something. If, if you’re unsuccessful, it’s not the end of the world. If you’re unsuccessful on a desert, sheep or rocky mountain Bighorn, probably still not the end of the world, but definitely less fun than some of these elk and deer tags that come a little more often. And so treat it. I I just think we treat some of these opportunities that come around like it’s an Arizona strip tag, like it’s a desert sheep tag. You’re gonna find more success the more we put into ’em. When I run cameras, I tell people all the time, I, I run cameras, I love cameras. It’s like Christmas every time I go check ’em.
00:55:49:07 –> 00:57:01:29
I freaking love it. But at the same time, if I don’t check ’em very often, they got kicked by a cow. I’m only going to get out of it what I put into it. If I check ’em regular, make sure the batteries are good, they didn’t get kicked. Maybe a bush was moving, ruined it, whatever. The more I put into it, the more I’m gonna get out of it. The more you put into your hunts, the more you’re gonna get out of ’em. Maybe that is hiring somebody. Maybe time is, is a problem. Maybe you don’t have extra time. Maybe you do hire somebody. Maybe you treat it like it was one of those special tags or maybe you spend more time and, and we’re self-checking all the time and hiring guides. It’s not the end of the world hard to find local knowledge. Special tags only come around once in a while and by the time you get done, you’re gonna know, but you’re not gonna be able to go back. Maybe you don’t ever draw again. And so that local knowledge is, is hard to find. But, but if you’re not gonna go guided, we like to hunt places. We can go regular so we can expound upon that hunt specific animals, name ’em. ’cause we love to name ’em and hunt those animals and be able to be really effective year one, not so effective. Year two a little better. Year three, I’m cooking with gas. It’s a tag we don’t get very often. Maybe I cook with gas by hiring somebody that that knows the rounds.
00:57:01:29 –> 00:57:39:24
That’s right. Be adaptive. That’s, that’s the 2020 plan. You’re gonna hear a lot more about it. We try to include it in our magazine. And in the interest of time, we don’t wanna keep everybody here all night long. I know we got a banquet here starting, but if you, if you get our publication Epic Outdoors, you read our monthly columns in there or you listen to our podcast, we’re gonna hammer that home. Not that you should listen to what we do, but I, I guess just from an awareness standpoint and a big picture standpoint. Now granted, we have some, you, we have some, I mean, I cashed in my desert points last year and, and some of you may have max points Arizona deer. We’re not talking to you about going push your chips to the corn, just hunt the early kibab and take what happens.
00:57:39:27 –> 00:58:54:22
We’re not talking about that. We’re talk, but we’re talking to the masses. Remember, there’s only a hundred of you. There’s, there’s hundreds of thousands of others looking at opportunities in the west. Don’t be afraid to go hunting. And I know that sounds stupid. What does that mean? But some people are afraid to not have their hopes and dreams come true on every single tag with the moon, right? The dates right, you know everything perfect. And then they wanna point guard it 16 times and hold onto ’em to the last bell of a minute and, ah, man, I’m gonna do it again next year. And you’re, you’re going through NY again the next year trying to do it. That’s kind of what we’re trying to say. Do do the thing, do your due diligence, pick the right things to fit your, your criteria they want. But as age increases or opportunities change or point creep accelerates, you’ve gotta change your plan. Have a five and 10 and 20 year plan, but be willing to mold it every year. So we sit and visit with many of you already. We appreciate you coming here today. We know it’s just an off the cuff round, but we don’t maybe have a long session for, for q and a. If you have some questions for us and you’re not gonna be there the next couple days, maybe we’ll take a couple here while everybody else is leaving. But we appreciate your time and coming here today. Thanks a lot. So
00:58:54:22 –> 00:58:55:05
Thank you.
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