Brendan Burns of KUIU. In this episode we talk with, Brendan Burns, Chief Hunting Officer of KUIU. Brendan tells us a little more about the new Valo pattern from KUIU as well as what 2020 is looking like for him. We also hear about the sheep transplant on Antelope Island that was privately funded by KUIU a few of its donors. Thanks to Kuiu for its support of the hunting industry and for giving back in a great way.
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Our tree opener coming up. It’s a pretty versatile pattern, obviously with a, with a lighter nature. And you learn what you can and can’t get away with when you got a bow in your hands and you’re just trying to sneak up on something on the ground. 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 keyboard, makes us sound really good. Covers our, ah, covers our tracks. Butts. Butts too. Yeah. Have you ever played Cover Your Assets? It’s a game board game, yeah. No, it’s like a little bit of a card game and it’s kind of fun. Anyway, I’ve been playing that with the kids and wife and aggression, trying to, trying to get a little variety in my life other than just hunting. So I play once in a while, a card game with the kids and call it good. I put it on the calendar too, so we all remember that I did something different than hunting. Gotcha. All right. Well when it’s August Carter. August, what does that mean? Well, it usually means stuff’s gonna start dying in Nevada. Yeah. August 10th, archery opener coming up. And they’ve had the archery, antelope pun seen a couple die. Yeah, we had one, had a member send a great buck to us yesterday wearing the new QU of pattern probably, I dunno, probably the first pattern I’ve seen.
00:01:22:27 –> 00:02:41:25
I’m sure somebody’s gonna correct me behind a dead animal. The first dead animal I’ve seen with that. But there’s, but I think that’s some prototypes last year. Seems like I saw Shafer killed a sheep with it, but I’m talking Yeah, but he’s in the, the company inside. That’s right. You had, he’s had this for a year. Yeah. That’s not even fair. That’s right. Him and Burns could wear that. They’ve had a pajama set for probably a year pajama set. So we do need to That’s call him, that’s find out. We do need, yeah. Let’s, let’s, let’s give him a holler and see what he has to say up to, you know, he’s probably quarantined in Bozeman. He usually likes to go up north hunting sheep with him or somebody else. And do you think they’re making him go to California once in a while or just, I’m gonna find out. All right. I’m calling. All right. Mr. Bronson. What’s up man? Oh, you know, same old stuff. How about you? Well, I got Jason and Chris here doing a podcast. We just checking on you. We were talking about first kill picks of the year starting to come in for the most part. We had an antelope come in yesterday with the probably, I know not, it seems like the first kill pick with the vallow. He killed an Ry envelope, but it’s archery, not counting. Shafer Velo. Sorry. Val Velo with Velo. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:42:03 –> 00:03:48:04
Heart a Let’s keep it with a heart a That’s it. Hey, you got a little, you got line him out. Burns all right. Yeah, that’s all good. That wasn’t, I didn’t get that in the media cat, so I didn’t get the Oh, I’m sorry. Didn’t get the Merriam Webster, you know, the phonetical pronunciation part of it, so I apologize. Oh yeah. Probably a video. It’s all video clip on it. A top ground somewhere. Yeah. Actually the first was that Schafer who killed something with it for you? I, I know Schaefer wore on his sheet punts, but I’m talking about non insider. We talked joke that you guys probably have had pajamas and briefs for a year now and that, and velo you and Schafer, but it’s not fair ’cause you guys are on the inside. Yeah, that’s right. I I’m talking a normal hunter. Yeah, Greg. Greg McHale killed a bison with it and yeah, we, we’ve had a bunch of stuff this spring. Obviously some my buddy Will Waldrop and Matt Forest, they killed three grizzly bears up in Alaska. They obviously, not a lot of operators up there, but they, they got a bunch of stuff done this spring and yeah, I think Justin had the actual first production, production camo valo kill, so. Gotcha. Well, well this, how about we just, this the first envelope kill probably the fall hunting season.
00:03:48:04 –> 00:04:47:21
How about we just call the first animal with Pine Peak Outfitters did a great job. Great Buck. You probably saw it burns on Instagram yesterday. I’ve just kind of cool. I mean, you’re seeing it showing up and we will lot more. So yeah, it’s, it’s a pretty versatile pattern, obviously with a, with a lighter nature and less contrast. I think like this time of year we’re obviously gonna see a ton of it. So Yeah, I actually, Greg McHale’s wife just got a picture in today. Greg McHale’s wife has shot an absolute slob of a doll sheep up in the Yukon. Wow. To rub in, to rub in the fact that none of us are up there. Yeah, I I was gonna ask you about that. Like I know you’ve been up there a bunch. I don’t Did you have anything planned this year or no, for Canada? I, I did. I had a, I had a hunt booked at in the Yukon and yeah, it was just kind of a bummer. I mean, you start, you start such a weird thing to have it like, well, you know, we’ll, we’ll put it off a little while and we’ll kind of see how it goes. Then I, it was kind of about, for me it was about July 1st was kinda lining the sand time where it’s like, yeah, I kind of got a no.
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And you know, I mean I’m, I can be pretty impulsive and I can be pretty react, you know, react pretty quickly to stuff. But you, you gotta have a little time to know when you’re gonna, when you’re gonna go and, and just kept headed further and further down that path. And you know, the, it’s a real bummer for all those, for all those outfitters. But you know, there’s not really a, there’s still not even a plan in place that I can find that don’t that that, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of a bummer because it’s like there’s, there’s no plan to see those guys be able to operate. It’s not like if the number of cases hits this and if the US is doing this, this will trigger this and this can open up. It’s just like, hey, we’ll revisit in a month, which yeah, isn’t really a plan month to month. Yeah. A lot of guys live month to month and we’re told that you try to get out from under that scenario. Right. Yeah, that’s what I was taught in college. But anyway. No. Yeah. Where are you at one, one thing before we called you? You’re in, are you in Montana or do you gotta, you don’t have to go to California at all during this, do you or?
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I have not been to California since February and I honestly can’t foresee with the travel stuff being in California in the next, maybe for a long time. So, you know, I’ve, I’ve I’m obvious obviously my office here and we’re on kind of like a lot of companies. No, no. Corporate travel. Just don’t wanna, yeah. And, and you know what, as the, as the chief hunting officer and I don’t really need to be down there that much anymore, so. Oh yeah, no, it’s been pretty good. And this is unlike you guys, man, this is teaching. I wanna spend that time. I wanna spend that time scouting. Yeah. Well, and this is, I think teaching in your company, but a lot of companies that are zooming and all the other things, teaching them, you’ve probably, I don’t wanna say waste, that sounds like a harsh word and I’m not talking about q you specifically, but we’ll just talk about corporate in America could be wasting a lot of freaking money flying people around to meetings all the time. And I think it’s probably gonna change the way people do business a lot more. Like you can get a lot done sitting, staring at each other on a computer, hang up and go do go and do instead of fly in for the same meeting. But anyway, moving along the more important stuff. What, what are you hearing?
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So you heard from Greg’s why she killed a, a great, obviously they’re residents up there. Yep. You’ve got a big connection. I know a lot of the guys have honey like Johnny and those guys. Jason and I were talking about it today. What a year Can you imagine being a BC resident this year? A sheep hunter BC resident and and would it be like, it would be unbelievable. I mean, I mean, I can’t even imagine. Don’t, don’t they don’t, you burns don’t you foresee a free for all for the, for the, for the locals up there, just being able to go and do and not have the competition of the outfitters and paid clients don’t have the urgency co commercialization. There’s not, and you don’t have the urgency of I better be kill this thing opening day before, you know, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it’s just a, it’s interesting. It’s an interesting scenario. Yeah. It’s gotta be.
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It’s, and I don’t have any super insight into who’s going, you know, I I try not to ask ’cause I don’t, I don’t wanna have you don’t wanna know to lie to anybody if I know, but yeah, I mean it’s, it’s gotta be a little bit terrifying for a lot of outfitters too, just knowing that I think a lot of guys are in there watching their areas and, and, but no, I mean I think a lot of the resident guys and, and especially guys that were normally guiding, I think yes, the bigger thing is like guys that were normally busy guiding are now they’re, they’re off for the fall. They’re hunting for themselves and so they, they get a chance to go in there and dig into where they’ve always wanted to hunt. And, and this is the year they get one for themselves. If they’ve got a little stash of cash, they just survive travel, you know, if they get to this is their money time of year. It’s a sad, it’s a sad deal as we’ve already talked about and covered, but Yeah, that’s a bummer. I mean, like guys like you, you and me, Adam, we, you know, I killed a, a doll obviously at ultimately last year and you were the year before.
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So this is the first year in boy, a long time in my life where like, it doesn’t matter what it, like I’m not gonna kill a sheep this year. I mean, I, I don’t even have the option. Like I cannot go to Alaska as you can. Yeah. And NWT Yukon, BC, Alberta, all that stuff is closed out, didn’t draw anything. So Yeah, it’s like unless some alternate tag phone call from a state comes, it’s not gonna happen. Yeah, yeah. I’ll be picking up those Nevada calls quickly. Oh yeah. Nevada, Arizona. Well, any anyway. Yeah, you guys are spoiled. This is the first year I’m not gonna sheep hunt Carter you. Wow. Yeah. Where, where are we? How far have we come burns? Yeah, I really would say since about 2010, I would say this is the first year I won’t be on a, on a thin horn hunt or any kind of a sheep hunt and all, you know, even going with somebody else, I mean obviously I’m not always hunting, but even going with somebody else and yeah. It’s a real bummer for all those, all those outfitters up there. What, you know, I actually just talked to Glenda yesterday and you know, they’re ba they’re basically just, there’s nothing they can do.
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I mean it’s, it’s, it’d be one thing if it was in their control, but it’s totally like a lot of this stuff now, you know, like it’s, it’s just a whole different world and it’s totally outta their control. You know, it’s being led by other stuff, you know, government out east and people where, you know, the outfitting is not really a huge priority. How it affects people’s livelihoods, you know, it’s giant to the people there, but, but to the population base of all of Canada, it’s like a drop in the bucket, you know what I mean? It’s not important. It’s Quebec and Montreal. And where in Vancouver, the population bases those are, that’s where decisions get made. What, what do you have on the schedule? What do you have for hunts? Well, I it’s a pretty good year. I mean I obviously, I, I, no one could have predicted our, our current situation, but I, I finally cashed in my points in Wyoming. I’ve got a, a area seven tag for elk in Wyoming, which put those in my, my buddy AJ Kissel. And I’ll be going out to out to Wyoming. And then after 29 years I finally drew a go tag in Montana. I think it’s been, so, I think it’s for the last 10 years, at least every year I’ve heard your gnashing of teeth. Every time the Montana results come out, it’s been for about 10 years.
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’cause you’ve had max points, which a lot of people do, but it’s still, you applied before points even started, like you just alluded. And goats aren’t sheep tags you’ve drawn until, until this spring you’d drawn a drew a sheep, I mean yeah, four, 5 million. Yeah. Until this spring. I was Oh, for 28 on between one and four and one and eight odds. Yeah. That’s pretty bad luck. Yeah. Wow. That’s right people, but you’re gonna run into a guy when they see your picture with a, a dead billy and they’re, you’re so lucky burns, you know, you’re always drawing something and you have to just back him up a little bit and say, yeah, burns is good at that. Yeah. He’ll place he’ll, he’ll square him up. There’s a guy from another I’m, I’m confident there’s, there’s a guy that just moved here. You know, we’re we’re local hunting company, a competitor that first year in Montana. Drew the exact same tag first year. Oh my God. I I think he’s a resident one year might be two at the max. So, so is that a, you never know early September. What’s your, I mean, I don’t know what else you got on your, you got your unit seven in September sometime for Ry Elk obviously, but, and then you gonna wait a little bit on goat or you gonna go goat first?
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Umm, as soon as I find a Billy that I’m after, I mean, I’ve been up scouting times, not as much as I I I would’ve liked so far. But it’s been really hot here. And the other morning I was out, I did a nine miler with my son the other morning and I mean, they were beded in the rocks in the shadows by 6:45 AM So it’s, it’s not a great time to see ’em right now. But no, I don’t, I don’t really care about hair. I’m looking for a great big Billy. If he’s got more hair than a tennis ball, that’s fine with me. Like, I wanna get it done with my bow early and, and move on and enjoy. Yeah, I, I’ve got a hunt that I’ve always wanted to do on this one. I I’m gonna actually do it, I’m gonna do one part of it next weekend and it’s called the Devil’s Backbone and it’s a big, it’s about a 25 mile hike along this big ridge line. And cool. I’m gonna go look in all those bases, see if I can find what I’m looking for and yeah, we’ll, we’ll see. So I’m, I’m, when when the ride goes in the right spot, that’s when I’m going ask. Yeah.
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But I’m definitely not, wait, you know, this, this is the kind of country like every year guys wave like, oh, I’m gonna wait till they hair it up and Oh, not in Montana. No, they out and then all of sudden you snowed out. Yeah. And you go in and have to slug a nanny out. There’s a reason those there. Yeah, there’s a reason. Some of your units, they, they moved them from Sep I drew a goat in like 2003. I think the opener back there was like September 15th. I dunno, I went in the first part of yeah know it was. Yep. And now they’re like, they had a year or two that they had freak September snows. And so now it’s like, is it September five or one? I I September one? Yeah, it’s like September one with a rifle. There’s not even an archery hunt. Yeah, yeah, that’s right. It’s September one with a rifle. Yep, they’re done. And we want you in and out. We’re done. Search and rescues missions babe. Yeah. We could call Lifeline. What do you, what do you guys got going? What do you, what do you have drawn that you’re ice, are you scouting sheep right now for hunters or We’re, we’re getting ready. Been in Nevada a bunch and it’s been a hot miserable sucker, but getting an inventory what’s there? Carter’s got 14 deer tags in about 14 states it feels like.
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But I’ve got a couple deer tags, Utah generals for archery deer that opens up a week from Saturday. So August 15th we’ve got deer tags, of course Jason’s got a couple of kids that are hunting. I, my boys first, he’s got a couple his kids, one of ’em at least first time can shoot a bow or hunt with a bow mine too. And so you’re showing ’em some bucks for seeing and they’re like picking ’em out. Like that’s one’s for me, that one’s for. And as if you can just pick a buck out. Ashley’s like, dad, Justin gets that one. I get that one. And Sean can kill that one. It’s like, just ’cause you got ’em on camera or you glass ’em up, prec scouting doesn’t mean they’re dead, you know? That’s right. So, and, and I told ’em my boy, I’m like, you just, you’re gonna, you’re gonna find out what bow hunting’s about. ’cause he thinks he, he wants to spot in stalk and, you know, and that’s, that’s truthfully how you learn how to hunt, but the bow in your hands as a young teenager or you, that’s how you learn how to hunt. You really do. It’s how we learn how to hunt.
00:14:38:03 –> 00:15:33:00
I mean, not that you don’t learn something on rifle hunts, but man, you, you learn what you can and can’t get away with when you got a bow in your hands and you’re just trying to sneak up on something on the ground. It’s, it’s absolutely, that’s the way you learn how to hunt. So it’s kind of, that’s pretty exciting having all those young guys. Yeah, that is fun. So it’ll be fun. We’ve got tags too. And then, you know, a couple, I, I drew a goat tag, I think I talked to you about it up in Southeast Alaska. I’ve me mentioned that on the podcast before and real excited about that one. Yeah, I’m, I’m jealous of that one. I’ve been applying that one since about about 2003 or four. I don’t know when they started that, but yeah, you should have a hell on. That’s Yeah, those are, I mean those are literally the biggest goats in the world. That’s, that’s a fact. It is. And you know, I, like I said a minute ago, I I, I killed one in Montana and just, just kill the, just kill the goat, you know, it was back when I was pouring rocks and didn’t even, I just did a shoulder mount, you know, goats, if you kill a good one, kind of, they lend themselves to a life size.
00:15:33:00 –> 00:16:38:25
So I hope I, I just told myself if I ever hunt another goat, I want to kill a big one. And if conditions are right, it may life-size it. So that’s, I’m looking forward to that. I’m probably gonna wait till end of September, early October. It’s a little bit, I’m really flexible with when I go there, but in and around some of my guiding and other hunts. But got a Utah, there are some, yeah, there, there are some giants there. I mean there are literally goats in that unit that are bigger than antelope that a lot of guys kill. Wow. Yeah, there’s some monsters. Wow. And they’re only spikes. Yeah. Not two. Yeah, no. Yeah. But so yeah, we’re kind of spread all over Carter’s kids. Got some an elk in Arizona and I got, I got one for a family member here in Utah that we’re gonna be a part of. And we’ll go to Colorado dear, that’ll be a little bit later. But in some regards, making you know a little bit, I mean, I, I don’t wanna poo poo a goat tag in Alaska because it seems like it happened so long ago. Sometimes I honestly for forget it was like December and in February, find out about it. Yeah. I drew the first two tags I put in for this year and didn’t draw hardly squat since. So That’s right.
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Other than guaranteed draw stuff like Colorado deer and things that you’d like, Hey, I know I’m gonna get it. So kind of a bit of everything. A bunch of sheep I’ve got, I dunno, 12 or so sheep hunters spread out. And so we’ll have a lot of fun doing that. Wow. So anyway. Yeah. But that’s getting ready to kick off here in a few weeks too. But speaking of sheep, but I don’t, I know this is, I don’t want everybody listening to this to think, Hey, this is old news or whatever. But being that we’re in Utah, you were a part of a pretty cool project with a sheep transplant that, you know, for those of you that don’t know in Utah, we have a, have an island good sized island, the middle of great Salt Lake that have had California Bighorn from Kalus BC on ’em, had ’em on there for 20 plus years and just due to the shrinking of the great Salt Lake and dry years, you know, there was land bridges that formed and likely had some rams that wandered off and came back, or, I, I say Rams probably rams, but likely ran it off the mainland, caught something, brought it back anyway, had a massive die off on Antelope Island to the point that, you know, they, they eliminated, they ejaculated. Yeah. And, and to start over.
00:17:46:12 –> 00:18:54:15
And you, you have some connections with the Rocky Boy reservation in Montana and talk a little bit about that transplant that you’re able to do this last, I guess we’ll call it winter, it wasn’t really spring January or something like that. And we got sheep back on Antelope Island through some of the stuff you were working with, with QU and, and the reservation, the Rocky boy. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was a really cool project. It was basically the first ever all company and customer funded, privately done sheep transplant ever. Yeah. The, the Indian reservation was over objective on their sheep numbers. And I actually put the transplant together originally with North Dakota and then we had a year where basically the helicopter couldn’t get there in time to get, to get ’em transplanted. So it went an extra year. And then obviously with the, with the lamb recruitment in the next year and numbers increasing and we ended up with some extra sheep and in the meantime, antelope Island had died off. And Jayce Taylor and I, and Travis Jens had been talking back and forth, you know, for potentially down the road and we ended up with some, basically some extra sheep. So we took yeah, 25, 20 ewes and five rams to Antelope Island. They’re obviously better, far better genetics than what you guys have.
00:18:54:15 –> 00:20:08:10
They’re, they’re big Rocky Mountain big horns totally, you know, disease free and yeah, we put 25 back on Antelope Island. They’re doing well right now, like mostly used of had lambs. And it’s been a, it was just an awesome project to put together, you know, the, the, the, the initiatives called Conservation Direct and it’s basically just direct company and customer funded conservation projects. You know, there’s a lot of things you can put your money into now and there’s a lot of, you know, and, and some of it, some of it does a lot of good and some of it’s kind of the same old stuff that’s always been going on. And we just, I, I just thought, you know, with our consumer direct brand and, you know, a couple times a year we want to get together and, and with our, our customers and as a company and actually make an impact and do something different. So we, we put 30 sheep in North Dakota and two separate herds on lakes of cahe on a reservation called the Three Affiliates Tribe. So we took 30 there, 25 or yeah, 25 used and five Rams to North Dakota. Started two herds there and then took the 25 to antelope violence. So we put three new sheep herds on the planet. It was, again, all 100% funded by KU U and, and and about 16 customers covered the foot of the whole bill, planned the whole thing.
00:20:08:22 –> 00:21:01:29
Everything was, it was an awesome project. You can, you can check it out on conservation direct.com, it’s got film, all that stuff. And it was really rewarding a video, really rewarding project. Yeah. Is it on your YouTube? I I watched it when you put Yeah, it’s, yep. Is it, you had a YouTube video on Q’s YouTube channel about that. It was pretty cool. Kinda gave credits to the guys that funded it. Yeah. And it was, it was awesome. It was a well done video. It’s awesome. Yep. Yeah, it was, it was a really fulfilling project. You know, it was one of those things where I I I’ve always personally wanted to do one of those and it’s like, you know, how hard is it to actually do a transplant? And, and it seems daunting, but kinda as we dive dove into it, and I, I, you know, I worked on it for about a year and a half and, and yeah, it was just, it was one of those things, I mean there’s a lot of testing and you know, a few contracts here and there, but at the end of the day, like if you have a, if you have an idea and, and, and you’ve got a place that wants ’em and you’ve got a place that has excess sheath, that wasn’t that difficult. And it was just really cool to have customer involved.
00:21:01:29 –> 00:22:10:09
Like I said, I, I made 16 phone calls raised over a hundred thousand dollars. We footed the entire bill, everything, disease, testing, transport, e, everything. That was like one, we paid 100% of everything until they jumped out of the trailer, which was, yeah. It was just, it was cool to have our project. It’s not like, oh, we got together with a thousand different organizations and stuff now we, we, we just did it. And it was, it was super rewarding. And, and now you guys have some tremendous genetics on Antelope Island. The tribe was able to get rid of excess sheep and there’s two more sheep herds in North Dakota with severe genetics to what they had. And, you know, it, it was, it’s really one of those win-win win wind situations, everybody. It was a real plus for everybody. So can’t Yeah, super. Just, just an awesome thing to be a part of. Had 34 people show up to, to help out. We staffed the whole thing aside from obviously the biologist and everybody that was the professionals that were there. And it was just, it was just cool. It was cool to put your hands on some, you know, I, I’d never touched a live one before, you know, it was just, it was just pretty cool to, to, you know, collar her and, you know, work on those sheep and get ’em ready to go.
00:22:10:10 –> 00:23:16:04
And some of, I’ve been watching for a long time and yeah, it was just a, it was a really cool project. Yeah, it is. Well we appreciate it too, as you know. We’ll see how big they go. ’cause Carter and I are both in the rocky draw in Utah. If they’re giant, we have to pick species in Utah in the once a lifetime realm as residents. So we both drawn deserts and so we’re both in the rocky pool now and know we did grab one. We need to grab one really nice ram and actually Doyle Moss had sent me a picture of him. He’s got, must have the deer hunter out there. He’s got some cameras out there. And he was, when we caught him in February, he was I think 32 by 15 and a half as a 3-year-old. So, gee moss, he’ll be That’s awesome. That’s as big as a lot. He’s be big. Oh he’ll be big. Yeah. Yeah. This’s as big as water rams get in parts of Utah and Wyoming, Colorado, that’s, yeah. Yeah, he’s big as a lot of town. He’s pretty Idaho maxed out. He’s maxed out for Utah. He’s bigger than a lot of the, you know, middle fork salmon sheep that ever get killed in Idaho, places like that. Well, congratulations. Good. Good work. That’s cool. Good work. We appreciate it. That’s awesome. And what else new? Anything else we gotta cover?
00:23:16:10 –> 00:24:21:07
I mean, we just thought we’d call you kind of out of the blue. We’re all, everybody’s stir crazy. We’re just ready for the hunts. I know Carter and I were just like, once we get hunting, we don’t, we don’t watch the news and we, I mean, when we’re gone a lot we’re just, it’s, it’s the routine we look forward to the most, but we’re also out of touch the most with maybe some of the crazy crap on. So we can just go be in the hills and be in our camp trailer and, and hunt. So how many, I mean, like you, how many cameras are you guys running right now? Toge? Like, are you, every day you’re out, I assume like this Well, rare office day. Well, we had to scale back. We switch bit Nevada will go, I’ll go. So we switch like, you know, every other day. You know, we each cover for each other. Today we’re in the office together, but Nevada’s now Nevada’s got trail camera law. You gotta pull ’em down by August 1st. So both of us had to pull those down by last week for deer and sheep. And so that frankly now we’re, we’re scaled back to like some Utah stuff, mainly a little bit still. Yeah, we’re still, I mean, you still go out, but it’s just not as much for cameras then. Is is that affecting, is that affecting stuff quite a bit?
00:24:21:08 –> 00:25:16:07
Is that kind of a, kind of a bit of a change for I think mentally it’s a huge change for guys. Like, like even the outfitters too. Like it’s, it’s something to know that deer watered last night or the night before, whatever, he’s still in the area. But if you go, you go a week, two months or, or a week without seeing a particular deer, you know, he’s watering at night, but you don’t know that he’s watered at night. Like that affects you mentally. But if you knew he watered two days ago or last night or the, or three nights ago, it keeps you going right. Or your water goes dry and you know, you’re talking about some of these are little seeps in natural springs. They’re not all big. Where’d he moved? Did he walk five miles or two miles or whatever and whatever. So yeah, it affects, overall it affects guys. It’s, it saves m animals. But we’re, I i, we like running. It’s fun, but it’s, but I like that the law, like I, I like it. We don’t mind it. Yeah. I mean there’s, it, it’s easier. There’s stuff living because of the law, there’s no question. Yeah. There’s a few deer that’ll make it, you know, and so that’s, that’s awesome.
00:25:16:15 –> 00:26:16:14
It’d be nice to feel like there’s two 50 buck out there or two 60 buck out there and and Nevada rarely produces one of those, but maybe they’ll, maybe they will. Maybe there’ll be more of them get away. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well it, it’s like, it’s funny. It’s, it just open, you know, we, we just became legal to use ’em and yeah, they’re, they’re, it definitely takes ’em, it is funny ’cause I think everybody thinks they will help everything. And you know, like myself, I got about six or seven of ’em, which obviously isn’t much. And, and I, I, I’m incredible at taking pictures of cattle. Like I’m just good at it. Can’t believe like you’re good at it. I could run, I could run some kind of a, a Angus sales ring with the photos I get. Yeah. He court you got every angle, hind, quarter flanks, man, front shoulders, neck. I mean, you got, well that’s the, I’ve never gotten a picture this last year. I, I had a bunch of ’em and we had a lot of water and stuff, but I never got a single picture of a pullout on camera. Yeah. In a month. Yeah. Well, and this has been usually dry down here. So it’s a little, feels a little bit, they’re more confined.
00:26:16:15 –> 00:27:24:12
But some years, like, and that’s what, you know, truck cameras on Arizona Strip or places like that, when the monsoon rains start hitting, it’s all, it’s over. No, but for scouting, like Arizona’s talked about it, you know, making ’em to where you can’t use them and I mean, that would dramatically affect everything. Some of these dryer states, no question. It would change people’s lives. You know, I mean, deer, COOs, deer, mule, deer, elk, I mean, these guides are running lots and lots of cameras and hunters too. And, and it just, it lets ’em know what’s in the area, you know, and it’s, yeah, big help. Huge. It’s huge. And especially in the area, arid stuff. I don’t know what you guys got mon Montana wise, I just, maybe it’s not as effective. I don’t know. Yeah. Well and it’s, yeah, it seems like mountain states in general, like, you might even say Colorado. I, I mean, you know, or Wyoming mean I know. Well you can’t put out salt or even bait in Colorado, so it’d be, so you got water, but there’s a lot more water there than enough battery. Yeah. So you’re not gonna trail cam water. So you trail cam and trails, right? Yeah. And I don’t know, burn, you guys use salt up there? What’s your law on that? No, we can’t do any of that ba or salt or anything. I think you got a lot of water, so.
00:27:24:18 –> 00:28:19:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t think I’m gonna run ’em for, I, I don’t think I’m gonna run ’em for goats. I think I’m just gonna run a glass. He’s the first guy running cameras for goats. A pinch 0.3, a three foot gap in the ledge. You might just help one walks by. It’d be kind of cool. Should take it on as a personal project. Yeah. Get a bit, get a goat picture on there. We’ll publish it in the mag later this fall. That’ll be awesome. Take one, take one on your trip. Throw it in a spot. Right. Some natural leg. I’ll, I’m, I’m looking, I’m, I’m looking forward to it. And yeah, it was funny. I took, I took my son up the other day. Like I said, we did a nine miler, which you know, when you’re eight, that’s a, that’s that’s a long, that’s a long walk. Oh yeah. He kind of hit, hit the wall at the end and he was asleep in 0.0 seconds in the car, but he, he got it done. So it was, it was pretty, pretty fun to That’s cool to take him up to saw his first ghost live and so yeah, it was a good time. That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s a’s the overall good time and well you’re, you’re not far off then a month or so away from hunting elk and, and goats both.
00:28:19:21 –> 00:29:21:23
You’ll kick off a couple big hunts right out of the gate, so that’s awesome. We just wanna call and you get caught up on that. And yeah, maybe the state of the union address for QU, how are you guys doing? And, and overall plan future plans and then your, your personal job responsibility looks like adjusted slightly. It’s been good, you know, like, you know, being consumer direct, I mean, we’re kind of built for this. I mean, people are at home using their computers. We do have a showroom, which was shut down for a long time. But I think we launched, you know, obviously the launch of Valo was right in the middle of the Covid thing. I think we were probably the first brand to, to really put out a big initiative right in the middle of it all. And we just said, Hey, we’re, we’re just gonna stick to our plan and do what we do. And, and things have went really well with it, obviously. And yeah, I mean we’re trying to keep everything normal. Obviously there’s, there’s a lot of corporate stuff that has been affected by it. But, you know, we got a really great team and, and a lot of us have been working remote for a long time, so, you know, been able to kind of help everybody else with the, I don’t know if you guys have been in Zoom.
00:29:21:25 –> 00:30:21:04
Hell, but there, there are people that don’t know how to have Zoom meetings and so you gotta kind of get them land out that this is a two person Yeah, a two, a two person. I always, I’ve told a couple people like, Hey man, a a two person Zoom meeting that’s called a phone call. Just pick up the phone. Yeah. If you got an iPhone, you need to FaceTime me ’cause you gotta hold up something. Just FaceTime me. Something like that. It’s like times. Good times. Anyway. Well that’s awesome. Well appreciate you spending a few minutes with us. We may call you again in a month or so, or if we’re back and got a minute and get caught up on some hunts. Yeah, good luck. Good luck on everything Burns. You got luck. Yeah, good luck to luck going on. You’ll kill a giant bull for giant Billy, I’m sure. Yeah, you’re What do you got after that? Do you got just general? General? I think my odds are my odds on the, on the elk and the Billies are both 50 50. Either will or I won’t. There you go. Good point. Point. And then you got Montana Generals after that, I guess elk that’ll come at some point later September. Yeah, I’m gonna bounce back and forth between Wyoming and Montana. They’re, they’re actually not that far away.
00:30:21:04 –> 00:31:23:19
The, the place that I’m, I’m looking at some new country that I’m gonna hunt and so I’m gonna be bouncing back and forth and then in the middle and I have a, I’m going moose hunting the last five days of September with Lance up there. They, they, they gotcha. They, yeah. So it’ll be, that’ll be a cool hunt. Gonna be short end up, up north or the stuff down south. Cinder up north. Yep. Yeah. Yep. He, hopefully somebody’s killed out. I’m, it’s already scheduled, so I’m, I’m showing up on around the 24th through the end of the month and it’ll be, it is, it is actually really cool Moosa I’m looking forward to it because it’s, you know, u usually it’s too hot. I’ve, I’ve killed six Alaskan moose. It’s usually too hot. It’s always kind of like down of the last days where it’s not that great. And so this, when I show up the last five days, it’s either gonna be awesome or it’ll be normal and we won’t get like yeah, it’s, it’s just, it usually the last couple days when the weather cranks up the ru the Rutt really gets going good. And we’ll either get it done in five days or we won’t. And, but it’s not, you know, a huge time commitment, especially having these other tags. So, and that’s about it for the fall.
00:31:23:21 –> 00:32:28:00
I got a crazy, basically through October 10th, I’m pretty crazy and after that I’ve kind of calmed down. So might be a different winner for you too. I mean, we’ve got the announcement the other day that the, while Sheep Foundation is postponed or canceled, whatever the right word is, the sheep show. And they’re working on the details of how that’s gonna look, what that’s gonna look like they’ve promised. They’re gonna try to be really, you know, I guess accommodating, accommodating for, you know, exhibitors and you know, attendees of course all that, whatever that’s gonna look like. But that may happen and I could see that happen with a lot of the shows. So you may, you may spend a lot of the winter in Bozeman is what I’m, I might take up trapping. Yeah, well all right. Yeah, you guys have a good one and you too man. Glad be called. Well we’ll get caught up again. It’s kind of a crazy, during the fall we say we’re gonna call you in 30 days or, or 45. It may not happen, but we will talk about what you did and killed and all that here at some point later in the fall and we’ll get caught up. So if I don’t pick up, you’ll know how it’s going. That’s right. That’s right. Alright, take it easy all guys. Hey, talk to you later. Yeah, have a good one. Bye. Bye.
00:32:28:12 –> 00:33:50:23
So anybody that’s interested, you can go to QU, check up their new lineup, the velo camouflage. We appreciate Brendan on the podcast. What a great guy. They’ve done good work. They’re in the hunting community, so give back. You can support them by supporting them, you know, you’re supporting hunting. We appreciate ’em. Go to ku.com. KU iu.com. You can check it out. The Valo VA v, excuse me, VALO camouflage and you can check it out and go from there. We’ve got guys killing stuff using their camo. It’s obviously working antelope, they’re freaking hard to kill. You don’t stock up and yeah, kill an antelope with a bow. Very easy. And guys are doing it with the valo camouflage first out right here. First part of August. Yeah, that’s right. Killing stuff with the QU camouflage. Okay. Also, keep in mind here at Epic Outdoors, if you need optics, if the hunts are coming up, you find yourself needing to upgrade or haven’t done or to put it off or whatever. Whether it’s trail cameras with stealth cam, whether it’s bin spotting scopes, rifle scopes, range finders, whatever you’re interested in, XIS, Leica, vortex six ovs, give us a call. Epic optics 4 3 5 2 6 3 0 7 7 7. We have some great prices. We mean it when you call, you’ll figure that out and love to help you get something upgrade that you can use this year on your hunt. So don’t hesitate to give us a call, check it out.
00:33:51:01 –> 00:35:04:15
Like Adam said, we do cover stealth cam, we sell ’em every day. We appreciate them and their support. They’ve got a great lineup of cameras from cellular cameras to regular point and shoot as well as incredible video 4K maxes Bronson, we’ve got some incredible 4K max footage. Chris might even put it up on the, maybe I, maybe a teaser. Yeah. Unbelievable. The sounds unbelievable the clarity. Incredible. Anyway, you wanna learn more, go to stealth cam.com. S-T-E-A-L-T-H-C-A m.com or gss m outdoors.com. Great company, lots of products. Incredible. Or just give us a call and we’ll tell you what we got in stock. And lock boxes. Those are hard to find. We got those in stock too, to get some camp’s. Call, we’ll sell you some. How about that? Tell you what works. Tell you what we’re using. Is that where we’re going with it? That heck yeah. That’s right. All right. Alright. Anything you want to add? Chris, you’ve been using stealth SI have actually a lot. I just, Chris has been scouting a lot, Bronson and not talking much about it. I’ve been finding nothing so far, but I’ve got a couple cameras out. Been been working hard but good. Still nothing to write about it. Nothing. Got you excited, huh? Good. No. Well hopefully that changes. I’ve got bucks for bucks for my kids that they’ll be very happy with.
00:35:04:15 –> 00:35:58:17
And they don’t like me to say that because they think I’m holding out something big. You’re like, what do you mean bucks for me? I’m like, well you know, you’ve never killed a deer at the bow. We gotta just hunt every nice little bug we buy. That’s not, I want why I want, I want a buck that dad would shoot. He’s like, no, I want the one you say you want. And I’m like, ah. Yeah, but I don’t know if I could even kill that one. ’cause you know, I’ve got a couple decent ones. Get started, found, get started. You know what, we oughta just give him reality check and let’s go get started. I think. I think opening day. I’m just gonna go for it. He’s going, it’s gonna, we’re gonna have, I’m just gonna wait till he says uncle. ’cause it’s, it’s coming. When he says uncle, we’re gonna go shoot the bucks. We’re go sip water in a barn and we’re gonna wait. We’re gonna are we’re gonna have treats and Capri sun. ’cause they don’t make noise in the can. That’s right. You don’t have a pop can open you just, there you go. Anyway, all right. It’s gonna be fun. Okay, everybody appreciate you. We appreciate Q you. Thanks Brendan for all you’re doing for conservation. Hoping to see more. We’ll go from there.
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