Alaska Mtn. Goat with The Epic Crew. In this episode we catch up at the office and hear about Adams recent Mtn. Goat hunt in Alaska. We also hear from Wyatt who recently returned from a successful Shiras Moose hunt with his dad in Utah. We hope everyone is having a good season. Good luck to all who still have a tag in their pocket.
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
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I’m still still married. I, I figured that marriage is just one project after another. This is the biggest quote I’ve ever seen in my life, guys. And they’re like, that’s, that’s actually a pretty good goat. I guess Jason’s the antelope guy. I’ll be the mo guy. Anything to do with Western Big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Welcome. Welcome. Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson. Wyatt Balls. Chris. Chris is playing with the levels over there. How are we sounding, Chris? It’s getting there. Wipe a little dust off the podcast machinery. It he says. He says, I’m sounding great, but Wyatt, Wyatt hasn’t say anything. Yeah, it hasn’t been a minute since we’ve been in this room for sure. Oh, we haven’t been caught podcasting too much here and there. These guys did one when I was out in the field and, and just trying to do a little catch up. Of course. It’s just that time of year. It’s just a tough time of year. We’re out in the field a lot and then when we come home, we’re trying to be, get father of the year, husband of the year decade. Wyatt, that means something to you now. Yeah, we’re all trying. Are you still married? I’m still still married. I, I figured that marriage is just one project after another. That’s what I’ve learned. You So what, what kind of projects we talking about? What do mean project?
00:01:13:18 –> 00:02:11:18
Have you done some painting job? What have you been doing? Yeah. Painting shelving, mowing the lawn. Come on. Yeah. That kind, that kind of stuff. Grown up stuff. I guess. Mowing the lawn doesn’t count as projects. No, no. That’s just a given. You need to have some pits, Wyatt. ’cause they mow lawns. You need, you need to, then you gotta raise ’em to the mowing lawn age. That’s rough. You’ve a good, good gift idea for Christmas for why some of those manuals for like home improvements that like Bob Vela made. There you go. Give give him some of those. What about the Hanes manuals for fixing trucks and stuff? ’cause your trucks are now gonna get a little age on ’em because you’re not gonna be able to afford to update ’em. Yeah, just update ’em weekly like Carter and you don’t have to worry about it. Yeah. Okay. Or all you need. All you need. We don’t need to go there. All you need is the Kelley Blue Book. So you know when you sell it. Yeah. I just all I, there’s a couple of phone numbers I need the Chevy dealer and your in-laws. The Dodge dealer, your in-laws, the Ford dealer. You’re in-Laws. My in-laws and the tow truck. And John and Chris to sell ’em to. That’s right, John. Hey.
00:02:11:18 –> 00:03:22:16
The best trucks I’ve gotta provide them the best vehicles they’ve ever There’s that ever had quote, the best truck I’ve ever had. So anyway, pretty awesome. Bronson’s. I I’ve had a run of tough luck, but I, I’ve willingly hunted specific bucks that are not huntable. Not killable. Yeah. So, you know, let’s just call it what it’s whatever. But anyway, it’s been tough. Everybody out here, how many calls have we had today? Hot. Dry. Hot. Dry. Tell me where to go. What to do. So hot. Some of this hot here in southern Utah. Yeah. Brutal. For late October. Moving into late October. It’s kind of unprecedented. And I said that about September and it, it was unprecedented. We said that about August, remember in the archery season. How about some units being closed in Colorado for October? Think about that. Yeah. October due to wildfires. Yeah. Unit 18, 28. Parts of 28, 8. I mean, it’s, it’s looking rough, huh? Yeah. Do you remember that? Ever, ever in history? No, not for this. Late in the year. Usually they’re out. It’s rough. It’s, I mean, I, the good thing is the economy’s being boosted a little because people are buying air filters for their vehicles, I guess. So. The dust is unbelievable. Have you ever seen anything like it? No. No. I, I went out shooting no, last night and it’s just two inches of powder. I did too.
00:03:22:22 –> 00:04:35:03
I shot my gun in today at Ashley’s, we’ve been working on Ashley getting, getting a deer killed for her. And it might or might not have got bumped slightly. And so I had to make sure do a little zero check. And the same thing, Chris, I, I, I laid down, so I laid down a little, some coveralls and then I laid down one of my own shirts in the backseat of the truck. I laid it down so the muzzle blast wouldn’t blast me with dust. Fine dust. Yeah. It’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. Alright. Well anyway, Bronson, you freaking weathered the storm. You, you, yeah, I tested You tried to become amphibious, went up there and weathered the rain. Yeah, well, started last February when I drew a tag for mountain goat. I’d killed a mountain goat in Montana 17 years ago. And for me, mountain goats or mountain lions or maybe a big moose like we talked about with Wyatt and Devon, maybe one or two kill, kill a really big one. Call it a day. Yeah. And, and I killed, I just killed a, a goat. He’s like nine and a half, but not super heavy. You’re talking the Montana one? Yeah, that was just, I was, I don’t 29 or something back in the day. Seems like there was a few grizzlies on that trip. Yeah, well we saw some, some sign.
00:04:35:03 –> 00:05:45:11
But anyway, so I, I just hadn’t been too aggressive applying for mountain goats anywhere. In fact, I waited my seven years and started put back in Montana and that’s the only state I even put in for, just ’cause. But, but the last few years, I’m not even gonna act like I, I earned this the, the hard way. Alaska doesn’t have a point system for their species for, you know, but I applied for sheep off and on when I could, when, you know, now they have a four year wait if you go kill a sheep, so you can’t apply then. But anyway, applied and drew Southeast Alaska has three, three zones that are literally as good as they are anyway. And it partly because they have mild winters, you know, you got from sea level to 3000 feet and that’s it. You’re not gonna have a brutal wi winter on these goats. And so they have a longer period of year where they could actually eat something that could grow horns. Yeah. Instead of bark or whatever they live on in BC or other places. So that’s part of it. I mean, I learned a lot while I was up there. But anyway, I drew a tag for Reveal Island and it’s a great great go hunt. I went up there and, and obviously you gotta have to go guide it. I don’t have a family member that lives in Alaska.
00:05:45:16 –> 00:06:50:18
So he used the Primo Expeditions crew and Ed Trivial and guides Hank Flatto, which we had on the podcast last month. He also guides for Dan Montgomery for DOL Sheep and the Chew got as well as another guy, Marvin McLeod, who lives there on the island that’s killed a couple giants. He’s got the number six in the world. He killed a handful of years or 50 Sixers. I mean, just goats that are stupid. It’s just the weather too. Don’t you think it’s just weather long growing season, per se Se I mean, of it’s just very well more mild maybe year round. I don’t know. Yeah, and they talk about on the island, they don’t get real snow in town till January, even though, I mean, that’s on the coast. That’s at sea level. Yeah, but I mean yeah, you’re, you got 3000 feet and, and it rains a lot. It’s like interior Alaska. They, it’s just not, it’s a little warmers. It’s, you know, you can’t call it a banana belt, but, but from a goat perspective, yeah. They just don’t get the brutal snow that 10, 15 feet. Yeah. And it lasts till July and they can barely start getting out of it. It’s not like that. And kinda like what we talk about with deserts in Utah where it gets cold enough, there’s a, there’s a Yeah. Stop growing period.
00:06:50:18 –> 00:08:03:16
Whereas Arizona, we’ll, where Nevada we’re down there and there’s, you got lus green, six inches of green grass, that’s in January, February, it rains and gets warm and they, they’re growing horn there in Utah are just trying to survive. That’s right. The same, same principle. Same principle. You get more time to grow. And granted you’re talking about a nine or a 10 or, or 11, 11. Now that’s next level. And that’s my point. But, but, but you’re, you’re talking I agree. Normally you would say, well, you know, what’s the difference between an eight, seven, eights and nine and three quarters or something like that? Or, or six eights, eight. But here you’re talking 11 and what was yours, 11 and 11 and two eights. Like that’s by 11 and one’s significant both are over. Even a, even a milder guy could tell the difference. Well it go, we’ve say, we joke around this a lot that we can get sidetracked around here talking about antelope caribou spikes, which Jeff’s gone so we don’t get too worked up about caribou. But for one season we did. Yeah. Co co deer coups stuff that’s not on backyard stuff. Yeah. Stuff that’s not really your like passion or what. We don’t grow up punting. You can get excited about anything if it’s big. Anything, you know, big bears, you know, big black bears. Even I got on a brown bear kick for about two years. Okay. I’m done. Yeah.
00:08:04:06 –> 00:09:18:10
So I mean, anyway, so I drew the tag and I’m like, well, you know, I you never expect the odds are one in a hundred. I mean, they’re, they’re bad and you do have to play with an outfitter. They’re worse than that. Yeah. Which you can call us both for the Alaska sheep draw, the goat draw if you need a recommendation of who to, who to contact about applying with. But anyway, the, the islands here have the word jungle and rainforest is the only thing you can describe. And if for any of you that have been on Prince of Wells or Illa or some of those southeast Alaska islands and you’re at sea level and you try to just start walking to, to timberline from the ocean level, you’re, you’re in for a root awakening. It’s when you’re not on a trail, it it’s, it’s almost impossible. It’s so thick. They get 150 to 200 is I think two hundred’s. The max inches of rain. Of rain a year. Inches. Okay. Max on the scale. Max on the scale, right? Yeah. 200. 200. Yeah. But their average is 1 61 75. Well, we could use about 5% of that right now. Okay. Down here. Yeah. Well, and I flew home, I flew, ended up routing through Las Vegas. So I leave there that morning. Never, never. I was in my, you know, the, the temperatures were from 35 to 45 daylight tall, dark all day every day.
00:09:18:10 –> 00:10:28:09
Never all night. No fluctuation should be on that. It, it, it freeze. The last night must’ve got cold. The next, our tent was just iced up. All the droplets of rain were all ice. It was probably 30, 29, 30. Not bitter, but, but cold. You fly into Vegas 97, October, you probably took off your 13 two. You ran her. Oh, I, I was sweating. And then I’m driving home and I’m fighting with my wife, which on the ac because I’m wanting it on cranked. And she’s like, you know, do you guys have it like a he and she over there like the dual is luckily, but, but I was just thinking about the contrast of the Mojave Desert. Yeah. And how many days they haven’t had rain down there. 200. I mean they probably, what is this year’s Gotta be single six. There’s one little storm that came through Cedar, but hasn’t it been around 200 and something days? Like I, I don’t know if you’re talking about four to seven inches. I don’t know what they’ve had in Vegas. I don’t know. Well, but, but let’s just call it under, if you count January, it’s been decent. But starting March, it hasn’t not been decent. So you’re talking about you go from there, you land in six, seven hours and you’re in the whole USA Yeah. The most start contrasting climates. Yeah.
00:10:28:09 –> 00:11:31:28
But anyway, we started out hunting some goats that were, I don’t wanna really call ’em fringe because anywhere there’s cliffs and, and, and bluffs and all that is goats country. But there’s, there’s also a core of the unit that I drew that almost all of it looks like goat country. And then where we started, which they had seen a couple of big goats with an earlier hunter that got away from ’em. And now I know why they got away from ’em because they were using a bow and I had a rifle and I still, you couldn’t, couldn’t win. I still couldn’t win. Couldn’t. Well you did, you ended up winning. But not on those two goats. That’s right. That’s right. Not on those goats. So I tapped, we tapped out. Yeah. We, we, those, those goats you’d, you’d hike you, you’d see ’em from a long way. How big, how was he thinking? We think one of them was as big. I still think it maybe was a little bit bigger than one I shot. I really do. But the other one had the biggest body I’ve ever seen on a goat. Maybe the horns weren’t as big, I don’t know. But it was still a 10, 10 and a half inch goat. But the body was giant. The problem is they have these little muskeg clearings, you can’t even call ’em flats. You can’t even call anything.
00:11:31:28 –> 00:12:37:03
And the goats will come off just a rock bluff and walk 50 yards onto a little bench just to basically, I think, see, see around them. It’s like an acre, you know, op opening and they’re at 1500. Otherwise they aren’t looking around. They’re in 15, they’re thick thick, they’re in 1500 feet elevation. And you’re at 3000 looking down with nothing but timber from about, you know, 2,500 or for the last thousand feet. And you, you feel helpless. How do you get down there? And these, these forests are, they got the cedars, the hemlock. I mean the trees are, they might as well be redwoods when we’re from southern Utah. We don’t even have trees here compared to what they got growing there. They go forever. I don’t even know how high they can get, but geez, it’s unbelievable. So, and then you got the ferns and everything else. And so you’re just, there’s, you’re at the mercy. There’s white animals in there somewhere. Yep. And the first day was the, a sunny day and we had this goat bedded at five 50 straight away on a ridge top. And I’m like, this is the biggest goat I’ve ever seen in my life guys. And they’re like, that’s, it’s actually a pretty good goat, but do you wanna look around? I says, I’m not one of those guys.
00:12:37:04 –> 00:13:40:12
If it’s a shooter goat and it’s the first day and I can get out of the rainforest, I’ll, I’ll shoot it. I’m, I don’t, that’s what I’m here for. We are here to shoot that. Yeah. That’s all I, you know, I’m not, I don’t need to have an experience Okay. Necessarily. Right, right. I can come back with a vacation just to see this place. I’m coming for that. It looks giant. You tell me if I’m wrong. Well, we waited for two hours. The problem with this is if is, is if you’re gonna have one shot. And for a lot of you guys that may be hunting mountain goats and these goats, they’re not only big horns, but they’re big body here again, because they have a bigger growing season. So I took the six five, my MOA little Sheila, we’ve talked about her many times. Okay. It’s a great gun. I took it up there because it’s a backpack hunt and you want a light gun right at this point on my hunt. I wish I had my 300 rum on at this point because I’m like, I need to anchor one now. I don’t, I don’t want it. ’cause with a six five, you’re gonna put it behind the shoulder. You’re not gonna try to just get cute and high shoulder him. ’cause if it doesn’t work, he’s just, you’re not gonna get a follow up shot.
00:13:40:18 –> 00:14:49:16
’cause one step in the trees and it’s enveloped. So I, I just decided, all right, if he feeds over the ridge, we’ll we’ll regroup, we’ll get over there. So he fed over the ridge and we set up on the other, we hiked an hour set up on the other side of the ridge and never saw him the rest of the day and never saw that goat again. He just went in the timber and never came out. So the next goat we saw 650 or something like that was as close as we could get before you have to just plunge into a sea of trees and think you’re gonna find an opening down there, which turns out you’re not gonna, is it possible not gonna happen. We tried it the next night. That’s how I know it’s not possible. We, we, we decided to let him just be, we backed out the next day. We got in there like two, three in the afternoon and snuck down there 250 yards from that little spot. Literally an acre, you know, of clearing that. You’re thinking, all right, comes out there he is dead and wait till dark and now it’s dark and you’re, you’ve lost all your elevation. You gotta go up 1500 feet down a thousand. The other side in the pitch black. And so we just hiked out to, to a road bush, whacking jungle. They had a quasi trail cut and Yeah called, called Ed.
00:14:49:18 –> 00:15:48:11
He, he’d be us up there. Went back to town, slept the next morning, had to drive the trailhead and hike all the way back in and get our tent. ’cause I, this is day five or six and we played the game and it’s not going our way. And I’m like, half the hunt’s over and now the rain and snow’s coming, you know, so it’s like, it’s later in the year. Oh it’s, yeah, mid October. And I’d waited. ’cause you know, I’d always said I wanna kill a bigger goat horn wise. But you want hair too. You obligations want you’re guiding. Yeah. And you, that’s that, that’s half you want, you want, you want hair or more. And, but you run that risk. ’cause September it was so hot, you know, 70 degrees every day and no sun. That was the other part of the problem. Those goats were in the timber to get out of the heat. I mean they got video of goats laying out there panting like dogs. They showed me when I was up there ’cause it was so hot. And they’re just, you know, they’re, they look like a dog out there, 70 something degrees mid-September. And they’re pairing up. They didn’t like it. So they had a hard hunt then. So you can’t ever guess perfectly. So we, we elected, we moved our camp out, we elected to get, get moved.
00:15:48:11 –> 00:16:52:05
We got got, we moved into a different part of the unit, which was what I guess I would classify as all goat looking country. And we, there were goats everywhere. They right from when we got there, there were goats all over the place. Nannies and kids. It was like obviously so were you first went the sometimes low densities, they low sometimes we do that here thinking you’re gonna get a little bigger deer, bigger elk, whatever. Sheep. Yeah. Now and that’s that maybe what you felt like a little bit on the first go round. Well it’s a little bit of a, like they’d kill, they’ve killed 56 inches off this mountain. 56 and a half. And of where there’s low densities where I went. Yeah. That exact spot. And, and is that the reason why like Billy, but they’ve seen a couple of them too. Okay. And there’s, there’s probably hunters there, but it’s just, they play that game. You see, it’s not like you just hunt a goat every day. Some days you wouldn’t even see a Billy. Yeah. Like it’s not normal goat hunter. Yeah. So it’d be like a resident that could, that has a month and a half goes, goes from August 15th to December 31st and you just play the weather. Oh, I’ve got four days of good weather. I’m gonna kill now I’m gonna kill a 56th here if I can judge it. Right. I’m, and I’m gonna, that’s hunt this area.
00:16:52:12 –> 00:17:51:11
And you mentioned that. And that’s, that’s a big part. I I, I’ve hunt a goats once in my life. You why you killed one, one. I mean, you tell, you don’t, yeah, you tell both of us. You don’t, we don’t hunt goats and we don’t judge goats. We don’t. Somebody asked me if I’m still gaining points and I am, but I don’t know why. So you, you, in this instance, in a place like this, it definitely takes a trained eye to know what you’re looking at. And I learned a lot there that I’ll probably personally never have to use or get to use again. ’cause I don’t know that I’ll ever hunt goats again. I, I don’t know why I would necessarily, I mean, not that I didn’t have a great time, but I So you went to the core area? Yeah. Goats everywhere. You find a great, they’ve been there in September and it was void. They, they, they, there’s a pack of wolves right there. In fact they howl them in. They called them right into their laps just for fun. Bow hunter. Well you were float plane into this new place, right? Yeah, I got flown into this, this spot. And so, you know, you get flow late in the afternoon, you’re just setting up a tent and you’re just looking at goats. The weather’s coming in.
00:17:51:21 –> 00:18:56:13
So the next morning we can start hunting and we, we saw goats right outta the GetGo. I mean, by nine o’clock in the morning, I’d passed up five Billys that were wow. You know, 48 to 50 inch or like Boer type goats. I mean good goats nice, but but not old and not what you’re there for. And the rain started coming in. Which that’s just another thing. If you hunt southeast Alaska, you need a lot of layers. You gotta have a dry bag with extra base layers in there. Whether it be long underwear, you know, Marino type top like q you like I wore, you’re gonna need it. You, you just, and even when you wear rain gear all day long, you know, it’s rolling down your cuffs. I mean you’re getting it on and off ’cause you’re hiking. It’s just, you get damp and wet and then you’re sweating. You know, walking in rain gear isn’t like walking in Yeah. Your other stuff. No. So you need something to change out of. So you go through a lot of layers and, and you gotta have great gear. But by noon or something, we’re, we’re now up at 3000 working ridge lines and we’re running into Billy’s at 50 to 75 yards. And that’s all you can see. I come over this ridge and there’s one batted right there. And it looks like a freight train to me.
00:18:56:22 –> 00:19:58:01
You pull up your bins at 75 yards and I don’t know what I’m looking at, you know, and, and I get the gun off my pack and I’m down. I’m on the bipo and I’m just, it’s kind of the first time probably in my life I’ve ever looked to someone else tell me, should I shoot this? Yeah. I can’t think of another time. You’re like the clients you take for sheep and you’re saying, and you tell them, well I can’t make, I don’t wanna make the decision for you ’cause I want you to be happy. Yeah. But I don’t, what’re looking. I don’t what I’m looking at what, and it’s honestly, I probably think it’s the first time that I can think of. ’cause even on a doll sheep hunt, you have an opinion. They’re thin horns, but they’re, they’re still sheep. And, and I’ve seen enough pictures and, and you can judge 160 or seven inches a big goat’s 50. I mean there’s just the mar the percentages are so small on what makes a a 48 to 50 to 52 to 54. It’s so small. So if I said no, I think he’s, you know, 50, 51 maybe, maybe 52, I don’t know. But it’s right there. And I’m like, all right, I’m not gonna shoot him up. That’s not, that’s not the reaction I want it. So let’s go.
00:19:59:08 –> 00:20:53:00
And we decided if we just keep hiking these ridges, we’re gonna blow this whole mountain off in the fog and when it, if it clears in a day or two, we’re gonna have a ruined mountain. So we decided to actually start going back to camp and getting a little bit lower. And as we started doing that, it broke up a little bit and we looked over, we saw, saw a nanny batted on this ridge and, and the ridge was going straight away from us. And so we kind of looped around to get a perpendicular look at it. And Hank went, my guide, he, he was about 200 yard, he went out there, 200 yard ahead of us. He waves us down to get down there and there’s, there’s two bullies. So we start looking at them where we’re getting the scope out, we pull up and there’s three and, and they look like that’s a pretty big goat. And I look and I’m like, yeah, that reminds me of the very first goat we saw here. That looks big. And this is, this is the night of day seven of a 10 day hunt. And I mean, you never know when you’re gonna spend the next 24 to 48 hours in a tent in a 10 up there. Either. You just don’t know you’re That’s right.
00:20:53:03 –> 00:21:56:23
You’re one rainstorm from, from that and it’s getting late in the day and just the nanny was on the ridge above them and so there’s no way to get on their ridge and get down to ’em and shoot ’em at 150 yards without blowing her out. So I just said, well let’s just see what they do. See if they filled, they were 550 something yards. And I says, if they stay where they’re at, it’s might be tomorrow or we’re gonna have to just look what this wind does and fog and maybe this is it. But they actually fed down the mountain to 475, 480 yards. But you don’t care. The gun’s capable. Yeah. You know, it does. And speaking of, you said something about Ashley’s gun I’d fallen one day hard. This this mountains are, the mountains just ooze water up here. It’s like big gran or whatever with a little bit of soil and then a lot of moss and slick over that. It’s, that’s the mountains. And so I, they wear spikes. They call ’em cork boots. That’s basically looks like the old fashioned golf shoes where you had metal spikes, but it’s on the bottom of mountain mounting boots. And, and I, I dunno, either I didn’t ask enough questions or Ed just thought, oh Adam will be fine. He doesn’t need ’em. But I wish I had a pair of those. I didn’t have ’em.
00:21:57:08 –> 00:22:52:27
But I, I went down one once really hard on my gun so much. I was pulling moss and stuff off of my both elevation and windage turrets. It was just slammed in there. And I’m pulling out vegetation out of my zes V six. There was, you’re thinking I need to be within 30, 40 yards. No, they, they thought about, no, but you’re on a hunt and you’re on your mountain and you’re like, do you shoot ever? And we just never did. And I’m like, you just gotta trust a gun until you don’t trust the gun. And that means spot for me. And if I’m off then I don’t trust it anymore. I don’t trust it. But you just gotta trust it. But wild. Yeah. You just gotta trust it. So anyway, I got the bipod laid out, getting dark, got my pack up underneath it and you know, one of the guides is like, are you sure about this? ’cause we can wait until tomorrow. And I’m like, this gun will freaking do it. I’ve, I’ve done it, you know, talked about the shooting school. It’ll do it as you just gotta trust it and boom, first shot. And they said you hit him perfect. And I put an all and he said same spot.
00:22:53:03 –> 00:24:00:00
And then he, he just kind of kept walking and then he never stopped the third shot and I put another one right, right in his punch and it came out his neck up here. It was quartering away. Goodness. He stopped and tipped over and they’re like, wow. They said anyway, the first two were like two inches apart, just perfect. Jeez. It’s fun to have gear perform like that and to have the, the six sour range finder in MOA. That’s right. 6.6 or something M ways is what what dial just takes all the guesswork out of it and you’re up there dealing with sea level and moist air, like just things that we don’t even encounter down here. But the six sour takes into account. Yeah. If you had a regular yardage turt and all you just shot was a eng angle com side yard compensated yardage, you can have some factors. I’m not saying I would’ve missed entirely, but this just makes you adds more precision. Tightens up, tightens up all the variables. Yeah. So it was pretty neat. It was pretty cool. That’s MOA rifle, right? Yeah. Yep. They’re a little ascent mountain rifle and yeah, it’s great. Great. So anyway, by the time we got there, I dunno if anybody, the ravens there. Wyatt, I think you said this, the Ravens in Alaska. I don’t know what they feed ’em up there. Beat you. Do kills. They are.
00:24:00:13 –> 00:25:09:22
Oh, they feel like they’re two feet tall. They’re giant. Did you notice that Raven slash Owl or Eagles? I don’t know if they breed with Eagles out there. No, come on. They’re huge. And they have a vocabulary Yeah. That I’ve never heard. Really? I heard somebody one day and I’m like, somebody’s yelling up here and they start letting my two guy and like, what do you mean? I says, listen, someone’s yelling. I say, that’s a raven. I’m like, what? I’ve been around Ravens my whole life and they don’t make that noise. That’s how I fell up there too. Did you? Yeah. Could hear all these different, different noises they’re making. What is that? And they’ll fly over and they’ll land in the tree and it’s like they’re talking, they’re literally talking and, and one of the guides says they actually will catch baby ravens and teach ’em how to talk like parrots. I’m like up there I think, don’t they have to split their tongue or something? I dunno. Seriously, I seriously Google that, Chris. It’s true. Call Jack Hannah or whatever that that goes on. Dave Letterman got figured out. But anyway, by the time we walked that 480 yards and it’s steep so it probably took us 10 minutes. We, we get there and it’s getting dark. I come around the ridge and I see my goat laying there right where I left it except it’s whole side of its face is bloody.
00:25:10:09 –> 00:26:10:13
And and I’m like, did I shoot it in the freaking head the third time? And they’re like, no, no, no, no. And they’re, they’re getting quiet. I’m like, did he roll? It’s on no rocks, it’s on vegetation. I’m like, did you know you see ’em break their horn off sometimes? Yeah. Be no a raven had beat us there and pecked his eyeball out and ate the whole eye. Sock it out. Oh geez. And, and, and I and I was scared to flip the other side. ’cause what if you have both of them gone and now you gotta take your keel pick. Yeah. No eyes. I would’ve had to send a picture to John. Oh John would’ve fixed it and say fix that before I could show it. Oh, John fixes our eyes. So yeah, he had beat me there, picked out the eye and apparently they’re like, oh it happens up here LA I’m like, I’ve killed hundreds of animals in the Lord 48 and never had that happen. Chris, these things are on, these are like, they’re steroids. They’re steroids, steroid steroids. Can can you, can you teach ’em to speak Chris? No. It says Ravens can talk. There’s one at the zoo in Clovis, New Mexico that talks. There you go. Wow. There you go. Do you have to split the tongue with a don’t I don’t pli don’t think you gotta Google it. Don’t see anything.
00:26:10:13 –> 00:27:21:19
You google it because it probably helps them learn Spanish or something. Animal cruelty. People gonna be all over. I don’t dunno. That’s not far off. They would, they make some word noises. But anyway we had to ah, here you go. Says and no, this is fact and fiction and No, you don’t have to split his tongue. There you go. Somebody else asked it. Somebody else asked. The only first that I thought. So anyway, long story, we’ll we’ll kind of wrap this up ’cause we wanna get to Wyatt’s Moose Hunt. He had another one here in Utah. But Watt’s, it was getting dark and you know, you don’t, I I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dark at night goat picture, but it, that just doesn’t seem like it would be a good picture. No, no. So now you’re, you’re you’re in bear country Black bears. So you’re just wondering what do I do? Do we gut it? Do we do nothing Am back. I black and it’s gonna have one little white Tuf defer hair and it and it’s trophy couple of black corn. It’s a trophy. It’s 11 and two eighths. It’s a Boone and Crockett Billy. Yeah. Hair is like six, eight inches. But so we put one of our tent covers, you know that covers your, no sorry, your pack covers. Wrap that around the body and cut.
00:27:21:26 –> 00:28:19:07
Cut a bunch of pine brows and it’s just heaped all the way over that thing just to keep the birds off all that. If you gut it. They said that’s the worst thing. I thought. Yeah, I agree. You don’t want guts? No. You know, no. You know, went back next morning we woke, we hiked back to camp. Was there daylight the next day? Pretty much no problem, no problem. Uncovered it. Took the pictures, the sun kind of poked out, looked good and, and then packed it back to camp and started the journey out and had a couple days getting out ’cause we couldn’t get picked up. ’cause of weather. Had a long packed out tenderloin. Yeah. Any of that? No, no we didn’t do that. No. Can’t we start a fire? Probably. Really. I mean you’re basically gonna, you can’t, I joked about it the whole time. So you, I’m cold. Why do you guys do would just carry anything for fire up here? I had a, I had a can, a pyro putty. I took it up there. Would it work? And when we got, where did we get during that trip? We got to the, the midway point. That night we hiked till dark. We still had seven or eight miles to go out and we’re gonna get there.
00:28:19:16 –> 00:29:22:23
So we tried to, we had all the brush up there and I took a whole can of the little cans and I let the whole can You’re not supposed to do that ’cause you’re supposed to just little pinch. We had put the whole thing. I’m like, you’re gonna need to use all that. Yeah. And it burned until that one out and then the sticks went out. So however long that worked. Like, and it had been raining for three, four days and they actually say that it’s, you’re better off breaking green branches and trying to burn that. ’cause it doesn’t absorb it as much as the dead. The dead stuff just soaks up. Yeah, it’s like sponge. And so yeah, that’d break off live pine branches and it’s, which would have sap instead of just water it water has the resins and stuff and it would pop and crackles. Start and dry stuff and would just have water. Yeah, that makes sense. Jeez. So we’re learning stuff left and right. Different all sorts of lessons. Different. Well let’s have a lesson on Shiraz. Yeah, well that’s not Shiraz. Well the hunt started out like, I think most hunts across the west right now. Hot and dry and terrible kind of. Yeah. Terrible. Not, not moving. We ended up hunting, shoot 10, 11 days. It was a shirou moose tag. My dad had drawn here in Utah, drawn a random permit and got pretty lucky. That’s awesome.
00:29:23:03 –> 00:30:25:28
And fortunately you just brushed up your moose hunting skills. Devon. Which was what? Sit and wait. Sit and wait. Sit and wait. Sit and wait, wait. Yeah. So how’d we use that in Utah? Well, here in Utah I can actually make something happen. I can bounce points and that’s, that’s why I like the lower 40. It’s tough. Sitting and waiting. Tough. I could try to try to at least change my luck here, here. So it worked out that way. I was wondering if you used your raking skills. No, I didn’t actually use my ranking skills. Ranking skills. Didn’t even use any of your loose hunting skills. I tried my calling skills. Aww, did you, did you? Well the problem is he’s gonna rake like Alaskan Yukon and every Shiro is gonna run the other direction because they don’t rake much here. Huh? Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve I’ve never heard of people raking ’em in here, but maybe I know a lot of people cow call ’em in and do calling mostly rose up. Does everybody know that we’re saying Shiro on pur on purpose? We’re instead of shiru you probably should say we’re just teasing. We just, it’s an inside joke. Alright, keep going. But no, it was like I said, pretty, pretty tough. And then, you know, it was once October kind of rolled around, they started thinking about rutting. We definitely started seeing more, more and more activity. More moose.
00:30:25:28 –> 00:31:21:15
And what does that mean, Wyatt? One a day, two a day. There was a point when I saw six bulls one day, so Wow. So it’s, so that’s good. That’s double, I guess not double what we saw in Alaska. We ended up seeing six total moose in Alaska. So in one day, six total. I saw total cows cals in the 14 days in Alaska days. Wow. But you saw no cows in Alaska saw zero cows in Alaska. It was all bulls. Crazy. Every, every moose we saw in good thing they weren’t rutting. If they’d have been Rutten you wouldn’t have seen any bulls. Yeah. ’cause there was no cows. Yeah, that’s well they were on the way to leave. Yeah, that’s what they were doing. Was going crossing the river to, to find the cows. Yeah. I need to listen to that podcast. Tell however, explain she’s, I wasn’t here and I, I’ve got a lot of catching up here. It’s been a while since we’ve been in the office together. For sure. You need to read up on, you need to listen up on what the starfish technique is. Yeah, what is that? Just, just, just listen to the podcast. Yeah. You’re gonna have to ask Archibald about the starfish technique. Listen, listen to the podcast. Well there was one, I guess Devon ate some candy. The last candy. You guys had a deal. You ate one little something a day. Yes. Oreo.
00:31:21:27 –> 00:32:25:29
Yeah, we we did have some Oreos and, and somebody dove in and ate one without asking the other. And about split your relationship. Yeah, Devon was sneaky Oreos. It didn’t about split the, the rations. He was stealing rations. Okay. But I saw it happening that, that and just had to call him out. Just ’cause Well a hundred percent. Yeah. Like I can’t believe you guys still talk to this day. Yeah, that is rough when you’re in Alaska. Those are fighting words. Rationale. They were our celebration Oreos. You know who, once he killed the, the mo and he celebrated on his own without celebrating with you or, or without permission or without actually killing anything. I mean it was, he’s just celebrating a day of life. Just celebrating. We made it another day. Why? Why? You’re not gonna let you tell me what I can and can’t celebrate in my life. Alright, Kate. No it wasn’t. So we saw six bulls. Yeah, that’s nothing special. Started getting a little bit better. Then I had a good buddy gimme a call. Give us a tip on a, on a moose he had just seen in an area. Ended up getting in there, getting my dad up there. Actually hunted up pretty hard that night. Didn’t work out for us the next morning. Meaning you didn’t see it? Didn’t see it. Yeah, we didn’t see it. We didn’t, didn’t ever pick up the moose.
00:32:26:00 –> 00:33:22:24
And next morning we roll up there and get on the glass and point and the moose is only a hundred yards from where the kid had seen it the day before. Geez. And I just, I just don’t know how we missed it. It must’ve just not stood up fat out. But you, you must not have had a set of NL Pierce. Yeah, it must’ve been just the, the el ranges and glass isn’t clear enough. Not all grass is created equal. Yeah, exactly. So there, there were isn’t as big as a barn, but hey glassed it up there at gray light and let it get a little bit light on us. And he put three shots in it at 515 yards. And Wow. That was the end of our, that was it. Shira heart. You’re back to packing moose. Yeah, back to packing mo the nightmares, you’re walking that 515 yards like it’s me and your dad. And your dad’s, I don’t know, 65, 70, I dunno. Yes, he’s 65. And so you’re just thinking, I I’m gonna carry bulk of this outta here. Yeah. I’m thinking it’s Tuesday. Who, which one of my buddies has a Tuesday off that would be able to come up here but only be epic outdoors. Help me with this. Adam’s in Alaska. He’s got, I don’t know where I’m at.
00:33:22:25 –> 00:34:27:17
When I got over to it, I was relieved to see that it wasn’t near as close to the size of those Alaska Yukon bulls. Okay. Yeah. And then, then it was, okay. So we ended up getting most loads off. Just me and him packing ’em off and back to the truck. It was only 250 yards to get back to the side, side downhill. How about that? Above the road or below? Below above the road. So about a perfect shi of scale. I think you learned. Oh yeah. You learned, you learned something. You and I had that up there and I don’t know. Yeah, it was a downhill pack, but I felt like, dude, we were kind of in great shape. How old were we then? 2000. 2008. Yeah. So 2012. Is that 12 years? 32. 30, 34 something. Okay. Plus or minus, just say prime from 21 to 34 is prime. I mean, I could lift some weight and I’m just saying that moose felt monumental, right? We had the bone in bone in quarters. Yeah. A because we weren’t that far. We didn’t wanna bone it. We’re like, and it stays cleaner when you just keep it in a quarter, you know, so we just took it. But it sucked. Yeah. It was wet and nasty and there’s no November’s problem. Why? It’s doing two or three of these acting like it’s no big deal.
00:34:28:03 –> 00:35:34:09
The good thing is, is we have now anybody that’s killed like three moose within a 10 day period or two week period. Period. No, he’s an expert. He’s an expert. So any calls we get, Wyatt, you’re the guy for moose. I guess Jason’s the anal guy’s. The moose guy. I have not killed him, dude. That’s the difference. Hey, let’s, let’s touch on that. We end, I’ve not killed him. Before we end people want to know, dude, have you, I only, dude, I’m not shooting 11 your ass Chris. I’m not shooting 11 inch. We hunted em. And by the way, I’ve had calls and people say overall it is the quality is down in those areas. Oh, way down. I’m just telling you, you had some access air issues. Four service on road dude road left right on the road. Closures not only that, we can blame everything everyth, but you are everything deer in your defense, you’re hunting deer with a, with an antelope kicker in two states. Okay. Just to add. And most people think that I’m hunting an antelope with a milder kicker, but I’m not, I’m not an antelope gu guru. And I don’t even want to be. And Chris, we, we hunt a deer morning and night heavy, gave antelope an hour and a half each day. Midday. No. When you needed to go get a Pepsi. Well, yeah. And the Pepsi took precedence, but we did.
00:35:34:19 –> 00:36:47:05
How many 11 inches did we see? We saw a lot of antelope from, but just, okay, now here’s another, another. Interesting. You actually got video of one chasing the truck. Yes. Literal. Oh, literal. Ask Chris. Chris. It was truck chasing parallel in us. That’s it. And, and going as hard to beat up and trying to beat you to the one gap that they, well there was a cattle guard coming up and I just couldn’t do it. I thought what if, what ifs? I’m gonna have to tag this thing. It’s gonna decapitate itself, you know, jumping through that. And it wasn’t, we were just teasing a little. It was sad. It was crazy. But having said all this and, and this is my point about hot weather and all of these things, whether it, whether it’s huge. You don’t even know how the water, when people settled the west, the private land became the springs became private. Yeah. That’s where you could raise. Yeah. Family, beef, beef, everything, whatever. Right. So out there, all the water was on private and all the antelope needed water. And that’s the way it was. Randy. And we called a guy. Yeah. Well we called a guy, we called the guy about deer and he’s like, yeah, you can book a deer hunt. Deer hunts are six grand for three days. Elk hunts are eight grand for three days. What about animals? And no, we didn’t even go there.
00:36:47:12 –> 00:37:57:29
We didn’t go there. And they own a lot of property. Yeah. But it was just like, you know, and we wouldn’t a they just didn’t want a guided hunt anyway, but in this particular area. So anyway, long story short, I’m not tagging 11 inch, I’m not doing it. Or 12 or 13. So look forward on, on a, on a live video feed of one of the next upcoming podcast partner’s. Gonna, Carter is gonna literally eat his antelope tags. No, I’m not, not, no I’m not. Because that would be constipated. We could make tag soup though. Tag soup. Let’s do it. Oh geez. Video that. So anyway, hot weather antelope around the private, a lot of road closures. Just a lot of, there was a lot of factors and, and I feel I did not put effort. Like I would’ve, I feel a little bad that we put pressure on you to burn your antelope points when you probably didn’t really want to. You’re saving me money. I should pay you for putting pressure on me to get rid of them. Yes. To be. I don’t have to be, I don’t like the $3 and 18 cents. It’s not, I don’t have to deal with that anymore. This is Colorado. Colorado antelope. Nonetheless. Well even they take double digits to draw anything legitimate. Wyoming and Wyoming, the whole place is on fire.
00:37:58:04 –> 00:39:09:10
And tell me I’m wrong, how many boomers did we feel like we saw when we were up there last year? It was solid. I mean we saw at least a dozen probably. It was dumb this year. Not even Chris. It was terrible. It’s the worst antelope punt I’ve ever been on in the Western United States from one year to the next. It was that bad. It’s crazy. Well, they had a pretty decent winter had there, I don’t know, maybe they tipped away. I dunno. Or the smoke and fire engines and whoever else. Well, it it, the fires I believe still going. It’s gonna knock some people out up here. I mean, you know, outta luck. So anyway, whatever. It doesn’t matter. We’re gonna go back to what we know. Here’s another one last thing we should wrap up on. Are we done with the moon story? Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we ended in heroes, right? I’m a zero. You guys are heroes. Okay, so let’s talk about one more thing, Bronson, we talked about at lunch real quick. Part of the kill is obtaining the tag that other people want too. You want it, they want it. And you drew it and that’s the kill. It’s so exciting. It’s now you have the tag. Do you want it? Do you want 20 of ’em? 10 of ’em? Five of them? How many do you want? January 1st? You’re, you’re like a starved refugee.
00:39:09:20 –> 00:40:14:07
It’s, and you need every, you want every tag you see and the kill. You get the kill. Yeah. Yeah. I got this tag. I figured it out. I beat the odds. I’ve got this wie tag panel. We see 12 booters. I’m going back, I got this tag. But what I have the tag. I don’t want the tag anymore. Be careful. Yeah. That’s all I’m saying. If I had three deer tags, I guarantee you I’d have a big deer on the ground. Yeah. The downfall. I have eight of them stretch too thin. Right. You stretch too thin. Too many things going on. Tell me I’m wrong. Line elk. It’s final you and elk this year or That’s right. It’s a fine line about, we say it all the time though. Don’t be afraid of getting too many tags. But there is a limit. There is a, a limit getting too many tags. There is a limit. Most people we talked about, I don’t wanna draw too many tags, but they’re all putting in for units with three 70 plus bulls, one 90 plus deer. And you don’t get too many tags if that’s your strategy. Right, right. It’s, you maybe get one of those a year if you’re really lucky. But it’s all these slant. I’m finding an angle here or a system here or you know else. Well, and it’s worked. I’ve still some three eight bull on a weird units in New Mexico.
00:40:14:14 –> 00:41:23:04
There’s been some times it works. Yeah. And and you do feel like a hero. There’s nothing like it. That’s right. Okay. Most of the time it’s two solid weeks. The full entire season that you sat there that you didn’t plan on and now you gotta do it again 10 more times because of these times. And, and now you’re a week behind the hunt, you’re going to next because you spent too long on that one. And my best tag’s coming up and I’m sick. You’re burned of this place. Okay. Okay. So that’s just my point, Chris. I mean, and, and I’m getting really, I’m picky. You guys are picky, you know what I mean? I mean I’m, I’m watching 190 inch bucks or whatever and I, and I’ve killed a few so I’m like, you know what? I wanna see what I could really get. Maybe we can hold out and I hold out and I hold out and I go home with, with no dear. Right. No dear me. Yep. Tell me I’m wrong Chris is there. No, I feel bad even having Chris come and film. I’m just saying film Wyatt. He’s killing shiz everywhere. Moose dropping left and right. Bronson’s killing goats. Did you film yourself? Come on. Bits and pieces. Oh good. Expect a great YouTube episode coming up. Folks know, huh? Well and I had two guys there were with me that obviously just judge goats and grate.
00:41:23:04 –> 00:42:36:06
They could pack and they do everything but in the heat of it, it was time to kill the goat. And I said spot for me. Well they both spotted and one of ’em didn’t Phone scope it so I don’t have to kill Sean on, on film. Well anyway, lots of hunting left to do. We are freaking fired up and we’re learning a ton of stuff. It’s a tough year. Good luck to everybody else that’s heading, you know, coming up as early Kibab rifle in Arizona. A few noteworthy things. We’ve got second rifle deer coming up in Colorado. Third obviously is after that force. After that, hopefully the weather turns. It looks like it’s gonna turn this weekend. We’re excited. I mean there’s good things happening. It’s just overall feels like a little bit of a tough year. But you gotta keep going forward. That’s what we do. You keep after it. Want a little shout out to St. James Sporting properties. Super good guy. Of course many of you know we’re good friends. Adam and I have known him for years and years. I think you too, Wyatt. Anyway, he specializes in selling and buying, purchasing, trophy hunting and fishing properties. If, if you wanna sell one, if you wanna buy one, give him a call, he’ll hook you up. So anyway, Blaine Saint James 9 7 0 5 9 6 6 0 8 9. You can email him [email protected]. Super good guy. And he’s in the know. He’s a trophy hunter.
00:42:36:15 –> 00:43:38:17
If you tell him you want big meal deer, wait for that kind of ranch to come up. He’ll, he’s good chance he’ll find you one if it’s in your price range, he knows. We’ll see there’s a lot of ranches out there and with this kind of crazy money going on, who knows what, you know, you never know what you’re gonna find. There’s a lot of money out in the world right now. But if you need something he knows about it. That cover it. I think we did. We covered this stuff. We give a plug earlier why to pyro putty. But what you shout out the rest of Justin’s company there talked a little bit about pyro putty. I used a lot of that up there in Alaska too. Another cool tool that we use quite a bit here at the office and it’s always fun to get home after a weekend scouting trip or after a hunt and show each other the footage we took with our phone scope. Justin is designed a system to lock on, you know, to your phone and you can film through it, film through your spotting scope. It was pretty, pretty cool. We always take it with us anywhere. Chest in phone scope. You can reach out to [email protected] scope.com or (800) 790-4480. One thing funny about phone scope, it can be used for video and game.
00:43:38:25 –> 00:44:32:01
Okay, but Devin videoed a dude pointing a gun at him and trying to bully him out of the canyon. Did you see it? Yes, I did see that video. It was pretty cherish footage. Disturbing. Yes, disturbing. It was disturbing the guy’s mental. Yeah. Laid down on pro out ground. The rock ready prod out and pointed at Devin. And then you can see him verbalizing the, the F word probably three or four, five times a dozen times. Telling him to get out, get out, get out this gun and all He’s gun glassing on a ridge. He’s not right. He’s sitting in there glassing and he glasses the guy up and he’s freaking out and he lays down, prones out and gunning on him. Then he is got the gun in his lap and he’s, he’s amped up. Anyway. All right, appreciate y’all. We’re gonna try to podcast a little more often, but we just, we’ve been out a lot. It’s a time of year. Time to hunt. Hopefully y’all have some great hunts still to go. Send us your photos and stories, [email protected], we’d love to see ’em. All right, y’all keep killing.
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