You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until It’s Gone. Taking Advantage of Opportunities Before They Are Gone. Over the course of the last 20 and even 10 years we have watched some incredible hunting opportunities disappear. Many of these are things we took for granted like over the counter general season tags, low tag prices, statewide tags. The message of our podcast is to enjoy the things we still have because surely many of them will also go away. Everything changes and as the world changes, our hunting will also change. Enjoy what you have.
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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Wyoming General for the residents of Wyoming. Is that gonna be a forever thing? You just don’t know what you got until it’s gone. Idaho made the step this year to make the non-residents go to a draw. Anything to do with Western Big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson. We got the boys in here too. How you guys doing? Not bad. Good. Devon Al White Balls. Chris Peterson. John’s busy putting together the magazine for January. Who knows what he’s doing. We’re taking an hour break. He’s, he’s had, yeah, he’s had some things going on. He’s cranking hard. John works hours. I don’t know. He works midnight to 4:00 AM We work. He’s a am to 4:00 PM or 8:00 PM We’re morning dudes. Whatever those are called. Yeah. Early birds. I don’t know, but we just, the way sometimes we’re middle bird, Jason and I, and probably you and Devin and I too. I can get up early early and come to work. But when it gets in the winter, five, six, I’m, I’m done. Oh, that’s, John comes alive about then till about three in the morning and goes to bed. I, I just don’t operate that way. I was trying to go to bed at nine last night and that’s pretty regular. You guys. Are you guys nine o’clock yet?
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Because you, you’re married, but I don’t know if you’ve actually made the switch to what married dudes do. Yeah, I’m nine o’clock-ish. Nine 10. But Dylan, from what you’ve told us, he’s, he’s already been on a, the old man’s schedule before marriage, right? Yeah. I think we both kind of got on it for a little bit. We’re in the bachelor pad there, you know, not a lot going on. I mean, I pile on a bed at 8 30, 30. Who would tuck Who in when you guys were at the bed? Sleep. Who went to bed first? And the winter months are terrible. Right? When the daylight saving hits and it’s dark at six, it’s bad. And you, and then you think what you’re doing at eight o’clock in September. Oh, oh. You’re still gets dark. Even prime time. You’re just starting to get glass and get glassing light. It’s unbeliev. Last 30 minutes this year. Eight 30 rolls around. I’m bed down. Oh God. Nine o’clock tapped out. But we’re also coming in early, so, all right. Well it’s that time of year. We did want to do a little podcast. Let’s about the theme of the day. That’s right. About a subject that is near and dear to our hearts as we’re watching things change. Hold on. I archibald’s driving down Maine right now. If you find yourself swaying side to side, slowly, you’re not alone. Every other 40 to 50-year-old dude’s doing the same thing.
00:02:53:03 –> 00:04:34:20
Maybe you’re the guy that just leaned up and held the walls up at high school dance. You just leaned up against the wall. That’d be me. Me too guilty. I was there too. I’m hitting the KB about right now. Wyatt. He’s holding up the parking lot down there. Shopco parking lot. I’m in an 84 Toyota. What are you in Wyatt? Oh, power stroke. No kidding. 76 CJ seven. Oh you guys generation Chevy. You guys were the cool kids. I was in a hatchback. I did have a 22, 2 50 in the window. We had a turbo sprint. Wow. Well what’s this song have to do with hunting Carter? Well, you don’t know what to tell you. You just don’t know what you got until it’s gone. You just don’t know what you got till it’s gone. Alright, well that’s what it has to do. See where this goes, huh? That’s right. We were just talking, Bronson and we, and of course Devin and Wyatt, they were around for a lot of this too. And we were talking the other day about all the different changes we’ve been seeing since eighties, nineties, two thousands. I mean 2020. Yeah. If you wanna talk about, even in the last five years, I hope general’s going away and there you go. Yeah. Arizona Truck Cameron’s are looming in the near future, perhaps. I mean, just Nevada having a trail camp season.
00:04:35:14 –> 00:05:50:19
There’s all kinds of just awesome things that we’ve seen over the course of time. And then we think about things like that are going on right now. I don’t know what’s next. What about unlimited sheep in Montana? You know, things like that. Wyoming General for the residents of Wyoming. Is that gonna be a forever thing? So just wanted to, yeah, let’s just talk about a few things like you guys remember, I mean general over the counter in Utah. ’cause it’s our home state. This Yeah. At least Jason and I, you, I don’t know what it was when you guys started, but when, when had dedicated a hunter tags before their dedicated a hunter tags, you bought a tag at the grocery store, good statewide. And you could hunt archery if you didn’t kill. You can hunt the rifle if you didn’t kill then the muscle loader member was late in early November. You gotta kill one deer statewide. Yeah. We didn’t have to pick a region until 92. 93, right. 92, 93. They went to the five regions in Utah and went to a draw of roughly 20,000 tags per region roughly. And that winter kill of 92, 93 was Oh yeah. I mean, you know, but just prior to that it was unbelievable. Yeah. And you know, we weren’t that, I guess I wasn’t that picky, but I mean it was just nice that you knew you, you could hunt 28 day archery season.
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A nine day rifle and like a nine day late muscle. The one now those, those muzzle order hunts are limited entry hunts in Utah now. In all the generals taking 15 points, 16 points on some Yeah, those same hunts right now in all the generals, we had ’em over the counter as part of your general tag. You could do the archery, the rifle and that hunt. Yeah. And then there was a time with the dedicated hunter that you, when you drew gon, you could hunt all three seasons. Yeah. If you drew the gon or Henry’s and, and it even played to elk, didn’t it? Why it It did. Yeah. My dad drew his elk tag in Utah. He was able to hunt archery rifle and muzzle loader, but just overlap the deer seasons. Yeah. Early on it was really weird when Utah expanded their elk herds and all that. And they were started off with five tags, 10 tags here. They didn’t have two tags for archery, five for rifle and two for muzzle. It was just rifle tags in the rutt. That was the only hunt four years. And so if you wanted to hunt during the archery deer season, ’cause there wasn’t an archery elk, you just paid 20 bucks. Yeah. Something like that. Minimal fee. And you get to hunt the archery hunt during the deer hunt. ’cause you’re, oh yeah, you’re out on the mountain.
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You got a deer tag hunt your elk then too if you don’t kill, you get the rifle hunt. It was nuts. It was nuts. Dedicated hunter elk type tags. You get hunt all seasons now that’s called a premium or multi-season tag. And they draw one or two or three per unit and it’s like 20 plus points. 20 plus on every unit. But you gotta do it if you, I mean you’ve gotta do it because we keep seeing the quality diminish and part of that is a tag numbers, but, but we’re good at killing ’em. We’re good at killing. We just had a podcast on optics and smart optics and angle range finders and long range rifles and turrets and radicals. And all of these things are attributing to this smart trail cameras, cellular trail cameras, you know, all kinds of stuff. People are getting good at killing ’em and they’re spending time, I don’t know if this covid environment’s going what? But people have time. They have time to go out and run their cameras. They have time to scout. There was guys, I talked to a guy about Idaho general dear, and he’s like, you know, normally I see like two or three guys in the field. I saw 25 guys in the field. And he says, I know they didn’t give necessarily any more tags. It was just everybody utilized those tags, everybody went. You know what I mean?
00:08:02:11 –> 00:09:16:22
I mean, well naive, that’s what led to some of the changes we’re talking about now. Now you’ve got non-resident sub quotas within the greater total non-resident, you know, general tag that used to be done statewide except for limited entry units until this year And it’s, that’s gone. It’s probably not gonna come back. No. And it’s got people gnashing teeth pretty hard. So what about like we, there was over the counter Arizona strip strip archery tags 13 A up until 2000. That’s seven. We’re not talking to still haunt you. Yeah. I remember when, when I found, I didn’t even know that with the Chiba, but in 2007 I was 18. Yeah. But yeah, well that years later, I long no, when the CHIBA and 13 A 13 B wasn’t but 13 A right. 13 A and and the, you could every year $125 non permit tag or whatever they’re called, just like the ones they sell now. You still hunt all of the central and southern Arizona’s the same, just the same general deer tag, non-IT deer tag. And you could hunt up there in August over the counter up until 2007. Well, Clint and I went out there in his rotten hole Chevy 92 Chevy. You remember, you know those hinged hinges that go down through the door jambs. And I mean those, those are rotten and falling out and they all need new bushings. Even the new ones needed new bushings.
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And anyway, we went out there and, and tried to do our best at it. Of course back then archery equipment was whatever you could find and we’re broke. And I mean you, and we didn’t, you didn’t know, you didn’t value it. Like if, if you would’ve said, Hey, this, this tag here takes 20 points, you would’ve valued it. You would’ve put everything into it. But when you can get it every year, ah, let’s just go do a smash and grab for a three day weekend. Go for the weekend. Yeah. I, I think that’s the whole thing why we’re even talking about this in a podcast. Because you’re right. And, and to a large extent, look at the Utah general now after 25 years, we’ll just say of draw, you went to a subunit thing maybe 10 years ago where it’s unit by unit, but it takes points now. You don’t get one every year for the most part. And if you really value that, which a lot of people do, they put a lot more time into that. They do. And the guys that really treat it like a good, good tag, they’ve, they’ve killed some great bugs. There’s something to be had for ’em.
00:10:18:28 –> 00:11:26:16
But when you could buy it at Walmart and hunt for a dedicated hunter, it, we talk about this, about the dedicated hunt program, it sometimes occurs because I got, you know, I got 60 days to hunt, you know, I’m not gonna get that serious. But when you got it, when you draw a five day rifle hunt or a nine day rifle hunt and that’s all you got, it’s like you got tunnel vision a little bit. Right. And you’re not gonna get it for the next two years most likely. Yeah. Yeah. You’re gonna hunt every single day. Well there was a tag and I remember, I remember it vividly. There was a 2 41 landowner tag come up for sale and nobody knew anything about it. It sold for like 3,200 bucks and we, nobody I knew wanted it about 10. Nobody I knew wanted 15 years ago. 15 years ago maybe. Roughly. Maybe. I dunno. Oh yeah, no, I mean early two thousands. Now that’s more valuable than a 2 42 tag. Really. I mean a 2 41 only tags 27 5. You know, so it’s just Well I’m just saying back then and back then there was real deer back. There was real deer. We’re not fighting for two hundreds. There’s real deer. And in the two forties you could hunt till mid to late November on the rifle. Well, oh, the season dates. I can’t stand to think about the season dates. I can’t stand it.
00:11:27:07 –> 00:12:41:07
I can’t stand it. Can you think about it? Oh we, I mean they used to let you hunt Thanksgiving and, and in in Utah, Nevada, lots of places. And you’re just like, man, now we’re cutting ’em off in October. October 31st is when it ends. You know what I mean? And they’re just starting to run a little bit. It’s just crazy. Crazy to, to think about some of the change we’ve seen, not only dollar, dollar wise, but gen, not only are these tags selling for 20, 30, 40,000 ponson tags, 30, 40 plus thousand, which also has a neighboring general deer unit that that’s off. Damn off the right. Well just look at Boulder Pen. Which Zion? All three sides of the ponts. I mean Yeah. Kill a lot of pretty good deer on ’em every year. I mean there’s a lot of hunters. We don’t wanna minimize it. There’s still general season units. You see a lot of people. But big deer to be had on those three for Archibald took down his egal legend. Oh. Oh yeah. Well what story? It’s Ponag. He walked a little too far, I guess. Well yeah, PON got miles that migrates to Zion, you know, and got smoked and I’ll bett you when I shot Buck. What that buck is his off? It’s one in my office. Yeah. Oh, that one in there. Six by six. Yep. No kidding. Where did that thing go? Like 2 0 3? Yeah, just over two.
00:12:42:11 –> 00:13:42:03
Dump that deer. All the, but I could have counted 20 people from where I shot him. Stand up, look around. You could see 20 people. Easy. Really like way out there, you know. But yeah, I mean orange everywhere. Was this back in the day of the 10 by 50 Redfield? This is, this isn’t that long. It 2017. Three years. Oh, I didn’t know that you killed that buck that recently. Yeah, dude, I learned everything. Everything from a podcast. He, the guys had hunted him on the archery hunt for in the pots. Right. Years, multiple years. Yeah. He took, he took an arrow the year I killed him and the year before. Oh no kidding. In his back straps. Yeah, no kidding. How did you know, was there scarring? I have no idea. Or else they came to you and said, Hey, I got married, I killed and I think it was Cameron or you, Wyatt told me, Hey, somebody contacted you. We’d seen him in the summertime. It was pretty popular deer. A lot of people had been hunting it and chasing it around. So as soon as he shot it, did you know, immediately? Pretty much as soon as we got the pictures sent over to us. Yeah. Wow. I come to find out, had liked the photo of the deer on Instagram, the velvet. I was a year before. Had no idea. I killed him the next year. Yeah. Really? Wow.
00:13:42:03 –> 00:14:52:01
Just a couple of photographers over there were taking some really good shots of him. Yeah. I mean we’re talking 50, 60 miles. So That’s cool. That’s kind of neat. That’s an awesome story. That is awesome. So let’s tell, tell us about the kill scene there. I was cross there with orange and every portion of my red, I, you talk about angle. I had, I had a 26 per, I had a 26 degree angle down. No kidding. And I had, I had the geovids and just boom 500 and I dialed to like four 20. Four 40. Yeah. Still was it alive? But that was it. No problem. No problem. You didn’t have to have a foot race there. Somebody else tagging him, nobody else shot. Nope. Just glassed him up. And I think, I mean it, I think I, I actually filmed it. I hit, I hit record ’cause I was alone. I wanted to know where I hit and everything. And it was like two and a half minutes before I shot, getting ready, dialing, you know, all that. Was he betted or moving? He was just feeding. Oh wow. Just hiding by himself. You remember when ponson landowner tags five to six were five to seven? My, my, that was, that was early two thousands. ’cause I was a biologist there and I was dealing with them on a daily basis. And we went through a process between 2003 and five of cutting tags. Yeah.
00:14:52:04 –> 00:16:00:15
And it was a, it was a bloodbath. Yeah. I mean it was, it was between the locals, landowners, well just landowner you’re talking about going from 40 post hunting units that are now CW u Yeah, CW u and and Landowner Association was getting 30 to 40 tags and you’re, and we’d cut the public tags in half. You know, the, there’s a group called the Friends of the Pons and got that formed and they were just very adamant. We just we’re killing intimidated. We wa we want to issue less tags. Well, when you cut the public draw tags, the, the landlord tags are a year behind in the permit sitting cycle. So then when you start going through that boy, I mean you’re talking five or six grand a tag at times. You know, 40. Well Lyle, my, my cousin buy one every single year. He had muzzle to Rutt Hunt. Yeah, I was gonna say that’s another thing that’s gone. That’s the muzzle loader was muzzle to Rutt hunt. And it was unbelievable. That would be fine. It was the first week or sometimes 10 days where the calendar went. This is say October 30th, 31st to November 7th to 10th. You know, it’s unbelievable. And so yeah, we went through that cutting tags and then it wasn’t long that once you, it’s just supply and demand. Once the tags got cut in half and over the next handful of years, quality did start to improve.
00:16:00:20 –> 00:17:07:10
And wasn’t long that those tags had doubled and tripled in price and quadrupled. And now they’re almost 10 times if like said, we’re talking $40,000 ponant tags. I mean there’s 2020 ish, 20 to 30 counting, the cost of living goes up 3% a year. But that’s only been 15 years that we’re talking about. Nothing can catch upon. It’s the price, the price increase of what Big Deere bring. No, nothing, nothing be, that’s exponential. Well I just think there’s been a lot of that kind of stuff that we’ve watched come and go and we’re, and we know, I, I used to have a good friend tell me, he says, ah, the best tag you ever have in your life comes into your mailbox every year. And he was talking about Utah General. Yeah. But yeah, we’ve lifetime licenses. That’s probably, you know, you get to pick whatever you want. It’s the time. But even back in the day, I remember when they basically were coming in your mailbox, you know. Well, and I just remember, I, I wasn’t living in, living in Utah then I was in on a LDS mission. My dad wrote me a letter and it’s like a week or 10 day lag, getting the letter and then a week or 10 day lag, getting it back. And he wrote me and says, Hey, they’re gonna stop selling Utah lifetime licenses.
00:17:07:10 –> 00:18:01:28
Do you want me to, do you want me to take some money outta your savings and buy it? And there were 500 bucks. Yeah, they’re, they’re 500 bucks. Okay. And I just remember, yeah. But I remembered it was like, I got it and it was like in four days it was gonna be over. And I’m like, I hope he does it because I can’t write him a letter and get it back. There’s no pick up the phone, there’s no Skype, there’s no text, there’s no nothing. This is early nineties. And thankfully he did it ’cause I got home and I had a lifetime license from me and Aaron. He’s 500. And then no other Was a little interest occurring while you were gone? I don’t know. But I mean, at the time it just, it was a kind of a big decision. I mean, 500 bucks, it’s huge. And you could buy, yeah, I mean the deer tag was probably 15 bucks. I don’t remember what they were. 20. Well if you remember back then, the reason to buy it was a cost savings over your life. You, that audio evaluated nobody ever thought that general tags would go away. No. So do I buy a lifetime? Well, they’re not ever gonna go away. They’re only 15 or twenty’s. They’re never gonna go away. It gonna take 20 something. Look at the cost of Idaho tags.
00:18:01:28 –> 00:19:03:09
That guys like my dad regrets not buying a lifetime license. Yeah. A long time ago. Yeah. But just in price alone. But someday those are all going away. Well, what do you do with the lifetime? Well, you give ’em their choice for the rest of their life and that’s what they’re doing. Oh, it’s now, it’s invaluable. Times change. And you gotta take advantage of what’s in front of you and what, what’s right on the plate. Eat what’s in front of you. How about, how about, just put something good in front of me. Another one I thought of is like, when I was a kid, we, any bull unit, we just, we would go to Walmart, hop in the truck and go house. We did that. The, it’s private property and now it’s CM and guys in hunting. That’s right. Cwm, the little South hunt private ground period all over the west. Now they’re leased. They’re different units. It’s, it’s gone. I know. I miss, I scared a lot of bulls on the sows offhand. I’d just see ’em and just pull up offhand. Shoot, same here. I mean, okay, so al rags, the souths near mean. They were near and dear to my heart this big. I mean any, any bull was good. I remember my dad shot some spikes. He shot a 5.1 year, probably a 3-year-old, maybe four, but a, a nice five.
00:19:03:10 –> 00:20:15:27
But Aaron and I had it mounted in our bedroom and, and my whole life we looked at that. It’s like it was so, it was so freaking, freaking dude. Sometimes a five by six won the big bowl contest in Moab. Yes. I mean that’s, that’s what happened. Yeah. Those were back in the human trail camera days. I was a human trail camera. Yeah. And I sat in a lot of aspen trees. And do you remember what, okay, so speaking of which, harnesses have come a long ways too. We had an inch and a half strap, sometimes just a white little rope around your waist if you fell, you turn up, you’re swinging in those aspens, you’re swinging in them. I mean, geez. And so, yeah, I spent a lot of time in a tree stand a lot of time. But yeah, that’s right. Arch Loing game. You know, now Utah went through a pretty hotly contested, I don’t know what you’d call it, public process. They’re, you know, we’ve capped the general tags. I can’t remember. 15, 20,000 in Utah for any bull. And the division was gonna add a few more. Any bull units where there’s not really that many elk. And they were proposing going to unlimited. And the public shot it down. They, they wanted to keep the quota in place. And we went from the days where Boulder. Boulder used to be a general Oh yeah.
00:20:15:27 –> 00:21:25:00
Boulder used to be a general, so did LaSalle. I I don’t know all of them. I was young, but dude, it was, it was like we hung Las South San Juan Pavan and Southwest Desert were kind of used through Yeah. San Juan had newly elk in the 88 19th, 87, 88. They turned ’em loose from harder ranch. So it was never, it was never a, it was never anything but a limited entry. But there was a lot of our limited entry unit or units in Utah I would imagine. Like Fish lake and Manti. They, I know Dutton was, Dutton was the general season bull and there wasn’t big bulls like we think there is not, it’s just elk. Right. But back then you could get an elk tech Now it’s pretty hard. Elk tags are few and far between all. You utah’s gone the opposite direction. That’s right. It’s a quality. They have some jealousy stuff and it is nice to have some quality stuff here. And there it is. I’ll, I got one for you. So how about Colorado in the nineties? Oh yeah. Was over the counter deer hunts over the counter on the west side. And so the only thing anybody ever talked about was eastern plains. The only thing that’s the only thing because it was over the counter when you statewide probably west of I 25 was probably the line. ’cause that’s kind of the line now on the season structure stuff.
00:21:25:00 –> 00:22:27:23
Right, right. But I I, you grew up in Moab, you’re 20 miles from Colorado as a crow flies an hour to drive. I’m 15 or 20 and I had some friends that lived over or had property over there, Groundhog and all that, you know, 7 1 7 11. And we would hunt bulls over there, over the counter on their property. Oh yeah. Like junior, senior high school would go over there, wake up, smash over there, load up two or three bulls in one morning and drive home. Like it was nothing like, oh yeah. But it was, that was where I killed my first elk. They’re just rag fives. But it was, it was awesome. Didn’t even ever think of buying a deer tag. I could have bought one over the counter because deer where what we had in Utah goes back to this. I have a lot of deer in Utah. Why would I go to college? I don’t shoot a deer. I got good bucks on the San Juan right here. No, I don’t have license fees. $43. Yeah. But I can, why can’t I do shoot an elk? I got big bulls. They turned loose eight years ago and they’re still, I’m gonna shoot a, anything I see over there and now look at how that’s turned. We’re fighting to go to co like we, Colorado revolves how many people’s blinds revolve around Colorado deer every year.
00:22:27:23 –> 00:23:36:11
Well, and they did bring the deer back when they, when they limited it. Yeah, they did bring the deer back. It was crazy. And back then in 1996, it was an extreme drought. And I remember drawing, you know, 1 42 out on the eastern plains. It was a public land eastern plains hunting. It still is to this day. But it was one of the very few places that you could go that had big deer. And so you’d go out there and hunt on an army base painting canyon army base with, they told you where to camp and all of these kind of restrictions. And anyway, nobody even applied for color. There wasn’t enough places to intrigue you to apply for Pin Canyon. Couple those. But I mean you did. Yeah. You and your dad were doing that probably before we did that. But very many people. Oh yeah. But but it wasn’t until the late nineties, early 2000. So you wouldn’t stop, you wouldn’t stop you. You would hit I 70. You would never stop No. For deer until you got to Denver. I mean, you’re not stopping. No. Or you know, we went up through Trinidad, but there’s a whole long story behind those. That trip. Is that the one that was blizzard and they put the gates down and you drove around them on the freeway. Freeway. One of were closing the freeways down. We had a old rancher. Well it was an old rancher.
00:23:37:07 –> 00:24:52:15
I’ll, I’ll go if you go apart. And I’m like, let’s go. But, and everybody that the school’s open and everybody was, you know, getting off of 25 and going into these small little communities and, and shacking up in the gyms. I mean ’cause it was such a giant snowstorm space blazer. Yeah. But no, this is back when I had an old 89 chef that was wore out before I even got it. And I changed the ball joints in the parking lot in Trinidad who broken glass everywhere. And I’m under there just cranking it. I mean, guy’s, like we can’t, we, I I ate a tire up just getting there just because everything was so loose. So, and they couldn’t, they they couldn’t, what do you call it? They couldn’t, couldn’t kick you out. You just, no, what do you call it? You freaking get align them? You couldn’t align them. Oh, not with ball joints. No, not with everything. So anyway, I replaced some parts and an alternator went out and I was out in the hills and had to go get an alternator and replace it in the hills. Yeah. I was just one of those college kid days where I had, you know, wasted 14, 15 points on a wie unit and seen a 200 tencher and never got it killed because I was a kid. You know, big old landline. I can still see that. So anyway, lots of change.
00:24:52:15 –> 00:26:04:28
Just crazy amount of change. And so everybody we’re seeing more long non-resident limitations on stuff in Wyoming, you know, g and h and they want more quality and so they keep cutting on resident tags and trying to get, continue to let residents hunt over the counter. And that’s gonna end too. Residents that’s gonna end. Yeah. And I mean we’re not, we’re not anti Wyoming residents. We’re just bringing it up as a, that’s one of the last holdout. I mean they’re in Idaho. Yeah. Idaho made the step this year to make the non-residents go to a draw sub sub the draw, we’ll call it. I mean, and it’s, it’s a smashing December one, it just won’t. And everybody jumps in and as well they think might as well be a draw. Might as well be a draw. And you know, you got remember back in the, well it was still this, some of this stuff isn’t very long ago. The early two thousands, mid two, 2002 to five or six that ar ar 3 0 1 in Utah. Oh yeah. How many is like 15 or 20? Yes. Limited entry units. Yes. And there wasn’t points associated with it. So if you chose to do that, you didn’t get elk points. Yeah. Like in Utah’s residents, we always have, we still have to choose between deer or elk or antelope. You gotta choose one species. But if you were so I was, I was locked into my elk chase.
00:26:05:02 –> 00:27:13:24
You were probably at the time. Yeah. Oh yeah. Because you were a couple years ahead of me. Yeah. You burned deers. So you’re, if you did limit entry elk, you couldn’t put in for AR 3 0 1. But guys that were applying for deer could just crush the A one air 3 0 1 every year that was in lcac and no points. And you could hunt the archery season and hunt 15 or 20. The Boulder Dutton, all these units, they were halfway decent even though though they weren’t managed like they are now, they were still halfway decent. Hadn’t had quite enough time since the any bull days to really get giant bulls. But they were, they were right. They were starting what years was, was that early two thousands? I think it’s still regulations to those days that much, I wanna say two to five earlier than the glory days for elk in Utah. Really? Before, right after that ended. Right after that ended and they kind of started doing the drawing, the tag and then they added archery only on the unit. And that’s, that’s when it peaked. What I think’s crazy is when you go through these times, like say the amazing times in Utah for elk. Did you ever think that’d end? No. Ever passing three 80 bull 2004, 5, 6, 7. Did you ever think, I mean, wow. We’re rewriting record book. We got got so numb like a three seven or 80 bull.
00:27:13:28 –> 00:28:24:05
That’s how we can like, oh that’s all they do. We can’t even get w off center because he’s put his hands on so many clients giants and then now tell us about this. And now he’s a BOA Crockett score storm score. So he still gets to glean the best of the best every year he gets to hold him from Utah and neighboring states. So it’s, why would I wanna go to Nevada? They only have three 80 bulls. Yeah, I know. It’s not like that. All three eighty’s always a giant bull. But the Utah wells we’re spoiled here for a while. I mean, it was producing double digit, 400 plus inch bulls a year. And now it seems like if we see one, two, yeah, 2, 3, 4 a year. It’s, it’s a great year. Well, and it was a great year at three and four. Yeah. What it is this year. Great. Right. There was times we, we’d kill, they would, they would kill 6, 7, 400 plus on one unit. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Just lineup nuts, pavon. And you’re hunting 400 bulls and just everything else is 3 90, 3 80, whatever. It’s, it was, it was awesome. While last. So that’s what we’ve seen with Colorado when mid Bronx, mid two thousands we’re over there hunting Colorado. It’s unbelievable. You think those days will never end. Now we’re looking at late season dates with coming on the heels of some of the couple of the worst seasons we’ve ever seen.
00:28:24:25 –> 00:29:37:19
And no tag numbers change other than maybe even increasing tags because they’re afraid of CWD. And so they’re increasing tags to even knock the age down a little bit more. Okay. Perfect example. Did you think, and now late season dates when, when Colorado went to a draw, late nineties by 2003 or four, 2004 was my first year hunting maybe about you three or four. Yeah. And we thought, what, where has this been? Why have I not heard of this? It was the first year I went there. It was a giant snow. You remember that October year 2004. I mean, it, it dumped three, four feet here in Utah. Yeah, I remember that. Pounded this. Yeah. Unbelievable. And I get over there and I’m hunting 43 and it has fourteeners all over the place. Well the deer, they can’t 14 ERs meet ’em. 14,000 foot peaks. Yes. And they’re, I’ve, I’ve never seen anything to this day. A deer hunt like that. And you killed Yeah, I killed the 30 bucks. 30 33 inch, 200 inch plus buck. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I, I mean, but, but, but I saw deer as good or bigger. I mean, I, I did. Some of ’em were in the fields already because there’s no place, there was just snow everywhere and you just thought, this is gonna, this is gonna change my life. I remember I was 30 years old, I was 30 years old that year, roughly no sense.
00:29:37:25 –> 00:30:43:29
By by al I was almost 31. I stayed there because I remember I killed my first 30 inch buck when I was 30. That this, that sticks in my mind. And, and you know, that’s just, just does. But the next year, the season dates kicked a week later. And I remember, and we, we were drawn tags with those tags as second choice. Remember landlord tags, what were they? Two, two to three, 400 bucks. Oh yeah. We’d have stacks of land in our tags, like literally that deep. Because you could, you could transfer ’em back then. Well, and they could, they would just, they could apply for leftover and get a pile of ’em. Yeah. We had, they were cheap. We had a lot of clients that wanted tags. And the next year we drew it as a leftover again and went there with the dates ratcheted six days later like it does in Colorado. We thought this and it, we hunted seven days, the last seven. And I shot like a 25 or six inch heavy tall four by three. And that was the only buck we saw. Warm, hot, dry the whole time. And that’s when I realized I dates don’t mean everything in Colorado. The weather, weather, Trump states. Yeah. And, and but then to fast forward it all till 2020, we’re talking about, I mean that’s why everybody got into a frenzy.
00:30:43:29 –> 00:31:55:06
And a lot of people started putting in for Colorado heavy at that point and have drawn and maybe trying to go back. It’s just not the same in 2020. It’s not as, right. Well, and now we’re giving more and more tags later season dates. Why don’t we just go over the counter, crash it again, and then we will recycle it and then that cycle will come back. I mean really, I’m telling you, game and fish does not care about quality. And that’s why you’ve got these little localized deer groups like gun, you know, Gunnison Basin and whatnot that fight so hard. ’cause they know what it once was. Know, they know what it could be. And not fifties and sixties, we we’re talking two thousands. I mean you had some winners mixed in there, but there’s always gonna be heavy winners and there’s gonna be opportunities to rebound from those. But yeah, I mean it’s go over the counter. Just do over the counter call over with every purge everybody’s points and start over the zero, the deer herd purge the deer herd. People gett zero anyway. Same here. People get ticked enough that they, that they’ll, they’ll make ’em change. They’ll make ’em change. You know, we got wolves coming and everything else going on. Just, just purge it, crash it. And then everybody is upping arms. Even the opportunists, the people that aren’t trophy owners, they’ll get on our side too.
00:31:55:10 –> 00:33:09:25
And we’ll make a change. That’s what I think. That’s, that’s what needs to happen. Let’s push for it. So anyway, there’s just, it’s crazy to watch it. So when sometimes we’re talking about year to year is ah, there’s not much change. There’s always change happening. And then all of a sudden you wake up and you’re like, wow, where’d those days go? Ria elk or Ria deer in Arizona. We think right now the hell never get away with that. Isn’t that, if you were all answer that over the counter text, you counter the counter the over counter. I if I you’d to ask me now I’m like, yeah, there’s enough places around I can’t see that going away. Who knows? You can, nothing is safe. And there’s some amazing hunting, those co deer guys that love live for that hunt. They’re rutten. And I can’t, and I can see, you just can’t see how that would happen. But we said the same thing about our deer in the nineties, that we’re never gonna have to draw a $500 lifetime license as a borderline. You know, whether that’s worth it or not in your lifetime we thought that. So you just don’t know what, what’s in front of you that you better be taken more advantage of? Well, you know, how about working out in a gym? That’s, we got a gym owner. There’s a gym owner getting a $1.2 million fine for keeping his doors open.
00:33:10:02 –> 00:34:12:23
We set, they set the, the new set, the governor’s name at lunch. We didn’t know that governor’s name. So it wasn’t Yeah, $1.2 million fine. Refused to mask up or make his, it’s right here. Patron’s mask up 1.2, do million dollars fines for defying governor Murphy’s Coronavirus lockdown orders. Christian might look up Murphy, governor Murphy, where’s he from? I’m just telling you. How does that a point of chance? You never, here’s my point. Okay, here’s my point Hugh. Your freedoms get stripped from you. You don’t even know. You wake up one day and you can’t go buy groceries without a mask on. You can’t, you can’t. And I’m not saying it’s good battery in between. I’m just saying you just don’t know the, the stuff you take for granted go on and yeah, you want go on and out to eat at a restaurant for he sake. Well how about this, back in when I was in school and I still like to do it, shed hunting. Oh, now you gotta take a course online. Course seasons. I can’t even go to Nevada. Let’s list the states. Yeah. What states? And I’m scared of snakes Utah. So at that point I’m done Nevada. Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, I dunno about Idaho, but those three, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming at least, well in Utah, was doing a Utah for some years in the heavy years. That’s right too.
00:34:12:28 –> 00:35:18:10
And okay, again, we had the director on to talk about that ’cause it was like, we’re our own worst enemy. ’cause people are driving cross country and harassing wildlife or whatever when it was deep snow. But I mean, but would you ever guess that good example Archibald? Yeah, I, I gotta make sure when my, every year my boy takes that class. Like you gotta have that certificate with you. Yeah. You’re going out with your buddies. Well then, then when it opens, everybody goes because it’s the opener and you have limited time instead of just wide open whatever. Good example shed hunting. Yeah. I mean 20 years ago, if you told me you’re gonna have to, okay, you gotta get permit draw permits to hunt Antelope Island for sheds. I remember well used just use permits. Forest service and Bill IMP permits Bronson. I mean there was people in the nineties, there wasn’t such a thing. Really? Huh? No, no. There’s, I mean there might’ve been but it nobody, it wasn’t a thing. Nobody forced it. It wasn’t a thing. Yeah. Now you got guide license, special use permits and 14 different jurisdictions. And so anyway, good example. Archibald. The shedding was spot on. You can’t just wake up and say, I’m gonna go shit hunting today. You get a week. I would’ve graduated college like five years earlier if that. If they would’ve done that a couple years. You say you might’ve made something yourself.
00:35:19:05 –> 00:36:41:10
Well, we’re happy to have you here Archibald. Why know? Said you had a pile of sheds. Yeah. Most of ’em are gone now in China or somewhere. Dog, dog chase. No, a lot of people feel really good. Chinamen. I don’t knows where they’re at now. Don’t know. That was New Jersey. Was that New Jersey? Really Poor guy. We should set up a GoFundMe account. I’m sure he is already got 14 of ’em set up. Hopefully he does. But crazy. I got one, I remember 2007 I drew second choice. A 44 private land only. Dear tech there. You you go. Did John draw that too? Yeah. John and not both. Is that the buck in his office? Huh? Big 91. Yep. Second choice. Second choice. Yep. I don’t know what to say it. It’s, it’s that, that kind of scenario though has happened recently. Bronson. The last five years was, was in Colorado or you just said 2007 and we’re talking about 13 years ago. You could hunt 13 A and the Kibab every year over the counter. That’s not, this isn’t, we’re talking about a grandpa’s. Yeah. I missed the biggest buck I’ve ever shut out in oh seven in Colorado. Did you never forget it? Oh seven. No way. Oh seven. That was the year we killed Chase. Zero point unit. I drew it two years in a row. What unit was it? 33? Yeah. Well yeah, there’s, oh yeah. Good potential there.
00:36:41:10 –> 00:37:44:12
But man, what a grinder. Well, yep, but I’m telling you, I saw bucks. It was awesome. It was right in so Right. Did you ever go back? That’s when I killed that. You’ve never been back? I haven’t been back. Yeah. It’s not that good. Started hunting elk in November guy. Now them Danielle, get in the way. Did, how about back when you could apply in Nevada’s guide, draw and in the regular draw for deer. Get two points. Yeah. Go in both draws. I would do it every year. Get two points. I would do it. I was, you know, just, I get two because what you really wanted is you put in for the, the good units and the guide draw. You got your point a month early. So you had your point extra point squared for the regular draw. Wow. That that’s like 10. Well you could grow and you could get two points a year in the early parts of that. Yeah. And then they did away with the two points. But you could do the guide draw, get your points so it added to your total to be squared for the regular drop. It’s a fact. It’s like 10 years ago. We’re not talking about stuff 30 years ago. Yeah. I don’t remember that now. We did it. We I did it now. You can’t hang a camera on a tree after July 31st or walk around between the months of whatever May 1st.
00:37:44:12 –> 00:39:00:18
Oh pick us an old white bone. It’s not attached to a skull from January one to May one U tars are not allowed there. Oh. Anyway. And then you get drill cameras for two months and then we’re not allowed there for a little bit. Again, it’s just the restrictions’ not picking on Nevada, just pointing everything else. No, no. And the most heavily restricted professional sport or sport there is, is hunting. Think about it. I mean start, stop all, you know, beginning of the end. Daily hours. Daily hours depending on the day of the month, the day of the year, whatever, down to the caliber. I mean you can’t even use a 45 caliber muzzle or in Colorado for elk or something. But those, you put a 400 grain bullet, you can’t tell me that’s not gonna hurt something. You know what I mean? Tell me I’m wrong. Huh? That I wouldn’t wanna be in front of it. I’m just saying there’s lots of, lots of crazy stuff going on. Lots of stuff that we’ve seen. So yeah, what’s next? You just gotta be and and it doesn’t need to be a, a complete opportunity like an Idaho general, like an over-the-counter archery deer in Arizona that we’re thinking of. It can just be your backyard elk gen, general elk unit that you got in your state right now. That’s like I’m killing some good bull.
00:39:00:28 –> 00:40:15:15
Don’t you ride the wave before it crests and it and you got flat water. Take advantage. Full advantage of what you got. For sure. It it, I dunno. Buy $25,000 tags. ’cause next year they might be 35. I don’t know. Is that what you guys are talking about? If buy had $25 tags to next year, they might be 50 or they might not be available at all. Idaho. I just sat here and thought about like the Idaho, if they took something away that I’d be mad I didn’t take advantage of. Wow. Like Arizona hunter safety extra point. Oh yeah. Yeah. There you go. If they took that away tomorrow I’d be so mad. Well this year, like you, I’ve talked to a lot of people that are wondering what they’re doing. I’m like, I don’t know. Good, good luck getting a good answer because they’re not having in-person stuff. And so it’s temporarily been off limits for the last probably year. I don’t know. I went down with my whole family and did the course with my whole family. Called it a family vacation. Two, two days. Told Janet we were going to Arizona. She was excited. We pulled up to a education building’s and Kingman, beautiful Kingman sandwiches on the tailgate babe’s kinda like me when I took the family vacation. First time I ever been to Hawaii, went to Hawaii toting guns. That’s hilarious cases over there. That’s hilarious too.
00:40:15:25 –> 00:41:14:29
And nobody, I didn’t tell any Becky knew. Of course the kids knew. And it was for the kids, right? Yeah. For the kids. Yeah. The, after the first two days there, I sent a pictures to my parents of some dead axis deer. And they’re like, only you get away with that. Go to Hawaii with your family and your hunting. Sounds like Wyatt Sunday drives sneaking a pair of tens in there. Yeah. Oh yeah. If a, but if a spot scope goes in there, it’s gonna tipper off that. It’s not just a Sunday drive. I’m scouting. Yeah, exactly. So you can slip the pair of tens in there and maybe get away with it. But if you put the spotting scope, everything else in there, it’s a deer spotting trip. She looks at you just say, you know, sometimes the sunsets are neat to look through bin. Yeah. You never know. You never know. You never know what you’re gonna see. Yeah. You never know. You never know when you need them. Did you ever go back and video that deer? I’ve been at the office daylight till dark. Oh, I know you won’t even, you’re not even gonna go video two. No, I’ll get back out there. Give an onyx pin. I’ll get back out there. Yeah, I work here too. I can figure out a video. That thing. Yeah. We haven’t been here out of the daylight either. No.
00:41:14:29 –> 00:42:33:18
But love we get a lunch hour. We might have to forego a, I don’t think you’ve bad sushi trip. I don’t know. Yeah. All right. Well lots of things changing. I don’t know. It’s one of those crazy things. I just think you guys need to take advantage of stuff while you can. ’cause all of this stuff is cha gonna change and we’re, you’re gonna look back on opportunities that you have now. Dedicated hunter might go away. I don’t know. That allows us to all three seasons, how excited are we about that? Yeah. And then what if that went away? That would suck. Right? The ability to hunt all seasons in Nevada and land lanor tags that would suck for, for deer. And so you can hunt multiple deer. You can kill one with a lanor tag, a draw tag, a whatever. So there’s just things that we do still take for granted, even though things change for the worse and we’ve seen a lot of change over the last Yeah, exactly. And the budget oriented guys, you know, it’s, it’s mostly the cost that has changed in in multiple states. Just that alone. Yeah. Look at, look at Idaho this year. Yeah. I mean bumping the deer tag price. Bumping the non-resident license to what? 180 5, you know, application fees for the big three or like 45 plus convenience fees on top of that. At 2,600 bucks you’re at 300 something bucks. Non inable. Yeah.
00:42:33:18 –> 00:43:38:23
You were adding it up. 300 something non ish nonrefundable to put in for moose sheep and go as a non-resident. And I know everybody, they’re w wha don’t apply then I’m just pointing out nothing stays the same. And when you’re, and you might not apply. Yeah. And you might not apply Now that we’re not necessarily the general bought, I bought a three year license, so I’m committed for three years because I saw that come into an end. But that you do a three year license, now you’re just back into normal rate. Yeah, that’s, so Bronson did it just one year prior. You brought up earlier the Wyoming sheep, the the climb. Oh, the $7 point days and or, or just if you’d have just had the foresight and I realized part of it is you gotta be old enough and aware enough and in the application game to know they’re starting a point system. But that’s when Carter and I kicked ourself about Well yeah, I mean we didn’t get on on the ground floor and so when they started going to 75 bucks, it was like, I don’t think I’m gonna get it. I still wish I would’ve kept because I think I could have a tag by now. Yeah. Bie nodding. It cost me a sheep doing just, you know, there’s a couple regrets. We all have a few regrets and we should have a podcast on that. But though that’s one of mine.
00:43:39:02 –> 00:45:19:09
What song would we have? Maybe for regrets? I don’t know. I’ll have to think. Chris, you’re good at those. You’re, you’re the ins, you have good jingles on her Instagram about tying a nice song to go with something. This we could probably get a Ray Wiley Hubbard song for that little Cinderella today kind of applied. But you know, we get something that regrets. I don’t know. I don’t know. But let’s leave you on a another little. No, here we go. Bevin, you sway? I don’t think so. No. Maybe give it a 30 more seconds. Yeah. Don’t know what you got till it’s gone. Boys might’ve been a good podcast to call up some old timers. You know, cold call. Yeah. A little poorly lit. High school cafeteria dance hall right here. Even the next generation above you two older than us. Oh yeah. Like my dad. Are those guys still alive? Yeah, there’s gotta be one or two kicking around somewhere. I’d have to tell my dad what the podcast was before I cold called him on the podcast. What’s a podcast, Adam? Just talk to me, dad, just talk. I’ll tell you later. Some things you just don’t want to change, but it’s coming. Right, Chris? That’s right. That’s enough. Let’s go to work.
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