Trail Cam Ban in Arizona. In this episode we discuss the proposed trail camera ban in the state of Arizona. We also call Arizona outfitter John Adams of HPO to get his views on the proposed ban and how it could affect hunters and outfitter in the state depending on how the law is implemented.
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
00:00:00:10 –> 00:01:10:18
Change that might be coming down the pipe. Is the trail cam a change in running trail cameras there in Arizona? How many people put up trail cameras for general photography? So I say ban ’em completely. Just get rid of ’em. Make it easy. Anything to do with Western big games? Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson coming at you from Southern Utah. Bronson, it’s not really a, gonna be a white Christmas out there. It feels a little bit like brown and brown. Dry Christmas. It’s yellow and brown. Yeah, it’s, and with mixed a little bit of white here and there. Usually my white Chevy. Huh? Do you have any snow out at your place, Chris? None. Nothing. Not even any mud this year yet. Really? Huh? Too bad. No, it’s, it’s been so dry. We’ve had two snow storms all year that I been about an inch. Think of like an inch. About an inch and a half. And they haven’t even been enough to make mud dry. It’s dry snow. So dry. I, I watered my trees the other day. It’s been cold though. In December. You’re watering the trees. Yeah. Well, you know, like, say it’s good to water ’em like once a month, once every two months or whatever. Like they need a big, healthy drink in the winter. People forget to water their trees. Hey, hey. I have a green thumb.
00:01:10:22 –> 00:02:35:29
You got a green? I usually, because I marker and color it. I don’t You’re a tree hugger. I’m not. No, I’m not. I, I’m terrible at growing anything. Ask Jenna. Grow weeds, grow weeds. But anyway, here we are. The eve of Christmas Eve. December what, 23rd. Just making sure I’m on the right day. Wishing everybody a Merry Christmas. Happy holidays and a great 2021. Let’s bring it on. Let’s turn the calendar please. I’ve already turned the calendar. I’m so tired of 2020. Who isn’t tired of 20? Tell me who isn’t Tired of 2020, huh? Alright, so anyways, we get started. We wanted to talk about some different things before we do. We want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. Of course. We work with a lot of great sponsors here at Epic Outdoors. We appreciate y’all. We just published a new publication, epic Outdoors. It’s actually on emag live on our website and it has a lot of our sponsors in there. January, 2021. It’s hard to believe we’ve got one of the big sixes we call ’em, part done with the six State magazines of the year already. And we’re, yeah, we’re one sixth of the way to the next hunting season. That’s right. As soon as the sixth magazine hits, we have Fur Freedom. That’s right. Which is usually about May 1st, but anyway, yeah, check it out. EMAG version online right now. Epic outdoors.com. Under your member login.
00:02:36:26 –> 00:03:55:12
And the print mag should be showing around the first of the year, something like that. Yeah. First part of the year the printer. Printer has New Year’s and Christmas is kind of always delays it slightly with printing and shipping and mail. And they’re saying there’s a little bit of a covid environment at their print shop. So it anywhere people still congregate. A little bit slower there thrown to that. But anyway, it’s coming. But the EMAG Auto, you know, give you a little bit to GNA over the Christmas holidays and New Year’s and start playing a little bit looking at the Wyoming moose, sheep, goat, bison and elk. As well as Arizona Elk and antelope. Yeah, that’s what kicking it all off. Pretty awesome man. We also kicked off our membership drive. Of course we did it with the last issue. But this issue, we published it again, it’s our epic hunt giveaway. You can get entries in there. Join a buddy, you get a free entry. So refer a friend or if you’re a new member, you’ll be able to get an entry in there for Yukon Stone, Alaska Doll, Nevada Deer, New Mexico Elk, Utah Lion Barber Sheep in Texas, Idaho Wolf. And of course a $13,000 optics package. For those that buy the $500 ticket package, you get one entry per $500 into the optics package. And that’s coming from Epic Optics here in our own shop, bro. That’s, that’s right. So pretty awesome.
00:03:55:12 –> 00:05:10:09
Already set it aside, we’ve already set those pieces aside for the lucky winner come, you know, end of February. The, the membership drive runs through the end of February. So just a day or two after that, usually we’re able to do the drawing. So early March that’ll happen. Somebody’s gonna win a bunch of great prizes in a year that, you know, everybody’s hopeful to forget 2020. These are a good way to kick off something big. Get it on your calendar. A lot of these hunt are for 2021 or the winter months of 20 21, 22. Got some lions and Texas barbery, sheep wolf hunting. Some of those that kind of carry over to next winter. But got some sheep hunts for this year. Mule deer and elk hunts for this year. They’re just, they’re first class. It’s one thing we, we take it pretty seriously. We want hunts that we would want to go on ourselves and we try to buy our hunts with that in mind when we do it through the outfitters that we know and trust. Partnered with the Akima reservation there in New Mexico for elk. It’s pretty awesome. Great Krogue, Nevada mule deer. And so anyway, pretty exciting. Even our friends over there in the Yukon. Yep. Jar Doling as well as Aaron Oz and the guys at McMillan River in Alaska for the DLS sheep. Pretty awesome. We’re excited. Alright, we wanted to jump into this podcast.
00:05:11:22 –> 00:06:30:06
You know, we, our last podcast was on change and, and how we hate to see change at times. Another little bit of change that might be coming down the pipe is the trail cam potential ban or season or whatever, a change in running truck cameras there in Arizona, of course Nevada ran, runs a season. You can’t run ’em past July 31st. August 1st. It’s illegal through December 31st to run cameras for the purpose of locating hunting, the aid of whatever. All of that kind of fun legalese. So anyway, I’ll read it here. The proposed language. A person shall not use a trail camera or images from a trail camera for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife or locating wildlife for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife. If approved truck cameras is used for research, general photography, cattle operations, or any other reason other than the take of wildlife would remain legal. I don’t know. Pretty, there’s, there needs to be some tightening of those. Well, let’s just, if if general photography, how many people put up truck cameras for general photography? Well, okay, time laps. I have some time laps. I have some pretty cool general photography pictures when it goes from summer to winter and frozen water. Oh yeah. Coyotes frolicking out on the ice. I mean, there’s some pretty cool stuff.
00:06:30:10 –> 00:07:38:06
I think I had some, remember of the spring I showed you the ones from I I think it had ’em on one of my elk units and Southern Utah. Remember it had like five feet of snow. Yeah. And over two months it went to nothing. It went a giant pond. It a giant, giant pond, which looks like you could fish in it to a dry meadow. It’s kinda interesting. Those, those was general photography I guess. Okay. And you could say that, you could have proof that, you know, that I like those kind of images and that’s what I’m out there to do. The squirrels in the wintertime running across with a weasel, chasing them. Yeah. Those things happen. Stuff mouse and out in front of you or whatever. So what about research? So that’s the thing. We’re a research publication. Could we run trail cameras anytime we want in the state of Arizona? I mean, so that’s our point. Right? What about cattle? Everybody now is a buddy of a buddy that, of a buddy that has cows somewhere imm helping him. How about, how about about the guy in Nevada running cameras after the season ran? You and I ran into him. We ran into him. Key. Key. That one. Okay. And he was first portrayed himself as he runs the cattle. I run the cattle here. Okay. Okay. How long you been doing it? You don’t even look like a cattle.
00:07:38:09 –> 00:08:55:15
Well actually I, I’m, I’m friends with the guy that runs cattle and my buddy here has an archery tag, deer tag, archery deer tag. And we’re checking the cameras to make sure there wasn’t any bad people shooting holes in the troughs. And that’s literally, that’s what they said. That’s what it boiled down to. That’s right. And left. It took us 15 minutes to get there to, and once we got fleshed it out while he’s wearing some camo, then we were like, we drove away and we almost turned around. We used restraint. ’cause we knew it was a total abuse of the Trochem law. Well, we’re out there grinding and we pulled everything. We pulled them, we were pulling and they were putting up Yes. They were just putting up ’cause they knew they’d be the only one. Yeah. For, for the next however long the bow hunt started in 10, 10, 12 days. August 10. And then they’re gonna go and check for vandalism for on the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th. All the while I’m gonna possibly sit this water. I mean, come on. It was nice. It got old fast. So we just see a few of these proposed language, if you will. And in Arizona there, there’s, there’s ways people are gonna try to weasel around. How’s it gonna hold up when somebody keeps doing it. But on top of, don’t know many cowboys that use TRO cameras. Okay. We, I mean, ranch.
00:08:55:18 –> 00:09:56:29
I know, I know. I’m gonna get a call from somebody who says, oh you will, oh, I, I use that. I use Verizon fusions to know when my cattle trap is set off and I’ve got 20 cows sitting inside of it, but, okay. Name, name a rancher that’s got the fusion app, that’s got the, the the command app from, from steal cam or that could, but what’s gonna happen? Or they can tell you which brand of SD you’re gonna have. You’re gonna have steer hunters go to these cowboys and tell ’em that that’s what they need to use there to, to find out if their cattle still can water or if their floats running over. If it’s gone dry, you need to run these fusions. I’ll help you get them set up. Tell me I’m wrong. I’ll run ’em for you. Don’t I’m wrong. In fact, you can borrow mine and I’ll run ’em for you and I’ll let you know if they’re trying whip up a little contract and call me a vaquero. Right. Doesn’t that mean cowboy Chris? Yeah, but how do you say it? Say it correctly. Vaquero. Alright. I’m as close. I’m not as, there you go Chris. Chris can add that to it. It might have sounded like I said something out, but I want to, but I want to, I want to state it loud and clear. We don’t necessarily have a position on this. Like, we love cameras.
00:09:57:16 –> 00:11:08:17
I freaking love running truck cameras. Yeah. We love it. But if you’re gonna make a new law, it better be as simple and easy to, to interpret and follow and enforce as possible. Okay. And if you have things like general research or research general photography and cattle operations are exempt. Everything could be construed as general photography. That’s right. I set this up to the west ’cause the sunsets on the strip or immaculate and I wanna get great sunset footage. Oh, there’s a 30 eighter in there. Wow. It’s, I didn’t mean to set it up for that. We will, we’ll adapt. And we’ve had to do that in a lot of states. You know, case in point you mentioned Nevada. You just adapt. You gotta do it. That that’s the new law. That’s how we hunt. You play by the rules, you do it well. And I kind of Okay. And, and I love cameras as much or more than anybody. It’s for me and the family, the kids, Ashley, Justin, Sean, they cannot wait to check what’s on ’em. And, and so it’s just part of a family outing. Right. And it’s like trapping. You never know what you’re gonna get. Can’t wait to get to the camera. Totally get and see about this new water hole I found or a break in the pipe or whatever. Totally addicting. It is addicting. It’s, it’s absolutely.
00:11:08:18 –> 00:12:20:27
So, so, but since they went and made the rule, okay, I kinda like big bucks if a few of ’em make it. And now we have a better potential at a 2 40, 2 52 60 freaking monster. I like that too. I’m all for it. I’m all for it. I love hunting a potential giant. And it feels like as things get better, we get better equipment gets better, whatever the, the wildlife has less and less of a chance and there are less old deer, six to nine years old or whatever else. That’s right. You know, and with less old deer is less big deer. And so anyway, at the end of the day, I can see I like the, I like the positives of having more big deer live. It, does it affect the populations? I don’t believe it does. Trail cameras aren’t taking bunches of more bucks. They’re just taking a little bit better specific, specific specific deer in elk and white tail or whatever. It’s in Arizona or Nevada. But the, the point I was trying to make is if you’re, if this is gonna go through and get enacted, it better have some very black and white plain no room for interpretation or weaseling out of, or it’s gonna have a lot of abuse. And then you’re gonna have to go to court and you’re gonna have to, it’s gonna be that I used any of that to hunt with and all that.
00:12:20:27 –> 00:13:20:27
That was just a gen That was one of my general photography about this cameras, Adam. Sometimes we run cameras for two or three years before we actually have a tag to kill whatever it is where you’re, you’re legal on that if you don’t take there 2021. I don’t have an Arizona tag, but I have cameras up in Arizona. Yeah. Or, or yeah, exactly. It’s not, and and you’re using that for knowledge and see how the drought does and all right. Yeah. We’re, we’re gonna hunt in two, three years. You finally draw and you may learn patterns. But the problem is, what about somebody that goes out there that has a tag that year, this year, and he sees cameras set up on the water hole. He’s gonna take ’em. He’s gonna put point a 12 gauge out. Oh yeah. Pull the And I wouldn’t blame him. Yeah, you you wouldn’t. But it’s not his property. But at the same time he feels like if I can’t do it and somebody’s cheating me, and really he feels, he feels like he’s cheating, but he doesn’t know the intent that maybe I’m just looking for pretty cattles. And and he doesn’t, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know whose it is. He doesn’t know that you have no intention of using the images or taking wildlife or hunting wildlife in Arizona that year. Yeah. So you’re not breaking that law. Yeah. But how, how are you gonna Yeah.
00:13:21:00 –> 00:14:31:17
Enforce that. Yeah. And you could also have people running cameras that, that don’t have the tags and all that and then they somehow show pictures to their buddies and all that. And Yeah. That breaks indirectly. That breaks the law. Indirectly uses it, breaks it by showing the images. But how do you, how do you enforce that he can show ’em what on his phone over over a, over his screen and never text him to him. Never show ’em. It’s like you need to hunt here. There’s a buck here. I don’t have a tag. Go have at it. Nevada’s rule feels a little bit tighter. It does it, you know, they can’t, cattlemen can use it. You can use it on private. I don’t have the exact language. I should have it just for the, I intents of this whole conversation. But it’s, the cattle thing is, is does exist. And we’ve talked about how that everybody becomes the friend of a, of a cattleman. Yeah. When they have attack. But anyway, so again, we’re not, we don’t have a, we don’t have a stance. I like running them. We’ve got outfitters that wanna run ’em year round. Yeah. There, there is some contention within hunters brons. And I’ve had 20 of ’em stolen in Arizona. Maybe 30. I mean, yeah. I don’t like that. It, but there’s, you’re not supposed to steal that. Shalt not steal. It doesn’t mean we have to have 14 laws.
00:14:31:17 –> 00:15:55:05
You don’t have a law on truck cameras to tighten up stealing. Right. Those are just, well, we’re not gonna run ’em because there was a few stolen, we’re just gonna on gonna allow anybody run ’em. Well that’s kind of, that doesn’t make sense. Yeah. You know what I mean? It doesn’t make sense. No, that’s not for out long guns because somebody got shot accidentally. I mean it’s, I mean it’s, so this this proposed regulation, verbiage and change. Let’s talk about the timeline. This has been voted on. When I say this language that we just read has not been voted on by the commission. They approved the rule amendment to amend it. And now the game and fish or whoever, they’re probably their ag attorney general designee has drafted some, some regulation language for it. And it’s gonna go out for public comment. Do we have the dates on that? Yeah, it looks like the public comment’s gonna be January one through February one of, for 2021. So you got a month you to comment. You can do e email rulemaking [email protected]. So R-U-L-E-M-A-K-I-N-G at AZ G and then az gfd.gov seems like within another month of that scanning for the date. Looks like mid-March, I believe 19th. March 19th is kind of when they’re gonna, when theyre gonna hear it, they could vote on it. Yeah. They’re gonna hear it Mar March 19th. So again, we’re non-residents to Arizona.
00:15:55:11 –> 00:17:01:18
I, I’m always just, and maybe it’s just me, Bronson, I don’t know how you feel. I actually don’t, ’cause we haven’t discussed it. But I feel, I’m a non-resident of Arizona. I, you know, I want the residents to do what the residents feel like it’s best. And of course we all abide by the rule and law. And that would include hunters and guides outfitters in that state. Just like we would be naturally super passionate about something in our own state like this in Utah. Something where we really probably do the bulk of our trail came running would be here maybe in Nevada. We live very close to Arizona, Nevada. So we do get some bleed over for sheep and deer, both in all three of these states that, that we’re running. Because we’re within an hour of all three states where we live here. So it’s, it’s kind of natural to have a little more interest. But like I Colorado or a Wyoming trail came a lot. We don’t, we don’t Montana normally Montana we don’t. Nor we, we normally go to some of those states. We’ve talked about a bunch of Colorado. We view that as a show up and hunt our dear state. We don’t normally hunt the early seasons in Colorado where scouting is super important and trail cameras would ever even come into play. We usually hunt second or third or fourth season. But, but we’re a non-resident there anyway. Yeah.
00:17:01:18 –> 00:18:17:13
So, so whatever we realize that our voice, you know, there, or in this case with Arizona, you know, is the residents should, I mean just like our rack and wildlife board process in Utah. Yeah. There’s non-residents that weigh in. But I mean there and there’s sometimes a compelling reason on permit splits or whatever. But really the residents should be able to, you know, overwhelmingly give their 2 cents to the board and get it weighed by, by resident input, in my opinion. That’s right. So I kind of feel the same way. And so anyway, if we don’t have cameras, okay, we get to look forward to bigger animals. Think about like all the coups there. They’re live in the thickest freaking country in the state. I mean it’s unbelievable down there. There’s a lot of COOs deer found with trail cameras besides the strip. The strip comes to everybody’s mind, units nine and 10 for elk. I mean places like that where there are a ton of cameras, maybe even a few somewhat argue heated arguments about sitting water, a particular water, blinds, whatever. But having said that, it’s gonna affect the entire state. Yeah, it sure will. And and it’s a, like you said, very diverse. You know, some of the desert sheep, some of that country you can’t hike into in the summer months when they’re really dependent on some of the water sources. You can’t hike far enough repeatedly over and over and over.
00:18:17:13 –> 00:19:26:13
When it’s 110 or 20 degrees down there, it’s going to, you know, so desert sheep, coo, white till elk, you know, mule deer. Very, very big impact just like Nevada us. It’s not, well some of these guys are working their guts out. Like even like say 27, they’re, I mean they’re horse backing cameras. I mean there’s a guys that are really working hard, they’re not fighting with 14 cameras on a water hole and they’re back in the middle of the wilderness, you know, getting really cool images of, you know, COOs, deer, mule, deer, elk, whatever. And so, you know, it’s gonna affect those guys as well as, you know, the back, the areas where we, the, the ones we hear about the high traffic areas, 20, 30 cameras on it spot. Yeah. So anyway, and, and the archery cos we’ve got a lot of over the counter archery coo, deer hunters that are out running cameras. ’cause deer are watering in December and January still even in, in the rutt. And it’s warmer down there and, and it’s gonna affect everybody. And you know what’s crazy is as we morph and move on and, and change, you know, we’re we come dependent on some of this, some of these items, you know, well it’s so, so much so, and and you could, you could look at it in Utah to some extent or, or any other state.
00:19:26:17 –> 00:20:41:10
Once you start, once something becomes a new regulation or legal like scopes with muzzle loaders or whatever else, it’s like, don’t ever try to take that away from me now. Oh, you lived without it your whole life till whatever, six years ago. Yeah. And, and, and we’re not saying we’re advocating getting rid of scopes. I’m just saying when something changes, I’m not a fan of them, but, well, it, it’s just, it’s just another one of those things that we, we’ve talked about it. You keep adding, adding, adding things that, well you got 500, 500, excuse me, 500 yard muzzle orders, scope muzzle orders here in Utah. You just add another rifle season just saying. Yeah, yeah, that’s what I mean. So you, you make changes and additive changes add, and you add up everything that’s changed and then you add the technological improvements that have changed with RY equipment, muzzling equipment, rifle equipment optics, you know, camel, that you can stay warm and dry and all day long. I mean just the, the additive improvements. And then, you know, and then you start, and then you try to curtail one piece and every, and then people are like, yeah, we try to curtail at all. What about these guys? What about those guys? We even have guys saying, hey, well diaphragm diaphragms call in elk and those should be outlawed because you’re mimicking rutting sounds and you’re like, come on. You know what I mean?
00:20:41:13 –> 00:21:51:16
But it’s, hey, it’s been said to me, additive impacts, you know, are, are hard on certain, you know, segments of deer, you know, or elk or whatever we’re talking about. So, and then you get the guys on the other hand that then are complaining that there’s no great deer to hunt, you know, in a certain area. A lot of our general season units in Utah come that way. You have a couple great years and then a couple tough ones. Well they’re opportunity hunts. They’re opportunity hunts. Yeah. But you’ll have people rush the capitol storm troop to capitol trying to, you know, ask for change, make heads roll, whatever like that. But at the same time, not look at all the additive things that we have in our arsenal as hunters now to be able to be super effective when we hunt. You know, you know. Oh, muzzle over rifles. And do you wanna, do you, do you personally wanna go in the field using equipment that is not quite as effective as the most effective equipment that you can afford? Just just because or just to do it? I mean, my point is, is we’re our natural, the natural person in us, it wants to use the maximum by law. So like a scope muzz leader, I’m not, even though I don’t like the scope muzz, well my scope, my muzz leader will have a scope on it if I can legally use them. Yeah.
00:21:51:16 –> 00:22:50:23
Case’s the point, and you know, 50 years ago, a lot of people used open site 30 thirties. Right, right. That’s still legal to use. How many people use those? Nobody. They’re all legal, but they’re, they’ve been left in the dust. But there’s a lot of people that don’t like long range rifles, but they’re not using an open site. 30. 30. No. ’cause they’d be the only guy out there. Well, and and nobody likes to go at a disadvantage. No. That’s kind of what we’re saying. You usually, not everybody goes to the very extreme, but we’re definitely on the top 20% of what’s legal in terms of equipment and gear and all that. Generally you wanna be effective a, these are once in a lifetimes, if youre allowed to use it, you’re gonna probably wanna use it. They’re once in a lifetime tags. You want to, there’s so much that goes into how many people hunt with an open site muzz loader in Utah now. I mean, it’s still legal, but you can use scopes now. I would say very, very few, few. But like that elk we published that I killed in 19 or in 2015 or whatever, muzzle or elk, it was legal to use a scope, but I didn’t largely, it wasn’t by choice. I just, I didn’t have time to set up a scope on that rifle. Well it was the year that it changed. Yes. I don’t remember exactly when it did.
00:22:50:23 –> 00:24:04:10
Maybe it was in the spring. It was, yeah. But, but I, but I didn’t but it, but, but I wish I would’ve had one on there. ’cause you know, it’ll lip been a little bit more effective. So anyway, you wanna elaborate on that? No, it actually smoked the bull. The bull smoked him. But, but no, I smoked him. But at the end of the day, you know how Muzz orders just tick you off. Oh, you gotta slap him about four times before they start dying. Okay. And, and I had one reload left. I mean it was a, it was very high stressful. High anxiety. Yeah. High anxiety. So, I don’t know, kind of, kind of a, kind of an exciting topic. What part of it is, okay, back to politics, hunters in large part, fairly large part, I don’t know how, what the percentage would be are Republicans and Republicans don’t like the government restricting us. We don’t want more rules. That’s a tendency that we don’t, I don’t want more game and fish rules. I don’t even wanna see the game and fish leave me alone. Right. It’s, it’s like when, well tell me what you can, certain places where, where road densities are not high at all. Like some of our desert units in Utah and then they’ll come in arbitrary. Just close one or make it administered all not being over, it’s not being overused. It’s not being overused.
00:24:04:10 –> 00:25:05:16
They just put us administrative use only. That’s right. It’s been there for 50, a hundred years and it’s not wilderness either. That’s right. It’s not wilderness either. And it’s, it’s not in a high traffic area. Now we all know there’s certain areas that, and logging areas, there’s a road every freaking 300 yards. Right. And yeah, you can trim some of those old logging roads. ’cause otherwise it’s just a maze of ATVs and all that. You know, some of the stuff up on Cedar Mountain and all that. Right. Those make some sense. Thin out the density. That’s right. And and barricade some of ’em up again. We’re forced, but so naturally I don’t like driving up and seeing something that’s been open forever. And it hasn’t land management agency hasn’t changed land designation hasn’t changed a wilderness or something. And I just see it, it’s now closed and it’s, and it was And it bothers, it bothers you. It, it feels like somebody in the office just decided a personal that they didn’t want it to be used by anybody else but them. It feels like that. I’m not saying that’s the way it is. The feeling is like, well if it, if the road is not, it’s still passable. It’s not like you had a giant, they didn’t close it. It’s not like it’s dangerous. Not like you. No, hey, we’re gonna, you’re gonna get in trouble here.
00:25:05:16 –> 00:26:15:29
People have crashed and rolled their truck down the mountain. It’s nothing for safety. And it tears up the environment to get ’em out. They usually get stuck. It’s two whatever. There’s there’s a new track road That’s right. Going to where it’s just wherever it goes. Go a few. Yeah. Yeah. There are, you know, I know. Anyway. Anyway, but, so I don’t, we don’t like government overreach or whatever, any reach. Just like, it probably starts as from when your kids, you, when your parents try to tell you to do something, there’s a slight resistance to sometimes that when you become a teenager kid. We all got kids. There’s a slight, nobody likes a dictator. And sometimes you, you view this as a dictatorship. It’s not necessarily that way, but that is a natural tendency to not have to be told what to do. Yeah. When I can and can’t shut up. Just stuff like that gets under my skin. Exactly. Well let’s call a good buddy of ours, John Adams there in Arizona. He’s pretty fun to visit with. I know. And his opinions, whatever they may be, aren’t necessarily our opinions, but he could, we’ll we’ll bring out both sides out of this guy. ’cause we’re gonna, we’re gonna be the devils he doesn’t know we’re calling. So there’s a good chance he will answer thinking, Hey, Jason ran a Christmas. He’ll be like, dude, okay, here we go.
00:26:18:00 –> 00:27:52:23
He’s been building a house, probably making gingerbread houses with his family. Hang on. Come on guy. What up bro? What are you doing? Dude, if I FaceTimed you right now, you’d be like, you’re freaking nuts. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I got Bronson on the line too. What, what do you got? What do you got going? Shit, I’m on top of about 30 feet up off the ground right now. Oh, you’re building the house. Holy cow. Yeah. Wind. Yeah. So whatcha guys doing? Is the wind blowing too? Or, oh yeah, dude. So you’re white knuckled right now. You got any safety strap harnesses? Tree stand harnesses. Strap yourself to the truss real quick. Nothing. I ain’t got nothing free. Whatever. Hey, we wanted to get your take real quick. So you’re on the Epic Outdoors podcast. Just, we won’t take much of your time, but don’t fall off. Okay. Okay. Promise I won’t. So real quick, we’re talking about the trail camera deal and we have not talked about your stance, my stance, Adam’s stance, anything. We just kinda wanna talk about it real quick and give us the pros and cons of hey, having a season, having ’em band year round, all of those kind of things. Give, give it, just start talking for a minute on what you think. Oh geez, man. Mery merry and by the way, Merry Christmas. Yeah, yeah. Merry Christmas Day as well. Oh, just real quick.
00:27:53:00 –> 00:29:14:00
I don’t know man, I, my stance is no dates. They, they can’t even, they can’t even, you know, they have too many rules to enforce right now as it is. So the only guys that are gonna be affected are the guys that actually follow the rules. Yeah. So I say ban ’em completely, just get rid of ’em. Make it easy. Just get rid of ’em. Yeah. I, I would like to see it go back to the old days. Give that five years on the five years on the strip giants, five years in unit nine. Dude, it would go back to giants. Just, just, yeah. People say, oh man, I, I saw a giant buck and he has kickers or whatever. I mean now with trail cameras, if there’s a kicker, a flyer or you know, a split I guard or whatever, I know that Buck is 1 95, 1 97, whatever. Shoot his name’s got a name and his name’s Joe, you know? Yep, exactly. His name’s Big John. I have no idea. You know? Yeah. How cool is this? I think those guys that How cool is this? Yeah, yeah. That, that would grind it out way out in the middle of nowhere. Find a giant and have him to, to themselves the whole hunt, you know? Yeah.
00:29:14:18 –> 00:30:26:28
So you’re saying the enjoyment of the hunt could go up for guys that are willing to work hard, they’re gonna go out, find one, they’re not gonna have the teams of guys crowding them because nobody else is only, only if you glassed him up, if you got lucky and glassed him up, you’re, you know, what’s the chance? Is every anybody else really glassed him up kind of thing? Yeah. I I I, it, it also kind of bums me out that, that somebody from wherever could go buy a hundred truck cameras and know exactly what I know in a unit that I live in. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And they showed up for one day, dropped all their cameras and took off and they’re back pushing a pencil for the rest of the six months. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. One, one thing that, one thing that we threw out, you know, this is, I guess as opinionated as we’ve gotten, as we had a little discussion Carter and I this morning, is the, some of the proposed language about, you know, if it’s, if it’s used for the purpose of general photography or research or cattle, and that to us is just too broadly interpreted and needs. If, if this is gonna stick, you guys just gotta make it stick. Kinda like what you’re saying is it’s not enforceable. No, it’s not.
00:30:27:06 –> 00:31:53:23
And I mean, look at the, the bulls that unit 10 have you, you’re not getting trail cam pictures of those bulls, you know, because of the bia shut down the trail cameras, you know, or unit nine, you know, every single bull that is in unit nine. And if they go to a different unit, you know exactly which way that bull migrated to go find cows or Yeah. If they, if they want dates, let ’em have it march through April, they can run their cameras to get their pitchers. There’s no antler, there’s no antlers on. You’re, you’re a hard a what do you mean? Come on, March through, let ’em get their, let ’em get their, you know, camp butterfly pitchers and you know, whatever. Yeah. Yep. They can know. Yeah, ’em roll with it. They can at least they’ll know what date of bullshit. So that’s what you’re, that’s what you’re saying is that hey, if you wanna do it just for scenery or whatever, research or whatever wildlife photography, then, then get your pictures, you know, in February through May, whatever. Yep. Yeah. But, but if they’re like, the dates that I’ve seen, like June through July, August or whatever, all that helps is auction hunters, it helps auction deer hunters, auction elk hunters and that’s it. It doesn’t help. Maybe a little early help, maybe a little on the early archery deer. Archery deer. Don’t think probably it would a little bit. Yeah.
00:31:54:03 –> 00:33:06:17
Maybe, I don’t dunno. The August openers. Yeah. At least it helps a little like, like here and there just to know that something’s in the area. But like, if you gotta quit at the end of July and you’re your deer, like you guys generally start, let’s call it August 21. August 20, just depends on how the calendar falls. You’ve got at least, you know, you’ve got some time there where you don’t really know what’s going on. And so that’s your point is with the auction hunts going 365 days and usually, usually you have leftover carrier hunters Yeah. Carryovers that have, that are willing to kill something at the end of July or first part of August. That’s what you’re saying it’s gonna help. So Yeah, that Well, I, I could go, I could go either way, but that’s just, that’s my 2 cents. I think I did a poll on, on Instagram, whatever, what did the poll say a month ago? How 75% people want to keep ’em, 25%, they ban ’em. So Yeah. Do you remember how many voters you had on that? I think there’s like probably 2,500 people Wow. Voted on it. Yeah. So I mean, it’s a, it was pretty good. Pretty much. Yeah. That’s a lot. Pretty much. Yeah.
00:33:06:23 –> 00:34:23:10
There, there was quite a few people that said keep ’em and did, was it, was it keep them with the season or was it just straight up keep it, keep it the way it is? You know, I didn’t get that detailed, but people just said keep ’em, there’s only 25% that said ban ’em. Yeah. And I, I, yeah, I mean we just got another 70 in last week, you know what I mean? You got another 70 cameras. Yeah. We just ordered another 70 stealth cams last week. Mike, keep ’em in the box. No, they’re not gonna start this till 2022. Yeah. And, and, and yeah, a few of my buddies were like, Hey, are you offering your truck cameras at discount right now? And just like, you know, I don’t know. So even though you think Banum, you’re using them and I think Adam and I brought that up too. That’s my fault. We have to Why? Tell us why. I mean, I just want to go for, for clients. I mean, I, our clients are gonna get the best that, that they paid for, you know, like and competing with other outfitting businesses. Exactly. And that’s what Adam and I were talking about with, you know, the equipment, the advances in equipment. You’re not gonna go with inferior equipment, even though you would wish that the, that they would force you to use inferior equipment. You’re gonna go with the best that you can afford.
00:34:24:02 –> 00:35:39:07
Exactly. Yep. So, all right. Yeah. Are those reds and blues coming for you? Do you need to go or No, no. I live right here by the snow bowl and it’s like every hour somebody takes a digger on a snowboard or runs into a tree or something. Okay. Just checking out. It’s, yeah. It’s pretty funny. How’s the, how’s the weather down there as far as you know? Winter moisture had any snow for a significant amount. It’s dry, dry, dry. Which is nice to build a house. I’m, I’m hoping to get your sucker dried in before, before the moisture comes. So Really That’s nice. Feels like you’ve been working on it in and around hunts for about 14 months. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, don’t remind him or his wife. It’s been, it’s been bad. It, it, it, it’s sat like without anything done for like three months. So I’m trying to make up some time now. Well, at least you’re handy enough to do it. I I I’m not that guy. No. So you, Bronson, I, I, I wouldn’t let my kids sleep in a house that I built let alone or my wife. Wife or kids. No, I don’t cat, cat. Whatever can happen. I’m not a cat fan. So cats can whatever. Whatever you have. Not my wife and kids. Well, we’ll let you go. Just wanted to kind of get a resident take and I know you’re good at bringing out both sides.
00:35:39:16 –> 00:36:53:10
Of course you did that, that little poll and I just thought, well, we hit you up today, so. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Well, yeah, have a merry Christmas both of you guys and keep a you good work too. Stay safe down there. Alright boss. All right, see you guys. Talk you later. Bye. Bye. There you go. Oh, there you go. That’s, there’s gonna be a varying wide range of, of opinions I guess before we put that to bed. Like for now, Carter probably come up again in a month or two or three when they, if they do anything. Yeah. But for now, I guess just say our 2 cents would be if something’s gonna be passed, you better have it simply as interpreted and enforceable as possible. That’s right. The broader little clauses that you can say unless, unless, unless it, it’s gonna be abused or loophole to death and then you’re not gonna be able to enforce it. And like John said, and like anything, the, the honest people that have to put it away because that’s how they have to do to run their business, protect their business, their livelihood as guides outfitters or just to, Hey, I don’t want my animal stripped from me be, you know, if somebody, if I shoot an animal, I wanna be able to shoot it under the legal guidelines of, you know, you mean not take with illegal take or something sort. Yeah. Illegal take.
00:36:53:13 –> 00:38:02:19
I wanna be able to do that. You know, it’s going to be, they’re, you know, if it’s loosely interpreted and loosely enforced, it doesn’t, anybody, you better not even do it. You better not even touch it doesn’t do anybody any favors. That’s right. So anyway. Yeah. And you can, hey, hey, ban ’em year round, put a season on ’em, don’t ban ’em. Whatever it is, you know, I I love running them, but at the same time, totally enjoy the ban in Nevada and you know, I’ve, we’ve seen Montana come and go with trail cams bidding on the commission, allow it, don’t allow it. I think it’s legal to use ’em right now, but they’ve had it to where it wasn’t legal and so, you know, Arizona could have a little change in commission and change it up a couple years down the road if they make a change now. It’s not set in stone forever. Anyway, if you wanna make a comment again, go to [email protected] starting January one through February 1st and make your voice heard. Alright. Another thing to bring up that John brought up is how dry it is there and how dry it is here still in Nevada. Oh, we, we got a, we’re continually, it, it’s not even 2021 yet. It’s almost, but we’re already getting quite a few calls, people asking about it.
00:38:02:21 –> 00:39:06:18
’cause we’ve alluded to it on podcasts earlier and it’s been a long dry spell, but it really has, I mean, Chris, you’ve talked about two snowstorms here in Cedar City, like an inch and a half each time. I mean, I think I shoveled it just so that just to do it. Yeah. To make sure the shovel worked. I wasn’t sure if my liability policy at my house was up to date. So I wanted to make sure if anybody could, didn’t slip on the ice. Andum consuming. I just got rid of it. I threw out some salt. Yeah, that’s what I mean. So I tried and I can say I tried, but when you have to shovel an inch of snow, it’s just because you’re bored and you want to shovel more snow, but you’re excited to have one inch because you haven’t done it. The, the bad part about this isn’t that we’re just having a dry fall. It’s coming on the hills of one of the driest summers I have ever seen. We had over 200 days of no moisture. Yeah. In a lot of parts of the southwest from, from April till the end of the year in Utah. I mean, I don’t, I unmeasurable in Nevada, Southern Nevada, Eastern and southern Nevada, same Northern Arizona, the same. Even a lot of central and southern Arizona that the monsoon year was just off was had, they had a few weird storms.
00:39:06:18 –> 00:40:20:11
It was, but there wasn’t really a, a monsoon season. And that’s how we get a lot of our summer, our yearly moisture is from July through September and it, it was non-existent. So we’re going into the winter very dry, just needs to, need to watch it there. This could come into to how you, how aggressively or or not you apply for certain tags in the west this year. Certain tags for certain species wanna make that. Not all, not all things are affected. Antelope and sheep are sheep. No. Not really affected. You know, so, and I think part of that too is what the, the thing that keeps me going every day, ’cause we live for hunting season, is we never really see two bad back to back years. Generally. It’s not two absolute terrible years. I’m praying that continues that we have a little bit of reprieve. If it comes off wet in March, April, may I contend we’ll be fine. Yeah. You know, it’s, yeah. The the the water table will be lower but the feet will be fine and it’ll come out of it. Potentially you can arch we’ve seen that you can artificially have a good antler year by, well-timed moisture. That’s, but you may not have stock tanks full and all that, but you can artificially grow some groceries and have a pretty decent year. That’s, and what I meant a minute ago that sheep and antelope don’t matter.
00:40:20:12 –> 00:41:31:03
Sheep, you know, seven, eight, 10-year-old rams that they’ve got their head gear that they’re gonna have, they’re gonna grow quarter, half an inch, you know half. That’s right. Antelope also are a different beast. We’ve, we’ve had Tony Grimmet on before. They, he likes dryers they shed in November, December. They’re just their sheath and they just grow differently. They, they don’t, they don’t rely on, you know, the greenup in the spring and summer. Right. The same that’ss what I meant that or what they do. He’s saying that they’ll feed on heartier feed if it’s drier because they won’t have the little green that could maybe grow horn better. Yes. We’re talking about antlers, deer, elk. That’s what we’re really talking about when we’re drought sensitive. It’s, it’s really dry. We’ll keep you up to date on it. Both in the magazine and on the podcast. And, and again it’s, it’s southern Utah, parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Large part of New Mexico, Arizona, large part of Nevada. Nevada. I mean, we’re talking about Utah and Nevada, the two dry states in the nation. So, I mean, but the but the dry season also affect affected hunting conditions across the west. Just hunting conditions were brutal. Yep. And, and that could affect carryover of deer and elk, which is for people looking for a 2021 tag could be a good thing, but you’ve also gotta be able to have deer and elk in the condition.
00:41:31:03 –> 00:42:28:12
Meaning more animals lived more, more, less. That’s right. Less take of quality or top end animals if you wanna call ’em that like Nevada. Yeah. Yep. And, and then you now hopefully superimpose another year of antler growth if that’s at all good or normal or above normal could be a good year for 2021 permit holders. But that remains to be seen. You know, we’ve gotta we’ve gotta get out of this funk we’re in right now. We’re in a, we’re in a dry weather pattern and it doesn’t, we know that. We know that for a fact. The other parts of it, we don’t know what we don’t know because we don’t know yet. But we do know we’d like to get it out of the dry pattern. Right. We, we don’t know. I do know. We don’t know because it’s not March yet. Alright. That’s right. Alright, well anyway, peculate, anything else, Chris? It could turn, turn around. Yeah, it could turn around. But I feel like that even the wintertime what’s there right now has an effect on the antler growth. Yeah. If it’s, if it was dry all summer and they’re, they’re fighting to find winter feed right now, I feel like they’re not gonna grow well their body condition.
00:42:28:13 –> 00:43:36:15
Well how many, yeah, I mean I, I killed a bunch of rams with hunters this year and I, and I just got done talking about how horn drove, doesn’t matter on your seven to 10-year-old rams. And largely it doesn’t, but their body condition was terrible. Yeah. Skin and bones. Bones. They fought skin and bones. They fought for everything they got. Okay. And even some of the deer we shot in some of the Nevada and parts of Utah were brutal. Not an ounce of fat on ’em. And skinny. Skinny. And so that’s what we’re talking about, Chris. Yeah. Antler growth is secondary to body maintenance, you know. That’s right. And if their body, if they have to get their body back on track after a lean summer and not grade winter feed and that has to get back on track. Even if it does start, you know, raining and all that. It can, it’s gonna help. But their body has is gonna get come first. Yeah. So anyway, I just wish they were like us, like if you eat a donut or two, you feel fat the next day. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like how long? Oh it rained. I’m now fat. My antlers are gonna grow. Amazing. I mean that would be nice. Right? It’s, it’s just like we’re done with the hunts it, you know, early December, late November, early December.
00:43:36:24 –> 00:44:50:28
And you feel lean, mean you’ve been hiking heels, glass and knobs and you’re, this is awesome. Within three to four weeks of just eating whatever you want and writing the magazine. Okay. That’s gone. It’s all gone. Everything you work for gone soft. The soft sets in softness creeps right back and whatever the hard legs part of it going. Bye-Bye. Oh yeah. So it’s, it’s unfortunate. It feels like the most exercise we’re getting is walking into the mal into the post office. Yeah. And our fingers on our computer. Hey, how much calories can you burn? Hey, my fingers are in shape. Your’s our too. Yeah, they tone their tone. I would like, we should do the word, you know, words per minute test. Dude, I bet we could smoke some secretaries. I’m serious. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t want do even the special characters ’cause we’re always all the, I don’t know, ampersand, logins, all the, all the change. Arizona’s changing the login system. We are good at all those weird symbols. Now there were symbols I didn’t even know about. It’s another, yeah. Why are they doing that? But anyway. All right. I wanna give a quick shout out to a couple more of our sponsors here before we go. One of ’em out to Red Rock Precision. Awesome. Custom long range rifles and custom man ammunition. Great guys, we, we’ve all shot the rifles and have had for many years a couple different ones.
00:44:51:00 –> 00:46:04:13
In fact six five sevens, 20 eights, thirties, thirties. Give Kurt a call at Red Rock Precision (801) 425-6574 or you can check ’em out on the Red Rock precision.com. Red rock precision.com website. They have a nice feature on their website. You can kind of build, build your own rifle, you know, build it from a, from an action, from a caliber, from a stock, from an optic, all that standpoint. But at any time you want to just get the personal touch to call and talk the ins and outs of putting together what the rifle you have for your application. Give credit call 8 0 1 4 2 5 6 5 7 4. I I I’m the kind of guy that would call him Bronson. I would too. I mean, I I I just too well, well sometimes again, back to you don’t know what you don’t know. I don’t know what I want, Kurt. This is just, this is kind of what I’m thinking and he would be like, okay then you probably need this stock or that stock. I don’t know. Yeah. That’s rights not, it’s better to talk about expertise and we, we get people calling us here about that too. And, and if you’re, if you’re after a well-rounded western big game rifle versus just specifically a, a lighter weight sheep or a high country deer backpacking gun, they’re, they’re different caliber and different stock and different optic, different models considerations. You should, yeah. So yeah, give ’em a call. They’re great guys.
00:46:04:18 –> 00:47:16:29
Business call people that’re very knowledgeable. We know we we’re expertise experts in our field and they’re experts in theirs and I trust them. Again, another shout out here to stealth cam. Hey stealth cam, you better hope that Arizona doesn’t make this rule. You might lose a little cash. Anyway, stealth cam.com. We sell stealth cams too. You’re welcome to call us, visit with us. But you can go look at all these new models. They got a ton of new models out for this year. We’re gonna be placing a huge order. Just a lot of new stuff on the horizon for 2021. Stealth cam. They do have their fusions. We have a few in stock here. We’re kind of little bit lean on, on what’s in stock because most of the big game seasons are coming to a close. So anyway, if you need something, now would be the time to call us why we have ’em in stock. Or you can go look at all the new models and features on stealth cam.com, gsm outdoors.com. We appreciate their partnership and really fortunate to be working with Steel Cam. Great company. Last shout out today we want to give is to Outdoor Edge. They’ve been a good partner of ours, partnered us with our Epic outdoor series Razor Light Knife, as well as they’ve got a big variety of other knives and tools on their outdoor edge.com. Good partner of ours as well.
00:47:17:03 –> 00:48:28:24
Well-built knives never broken a blade to this day on mine. Me neither. Never have. And that was probably our, our biggest, biggest gripe. The only probably of the, the old knives. Yeah. That the, the other you break, you break ’em. Especially on bowing and elk or other things like that. These ones have, you know, a lot, lot of good support system on the top edge of the, of the blade support system is sounds like something you need when you’re going through a tough time in your life. But that has a great covid. Get covid. You might need a support system that’s, but it does have a, supports the razor for the strength of the strength of the blade. You know, almost the full length of the blade so you don’t break it. And they’re just a thicker beef of your blade, but still very sharp. You better be careful about ’em. It’s nice. They will slice and dice you. Full sized knife. I love that about ’em. Lock blade. They’re a gray knife. And you know we have some of those we do giving away with some of our different That’s right. Every 200 ticket packages, every $200 ticket purchase that you make, you get free. Outdoor Edge, epic Outdoor Service knife, epic Outdoors Knife. Yeah. With a three extra blades in it. So anyway, lash Out is for ourselves, epic Outdoors. We are giving away some hunts.
00:48:29:03 –> 00:48:54:00
Get your name in the hat, go to epic outdoors.com or call us at (435) 263-0777. We publish a monthly magazine December through June, bimonthly remainder of the year. Nine issues a year. Heavily research, research-based magazine for Western Big game hunting. You can check us out again. Epic outdoors.com. That’s enough for me. Bronson. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas to everybody and bring on 2021.
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