EP 199: Meet New Epic Consultant Josh Pollock. In this episode we introduce you to our newest hunting consultant, Josh Pollock. Josh is a big time hunter and also spent 10 years working for the Utah Game and Fish as a Game Warden and then a Biologist. Josh has a lot of experience in the areas that matter. We also talk about some of Josh’s hunting experiences, from Monster Mule Deer in Utah and a bull he killed over 400″  Were excited to have Josh on board.

Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.

00:00:02:10 –> 00:01:16:15
42 inch, two fifties, buck 12 on each side. Buck from way back. Yeah. He hunted the ponds with his brother and then goes and watches his dads smoke. A two 50 buck on a general unit. Anything to do with Western Big Games? Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast. Powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson. Chris. Chris. Is it the keyboard? I don’t know what we’d do without you over there, Chris, for some reason it’s just a little security blanket when you’re in the room. Oh good. I’m glad we would do nothing. Yeah, we wouldn’t have a podcast, didn’t you? Where’s that little portable one that you like set up for Adam and I on the road and it was dummy proof. It’s like a Sony Walkman. It’s back room. It’s actually not dummy proof. It’s, it’s a little bit, it takes a little bit of setup up. Yeah. It seems like you set us up. Will you set that up and let’s put it where nobody can touch it in case you die in a car wreck? Yeah. Yeah. I think John could get us out in a pinch. I actually built a little how-to thing. Manual? Yeah. A playbook, not playbook. Yeah. We need to know where that playbook is. Chris. This one’s is the playbook’s right here. What if we get kicked by a horse? But the, the playbook for that little thing is what if McKenzie kick you?

00:01:16:18 –> 00:02:32:09
I gave it to, I gave it to John at one point. It was, I folded it up and put it in the case of the recorder. Okay, well, well, okay, so it’s on record. We got this recorded. We know how to get ourselves out in a pinch and don’t what? What podcast is numbers? Is this Chris? This is one. 1 99. All right. Okay. We’re gonna have a fun two hundo. A two hundo. Oh hun. Early next week. Let’s do boys A two hundo with the all the boys. We got a special topic. Yeah, we do. Listen. Not gonna tell you what it is, but it’s gonna be pretty fun. Yeah. Name that unit or something similar. What do you think? Yeah, something like that. Maybe some rapid fire. Oh, some rapid fire. I like it. Would you rather, would you rather A or B Unit X or unit, kinda like the eye doctor. One or two? Number one. Number two. All we could do would you rather on species. Species, would you rather? Okay. Yeah, let’s bring it all the table. Let’s do, what’d you rather? Unit X. Unit Y. Species X. Species Y. We’ll bring some cowboy questions too, Chris. Okay. Huh? Okay, be ready. Hereford Dur Angus. Who knows? Who knows where it’s gonna go. Alright, so 1 99. Chris, let’s just be thinking what we’re gonna give away to celebrate on two Eve of the two hun. The two hundo. Okay. Okay. All right.

00:02:32:10 –> 00:03:39:17
We’re gotta give away something. We, let’s do it. Speaking of other giveaway, let’s talk about the Under Armour Code Carter on our website all. Yeah. So on our website, we’ve got some brand new UA codes, 40% off. You can go on to epic outdoors.com, log in and get yourself a, it’s, it’s right at the top of the screen on the homepage, right at the top of the screen. On the homepage. Just get 40% off under Armor gear. It’s on the white banner right at the top. Can’t miss it. Type in what? Your name, email, whatever. Yeah, you just, so what you do, you go in there, it says click here in yellow. You click on that and it’ll, it’ll ask for email, name, address, city state, zip code. And then you click get discount code. It’ll spit you out a code. And then as you check out on ua.com, you’re gonna use that code. Chris, is there any fine print that says they owe us their firstborn since we’re giving ’em a 40% off code? Or is this just free for the taking? No, it’s free Enter. It’s free for the taking. Enter in all your unit choices you’ve applied for this year in the Western us. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. You just, no. Enter a trophy pick and tell us exactly where it gives news coordinates. There’s no, there’s no, there’s no catch.

00:03:39:17 –> 00:04:57:03
People were saying you can get a card. Buy 40% off ua.com. So there it is. Kind of cool. Any expiration to that, Chris? There’s yes. While supplies last, but is there a date on there? Well, so this is, it’s, it’s pretty awesome. You have up to $2,000 in total purchase, which is a lot. Holy crap. And you get 40% off of that. And then it’s good until seven. One of 21. Come on. So that’s the giveaway for the day. We’ll have a different one early next week on the two Hyundai. The two Hyundai, another one of our supporters here. Outdoor Edge has been long-term sponsor of us here and partner here at Epic Outdoors make great replaceable blade knives. Super sharp. Better be careful with one in your hands, but they, they can really make quick work of anything you got to take care of in the field. Visit ’em at outdoor edge.com. They got all kinds of different tools, multi tools, knife, knife combinations, things like that. Great partner of ours. Appreciate their support. All right, so anyway, we’re kind of in a pretty good mood today. Bronson. We just finished up a Mac. Oh yeah. April, 2021. Issue with Nevada, Montana. Moose, sheep, goat, bison, antelope and Kansas is at the printer. Imag will be live probably by the time you hear this podcast, so, oh yeah. Pretty excited about that.

00:04:57:20 –> 00:06:11:27
Of course, Nevada opens up, Montana’s already open, but it’s not due till May 1st or June 1st. In the case of Antelope, Nevada opens up Monday the 22nd of March, but it’s not due till what May 10th. Yeah, so it’s coming. Don’t worry. You know, don’t get into N apply the first day you don’t get a twofer. Let’s just say you get excited and apply because I’m that guy, right? Well, Nevada has a nice plug and play option. That’s it for free. You can make adjust choices. I love adjusting those choices like 10 times before the deadline. I know it’s pretty fun. What if, kinda like what we were talking about, the A would B. Yeah. One or two. But anyway, kind of fun. So anyway, anybody’s thinking about, that’s Nevada. We are gonna have this emag up and live. If you want to apply, you can obviously start on Monday. Like Bronson said, we also have the guide draw coming out next week. Well Wednesday, right? Yeah. The results, they’re gonna run the draw on Monday and come out on Wednesday at the very latest, maybe even a little bit early. Nevada loves to, loves to have people waking up at midnight. Who knows? They might release it at midnight, remember? Remember how they did that phone starts chiming? Yeah. Kind of fun. They made a big deal about it with the, yeah. Midnight madness. Yeah. Oh they did? Yeah. Yeah. And then you got other states like Arizona.

00:06:13:07 –> 00:07:19:28
Okay, well, you know what? What would, I’m still looking for a case card charge. We should talk about that. You could use the word madness, but probably not anything involving midnight. It’s just a three weeks of madness. I’m just wondering how much the new programming team charged them to get ’em up and going. What do you think? I don’t know who, how they got bailed out or how the draw was run or any, anything about that. Probably runs from some Biden programmers. Who knows? I, I don’t know. I dunno what’s going on, but it was a cluster of epic proportions. Well, cards have been hit, you know, it’ll be another week before the dust settles and who knows. But it was a, my card hasn’t been hit. My card has not been hit. No, nobody here. I’m not. I’m just saying people disgruntled. I’m a disgruntled. So is it done, like if you’re gonna get hit, probably usually Arizona crushes ’em in one day. They’re pretty like, they’re pretty handy on it. Other than there has been peoples that cards that decline the alternates. It’s usually five to seven days later, man. We’ve had friends get another little tiny wave several days later, which would be, I’m gonna be the cleanup crew. I’m gonna be on the cleanup crew, I’m pretty sure.

00:07:20:28 –> 00:08:36:07
But, all right, well, so anyway, if you drew a tag, you’re gonna find out exactly what you drew here, probably within a week, week and a half, assuming that they load the portals, assuming there are portals. And so anyway, if you get, or you can get through on the phone line, I mean, good six oh two nine four two 3000 hit option two. I don’t even remember. It’s pretty close though. But anyway, so yeah, we’re pretty excited. If you drew, we want to hear about it. Give us a holler, especially if you’re a member of Epic Outdoors, we can help you get started. Give you outfitters names and numbers, or also a list of members who’ve drawn in the past. Of course, Bronson, you and I have spent a lot of time in Arizona. If there’s something we can help you with personally, absolutely happy to help. One thing we didn’t bring up, just real quick is a maybe new change for Nevada. Okay. The grandma law. Grandma law ta. Well, what’s, what’s that? Basically, basically, you’re not gonna be able to use grandma’s points to point boost you and then turn her tag back in, get her another point, and have grandma help boost you again every year, year after year after year. Which a lot of guys have been doing not. And hey, if it’s legal and, and the system allows it, don’t, don’t blame ’em. Don’t blame ’em.

00:08:36:12 –> 00:09:45:16
Game And fish knew it was happening, but maybe not to the degree that it was, but they’ve kind of closed that loophole. Yeah, you can still point boost somebody, but when you draw now their points are gone. You both have to turn your tag back in if you want your points back. Yeah. So you’re gonna go hunting on grandma’s boosted points, but she’s now back down to zero. Kind of cool. Yeah. They’ve also, yeah, grandma, mom, whoever, friend and Uncle Fae, whoever. And then all that big change really, it, it’s a big change. Mean a lot of people have used it and it’s not, again, we’re not, we’re making light of it now. It’s gone on. It’s just now gone. So it might affect some people. Well, it’ll be good. Spread out the tags a little bit to other people. There’s guys, you know, killing big O bucks on a regular basis and I don’t blame ’em for it at all. But anyway, that’ll, that’ll adjust slightly. Still be able to use grandma’s points like you said. But you know, you’d have to both turn in to get your points back. They will continue to allow you to turn your, you know, your own tag back in, get your points back if, if you apply it on a single app and just wanted to not go, something came up, weather, whatever. So you’ll be able to do that.

00:09:45:16 –> 00:10:43:07
They also are initiating a first come, first serve option. Pretty cool. Yeah. Within the, the last 10 days, if somebody returns the tag within that period and they don’t have the time to go to the alternate list, it’s just gonna be on a first comes first serve deal. Resident. Resident, not non-resident and resident in the same hat. Free for all. Basically. Here’s a tag. Whoever’s first one to buy it, buy it. That’s right. Yeah. If you get within that, what, I think it’s a 14 day window or whatever, plus, hey, it, there’s no resident non-resident limitations. There’s a tag comes up, it’s free for everybody. You’ll lose your points and waiting periods, you’ll incur a waiting period if, if applicable. What was the number of desert sheep tags last year? Like eight or nine Desert sheep tags turned in so close to the deadline last year. They didn’t have time to reissue ’em. So, I mean, I would’ve first come, first served desert sheet pack, I would’ve taken, taken a rotary phone and started calling people up. But you’d have made nine calls and got rid of ’em probably. But in this day and age, that’s not proper. Yeah, well probably have to go through protocol and vet everybody out, make sure they’re not a felon. I, it probably just was too much, huh?

00:10:43:19 –> 00:11:55:01
Well, and if you didn’t have time to scout or didn’t have time off of work or, or hire a guide or whatever, there’s lots of things that you get a desert sheep call a day before the hunt starts that you may decide to pass on it. It sounds stupid, but it, it’s once in lifetime off. Wait till it happens to you and see what you do. What that phone call, remember what I drew that Arizona sheep And then when you actually have the tag, I’m not gonna say it’s buyer’s remorse, but it, you realize it’s my one and only and I wanna make sure it’s in the right unit. And now you get picky and I was like, maybe I’ll turn this back. And you were like, you so dead gun fool. And we looked at the drawing odds in Nevada. You should never turn one of those tags back. Yeah, do not do it. Alright. Enough of that. We got a kind of a special guest, Bronson. Yeah. We’ve had him before. A couple times through three, I don’t know what it was, but wearing a different hat back in that day. Now he’s even got our hat on. How about that? Yeah. Josh Pollock. Josh. Good morning Josh. Hey, how’s it going? Be quiet over there. I’m just taking it in. Waiting for we to give him the head nod. Yeah, so it’s time boss. It’s time. It’s probably best that I didn’t talk.

00:11:57:01 –> 00:13:18:15
Well, we appreciate you being here. We’ve announced it in this April issue of the magazine. Josh Pollock is our newest member of the Epic Outdoors team. And glad to have him on board as a hunting consultant to help all of us here in all the different facets of our business. Doesn’t matter what we do, all of us consultants pretty much do a bit of everything. And so we’ve had Josh on in the past when he worked for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources as a wildlife biologist and Southern Utah. Talked a lot about that. But yeah, he’s decided to bite the bullet. Yeah. I hope it’s not a real bullet, Josh. I mean, I hope this, I hope it’s a wonderful experience and a great road. We get. I mean we, we, I want to echo what Adam says. Super appreciative that you decided to take the job. We offered it to one guy, it was you and I was gonna say, why did he say no? I was number two on the list. And anyway, just really appreciate you making that plunge. Of course, you gotta travel a little bit. And you’re from in that penguin country up there in the mountains. Yeah. Why would you wanna leave that country pretty nice and quiet? Becoming a city down here. I’ve been there, done that in that valley. It’s pretty nice. Gee, that’s right. I forgot. Had a couple kids in that valley.

00:13:19:01 –> 00:14:26:15
Yeah, it’s a good place. It’s, it’s a good place. But anyway, here we are. Josh is on board. If some of you have maybe missed some of the earlier podcasts we did with Josh, that’s maybe just tell us a little bit about Yeah, your background, where you’re from, where you, your upbringing was and whatnot, and how you got to maybe where you are in life a little bit just for, just by way of rewrite where you rewind. No, no problem. Yeah, if you flip through that magazine and you’ll get it, you’ll see me as a little fat face, chubby kid, 14-year-old, and then a much skinnier younger man later on, I guess. And anyway, yeah, I grew up in Penit. Still a little fortunate to be back there now. I was away for several years, school and work and doing that kind of thing. But living back there now. And my wife works there. We have four kids and just, I dunno, loving it. It’s good to be back that way. And I am coming over this way. It’s nice. I don’t mind the drive. I get a little free scouting in in the mornings, but I don’t know, seems to, some podcasts seems like it’s now with daylight savings. I get a little bit of sunlight, at least before I was coming in the dark and going home in the dark. There wasn’t much scouting.

00:14:26:15 –> 00:15:37:23
But, so yeah, I grew up there in southern Utah and just spent my whole life as much as I could out in the mountains doing the things I loved. And went away, went to college and decided that I needed 10 years of misery in my life. So I decided to work for Division of Wildlife. Why, why was it so miserable, Josh? It’s, it seems like an awesome job. Oh yeah. And it is an awesome, I mean, you get a fly around in a helicopter and look at elk and things like that. Catch bad guys. But yeah. Yeah, we did that, did did some of that. And it’s just exciting to get phone calls and just get yelled at no matter what you do. I mean, every big deer. Every small deer. Yeah. Not enough deer. It’s, I mean, you know, too many deer and this, you know, landowners saying there’s too many deer hunters saying you’re yeah, you’re, you’re not doing your job. It ruining my family traditions. ’cause you’re trying to manage for trophies. Just kidding. I mean, it’s, you know, it was a great opportunity and it, I I, I enjoyed working for ’em. There’s awesome people that work at that agency. You know, that’s the one thing that I, I get frustrated with. You know, you hear a lot of hunters talking about, you know, they’re ruining everything, you know, and it’s all for money.

00:15:37:27 –> 00:16:47:28
And, you know, I think about my experience and time working, there never was, I told, Hey, you guys gotta sell more permits if you’re gonna keep your job. Or never did I see a pay increase if I increased permits? That’s for dang sure. So, you know, there’s some awesome people that work in the Utah Division, wildlife, and still good friends with several of those guys that work there and, and none of ’em set out or wake up each morning saying, how can I ruin hunting today? Right. For the people of Utah or the non-residents that want to come here, none of ’em wake up to do that and intentionally do that. It’s, it’s just such a balance, you know, because there’s the science and then the social side of it. Yeah. And, and a lot of it gets turned political and there’s a lot of decisions made off science and then the final decisions made off of political issues. And so, and, and I don’t think it’s gotta be hard as a biologist to see that Yeah, I know what’s happening then Salt Lake makes a final decision based off politics or whatever. Or if somebody gets involved between there and Salt Lake. Yeah. And you’re, yeah. You know. Yeah. And, and you, I mean, and the other thing that hunters don’t understand is you’ve got guys that literally their livelihood is this chunk of alfalfa that they’re trying to grow. Yeah.

00:16:48:00 –> 00:17:46:15
And when you have a wild animal that you have nobody has control over and it jumps a fence, gets, starts eating some of that. The state owns the wildlife and they’re, and it’s eating my personal crop. Yeah. And so you got a guy on your right hand saying, if that thing comes in the field, I’m gonna kill it. And the guy on the left hand’s saying, there isn’t any of those and we want 10 times more of those so I can kill ’em. You know? Yeah. It’s a, it’s a hard balance. And so that’s why I say you, you’re hearing that from both sides. And it, it was a good, well-rounded experience and I learned a lot. I gotta see some amazing country with, with a lot of the telemetry stuff that we were doing. You know, when you’d get a, a, a dough deer that dies out in the middle of nowhere that I’ve never been to in my life and I have to go hike into it, go pick it up. It was great to just go learn new country and new learn new things about the unit and stuff like that. So, no, it wasn’t 10 years of misery. But it just feels like you don’t often get a lot of, Hey, thanks, thanks for what you’re doing a job. I a great job. Job. I mean, I was only there half year of your duration.

00:17:46:17 –> 00:18:49:09
I lasted five years, so before I tapped out. And then you get paid to hunt and kill. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Everybody thinks we’re paid to hunt and kill Bronson. I’m paid to sit at a desk. It’s a brutal right now. It’s a brutal grind right now. Yeah. And I’m not, I’m not saying on us, but it’s, you know, not all, not all wet line and killing. So I guess that’d be my only advice is as to hunters and, and it’s natural. We’re all, we’re not very patient people, you know, we like to go out and we like to have success and, and we wanna go out. And especially me, I, you know, I like to go out and see big things and kill big things. And, and so that’s all I want to manage for. But that’s not what everybody, every, you know, everybody else has an opinion. A lot of guys just wanna get a tag. So you’re trying to just manage all kinds of things and help everybody out and, and in the end, we’re all hunters and we just need to, I don’t know, be a little more patient and understanding and realize, you know, all guys. You mean just love each other. Yeah. We just need to love each other. We, yeah, exactly. We need to hug more. No, we don’t. We’re start doing that. I’m coming to each of you guys’ office every morning. We’re not for a hug.

00:18:49:09 –> 00:19:51:24
We so people hug. We’re not huggers. But, but no, it’s just, I don’t know. That’s my only, I guess thing there. It’s, we get pretty critical and, and we’re, we’re passionate and, and people are passionate about it because hunting is our life. It’s as all of us. It’s been our main hobby our entire lives. Yeah. We have some other hobbies, but I think about hunting every day. Nine, you know, 80% of my day revolves around hunting and thought sometimes I don’t understand why you wouldn’t. That’s the only, yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if there is anything else. So, so that’s why we’re, we’re passionate people. And, but it was good. I got a lot of, a lot of experience. I gotta help hunters a lot. You know, talking to hunters on the phone, trying to help ’em have success. That, that was a, a joy of mine. And, and also, you know, getting to talk to a hunter after you’ve talked to ’em on the phone. ’cause they would call you back. You, it was a, it was a small number, but those guys that you’d call and maybe give some advice to, they’d call you back if they’d kill something. And it was always good to hear back from them. You’d definitely, it’s just like the KSL comments. You stay away from those, you know, when you get the, you, when you get the, the surveys back and ask a hunter what he’s saying.

00:19:51:25 –> 00:20:55:23
You just, you just stay away from those. Yeah. I mean, for the most part because it’s, you start getting into ’em and that’s a road you don’t want to go down. I remember reading one once, I mean, there were several of ’em. And I mean, you had everything from Robert Redford was out here running elk off of my thing while I was trying to do this to some guy was complaining ’cause he drew this tag and had 30 trail cameras out and, and he only had one 400 inch bull on camera and still killed the three 90 bull. But he is success. He said he was unhappy with his hunt, you know? Wow. So it’s like, how do you, you can’t keep everybody happy. No you’re not. And you try, but you just can’t. But anyway, that’s kind of a rabbit hole there. Well, we’ve learned that you can’t keep everybody happy, right? No, absolutely. Yeah. And it’s, it’s a thankless job. Like there’s a lot of other professions, maybe school teachers or things like that. They’re, they’re public service. They’re, they’re just real you, it’s a hard play or a coach, you know, even if you’re a great coach and you, you can’t keep everybody happy. You can’t play all the kids the same. I mean, you’re just, you’re, you’re gonna, you’re 50 50 cop that pulls me over. If you’re 50 50, you’re about as good as you’re gonna be cop.

00:20:55:23 –> 00:21:49:13
That pulls me over doing 60 and a 30. Very frustrating. Well, that he’s doing his job. It’s pretty black and white. I know. I’m still mad. What do you mean? I don’t want a ticket? He’s pretty black and white. Well, you’d think so. You’d think so, but people really could argue otherwise. That’s not really up for debate. Six. You’re doubling the speed limit anyway. Alright. But, but yeah. So you spent 10 years, you know, half of it roughly as a game warden, the other half as a biologist, right? Yeah. I started off as a, as a game warden still in. Luckily I was able to stay in southern Utah. You know, when you get hired as a game warden, you don’t know where they’re gonna put you. You Yeah. Show showed up there, you little man on the totem pole. Yeah. I showed up there with five guys and there was these six or seven areas that they said that we want to fill. And they did let us kind of have a little say as to what we felt like we wanted. But they placed us basically, you know, and some of the regions had some say and I’d had a little experience I’d worked, kind of did a little bit of some schooling stuff with the southern region where I worked.

00:21:49:15 –> 00:22:49:09
So they knew me a little bit and so I I, they were, I was politicking to them to help keep me down here in the southern region and stuff. Instead of going, instead of going to bullfrog, bullfrog was always, I dunno if it still is Bullfrogs. Seems like it would be great to be on Lake Powell. Yeah. Wait till you live in Bullfrog all year. Terrible. Yeah. Wait, the winter in Bullfrog. Geez. I mean, nobody’s on the lake. I mean, brutal. It used to be the lowest on the total. Yeah, there’s the most revolving. And you get the Henry’s though. You get the Henry’s. The Henry’s is your Henry’s in the lake. So really two really awesome options. But like you said, for six months outta the year, they’re not that awesome. You’re isolated. Try to raise a family. Nobody fr nobody’s coming. Nobody’s coming to visit you. And most of the time, if they were, if you were single, they had many game where they were, you know, outta college, they weren’t married yet, then you’d go to Bullfrog, try to get married. When you live in Bull, try to have a wife and bring her to Bullfrog. Try to raise a family in Bullfrog. That’s what, when I, when I came out, so the, the officer that actually went to Bullfrog, he was a kid. He grew up in Texas. He was a single kid, he was my roommate at, at the police academy.

00:22:49:28 –> 00:23:43:05
And he, he went there, they sent him there and he was all about it. He loved it. ’cause it was free housing. They have a housing that’s down there that’s free, so all your stuff’s free. So anything he was making, he was just saving. And after four or five years, I think he tapped out and he moved to Utah. He got married fast. Yeah. He went to the meat market up there. Yeah, he did. Like I know the whole story. He told me, he said, I gotta, I gotta move on. I gotta get out of this bull truck. I saved a little cash, now I’m out three days. He got a wife and he didn’t even know what he, and then he was happy forever. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He still is now. I talked to him. Really? Yeah. Good. He’s he’s all good and good. Doing good up there stuff. I know we got talking about Bullfrog, but anyway, pen, which, or, or you were in Ute County basically I gotta go to Ute County. Yeah, the wild, wild west over there and went there for five years. I got a, you know, a fortunate to cover some of the areas, awesome units that we have. Deer, elk, antelope, I mean some great opportunities there. And so it was good. Then moved 20 miles south. Resolved to when you took the biology Yeah. Job. Yeah.

00:23:43:05 –> 00:24:48:07
I took a biologist job and went down and, and got even better country down there and better units, home units that I gotta manage. That was pretty cool. You know, you grew up hunting these units and living in these units and being in ’em and then now I gotta manage the wildlife in ’em and it was pretty cool. Yeah. So those would be just for everybody, you know, Pengu, Dutton, Ponant, part of the Boulder East Zion, that, that, most of that Right. Paraic units, all that. Yep. It was big. It’s probably huge. It’s probably one of the biggest biologist districts in the state. And when it came to, I loved it. Recommendation time and classification seasons were always just insane. You’re just, just running from one thing to the next. You never had a minute. Awesome. And kind of the core, core of the state. Really? Yeah. And you had every, we put mountain goats down there. So you had mountain goats, desert sheep. I mean you, you had everything. Wow. We even had to go do a stinking cottontail jacked rabbit count a couple mornings. Is there animals too? Still do just do those morning, morning dove surveys down on the, on the No. Oh no, we didn’t do that. Oh wow. I had to do that every, every year within like a one week period. The same week every year. Do morning.

00:24:48:07 –> 00:25:53:15
Well they’re still using the computer modeling from your your, your surveys probably, but it was like how many, you know, you had to hear ’em cooing and stuff up so you had to stop it literally every like half mile or mile. I mean I had, I mean the same route every year. No wonder you quit after five, huh? No wonder. It was so easy to bring. That was pretty easy. I just thought the truck got out and listened to how many doves I could hear cooing at daylight and then drive and send it in and, but anyway. Oh yeah, we had to drive. It’s like a 40 mile route and you couldn’t go more than 25 miles an hour and you had to count every rabbit. They’re animals too. So we Well they are, they’re animals too. They’re, so tell us, you mentioned some big stuff earlier, trophy this and that. Just tell us, I mean every time I look at this picture of, is it your dad that killed this 42 inch, two fifties general season? Something monster. Disgusting freaking monster. Garfield County legend. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that. I was pretty, pretty exciting. It was funny. I, so that was my first year of hunting. I was 14 that year and my first year I drew a ponson rifle tag actually. No way. Yeah. Geez. Very first year hunting and I had no idea.

00:25:53:18 –> 00:26:54:23
I was working for a local taxidermist there in Penit. Still help him out a little bit. Just like fleshing and stuff back then and whatever. Yeah. Sweeping the floor and caping out European mount stuff. You had me practicing on that. We’re gonna boil the skull, but you’re gonna practice caping it, you know? Yeah. So I started doing that, but I’d see big giant bucks in there. And so needless to say, when I drew that ponson tag, I had a pretty skewed idea of what, what was gonna happen. It was, and at that time, the gon wasn’t what it is right now either, you know? So, and the hunt, that was actually when that hunt was early. So it was that early October. Early October, like around the ninth, which is not the time you want on the gon, it’s about the worst. It’s about the worst time to be hunting. And so it was trying to hunt the top. Didn’t really know. We didn’t cover that low country very much. We just didn’t know. And a lot of ’em were in the MidCountry and so there’s a lot of of private through that stuff. So it was, it was tough. Anyway, I had a good hunt. My dad vowed he’d never go. My brother and I actually both had, we drew a joint, a dual application on there and he vowed he’d never go hunting again.

00:26:54:24 –> 00:27:48:11
He was pretty angry at some of the bucks we were passing up. Gee. Wow. And some of that stuff. But anyway, so there we went. We had this, we both end up shooting little dink bucks on the last day. But you know, you’re 14 so you need to kill something. Yeah. So it was good for that. And anyway, but then your dad got his hunt on the general So yeah, two weeks. Two weeks later. Yeah. We just have a general tag back when it was in the southern region. And it was funny, we grew up so different. In fact, my dad gets mad at us now. We try and run trail cameras scout, do that kind of stuff. And he hates it. In fact, we just had a conversation about it the other day. He’s retired now and he’s been watching a bunch of bulls and he’s had ’em nailed down, you know, because these kids are in school and he’s watching ’em every morning and night, babysitting ’em, just waiting for ’em to drop. And anyway, he went up there and he noticed a couple of ’em had dropped and they’d moved away. So he is like, I’m gonna go sneak in there now. There was like some local high school kids there. And so he goes pulling down there and they literally came racing in right behind him. And he was, well Josh, there’s people that make living on shit hunting now. Yeah.

00:27:48:18 –> 00:28:40:13
And he was, he was just mad. He, I mean, he was like, and he said he got out to hike and they came down there, got right with him and he was, he wasn’t happy about it. And anyway, he was just like, I see this is why we, I hate scouting. I hate, he’s just the kind of guy that loves to just go out to go, go hunting place and you’re not gonna be alone anymore. No. But just go, that’s stumble. Go jump up a buck and looks good running away and dump him. And that’s what, and he, he hunt like by himself. Last year we were working and he went and hunt some country that I thought I would never even go there in my life. Right. But he went back day after day ’cause he saw track in there and he was bound and determined. I love it. He was gonna find it so, huh. Anyway, he never did but, but he was by himself. But yeah, he was by himself and that’s all that mattered. Nobody else wanted to go, nobody else was in there. So anyway, that was basically how we grew up hunting. It was just, we didn’t scout or anything. We just go to these different places. Anyway, it was kind of a place that he hadn’t hunted for years and hunted it growing up. And he said, we’re gonna go over here.

00:28:40:13 –> 00:29:40:05
And we were actually riding in the truck that morning. I remember he telling me, I’m gonna go over here and I’m gonna shoot a big black face, 40 inch buck. And I was like, kidding me. ’cause this was back, you know, even Utah general hunting was really, really pretty rough. Do you remember roughly the year? 94, 9, 5, somewhere in there. It was about out that, and so we were running like nine bucks per hundred dose on our general season units. Back then it was pretty, pretty rough, pretty tough. Yeah. Had some pretty bad winners, right? 92, 93, 90 was big. Yeah. So we had some, it wasn’t the greatest hunt. And anyway, we go down there and he was telling me how he’s gonna go do this. And I’m thinking, yeah, right. And we’re going along anyway, a couple bucks come running out and I’m like, dang, those are actually good, good bucks. You know? And, and we, he smokes the one and my grandpa shoots the other one and I’m like, dang. He was right. Like, we’re not shooting two points this year. This is pretty awesome, I guess. And we get walking up there and we were kind of walking across the side hill of it. And he was in some pretty thick manzanita. And I remember about halfway up, my grandpa was, he was pretty old. He was in his seventies and so he was taking his time.

00:29:40:05 –> 00:30:38:05
We were just kind of poking along and I got my binoculars up, little 10 by or eight by 30 twos, whatever they were. And I look over there and I’m like, man, that looks like an antler. Like sticking up above that man’s look way high. That’s Jesus. Yeah. That’s weird. I haven’t seen that. My dad looks at it, he says, oh, he looks like he’s got a cheater. You know? And like, oh, that’s cool. And, and we go walking over there and my, my little brother was there. I think he’s 12 years old range, you know. And we obviously get over the deer, the, the dead or the deer’s dead and kind of laying behind a log. And in this manzanita we get over there and my brother and I both were like, oh my gosh. And grab its head and pull up out and oh God. And I’m, I’m like, you killed a 30 here. Oh. And then we get looking at it and it’s like, oh no, that’s more than 30. And, and there’s like points everywhere. It’s disgusting. A 12 on each side from way back. Yeah. Points on each side. Jeez. Did, did your dad get excited? I mean he didn’t, did he even have a like he knew it was a good enough deer to shoot and it’s funny ’cause a lot of it’s extras as they come off, they kind of line up and everything. Yeah.

00:30:38:05 –> 00:31:31:00
So really from the side it kind of looks like a four point, you know, just thought you were doing a smashing grab. And I, I remember when he, after he’d shot it, it kind of turned and went over this log. And at that point I was like, that looked weird. It was like movie had a bunch, bunch of junk out here, way out past it side. I was like, it was 14, I don’t know. See I thought I was c we’ll see. But anyway, that was pretty amazing. He didn’t walk over to it. He was just like, he took his hat off and he is like, oh my hell. Oh my head, I just walked up the hill. He’s like, he’s like, this is, he knew. Oh yeah. At that point he knew, well it’s a buck. He’s hunt 30 years or whatever at that point in his life. Give us the stats on him. Where did he end up at? He was like 41 and three quarters wide. I mean it’s almost 42. He’s got like 12 points on each side. And I think he ended up going like 2 48, something like that. That official, yeah. Yeah. Geez. Did you book, is he in the book? Yeah. Yeah, he’s in there. I’m gonna check it out on the trophy search. Pretty awesome. He’s in there. So it was, it was, it was pretty cool. Love the tailgate in the back of the truck pic.

00:31:31:00 –> 00:32:26:15
You’ll see him in the magazine. The April issue. Pretty cool. I had to kind of threw those because that was kind of, that was when I decided that point. Like, this is what I need to do in my life. Hope there’s something, there’s, there’s something different. How are we gonna do that? He hunted the PTs with his brother for a week and a half and then goes watch his dad smoke a two 50 buck on a general unit the next week. Yeah. Pretty awesome. So it’s unbelievable. It was awesome. That’s what kind of gave me the bug. And I was, I guess smitten then. And that was part of, you know, I struggled with working with the division is that’s what I wanted. All my units. That’s what I wanted. Everything I wanted every, yeah. Because the thing is I want, it was such a unique experience that I want everybody to experience that. I mean there’s, there’s something about seeing your Kimmy my daughter, I watched her a couple years ago, shoot a spike deer, you know, and yeah, it saw velvet on it. It’s awesome. Milk on its lips. Yep. And just seeing her shaking and everything, I’m like, that’s that’s one level and that’s awesome. Yeah. And there needs to be that. Yeah, for sure. But then, then there’s that where that’s extremely next level.

00:32:27:02 –> 00:33:27:23
It’s like, man, I wish everybody could have that same experience to walk up on, especially just an animal that’s lived that long in this kind of area that it did. And yeah, it was like, man, I wish everybody could have that. Well you keep trying to, do you want to duplicate that? Yeah. And it may never happen. No, no. For you again. No, it, it, it, it may not. And so you just take those and those are those memories that I guess want me to do that. And so I had that drive as like a biologist in that to want to help to try and do that. And obviously when you’re trying to manage a general season unit, that’s not what we manage ’em for as bucks like that. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, that was a pretty main experience in my life when like big buck hunting was something that I was done for. So then Utah comes into some big bulls. How’d that treat you? Okay. And I just, hey, I just, I just love hearing about it. Yeah. And you, you know, to save the full story there, I guess I, it was on the tail end of, I guess you could call Utah’s glory days. I mean we’ll still see some years where they’re killing good bulls. That’s pretty weather dependent now and on some of those units.

00:33:27:27 –> 00:34:18:07
But yeah, it was kind of in the end of the heyday and I felt like, I felt like some of those units weren’t doing quite as good. And I had like 12 points or something. I really wanted to kill a bull in the rutt, but I thought I’m never gonna do it. I was still four or five years away from that. So I ended up taking that’s, it was, I think it was about the second year Utah came out with their late hunts. And we had known of some bulls that come down in some, in some winter range country and thought, you know, we could, we could have a chance at a good bull. And some of this stuff. It was only a five day hunt. My wife had just recently had a baby, our first baby. And so, and she had had a few troubles and so kind of during that hunt I’d end up having to come clear back to Cedar to bring her to the doctor. Anyway, it was kind of a, anyway, long story short, my dad ends up just going for a ride, took the dogs out for a ride and was checking a water tank. ’cause he’s driving by, here’s this bull.

00:34:19:07 –> 00:35:21:25
And he finds him there and he didn’t know what he was, you know, he’d, he had, he’s got extras off each of his fourths and he saw that and he’s like, Hey, this is this you, it is a big bull. Yeah. Big. And we were thinking three 80 range and honestly it sounds dumb now, but three 80, there were a lot of 400 bulls hitting the ground back then. So 3 80, 3 80 felt like it rolled off your tongue a little bit. Yeah. It was more like a three in the mid two thousands, like saying a three 50 now or something, you know. And so it was like, yeah, that’s a great bull. We probably ought to try and hunt him. You know? I mean, anyway, what year was the this? Seven? 2007 right at the end of the heyday? Yeah, we done eight or nine. Eight. Yeah. Yeah. And remember we passed three 80. Well and we passed the 3 87 hoping for better and then decided we shouldn’t do that. Yeah. We’ll kill it the next day. Yeah. It was like that was the same type premise. ’cause we, it felt like the next year Bronson, there wasn’t another three 80 alive for some reason. It started to really taper anyway. Yeah. Anyway, we ended up, it was one of those things my, I ended up having to, we got some crappy weather, you know, that was, that was, it was actually hot a little bit.

00:35:21:25 –> 00:36:17:28
And then we got some fog and crappy weather and trying to glass and find him again the next day was tough. Couldn’t pick him up. We saw a couple bulls getting into the trees, but weren’t sure. So then I ended up having to bring my wife back over to Cedar, like I said, and I hurried and got things taken care of then. And I raced back over the mountain, told my dad, Hey, go up there and just start glass and I’ll meet you up there. And we literally had a few minutes left, a 30 minutes something and we basically were gonna make a kind of a game plan for the next day. And we were just talking about it. Joking said, I said, ah, if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. And literally there he was stepped out and yeah. And he was right by that same tank. We actually cut, we cut his track. He’d been to that tank. It had just rained and we’d actually cut his track crossing the road and we didn’t know it was his, but we’re like, oh, there’s a fresh bull track right there. And so, and, and because we had minutes left, we were just heading back and all of a sudden we added right into him. And so I, I got a shot on him. It was a little bit high.

00:36:18:03 –> 00:37:13:01
I didn’t, he still, I mean he went a good 150 yards, ran to the trees and he stopped over there and, and I thought he was raking a tree. He had his head down and he was kind of raking the tree while he was choking on blood at that point. Oh yeah. You know, I didn’t know that. But I, so I tried to shoot him a couple more times and my dad’s just saying, don’t hit him in the horns. Don’t hit him in the horns. So I was trying anyway, so we, it got dark on us ’cause we waited. He went into the trees, we couldn’t see him. And it’s basically went all the way back to 19 94, 95. Yeah. You know, we get over there and Pollock fashion. Yeah. Start following his track again. But this time it was opposite honestly. I stayed back with some blood. We’d had to take some orange off, marking some blood. It was dark. And my dad says, well, we were kind of talking about it. I said, let’s don’t go any farther. Let’s just stop here. But we couldn’t quite make it to that tree where he was at. If we would’ve went there. There was a pile of blood this big where he was spitting it all out. But we’d stopped just before that. And he said, let me just go right behind this tree where he last saw him.

00:37:13:02 –> 00:38:21:28
And, and so I was standing there and he went and all of a sudden the screaming started coming from behind the tree. Yeah. And then he starts counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And he gets to eight on one side, seven on the other. And I’m just like, you gotta be kidding me. And then the party began. So, oh, it was fun. So then again, like that brought all those memories back of man, I wish everybody could walk up on a bull like this at some point in their life because I was dang lucky. And I’ll take luck anytime. Oh yeah. Anytime it comes. And I was dang lucky. And I don’t know, I think that’s where all the research comes in. Bronson and I and you and everybody else that’s constantly thinking about it is we’re researching nonstop. And part of the drive is to how are we gonna duplicate that? Get in a position where that could even happen. And I know sometimes it is pure random luck, but there’s still a whole lot that you’ve gotta put in your favor to have that kind of thing happen. You’ve gotta be on a, I mean you were willing in that situation because probably your point situation to put in for late rifle hunt Yeah. Versus the early ones in September when everybody thinks that’s when you would kill a 400 plus inch bull. Yeah. And they’re bugle and they’re vulnerable, blah blah, blah.

00:38:22:01 –> 00:39:27:12
I’m announcing my presence screaming to the whole world. Yeah. Not necessarily, you know. Yeah. You know, I go now and you kill a four, what do you end up going? 4 17, 8 17, 4 17. Yeah. In November. And, and while those bulls were not, were more common then, and they’re not now. That same principle exists now. There’s units now you can go on and hunt three, seven or 80 bulls in the November hunts and quote, steal a bull. I’m not saying Utah odds are easy, but you gotta at least put yourself Yeah. In a position on a unit. It was ripe. You felt the, you felt the twilight of the Utah elk trophy glory days kind of fading. And you gotta be in the right position. Gotta be in the unit. Capable. Yeah. And, and sometimes if you just were waiting for another Utah tech come along, how, how long you would you be waiting? You’d still be playing and you know, I, I did, I I actually, I thought later I actually drew another tag. I, it was just a gon archery tag. But I knew, I was like, there’s, it’s not, you’re so far behind good bulls. I’m, I’m not gonna ever hunt a bull in the rutt unless I do something. It’s only gonna take me a couple points.

00:39:27:13 –> 00:40:31:03
And I thought if I can get out of there with killing a 6.3 20 bull with my bow during the rutt and get that same experience that I wanted clear back in 2007 and have that and you know, we turned up a giant on that hunt when I had that tag. And it was, it was a terrible, terrible thing in the end. ’cause I’d actually just killed the bull. I did. And you talking about seeing a 400 inch bull screaming or whatever this bull was, I mean he was on, on, he was a three 90 range bull. Geez. And he was, he was in that area, but he wasn’t screaming. He didn’t have cows. I think he was coming in picking off a single cow here and there. Yeah. And he wasn’t talking, doing that kind of thing. ’cause if, if I wouldn’t have been there and witnessed it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed the story because literally I had just shot that bull. I did. He was, it was a, a 60 something yard shot. It was a little ways off. And, and I knew I felt good about the shot, but I couldn’t quite tell, you know, he, as soon as I shot, he took off and I mean it was a, a great shot. And he, as I was sitting there, I could hear him up in the trees just breathing heavy. Like holy cow.

00:40:31:05 –> 00:41:28:28
I, I, I guess I did get him, you know? And so I was just kind of waiting for him to die and started cow calling a little bit thinking we’ll get him just to stay if nothing else. Yeah. Holding cow. ’cause he had, he had like 15 cows with him. So I was just kinda sitting there, cow calling. All of a sudden I hear a bugle coming right back from that direction. And I was like, no way. He’s, how did he get that out? He sounded like he was dying, you know, and, and so here’s some elk legs, start coming back through the trees and, and I started arranging a few openings and he was coming right to me. And so I arranged some stop spots. I actually put an arrow in thinking it was him maybe coming back. And I drew and it was that giant bull No way. Standing there 50 yards. And I no, never way wanted. Yeah. And you still don’t know for a hundred percent sure if your bull’s dead. No, I don’t. I don’t, I’m not, I I hadn’t even been down to go check the arrow yet. All, the only thing that that led me to believe that was, I’d heard gurgling sunk some kind of, some wheezing, but it almost was like he was, anyway. Yeah. And there he was standing and it was this three 90 bull on a 3-year-old on a one point unit to draw.

00:41:30:02 –> 00:42:37:00
What do you say? So I don’t know. I guess you gotta what do you say that my only thing there is, I guess that taught me a lesson too, is maybe, maybe you don’t need to wait for 20 years to hunt a bull either. Like, you’re not gonna kill unless you’re out there. So try and maybe, I don’t know, take a chance. And I had the luxury I thought, you know, I’m never gonna kill a bull that big ever again. So it kind of puts me in a little better spot to say I, I can hunt some stuff to take a little more risk, I guess. Well, I don’t know. I’ve, I, Bronson I ate a Nevada elk tech, I drew an Ely elk tech. I mean, you know, hunting one specific bull. But I think how do you, if I were to wait for another Nevada elk tech to come along it, you know, it may never happen. Yeah. I may never happen. And so I think that’s why we’re, you know, applying in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming. Yeah. Idaho, I mean anywhere we can to possibly come up with a tag and researching with vigor and, and you know, extreme energy and, and trying to, you know, come up with the next poll bull. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because you, I mean, you never know where they’re gonna come from. So I don’t know. Anyway, so I did not shoot him.

00:42:37:12 –> 00:43:41:13
Yeah. I, I was like, you know, he’s here. I gotta check this other bull first. You walked over there dead snot, he was dead and 50, it was kind of bittersweet thing. Made the right choice. First bull I ever killed my bow. So I was excited. And, but then just seeing that thing there was anybody ever kill that bull? Yeah, they killed him the next year actually. What, where did he end up at the next year? He, he was three 80 range, but I, I don’t think he was quite as big as he was that year. Yeah. That we, that we found him. So anyway. Well, pretty fun stuff, man. Pretty awesome. I don’t know, stories. So anyway. Yeah. And like the premise of being in the mountains is better than being at home. Yeah. Thinking about being in the mountains, you know, in terms of letting stuff happen. We could, you know, apply that to Colorado. We’ve talked about that. We’re blue in the face, just being over there somewhere. A good thing can happen in Colorado or in a lot of places in Utah general or I, I don’t know. You gotta be in the hills, a lesser, lesser quote labeled lesser unit, something good can happen. But I think in the off season, you’re constantly trying to educate yourself so you can make an educated Yeah. Guess on where the next big one will be. Yeah.

00:43:42:00 –> 00:44:52:29
I mean, but also, but also chasing that, just the elite in every state, that’s not gonna come. The realism of, of that really happening. For most people that don’t have the point, it’s not, you’re gonna have to be, be creative on what tags you get, whether it be combination of easier to get tags, general season tag, whatever, if you’re gonna, you know, hunt and make something happen. So can’t all wait for 20 years to get great tags. It’s just not gonna, you’re not gonna hunt doing it that way. Okay. Well, everybody, Josh Pollock, welcome aboard. We’ve had a little, quite a bit of growth here, Bronson at Epic Outdoors. We’re just trying to stay ahead of the demand and trying to make sure that we answer everybody’s phone calls each and every day, and, and that people are adequately serviced here at Epic Outdoors. And that’s part of you bringing you on. Josh, you’re, you’re gonna be a great addition. I appreciate the opportunity. I, I don’t know, it’s pretty humbling and it’s something I’ve always thought about doing, and I don’t know, I’m just very fortunate, so I appreciate you guys reaching out to me and I’m excited. It’ll be good. Well, we expect you to be here 30 years. You got it. I’m, I’m here. So anyway, and then we’ve also had some growth in our license application department as well.

00:44:53:00 –> 00:45:59:06
We brought a super good gal on that’s extremely accurate and attention to detail and fits perfectly with the team. And so we’ve got a little bit of growth there. And of course, Bronson, you and I have our hands on everything that goes on in, in that department as well as all departments of the Epic outdoors and what we’ve got going. Yeah. But it’s all just about anticipating what we need now. But what we’re gonna continue to need, you know, we need to be able to, we realize we’re a customer service based business. We do produce a magazine, we do produce, you know, a lot of detailed information in there to be able to help hunters make educated decisions about how, where, and what to apply for in the Western us. But we also have the personal touch to build, to call and consult and help strategize. Or in the case of, like you said, license, application service. If you’re gonna turn all your apps over to us, we’ve got the means. And to get that done efficiently, quickly, accurately, and all that. And we’ve also got, you know, you know, Devon and Wyatt who aren’t in here with us today, other consultants along with us here in the room to be able to answer questions.

00:45:59:12 –> 00:47:11:01
You know, find outfitted hunts, guided hunts either before you draw a tag that you don’t need points to draw, or after you draw a tag in a state and you, you wanna talk to a couple of key outfitters in the unit, you draw, we can help you from start to finish. We only specialize in Western North America. That’s our, that’s our love. That’s our passion. That’s where we are. We’re not broadening ourselves out over all the world and trying to do a little bit everywhere, ever. You know, ever. We’re here, this is where we belong, this is where we love, this is what we research and our passions at. So just about anticipating needs of our members and, you know, helping, helping us service them. We’re, we’re still a hundred dollars a year. We’re, we don’t have any plans to change that. We want to always add value to our membership. We’ve done a lot to our online, you know, mapping research as well as odds and, and different things like that. And we’re gonna continue to add there. Adding consultants and other, other parts of, of our workforce here is just, again, value added to our membership. I like it. So, hey, you know, one thing I’ve been thinking about is the government decided to print a bunch more money and people are getting stimulus checks, right? And there’s, it’s stimulating them to buy optics.

00:47:11:13 –> 00:48:24:17
And we’ve had a lot of calls, Bronson yesterday alone, day before guess. And some of these, maybe it’s to do with that, I don’t know, maybe it’s just spring and they’re, they’re out. Chris, get ’em. Did you get a check yet? I did. What are you gonna do with it? We sell optics, you know. Well, I, I cameras. He’s getting married. Remember? I paid bills with it. Actually. Let’s, let’s say he’s getting married Jason. All right. Went straight to, went straight to bills. Yeah, he, he has ring bells. What el what other kind of bills does maybe a potentially newlywed guy get out? I didn’t have ring bells. That was, that was already been there. Done that and paid. Yeah, I knew that. But what else comes with along with, oh, you gotta pay for a venue. Oh yeah. I told you he’s getting married. It’s, there’s, there’s lots of stimulus. Tech didn’t even scratch the surface that didn’t even Joe Biden barely paid for any visibil. You pay for food, you gotta pay for all kinds of stuff. Yeah. What kind A bite? What’s on the menu? What do we have to look forward to? Ah, I don’t know yet know yet. I don’t know yet. Or Mackenzie’s like June. Is this June? Can we put in an order? Can we say that one? Can we put in an order? Not yet, but yeah, I’ll have the rib eye.

00:48:26:06 –> 00:49:40:04
We’re we’re still looking at a few options. Marbled catering and whatnot. Well, if there’s anything we can do to help you, let us know. Jason’s willing to come work the Traeger. I’ll do something, I’ll something. I’m not a good cook because Bob said you know this well, but Jeff, John, he is, we can bring Jeff down, he can work great Jeff down and kick some alt supply. Wild game. I’ll supply a Trager or something that looks like a Traeger. Well, but anyway, your point is that if you have a little, if it’s you got a little extra and you’re looking to maybe buy optics, we, we’ve done our best to have inventory, have a great inventory despite some of the difficulties that a lot of the, a lot of industries have optics included of having supply chain disruptions in terms of availability and back orders and things like that. You’ve seen it on the shelves. A lot of sporting goods stores and guns and ammo world. And there’s other reasons that have caused those. But some of the same, you know, supply chain issues have been disrupted in terms of optics manufacturers. But we’ve done our best to maintain you. What we know is people want, need and move. So keep us in mind, whether it be spawning scope, you know, buying those tripod, rifle scopes, trip cameras anyway. Yeah. And we’re, you know, just like you can’t hardly buy a mountain bike out there.

00:49:40:10 –> 00:50:59:22
It, some of these optics are four to six months backorder. That’s backlogged. It’s crazy. And we’ve made, we’ve been proactive, made huge orders in advance and anyway, doing our best to keep everybody loaded in optics. ’cause that’s what kills stuff. Alright, well I don’t know Bronson, that’s about all we had. We kind of went over the news of the West real quick up front. Talked about some of the states that are coming out, what’s going on with Arizona and, and a few things. And so anyway, we’re, we’re gonna have a news of the west section of the podcast here and there. Keep people posted and we kind of did that in a roundabout fashion. But anyway, give another couple shout outs I guess to a couple of our podcast sponsors today. Red Rock Precision Make awesome, accurate custom backcountry or bench or whatever you’re looking for. Rifles, we’ve, many of us are in the office, have some of their rifles, some of us, a couple of them, and Kurt and his crew there at Red Rock Precision know what they’re doing. They can top it with whatever optic you’re looking for and kind of customize it to what you’re looking for. Whether you want a good all around Western caliber or whether you’re looking for something specific like a lightweight mountain rifle or sheep or something lightweight, they can do it for you. So visit [email protected].

00:50:59:22 –> 00:52:17:21
They’ve also got a custom gun builder feature on their website and kind of get you started on there. But visit ’em at red rock precision.com and get the, get the ball rolling on something if you’re looking for something for hopefully this next fall. Also appreciate Hunt and fish connection.com. Partner of ours here for a short time. Super good guys. As they got a lot of auctions going on right now, kind of the way we’re getting rid of a lot of our tags in this Covid environment. You can go on there and check out a lot of different tags. Sportsman for Fish and Wildlife, Rocky Mountain, elk Foundation, Mulder Foundation, as well as a few private entities selling tags, hunts, and different things on hunt and fish connection.com. So anyway, you can watch some live auctions, there’ll be stuff going on here in the next few days, next few weeks, next couple months. Great place to go. Kind of get on there, fish around a little bit and maybe there’s a hunt on there for you. So anyway, it’s kind of the new age way of buying tags if you’re in the market for that. And a lot of these are tax deductible. So anyway, go on there, hunt and fish connection.com spelled out and it’ll get you there. Also want to throw a little shout out to Triple S Polaris here in Cedar City, Utah. Super good guys cranking out machines like it’s their job.

00:52:18:09 –> 00:53:29:06
So anyway, we got some wazoo epic build machine that’s coming up where he’s put a lot of different custom features on there. We appreciate those guys. They know what they’re doing. They got a great business going. We know ’em personally. They’ll take care of you. Give ’em a holler. 4, 3, 5, 8, 6, 5 0 100 or you can go to like triples.com. I don’t know what their website is exactly. Ss polaris.com. Oh, there you go Chris. And one of the things that they specialize in is building a machine out for you for your specific needs. It’s not just they open up a crate and that’s your machine. All they, they take their machine from Polaris and then they customize it and make it yours. And so it’s a really cool system they got going. How cool is that? Awesome. Well thanks Chris, I appreciate that. Just like anything out there, you may need to pre-order. You kind of want to get on a list if you think you’re gonna need one in June, maybe column now. And I think that’s with everything, whether it’s optics, whether it be obviously gon ammo anything in the hunting world. I mean, just don’t put it off because who knows if something gets better or worse come May, June, July, August before you really, really need something.

00:53:29:07 –> 00:54:40:11
You know, archery, bows, boat, a lot of bows are on back order right now, you know, so it’s just a, it’s an issue, you know, side-by-side four wheelers, things like that. You know, we’ve also, you know, trucks doesn’t matter if you can’t have enough trucks, right? Well you can, but you know, I’m just saying if you don’t have one, good luck getting one. So that’s what I think, Pete, it’s crazy when you’re treating hard goods like toilet paper and food storage. Yeah. Storing them. Stacking ’em and storing ’em, huh? Yep. So anyway, don’t wait, that’s what I’m saying. Nope. Yeah, you may, it’s gonna be the day before the bow hunt and you’re not gonna be able to find whatever you think you need to do to. That’s right. You know, broadheads. Yep. Whatever, whatever. When you find something you want, buy it. We’re not trying to add to the frenzy, I’m just saying don’t start, start looking now. Get on a waiting list, get on a pre-order list, get on a, you know, wherever, whoever you deal with, whether it’s us or somebody else, gonna be, a lot of people, I think later this fall that’re gonna feel a pinch with some of this stuff anyway. Don’t wait. All right guys, that it? Yeah, I guess. Chris, you got anything else for us, boss? Nothing, no, Josh, any parting words? I bored him enough. All right, Bronson, I’m still thinking about Chris’s menu.

00:54:41:08 –> 00:54:54:00
Well, I mean, I’m hungry. So anyway, I don’t know. I’ve got a few ideas. Chris, if you need any ideas, Adam and I can sure help you out. Okay? All right. All right, well, Bronson, close us out. Have a great weekend everybody. Good luck in the draws. Good.