Making the Most of Our Tags. In this episode we finally all get back in the office together to catch up on the hunts so far this year. We’ve had some highs and some lows. We hear from John and Wyatt about their recent success on elk hunts as well as some of the tag soup hunts others have experienced. We call Jason on the phone in Nevada and get the update on his hunt there. We love this time of year and the memories it brings but it’s also fun to get back together and talk about all that has transpired
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
I was yelling out RI
Yardage.
He was dialing. He was ranging. I was ranging. And we
Got thick neck bucks pushing those.
I want you still, you’re that close. I’m like, this thing looks 30 plus
Anything to do with Western Mid Games.
Welcome
To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. All right, everybody, here we are with a new Epic Outdoors podcast. It’s been a while. We’ve been in the four corners, corners of the Earth. That feels like so. But we got most of the crew here. We got Josh, Wyatt, Chris, John. This is Adam, Jason, big Daddy Carter’s gone. We’re gonna try to get him on the horn here in a minute and see if he’s got any service wherever he is in the world right now. It’s been kind of a crazy couple of, well, more than a couple weeks. Feels like month, but that’s the season we’re in. But we appreciate you hopefully been patient. We know we’ve been absent, but we’re glad to be getting another episode out here. We want to give a shadow to Under Armor for being the title sponsor of our podcast. Like always. And we’re definitely in the middle of switching gear. The lops is gonna become a little bit more used.
I was using it this past
Weekend. Yeah, the lightweight. I was using their lightweight nude dot stuff for every day for like two weeks. And that stuff’s, I unloaded it outta my duffle and I’m not gonna see it till next summer. Pretty much with the eight inches of snow we got. We might have to skip Infa season and go right to Alpine. Alpine. That’s righty. Season Alpine. That’s like we wenty jacket. We went from golfing seventies to like eight inches of snow. Cedar City. It’s crazy. We, you know, I dunno, I didn’t shovel or push snow once last year and we got this town feels like we’re a bunch of Californians right now that have never seen snow, never driven in snow. And for some people like the college freshmen that probably come from southern states to Cedar City, there’s a lot of people. It feels like everybody at on. There’s never driven in snow. But yeah, I guess. And do you have a new crop of 16 year olds that probably have never driven in snow? It just feels like people, what is going on? People, people are off the road everywhere this morning. Every light in town. Yeah. Like, and I guess probably cuz nobody had snowplows hooked up to anything on, you know, whether it be the highway udot or city or private companies. I mean, our parking lot here, for instance, is Yeah, pretty, pretty rough.
We got a lot of snow. But anyway, I guess it’s, it’s early October, almost mid-October and it’s coming, coming here. It’s gonna be interesting. Hopefully if it, it keeps on for certain hunts that I have. I’m praying for more snow and I know Colorado people are, hopefully we get a trend going in that direction that we haven’t had for a while. So anyway. Should we call Jason real quick? Yeah. And see if we can get him on the horn. And I don’t know how long he’s gonna be in service. He can make fun of him while he is not here to defend himself. Yeah. If he, if he doesn’t answer, we got
Hello?
Oh, you answered crap. We thought you,
If you didn’t, you mean
If you didn’t answer, we were gonna be able to just talk about You roast
Me, tease roast me.
Yeah. Yeah. Pretty
Much. Well, Josh would save me. Is he there? He he dump a dog at eight 14 yards. How about that?
That’s true. I did, I saw the most, I, I hate to even admit it because it was him, but
Most
Amazing shot on a coyote in my life.
Who shot it? Jason? Yes. Oh,
Come on. Don’t act surprised. What
Do you mean?
I Red Rock? I red rocked him, man, let’s just assume he was a mom. I dropped a bomb on a mob.
Wow. Well, so you got your Red Rock precision and you and
Yeah. Oh, I sprawled out in the mud. It was freaking raining. Sprawled out in the mud and
Yeah, I was yelling out re yardage. He was dialing. He was ranging. I was ranging. And this coyote was running. I mean it started, it was like 150 yards from the
Coast. No, no, no,
No, no. When we first
Saw,
When we saw it, when we saw it and it was started there, it was just standing there looking at us. He’s like, there’s a coyote. And he’s like, that’s it, I’m gonna shoot it. And I may have got one earlier. Well, what was the day before? A real dog. We found a dead cow. Oh yeah. And there was one sitting there and it was kind of weird. We had to stare down. It was, are you gonna go or am I gonna go or are you gonna go? Am I gonna go?
Somebody killed that.
Well that dog had 10 pounds of meat in him and he didn water on.
I rolled him in a
You got lucky whopping
50 yards. Oh yeah. So I was feeling pretty good about myself. But anyway, anyway, this coyo just takes off and Jason takes the time to get his gun out. It was kind of like the Kyle that quiggly down under, you know?
Yeah.
He, he’s trying to shoot those guys as they’re running. He’s throwing the gun out.
Well, I’m just thinking, I got my Red rock and this dog can’t get away.
He’s stop 600 when he thinks he’s safe, he’s gonna stop. Yeah. Right. Oh yeah,
He, I’m just gonna keep dialing whatever it takes. I
Don’t care. He just kept going and going. And then he started up this ridge and I’m like, I can’t even see him with naked eye anymore. So we glass him back up again and he’s cruising up and he gets backed in on the gun and hey, he’s going up that rock pile and he was climbing these rocks. I said, going out of the middle. And then all of a sudden, right as he hit the top whop and just
Running
Pan kicked him running. He was, he was walking up, but
He was going, but he was going away from us. So you got the length of him. It just freaking crushed him. Wow.
He did like this. Wow. Stopped in mid-air and then just rolled back down the road.
Is this 180 grain? 180 grains? A 300 rum? Or what was that?
It’s a one. It’s a 30 Nozz or the 1 78 that E L D X. Oh man.
Well,
Yeah, I was embarrassed
Anyway. At least you had a witness. Carter. That’s pretty good. I did an lop that once
I do this all the time, just nobody knows it.
Well that’s
All, that’s all I was reminded about was three days after that
800 yards that you said.
Eight. Eight 15. Oh my, whoa. That was the last range. I got
Hard take hair off those things. And the, the target’s
Only like, oh, that’s what we were talking about. It’s
A chip. Five inch kill,
Five inch. It’s outta coyote. It’s about the kills. It’s like killing a rabbit. Yeah. I mean, there’s nothing to ’em. Yeah.
Well, how’s it going out there today? Let’s get a fresh report from wherever you are in the world and we’re ready to
Snow. Snow drifts and caffeine. Josh, Josh knows I drink a little bit of caffeine and so anyway, I’m busting, I’m busting snow drifts today, boss. Are
You? That’s crazy.
Really? Yeah.
Yeah. How many miles are you at today? Because what we did at least 350 that week. I
Don’t know, but I’m about two thirds of a tank and I started at full and I got three fibers in the back. I’m gonna try to use ’em all.
Geez. Is or is the brush flocked white? Is it one of those days that a deer’s gonna stick out great.
Yeah, they stick out. But I mean, there’s only three of ’em. You know what I mean? Ask Josh. Josh left and I should have left. Okay. And I’m throwing good money after bad right now, so.
Well,
I’m just glad you know what it was like for the first four days when I was there by myself.
Well, and it’s, it’s also, well it’s the season Josh grabs leftover and it’s, your eyes get big when you’re at a keyboard and then when rubber meets road, it’s, it’s different. Right.
Well the kill of getting a tag is, and you know this, we all know this. I mean, the kill of getting a tag, it doesn’t even matter if it’s a landlord tag or a turnback tag or a drop, a regular tag and then regular draw it. I mean that’s maybe even more than half of it. I mean that’s now you get to planning, prepping, thinking about it. You know, when you’re out here you’re like, ugh, use just like what we say, just be careful what you want. Careful. Make sure you really want it. Thousand dollars later in fuel. Here you are. Have cut a lion track. Cut a lion track today. Fresh. Oh really? Yeah.
Did you, are you one of those you can get those for? Isn’t like under a hundred bucks in Nevada? $84.
Got one. I’ve got, I’ve gotta go look at my suit. Take case the tags in the back seat. Hey. And make sure
My, just go cut the track. Carter, you’ve killed a CO at eight 15 on a walk. Just go try to spot run, walk a lion track down, jump it and kill it. If you had a tag, if you do that, hey, your next tag is on me. How’s that?
If it, if it wasn’t 21 degrees and 40 mile an hour wind, I’d be out
There.
The track’s getting, I
Ain’t leaving the track boss.
Okay, well I’m just saying you’re, I’m trying to get you to do something that’s never been done before. Like a man tracking. And I know you hounds ’em out there saying, oh, bull crap guys. I do that all the time before my dogs can straight out in the track. I’m falling and I jump a lion and I’m whistling for dogs. But I’m just saying, you know, most people don’t cut a line track, jump it and shoot it. That’d be awesome.
And it’s, it would be awesome. But I it’s not, I’m not proving anything today. They make, they make pxs for a reason. Doors, doors block the wind and
All right,
Pepsi, it tastes good. So,
Well, so what, what’s the plan? Are you there for, are you there till November 5th? I mean, do we need
To send
No, do we need to send ups you some food up there or
What? No, no. Okay. No, I’m just, I don’t know. Every day is a new day and I’m, I’m just considering
You’re, you’re four to six hours away from being home. That’s about where we’re
At. No, I’m about nine hours and it’s, it’s the most brutal. Devin, are you there? It’s the most brutal nine hours I’ve ever well had in my life. Well, I’m gonna come home at some point. I am. I just, there’s good stuff here. It is, it is impressive. The few bucks we’ve seen are, are built. Right. I, I met a guy. Have you ever, by the way, have you ever lost a cell phone on a hunt?
You did that last year in Colorado.
I know, I know you did it again and I did it again. Well, what happened? Yeah. How it happened is I’m coming down.
Didn’t your wife not to back up, but didn’t she have to use the find my phone app back in Utah and relay it to Gary who you were hunting with in Colorado? I don’t say this is where it looks like, and you’re like, oh yeah, Gary, that’s by your gut pile. That’s where it’s at.
Well it kind of was, it was actually on the way on the ridge. Yeah, it was on the ridge to where we shot and it had slipped outta my pocket and slipped under a log. And we knew it was there because I find my phone out. Well she, you know, find your friends or whatever, you know, and we walked right to it, dude. And it was under a log.
So what’d you do in Nevada?
Well, so anyway, I’m, well I’m stopping to grab ser service or flying to an email or something. And then somebody started up their vehicle right next to me and it kind of startled me. I’m in new country and
What do you mean?
Well, like air camp there at camp
There. How, how jumpy are you that a car’s starting? Is are you packing, are you packing heat? I mean now you’re gonna I’m not coming to help you. I’m gonna take a bullet just starting my truck.
Hey, I pack heat boss.
I know you do. You’re getting me worried. You’re up there alone. You’re up in Claude Dallas country up there in northern Nevada
And it’s, I had seen some crazy memorials ask Josh. We saw a memorial from a cowboy that died in 1938 and I mean, there’s some cool history up here. But anyway, as car a vehicle started, I’m like, what the crap? I, and I, I had set the phone down on the hood of the, of the razor and I’m, and I, and I, I kind of startled, I’m like, crap. And then I wanted to get outta there cuz I’m now in somebody’s camp and that’s awkward. And then I’m like, well there’s antlers in the back. And so I did this whole s thing, you know, like driving, like I’m gonna turn around. No, I gotta go look at that beer and invade their camp. And then I, and all the while my guess my phone was on my hood. I drive up to their truck, I check out the buck. It’s pretty awesome. The guy had, you know, heavy sucker just, I mean, you know, just, just an awesome buck used a mature buck and, which is rare, right, Josh? Oh
Yeah.
Okay. So anyway, and so we’re checking it out and he’s like, Hey Here’re Jason. Yeah, I listen to the podcast. I’m like, yeah, cool. Yeah, I use it to apply. Which reminds me, we’re probably telling too much on the podcast. But anyway, we’re we’re just visiting and whatnot. And then I go to find my phone and I freaking can’t find it and he’s trying to ask me what my apple ID is so he can plug it in to find his friend, which is me. I can’t, I can’t even remember it. So I, I trace my tracks all the way back up on the mountain because it’s not right there. And then I come back and I’m like, oh yeah, I did this little s thing cuz I was nervous and I didn’t wanna be in his camp. And I, there’s the phone laying there. So anyway, but it reminded me of the whole time, you might as well have lost your rangefinder. You might as well broke your gun. Like there’s, I’m thinking’s contemplating going home. There’s much in your phone without
Your phone. There’s too much in there. There’s too much of our life. We you stick at hunt without us Totally Even having one. We used to could do that. And in, in Wranglers brown, blue Wranglers, you could do it in that too.
Yeah, I’d like foxworth They used to, could you used to, could, I mean, and, and now I’ve got paper maps in the back seat.
But I mean, we were talking about,
I know what good there for.
We’re talking about the last good snow like this, this morning and why it was 2004. I mean, it feels like the last good snow Wyatt had a buck tried to race him off the top of Nebo to the bottom of the, of the freeway, you know, about killed him. You know, he raced him off the mountain, dragging it in snow. And there’s been some good memories talking about hunting and snow and at Utah.
Well the thing is, you guys got chains and handyman like this is Colorado up here. Like I’m busting through drifts going with these little side hill roads that are, you know, like a, remember, I mean, back in the day, whoever cut in these roads is probably drinking a six pack of car, car of cigarettes. I mean it’s, it’s sketchy roads, you know, they’re sketchy built, built in the forties or earlier
Drinking 12 like a pla past brew ribbon cutting it. Yeah,
That’s
Right to the side of the mountain, man. That’s how these roads are made.
Yeah. And I’m thinking, yeah, these are icy. Like, anyway, I’m just saying you guys better get your trucks in order, you know what I mean? Yeah. But anyway, did you guys, how are, okay, so I mean, Idaho sounded, I don’t know, marginal,
But I had to race home. I had another, I had some first world problems. Just leave it at that. But basically, yeah, you get a
Winterize a boat before it
Goes to 13 degrees. Yeah. Before it goes to degrees. Yeah. 15 degrees and you gotta pay for a new engine block and everything else. So John,
John John’s done that once.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so I, and I, and I’ve got, I’ve got, you know, the boat, you can’t just send them to your storage unit because they, they gotta have some water to start your boat and run some stuff and they gotta have water to pump it and just, no. So you gotta have it on your, onto your front of your street so they can do, they can come and do their thing, but then you got, you know, a boat that’s gonna gonna get crushed for snow and getting it. Anyway, so I had to come home, do that. It feels like two to three hours and I’m ready to go back to Idaho. But now I’m here doing a podcast and so in a couple days I’ll be heading back up and they didn’t get the brunt of this down here in all of it, but, but it’s better than they’ve been having. Yeah. A lot of rain, lot of warmer water stuff.
Well, and that’s what I called the biologist and he and he finally hit me back and anyway, I was like, Hey, you know, I’m over to such and such and it seems like low densities and No, no, they, they’re not low densities there. I’m like, okay, okay. If this
Is as good as it gets,
Wow. Yeah. Then I, I’ve talked to a lot of locals and I’ve talk, you know, I’m talking about, you know, sit over to such and such and they say, it used to be good. Now it’s not good. Surveys were incredible there. Okay,
Well,
And I’m like, dude, I must suck. Maybe I just, and he’s a and and he’s like, you know what he says the conditions are just, the conditions are rough. And I’m thinking this stuff’s wide open. I’ve never seen anything more wide open than a lot of this stuff. And anyway, yeah, just, yeah. It reminds me, I think you sometimes we get going back to back to back and you know what, if we could come back and hunt this November 1st and fifth fresh, get the next level I’m seeing we got thick neck bucks pushing those. I mean, ask Josh. It’s pretty, it’s, it’s gonna be a different year. It’s
Gonna be early 10th, the 15th of, of October we’re talking. So yeah, I I came home, take care of a few fairs, get ’em in order and yeah, they were just things that you don’t usually have to do till late October, early November. But you’re outta state. My wife happened to be gone at the time. So I mean you’re, you’re FaceTiming your wife trying to get her to blow her sprinklers out through FaceTime. So I mean, yeah, like you’re doing it, but your wife your wife is sitting home. Mine is north
Night.
Well,
I, well, I mean we’re FaceTiming and you know, the key I’ve got, I’ve got about 10 feet down and the, and the, and the pipes kinked a little bit. She
Told the earth, yeah, the earth had earth settling and totally unlike the pipe is in it. Which, which way in the, the
Look at the top of the valve. So she looks at the top of the valve with the flashlight, which way is it headed? Okay, now show me the key. Okay, now stick it down in the pipe. And I mean, anyway, she
Told us all that, trust me, we know all everyth, all of it.
30, 30 minutes later she’s ready to ring my neck. She’s very type A, you know, you know
Type a’s trying to turn a, the sprinkler
Off, trying to boss each other around
From five yard in apart what can go wrong. Oh yeah,
A
Pin 500 miles. She’s
Like, Hey. Yeah. I’m like, what are you doing tonight? Okay, so this is like an hour later I’m like, what are you doing tonight? So she turned, she hits me FaceTime and I’m like, oh cool, you’re in my gear room. What are, what are you doing in my gear? Goo. And she’s like, oh, I’ve organized everything. I’ve, I’ve reorganized everything. I’ve got all the cabinets, reorganized the whole closet. And I go really? Show me and dude, it it, I’m like,
And you’ll be like, I’ll be home in eight hours. Yeah.
I’m like Josh, I’m like, I should have followed Josh. I’m not gonna be able to find anything. I said, you know, there’s some things I’m gonna need. And, and she goes, well now you can find ’em. They’re organized. Okay. That’s way you put
It. There’s another way I’d put it. And now that’s like dumping stuff upside down, you
Know, oh, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be better off going to the store and buying new.
I mean
It’s just,
Well you’re gonna have to go to California on the coast cause you can’t find anything in the store right now. Cause
Is with only thing I heard on, on satellite radios that we have an oil spill out there, what’s going on?
No, apparently remember these barges that can’t, they don’t have enough workers at the docks or whatever supposedly to keep ’em, get ’em in and unloaded fast enough. Am I hitting the nail on the head? This what Archibald? Yeah, it it has the same thing with member or, or
We got a Newsome democrat problem. Oh
Well I don’t know. Yeah, you well it’s like there’s supposedly Yeah, pretty
Much, pretty much
Probably too many people got used to getting bit buck checks and not going back to work and why? I mean I’m, I’m oversimplifying it. I know, but you got barges floating out there that can’t get the stuff off ’em fast enough basically. And so they can’t get on in on there, get on rail cars, get in the interior, which Utah’s interiors. So what happens, we got paranoia in Cedar City Walmart. And so,
And well Janice said the shelves are getting empty again. And I’m just like, come on.
So that’s, that’s all I’ve heard. I don’t know what you’ve heard on Fox News, but, but there was still,
The beaches were
Closed for 10 days because of a boil spill. I did hear that. I
I, Fox did tell me that Brian Laundries still at large. I can’t believe they can’t find that guy.
Where’s didn’t, I thought dog a week ago was closing in on him
Dog. I mean is that the funniest thing in the world? I dunno,
He’s like, he went to work for a day and I thought he was about to get caught and then I went to Idaho and I had poor service so I assumed he was caught in jail but no, so,
So Oh he ain’t caught And dog’s like dog enters the chase and I’m like, you’re like you’re gonna beat the fbi. But then I thought probably could you call the FBI or would you call dog? I’d freaking call dog My answer Well, well I don’t know Bronson, these guys did they go over their kills? Cause these guys stuff down.
I know we were gonna do it and if you wanna stay here on the horn cuz you probably haven’t heard it either. But yeah, let’s start, let’s start with Wyatt real quick cuz I don’t know that we have, we kind of tried to do a little bit of this with Wyatt and the antelope when he wasn’t in the room and it didn’t go well. So I don’t know how much of it got used, but now that he’s in the office now about his elk cunt it, it went well. We we’re gonna get a quick report there. Wyatt, you didn’t hunt very long. I hunted a long time and David hunted a long time and you hunted a fairly short time and killed the giant. So how do we, how do we get, this feels like a, a month and a half ago, maybe it was that long ago. But then we’ll get into John, you know we’ve got a new intro song for this podcast. I think we’re gonna, you know, I’m not gonna, we do. Well it’s gonna be, you remember the theme song to the intro to the last of Mo Mohicans, that drum solo. That’s like awesome are the guys running with the muzzle loader for the forest over that, for that album. Broon
Bronson new and the music you in the music, it’s impressive.
Well it’s just, it, it tell me I’m wrong. It’s like I won’t bring it up if it’s not dead on and that keeps for John. So we’ll see John, we hear the story. John,
Did you taste blood on this last one?
I didn’t taste blood but it
Wasn’t, it wasn’t that it
Wasn’t as long. I mean that last
One you had a little more to give boss. She had a
Little more to give but not to take me. So that’s coming up for John in a minute cuz I haven’t heard this real story and we’ve been but Wyatt, the time is now yours to do it as you see fit on your telling of your elk outcome story.
Yeah, so I was able to obtain a tag out there in Nevada for a, a pretty good elk unit, actually a really good elk unit out
There. Pretty decent. Well let’s just say the best unit in Nevada, how about you say,
Yeah. And on a phenomenal year too. I mean they’ve killed a handful of just big, big bulls
And and when you say obtain, you didn’t drop 25 or 30,000 this we’re talking, we’re talking the first come first serve. Yeah, I mean it’s over. You’re on a seven year weight, you’re not protecting anything anymore. And neither am I, but I don’t have a dead elk and neither is arch ball.
Hey, what do you mean? There’s o other others of us that want one of those. That’s
Right. We got three of us in our office out of the way for the rest of everybody else next year and we’re waiting for seven years before we can play the game again. Anyway,
By the way, by the way, Wyatt, did your wife know that you were up at four in the morning staring at the computer screen
And
She was my first phone call after I text
You guys. I called her up,
She’s a night shift nurse and happened to be awake. Yeah,
She didn’t, yeah, she wasn’t that impressed as as you were, but you got an awesome tag within what, a week or 10 days of the opener? I forgetting now? It’s been so long.
Yeah, it was, you know, 10 days before the opener and it was a unit I I’m familiar with out there. Spent a lot of time in the past out there on that unit looking at bulls as most of us here at the office have spent a lot of time out there. So got got lucky there and then the luck continued as it, you know, first day I was able to go hunt, I wasn’t able to hunt the first week I had prior commitments for archery deer hunters and got out there. It was probably the second week of the hunt, first week of September. But
I forgot about this bull. This was a giant, you about killed a, a bigger bull the first day
There. Yeah, so I, I had a phone call from a good buddy saying, Hey, I just happened to be out here looking. I turned up a great big bull today. Can you get here? Can you get here? Well,
And this is only like two hours. Yeah,
10 cedar, two half my stuff’s packed. Like I I was ready to go out there today anyway, so yeah, I’m on the road. Well I stood up and I said, Jason, they found a big bull. Do you care if I leave? And he, he asked me what I was still doing here. So
Yeah.
Waited for him to get off a phone call. Well
Get
Outta here. Yeah, get
Outta here, get outta here. So I jumped in the truck and I, I flew out there and went up making a, making a stalk on the bull and some other hunters had kind kind of, kind of boogered it out on me. So didn’t end up working out there. So spent that, that’s,
That’s painting, that’s painting a very rosy pitcher. Yeah, well just the reality of the first story that I was told by, by you and
Others, but we’ll leave it that,
But we’ll leave
It now. But I think it turned out, I think it turned out well.
So anyways, the next day I had to come back into town and grab a, grab a camp trailer and a few were a thing. So I was planning on staying the rest
Restaurant. Well you were going there to kill a bull that night the first time. Yeah. And then it didn’t happen. So you had to come home to get food,
Go back food supplies, camper. I was, I was there for the re remainder of the hunt and happened to be 16 days and I was gonna hunt every, every day. And on the drive out there, I, I was planning on rolling kind of kind of solo for the first little bit until, you know, Devin got home from Colorado and had a good buddy call me up and say, Hey, I don’t really have anything going this weekend. And it’s a buddy I’ve hunted with for a long time. Preston Hanif on, I’ll come over to Nevada. Yeah. I’m like, I’m out here in Nevada. He’s like, I’ve got that deer tag, that’d be awesome. I’ll run out there. So he happened to meet me out there, drove all night and he showed up at one in the morning and we woke up the next morning and just started running some country that I’m really familiar with and glass and long distance. And I ended up glassing up that bull that I ended up taking at, at five miles that, that morning and couldn’t really tell what it
Was. Can hold eights or what’d you have? Yeah,
Of
Course he
Did. Had my fifteens just off the window mount. Of course. So, well
You aren’t luckily you’re looking elk instead of deer. That’s possible. But I don’t You saw herd belt, bus or an elk? No,
No. I saw he had a herd, he had about 30 cows with him and then him and got the spotting scope out and the truck tried to pick him apart but really couldn’t tell. All I could tell is he had a cheater on the one side and I’m like, he’s probably works extra worth a better look. I mean we can’t, can’t really tell anything from here. So we ended up closing the distance in the truck to about two miles and then we had to do it on foot from there. So I sent Preston up the other hillside and I went up the draw trying to get to where we last saw the elk. And as I was hiking up there, Preston had picked him up and said, Hey, the bulls are, the bull is a lot higher with he’s herd than, than where we left him. Like, you gotta go to the top of the mountain to basically come back down on him to get your wind right, everything like that. So it ended up being cut
And and had you seen a good enough look now like Oh yeah, that’s a good bull I kill now. Yeah,
Pres probably Preston has him and he’s texting me, texting me numbers and we’re talking back and forth on the radio a little bit and anyways decide, you know, I probably need to look at him. Yeah, it kind of kind the point where two I I kind of need to look at him. Preston knows what he is as far as points and things like that. So we, I get to the top of the mountain. It takes, it takes a while. I mean it was probably middle of the day now noon before I even got to the top to where I could start moving down in on the bull.
Still, still late August. So kind of warm.
Yeah. In his cows. So yeah, he’s got, like I said, 30, 30 something cows and then him and as I start working down off the ridge to to where he is, Preston basically the last thing I get on the radio was if you can get to those purple rocks, you’re gonna be right above him. The radio goes dead. And from Preston’s angle they looked like there was one, one set of purple rocks that I just needed to get to from my angle. There’s everything’s purple and everything’s all la
It’s like saying get to that next screen tree.
Yeah, yeah. I did that in Arizona. Some guys in the Saguaro cactus say get to that lone Saguaro. And I looked up and I could see like 80 of them. I’m like lone Saguaro cactus. What, what? And and it’s still a joke to this day. The lone saguaro like, okay. Anyway, so the purple rocks where your, where your killing zone.
Yeah. And now I’m being cautious cuz everything’s a purple rock and everything I go over is a, a purple lead. So I’m going over rocks and picking ’em apart. Can’t find it, go over to the next set of rocks, pick it apart, can’t find it. And finally probably four or five sets of, of rocks later I pick up a, a cow better under a mahogany just Oh, okay. One, one top of a cow. And I’m like, all right, they’ve all got a bee right here. So I, I set up and they’re a hundred yards away.
Wow. Close.
So yeah, close but not, not close enough.
Yeah. Still 31 elk roughly. Yeah.
So I’m sitting there and I, I’m kind of glass and pick apart, but trying to be careful cuz cows are gonna pick me up and kind of kinda ruin the whole deal. So I’m sitting there and it’s probably, I’ve probably been there for two hours. Just
Is this afternoon now? Yeah,
It’s, it’s third evening, two in the afternoon probably. Wow. So two in the afternoon and I’m, I’m starting to pick apart, I’m finding more elk. There’s three or four cows beded there now. And then eventually more cows get off and they, they start walking over to these cows and pretty soon I, I feel like I’ve seen a million cows. But you’ve still, still no bull
30, but you’re up to 86 cows now.
Yeah, exactly. Like it’s just one cow come through and walk over there and land under a tree. And then it was another cow walk over there and land under a tree and like, where’s this bull More cows that get over here, the less my chances are of actually killing this bull cuz they’re gonna pick me off at some point in time. And anyways, got really lucky. The cows just kept wandering through and it was, it was ours watching these cows. And finally I hear a bugle, I’m like, all right, the bull’s here somewhere. And I couldn’t, couldn’t tell exactly where. And
After about, you know, felt like another two hours, I, I finally get a glimpse of the bull starting to get up and starting to work towards these cows. And he, he comes through below me at, at a hundred yards and it’s just, it, I I drew back but I didn’t, didn’t feel right. Like I’d been shooting that far off. Yeah, yeah. All summer with my bow, but just, just didn’t feel right. Tried to, tried to cow call him a little bit and get him to maybe break away from his cows and come check out on me if I could even get him 30 yards right here. It’s gonna be a world of difference. Yeah.
He’s got 30 Yeah. To 80 cows, something like that. And, and you’re one over there and it’s,
That’s he, he, he didn’t care much. So anyways, he, they all, they all kind of worked off and it was kind of, kind of perfect scenario. Cause when they worked off it was a next set of ledges. So I basically had to move down onto the next set of ledges and I was above ’em again and could see ’em there below me. And anyways, I worked down off the next set of ledges there and I’m, I’m set up again, kind of under, under a mahogany. I’ve got all the elk there at like 60 yards, but I can’t see the bull, just don’t know where he is at. Anyways, pretty soon I hear limbs just start snapping right next to me. Like, you’re busted elk. Yeah, like on my left side and I kind of look over there and I’m looking through a mahogany. I can see the bull raking a tree on the other side of the agony.
Oh. Thir 30 yards away. So I’m like, alright. As long as he’s occupied, raking, just rushing. I I can step around this tree. Yeah. And get a shot right here. So I step around the tree as I come around the tree, the snowberry bushes are right there and the, and the edge of the pines, they’re too tall to, to see the bull. I can see it’s head, it’s see it’s horns and it’s just, just raking and the bushes are too tall. So I’m trying to get myself a little bit taller where I can see in there and maybe get a shot into the vitals. And I think the bull actually kind of picked me up right there cuz he, he turned and, and walked down to the cows and he kept trying to move the cows, but the cows hadn’t seen anything. So they were, but he was nervous, but they were like, what are we doing?
We’re fine. So they were super content with just being there and the bulls trying to move them in and outta the mahogany. And I have ’em at 66 yards right there. And he’s just keeps moving, trying to get these cows to move with him. And, and none of them were moving. So finally he just goes to the opposite edge of the cows and just kind of hangs out right there. He looking back at you? Yeah, just kind of keeps looking back my way. But he’s just hanging out on the other, like you other side of the cast. I’m gonna drill you. Yeah. And anyways, so I just can’t get anything in the mahogany there. And they, they eventually start working, he, he carves off four or five cows and starts working up the opposing hillsides. They’re kind in the bottom of a draw now. So it starts working up the opposing hillside.
And I needed to get, you know, 30 yards right there and I could, could make a shot across that draw. So as I, I kind of sneak down and, and the cows are still all right there in the bottom and he’s got his four or five cows just pushing ’em up the other side. And as I get to, to where I feel confident, I arrange find him. I got him to a cow, called him, got him to stop right there, dialed my sight. I had all the time in the world he was just stopped just looking back at his cows and at, at me that was making, making the noise anyways and just, just content quartering away really hard. And I drew back, felt good shot and the arrow, I mean it sunk in right behind his shoulder, came out his offsite shoulder, then kind of it dumped back into him and he ran, I watched him run oh 50 yards up the, up the hill and then the cows got nervous and they came outta the bottom and up to where he was actually at when I last, when I shot. And he saw the cows coming up out. So he turned and came right back to his cows. He died about five feet from where I shot him. Tipped over right in the middle of him. Got in cows. Yeah. Gotta watch the whole thing. Got gotta watch him dead right there. What are you shooting? This is a new boy you got set up this summer. Yeah, this was a boy, we all kinda got set up here with those, those new voids. So Jason, Adam, every RX five, RX, RX X five Ultra. So
They’re legit.
I I’ve never shot a bow so good in my life. I’ve never felt that that good with a bow. Yeah. Well
Nick Pat Loter ended up with one and he said the same thing. He says, I i, I don’t know if I’ve ever shot this good. It’s unbelievable.
They’re, they’re for forgive, they’re forgiving and they
Are are set up and they’ve got, you know, obviously they got new, a lot of bows now. But these specifically got, you know, you get a side stabilizer if that helps you hold steady. Really the holding steady is the biggest thing with your quiver, your, your front stabilizer, rear facing stabilizer, all those types of set up and play with it. But anyway, tell us about your freaking bull. Like he’s, he’s a stud
Tip. Tip him over, get, get up there, look at him and I mean he’s just, just awesome. He’s, he’s got a broken pedicle on the one side, so his one horn actually comes up outta the middle of his head and then his other side, you know, comes up, has that big extra right there behind the royal, his big side’s a hundred seventy, a hundred seventy five by itself. And, and altogether he is just over 3 75.
Yeah. And that’s what basically missing an I guard on the left side cuz the pedicle broken has a little four or five inch
Little short time there and, but,
But even with the and and
A narrow wind side because of that broken pedicle too. Right. So I mean he’s, he looks bigger than that because he is really, he, anyway, it’s
Awesome. Well and he looks dang normal for being an odd pedicle bull. He’s, yeah, he just looks like, you know, he grew fairly normal except for like
We’re talking about the very base. Yep. Yeah,
It’s kind kind of crazy. His horns, I thought his beam were gonna be short cause his horns kind of come right up outta the middle of his head and they kind of go straight in the straight in the air. It’s, it was kind of a different look to him. But he ended up having 53 inch beams, which are great Nevada beams. I mean awesome. Phenomenal Nevada beams. I couldn’t have been happier and han I planted on spending, you know, 16 days on I was day into and two stocks. So
Yeah, you’re putting meat in the freezer, you don’t have to go to Walmart and stand in line. So yeah.
Work worked out pretty well
Providing for Carly. Yeah, that’s right.
There’s nothing ladies like and all that men can put me meat in their freezer like that. That’s the number one thing. Right?
That’s right. $1,200 tag and a cutting wrap. $1,400 in gas, cheapest speed on earth. Yeah.
Yeah. And that’s if you kill it the first or second day. Like what?
That’s right.
So that kind of pencils a little bit that
Way, but that’s awesome. And you gotta go, you know, hunt with Archibald quite a bit towards the end of his hunt too, after he killed an Austin bull in Colorado. But yeah, it’s a stud bull for something that came together, you know, out nowhere, literally outta nowhere, a click of a mouse and it started the ball rolling and within a week or eight days later you had, you know, you didn’t hunt yet. Like I said, you had to guide five or so days of the archery deer hunt in Utah and the ponta got and then go over. But it happened fast. I mean you were over and dumb before I even started getting going. Yeah. It was crazy. But
Yeah, it’s one of the very few hunts I’ve had that have, have went that way. Yeah. And I’m glad it Did you take them? Yeah. Take everyone you can get,
Get great bull. That’s right. So where does that leave us? Where did we go from there?
Well, huh, let’s see. We, we had Bronson you called me smashed a muzzle buck and Oh yeah, John smashed a freaking muzz bull.
Yeah. That I call that the dare buck. Remember the dare buck? That’s what I call that buck. It’s the dare buck Carter dared me that I would not go to Colorado on the latest days in history and he’s a not gonna do that season. You won’t
Go in art tree. Yeah. You take a myself a
Muzzle, I’ll take the dare, I’ll do it. And I, and I did it and it was hot. It was a hot September right then. And I killed the nice deer. He’s not a giant deer. He is, he’s a cool deer.
He is boxy,
Boxy tall, you know, 20 inch inch plus old mature deer, which is great. I was alone and you know, you know, just, just having to still hunt thick quakes because it was, you know, just that kind of weather. It was that kind of unit. They not, not those open high country alpine basin Colorado that you’re normally used to. But it was, it was a good time. Had a great time. Kill them at like 41 yards and the sneaking around in the Quaker
Patches. Didn’t you have Quakers? Didn’t you have what, five minutes or 10 minutes to, to, to decide?
Yeah. And so, you know, 12 power NL Purs at 35 to 41
Yards. You need eights boss, you need eights.
They, I mean, and I knew what the deer was. I’d seen him go in there a day or so prior. But I mean, you know, you still, you’re that close. I’m like, this thing looks 30 plus, but you know, when he is raking, that’s what
I caught. You’re looking at every blood bloodline.
Yeah. I’m looking at basal points that look
Horrible. They don’t, they and they’re bumps. They
Get up there and they’re like an eight inch, you
Know, I mean that’s what,
That’s what 12 power binos at 35 yards you can make basal, you
Know. Oh
Yeah. Just anything. Some of some of ’em was hanging velvet and it looked like a thick point, but it was just velvet dangling off, you know, it was like I, you know, 35 yards through 12 powers and
35 yards. An eight by eight turned out to be a four by four with velvet. Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t know what I was
Walking up on until I
Walked up on it. No, and I’m joking, I’m, but
Luckily I did know kind of what the deer was before I knew he was a upper twenties, you know, really solid deer. But I, I, I knew he wasn’t a giant, but, but he, you know, anyway, it was time I literally debated for about five to 10 minutes should I shoot him? And it was the last day and I’m like, he’s old, he’s mature. He is what he is and hey, I, I’m here an open site muzzle loader and I took care of him and made it home and then, and then
Smash and grab. Yeah. How about that rainstorm?
Yeah. Had a crazy rainstorm, you know, had no rain gear, hadn’t packed rain gear for a month and I’d been hunting hard for a month and it decided that day, you know, it’s the first time you’ve seen rain in a month, you know, when you didn’t have it with you, but hey, that’s a memory
Now. Oh it’s awesome.
But anyway, it was, I, it was raining so hard that I literally, cuz you know, you shoot a deer with muzzle, the first thing you’re doing is you’re gonna reload cuz muzzle loaders, they don’t kill stuff. Right. They, they, they
Just well
Down shove a rock through. Yeah. You’re just shoving us. There’s no shock. There’s no, it’s just, they’re just, and I know, I know there’s people that tell me you don’t have the right, but they just aren’t, I, I’d rather, I wish I had a bow at that range. I would’ve felt better about Oh yeah. Smoking them. Oh yeah. I mean it was 40 yards, but I mean a muzzle loader, I mean that thing, you know. Yeah. He’s close enough that you might, you know, it might kill him, but so you reload, literally hiking out the first load, it’s raining and I got, you know, it’s, it’s only a mile to my truck, whatever. And I got halfway there and I’m so drenched cuz I have no rain gear and I’m like, I can’t get wetter. And I’m realized I got a charge in this gun.
I gotta, I better shoot this thing, or it’s gonna be in there for day. I’m gonna have a problem, you know, pulling bullets and No. Doing all that. So Yeah, I, I just threw a cap on it, just freaking smoked a quay right there just, and it went off. Yeah. I just like, all right, that’s clean. I’m, I’m done. Because it was raining so hard into that and I have, you know, no prediction. No, you know, not in the scabbard didn’t have ring gear for the gun or me. But anyway, it was good. It was, it was fun. And, and now we’re back on.
You got five extra bones in your hunting budget for he sakes. That’s awesome. Yeah. Thank you. So it did. So then we move to John, what the heck?
This is the hour. The intro music point of the podcast needs to start, John. I don’t know why we could laugh about it because the last, I wasn’t either one of them. Yeah. But the first one I, I, I think I don’t, I think I was in Nevada trying to kill a, I don’t know where, maybe guiding a sheep punter. But you had a a, a cedar incident where you hit a bull, you got in the cedars and it’s running, you, you know, you’re running after a bowl. Yeah. And, and in this case now you’re back hunting with a muzzle. Like we just got,
We need, we need to put that on the YouTube episode Chris, that, that first one. Just, just a, just a one minute clip.
Yeah. A review of from the first one. What was the blood? Did you cough up blood? Yeah. So, well this was pre Covid by about 10, 15 years. Well it, it had been nine years. Nine years since that hunt and
Christmas God go
Could have been a cake or so, I don’t know.
Funny thing is this, this theme song is called Elk Hunt. It is,
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Tell me I’m wrong. You said I, where do I pull this from? This is vivid man. If you watch last moment kins the, the intro credits, he’s running like a, with like a flintlock thing after this redish looking, fallish looking elk creature.
Who remembers all this stuff? I mean Brown’s, it’s unbelievable. Boy, you come up with these same songs.
So anyways, so you
Could direct, you could direct movies with all the
Movies. You gotta be a Democrat live in California to do that. So
Duck out.
Oh. So yeah, on that hunt nine years ago, oh we filmed it. It was on, it was on under arm’s television show. Yeah. And so if any of these southwest, that desert, yeah, it was awesome. But yeah, we found a bull. I shot it and I’ve never like watched it through the scope, hit the ground so hard, just collapsed it. And we thought that bull is done. You still there, Carter? Alright, just making sure. Yeah. Didn’t know if someone started their truck, you ran for a gun. Just keep going.
Well it’s just what this, this story’s the craziest thing cuz he made a picture perfect shot. We have it on film. It was unbelievable. And it didn’t die. It was unbelievable. Yeah.
Folded. Folded it in half and it Yeah, yeah,
Yeah. And it wasn’t a, wasn’t a muzzled or I mean we’re talking shocking off rifle.
It was a, yeah. 300 rum or something. Ultra
Rum. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, anyway, we’re high fiving. Jason’s hugging me, I’m like, the bro hugs are gone man. You’re the greatest brother-in-law in the world, you know, kind of thing. I mean it was, we were excited anyway. Well
I am or was. Keep going. So now you’re just a friend. I still claim be brother-in-law. I dunno
How that works. Yeah, I dunno either. Yeah, I’m still brother, they’re still my nephews.
Alright,
Keep going. Anyway, so your kids are still cousins. Yeah. Kids are still cousins. Right. Still
My nephews.
So yeah, then it, so then it turned sucker get up, Cedar running. Yeah. Then, then we came back the next day because we, we had a pretty good blood trail and we were finding it. But anyway, we’re like, well let’s just run.
Then he got in a myriad of tracks and it was, it kind of sucked. Yeah.
Kind tracked.
Sucked him. After a while
Jason tracked him and we were running and running and running. I don’t know.
Well we did once we, well once we jumped him, we jumped him the first time and then it was like, don’t
Want,
You kind of don’t have a choice, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it’s so thick and there’s so many tracks and he slowed the bleeding a lot and it was just kind of didn’t have a choice.
Yeah. So, I mean, and I was, I was dying. Well so I’m coughing as I’m running and tasting blood and finally Jay’s like, he’s right there. He grabs me in the videos talk. I remember this kill
Shot barks at us. Remember the bull barks at us. He’s foaming it, mouth
Grinding his teeth. He’s gonna
It. He’s grinding his teeth. I’m like, I, this is sad. It’s sad. But it was an ethical shot. That’s what’s crazy. Yeah. You know. Anyway,
I dumped him, right Smash there and yeah, then I just collapsed. And anyway, so yeah, that was tears of joy. Run, run, run, run. Yeah. So fast forward nine years, so nine years later, muzzle loader, John cashed in high teens, 1820 points, I dunno a bunch. 18 points and drew muzzle loader tag. Awesome. Yeah. It was peer pressure, application, peer pressure. What do you mean you couldn’t draw any of the rifles that you wanted? So we brought, brought the
As an option. Anytime John asks for opinions, you and I have a few, not only do we
Have a few guys love Oh yeah, do yeah. Go do that. All the while I go get, I’m hunting my butt off and running back from Nevada to Colorado and I can’t go out a half a second with anybody cuz I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels and well, it’s like I waited so long, I’m like, I’m not gonna do anything but rifle. You know? And so, but anyway, the writing’s on the wall probably not gonna happen. So we can have to hunt with a less effective, less killing weapon. So I did, I applied for Muzz, I thought I was gonna draw it last year and the point it jumped like four points. Yeah. So for the next year. And so I didn’t draw. So this year I drew the tag and you know, it’s a lot less stressful. One, you’re hunting on one or two point tag than you are an 18 year tag.
Oh yeah. I was so, I was like, okay, I gotta put everything into this. Luckily it was within an hour, about an hour to get there from the house. Yeah, right off town. Yeah. I, I looked at afterwards and on the Apple watch it tracks, you know, when you, when you’re hiking and whatnot. And I looked up every day that I’d gone and half, I count half days, but it was 50 days, geez. Of, of running cameras. Getting to know the, because you knew the unit I think hundred years ago, once before. But tag there, so you’re, yeah, it’s
Have a new burn. You wanna learn it, you wanna do the most you can, and you did the right thing. Yep. But with the rut, anything, everything changed over again, you know, who knows. Yeah.
Bulls are dead. Bulls get killed on the rifle. Some of the bulls you’d found earlier got killed on the rifle archery. Which
Archery rifle. So bulls are breaking and you got a lot of breakage
After that. When I counted it up, it was 312.2 miles. Whoa. Point the, don’t forget the 0.2, not the 0.2. It’s important anyway. But like the, the least I’d I’d hiked,
Does that include razor miles? Razor miles?
No, no, it doesn’t include That’s, your leg is bouncing in the razor. It counts as a step. It does. You can you I’ve done it before where I’ve been in my side by side all morning and I look at that thing and it says 4.2 miles, so I don’t Yeah,
Yeah. It can flight of
Stairs. Yeah. I would, I would start an outdoor walk every time anyway. Okay. I don’t never do that. So Yeah. You’re doing the outdoor watch. I
Don’t even have an Apple watch.
No. Well, no, it’s just in your iPhone. It has that whatever the heart Yeah. Button hit on there and it shows you how many steps you up mine on the watch. It, it comes up every time I start walking and it says, Hey, do you wanna record
Nowadays with technology, Biden knows how many full flight the stairs you’ve had. You know, you never know. So,
So anyway, enough of that. But yeah, it was scouted. Josh had, had been out scouting for me. Josh used to be the biologist. Yeah. Used to be the biologist over there. So, anyway. And haven’t had some cameras up and I had trail cameras all over the place. And anyway, but then I went out, I think five days before it opened and just, you know, stayed. And so this bowl that I, that I shot, I actually filmed I think day or two before you shot. It was three days before. Is this the Boomerang video? This the boomerang video? Yeah. John throws all these effects on because he’s the arts, him and Chris, the arts guys. Right.
And he probably did it from his Apple watch, bro.
Well, yeah. I mean, it was this weird turn and turn back. It’s the boomerang, like on Instagram. He can do those that I never do. I didn’t know it’s a feature. I, I recorded a video. I unfortunately didn’t have enough time to get the, the phone scope out and all set up, and I just held the camera up to my binos so it, the video quality wasn’t Yeah. Spectacular. The pool doesn’t, it looked good, so Yeah. But it’s nothing like what your bull really is. Really, it was a weird angle though. It was like above it down on that doesn’t look as good. And so I did a screen record and fast forward and backed up the, the video. So that’s why it had the boomerang. And then I sent you the screen record of it. So Yeah. I was like, wow, these are only thing missing is little music on that little video that I was figured John would have a little Marty Stauffer music or something, boom. On back from
Bronson will think about it. He’ll come up with the perfect song. No,
No, we’ve already done that for this episode. We’re good. But anyway, that, so was the bowl, was it there or two before The hunt wasn’t, I think it was three, three or four days before. And then I found a bunch of great bowls, but most of ’em were broken up. They’re breaking like before your eyes. Yeah. Just like crazy. But the, the rut was just in saying shit. Yeah. Insane. And Utah. And I’d found a canyon that they were just in all the time, and it was like two and a half miles back into it, but it was spectacular. And they were screaming all day, all night. It was just insane. You had to hike out. Yeah. You didn’t even think about bwi camping in there because you couldn’t get any sleep. You hiked out and sleep in your camp trailer. Yeah. Because you’re worried about not getting a restful sleep. There’s so many elk people in it. It was, it was insane. Like I’d go to see Okay, you know, at night to listen, to listen for Bugles to see Okay. You know, are they parts the unit or whatever Yeah. Other parts of the unit and just, they were insane in that area.
Well, and I, I had gone the first three mornings just in other areas just to check. And I, I mean, you leave there and I may have heard like two, two other beagles. I mean, it’s nuts right there. It’s good. Anyway, it was crazy. It was good. That’s where the activity was.
Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. So get up and, and I mean, after morning, after morning it was like Groundhogs day, you know, remind me, pass this the same tree. Remind me. Oh, that, okay. Yeah. Just, just like, and so yeah, I had started five days before and it was every day. Every day. And then, and then Chris came out for opening and then we were three days in, so I’d been, you know, I was like eight days the Yeah, same trip you were, you were Waller even though he had a 12 day hunt. Yeah, I think it’s 12 days roughly. Yeah. By three days I think on the video I’m like, I’m so tired. You know, this is when the weakness starts to creep in to a lot of people on. Yeah. Duh. He’s got good fronts. Boom. Yeah. You know, but, but
He’s got four of us six times.
Yeah. I think we can put, somebody can put him back together. Pretty sure. Shoot him.
That’s
Right. So, and, and so I was just hoping to find Yeah. One that was intact, stealing three 50 plus bulls, I mean three 50 plus. Yep. And, and Chris had a hunt coming up and so it was on his third day and he had to leave the next day. And so I was like, oh, it’s gotta happen today. And every day we would see a shooter or, and you know, with the muzzle loader, not really get an opportunity, but we’d see one. So it was enough to keep going back and, and whatnot. So it was, it was just awesome. But then, so that morning I was like, it’s gotta happen today. But it started raining and it down poured and it down poured like over night. Crazy. Or in the morning. In the morning. It had rained a little bit during the night. But what’d you do with your gun?
Do you have a, something to put on? So, because muzzle loaders, I’m a little freaked out about ’em and rain because you don’t want ’em wet in there and you got a problem. I had to roll a painter’s tape, so, so I put that on there. Put you put a thing out. I put over the top wound or tape over your barrel. Anything on the barrel. I just, just distracted. No, I put it over the top of the barrel. And it has a muzzle break too. Yeah. So I wrapped, it’s all the ports. All the ports wrapped it up. Good. What about like, action? A lot of
The usually black electricians where getting shoot through it
Too. The good thing about, we’re talking now, Utah. Utah, you can use scoped muzzle loaders, magnified scopes. So a lot of the ultimate or things like that bolt the bolt action. I have, I, I have a bolt action. It’s not like the open exposed stuff like Idaho or, you know,
No, it’s modern.
All modern. So it’s a little less, you don’t feel like I’ve got a flint lock here. Gotta do something with in the rain. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so you got, that’s built in a little bit. I still worry about it every time. Yeah. I would hunting the rain with a muzzle. But anyway, so we, we were worried but taped it up and then it’s got a bold action. And so it was, it was great. But like, if you look at the pictures, it’s in the burn. And so, which is how big Josh? A hundred thousand acre. 80,000. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, it’s big. It’s big. Doesn’t really, not really narrow it down. You can’t just say, so
You hunted the burn, but,
But the, the quakes, anywhere it’s burned quake. They’ve come up like weeds. Yeah. And so getting there, you’re, you’re busting through quakes and it was like you had wet brushes just pounding you full body gators. Yeah. Yeah. And so we were so wet when we got there. And to, you mean when you say say where? To the, to, so up into the canyon. Okay. When you even got above where you were running
To the spot where we usually start
Glasses. Gotcha. Yeah. You’re drenched and you’re, yeah. So wet, like all the way through and it didn’t matter like rain gear. Yeah. You know, it didn’t matter because you’re, you’re sweating from, you gotta wear rain gear now, now you’re sweat from the inside out. Yeah. It’s just one of those days. And now you’re like, I gotta keep moving cause I’m gonna freeze if I stop now. And so we stop at this tree where we usually start glassing and, and we just take everything off the groundhog tree. Yeah. So like, I had one puffy jacket that was in my pack that was dry. And so I, I took everything off, put that puffy jacket on it. That’s all I had. And Chris had one jacket. That’s
Why I was like, I always do it though. As soon as I get to the top, if, if I’m wet and it’s cold outside, I take it off and I put something dry on immediately.
Puffy on.
So we, we did that.
So I’m down to bare skin and, and one puffy jacket. It’s a good thing. Those are long. Yeah. Feels puff. That might have been weird while you were trying to run with on video. It may have been weird. It’s
Just saying it’s a good thing. That’s there’s it’s a good thing. There was certain people there and be like, let’s
Have it. Yeah. Let’s
Have it John.
Yeah. It’s not quite one beanie. Let’s have it almost reenacted. The lo cloth sprint from it was pants
Were not included in the Yeah. Takeoff. Okay. Left pants. Pants were left on.
Okay. But everything else. Oh
Geez.
Yeah. And I was still taking clothes off and hanging them in a tree to, to dry out. It stopped raining by this point. Just barely. And maybe drizzling a, a little bit. It still dark. No, you’re, it was, it was, it was just light getting light balls going nuts. And you’re just trying to sort out, all right, what’s here? What’s moving overnight? And people going like crazy. And Chris had glassed up cows by the, I was still hanging up clothes. And, and Chris’s like, they’re there, they’re there, they’re down in the bottom. And from three days of the same thing, the bigger bulls were with the cows and if there were cows in the bottom, there was a bigger bull down there. And so anyway, it was kind of open in the bottom a little bit. And, and he, he said, there’s cows, there’s gotta be a bull. So, you know, I immediately started to get set up. Are you, you mean to shoot Yeah. You’re that close to shoot because Yeah, 300 yards or something. Yeah. Or 300 yards. Okay. Which is again, you’re shooting a Yeah. Modern Muzz scope Utah. Yep. That’s, yep. Something like that. And, and you’re like, he’s he’s there. Like he’s gotta be there. Something’s there something be, and he’s with cows, so he’s good. And I don’t know, Chris, do you wanna add anything else?
No, we just kept looking. We knew that, we knew there was, well cuz we’d seen the bowl in, in previous days we just couldn’t shoot. Yeah, yeah. And we’ve seen shooters with the cows and so then now the cows are there and they’re going crazy.
Something’s there, you just gotta,
Something’s there. One of the shooters is gonna be there in that area. And so I just started picking apart, trying to find, and both of us started looking in down there, trying to find, okay, where is the bull?
And we’d passed on really good bulls, really wide long, you know, just, just passed on ’em, a couple that were, that were broken that we passed on, but yeah. But by, by the third day I was, I was ready. Holy and wow. And anyway, but, and anyway, so yeah, we knew there’s gotta be a good bull. Harder. Do you got birds in your truck?
No. Things are good here. Sounds
Like you’re in a Navy. It sounds like you’re in a Navy area.
I mean, well, are you in a pet store? No.
Are you in the, are you in the Elco Pet store? What are you doing?
No, I’m at like 40 mile an hour winds and I’m deciding if I need to get out and get an uncrustable. I dunno how long this could, or is it lunchtime? It’s about lunchtime.
Yeah. Anyway, I just kept hearing weird noises. Didn’t,
I don’t know why I’m, I’m silent. I’m, he’s got me riveted.
Okay. Yeah, keep going. Well, anyway, it was, it was awesome. Chris, who finally, it was boom, it was, he steps out. Chris had the video rolling, got the first shot. But it was awesome because he steps out and you, it’s so nice to have somebody there. Let’s slow down just a little
Bit. I kind of want to add like, it, it was a little bit nerve-wracking because you’ve got this bowl and I’m sure it was the same with Wyatt. You’ve got this bowl that’s pushing cows around. Yeah. And so he’s not standing in the same place for very long. So we had him once and he’s, he’s good. And, and John’s getting set up.
They’re probably little handful of others though, right. Bulls. There’s probably a bunch of bulls or who knows, you don’t want ’em switching and Yeah. The other, just to step out, the other factor was, it’s so thick. Yeah. I’m shooting through a gap that looks like it’s two inches wide. Yeah. Two foot or two wide. Yeah. Here and there. And then different bulls coming in and out. Yeah. You can’t see ’em. Like I said, I mean we, we can see cows. We can’t necessarily see the bull for very long or very often. Yeah. And Chris had seen this bull two days before maybe. And so we knew like there’s a, there’s a, you know, I think just, he’s just black and just, you know, black been in the mud.
The time I saw him, he ran through the canyon. If somebody, somebody spooked him out and they all ran across, we’ve gotta look at ’em, but not a good enough look. Yeah. But enough to say that is a shooter. Yeah. I saw big old thirds and just mass. Yeah. And so I knew there was a big bull in there and that was him. Yeah. So he is moving kind of, he would come into view and, and, and John’s getting set up to shoot. And then of course he moves out of view again and we can’t see him at all. Yeah. But the cows are still there. And so basically it was just, I said, John, he’s gonna come back to that spot. Those cows are not moving. Just wait. Just so, so I, I just said get set up on those cows and he’ll be back. And so I think that’s
Yeah. But just super nice. Chris, Chris took the range finder and then, you know, was telling me range here. So you stayed on the gun the whole time? I stayed on the gun. Yeah. And then, and then perfect. So anyway, got a shot, Adam hit him and then, but he didn’t go down and he just went up, up just a little bit. And, and so we ran down the hill. Did he
Hit him good? He hit hit him good or
Dunno? I, I think so. I think it was a little bit low maybe, but
In the chat was a little bit low. But it was, it would’ve, it was a lethal shot, but it was gonna take a minute.
Yeah. Are you dialing John just for, for guys and listening to the podcast or, I mean, are you dialing?
I’ve got a tur on your mo Yeah, I’ve got a turn in on the, on the rifle. And so Chris would, you know, call it the ranges and then I would dial. Yeah,
Yeah.
Yeah. And so then we went down. It was like two 20 maybe. Yeah. What was the second shot?
It was two 20, like 2 23 or 2 25 or
Something. Did he stay with the cows or is he now alone?
He, he ran probably 40 yards
Off. Yeah. And
He, he ran down to the bottom of the draw and we could see him. A piece of him there. Yeah. But we just decided let’s run down there, cut
Some distance. So we ran,
Cut the distance and get, get
Get shot. Got a hundred yards off basically Hundred, cut a hundred yards and got another one in him. Yep. And then shot him again. And then we could see he was like having a hard time, like he’s hit good, but, but he’s moving like crazy. It’s like a tank. He’s an elk and it’s a blower. Yeah. That’s all you need. His body’s gigantic though. Yeah. Went into the trees and we just followed him. And then Chris is like, he’s
Gotta be here. What bullets are you using? What bullets are you using?
Oh, I’d have to look Parker. Go The Parkers or no? Yeah,
I think they wear the Parkers. They’ve got
The little, the little black tip.
Yeah. Well they had a silver, silver tip on it. Well,
They’ll have silver and black. I can’t,
Yeah. So
Well, parkers are good
Bullets. Yeah. Anyway, I shoot. Well sometimes I wonder, I wonder about any muzz loader. Yeah. Killing something. Just a little soured on that right now.
My Southwest Desert Bull took five or four or five and Right. Been great, great. Right. Killing shots. I mean, they just soak up the load and,
And it feels like some of the better performing mu bullets that I hear about don’t aren’t the best shooting. You know what I mean? As far as two, three, that’s my, that’s the trade off you have. It’s kind of like a little bit like maybe the rifle world and some, you know, burgers like it or not, they shoot well high bc long, stable bullet, but they’re not maybe performance as well on a big bone animal. Some other bullets too. So we’re kind of, you’re running that thing with the muzzle loader. A you want to, you want to hit it and, and on a deer, I feel a little bit less sensitive. The elk. Elk like you’re dealing with. Yeah. I mean elk are hard to kill. They’re big, they’re big bone. They’re thick and they just soak it up, man,
Melded lead tire weights are about like the best bullet out there. Yeah.
That’s what I used. All right,
Keep going. Sorry to
Stop you. We knew he was hurt, but, but he was going anyway and so we, we crossed the canyon and, and got on and didn’t know exactly where he was. It’s just super thick trees. Luckily he popped out above the trees kind of in the, in the burn. And you see in the kill pictures it’s, it’s a little bit thinner. And then Chris is like,
We gotta
Run him down because he was moving. He starts,
Well he was moving pretty fast. Yeah. And it’s, it’s one of those things, if you don’t think he’s, if you don’t get on it and kill
It, he now knows you’re chasing him. So his adrenaline start to kick in and they can just pick up a Yeah.
Once, once that initial shock wears off of them being shot. When that wears off.
Yeah. They’re
Survival. They could go a long
Ways. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, this is where the music would be playing. Cuz we were running and running. Anyway, he finally, he, he got tired or whatever and, and laid down and all I could see was his neck and head. And so I just, I put one. Right. Yeah. We’re a hundred yards probably at that, at that point. Pretty better. Yeah. You caught him better. You caught. So
I started, I started running and I’m like, John, we gotta run because he’s moving pretty fast. But it’s one of those things, if you run, you can, you can catch him outwards.
Yeah. Because he’s heard enough so that that’s like, kinda like you, we were ball around your other ball here, like stay on him and finish him or he gets a mile ahead of you and now you can’t track him. Yeah. You’re
Done. He’s gone.
And with all the rain and stuff, it’s just so hard to track.
So we got to where basically we were parallel with him. Yeah. And I was trying to get ahead of him so he would stop basically. So he would, he would, he would just stop and instead
Of, so like, oh, I’m not going that way. I’m gonna just watch this dude running on a ridge for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. And it was pretty clear uphill. So, so if we got him to go uphill, he had to slower. So
Basically right when I got to where I was ahead of him to where he would’ve turned back or stopped or gone a different direction. He just laid down.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s, I’ve, I’ve done that with animals or clients before. Certain in instances and they just security. They’re like, all right, just plop down. And then you got in, finished in John Hunt. Yeah. So then, yeah, so you see in the kill pictures you got a little blood on his neck. But that’s, that was the next shot right at the end. That don’t matter where the blood’s at. Yeah. He’s dead. Right. That and then we That’s awesome. We walked up and were just dying and elation just, yeah. I mean it was worth every bit of the 18 years, just the heaviest, heaviest bull fronts I’ve ever held in my life. He’s he’s awesome.
They’re world class.
Yes. Yeah, they’re, he put a lot of bone in those first three times that, that they’re long, all three of ’em are long, but they, I think they’re heavy 18. They’re like prop prop cans plus all
Them. Yeah. They took a, put a, you know, if he wouldn’t have had that mass, it put it more into the length to, you know, it just says a lot of bone on those circumference, you know, around them’s impressive front end.
It’s,
It’s one of those animals that you walk up to and, and it’s way bigger walking up to it than you ever thought it was on the
Hoof. Well, and he was a, like the pitchers, I wasn’t there breaking him down, but he looked big body ducked down the neck. I just remember that neck area. He was a big elk, big body elk. He was giant. You know, they can vary a couple hundred pounds. Big bull elk. And he was on the upper end of that spectrum, so Yeah. And then pretty awesome. Pretty, you know, early in the day. So yeah, he was like luck, chop and peace and whittle and get him out piece by piece. Chris, you had some Chris, you know, horses, I don’t know, horses coming or, or we packed out or did you had ’em
Actually brought, brought ’em up with me that morning.
Yeah. In anticipation. Yeah.
Yeah. He was just feeling lucky. I
Know you were smelling John’s weakness. He said it was day three.
I actually, I actually had ’em both. I had ’em the day before too. Yeah. I brought ’em up and it’s good for him to come up and just be there and,
Well that or not home. I don’t know if Mackenzie was up or she came up that day, but she was with you guys and know these packing out on the pack out then they’re not just home, I guess someone else feeding them. You got ’em up there with you. They got a bring a load or two out. I was so thankful for the horses. I mean, the first load out about it killed me and I took just the cape. Oh, well it’s a drowned rip. It was, it was wet. Wet full of And it, yeah, it was like so heavy carrying a sponge. I bet it was 70 pounds. It was so heavy. Heavy. Anyway,
I thought you’re picking up your pack. I was like, this is an 80, 90 pound pack. Yeah.
Well this is his straight six. Just a freaking stud bull. Not broke. Literally at all. Maybe. I mean, nothing, nothing out. Pretty convinced he was the one breaking everything. Yeah. Yeah.
John’s, John’s inReach said mass, mass, mass. And he’s all put together. He is too heavy to break.
Yeah. That, that sounded good dust. Yeah.
Yeah.
And he, he
Unbelievable.
Yeah. So for me, bull of a lifetime, just, I mean he’s,
But it’s a getting those elk out too when they’re back in there. It’s, we, we started, we killed the bull at like eight 30 or nine in the morning and we got out What, when was it? It
Was dark. Yeah. Nine 30. Oh yeah. Cause you didn’t have, you’re not hunting with horses. No. Then they were back.
Go out and
Get ’em. And so your first load’s just getting your crap and camera gear and your gun and all that. Yeah. Scope anything that you’re not taking back in. You got a load of just
Carter. Good footage. Good footage, John.
Yeah. Yeah. We got good footage. And
What, what? I’m not siren, siren noises. No,
It wasn’t sounded, I don’t know if you’re in a black hole or if you’re, just let us know you’re there every once in a while. So
I think I’m, I’m just rubbing dude. I got a beard going on. I’ve been going a
Okay, we’re
All just may itch,
May itch. Oh, okay. Just making sure. But anyway, let’s, and we brought him back to the office. Wyatt scored him and he went 360 6 and just, I couldn’t be happier. Amazing.
That’s awesome. Good for you. Good for you.
So, I mean, the mass on the fronts are so big. I can’t, halfway out, I can’t touch my fingers together. Like if I wrap my hand around it. Yeah. They’re pretty awesome that that 360 6 almost means nothing on that thing. Yeah. It’s just, it’s so, so much a score doesn’t take in. Yeah. Yeah it doesn’t. But well so,
And then Chris went on his elk hunt and wasn’t so good.
You were gonna skip that.
You went to New Mexico, right? The next day you
Grind Josh and I out on our terrible hunt. That’s why. Let’s have
It.
That’s true. Let’s
Have it. So yeah. My hu my hunt started the next day. So drove
Mexico.
I would think I was, was headed up New Mexico at the same time I was headed up here at the same time. You were headed into Mexico.
Yeah.
So now you went to Wyoming and we missed another butt kicking. You had Carter. Yeah.
So that, well I always thought we were gonna skip that.
No, I mean if we’re going in chronological order to get the viewer or listenership caught up, we gotta talk about all the butt kicking. We’ve all hack.
Yeah. That didn’t suck.
So Chris goes to New Mexico,
You
Go to Wyoming. Five
Days. Both of us. Both of us. Not so great. Right Chris? Yeah.
Call it a day. So yeah, we left. So we had to spend the day getting everything ready and, and cuz we’d been on John’s hunt and so the next day we just getting everything ready. We didn’t end up leaving town until like eight 30 or nine at night.
You got a, I saw you here in the morning getting a monster to hit the road. I know, I know. 10 in the morning. I know.
Well we had to, we had to get everything ready.
Well,
I had nothing, nothing.
He’s, he’s nearly we and he took Mackenzie and 14 hours later
There on the road,
I had nothing
Prepared. So
A, after we finally got everything packed and on, we’re on the road. And
Now you wonder if you can be, be there by daylight on opening day.
One of the problems was I had left my phone scope attachment in my pack and it had got left somewhere when we were on John’s hunt and I couldn’t find it. So I spent half the day trying to round up. Yeah,
You maybe needed to drive to Beaver and get one with chest and boys a phone. Scoper, who knows? Like Yeah.
I ended up buying one at Sportsman’s Warehouse at like seven 30. Anyway, I finally found one and then we decided to get food before we hit the road so we could just keep driving and anyway, so yeah, it’s 8 39. It’s
Nice to shop for food in your hometown too. Yeah,
So we basically, by the time we rolled into town, I’m, I’m calling daylight, I’m calling Davy and I’m like, Hey, we’re, we’re not gonna be there till like six 30 so you’re gonna meet us opening morning. Opening morning. So you’re gonna meet us on the road like where we’re gonna start glassing. So I, I told him where we’d meet cuz we’ve been there before and he knows where we’re going. And so we met at the glassing spot opening morning
And it was rain. Davey texted me and said it’s gonna be raining in the morning. Yeah. You know, and I’m like, oh geez
Chris’ stuff. And
Those are five days. Those New Mexico are five days. I mean there’s not a no a lot of room for error or for bad weather or for whatever. Yeah,
Yeah. You know, so that first morning it was just slow and it, and it just continued like it was just, and I’m coming from Utah where we’re listening to all these bugles and it’s going crazy. So I’m all amped up and I get there and it’s just silent. Ugh. That morning we, we cut one track of a bulling cows. We, we went in glass and glass and glass and could never pick ’em up. We did glass like a three 10 bowl that morning up on the opposite hill with some cows. And then it was just kind of that way the rest of the week. It was, it was, we’d, we’d see bowls every day, but they were, you know, a couple rag horns and a small broken five by six and three 40 bowl that was maybe it would’ve been three 40 had it not had half the beam missing and they found the
Entire beam.
Yeah, no, it was, it was basically broken off.
Both beam, both beams were missing. You plugged been three 40? Yeah.
Yeah. No, this one was, I it was, I think it was broken off about at the fifth. So you had the fifth. Fifth and the beam missing. Yeah. But I was like, man, he would’ve been a good bowl. But he came out right at dark the, the first evening. And I, I was just
Carter.
Yeah.
What you guys, you got monkey you got Heller monkeys in your backseat. Take a nap. That’s,
Those are monkey sounds.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just chilling. I don’t,
Jen might need to use a find my phone out. You’re in a zoo in Reno right now. I don’t know where
You’re at. I’m on the top. I’m on the top of this pos this place sucks.
Okay, well just,
Everyone seen all I’ve seen, I’ve seen, hey, I’ve seen three bucks this morning and that’s three more than I saw you yesterday. How about that? Oh,
Okay.
Well, well Chris, this is like, what’s crazy about Chris’s story is these are early rut rifle, like this October we’re one rifle should
Be, you’ve been there before in the middle hunt the
10 days later. Well, and I’ve killed a three 80 bull there. Like we or a couple of them. They there. This is significant. I mean it’s a good tag and
I’ve good tag. I’ve hunted there. I mean multiple times Chris
Has killed good
Bulls there. Yeah. I killed good bull there a couple years ago, but it was just a, it’s, it felt like a different place. And this is, there was no elk anywhere. We glassed and glassed and glassed and it’s like, yeah, you’re picking up a bowl, a broken five by six with two cows every once in a while, but it just wasn’t the same hunt.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and I guess you had, that’s, that’s a classic case where the landowner decided to in Institute of Feeding program and it drew a lot of the elk on his place.
Yeah, so we, we, we’d run into a bunch of the ranchers and, and one in particular that actually had a tag and they, they just said, you know, we don’t have elk anymore. The, the elk of moved for some reason, I don’t know if it was early drought, but also he says this, this landowner comes in and buys up three big ranches and they start feeding heavy. Said there were semi-truck loads of feed coming in here and they say they’re feeding 200 head of elk and
Which is probably two-thirds of what’s there.
Yeah. This is a low density unit to begin with. So that’s 90, 80% of the,
So it, and it was just, it’s it’s night and day different from years past that I’ve hunted it. I mean, the first year I went with my own tag, I went and the first day of scouting, I found two bulls that I would’ve shot.
Yeah.
And this time it’s like there’s no elk. Hmm. Yeah. I mean we, we did see some elk, but
They, they’re all without 90. So you did you spend the full five days? I mean it’s a short hum, but like you banged your head against the wall for five days pretty much in there. Yeah. And that’s, it’s a grinded, but it, but it’s luckily over in five days in every New Mexico when it’s a grind, you only have to do it for five days. Unlike a 30 day deer hunt in Nevada. Right. Carter,
Josh. Well, yeah. And in optimal conditions, I’m sitting here in snow right now is 23 degrees, you know,
With, with bile, just telling you that counts. You’re right at the, you’re at the sweet spot that he doesn’t tell very many people about
In the sweet spot. I followed a line track. I dunno, it’s terrible. I dunno what to say. I dunno what to say. I’ve learned two. So I learned new country in Wyoming. I’ve learned new country in Nevada. I’m learning a lot of stuff, but, you know, it’s hard to get that local knowledge. And local knowledge comes like Chris hunting that New Mexico unit multiple times or anytime you hunt something a couple of times. I feel like Josh, Josh probably, you know, agrees with this is coming back, coming back to this, we’d do some damage, but it just takes, it takes a minute, you know? Yeah. It’s just, and we’re all in that boat. Everybody that’s out there applying is in that boat. And sometimes hiring somebody in an outfitter or whatever can, you know, shorten up that learning curve quite a bit. But anyway. Well, anything else? Well, we skipped over Wyatt’s antelope, but, but he
Killed no. Well
Killed
A big one two months ago. Been skip, we already talked about that though earlier.
Popped. Don’t a little bit. Little bit. Little bit. Well heck yeah. I
Don’t know where we’re all gonna be.
Well we’ve got a fist full of tags. We got so many tags. I I got a, I got a zipper bag full of tags. You guys are loaded. There’s a lot coming down the pipe up here in the
Next month now. Yeah, we’ve, we’ve been busy. But a lot of it, other than John’s tag, Chris’s tag, I mean a lot of it came, they still cuff tags. Well, and they came out of nowhere. Like some of my tags, Wyatts tags. Josh tags your tags, Jay. I mean, geez, it’s like some, some first come first serve stuff, you know, whatever. So it’s like you don’t have time to plan. You go, you make you, you are grinding it and then you’re on to now it feels like the meat of what most of us, most of us, other than John maybe is as as we’re still ahead of us now. We got Colorado. That’s, that’s right. Other than me. I get to take kids to Colorado. That’s switches. That’s right. Good. Second, third season. I’ll be over there. Everybody else says, I think
Second and third. Second, third, fourth for my family. Yeah. Fourth.
Good grief, Carter. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You’re gonna have another, you’re gonna, you’re, you’re gonna forward your mail to Colorado there for about a month. Sounds like
Thanksgiving. Anyway. How about that? Well, well I just think that too, I think it’s been tough. Like Dear Agrow and, and finding big deer this year has been tough. Wyomings I feel like, I don’t know how you guys weather. We haven’t even talked, but it feels slow. Slow.
Yeah. They killed some big deer. But from what, what was on the winter ends this last year, they, they definitely led a lot of, a lot of big deer lived. I think it was just tougher weather conditions. It didn’t have a lot of dairy. It was 70 degrees. Yeah.
High country, 70 degrees.
Crazy. And a lot of thick timber. I mean it’s, I mean you’re, and if they have another milder winter or normal winter, it’s, they’re gonna carry a, a lot of bucks over again and you just, you gotta be where they are and they’re there. They just don’t show themselves sometimes and make it very, very tough. And,
Well, I was there in OC the first week of October, it was 70 degrees. A lot of times you have snow then and it’ll push ’em a little bit and, and that’s when those big deer get killed. But it just, anyway now we’ve, now I’m sitting in snow and it’s, you know, it’s mid-October when the deer is smart as they, they get all year round. You know, so anyway, maybe an early rut. I don’t know guys. I mean it feels, feels,
Feels like if it can keep up, if it, if those northern Nevada, Southern Idaho where I’m gonna be and, and some of those, if it, if we can stack some storms weekly throughout the next month, it feels like it could or should.
Yeah. Well and I think why didn’t you say one of our U units in Utah, they started mar migrating early.
Yeah, I’d, I’d heard that they’d really started pushing down off and and grouping up where they I’m sure spent last
Winter. Zion and Ponce have gone deer too. That which is another unit. They’re i’ll betcha
They are. I think that could be indicative of easy early rut and weather and I don’t, I don’t know, I’m kind of excited for what’s, what’s ahead. So of course how, I mean glad there’s certain hunts that are behind us too.
Well we had to talk about the ups and the downs because you know, we have Wyatt and John and killed a couple giant bulls in the midst of us all. And giant Wyatt killed a giant antelope too. And, but there’s others that eat and it’s not all Instagram. I’ma had somebody from Texas call me today here at the office and like, man, it just me is the deer out west seem to be off the charts. I’m just seeing big buck after big buck. And I’m like, what are you watching? Because that’s not reality out here. No, no. This is a rough year for deer in, in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, which, you know, has had, you know, not a lot of the rifle and it’s kicking off yet. But it’s not epic. It’s epic. And Wyoming was not on no Colorado. Early seasons don’t seem to be like they were off the charts great. It was warm there too. Same timeframe. So don’t, don’t get caught up pissed on the highlights
Of
Instagram.
Yeah. You get a couple of nice, nice bucks smashed with fish island lenses and 14 well, and 14 different reposts.
14 different reposts. I think it’s the same bug, different angles and it’s, you gotta look, it’s the same deer and so realize that too. But it’s, it’s, it’s a tougher year Now Elk on the other hand has been a phenomenal Nevada, Utah Elk here was like, it’s nice.
Even Arizona. I’ve seen a couple of big bulls out of the drought unit 23. I mean there’s it, it was all alright, right. I mean it wasn’t next level but it was, it produced a little bit so it was good.
So anyway, hopefully we talked about the northern states maybe doing better this, this year. We’ll have to see with what, you know, the latter part of the Nevada hunts and Idaho and any later Wyoming hunts, you know, produce. And obviously Colorado just doesn’t ever get terribly affected by drought too much. It doesn’t feel like most of the state certain parts can. So a lot of that’s pending and coming up. We don’t know when we’ll be back. I guess next as a crew we’re doing what we can. I’ve had you on the phone Carter for a minute, an hour and 24 minutes. So I don’t
Know dude. I mean I like, I think I need two, I’m gonna need two Uncrustables in an hour and now,
So
You guys walled me out. Well
It is, yeah. And it’s pasted our lunchtime here and we’re on Utah time and you’re in Nevada time. So you’re,
I didn’t get good sleep last night cuz Jan rearranged my gear room. She
Had a slight domestic quarrel. Yeah. Over the pipe pee down in a bent PVC trying to get the
10 foot under. Yeah. And then, you know, and then I gotta tell her thanks. And you
Know what I think you need to do this is, this is what make good kids next summer. You need to give ’em two shovels and dig that key out and put a new straight pipe down. That good, A good kid project for about a week in your
Backyard. Hey you’re, I’d be turned in for child abuse this day and age, this woke environment. Go to prison for that.
She’s telling us this and I’m like, wow, that the sloughing or settling, you’ve got an s or whatever or an angle in your
Pbc. It’s a slight, it’s a slight bend. She
And she’s, Hey, be careful. I hate, I’m just gonna
Be careful. She
Listens to these to just, I think,
Oh I know I’m gonna I’m
Sure if you sent me there I would struggle the same way. I’m just gonna, I’m trying to save your marriage. I’m just gonna save your marriage
Right now. I’m gonna have some damage control. So anyway. Alright, well good luck to you guys. I’m appreciate, appreciate. Yeah, I’ll be, I’ll be home soon. I’m Josh and I may have to figure out how to come back here. I I’m liking it. It’s just, yeah, it’s been a butt kicker, but I’m liking it.
Well I know he’s got a little bit of time. Well, you, you both got Hunts second and third season Colorado, so I don’t know when you do
That. Well time Janice’s got a second season deer tag. That’s what I mean. I mean, but if we did a smash and grab, hey, you know, I’d come dump another CO if I
Had to dump a one hander and throw some meat in the freezer. Yeah.
One hand. Hey, most expensive meat on planet Earths. Right.
Well, well all right, we’ll let you go boss and then we’ll wrap up here. But good luck up there. Oh
Yeah, you guys can wrap up. Hey, appreciate you holding the fort down and I don’t know, we’ll, we’ll talk soon.
See you when we see you.
Congrats y’all on all the success. All right. Talk to you later.
Well that was a lot of catching up and I know it’s been a probably a two hour podcast, but I don’t know what we need to say other than that. We rambled a lot. I’ve been getting emails. Hey, where, where’s the podcast? I know. You know, and we do it every year. And we’re sorry, it’s just Bennett, the continuity’s not there and it’s not there. It’s easier not to do one of these. And we can do more from the field and I think in the next 30 days we’re gonna have to do something, even if we do a 30 minute or I don’t know what we do. But the problem is someone’s gotta be here at the computer to actually record it. And that’s been a problem at times too. Yeah. Just cuz John, you and Chris were heavy in your, that was a two to three week period and we’re not gonna do that. We’re not gonna record it in our voice memo on our iPhone and let you guys try to redo something with it. So someone’s gotta be here. But yeah, Josh, you’re on the way to New Mexico this week I think to hunt elk. Wyatt, what do you got coming up here? You got some clients on the rifle. Ponta gone coming
Up. She got a little bit of stuff out there. And then I’ll Colorado will be my next big
Third season. Colorado. Chris, you got a second season? Colorados next I, yep. Anything in Utah Deere? I,
I’m probably not gonna
Technically
Dedicated Hunter. Yeah, I’m dedicated year. I’m gonna call this my off year most likely. I don’t think I’ll even go out. Yep. Got too much going on here and lot of catch Colorado
On. So you and your wife both got tags, I think there second John, what do you got next? You got any kid or you Utah tags. No shock. Nobody drew this shit. I’ve got so many kids that usually someone will dry out in Utah, but trim the first year, nobody, no, not one person drew out. I’ve still got, got one this snow, I’m, I have to see what we got tomorrow, but I got opening, opening day of an early rifle hunt, but that’s kind of a weird opener. And a Wednesday, you got Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, some school stuff, which, you know, my son’s got a tag steer, so we’ll see. We might get out a couple of days. Otherwise I’m back to Idaho next week and get serious there for the last, you know, 10 days, two weeks of the, the good deer season there.
So anyway, we’ll be coming and going everywhere, but maybe give a couple shout outs to some of our sponsors before we wrap it up, John. Well let’s, I’d just like to say thanks to the companies who, who support us and, and sponsor us. You know, it’s, it’s thanks to them that we’re able to put these podcasts together. We need you to really support these companies. We’ve talked about Hoyt a new sponsor and yeah, we’ve all got Hoyt Bowes and the new ones this year. I think a lot of us upgraded and just so impressive why I talked about killing his, I mean, couple years ago I couldn’t have fathom, you know, killing an elk at, at 90 yards. Just well, well it takes a lot of practice and the right equipment, but yeah, with the right equipment and the right bow, at least it’s possible with the Right, right.
Amount of practice and the perfect conditions. Yeah. If you have to shoot a figure animal like an elk, right. With that, I mean, I’m sure some people say, what are you doing? But I mean, everything’s situationally and Yeah. Anyway, well that’s, that’s just like wind control. Perfect. No win situation and dead, dead on. And you shot your bowl all summer long. Yeah. And it’s, it’s dead on anyway. It it’s just money. So yeah, check them out. We’ve also talked about Red Rock Jason dumping a pilot at 800 yards, but I think that’s the thing, you know, you’ve got a gun that’ll shoot 1200 yards and it makes 800 yards Not a big deal if you, if you shoot your deer elk at four to 600. Yeah. But you, you, you, you’ve reached legend status shooting a walking coyo at eight 15. Yeah. I mean Right. That’s what a Red Rock position can do for you. Yeah. So, so we’d like to thank them as well. How about Packwell? Did you use them at all or did you just have horses or did you I I did use them a little bit, but then we had horses so I didn’t use ’em to pack out or anything. I think Josh is gonna pack up and Oh yeah. Use it this week maybe. Yeah. It’ll
Just be a couple of us going, so I’m gonna need some extra help.
So Sweet. So yeah. Yeah, pack wheel.com check those out. I mean I, I was giving Josh the tutorial today and I’m like, it goes fast. The thing better be in show Mike
Just about ran sydnee
Over. Yeah. Wow. Is the parking lot you in the snow or is that before the store? I just stop the hallway, but dragging me, you can pack so much in those. I I bet you could get 200 pounds in it.
I’m gonna see if I can’t figure out how to ride it
Backwards or something. Unicycle
Like a Harley.
But, but yeah, I mean it’ll go over logs in the trail. You just hit the front tire on it, give it a little juice and, and the thing will hop up over top. I mean, it’s just amazing. So allow you to get your camp or pack out into, into places that are, you know, you typically would be in a couple, couple trips anyway. And then Rugged Ridge products, I use their bipod on, on this elk hunt and I, I freaking love it. They’re not heavy so you don’t Yeah. Some of the older school ones that are heavy, you’re like, man, this makes my, is it worth packing for the chance? I might need it because some situations you got you, you can’t sit down on a little bipod, you got brushed or whatever. Yeah. But man, when you got ’em, they are so money when you, when you can use ’em. Yeah. And this one, I, I ordered the, the extensions, it’s like a foot and a half taller just because sometimes you had, like you said, you got sit on shirt, but not, and, and I was always on an extreme downhill, you know, I was on top of this canyon. So that’s a good set up then for you. I I put that on and it was
Awesome. Yeah. Shooting downhill prone is tough. Yeah. If you have those extensions, you can sit down and shoot and it’s awesome. So I, I took that, I took John’s extensions on my hunt. I also have the Rugged Ridge bipod, but I took John’s extensions and yeah, they work
Great. So that’s rugged ridge outdoor gear.com. Go check it out. You’ve got a bunch of great stuff. But, but as far as bipod, I, I haven’t found one that I, that’s even close. It’s awesome. You, you got a little trigger by your thumb and when you’re setting up, you just loosen it a little bit, get into position and then lock it in
And you can level, you can level your gun. You loosen that can’t. Yeah, you can, you can’t loosen that trigger, can’t your gun and then tighten it back up and it’ll lock into place. Yeah.
Just, just phenomenal. So, and then yeah, triples I the miles on freaking use, didn’t you? Yeah, it was so nice. Just kick butt. They know how to set ’em up, you know, for Hunters, the guy over there, Colton and the Colton know what they’re doing. Yeah. They, they’re, they’re hunters and so they know, they know what they’re doing. They’ll get you, get you set up. One thing he did, I talked to him and he said, if you want a new machine the day, at least right now Yeah, you gotta pre-order it because they’re sold before they get there. They walk into the showroom with a bunch of cash burn hole in your pocket and take, you get a walk out with your dream bike. Yep. So yeah, give him a call. I mean if you’re even close it’s worth, it’s worth driving. And I think they do deliver to quite a, quite a ways away safe here. They do
A lot of orders out of like Vegas and other states even. So yeah,
You can call them and order. Yeah. So and his phone number four three five eight six five zero one hundred on that or I think it’s triples polaris.com. Sss polaris s polaris com. All right Chris, thanks for saving me on that. Well, I mean it is triples Polaris. Yeah. Yeah. But not T r i p l e. Yeah. Yeah. Ss s yeah. And then Adam maybe, yeah. Vortex optics. You know, we can, obviously this has been a busy time of year and a lot of people surprises us. We would think we sell all of our optics from about May to August and you need your optics, but there’s a lot of people, for whatever reason, middle of the hunt, something breaks, something gets lost. Whether this be your range finder, whether it’s whatever scope combos not working out for you on your rifle. Give us in mi keep us in mind. You know, Swarovski like a Zeis vortex sig.
Some of those have definitely had some supply chain issues that are maintaining inventory in stock. But we’ll do everything we can. We, we tried to order as big of quantities as we can, you know, within reason to be able to, you know, keep it in stock. We do have a pair of Vortex Fury, 5,000 brains fine bins and those have been hard to get. Got a few of those in, finally got the guys waiting for ’em on back order. But anyway, vortex and, and they’re optics, whether it beri scopes, bins, spotting scopes, keeps in mind on that. You can check out the line of their [email protected]. Give us a call on on them if you’re looking for something last minute or if you’re looking to set something up for the, for, for next year, I guess better get something on order, kind of, if you know you’re gonna be building a rifle or something like that.
Get, get scopes on order. I can’t, rifle scopes are probably the number one back order thing with all Optus companies, cuz it takes more time, more meticulous, set up radicals components. I don’t know, I’m guessing, but seems like there’s a lot and there’s a lot more of them. Well, I was gonna say, yeah, they have, you know, one model, but there’s 10 different radicals that can, that’s what I mean. So within all those, you have a lot of, lot of variability and, and things like that, that, so, so we do have some of those in stock. So if you’re, you’re looking, make sure you give us a call. Pricing is phenomenal. If you’re not a member, our pricing is phenomenal. If you’re a member, it’s a little better. Yeah. So you get a little bit of discount. Yep. Our number’s 4, 3, 5, 2, 6, 3, 0, 7, 7, 7. Otherwise we know you’re all the middle of your hunts.
Take great photos, take more great photos, take more great photos, spend a little bit of time at your, your keel, at your, or within your unit before you kill. Taking your supplementary photos and all that. John and Chris and those guys can have a lot more to work with. Putting your story together. Keep us in mind, send us your photos. If you wanna send us a quick photo when you get back. Say, hey, I wanna do a story photo for you, get it to us so we can kind of hold it. But it’s that time of year and we’re looking forward to seeing a lot of the stuff start rolling in. Yeah. If you, if you’re successful, send your photos to [email protected]. And with the last couple years, the new phones are great. They’re taking good enough pictures for us. If you got, you know, the iPhones 11 or 12, they’ve been great The, the newest Samsungs have been good too. So just, just take a, take a ton of photos and, and we’d love to see ’em. Okay? All right. Good luck. Be safe. We’ll give you another two hours in another month. Sorry, we won’t wait that long. So.
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