Brushes with Death and Brown Bear, Jesse Tatman. In this episode of the Epic Outdoors Podcast we talk with longtime hunting guide, Jesse Tatman. In October of 2021 while leading his pack horses back to the trailhead another hunter heard the approaching horses, thought it was a bear, and began shooting at Jesse and his horses. Jesse recounts seeing the muzzle blast at close range and the events that transpired. He also shared several charging brown bear stories from years of guiding in Alaska.
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A muzzle flash from the front looks a lot different than it does the side or the back, you know? And I had pack horse with breakaways go in all direction at that time. Well, if you spend enough time in Alaska that you’re gonna have stories like that. Anything to do with Western big games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson. Chris Peterson coming at you from Southern Utah. It’s a dry, warm, freaking sunny southern Utah. Bronson. I’m tired of it. I’m, I’m getting deja vu. It’s getting scary. We go to it’s winter going, we try to vacation to places like this. Yeah. The weather’s like vacation able. Yeah. Huh? Sixties. And now December, here we are. December, yeah. Upper fifties, sixties. We’re showing about 20, 30% of rain could be going golfing. I you can golf every month of the year. I didn’t, that didn’t even come to mind for me. Well, it does to me. ’cause I’m kind of done hunting and I’m, and you live on the golf course every day, so I’m like, okay, it looks green. I maybe I’ll go. Yeah, but you can’t go after work. ’cause why It’s dark at five 30. It’s dark. I’m tired of it. And guess what? I was in bed. I, I’m embarrassed to say it. Seven 30 Bronson. Whoa.
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By 1:00 AM I was like, I, I think I’ll go into the office all and you were razzing me about getting quote old, like, that’s old man stuff right there. I dunno what to say, kids. It’s what time to get up. It’s, and they looked at me. What do you mean deadly? It’s time. Turn the tube off. What time did you get up? 1, 3 31. One. And then I talked to Jana. Did you? I talked. Oh, I talked to Jenna. Struggle from one to five. Oh dude. I mean, you’re done. Talked to Jana from one to three 30 and then went back to bed. Wow. Till five 30. So anyway. And then I need a monster. And, and, and I don’t need one. I want one. All right. Anyway, bro, guess we got kind of a cool podcast lined up. Good buddy of Chris and Kenzie’s had some interesting experiences and it’s about time to give him a call, Chris. All right. We’re gonna give a call to a friend of mine. His name is Jesse Chapman. He’s got some crazy stories and especially one recent, we’re gonna hear all about it. Okay. So we’re gonna call Jesse and we’re gonna hear it from the horse’s mouth. There’s some pun intent here. That’s right. Hello, Jesse. Hey, it’s Jason Carter. Adam Bronson. Chris Peterson. Hey, how are you guys? Good, how are you doing? I’m doing good. Well, good.
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Well, we, Chris told us a little bit about a crazy story that you’re involved in and, you know, rather than take the reins and talk about it, we thought that’d be kind of interesting. It’s a scary deal to say the least. But I guess tell us a little bit about for Epic Outdoors listeners, what you ran into, where you were at, and kind of start, start from the top. Well, I was in Montana, had a, a, just a general season, elk and deer tag. We were hunting between a, a Livingston gardener, not far from, from the Yellowstone Park, but a trailhead goes into Red Mountain. It’s just east of a place called Daily Lake. We, well, it was packed in there. Friend of mine and, and myself, we’ve packed into, after I left Idaho, I’ve been there guiding with my flying Jay. And so I went down there and we was packed in. We’d been in there about three days, decided we were gonna move. Weren’t seeing a lot of bulls, just cows. So we, we loaded out, took one trip out to the horse trailer, went back in after another trip, and we was on our way out and it was, we had not left our camp too far and come and we could see a, a headlight come on way off. And I, I thought it looked like it was on the next mountain, you know, because it was, it was still pretty daylight.
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Anyway, we was riding down and come around. The corner was about 250, 300 yards above the trail head. And a gunshot went off right in my face about 30 yards away. Geez. You saw a muzzle blast. It, was it dark? Yeah, getting dark in the evening. Is that when it was, or, yeah, it was getting dark in the evening. It was, it was not headlight time yet. And you know, I don’t ride with headlights unless I’m in the tree for something, gonna take my head off, whatever. But ’cause the horses in the steeper country, you know, they see better without the shadows or whatnot. Seems like. But anyway, come around the corner and, and the muzzle flash went off and a muzzle flash from the front looks a lot different than it does the side or the back. I never seen that. I can’t imagine. And you know, the, the shot that I heard it hit and then Dean started yelling, whoa, whoa, whoa. And, and he was trying to get control of his horses, you know, and I had pack horses with breakaways going all directions at that time. And I was trying to get the pack string all, and, and, and Dean was yelling these horse, trying to get his horse under control. And, and then we started yelling, Hey. And he, then the next shot went off and it went right past me. After After you had already yelled another shot. Yeah.
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And he said it went, it went past you. Yeah. You know, you hear that as it goes, the whip as it goes past you. And then, you know, then we really started yelling and, and then everything kind of got controlled horses and everything calmed down and, and the kids started yelling at us, you know, Hey, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I, and I whirled my horse around and make sure, and I asked Dean, I said he was buckled over his horse, like trying, like laying on the saddle horn, trying. And he’s like, I’m like, are you hit? And he said, no. I said, is everybody up? And, you know, all the horses were still standing. And so I told him, I said, well, let’s get to the truck. Because it was just about 200 yards. And so we, we rode past him and this kid, I, I asked him, what are you doing? And he said, ’cause you know, when we first rode into it, we thought it was like some, you know, buddy, he target practicing or something. Shoot. Geez. And he said, he said, I thought I heard noise behind me and I thought it was a bear. And I, I started shooting and I said, you’d never shoot at something you don’t see, you know, I explained to him, you know? Yeah. And I, I just rode right past him.
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And, and then when we got to the trail head, you know, that’s when I called 9 1 1 and we got to the trail head and started unpacking the horses. And then the, the, the young man walked out past us to his truck and, and I told him, I said, you know, the deputies were on the way, just will not go anywhere. I got a picture of your truck, your vin number, your license plate, whatever. And he’s like, okay. You know, and the deputies, I, I give him dean’s number ’cause I had to go back in after another load. I had another load in there. So I went, what? And I told Dean, I said, look at the horses. I looked at the horse I was riding and the pack horse I was taking and nothing. But then when I got back out, he’d found where two of ’em had been, been hit two horses. Geez. Right in the chest frontal or No, they were shot and I don’t know how, I don’t know how he didn’t get hit because one of ’em shot right under the horse’s belly Right between his legs and hit just above the knee in that big muscle. Oh my gosh. Gee, I dunno how he, I don’t know how he didn’t get shot, but was he shooting a handgun or what? What did, what did the young man shooting you at you with it? Well, the 40 Smith and Wesson.
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Did he shoot from his horse? Just, was he riding horse he was walking or was he walking? Was he walking? He was walking. He was walking, yeah. Yeah, he was walking. And so did the horses. I mean, they had to go to the vet, I guess. Yeah, I took him to the horse hospital clinic in Belgrade. And you know, they did all the X-rays and everything that they had to do, you know, later the deputy called me and, you know, explained what they were gonna charge him with and all of that. There’s an article in the, the Livingston Enterprise, the, it made the front page news on that. How so? When did this happen? October 27th. Okay. Yeah. So within a month ago, month ago. Pretty recent. Yeah. Well, pretty, he’s lucky. He’s lucky he didn’t shoot back. Yeah. Well I, that was, I was going for my sidearm, like, ’cause I didn’t know by that time, you know, once you start getting control of the horses and everything starts coming to you, what’s going on, you know, and two muscle flashes right in your face, you know, at a close range. It was, and then I, he explained to the police that, you know, he, he, he didn’t deny it, you know, he said, yeah, I shot at him and he said, I shot one shot low and one shot high.
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And and that explains what then one, one bullet whizzed by you or, and then struck another horse probably or something. Yeah. That’s what happened. Yeah. I mean, you know, we had, we had horses lined up by that time, by the second shot. They were going all directions. Yeah. They’re both your horses. Were they able to make Yeah, they, they, they both recover. Yeah. One of them had a slight, a break in a bone, but it, the vet’s pretty confident they’re gonna be fine. Mm. What a scary, he thought it was a griz, huh? He, he said, well, I thought it was a griz or Yeah. Bomb and cubs or whatever. Yeah. He said he heard a noise coming down the hill. The same thing he told the deputy. He heard, heard ’em, heard a noise coming down the hill and thought it was a bear and, and started shooting. Oh, just shooting at Griz. Yeah. Gosh, that, and I’d, I’d explained to him and, and Chris knows that I’ve been charged by several grizzlies and I explained him that I didn’t sound shoot at em. When you shoot at a grizzly, you gotta make sure you’re aiming where it’s gonna count because you only got one or two shots. Shots one chance. That’s right. That’s right. Have you been, have you, you’ve obviously been charged by grizzlies, but I mean, have you had to put one down? Yeah, yeah, I did in Alaska.
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I was, I was on Kodiak. No kidding. Sick of Blacktail. Tell us, tell us a Yeah, tell us a quick story on that. Well, I had, I was in Larsson Bay across from, from the little village there, and we was up there hunting, hunting blacktail and had one of the mule deer foundation area, I guess our area managers, the one from New Mexico with me, Colleen was with me. Okay. Yeah, we know her. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody knows her. Anyway, she was with me. We was, we was back up hunting and it was in the middle of the day. I, I told her. So we, we was having a hard time finding some good deer and I told her, setting this saddle, I’ll go up through and push this brush down. We’ve seen some bucks up above. And I said, I’ll go around and push down through here and so we can run ’em through this, this little swale to you. And I said, when I get in that other swale over there, once I get, ’cause she was, you know, pretty worried about the grizzlies anyway. Yeah. And I told her, just wait over there and I’ll wait over there for you. And you know, I’m not the best of hearing anyway. I’ve been around a lot of gunfire and drilling rigs my whole life.
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And she, so I got through there and she come, she come over and I was kinda laid back on my pack eating, eating my sandwich. And she’s like, we’re, she’s standing there and we’re talking and she’s like, I hear something in that brush right there. And I said, really? And she said, yeah. And I said, so we, we talked a little bit more. And she’s like, really? I can hear it growling like it’s a bear. And I stood up and I stepped up the hill about, I don’t know, four or five feet from her to her left. And she was, she had a 300 wind mag and I had a a and I left my rifle sitting on the ground. But I re I pulled my sidearm and What did you have on a 44 or? I had a 10 millimeter. Oh, loaded with Underwood ammo. Penetrators. Okay. So just a semi-auto. Yeah, Glock, yeah. Glock 20. Hmm. Yeah, because I, I like the, I like the 15 round magazine when it, and, and it was kind of a good thing in this situation ’cause so she, I said, where are you talking about? Like the next, ’cause it dropped through a little ravine and then about a hundred yards come up another heel. And I said, on the next hill, she said, no, right here.
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And that’s when I looked and the right in front of me and the bear’s head come over the hill and it was about, I don’t know, between 15 and 20 yards real close. And I said, I yelled at it, I said, Hey, and the bear charged, oh gee, geez. And I, the first shot I shot just left of it, you know, to try to turn it and Yeah. And then it just pinned its face back and it was actually charging her the, i I could tell from the path that it was taken, it was coming by me. And I, I, you know, I don’t know whether she moved or what, but the bear charged and I just started dumping rounds in it. And I, in about three seconds, I shot nine rounds. Oh. In its body. Were you or head or neck or what were you I was aiming at bear, I’ll be honest with you. Wow. And what did it do? Did it slow it, any of them sw down and then out the corner of my eye, I seen its cub charge and it’s cub charged out the corner of my eye. And I turned and actually shot around right between me and it, and it hit the ground and then it turned and followed its mama and it went over the hill. And Colleen shot in the midst of that, she shot one shot out of her 300 wooden mag also.
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And the bear went over the hill and she’s like, I can hear it panting and breathing. I said, well, it’s, it’s all shot up. Yeah. And she’s like, well, get me off this mountain. And I said, well wait a minute, we gotta figure out where this brown bear’s at before we move. Yeah. And, you know, and then I called the, called the troopers on a satellite phone. And so you got a wounded bear and we don’t really wanna proceed, but hey, bring them in. Yeah. Since you’re not hunting bears there, you gotta do that. I didn’t know they had that, that would have enough oomph, you know, a 10 millimeter. But you said, what rounds did you put in it? I, I shoot the Underwood ammo and I, I loaded like every other one with an Underwood ammo. Penetrator. Okay. And a 220 grain solid. Okay. Hmm. And the penetrators are, you know, they’ll shoot through two inches of bulletproof glass they claim. No kidding. So did you Yeah. Find the bear. Did they come and they find the bear? Or what did you do? I mean, did you Well, so, so yeah. So we went over and I called him and it was Thanksgiving was the next day. And you know, the trooper said, well, you know, the, the drill, you know, I’ve been guiding in Alaska a long time.
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And he is like up there and look for the bear and if you can find it, you know, bring the hide out and the head out. I said, well what about the cub? What about if it’s not dead? Yeah. He said, well, it’s not dead. Dispatch it. I said, well what about the cub? What if it’s by its its mom defending mama. Yeah. Dispatch it too. Ah, geez. So did, did you have to No, Cub was gone. Yeah. Okay. And later, a few days later, the cub, I, I actually heard it up a tree and I, I think a boar had it cornered up a tree. Okay. Gonna finish it. Not, not far away. I could hear it. Yeah. In there. I didn’t go in there looking. Yeah, you don’t wanna do that. You got a boar with a Cubs tree. You have a few other stories. Yeah. You said you’ve, this is a good morning. This is a good way to start a day. You got some good wild ones. I mean, some of them. Yeah. My, my first trip in Alaska, Ben Stevenson and, and myself, you know, I guide with Ben and, and my first trip in Alaska was 2007. And I went up hunting moose and he put a guide with me and we was, we was in a, a drainage in the Takis and hunt moose. And we did, we hadn’t seen anything in about 10 days.
00:16:35:00 –> 00:17:57:28
So Ben moved us over to another drainage and one of the guys that went with me had shot a moose. And the guide that was with him actually stabbed himself with a knife slipped cape in the moose and stabbed himself through his waiter into his leg. So I went over to help George carry his moose out and, and Ben brought my guide back over and we were, and then the guy decided he, he wanted to, to leave. So if Ben come in to guide me, and it was the next morning we got the moose out and, and you know, you can’t fly because, and, and hunt the same day. So after the next morning, Ben and I, we walked down the, the valley and, and his brother Bill come in and picked up the other guy and that had to leave. And we went quite a ways down river, probably eight miles or so. And neither one of us, you know, we didn’t take any sleeping bags or anything with us. We went pretty light and we’d walked down actually past one of the cabins that Ben was raised in back in the back country and, and crossed the river and got over into a real moosey area. And, and Ben told me, he said, you watch everything to your left and in front, I’ll watch everything to the right and behind. And he started calling, he said he is rifled down.
00:17:58:18 –> 00:19:17:01
And he started rubbing on the fruit trees. And we’d been there about 10 minutes and he yelled Brown Bear. And I was carrying a 33 78 and I turned to the left. And when I turned, Ben was on all fours running straight at me. And this eight and a half foot brown bear was right on him, like right running full boar. Oh. And I threw the rifle up and just as the, the, the bear was coming bending the bear was in the scope together. And just as he kind of hit a little dip and he fell, I shot right over his back or head basically when he Yeah. And it was like, it was gonna have him and another half a second, you know, I mean it was, this bear was like, all you seen was a tide and shivering, you know, and, and they kind of, when they charge, it kind of crunched their face up kinda like a dog, you know? Yeah. Like when they snarl No, we, no, we don’t know. I, I we don’t, I’ve never seen that. Yeah. And then there was, there was one other, I was down in Yakutat. Wait, now Finish did, so you, one round, did he, you smoked that bear with one round? No, I missed it. Oh. With that one. And then Ben grabbed his rifle and started shooting. Okay. It turned him luckily. And you Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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The bear just, it spun it, it turned the bear and Ben grabbed his rifle and started shooting. Okay. And then cleaned his drawers out, then now let’s go to the next one. Well then we, yeah. Well that wasn’t even the, so then that night, you know, we crossed the river, got back over, that’s the, that’s hear the good stories. We got back over to the cabin, you know, and we had a brown bird ripped the roof off the cabin. And so we put a tarp over the cabin, we cleaned it out, you know, we slept in there with no, with no sleeping bags or whatever. But had one of those, you know, we, we keep those drums full of supplies. It’s got the Bolton lid, so there was some spam in there and whatever. We, we cook some spam and that’s what we had. We, we just left with stuff in our pack for, for lunch or whatever for a day. But it was good. We stayed in there that night, dried everything out and then walked back to the plane the next day. But the next one I was guiding on Yakutat, which is down the coast from Cordoba. And it was with, it was with Ben’s as well. And he, a guy by the name of Chris Lebar was with me. He’s a, a real experienced Alaska guy. He’s hunted a lot with me over the years.
00:20:31:12 –> 00:21:48:09
And, and he was down there with me and we had a hunter out of Michigan, I believe his name was Lauren. And we’ve been hunting about three days, four days, seen a lot of bears. And finally we was, there’s a big runway down there that they used to land C one thirties on, and the bears like to get out on this runway where the old runway was and, and eat the grass. And we had was walking down through there and the a bear come out and when it it come out, it was standing along the trees and I got him lined up and got him on a dead rest. And he, he took a shot with a 3 75 H and h and the bear actually jumped back into the trees. And when it got into the, got into the brush, you know, then we walked over there to look at it, look for it, and it, I could hear it breathing in there and Chris is like, it’s in there. Breathe. You know, and you can see the trees, the alder and stuff stuff moving around and yeah. So we, we was looking and I said, ah, I was carrying a 3 38 ultra then, and at that, that day. And I was like, I’m not going in there with this long, you know, we’re gonna give this bear a little while. And he’s like, well, will it, will it take off?
00:21:48:09 –> 00:23:04:21
And Chris looked at him with big eyes and said, if it could go, it would’ve already went. It’s waiting for us. Yeah, good point. So we, we went back to camp and 13 hours later I, I carry a wild west guns 4 57 wild West guns, you know, it’s, that souped up 45, 70. Yeah. I carry one of those a lot. And I, I took it that day and we got over there and I, I told Chris and, and Lauren to kind of stay on the outside where I knew where they were to my right. And stay out on the runway, but, and I, I, I went up wind, so the wind was blowing down towards where the bear was. And I, I started going through the altars and I, I put a round in the rifle and I was carrying it with my right hand and I was moving the altars with my left hand and you know, and looking and they had leaves on ’em. And I got about 40 yards in there and I just moved the, a big limb to my left. And that bear had dug a big hole and it, it come outta that hole and it turned to charge and it was about four feet. And I just swung that rifle and shot it. Geez. From the hip? Or did you even shoulder it? Yeah. Did you even shoulder again?
00:23:04:25 –> 00:24:27:25
It was, I had it on my shoulder, you know, kind of carrying it with, with it on my shoulder. But yeah, I just, just turned my upper body and, and shot the bear to the left. Finished him? Or did he keep going? Well, it rolled him and then I put another round in it real quick and shot him again. Yeah. And then he didn’t, and that time I aimed And that one you’ve had some excitement. Yeah. I mean that’s, yeah. You’ve been on the receiving end of bullets and you’ve been on the other, you’ve, you’ve been on both ends so well. Yeah. That’s crazy. So back to the, the horse wreck. Are they, they, what’d they charge this kid with and what’s gonna stick do you think? Well, so they charged him with two first degree felony counts of endangerment. Yeah. One for each round fired. And then they charged him with two counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty. Dang. Did they feel confident? That’ll stick. And they, they, they don’t know about the animal cruelty because it wasn’t intentional maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So, but the in engagement’s hard to fire. I mean, he recklessly shot into the Yeah. Just shot. Well, and he and he told the police that, you know. Yeah. He said, yeah. ’cause they asked him, did you shoot at him? And he said, yeah, I shot at him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re telling whole that’ll change his life.
00:24:27:25 –> 00:25:36:12
Whole felonies, whole story felonies change your life. Well, and that’s, I I felt pretty bad for him. You know, he’s 19 and I’m like, man, you know, it might, but it, I mean, geez, it’s a, it’s a sobering, I mean the, I mean, you gotta feel like you guys are still pretty lucky. ’cause I don’t know the distance, but you were within what, 20, 30 yards? I don’t know what you Yeah, it was within 30 yards. Yeah. So, I mean, that, that’s, that’s not point blank range with a pistol. You know, there’s, but it’s still, he, he was probably keyed up. He’s, he’s leaving the trail head at dark. Was he coming in? Was he heading in and you guys were almost back to it? Or were you going the way he was was on his way out and you were on your way out. Yeah. You caught him basically. Right. Almost at the truck. You caught him. So he thought something was behind me. I hear something behind me should have been horses. But I don’t know how you mistake that mean, I dunno. I, when I talked to him, I told him, I said, they’re kinda like running humans when when they’re running they have soft feet on the bottom. Yeah. You’re not gonna hear, they don’t make the same noise as a hoof. No. Yeah. Well that’s scary deal, Jesse.
00:25:36:25 –> 00:26:48:03
Well, I’m glad you and your, your buddy there and your horses sounds like are Right. But it’s a sobering reminder for all of us to, I guess whether you’re in grizzly country or you’re, I mean, just, just know what you’re shooting. Yeah. You’re shooting. It can happen fast. That’s the thing. And you never know when it, when something’s gonna happen. Like just like total surprise for you to be in the Yeah, no, we were coming out, we were coming out just talking and you know, we had had a new horse that had never packed before. So Dean was riding one of my horses and we’d throw a pack on his, because he wanted to be able to make sure that it’d be fine, you know, if he had a load of a deer on it or something. So Yeah. You probably had to, you probably had to sell that one. That one’s never gonna be the same. Yeah. First experience. Yeah. So that one. Anyway. Oh well. All right. We wish you better luck next year, I guess. I don’t know if you’re done hunting for the year, but appreciate you taking a few minutes and telling us about two or three, four stories. They’re all good. I know, I’m, I’m not quite ready to go on a bear this morning. I’m, I’m comfortable where I’m at. I don’t need a bear. Yeah. But that, it’s good.
00:26:48:03 –> 00:27:56:28
You’ve, you’ve been around that flying Jay’s good, good ground too. There’s you, you’re right in the middle of all this stuff. Where do you live now, Jesse? I have a place in Hondo, Texas. Okay. Because a lot of time where you like from you in a basin. I think that’s where you’ve met Chris is McKenzie’s family. I still have a place. Yeah. Yeah. I still have a place in Manila too, but yeah. Are I’m you for a living or what are you doing in Texas or? No, I’m a drilling manager for an international oil company. Oh, okay. Out San Antonio. So you guide for fun basically on the side whenever you got Yeah, that’s my passion. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Good deal. And I got, you know, I got my own airplane so I fly back and forth and makes it the traveling faster. Gotcha. Well, sounds good. Well, we’ll maybe stay you in touch with Chris. I’m get another story. Sounds like you’re out there in enough scenarios that we may have to call you again sometime. You’ve had a lot of, lot of run in so Yeah. Here and there and everywhere. But appreciate your time. Any, any, anytime you live through it, call us. We want to hear about it. Well Chris usually knows. Yeah. Alright, well thanks a lot Jesse. Alright. Have a great day. Thanks man. Bye.
00:27:58:23 –> 00:28:55:05
Kind of on the same thread, one thing I wanna bring up that we saw happened in Colorado this year is when somebody looks at you through their rifle skill, well that just happens. How many times does that happen? It happened to me several times. It happened this year over there. And it just, it it, I run over there and charge him with endangerment. I, I want, you want, you wanna do a citizen’s arrest and call the cops. I’m telling you the guy doesn’t have, doesn’t have binoculars and you’re watching him walk through a quay patch and you’re sitting Yeah. On one side of it. And he’s looks at every single thing. Deer, elk, humans, hunters. Well, yeah, he wants to with his rifle. Well, wants to see what you’re looking at and seeing what you’re doing. And you know, he’s got a round in the mat in the chamber. Rubber does most all of them do if you’re still home. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t like walk around with a, a round in the chamber. But my dad taught me to do that. Like when you leave the truck, you put one in the chamber and you put it safe. I don’t do it. I don’t, neither unless I know I don’t do it.
00:28:55:09 –> 00:29:59:03
If I’m, if I’ve seen a deer go right in somewhere and I’m falling and I have like the two hands on the gun, I’ve never put one on my shoulder and carry a gun. No. But a lot of people do. And then when they’re looking at you through the riflescope, it’s unnerving. And I was over there, I was telling my kids like right now, like I don’t have a tag. You guys have a tag, but I still feel like wearing hunter orange. ’cause people are looking at me right now and it’s just a good learning experience for the kids too. Now I am. Everybody knows I hate Hunter Orange. I hate it. I like Nevada. You don’t have to wear it. I like some of these states, you don’t have to wear it, but when you go to Colorado, I’m like wanting a whole body suit. Yeah. And and tennis shoes. Yeah. Bright orange. Yeah. It’s unnerving. So anyway, these are just crazy story. I don’t know what’s gonna happen that, but to talk to Jesse himself, who, who it happened to, we’d heard about this story. Chris had a connection. Glad to get him on. Just be careful out there. There’s one thing about being safe, being cautious, lucky in bear country, but man, he could’ve a guy kids luck. It was forces. If he, if he, if you’re just walking, he’d have got, he’d had some gunfire back at him. Oh yeah.
00:29:59:03 –> 00:31:03:13
Because he’s trying to stay on a horse holding reins. Yeah. You can’t pull a gun very easily. But I mean, but I can’t believe is after he yells, he shoots again. Like, you know that right. Then it’s not a bear. You heard a voice. The kid, the kid justed up. He was full up, full of adrenaline and he’s thinking he’s scared that bear, he scared be the hill. That bear sounds like a person. Wow. Yeah. He’s by himself in bear country at 19 years old. He’s scared to be in the hills. I remember Bronson that, so when he said a bullet whizzed by his head, you remember I was out at the shooting range here in Cedar. Oh yeah. I was out at the shooting range. Yes. And a lot of times Oh yeah. Oh yeah. This is public. Public shooting range. Public shooting range. But there’s, you know, you are always like, Hey, is the rate clear? Let’s go down over 15 stations Right on the one to 300 yard range. That’s right. And so we’re shooting. Yeah, we’re shooting and everybody’s shooting anyway. Range is clear. Rain is cold now. Yeah. Ranges. Pull your targets check. That’s right. And, and I drove my truck down, so I like to drive my truck to the freaking target. So it’s like, and I turn my headlights on. It is very clear that I’m here if you got a new, new guy coming in or what?
00:31:03:13 –> 00:32:07:27
This is not dark though. Oh no. Yeah. No, but I just do it anyway. Yeah, I do it anyway. But it’s 300 yards. It’s 300 down. I’m back. You’re also speeding up the process too. And I’ve also got a great big target. Like remember it’s got great, it’s got a frame and it’s a sheet of plywood, a half sheet of plywood. You put it up Yeah. Outta the bed of your truck. You set it up. Yeah. Whatever, you know. And, and then, and then load it back in the bed of the truck. But I also like driving down there just because it’s not just one little person down there. It’s like a whole truck. I’m not gonna get missed. That’s right. I’m, I’m gonna get, dude, remember. Oh yeah. Bullets whizzed by Janna and I, Janna was there, bullets whizzed by me. And I’m like, what? Because there’s other shooting ranges. There’s pistol ranges, there’s shotgun and you’ve got other things going on. And so, but this, the noise isn’t necessarily concerning, but when you hear it, we hear it. And then another one, Jan was like, and Jana’s like another one Whizzed by Jana and then one whizzed by my ear, like right by my head. And I’m like, get in the truck. Get in the truck. I’m yelling at Jana. And I mean, we honked the horn and we go up And it was in your range. It wasn’t the one over.
00:32:08:00 –> 00:33:14:25
It was, it was in my range. Somebody that remind me. And, and it was a, a guy and his kid and his kid had left his, picked up a rifle and I didn’t know. Anyway, his kid picked up a rifle and was shooting and didn’t even look down at two. And his dad was in charge of the kid. But the kid was shooting and he was shooting a hundred yards, but you’re at two or three. And I came unglued and I feel, I feel bad. Well the kid, I feel bad ’cause the kid was, you know, the kid didn’t know. And he was, he started to cry. And I, and I felt bad, but then, but you’re coming up there on pure adrenaline. I’m oh, a bullet’s flying by and you’re ready to, and we all agreed the range was cold. We all agreed. Yeah, your truck is down there on my truck’s down there. And when you hear it go by your head. And that’s what it keyed me up when he said he felt it go by him. It it, it sends you into, I don’t know. Oh yeah. The next mode, whatever it is. It just, it does something weird. Survival, ex instinctual hair’s on end and you’re, you’re in fight mode. And anyway, and then, then I, and then I talked to the kid for a minute, you know, and, and I don’t, he probably still traumatized mostly because of me.
00:33:14:25 –> 00:34:25:21
It, I lost it. It’s kind of the dad though. Like you Oh, it was dad’s fault when you take your youth there. Yeah. And they’re under your care and Yeah. You can’t go in the truck and grab a monster. Whatever. Let’s talk about something that’s crazy. I can’t believe a, he’s, we talked to a guy that gets shot at thinking they’re grizzly and get two rounds and two horses round on each two horses, two different horses. B then he goes on with other bear stories. Like, I didn’t even know that was coming. Did you Chris? I didn’t. Well, if you spent enough time in Alaska over and over and over that you’re gonna have stories like that. So. Well anyway, where are we at Bronson? December 1st. Ho ho, ho. I, yeah, yeah. I mean where did all fall go? It’s over. I don’t know. I had a couple more podcast comments. Yeah, I mean we could read. Let’s do it. You know, we could read a couple and then, you know, and this is Bronson. I don’t, I think we should just, I want zip up Colorado and never talk about it again ’cause it’s such a rough season. But these are kind of some Colorado comments and, and again, December, you know. Well that was a note that I was gonna talk about with, you know, a well, you know, you had a, you had a birthday. Okay.
00:34:26:01 –> 00:35:28:01
And it sounded to me like you got a, a gift. What was it? Well, I haven’t got it yet, but what was it? It was, it’s actually Christmas present, but when you buy yourself something for Christmas, what, what is that? It’s exactly what you want. That’s right. Well, we’re getting older. You, you’ve alluded alluded to it earlier today. I, we are old. Well I, I dropped the mic when the mic, the mic foam off, you know, fell on the floor. And then I, you have to get outta your seat and bend down and pick it up and you, and these are tall three footers, you know? Yeah. If you think twice about it, you know, you’re getting old Right. Kids, you just jump on out, whatever. I’m just, and I, hopefully, hopefully I’m not the only one. But, but when you’re 25, when you’re 35, I never thought about doing anything to stay in shape, be in shape, have my legs hard as I like to say under me. You used to say it, you’d be like, oh, three hikes and my legs are hard and I’m ready to go. Yeah, yeah. And out in the escali desert or wherever, you know, and you go start scouting a few times in August and few you’re ready to go. And you are fast forward. You got kids on the ground and now in college. Yeah. Just, you get, well how do you feel now?
00:35:28:03 –> 00:36:28:25
How do you feel out now and now A three week period during the hunting season where I’ve gone for hiking and hunting mule deer and glassing on knobs and hiking every morning at night. Yeah. To maybe taking kids on deer hunts in Colorado or whatever, or or late season stuff. And I’m doing a lot of truck stuff. If I go three, I’d went three weeks this year in a period. And I felt like I lost my legs completely. Like it had lost, lost. And so I’m getting some apparatus for Christmas. And what is that? I, I don’t do treadmill. I don’t like to run in place. I don’t know what it is about that. I don’t like it. And winter’s hard because I hate it. I hate snowy treadmill. I hate, and I see, and you and you can’t go ru I know some runners do it anyway. I, I’m not a runner. I don’t like to run, to run and I hate, don’t like to run in place watching TV in my house even I don’t, I don’t like it. So, you know, StairMaster type stuff like that, that I think duplicates how I want my legs to be in shape. So Black Friday Got you. Yeah.
00:36:29:03 –> 00:37:33:09
When StairMaster wife came on, so my, yeah, I got, I don’t know if it’s called the StairMaster, but I’m Bowflex I’m hooked up some kind of bow bowflex apparatus that I, I need more in the December to May period. I, because when I start hunting turkeys or something in May, which I mean turkeys aren’t physical hunts people. Well, but when I start and I haven’t done anything for five or six months and we hunt in, we do hunt mountains. You’ve gone through it too. Yeah. Sometimes you, you hike 400 yards to a top to start hearing a bird and you’re, you’re wiped. Well, I don’t like it. It’s, it’s sobering and maybe not wiped, but I’m huffing, but I, I’m just realizing have legs. We, we do have a lot of office work that goes on here. Yeah. There’s a lot of sitting in a desk. So the older I get, I need to You’ve got a StairMaster. I’ve had a StairMaster. I like it. I think it’s awesome. It just duplicates how I, how I want my legs to be in shape. I don’t need to sprint anymore after hearing bear stories. Maybe I should look, work on that better, but No, but I don’t hunt those places. I need hardened, seasoned legs. You know, that’s what I need. So yeah. Thanks for bringing up me getting old and that’s what I did about it.
00:37:33:14 –> 00:38:43:29
Well, well anyway, I just think I, I was gonna bring that up and I, I think, and if you’re like me, you want everybody to enjoy. Everybody should get one. There should be a Black Friday special on a StairMaster forever. Everybody. Chris, you need a StairMaster maybe. So Chris, no, you’re not 40. So yeah, he, he, he’s looking it like Mackenzie’s keeping Chris going. Well I don’t, I don’t know. I mean he’s redoing houses and I’ll just swinging a sledgehammer last night. You start getting in your forties up. Are you sore? Are you sore? Or did you take four Advil for you? Oh, I’m good. Alright. See he’s in his thirties. He’s fine. You can do that. He’s fine. He gets a kid in college and he’s gonna break down. All right, well, so anyway. Good, good times. Everybody wish Bronson happy birthday. He’s one year older. Wiser. One year wiser. All right, so let’s go with a couple of these comments. We’ve been grinding out Colorado, getting lots of reports. Appreciate it. These are just a couple of what we get in. Just, I’ll start off Bronson, you can follow. But I’ve got, Hey Jason, I’ve been a member on and off for a couple of years and wanted to report on Colorado unit such and such. Take it with a grain of salt. I’m sure I’ve got, still got a lot to learn about Muled air burn. 12 points, third season tag.
00:38:44:00 –> 00:40:01:03
My first time in the unit spoke to nine tag holders and they all said to pray for snow. We, we didn’t get any snow did we? Bron ’em a lot of prayers didn’t work. I dunno anyway, I guess I should have prayed harder. He says needless to estate say we didn’t have any snow to speak of, you know, deer were from 8,700 feet to 10,000 bucks. Were hard to come by. Small fork and three bys for the most part saw an average four point. But that was about it. Nice. Cool mornings in the teens a few days and we saw little bucks act a little ruddy. You know, some of the elk hunters reported seeing decent buck, acting ruddy. But it seemed really tough to run into the older bucks. He saw one that was a one 70 class buck and hunted such and such areas and and whatnot. So anyway, maybe the bluebird skies in full mood impacted the buttock buck activity. I was just wondering if you had any other reports around this area. And if Hunter struggled and they did, they did. Chris, don’t feel alone. Just don’t feel alone in Colorado. If you feel like you’re not, you failed as a harsh word, but, but struggled, grinded out whether it ended in a, in a buck or or not. You’re, you’re not alone in Colorado. That’s right. Got another one here from Dustin. He talks about our member Epic Member Experience program.
00:40:01:06 –> 00:41:00:21
He said the information I got from members on the list and, and Jason was invaluable and helped us so much. Saved us a lot of time and wasted days trying to get into the right area. Through talking to several of them, we kept getting consistent general locations of where to go and focus and came to find out they were right on with the information. We were able to find close location to where we could be hunting within a few minutes of our camp in several different directions. Seeing consistent deer and bucks most days. Just trying to find the one we really wanted. Had two days, it was slow. Struggled to find hardly any deer numbers of bigger bucks, but the, toward the end of the week, the bigger bucks were showing up more and more acting like the root was trying to get going. Did see two bucks better than this one that we killed but weren’t able to get on ’em and but had a great opportunity. Hunted for seven and a half days and this must have been probably second season. I’m guessing 14-year-old was able to Harvard suspect on his last day we could hunt great time. Made a greater memories. Thanks for your help. So testimonial, I guess to some of the member experience program. Basically helped narrow it down quick, you know, where to, where to start.
00:41:00:21 –> 00:42:11:04
And he got consistent reports I guess from some of those people that really he attributed to hitting the ground running, so to speak. So, helps a lot. Helps a lot. So anyway, that is available for members here at Epic Outdoors. One another note here. Hi Jason. Quick note to update you and the boys on the hunting season. Not complaining ’cause he’s any day hunting with dad. Beats work by long shop, but figured you may appreciate the intel. Dad and I Drew Nevada guided deer draw 13 points for both of us. He pulled the northeast corner, I pulled the center of the state. We hunted the last five days of the season, wrapping up on the fifth, so that’d be November 5th, huh. And high expectations going in. Weather was perfect. We love, loved our outfitter. I’ve hunted with him several times to cut to the chase. We pounded it dark to dark every day. Literally never saw anything bigger in mid one fifties hunted high and low and everywhere in between in the int tag soup had happily hunt the units again with the same outfitter. But in terms of the quality of deer scene, it it, it was a stinker. It may be biden’s fault, I’m sure it’s all that said, the wife and I are headed to Oregon for a guided Rosie hunt. Fingers crossed. Should be fun. Send, I’ll send a pic to conclude.
00:42:11:04 –> 00:43:22:10
Thanks again to you and the boys for the great work content and advice. I dance with the devil a bit with cancer diagnosis and you know, appreciate all the advice you guys give about Burning Points. It’s spot on. I pulled a truck chaser tag in Montana. We had our deer hunt in Nevada, elk and Oregon. Dad got lucky and pulled one of those orx tags. I’m done stockpiling points. We’ll burn these as fast as I can. Good luck on, on, on your hunts. No response necessary and appreciate it anyway. Kind of cool. You know, you just never know Bronson, you gotta burn your points. You never know what’s in store for you physically, especially if you don’t, whether it’s an injury, whether it’s a diagnosis like that, you don’t. Alright, so we got one other, you know, report that I wanted to read. This guy actually was just verbal report. He called in, he said, Hey, you know, and he started out, he was just like, man, you know, slow and whatnot going over it. And I’m like, okay, this gonna be a negative report and Jason, you help me. And, and I’m just like, oh, you know, I hope you had a good experience. Anyway, long story short, 23 days in a tent. Second, third season had six of ’em, okay, between the two seasons, same unit. He said, I’m telling you, I saw so many bucks I couldn’t count ’em all.
00:43:22:10 –> 00:44:34:15
Just loads and loads and loads of one 50 to max 180. He says, we never saw any of the mega giants feel like maybe it was probably part of the weather. He said that could have been a weatherman. It was nice and sunny every single day. But anyway, just every five out of the six guys killed. One guy was holding out and just loved it wanted was definitely gonna be doing it again. And so sometimes I wonder if we don’t just expect the world outta Colorado, we saw it when it was really good. If we don’t just expect the world, you know, and guys that, you know, if you just go on a deer hunt, could you have that experience here in Utah? Could you have that experience somewhere else? Sometimes we just, we expect everything. Anyway, kind of a great kind of a great report right there amongst everybody else that, you know, dealt with tough weather conditions. So where, where’s that Leave us. Like I said earlier, we’re December Bronson. It’s December. Wow. And we got a December mag probably hitting your mailbox. I guess just by way of reminder, deadline wise, we do have a December 15th deadline for the Alaska draw period for the 2022 hunts for sheep and goat primarily is what we kind of highlight there. That’s what, even though they do have draw for other species in there. That’s right.
00:44:34:21 –> 00:45:42:01
We, you do need to have a signed guideline agreement with an Alaska outfitter to apply in the sheep and the goat draw since you do have to go guided unless you have a a, you know, close family member that’s in Alaska residence. So deadlines, I think 5:00 PM on December 15th. If you need an outfitter recommendation to apply for doll sheep or trophy mountain goat areas in Alaska, give us a call. Odds are tough. We get a lot of calls on, hey, what are the odds? We, we, we put ’em in the magazine but, and they’re, and they are tough, but go try to book a doll sheep hunt in Alaska this year. Jason, are you gonna do it? Like you said you were, you know, when you’ve been giving out, I mean you’re, you’re, you deal a lot with the sheep guys, that’s your thing and, and you’ve done a lot of guiding with that and whatnot. So I mean, like you said, I’ve, I’m giving out doll sheep recommendations and I don’t know of any openings for 2022. And a lot of it is they’ve had the covid issues we’re catching up on the backlog of hunters, but then it’s just plain and simply tough. People want hunts like they, they’re stock, they wanna stockpile hunts like they’re stockpiling pile and toilet paper. I mean, there’s such a demand for these hunts and they’re not, they’re just not out there.
00:45:42:02 –> 00:46:44:28
So you gotta expect three, four years down the road. Yep. So if you, if you haven’t applied but want to call us, get an outfit or recommendation to apply with based on, you know, the, the Alaska units in general, you’re gonna, you have a lot less hunting pressure, generally older rams and some of the best trophy rams in the state. Doesn’t mean you can’t kill a great ram from an unlimited over the counter. No, that doesn’t mean that. But, but it’s also, if you get a little bit lucky, you wanna buy a 2022 hunting license and apply now, you can then use that same license and apply next December again and get a twofer on that $160 non-resident license. So that’s right. It, it is roughly a hundred bucks a year, a couple hundred bucks to apply for two years back then, you know, the, the, the crazy thing is, is the number of sheep that the, it was a rough winter, you know what I mean? And the number of sheep, like the toque was slashed tag numbers just slash Yeah. They went from a hundred to like 30 down to 10. Yeah. And so yeah, it, there’s a crunch. There’s some of those areas aren’t gonna be easy, easy to draw.
00:46:45:00 –> 00:47:43:29
Some of the 13 d subunits as well have been cut, but it’s a chance somebody’s gonna draw those tags and you’re gonna find out in mid-February whether you’re going, that can be good or bad. It can be good if you’re ready to go physically, financially, all that. But the other thing is, yeah, you gotta come up with the full price of a sheet hunt right now. You can’t spread it out over two or three years. And if you’re really a discriminating trophy hunter, maybe you wait a little. There’s not, if there’s no point system up there. Yeah. So you, it’s not like there’s a, an urgency per se this is anyway, especially with a die off and whatnot. Just Yeah. In, in certain areas. Certain. Alright. So anyway, that is all covered there in the December issue, we also go over our application strategies. Bronson and I went through, you know, kind of what we do and our thoughts behind it. That’s just to give you basic ideas of what we do and kind of our thought process behind it. Put it in writing, of course talking here on the podcast, you can even gather a little bit more and, and fill in the blank. You can only, you know, put so much in 2,500 words.
00:47:44:07 –> 00:48:52:11
We did do a matrix on there and talked about, you know, the states and species and where we think is, you know, highly recommend that we apply, that you apply for or to consider applying for or just that the species available and not necessarily, you know, a high recommendation of, of applying for ’em in those states. So you can look at that matrix, it might help you refine your strategy a little bit more. Yep. And then yeah, we’re, we’re coming up on a new year. We’re working on the January magazine as we speak, which we be, we’ll be covering Wyoming, moose, sheep, goat, bison. There’s gonna be some big changes to talk about there. Most notably with some of the non-resident quotas as well as elk. And then Carter will be talking about Arizona Elk and antelope as well. Yeah. So it’s, it’s about to get crazy. It’s about to start coming. It’s getting fun. Yeah, it’s a new year bro. Brought, we were so glad to shut the for on 20. We’re kind of ready to forget about Yeah, we’re ready to, I mean we, we had a good year in certain places, but it was, you can’t say any year like that guy that you read any day hunting with that or whatever’s is a good beats work or whatever. Yeah, it’s true. But there are some days it’s true, forget.
00:48:52:11 –> 00:50:00:19
But right now I’ve got a monster with a twist top in the office. I’m kind of happy to be here. Yeah, we like what we do here and I think that, you know, Jana has an article in this last magazine. It highlights all the employees here at Epic Outdoors. You can kind of get an insight to who, who’s here and who you’re working with. We’ve got the best of the best here at Epic Outdoors, and you can kind of read through that. It’s kind of nice. It just, it’s nice to work here. We’ve got a great environment and everybody works dang hard and is passionate about hunting. So what more could you ask for? Not much, so. All right. We do have, there’s a lot of guys that are looking for hunts. This is the time to book hunts December, January, February in the back. Devon’s got an article, page 1 44 where he talks about the different hunts that just kind of showcases a few of the opportunities. We do have some Mexico deer hunts. If you are interested, give us a holler. Mexico is off the charts. They had rain at the right time and a lot of it. Yeah. And the deer, the trail cams that are coming in from dang near every single outfitter are unbelievable giant bucks. This is like a once in a decade type experience. Yeah, it’s gonna be great. It’s already started off.
00:50:00:19 –> 00:51:13:28
We’ve seen some November bucks dying already. Yeah. So anyway, you can check that out. We got wolf hunts and a lot of different, a lot of different hunts. Lions over the counter archery deer in Arizona. Got a couple of great outfitters that do that. So anyway, check that out. And then also you can find those hunts on our website and you can call in with the hunt code and we can give you the name and number to the outfitter. That’s what we do for a living is, is help guys finding the hunts they’re interested in. So don’t hesitate to give us a call if you’re looking for anything in 20 22, 20 23, 20 24. Give us a holler. We, we book hunts on a daily basis, so work with the best of the best and happy to do so. So anyway, that’s kind of for December fun month, we’re getting back in the office to working on application strategies with guys and giving them our 2 cents on what, you know, depending on what they’re looking to do. And you know, of course they can apply for whatever they like. We’re just here to help you. Well, it’s December, right? It’s Christmas. If you’ve got kids, wives, wives, wife, that role, it’d have a wife and kids, family, friends, neighbors. That’s right. Relatives, whatever. That’s right. That need optics. Give us a call at Epic Outdoors to consider any of your optics needs.
00:51:13:28 –> 00:52:19:23
Whether it’s rifle scopes, whether it’s spotting scopes, binoculars range, finding binoculars, range finders in general. Give us a call. We’ve got lot of brands in stock. We’ve been stocking up as we’re getting into the holiday season. And Yeah. Whether you’re buying something for them or you’re just flat out buying something for yourself. That’s right. You don’t treat yourself, Hey, I’m, I’m a big fan of treating yourself. Yeah, Bronson, I mean, if you broke something or backed over your truck this year or something, you know, or you just want something. My wife, have you ever been accused, like when Christmas comes around, I don’t know what to get Dad. He buys everything himself. I’m like, thanks for reminding me and your mom that I buy whatever I want. Yeah. My gear that, that breaks during the year goes on my Christmas list. I broke two trucking poles this year. Guess what’s on my Christmas list? Trucking poles. Yeah. And you probably already purchased them. Yeah, just showed up last night. That’s right. They’re at the house and anything you don’t have gets purchased as well. Well, yeah, just ’cause you don’t wanna think about it next year when you need a trekking pole. I don’t use it. I’m not gonna use that trekking pole for maybe nine months. But what happens next year in a covid environment when you wanna buy a trucking pole. That’s right. Yeah.
00:52:19:27 –> 00:53:26:22
Well and you got the Jeep Hill to hike right behind your house. Yeah, I, I got all that. But, but anyway, so yeah, just maybe highlight a few different pieces that we’ve got in some of the, some of the pieces that have been harder to find in the last coming months. Like the Vortex Fury, HD 5,000 AB laser range finding binocular 10 by 42. They got the applied ballistics equipped with all that. Give us a call. We have those in stock. We also have the Vortex Razor HD 4,000. The laser range finder only got plenty of those in stock. Or 12 by 50 razor. UHD 10 by 40 twos. 12 by 40, 12 by, yeah. 12 by fifties, 18 by 56. And then what do you got there? You got a spot in scopes two. Got those. Well, I got, yeah, I’m just resting my arm on a razor HD spotting scope 27 to 60 by 85. Just a lot going on. In fact, Jana mentioned the other day, she, she keeps track of our inventory, keeps us in line, Bronson, and she’s like, Jason, you realize you got dozens of the razor HD four thousands. I’m like, yep. Yeah, what’s the problem? I, I don’t see the problem. I’d rather have money stockpiled in, in assets right now just because in this Covid environment it’s hard to get this to Bron. We’re ordering months in advance. Yeah.
00:53:26:22 –> 00:54:21:27
And when we get it, we’re, we’ve, we’ve treated it like gold and then the way we look at it, there’s dozens of happy clients when they call. We had somebody yesterday, it was like a stay on case for a spotting scopes, Roki Scott spotting scope. He checked all over Utah. Nobody had it. No kidding. He’s driving from northern Utah to Sun. Just called us on a whi We had one. No kidding. Pa stopped in, picked it. He passed through. He did. I didn’t even see this guy. Where was I? I don’t know, whatever in my office. But I mean, that’s a, that’s a stay on case. You know, he probably had his, you know, scope fall out on the pavement of his house. His kid probably jerked it out or something like that. I can identify with that. Yeah. So anyway, we do have a lot of Zeiss products as well. We have Zeiss rifle scopes in stock. Bronson, I ordered like six more of the same exact rifle scope. It’s a six to 24 by 50. Got a little.in it with a simple plex. It it’s a turd scope. It’s gonna be awesome. And I’m like, I had a guy want one. He not only one, he wanted three. Oh, he’d already bought two or three. And I’m quite, yeah. And quite frankly I want one.
00:54:22:03 –> 00:55:20:17
So when he called in, you know, and I talked to him about it, I’m like, I want one of those. You know, I didn’t, there’s so many different models within each brand that sometimes, you know, we’re always kind of thinking what’s the, what’s the ne next latest greatest whatever. And my eyes are getting a little older. Brunson, I’m wanting illuminated. I, I noticed this this year. I went out Kyle hunting a week or so ago with my son and we were crack of daylight. Like you should be on the first call and I can see good with my naked eye and I’m looking through my regular scope and, and I know it’s my eyes. ’cause I’ve never had that problem in the past. I’m looking through it, I’m like trying to turn my parallax to get to where I can see the, the crosshairs. And I’m like, it never comes clear. Yeah. You know, when they said the great big lines or the thin ones now, and we always ordered thin when we were young. Yeah, yeah. Because you’re like, heavy duplex covers the whole deer. Why would you want that now I now I want that. I want it and I want a little red.in the middle. Now you can get that. Hey, Zeiss got ’em. We got ’em. They they’re coming. They’re actually coming. They’ll be here in three weeks. So yeah. Pretty awesome.
00:55:20:24 –> 00:56:27:16
And we’ve got ’em, we’ve got a bunch of different models in stock. Yeah. Both the v fours v sixes, whether it’s like a four to 16 by 44 or by 50, you know, conquest V four and six V six lines are awesome rifle scopes to be able to top with a lot. You know, whether it be muzzle loaders and different radicals on them, or rifles. If you’re an MOA shooter, they got a turt right on ’em, an MOA. It’s really nice. There’s nothing you have to mail off, send off, get cut and put back on cut. And turt is a kind of a, that the yardage days of thing of the past, like you don’t just cut it for a specific yardage because your elevations changed, your temperatures changed and different things. So, and with the new technology of these range finders Yep. It just is kind of changed, but whatever. Anyway, we’ve got ’em, the V six Bronson, you’ve got a V six on your, on your MOA rifle six five. Love that guy. I love that gun. It’s just, it’s a, it feels like a little gun, like a little kid gun. I’ve said that a lot, but man, it, it shoots so well killed my deer in Idaho. One shot 601 yard boom. Done with Sheila. Yeah. No kidding. I didn’t know you used that gun for dear.
00:56:27:16 –> 00:57:29:09
Well, and I, I just, the more you pack it and it weighs about two pounds lighter than everything else you put on your back. You want it, it just, you like it. Yeah. And let’s put it this way, we packed our guns a lot this year and never used them very much. Right. Yeah, that’s true. Did you pack your gut a up? Oh yeah. A lot. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for a reminder. So for me, let’s move and ride it along. Yeah. Well just say you have a V six on your rifle, you like it three 18, but, but the, but the V four is an excellent scope. I put ’em on a lot of my rifles and it’s a little bit lower price point, but it’s still an awesome scope. We got a bunch, the internal mechanisms they say are identical. It’s the quality of glass. And I’m not g glassing through my rifle scope. I’m not g glassing through it. I’m just killing. And so anyway, any, don’t be afraid for the, of the V four line. It’s pretty awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah. Great price point. But give us a call, whether it be that, whether it be Swarovski, whether it be Leica, whatever it is, give us a call 4 3 5 2 6 3 0 7 7 7. We’ve got a lot in stock. We’re not afraid about stocking up, we’re not afraid of having too much on the shelf because we’ve lived through that over the last year, 18 months.
00:57:30:18 –> 00:58:39:00
You don’t, when something runs out, you really, really want it. So we’ve tried to be, you know, forward thinking on that. And a lot of it’s paying off now. We’ve got stuff in stock, so give us a call if you’re after something for you or for somebody else. Yeah, we, our loved one and we have member pricing you a lot of times in the per one purchase of one product, one piece you can pay for your a hundred dollars membership here at Epic Outdoors. Exactly. So you can check out a lot of the pricing on epic outdoors.com too. We do need to throw a little shout out to Red Rock Precision. We appreciate them and their support here at Epic Outdoors. I love my freaking Red Rock rifle. It’s unbelievable. Tack driver. I, I was taking two rifles, you know how you always worry you’re gonna trip and fall and break, you know, anyway, my truck’s full of gear and kids and whatnot. I just took one, I took my Red Rock. I know it’s never been off. And I thought, what’s the chance that something bad’s gonna happen and nothing bad happened. But anyway, red Rock precision.com, you, they’re very customizable. A lot of guys have a set system. They like this rifle and this scope and you know, I put out a bunch of ’em and sell ’em. Red Rock will do whatever you want. They’ll, they’ll work with you on calibers.
00:58:39:00 –> 01:00:05:06
They’ll work with you on scopes, brands of scopes, all kinds of things. Very, very customizable. Good people to work with. Bronson and I both shoot the rifles Red Rock precision.com. Don’t hesitate to give ’em a call. And with this Covid environment and the demand for goods, it might take a minute to get it. So you might as well get on the list to get your customer rifle right away. Also, wanna give another shout out to one of our other partners, triple S Polaris, here in southern Utah. If you’re looking to get A-U-T-V-A-T-V of some sort, especially one that’s customized to your hunting or outdoor farming, ranching, hunting needs, whatever, give ’em a call. 4 3 5 8 6 5 0 1 0 0. Talked to Colton and his crew there. Got a special going there. You can get up to $500 off if you mention the Epic Outdoors ad and 250 off for your Polaris and another two 50 off through our, our optics store there. So they, they specialize in customizing your UTV for, you know, hunting or just recreational fun. So give ’em a call. Pretty awesome. Hey, Kristy, do you, do you remember that that Polaris little ad came out? They’re having an electric UTV come out. Yeah. Yep. That’s one of the fir I, I don’t know. I like, there’s something about putting gasoline in a, in a vehicle and just not, not worrying about charging it. I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this.
01:00:05:12 –> 01:01:06:03
They say that the power on ’em is pretty incredible. And was it like the, and also in a hunting situation, that might be a game changer. Having the steal, quiet, stealth mode, quiet, stealth, stealth mode. Yeah. That would change road hunting for it. Like an electric golf cart, right? Yeah. You sit on a hill and you can hear everybody coming in and the deer can hear that too. I just, yeah, but you know what, there’s something to deer, like the rumbling of a, of a vehicle. It’s like, it’s coming. I’m not, they’re worried when something’s out, when you’re out there sneaking, they’re sneaking, they’re worried. Right? Yeah. What if like a vehicle all of a sudden just appears they’re gonna freak out. Right. Whoa. There was an electric vehicle right there. A bunch of orange in it. Anyway, I, I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of it’s first of its kind. I haven’t seen any other brands come out with electric. Colton will let us know how it goes. Maybe we’ll throw an epic power is, and you know, we can get you, you get bogged down in mud or whatever. Has it got enough umph to get you out? I mean, just feels, I mean, do you have solar panels in a, in a pinch to charge us up? I don’t know. We’ll see. Huh. All right. Kind of cool. Kind of cool.
01:01:06:03 –> 01:02:21:25
Colton will be on the cutting edge of that vortex. We appreciate them in their support here at Epic Outdoors. We sell a lot of vortex, you know, just incredible. They do have an add in for the razor hd, LHT, incredible scope. We’ve had a lot of great reports on it. You might, we’ve got ’em in stock. So anybody that’s interested, give us a holler. You can also learn [email protected]. V-O-R-T-E-X optics.com. Check ’em out. The, the warranty there is unconditional unlimited lifetime warranty. And that kind of resonated with me when we get get home from Colorado and you got kids and wife going everywhere and gear going everywhere. And one of my kids grabbed a whole handful of gear, right? And there goes, pulls it out onto the, pulls it out onto the, pulls it out, pulls it out, driveway and it fell out of the puffy and hit the driveway. Hit the driveway. Bronson, have you ever, I’ve never done that. And, and it’s hard for me to understand how a kid could do that, but I showed a lot of restraint and never said a word. That’s, that’s a good dad, right? That’s a good dad. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. That’s a good dad. That’s right. Well, yeah, it hasn’t happened to me, but I mean, I’ve had other things happen to me and it’s great to have a great warranty behind you. Like That’s right. Vortex has.
01:02:21:28 –> 01:03:50:13
So another shout out to the folks at, at phone Scope. If you’re getting a new phone, Christmas is a lot of time of year. A lot of people get new phones for Christmas. You may need a new phone scope because a little bit different shape, size and all that. Check ’em [email protected], spelled P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P e.com. Phone scope.com. You need to video it. You need this day and age. It’s incredible what you can video through your phone, so check it out. Also, pyro putty as well. They’re partners. They’re owned by the same business chest as his family. Pyro putty. We’ve got a great deal on one of our membership drives to get yourself a, a new Epic series lighter, but they’re elite dual arc lighter. Awesome. You know, we’ve had Aaron on the podcast and Pat talked about how he felt that probably maybe saved his life, you know, because matches when you’re cold and you’re out of a drowned rat river. He owes his firstborn to Chesterton. Yep. He he’s gonna name his next kid pyro. So, okay, there we go. We’re putty. I like it. Pick it, pick it putty. Anyway, but awesome. Use a promotion code at checkout if you’re pyro putty.com. Spelled P-Y-R-O-P-U-T-T y.com. 10% discount. Mentioned the promo code. Epic 10. Epic 10. So yeah, like Bronson said, you know, we’re, we got a promotion going with our hunt giveaway membership drive.
01:03:51:00 –> 01:04:51:18
I don’t know Bronson either the National Guard’s gonna have to empty the barge or we’re gonna go down there and do it ourselves. Yep. To make sure we get ’em. Yep. It’s, I’m starting to get very frustrated. Coast of California. Alright, everybody, anybody needs help out there applying, give us a holler. That’s what we do here at Epic Outdoors. We’re very passionate about, I had a guy have the guts to say, I’m not sure you guys are gonna be able to handle, you know, our questions and, and calls and be able to, Bronson. We pretty much call everybody back the same day. We get a message on our desk if we’re on the other line. Well, and I guess the perception he thought is the, we, we were a newer startup business and just didn’t probably fully realize who we have staff here and the amount of experience that we have and what we, what we’ve been there done basically. So it, and, and he, he kind of knew, but I guess he just needed to be, well by the time, the end of the phone call, I had a little passion ringing through that line. And, you know, it’s a little different. I think things are a little different when you have, you know, the owners at working right here with everybody else, with all the employees.
01:04:51:18 –> 01:05:11:19
Yeah, that’s, and I feel like there’s, there’s so much passion here, Chris, you can attest that you’ve been around this place and other places for years and decades and I just, there’s just nothing like it here. So, anyway, and I’m, and I, and I may be biased, but I don’t think I am. All right. That’s enough of that. Go to epic outdoors.com, check us out. If you’re not a member, become one. Thank you.
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