Q&A Part 2, Hunting for Real Estate with Blayne St. James. In this episode we continue with our question and answer podcasts. We answer questions from listeners for any topic related to hunting. We also talk with Blayne St. James about real estate including ranch and hunting properties. St. James Sporting Properties is focused on buying and selling ranches with recreational opportunities across the west.
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00:00:00:15 –> 00:01:20:13
Finding Carter a good antelope property in Eastern Colorado. He’s in. How do you quantify? This is worth glassing, but this isn’t. What would you suggest to someone who’s pretty much starting over, applying for a new species with zero points, 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 a from Southern Utah. It’s a sunny day today, although Bronson for a minute, we’re supposed to be having weather. That said a hundred percent. When it says a hundred percent small animals die. Yeah. When’s that gonna happen? You’ve said that and I’ve lived through it easily. So you’re not a small animal. Well you said lots of people and kids and anyway, but anyway, there has been. It’s nice to see anything. A hundred percent should be good flooding. You know, we need it. We need rain, we need sleet, we need freezing rain. We need snow. That’s right. Bring it. All kinds of stuff. Anyway, here we are, another podcast. We got kind of a, kind of a cool podcast. We’re gonna be calling a, a supporter of ours and visiting with him a little bit and how his hunting season went. Before we get started on that though, we do want to thank Under Armour. We appreciate them and their support here at Epic Outdoors. Their supporting us. Again, Bronson, another long time to come.
00:01:20:16 –> 00:02:34:24
It looks like we’ve had some meetings with them and appreciate them and their support and everything we got going. And we’re also Bronson, maybe we should kinda tee off the fact that we are selling a new optic, even company maybe, and as well as some tripods. That’s right. Tee it up. Rev. You guys know what we’re talking about. It’s one of the best appears to be from everything we’ve checked out and tested it, Josh has done a lot of our testing. Appears to be one of the best range finders out there. It’s a smart range finder, but the laser, the way the laser’s shaped and the speed of it and being able to alter the wind on the fly to help with your calculations, all everything’s pointing to a first class piece of equipment. That’s right. And brought to us, I guess, by the folks at Gum Works. But Rev is the brand. They’re branding this under, they also making tripods some lightweight backpackable, carbon fiber tripods. They’re awesome. We’re gonna start getting some of those as well as some of the medium or all around size tripods. So it’s kind of our daily used tripods. Yeah. Yep. You know what, it doesn’t have the center post, which I like, but it’s still Bron and even you, you’re six foot what, two three something. Yeah, can, can flatfooted and glass. That’s right. And boots.
00:02:35:14 –> 00:03:41:16
And so anyway, it does have, you know, different, you know, twist, what do you call it, Bronson? The twist. Yeah. Legs. What I like, what I’m used to rather than clips, I guess. Yeah. It’s when you’re in a quick hurry. That’s how my hands work. ’cause I’ve done it so long on twist and twist and push and pull instead of the clip open. But anyway. Well anyway, we, when we started checking ’em out, we just realized we’re all gonna have them. There’s no question. They’re better than, it appears to be better than what we’ve been using. Well, and we’ve got some worn out stuff, frankly. We use our stuff hard and, and it doesn’t last forever. Some tripod, legs start falling apart. Pens start coming out and your legs come out in pieces in the field and sound like that’s happened. Yeah, I can bring it in. Show you. Yeah. And the feet, the feet wear out. Just little stuff. I mean, you can, those are all things you can, I’ve JB welded rubber feet stuff on the bottom of mine too. Yeah. Because pretty soon it’s shredded. Carbon fiber starts splintering off on the ends when your feet fall off. So car glue, I use that too. Yeah, all that. Anyway, so if you want some of that stuff, we do have ’em. We actually have range finders in stock that are incredible. I would put it up against a six hour.
00:03:41:21 –> 00:04:46:06
And we sell those too, so I can’t believe it. They’re pretty impressive. They’re awesome. So, and then, then we got dozens of these tripods. Anyway, pretty impressive. All right. Broon, what are we talking about today? Well, you may remember, and I think, Chris, you’ve already posted this, the podcast is posted part one of the q and a podcasts that we did last week is posted online. If you haven’t listened to it. This is just a continuation of that, where Chris opened it up on our social media q and a. Ask us questions about anything. I don’t wanna say anything because you know, we did, although we did get questions last week about would you rather punch me in the face or be a Democrat for 30 days? So there were some stump stuff like that. But stumped today, we’re gonna stu me stumped me that that hurts. Well, I mean, mean I, who wants to be? Okay, keep going. We’re not, we’re not gonna do politics on this one. No, no. It doesn’t matter if we’re just, but who I thought we had already gotten past that, that you were gonna become a Democrat for 30 days rather than punch. You said you would not punch. I wanna be the, you said you would not punch me in the face no matter what ever. So I know what I said.
00:04:46:07 –> 00:05:52:03
I would maybe lightly, possibly ask forgiveness in the God-fearing man that you were, you’d forgive me. That’s what I remember. Okay. I don’t know what Chris published though. He might’ve edited something. We’re gonna get back into, why don’t you, I was kinda the facilitator last week. I don’t know. I could do that by, by default, not by self anoint anointing, just but today. Okay, why don’t you, I got, why don’t you jump in and let’s tee it off and go through some of these. All right. You know, rep Mulder questions or whatever we got, and we’ll go through as many as we can. And all right. We’ve got a little feedback after we’ve done the first one. About few people have emailed us some stuff. Oh yeah. Like, go ahead. What was about horse meat? Guy couldn’t get over it. I think you commented. He just didn’t want you to throw all the away wants about me. I, I made the comment that I actually, Carter talked me into applying for Orx for the first time in my life. I had not had a big interest. And he’s like, yeah, just heard the horse meat’s good. It is good. He likened it to horse. They, they somewhat resemble ’em, but the meat is supposedly incredible. How does Mustang taste? I’m not played in the fifth. I wouldn’t know. I mean, those are protected species. All I know is that’s a lot of foods species. Okay.
00:05:52:03 –> 00:07:02:25
That’s a lot of food storage out there. If we ever need to eat, we could eat mustangs. And they say it’s actually a delicacy. Jason. What? I don’t know who they is. It’s also a federally protected animal. So, but James wrote in, he just wanted us to know about horse meat. He said, Hey, listen to your podcast. And I remember you mentioned horse meat. I had a filet of horse meat in Iceland about two years ago. It was delicious. Granted, this was a farm raised pastured horse, but it was superior to the beef steak my wife ordered. Most old time Americans have eaten horse prior to 1970s. ’cause I think the wild horse in Burack was 1973. So that’s a safe answer before 1973. You can get well steaks in Iceland. Two. But I didn’t try the horse meat at the local market. Exceeded USD prime marbling. On a separate note, I shot a monster Roosevelt in California. He’ll send pictures. So anyway, hey, well congrats on the bull. But anyway, I don’t know a, I wanna know how he knows it was real horse meat. ’cause when, I mean, what’s one thing to have it on the menu, but like, prove it. Well, if you’re in Iceland and it’s red meat, it’s just red meat because you’re grateful for it. My daughter and her husband traveled there. Really? And it’s like, there’s caribou there.
00:07:03:01 –> 00:08:09:19
I don’t know of all, and maybe there, I don’t know of all the ungulates species or in this case horses aren’t ungulates, but, but if it’s brown and we got red meat, it’s, it’s on the menu up there because you on, you’re on the menu. You’re, you’re not, you’re ice frozen ice winter. Well, like he said, granted they’re in a corral and pinned it up and we’ve, they’ve raised like, I don’t know, I just feel like that’s different than having a calf be naming the calf and raising the calf to eat. It just feels different than, you know, cattle versus horses. Chris would, how would you feel eating your horse? Oh, depends. You’d make it feel, depends on which, depends on which one. Oh really? I’m just teasing. There’s a couple of me. You’d love to put in a stew, huh? But I always joke about it. I, I always have food storage out in the backyard. If things got real bad, I, you know, I could ride off into the wilderness packing. Well, wouldn’t you feel a little different about a calf in the backyard versus a horse? Yeah, probably. So. Yeah, that’s I right. I agree. Well anyway, that interesting stuff. Good to know. I wonder how Mustang would taste. ’cause you’re not, it’s not like the gran feed ’em grain, but you could only eat it out of a crock pot for about 24 hours. Probably not beautiful marbling. It’s probably freaking rough.
00:08:10:08 –> 00:09:31:13
Chewy tank tread. Alright, anyway, here’s another comment. You know, here’s a picture of my buck little background. I bought my first preference point in Colorado four years ago after listening to podcast and your advice and the mag 2019. I burned my points on such and such units. First western deer hunt. Never saw four point went 0 4 4 on elk and deer tags. My non-Western hunting father said we should quit two days in when we were overwhelmed by the pressure stayed till the end. Fast forward, been going there three years now. It’s been a butt whooping, but what a blast. So hook cannot get enough. You guys had a huge impact on my western hunting strategy, specifically Colorado deer. I’m seeing the biggest bucks of my life for a hundred bucks a year. Congratulations. Appreciate that cp. Alright, well, jumping into the questions. We do have a question here. Bronson Rutten Mulder question, which, who doesn’t like a Rutten mulder? What makes you decide to give up on a group of dough during the rutt? For example, I spent most of my third season taking the hunting the D approach. We’ve talked about that a little bit. By revisiting two big dough groups, I found on the first two days, one was right off a major road most people couldn’t see by just driving by the other about a half mile back into some BLM. Both spots had 20, 30 doughs on any given morning or evening.
00:09:31:17 –> 00:10:44:09
I bounced back and forth babysitting him and only once saw buck over 130 inches who was running like crazy behind two dudes who ended up shooting a for key in, in the head right in front of me. Gotta love Colorado. I I love the six, like, the digress. I did my best to always be there before sun. Not leave till after dark, but every day. Alright, well and what could he have done different? That’s what makes you decide that, that a group of do is no longer worth visiting. Well, different. Well I think part of it, like I don’t, so we do check, we do hunt the doughs, but I don’t hunt like two groups of dose. I’m, we, I’m, I keep in the back of my mind and I even put ’em on Onyx or whatever, you know, I use Onyx. But anyway, put ’em on there and just reminds me there’s dose here, dose here, dose here, dose here. And I don’t have like a specific routine. Bronson, maybe you, you have more of a routine than I, I don’t, I’m just thinking I’m in this area. I should check here, here, here. And it gives me the highlights and, and I may hit ’em once every three days, not every day. And when you get a gear like Colorado when there was no weather change, no snow change it, it seven, eight days might not change anything on that hunt.
00:10:44:14 –> 00:11:47:21
And so I, I don’t, I don’t know that your scenario right there is something that you couldn’t just do again the next year under better conditions or better rutt or storm and boom, there’s a buck the second or third day and you crush it. So just ’cause it didn’t work this time. It was probably weather and the year unique to that year, 20 to 30 dose is a lot of those. It is a lot. And one of them’s gonna come in the heat, you think? Yeah. So it just didn’t happen. Pressure related hype, you know, weather related. It, I, I I I you just kind of go with your gut when you’re not feeling a vibe, you move on. But, but it’s, it’s, it’s all gut related. I’ve jumped back and checked dose I and boom, it happens. And I’ve checked so many dough that I don’t wanna talk about that’ve never had a big buck with them again during that anymore. I’m just glad to see Mulder. Yeah. Isn’t it nice? Like what we, anyway, this last year it seemed like there was less deer in the field. But having said all that, so I’m the kind of the same way it’s a gut feel year to year, it’s a little different. And I do check on the dough groups, but again, we’ve talked about bucks will travel 10 miles overnight if not 15 miles in a straight line.
00:11:48:08 –> 00:12:50:06
And then you wake up that morning and boom, there’s buck standing there. So it’s not like you did it wrong. Well and one one point he did mention at the end in context, he said this is a low point heavy hunting pressure unit. I think in a situation like that, it takes a little bit more usually for those bucks to just start poking their nose out and jumping out there on a face with dough. Well we’ve found too of earlier, like for example northern you generally get earlier, but also on these low pressure units, they ru earlier. They just like, they do like we’ve seen it in Idaho, we’ve seen it in, well even Utah, Northern Colorado. You just look at Utah and our limited entry units, the Henry’s, the gon, Oak Creek, all the units that are hunted very light. That’s right. They all rut earlier because I think it’s pressure related more so yeah, this guy’s dealing with pressure. He is also dealing with probably over the counter elk tags. So, which I know he is actually. Yeah. So anyway, there you have it. I don’t know, you can’t do anything wrong in the rutt. You don’t know what’s gonna happen in the rutt and you know, a lot of it’s, you know, dictated moon phases, there’s weather, heat, all kinds of stuff. A hot dough can change everything.
00:12:50:06 –> 00:13:59:09
Obviously one of them 30 wasn’t coming in and, and it possibly is due to pressure and, and different things like that. I don’t know if that’s a real good answer to that question’s not. So I’m gonna move on. And this next one’s for you barn. What’s your favorite or most you letting me see this one? What do you mean? Oh, okay. Well you Bronson Okay, what’s your fav what’s your favorite most memorable buck story of your life? For me, I, I think we’ve talked about this one on the podcast, but it was, it was your two seventies book in Arizona. It was just one of those, I don’t know if we tell the whole story again, but, but it was one of those hunts that we knew was gonna be a grinder you’d cashed in your maximum points for Arizona, which you get to do once as a non-resident in your life. And it was not in 13 A or B, which 95% of people think that that’s where you should have done it. Yeah. And we were out in a large extent learning new country, some of it for the first time. So it’s not like we knew of a deer, we didn’t know of that deer specifically, but we had great rut dates and all that. And we hunted the do.
00:13:59:15 –> 00:14:59:18
Yeah, we hunted the rutt, we hunted just kind of what we’d done talking about, we were finding deer and finding those and got a lucky break and found it early and then took us two or three days for us to converge and get the deer in the open to where, because it was living in thick pinon juniper. Like you just, you, you can get a glimpse of them, but some days and they go into a flat thick, flat thick pit patch of trees. You’re better off to let it sit ’cause there’s no hunting pressure. Let him come back out. But when he did and you killed that walking up on that thing that night and we built a bonfire that night after you killed that deer. Remember we didn’t even start skinning that thing for probably two hours. It’s the only time I think I’ve never been in a rush. No. ’cause what? Like it feels like a, it feels like I live in a rush. Me too. You live in a rush. Me too. Yeah, I do. And and, and I think part of it, and we even said this verbally to each other, is this ever gonna happen again? We said that, remember we said when if ever is this gonna happen again and been doing everything possible, we both kind of knew to make it happen probably wasn’t gonna happen.
00:14:59:24 –> 00:16:07:15
You don’t shoot two hundred and seventy, seventy five inch mule deer or even with somebody that does it, that that’s, that just doesn’t on a draw tag self-guided by yourself, man. It was just like, savor it man. It was a, it was a special night. Well it felt like time. And we, I’ve said it before, it felt like time stood still that night. It was super cold. Remember freezing. It was negative seven, not including wind chill on a four wheeler. We were riding four wheelers back in the day. This would’ve been what? 2007? Seven. And we were so, I don’t, I wanna call it broke, but we didn’t, well we didn’t even know how to, we just, we didn’t have ski equipment. You should have freaking ski bib on just 30-year-old kids driving 40 miles one way on a four wheeler and negative six. Yeah, I was, I didn’t know that until we got in the driving a Chevy and then we, you know, check the temperature. Of course, remember, remember we could only drive for about five or 10 miles wrapped out 30, 40 miles an hour and we’d have to stop and put your hands down by your engine. I know, because it was so cold. You didn’t have, we didn’t have hand warmer stuff. We didn’t have brush guards that got the wind. Remember how bad the sand was? And it’s like, and it would just jar the whole truck. Shake the whole truck.
00:16:07:19 –> 00:17:11:21
Well I had to replace the rear end in that truck. I mean, and I, the bearings, they were like, I don’t know, bearings are, anyway, that one just the, just the culmination of finding a deer during the hunt and getting it killed. That was a hard part. And he was in flat thick stuff was, and we would get a glimpse enough to keep hunting him, but he was going two, three miles zinging, like back and forth just with a different dough every day or two. And when it finally happened, it was elation. We’d had a couple good breaks to see him and you got a glimpse of him the first night after I saw him. You got a glimpse of him that night the next day. I don’t think we saw him at all. Another damn hi into glass and mob and jumped him off my knob and he ran out there. You videoed him, videoed him a little bit and then it then converged and, and we killed him that night. But it was just that, that was a, that was a moment that you just, I just knew was probably not gonna ever be duplicated in terms of the size of that deer. We gotta you gotta live thinking. But I’m not, yeah, I’m not believing that it’s not gonna Right. That’s, and I gotta say that’s, that’s, that’s my, has to be my favorite memory.
00:17:11:28 –> 00:18:18:04
I mean, I don’t know, it was just, it felt like we had a governor tag and we were out there by ourself draw tag just in country, just on a, on a deer that wasn’t named and Yeah. By a hundred people and in a great, just a special area. I don’t know. Anyway, pretty pretty awesome. Bronson. He, when we, when you he ran by you the first time we even knew he was in the area. You, you saw him first. He ran by you straight away chasing a doe away. Yeah. And I’m like, he just has inlines going. I don’t he was 2 15, 32 inch 30 I thought said and two 15 plus he’s giant. Get over here, just get over here. Yeah. And then the hunts began. Yeah. That’s the way it kind of went down. Pretty awesome. Yeah. Anyway. And to share it with awesome friends. Can’t, doesn’t get any better. Alright, here we go. What’s the best glassing and overall approach to hunting mid to late October? Milder hunts in general season zones in states such as Idaho and Montana? We could throw Utah, Utah into that. ’cause we’re in late general, late late October general. So I don’t know the best glassing approach, but I’m getting high and looking long and I, I spent a lot of time on a general hunt in Idaho.
00:18:18:19 –> 00:19:27:04
Of course we do here in our home state as well, but in Idaho and I got high and I did find some bucks, but I was looking five miles and it was hard to tell exactly what they were. But I think I, I think a and and how do you quantify what you’re glassing Bronson? Like how do you quantify this is worth glassing but this isn’t, that’s pretty tough to quantify. Well, and it, it changes too that time of year, unless you’ve had a snow or a, or a bunch of weather, an open side hill face to to glass a mature deer on is not normally where you’re gonna spot one. They’re, they’re, they’re smart. They’re programmed that time of year. They’re the smartest that they are in mid to late October before they start thinking about the rutt. The summer pattern is kind of faded. They’re a lot of times drifted off and they’re loners their bachelor days, they might still be with some bachelor bucks, but the august, september bachelor time kind is over and they’re just, they’re in a, they don’t move very much. They have a usually a very short feeding and bedding routine that time of day or year. So you don’t have a lot of chances to glass ’em on their feet. They’re not moving a lot.
00:19:27:26 –> 00:20:34:09
So you end up glassing a lot of brush, a lot of timber mixed timber with brush stuff that you’re like, I, I know this is tough to see a deer in, but you’re, you’re glassing the some of the tougher the not the obvious places I guess where a wide open sagebrush slope there. Now there’s exceptions to all that, but that’s not the place to see a big mature mule deer in mid to late October unless you’ve had snow and all that. And it’s a reset button when you get snow. That’s right. I was hunting Nevada and it’s not general season, but I wa it’s all the saints right near the Utah border anyway. And we found ’em like they, when their bitter brush was mixed with the PJ and Cedars, like there’s a mix in there and, and I glassed up a buck feeding in that stuff and it’s super thick. But there was one little knob like, let’s call it a 200 footer or something, I mean just a littler knob but still gave you enough elevation. And I think that’s probably key is for, for me, you can get on the highest knob and, and, and you, you know, maybe it’s known as the rock pile we have, there’s these places across the west that are kind of popular, you know, where everybody goes to glass and that generally deer are being killed from that particular rock pile.
00:20:34:15 –> 00:21:46:29
But some of these bigger bucks that we may be finding are on smaller knobs that are less popular. Just just these smaller areas that’ll hit different area, different areas that don’t normally get glass because it’s thick cedars or something like that. Kind of what you’re talking about in thick country. So anyway, just, I don’t know the best approach would be, you know, a lot of times too that late October we’re starting to get seeing some rutt, like I don’t Idaho, a lot of times they’ll start rutting around the 20th. I know brother-in-law, Jeff was up there hunting general season. He was even seeing rut in action starting around October 20th. And so, you know, again that might make a difference on where you’re, you know, you might be checking on those and different things like that and just kind of maybe incorporating that into what you’re thinking about glass. And of course we have migrations too, even on our general here in Utah with some migrations that are occurring by, you know, middle to end of October some more. So units, especially Pine Valley Zion. So it, that’s a little bit different because you could be just glassing a canyon all day long as deer drifting through it. So I guess we’re under the assumption that you’re not talking about migrating deer, but just gotta look into a lot of maybe north facing slopes, thicker brush the deer that just don’t move much.
00:21:47:00 –> 00:22:53:27
You just gotta catch ’em on their feet and then they’re gonna bed 10 yards from there. You know, they just aren’t out like they normally are earlier. That’s right. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah, it’s tough. That’s October timeframe’s tough. The later you get in October though, the better off you are generally, generally speaking. So anyway, all right, here we go. What pack do y’all think is the best pack for being able to hunt and hike all day but has the capacity to pack a buck out if you harvest one? I’ve been a big fan of the QU packs ever since they’ve come out and they’ve had a lot of different versions of those, you know, in terms of size and cubic inch and all that. I’m, I’m guilty of always usually carrying a bigger pack than you might normally say you need. Even in my scouting time of year, I just, I do, I like the way the cub packs fit me, my brother and others will get some of the smaller packs, some of the 18 or 3,200, the, the smaller bags. I personally for hunting, I go with their icon pro 6,000, that’s the one that I use. It’s big enough to have, you know, extra clothes and all that. It’s, it’s 6,000 cubic inches. Way bigger than need for a dayak obviously.
00:22:54:00 –> 00:23:57:11
But yeah, the key is I, I have been on my own a lot and shot a deer on my own a lot and it’s big enough to bone it out sometimes with a short pack out, just a quick quarter job and get it out on your own. So that’s what I’m using is the QU icon pro 4,000 for kind of my all around pack when I’m guiding. So when I’m guiding hunters, you know, I, I usually always carry a bigger back than my hunter. My pack on my hunters, you kill a sheep, me or my brother or my guys that are with me, we, we pack the bulk of the sheep out and so the hunter isn’t maybe quite as heavy ’cause they’ve got their gun and everything’s like that. So I carry a 6,000 when I hunt and you know, if I go up north or I hunt somewhere else, I’ve got the 7,800 it’s giant. But that’s when I go up north hunting sheep and you need the added ’cause you’ve got your whole pack with you in camp and sleeping bag and everything with you. So I got the 7,800 but the 6,000 is the one that I carry on most of the time. I like it. Yeah, I agree with you. In fact, I’ve got all my kids a QU pack as well and the nice thing is they’re super lightweight and so, and they’re very collapsible.
00:23:57:18 –> 00:25:01:05
So you can cinch everything down. That’s the, the bigness doesn’t matter’s. Not, not a flapping pack. That’s right. It’s down tight. That’s right. So if you go with the 32 or th something smaller in my opinion, then, then all of a sudden you do have a reason to pack more out or something like that. You don’t have as much room and when you just cinch it down, it’s not that much added weight and bulk on your back at all. So that’s what I do. Yeah, I like it. Yep, I totally agree with you. So I like it anyway. Great. Great option there. I’ve got one as well and use it. Janet bought my wife one last Christmas. She’s using it and part of it too is we’re putting a lot of optics and tripods and different things in there as well. We got, you know, twelves now, but you know, fifteens of spot and scope, maybe BTX. You wanna have the option. Sometimes we’re, we’re hiking 10 or 15 miles in on, you know, desert sheep in Nevada or something. You, you’ve got your lunch, all kinds of stuff. Layers of clothes ’cause you’re hiking in with nothing. Nothing. And you get there, you gotta have your down coat and maybe down pants pulling out just stuff. So got plenty. And if you’re in there and you kill a sheep, you don’t wanna come back. You don’t want to. Sheep don’t.
00:25:01:05 –> 00:26:09:13
And deer, you don’t wanna have to come back elk. You’re gonna have to come back. That’s right. So anybody that’s interested go to www.qu.comkuiu.com and go check out their pack. Their pack systems super good. I’m also using, bro, I’m just gonna throw it in there. I’m using a vinyl harness from Q oh pro pack. Yeah, super impressive. The one thing I used to use heavily was the, the one magnets with badlands kind of was the first one that I remember coming out anyway, but it snapped, it made that little noise and especially auto close when you’re arche close range archery. And it bothered me. But this, the Q pro doesn’t, doesn’t do that. Yeah, that’s right. So anyway, q you.com go check ’em out. Also, I have used and do use at times an XO pack. I’ve got the 5,500 and it’s could do the same thing, pack a back buck out. I like, I like it when they’ve got the big, long side pockets for tripods and and spotting scopes. All right, well here’s the next question you guys, that is for you. I like this. You guys ever gonna hunt in California? No. Okay. We good. Plenty of OTC black bear tags. And the same for Deere Carter. It’s hard work but they’re there. How come? No. How come? No, it’s hard work for they’re there. I don’t know.
00:26:09:28 –> 00:27:17:17
I mean nothing against, I just, I spent a little time over there, here and there. It’s, it’s a ways to go for, yeah, I mean OTC Blackberry we have, we have deer tags here. It and we to some extent we don’t even hunt Idaho that regularly because again we have a general seasoned Utah deer tag and to go get another general season hunt in California, we’re just usually it’s a time crunch issue too. Well and if you knew the right ranches and stuff and we’ve had some invitations and we appreciate that And it’s not that we’re minimizing those, but I wanna make a point, Bronson, you went to Iowa. Okay, you went to Iowa. It’s outside of your hometown. Your home country. Your home western US country. Okay. So you go over there and what did you tell me? This is different and I’m realizing Yeah, how hard it is you and how dedicated you have to be to kill something professional. To kill a big white to, and it’s the same thing to kill a big black tail. And this case may be on OTC public land. That’s right. It’s gotta become your life and it’s gotta be the way you were almost like brought up hunting and it’s like these whitetail hunters, they were brought up hunting white tails the way you hunt white tails and sitting because that’s how you kill white tails. And you sat for one day. What’d you think?
00:27:17:29 –> 00:28:12:06
Daylight before daylight till I did kill the deer that night. Yeah, but you were about had a phone battery. ’cause I, you were texting me nonstop. I had to plug in, I had plugs, I had plugins, I had batteries. I did. You did, did you? Yeah. The mobile batteries as little. Yeah I did. Okay. I couldn’t have got, I used those, I could’ve got through the day. What do you mean? I didn’t know I told you to put on battery save mode. Well you did but then I real remembered I had that in my pack and so I pulled it out and plugged it in. So I didn’t have great service. I had just enough service to get a text out but I couldn’t, couldn’t view the internet or anything and see what was happening in the world. But I could, you know, you smashed a buck and all was well. But I think it, this was what reminds me. Yeah. The point is it’s hard to be a specialist of everything and then this guy would say, you don’t need to be a specialist. Why don’t you just come enjoy the hunt? I could. I’m just, and we’re so trained at having something special. I wanna put my hands on something big. Yeah. I don’t want a two by three or three by four or three by two or whatever. You, whatever.
00:28:12:06 –> 00:29:07:09
Just want to go there and you want to run a bunch of trail cameras and, and maybe that doesn’t teach you anything but you wanna try that then you’re gonna, you know, I don’t wanna know it and feel like I’m accomplishing something or that I’m actually good at it. I don’t know. I’m gonna go over there. It’ll, it takes, takes a whole next level dedication, which is gonna take, take time from something else. From what we are doing here. Just like me to go to kill 180 200 inch whitetail Carter. We’re gonna have to give up a bunch. Nobody’s gonna give you one or you just go and get lucky sometime in your life. But to go make it happen, it, it’s like you have to forgive or forget all the mule. They’re hunting you want to and that’s just not something I personally wanna do. Yeah. I’m gonna go hunt whitetail just like I did every time I do. And, and what, what happens happens. And I have a great time doing it and I went and hunted blacktail once in Oregon and you hunt white and you hunted whitetail too. Oh, I Kansas of sunny. I have and I killed one there. That’s the difference. Yeah. Chris, remember how our or our Oregon hunt went? It was terrible. Okay.
00:29:07:09 –> 00:29:58:04
And it was supposed to be the next level most amazing hunt of our life and the new season dates and this and that and Applegate and, but part of it is, is who we went with and there was just some other factors that I think are outta my control, which I know are outta my control in California. And I think, you know, so then you’re like, okay we’ve had guys say I’ll trade you big white till for a big meal there. I have yet to have that really work out. These guys are so addicted to their white tails. If they had a 180 or plus and there are guys out there that have ’em, they will never give it up. It just like, and they don’t want to give up maybe a 200 inch mul there. Yeah. If it, if especially if it’s in a place that you can go hunt it and it’s on their farm that they could shoot it if they want. That’s they will shoot it. They would have to truly trade and and they, when it comes down to it, they’re so addicted to their white tails they can’t do it. Yeah.
00:29:58:04 –> 00:31:03:05
And so it’s just specializations and I don’t have the time to go and then figure out the lease and lease it or to go and manage it and food plot it and do all the things you gotta do yourself and then wait for the right deal with the right genetics at the right age and the right moisture conditions or whatever to say. And then it’s ready to shoot. Yeah. What are you gonna do? You’re gonna help me with though. Yeah. Hopefully in there in the ru. Hopefully in the rutt. ’cause it’s amazing. Go ahead. For me all that comes down to, are there better options for me closer to home? Yes. Yes there are. That’s all this California is. I think we could, like you said, I think we go the pan panhandle in Idaho and kill a good, great white and I think we got Utah general and then in Idaho is like the next closest general for us. Yeah. So we have a couple of tags right here closer that probably in our opinion maybe mean more to us or we feel it has more maybe of an upside. That’s just people that are addicted to Blacktails though I’ve never seen such a cult following other than like cos deer and Blacktails people that hunt ’em regularly. Like they are 100% addicted to ’em. I mean, nothing else matters in life. That’s right. You know, pretty interesting cool stuff.
00:31:03:16 –> 00:32:05:12
If we lived in California, guaranteed we’d smash in some of ’em For sure. And those hogs left and right. There’s another song title, nothing else matters. Chris Staple and just did a re remake. Chris, you know what I’m talking about? Yes I do. All right. How do you keep up on all this stuff? Hey, just listen. Is it in the news or what? No. Well, I don’t watch the news know, you know that you I do know that. So I, I can’t figure out how you know everything else in life. What do you mean? How do you find this out? You just, I listen to seriously turn on the radio. Radio. What do you mean you Well I do too, but I don’t get that out of it. Okay. I’m also not very focused when the radio’s on. So you guys know this. All right, well whatever. Go. You take it over for a minute Bronson, next question. What would you suggest to someone who’s pretty much starting over applying for a new species with zero points? I drew my 2020 Utah elk limited entry tag and now I have moved on from elk to deer. Keeping in mind probably resident. Yeah, you’re a resident here. We have to pick between deer, elk, and antelope. So I switched to deer. I have one point for limited entry deer now. And Phil, I’m starting over with most units taking 10 to 20 plus points.
00:32:05:16 –> 00:33:11:29
How would you, how would you, or what would your strategy use to go about for applying for the next species with zero to one point? That’s really hard in a state like Utah, I’m gonna flat out set, I’m in the same position, but it’s for Rocky Mountain Big Horn. I mean I drew a desert big horn after my whole life feels like and now I’m starting over that. Me too on the deer. I guess I would just add, try to look for either weapon types or seasons. I mean yeah, you also have personal criteria. I’m doing the same exact thing and I’m doing odd stuff. Yeah, you have, you have personal criteria that you want size of deer usually or things like that. But you have to, you have to think outside the box. You’ve got these late muzz loader hunts, you’ve got weird hams hunts, you’ve got stuff like that. Utah residents, you’ve got cooperative wildlife management units you can put in for mu hunts on the generals that are late in November. Yeah. Or whatever. You can do a public draw permit on A-C-W-M-U as a resident. He can apply for that. The public permit on a cooperative life management unit, which some of those offer you great hunts. Well, and those, but those require research. Yeah. And a lot of guys aren’t willing to do the research. So there probably is some hidden gems on that. Yeah.
00:33:11:29 –> 00:34:15:06
There’s a hundred and something CWS in the state of Utah. So there’s probably are some, but if you were sticking to the public land stuff where you can be the, or you know, lead the orchestra so to speak, on how you scout, how you approach your hunt and all that. Look at different weapon types and weird little seasons but, and your random drawing odds, they’re tough because, and who might be able to point boost you. Yeah. Look at those things. Utah is a state that gives about 1% of our deer tags to limited entry draw, you know, we got 85 or 90,000 general season tags and like 1500 limited entry deer tags in the state. So one or 2%, one and a half percent go to limit entry. That is your problem. It you can’t, there’s a bottleneck. You can only do so much with trying to get drawn in Utah. It’s not like Colorado when you say, hey, just go to his two or three point unit and go every two or three years. You can’t really say that in Utah. So look at weird stuff. Look at the random drawing odds and then plan on going to another state. All right. Got it. Okay. Thanks Bronson. Appreciate it. I got the next one. Thinking about hunting in Wyoming the next year or two. I have eight points for deer. I’m not sure what to do. Is region G the way to go?
00:34:15:06 –> 00:35:21:18
Am I better off building points and doing something else? Bronson? Oh what? Love the podcast. Keep up the good work. Two point lives matter. I about missed that. I didn’t even see that. That’s pretty funny. It’s true. Two points turn into four points. Four points turn into eight. You know what I mean? In the white tail world. They do. But anyway, so I Basal points, go ahead. Well, I just think what do, do you think? Yeah, well this is what I think we’ve talked a lot about this Bronson, there’s a lot of young deer out in the world. We even saw you, you know, sent me a, a graph talking about the winter kills in Wyoming. And we looked at the 2017, it was excessive winter kill even more so than 80 something percent. 1990 threes two and three Winter 80%, 86, 80 something percent of the fawns died. And, and we hunted Wyoming this year up there in the high country region age, DG it’s all the same basic type stuff. Lot. And the, the common theme was lots of young deer, lots and lots and lots and lots of young deer. And that’s what we saw. Lots of young bucks. I saw a ton of, ton of young bucks. One one to three or 4-year-old bucks. One to three probably. Yeah. But 50, 60. But the answer to answer the question is there’s nothing better.
00:35:21:24 –> 00:36:29:18
So that if you got eight points now, you might look at this year, but this next year or the year after, if we have mild winters cash ’em in. I’m, there’s nothing better. I’m saying don’t, don’t cash these eight until 2023. Yeah. That’s my gut feel. But, but the, to answer this question, question for sure. Yeah. There’s nothing better worth waiting to for another 10 years to draw. No, no, no. But in while you’re waiting for 2023 to come around, you could do unit 1 28 that smashed quite a few nice bucks. Oh yeah. There was some great bucks there, but it’s not, you’ll never gonna get the max point pool there. Or if you look at the 87 or 90 or get lucky 1 0 1 or 1 0 2, they’re not worth you waiting for to the maximum point. And you got one name in the hat. Yeah, you’re probably not gonna draw. And there’s also stuff rumbling out there too about percentages of non-resident tags and preference point changes down the road that, who knows. So by the way, that is down the road, Bronson. It is. There’s, there’s stuff going to legislature this year that could change all that. So not happening this year though. No, not happening in 2022. So, but, but they just, we, if you read our deer section in Wyoming every year we will say it over and over and over. They just collectively don’t manage for elite limited entry units.
00:36:30:19 –> 00:37:35:27
If you don’t have the max points are close to it. Hunt the general units as often as you want and, and can get drawn. I like it. You could even draw some of those second choice. All right. Anyway. All right. Well you wanna do one more, one more. Bronson’s a grinder. It’s a quick, it’s just, I like it though. You’ve, you, you’ve caused us just three caused us to work choices to think. Here we go. Three quick questions. Eria, Nevada 2 31 or Eastern Colorado. Honestly, this is what I, this is what I think Bronson, I want you to chime in. Ria, I feel like the aria is, the average buck killed there is 195 inch gross deer, which is just a phenomenal deer. But when I go there and I’m guided and I, and I spend good, good money or, or whatever, if I were lucky to be hypothe, hypothetically, if you’re, I would like to come home with something special, 220, 10 or 20 or, and I just don’t feel like it’s realistic. And, and that’s probably not realistic anywhere. So it doesn’t even, it’s kind of a moot point, right? It’s probably not happening in most anywhere years in two 30 one’s, right. Eastern Colorado too. But you’re also, you’re not in control there as much as you are 2 31 in a five in a five day hunt or whatever.
00:37:36:00 –> 00:38:39:24
Now I’m in 2 31, I get to hunt, you know, I get to kind of hunt more longer. I can make a habits in my backyard, I can scout it. All of these things. So I guess I would choose that, but I Yeah, but you are, don’t wanna discount these. The chance of killing 190 inch inches is way better on the hick hundred. Way better. A hundred. It’s a, it’s a slam dunk for say a one 90 to 200 slam dunk in the rut December one to 10 Eastern Colorado. You can’t say that that’s a slam dunk. No, but, and 2 31, you can’t say that’s a slam dunk either, but, but it does fill the upside is maybe a little bit better on those two. But it, again, it goes back Eastern Colorado and hickory or both, you’re gonna go on a guided hunt less in your control. You show up and hunt and I guess I usually favor hunts where I, I can do more. Not, not that I feel like I’m better than anybody that could help me on my hunt, but just, I just, I feel like I, the effort I put forth can, can bring forth fruit. Well, at times, well at times I feel like it’s hard to buy passion and I want to go, it’s hard to book a hunt and have that guy as passionate as you are about your own hunt. That’s another way to put it. Yeah.
00:38:39:25 –> 00:39:47:07
Just hard. And so it’s, it’s hard to buy the passion. And so anyway, sometimes you do go on a hunt and you book a hunt with a guy that’s as passionate as you are and, and it’s impressive. But that eastern Colorado is, is in an upswing, honestly compared to the of the state. They’re doing really well now. They, you know, you hear rumors of gonna issue more tags and try to curb some CWD and do and different things and that all there is cycling that happens. But right now they’re in an uptick. No question. There’s a big, big deal out there. So if you can figure it out, definitely worth the trying. Does that answer it? Yep. I thought that was supposed to be a simple answer and it turned out not to be. All right. Well, are we moving on? Bronson, are you letting us? Yep. We better make a phone call here. Do it. All right. Well Chris, do you want to kind of tee it up for us here on what we’re doing? Yeah. We work with St. James Sporting Properties and we’re gonna talk to Blaine St. James right now. He’s an avid hunter and he is the expert when it comes to buying and selling ranch and hunting recreational properties. So we’re gonna give him a call. Right on. Yeah, he’s actually a good friend of ours. He actually has, does a lot of hunting.
00:39:47:08 –> 00:41:00:24
So we’re gonna learn some, we’re gonna, Bronson, we’re pretty good at pulling out some tidbits, tips and chicks. Yeah, Blaine, I from people and we’re gonna do that to Blaine. Blaine’s killed a bunch of the North America 29. I think he’s within like three to five of finishing that off. So we’ll find out that today too. Ask a few questions on that. Okay, sounds good. Let’s give him a holler this Blaine. Hey, you got any ranches that we can buy for about half of what they’re worth? Oh man. Get it in line brother. Get in line. Our money’s good, money’s green, but we don’t maybe have enough of it. This C environment, man, I, I broker dreams. You just let me know what you want. I’ll find it. No kidding. Well, how you been? This is Adam and Jason, Chris here and how you been first off, I’ve been doing well fellas and yourself. Same. Yep. Good. Getting back into the swing of the office life this time of year, as you well know, you’ve, we’ve known you for a lot of years, you know, the application game and what’s about to get kicked off. And so that’s where you find us now hunting season’s over. But Bronson’s making me come in at like three in the morning. I’m Oh man, I’m tired of it. He’s a slave driver. I’m tired of it. Well anyway, but I’m not making you do anything Carter.
00:41:01:20 –> 00:42:16:24
Well, you know, that can’t have you coming in by yourself. Alright, well anyway, so what is going on out there in your world, Blaine, I know you’ve, we can jump into hunting, but I, I’ve kind of into, I got a buddy that bought a ranch in Colorado and it’s kind of piqued our interest a little bit. What is, it just seems like a crazy environment out there, but people are kind of buying land to hedge against inflation because you know, obviously land’s going up in value as maybe even the same rate as cash. I don’t know, maybe tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, you know, so we sell all over the place, you know, from New Mexico up through Montana. So every market’s a little bit different, but kind of speaking directly to, to Colorado, you know, it’s, we kinda gotta break it down by region a little bit where we’re, where we’re seeing a big drive and demand or ranches, near resorts. ’cause they’re more lifestyle properties. They’re not just about hunting as, you know, as an example, Steamboat was pretty undervalued for the most part for, for quite a while. And then we identified that as kind of a, a high target area for, for value, not necessarily trophy elk, but more opportunity. And you know, it’s a place that we went into and put together a huge deal, like 14,000 acres last year, beginning of the, actually this year.
00:42:17:29 –> 00:43:32:25
And it’s, shoot, that ranch right there alone for what my guys paid for it, they’ve probably made an equity at least 40%. Wow. Geez. That I could say. And it was a substantial ranch. And that’s a, that’s a property that easily we could sell 40% higher. So it’s just evaluating the area and the market and where the opportunities are. ’cause it changes, you know, southeast Colorado, we sell a ton of ranches down in, in the Trinidad area, you know, great hunting, but we got two different demographics down there. So not a lifestyle area per se. Right? But you got guys from Texas and Oklahoma that can drive up and, and we hunt the elk in eight hours. And then with the front range of Colorado exploding, half the ranches we sell down there now are, are guys from, from over here at, you know, Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs and, and whatnot. So you got these two demographics kind of converging there, right? So long term, I don’t see where that really fluctuates a whole lot. Now I could go on and on, I mean, Southwest Colorado is another example, you know, that’s primarily guys from Utah, Arizona. There, there’s probably some good value down there right now. ’cause it’s further, you know, for me to go down to Southwest Colorado, seven and a half hours, I can be in Billings, Montana in six. Right? So, wow.
00:43:33:04 –> 00:44:39:03
So just, just as an example, that’s, that’s a, that’s a, there’s not as much population there, right? So that’s probably the, the better value play right now is that southwest and southeast still. So if you were us, you’re saying look at those, that country, like I like Southeast, I’ve hunted there, there’s some giant freaking deer, but he’s got some sheep. But he’s saying you need to go to Southwest, like somewhere like Rico, Rico, Colorado. Oh, where’s that? All that that in Southeast Trinidad. Yeah. Where’s Rico Dolores? Where, where do you know where Rico is? Blaine, where’s Rico? I, I, I, I do. It’s down. There’s Durango’s, Dolores and Telluride. They probably don’t even, they probably have the old like rotary dial of gas pumps, you know what I mean? It’s just between Telluride and, and Dolores. I’ve hunted elk there before. But it’s, yeah, I mean Telluride is, you know, but part of don’t wanna live there. Part of buying a ranch isn’t it Blaine? Like you want to keep the value and you don’t want to have to die before it increases in value. You know? So you want to go somewhere that’s kind of a destination to, isn’t there a little of both? You gotta, there’s a fine balance. This just depends on your goal of what you’re buying it for. Yeah. Big meal there. Exactly. Adam just nailed it, right?
00:44:39:03 –> 00:45:44:08
So one of the first things I do is when that somebody calls, typically most of my guys end up buying properties they didn’t think they’re gonna buy. They don’t, most guys don’t know what they really want. So I kind of go through a whole, you know, list of questions and try to figure out, identify lifestyle. And then I said, forget about the property you’re calling me about what, you know, what’s important to you. You know, is this gonna be specifically for hunting? Is it just for you, you know, is it something you wanna entertain? Some guys want it to cash flow maybe, you know, and some other guys don’t care. Put cattle or farmland or you know, tillable ground or, or cattle. Yeah. Maybe other guys don’t care, you know? And that’s a hard deal though. I’ll tell you what, you know, most of our clientele are by, they’re not necessarily looking for cash flow. It that’s a hard deal. Yeah. And usually when you’re maximizing it solely for cash flow, it impacts the hunting adversely. And you know, most of the guys that we deal with are buying it for hunting or you know, recreational purposes. Recreational Yeah. Yeah. So that, that’s a side. But like, say Jason, like, you know, you want something that’s gonna appreciate, right? But, you know, some of these areas, this is an example, Northeast New Mexico.
00:45:44:29 –> 00:46:49:21
Now we can still go down there and find really good hunting ground for, call it 800 to 1200 bucks an acre. That’s a heck of a lot easier to double and, and price per acre than it is something around Carbondale that’s 10,000 an acre. Yeah. You know what I mean? Makes total sense. And there’s, and there’s big bulls down there, there’s big elk and kind of some hidden jam. Butters is low population zone, like what you’re talking about. It’s not on the map yet. Blaine is a destination hop. It’s not Boulder go golden. It’s not, I dunno, all these suburb next to the suburbs of bigger places, but there’s good animals. So Yeah. And then, you know, in some of these areas that, you know, guys aren’t really worried about making money on it, necessarily, don’t wanna get hurt. I had a conversation with a gentleman actually from Utah, you know, we’re talking about specific property, and this is an interesting takeaway. 20 something years of real estate. I never thought about it this way. So this was a pretty good little nugget. He goes, you know, Blaine, as long as I can get my money back out or I lose, you know, no more than 50, 50,000 bucks, something like that. Because if I’ve owned it for 10 years, he goes, if I had $5,000 worth of fun every year and I only lost 50 grand, that’s a win for me.
00:46:50:03 –> 00:47:54:10
I said, huh, interesting perspective. Yeah, it’s true. I never thought about it that way. Geez. I mean it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s somewhat of a safe investment. Even it didn’t lose your shorts so to speak. I mean, we’ve done worse. We’ve done worse. Yeah, that’s right. So, and he enjoyed it. Well, and you also help, you know, we were talking about buying property, but I mean, you guys go both ways. Obviously there’s some people that inherit property and inherit farm ranch property. And you need, you’ve got eight layers of kids and grandkids and all that now, and it’s time to unload it. And you guys probably filled a lot of the calls like that when it’s time to sell the family, farm, ranch, whatever, and how to go about doing it. When’s the right time to, to do it. What do you say to people? Keep the family together. Yeah. You liquidate, it’s easier to split cash than split property sometimes. Yeah. So y you got it. And you know what we’re seeing right now, especially with the aging demographic, right? So the baby boomer generation, that is a, a huge accumulation of wealth and generational wealth. And so a lot of these guys now, you know, they’re, they’re in the fourth quarter of their lives and, you know, they’re, they’re gonna, you know, everybody’s gonna pass away at some point.
00:47:54:14 –> 00:49:06:04
And it’s, but most of these ranches don’t make it past three generations is what we see. And so that’s kind of where you’re in right now, where you’re looking at that age, that, that demographic, the baby boomers, you’re coming to third generation right now and you know, you’ll have, we got a scenario right now, a deal that’s gonna come on. You know, we won’t, I can’t really talk about a whole lot, but I can give you generalization. You speak to it that way. But it’s 13,000 acres it’s been in their family for, it’s, it’s pushing on the fourth generation right now, there’s one sibling that’s out there and the other three siblings leave. Right. And, and all of a sudden it’s becoming a rift. But the gentleman’s still alive. You know, he is in his late nineties and sharp, his attack, but he’s got everything structured, you know, ahead of time. But what he wants, as soon as he passes, ’cause ’cause they don’t wanna sell until after he passes away. And that talk about an awkward situation. You’re sitting here at this meeting, they’re, they’re talking about his death and he’s told me, you know, it’s just, it’s a weird po but you know, it’s, it’s, he’s thinking, so what have they got? One, one sibling wants to continue that lifestyle and to continue and not to sell and the other three don’t live there and would just assume sell.
00:49:06:08 –> 00:50:10:04
Is that kind of Yep, that’s, that’s exactly it. But you know what, in this scenario they’ve all the, the patriarch of the family, he wants to sell it. Oh, he does. He does. He says that’s a lot of times, a lot of times these guys don’t wanna sell. He does. He sees I think the other siblings and doesn’t wanna create a rift. And he said, you know what, everybody’s gonna get their cash. And you know, if the other sibling wants to take his money and and, and go buy something else, he’s, he’ll have enough to go do it, but kind of start his own, his own deal and you know, and it is probably like any business too. Yeah. He sometimes he had a kid who’s capable of taking it over and sometimes you don’t. Yeah, right. So it’s probably one of those scenarios too. Or somebody doesn’t want to, but they still are entitled to something from it, whatever. Right? Yeah. And so, so we deal with two different kind of clientele, you know, really, you know, our buyers are a lot of times much different than our sellers. ’cause like you said, you know, you got guys who are land rich and, and cash poor sometimes. And you know, you got these buyers who are, are pretty affluent and they’re looking to kind of land banks, some, some properties. So it’s, it’s just all across the board. Okay.
00:50:10:04 –> 00:51:00:06
So I’ve got a question for you, Blaine. Shoot, and this is a question out and I get pretty regular and I just thought of it, I just wanted to throw it out there. But I have a lot of guys that say, where’s where’s the best place to live? I can move anywhere my works can go with me online or whatever. And, and at times I, and I’ve thought a lot about it and Adam has too, and at time do we look at the opportunities to hunt, upland game, bird, you know, ducks, geese, whatever, as well as big game. And then the ability to get tags and over the counter tags versus are the over the counter going away, which they are in most cases. And the ability to, to have quality hunting opportunities. And I’ve often thought Idaho, Wyoming, there’s a lot of hidden stuff in Wyoming, a lot of crazy, you know, just awesome stuff out in that desert and then New Mexico. But then, you know, and of course Colorado, we hunt it every year. Yeah, jump in bro. Yep, that’s right.
00:51:00:07 –> 00:52:08:15
I mean those are the bonds we probably bring up the most, you know, states like Utah and Arizona don’t as much because they’re more under a limited structured, limited entry where it’s, if you’re moving there for just like for hunting being a big component of why you’re gonna retire and buy 160 acres or 200 or just something you know, or bigger, yeah. That’s not probably one of those for that purpose. But those other states might. But you probably get questions like that Blaine. And with the markets that you kind of see right now, and I know you guys service, you know, eight or 10 Western states, maybe more than that and, and they’re licensed in those states. Where do you, where do you direct people to when they talk to you about stuff like that? All right, well a lot of it it, okay, that’s a good question. You kind of threw me off on this one. I, I got an answer, but I’m trying to figure out how to articulate. Yeah, you don’t have to be perfectly proud. And it might matter if a guy is an elk hunter. Like if a guy like, ’cause I asked a guy, well what matters more to you? Oh, I’m a way more of an elk hunter than I’m a meal deer hunter. Okay, well then, then maybe a Wyoming general or Colorado. Colorado, the current general situation there might elevate more than maybe in Idaho.
00:52:08:19 –> 00:53:14:16
Well, because the Idaho guys are not gonna let Game and Fish do away with the general. I don’t see that happening. Yeah, it may someday, but they are angry. And same with the Wyoming residents for deer and elk. It doesn’t feel like that’s going away, right. For residents. So it, it kind of may be val, you do have to have a few sideboards on it, but you know, these are probably all states that you deal in, you know, and some of them I guess, you know, yeah, okay, how much money do you got to actually buy a piece of property? ’cause if you’ve only got X amount and you think that’s gonna buy a 200 acres, you’re sadly mistaken in Colorado versus okay, rural Wyoming, you got a prayer to buy that. You know. Well, I’ll give you a couple caveats and I’ll tell you my real opinion. Alright? So if you got guys from Texas, Oklahoma, things like that, and they won’t be close to their family, you know, New Mexico makes a lot of sense. Colorado makes a lot of sense. So they can still have access to, to family. That’s something that really does pop up pretty frequently with us. You know, if it’s, you know, Colorado for the most part has I think more amenities. Meaning, you know, you’ve got multiple ski resorts, good resort, good restaurants, easy to get into multiple places, you know, the fishing, the biking and all that.
00:53:14:16 –> 00:54:17:17
But with all that comes population people. Yeah, right. You know, because even as you know, we knew each other when I lived in Crest de Butte and it was a phenomenal place to hunt. It’s still good, but it’s not like, like it used to be. You know, we hunted there this year with Vail Resort by and Crest Butte. It’s kind of changed that dynamic a little bit, so. Well, well I think the fishing, you touched on fishing. You’ve sent us so many fishing photos and I’m jealous of these freaking giant fish that you’re pulling out of some of these private properties. And I think that plays into heavily Colorado, especially re retired people. I mean, I know there’s a, go ahead say it retire when you’re retired. People think you just fish every day. You’re like, well, golfing fish. Right. But I’m saying they do. But, but it is a pretty big thing for a lot of people, right? I mean, it is. So fishing is more important than hunting. Sometimes when you’re 71, the mountains are too steep for you anymore and you, you just fish, you can fish the creek every day. There’s some amazing fishing in Idaho, but Colorado has some unbelievable fishing. So anyway, go ahead. Well, but that same thing though, right? So okay, you got family that’s spread out. Where do the grandkids wanna come? Depends. That’s what I mean. It just depends on where you’re on your lifecycle. Gotcha.
00:54:17:23 –> 00:55:18:12
’cause we just sold a phenomenal place in Eagle guy, never killed a big buck. I got him a landowner tagging unit 44 0, killed a 2 0 1 beautiful buck. Right? Mm. Right. But he’s pumped. He’s got a place to go ski for his family. He’s got a place to go fish, he’s got a place to go hunt. He can play golf, he could fly in very easily. You know what I mean? And, and so again, that kind of plays into Wyoming. You’re pretty remote, you know. Yeah. But there’s no state income tax. A lot of people love the politics up there. So it’s not a one shot. But I’m gonna give you, I’m gonna get to my point here in a second, but I’m kinda giving you the pros and cons. I like the pros and cons. Well, there’s a, this Yeah, it’s, it’s a lot to way out. Didn’t even think about the taxes. I was Nevada, Nevada comes to mind. But anyway, keep going. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. So no state income taxes, it’s, you know, population’s pretty, pretty low, but there’s not a lot of amenities in, in Wyoming you got Jackson Hole and Afton in that area down there. That’s really, you know what I mean? Really expensive there. Yeah. Super expensive. EE exactly. So it doesn’t always appeal on paper. It does sometimes, but when people push them to shove the wind becomes an issue.
00:55:18:12 –> 00:56:28:27
But where I do think I will give you this little nugget where I do think Wyoming’s gonna do really well is southeast Wyoming. ’cause as the population of the front range of Colorado explodes, like where I live in Fort Collins area, Windsor, they’re talking between Loveland, Greeley and, and Fort Collins. The population going up another 600,000 people and you know, in like another 10, 12 years, that’s where we need to go, bro. So you’re talking because it’s affordable right now. Well, and so you’re talking the same, the same reason you were just talking about Southern and south central, Southeastern Colorado getting some of that overflow. You’re just talking about now going north and it’s crossing into Wyoming. Correct. E exactly. ’cause Colorado Springs demographically is, you can Google this one is gonna surpass Denver. Right? So all of a sudden you’re gonna have people pushing further south from Denver North, you’re gonna have ’em go further north. And then as you go west to Rocky Mountain National Park, there’s only so much ground. Yeah. Right. And that’s pretty much done. So Wyoming to me is it’s the next, you already seen some of the bigger names are buying ranches up there, you know, from only so much ground, bigger companies. I like that comment only so much ground. Yeah. We can keep printing money. Yeah. And we do. Yeah. We’ve, we’ve been doing that, right? Yes. Right. There’s only so much ground. That’s right.
00:56:29:07 –> 00:57:35:28
And, and yeah. So much private ground because yeah, like I said, you push north of Rocky Mountain, you hit public land right. To the state line, a lot of that heavily. Right. That’s what you’re talking about. So yeah. But if it were mean, I was starting over and, you know, go west and settle a young man scenario. Right. And I’m not too worried about family dynamics or any of that kind of stuff, or if I am the one area I’m, I’m pretty bullish on. And, and to me, I think it’s what Colorado was 35 years ago is Montana. It’s a good value. There’s some great hunting it’ss, particularly on, you know, along the Yellowstone Big horn right in that area. My giant elk upland game, bird hunting, waterfowl hunting. There’s some hidden gem for big mul deer, you know, and you got white tail and like, it’s such a game rich environment, hidden gym for mule deer. We need to have an off discussion. Yeah, yeah. And I still can’t, I’m still st you got me stuck in 44 when you found this guy a tag, a I don’t know how you did it and b why did you call him versus me? Hey, he bought a ranch. What do you mean he’s a client? He, he had a checkbook with a couple more zeros. Okay. Maybe, maybe four or five more zeros. But still I’ll, I’ll, I’ll I’ll send you a picture after, after that.
00:57:36:06 –> 00:58:42:07
Tremendous, a tremendous thought. And I think, and I, and I also wanted to dive into that a little bit is, hey Blaine, you know, you sell so many properties, you’re working with so many cool dudes out there. You have you, you have unlimited hunting opportunities on private land. You have to, you, if you told me you don’t, I’m gonna call you a liar. Yeah. But I, I don’t usually use ’em. Yeah, yeah. You still have your favorite places too. Yeah. That you like to have, you know, for me and the clients, the client’s buying it not to share his big bucks with you probably in a way. Well, I would feel like a jerk like this, you know, for instance, this guy, he’s a, he’s a, he’s a, and that’s the cool thing. Most of my clients, we’re not, we do become friends. That’s your sphere of influence Right. Deal with these guys daily. And it’s, you know, we’re very much relational versus transactional. Yeah. So even after the sale, we’re constantly keeping in contact with people. Well, it’s not the last ranch. It’s not the last ranch they’re gonna buy or sell either. You know what I mean? No, but I mean, they’re gonna continue to have needs, you know, from you, people like you that are, are connected. We, yeah. But we all share that common denominator. We love honey. And I, you know, I do get to see a lot of stuff.
00:58:42:09 –> 00:59:53:27
So guys who you don’t necessarily have the time to sit here and research a bunch of things. They, they call you and they ask and they trust you and you help ’em find what they’re looking for. But it’s, yeah, it, the access to private, I just, I, to us, like I said, I’d feel like a jerk. And if we’re trying to sell the property, you know, there’s more value for us than those animals being alive. Like, would you rather see what’s alive on this property that you can buy or what I just shot on it, you know? Right, right. Both. So it’s both. Yeah. Well, I, well, I need, I need to find you a property. You need to let me hunt. There you go. Hey, we might, we might figure something out in that southeast Wyoming find Carter a good antelope property in used to Colorado speaking. Speaking of antelope, didn’t you have a, a kid kill first Antelope? You sent me a photo of I I I did both. Both my boys got their first bucks this year. Awesome. How’d that go down? Fun time. You know, you know, the struggles alive, kids are in school playing sports, all that kind of stuff. But I, I was able to find a couple landowner tags here just, just outside of Fort Collins. And we hunted public and private and, you know, did the old rock paper scissors. He was gonna shoot first.
00:59:54:04 –> 01:00:58:25
And my, my youngest boy, he, we got him set up and this is pretty unique, you know, he shot this book, beautiful book, heavy, gnarly, kind of going downhill. But he wasn’t as big as the one my son shot. Well we, we boiled the skulls out, did the euros ourself, and he started looking at it like he shot the bigger, older buck. Geez. He was, it was pretty excited. But we, you know, I got him out and, you know, instead of just driving around jumping outta the truck, we, I made him hunt. We hiked around and, you know, stocked up on animals for both of ’em. And we shoot, my youngest boy, we got him like a hundred yards. We got too close, but we got got it knocked out. And then my, my oldest son Pearson, he made a great shot on, on my seven millimeter mag I grew up hunting with. I gave it to him as a brownie na bolt. And I, I got when I was a teenager and I gave it to him when he was 13. And so that was pretty cool. It’s the first time he’d used that gun to, to shoot anything. And so he got to shoot that, his big buck with my old seven, my old seven mag, which is pretty cool. How cool is that? That’s awesome. What about you this year?
01:00:59:00 –> 01:02:05:13
I don’t want to totally, but we’re talking hunting now, so we’re, let’s keep ’em rolling. What about, what did you get out and chase yourself this year? One thing that I did mention right before we called you is that you were, have you killed all the 29 yet, or you’re a couple shy, or where does that sit? I, I’m one shy intentionally I waited. So this past year I went out and shot my Roosevelt. Okay, where’d you do that? California. California. Northern California. That’s right. It’s north of Eureka. We got a awesome place up there. And I that I, I’d like to go back again. The guy’s got tremendous Rosies 3, 3 40 plus bulls up there and we got towards the end they hunt and, you know, I shot a ing young bull, but he’s got outstanding bulls there. I mean, he really does. So I’d like to get back up there and do that again. Cool hunt. But that was number 28 and number 19 with a bow out the 28. So that, that was, geez, how cool is that? How cool is that? So what’s number 29 a cougar? This black bear? No, no, no, no. I saved it. I saved sick of blacktail deer so I could take my kids with me. Oh, I’ve, I’ve been invited a million times to go do it.
01:02:05:18 –> 01:03:05:28
Oh, I was gonna say, that’s not a very tough one, you know, to go kill like a stone sheep or something. No, you pretty much do that at wheel when you’re ready. So do you got that plan this year maybe? Or we’re, yep. We’re gonna go out this next hunt season and I’m gonna take my boys with me and I’ll be part of it. Did you set up a, did you set up like a drop, like staying on a yacht or what do you, how did you do it or have you done it yet? So here, here’s an interesting deal. So I do get access to hunting. Okay, well you’re connected, but part of it is playing. Just gave me a liar. Okay, so part of part of it is you’re connected. The other part is you’ve done it for years and years, just like Adam and I, you’ve been to a lot of places before. Yeah. I mean before St. James reporting properties even, I mean, you were doing this, this is a lifelong pursuit and you know, yeah. What’s it been, 10 or fif 10 or 12 years, or 15, I don’t know how many years since you we’ve known opened up your own agency, but, but yeah, you’re, so we’re saving you, you’re connected. We’re saving you on this one. We know. Yeah, we know you’re connect. It’s not just real estate, although, well, no.
01:03:05:28 –> 01:04:04:03
So I sold, I sold this gentleman a ranch. I’ve sold him two ranches, actually. Super nice guy. Became good friends. In fact, I got him hooked up going alligator hunting next week in Florida. But he called me up and, and said, Hey, I got a cabin on Kodiak, why don’t you come up, bring your boys next year. Oh geez. That’s, and, and so that’s a lay up. He’s, he’s got running water on Kodiak. Man, that’s a layup. You don’t even have to sleep with the bears. Your boys aren’t even gonna get the real experience. How cool is that? Yep. So we’re, we’re probably gonna go do that with him and throw ’em in a two-man tent for at least one night up there and see if they make it all night out there. I I’ll, I’ll stick them out there. We got a Bear podcast we just published. You probably oughta listen to it. Yep. There you go. Well, that’s awesome. Are you gonna help him on the alligator hunt? You know, I was, I was trying to get down there. I got my best friend from high school and College Mac. He does. So yeah. Aren’t you from down there? Like, or either grew up or you lived there originally, right? I, I, yeah, no, I, I grew up in Orlando and I graduated, went to Alabama and graduated from Bama and moved to Colorado.
01:04:04:07 –> 01:05:07:29
But we had a, a ton of family history in Colorado. Yeah, that’s what kind of the more I read about de SANEs on the news and stuff more. I want to go there. Yeah, yeah. He’s, he’s, he’s a stud. He’s a stu he’s doing down there a stu man. He should run for president. But anyway. Well, so, well that’s good connection and that’s, that’ll be awesome. I’ve, I don’t think I’ve had talked to anybody. I’m sure there has been somebody that had their young sons there with her on the last one. It’s usually not something as common as that. So, pretty cool. Although I did know somebody that finished their 29 on an antelope and I just had to chuckle. I’m like, wow, that was your last one. Hey, some people, some people value an antelope Bronson. Well, I, I, I mean really value ’em. Well, anyway, but that, that’s awesome Blaine. So that’ll be fun. Look forward to pretty awesome cool stuff. Well, cool. And then Blaine, I know you guys are known for supporting conservation groups. Maybe you wanna throw a little shout out there and then which trade shows you’re gonna be attending? Yeah, so we support quite a few conservation groups, you know, from Meal Deer Foundation and WTF Wild Cheap Pop and Young Grandson Club Ovis.
01:05:08:01 –> 01:06:20:00
But you know, the one that I’m, I’m pretty excited about, an interesting story is Wounded Warrior Outdoors, not, not to be confused with Wounded Warrior Project. Okay. But Wounded Door Outdoors, it, it’s where they, it’s a small deal. Ron Reboot started it and out of Florida and he goes around, he’s had sheep show typically, but they, they find these, these vets and they take ’em out on these kind of life-changing hunting and fishing trips. And what’s really pretty unique about it is Ron started with his own money and 98 cents on every dollar that’s donated goes back to the vets on these trips and things like that. So it’s not, it’s completely non-profit. You know, there’s minimal expenses, you know, going out. So you’re not paying a bunch of other guys here running an organization. It’s all volunteer and it’s, it’s awesome. But I tell you what I got, it’s a, it’s an invite only to keep it very small for their big fundraiser. And somebody told me before I went down, they goes, you know, you’re gonna meet these guys and you’re gonna, you’re gonna notice their wounds. You can’t help it. Right. And he goes, but by the end of the trip you’re not gonna notice ’em. And man, they were Right. It’s a, it’s an incredible wow organization. And you get to meet some of these guys that are unbelievably humble, that are just studs.
01:06:20:13 –> 01:07:24:00
I mean, you, you, they don’t tell you their story, you hear about ’em. But I mean, what a testament, how to live your life and kind of be humble and keep your head down. But how cool is that? So Wounded Warrior Outdoors. Yep. That’s, that’s, that’s awesome. Good one. And then, you know, as far as trade shows, we’re, we’re gonna be down at Dallas first of the year, sheep show out in Reno. In fact, it looks like I was, I was looking at the map. We got a booth next to y’all at, in Salt Lake. Yeah. I think you’d have been there before. So yeah, we like to be able to catch up business been there before. Yeah, there was a snafu. We lost our spot and we, we fought back in a position. So we’re there again. Well good. We got all that sorted out. And then money, money fixes that Blaine money. Yeah, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. That’s right. That’s right. We like our spot too. We’ll never move unless, I mean, we, we would fight to keep our spot. Oh, it’s, it’s the premier spot. Everybody funnels right through there. Yeah, it’s a great spot. It’s like a white, like a white tail funnel. All that’s what we always say. Yeah, no, for sure. And then the ISC show in Denver. So we’re, we’ll be able. Gotcha.
01:07:24:01 –> 01:08:32:21
Well, so yeah, so, and, and, and Blaine, just to kinda wrap it up, you, I mean, we’re talking to you as, as, as the owner, but you’ve got a bunch of different agents that you have working for you across the Western states and at some of these shows that you just rattle off, if any of you’re within proximity and go there, you’ll meet possibly you, yourself or some of your agents. But yeah, you’re there to talk about selling or buying recreational farm, ranch, you know, hunting, lifestyle properties, you know, and all these states and you know, great place to get ahold of you there. Or I guess you give a shout out to your website or whether you do email or phone. What do you do, what do you prefer? What do you want us to rattle out here? What whatever’s convenient. We’re, you know, we try to make things easy for anybody. So if they wanna reach out to us on, on the website or, you know, phone number, it’s, it’s all there. And stop by see us email. It’s, we’re, we’re easy to get, get ahold of and we’re responsive. So sj sporting properties.com, is that right? Yes, sir. Right on. Yes sir. Okay, buddy. Well we appreciate you spending some time. I learned a lot, Bronson. Yeah. Taxes, properties, big deer. He, Blaine knows way more than he is ever told us. I know that. Well, he’s from Colorado.
01:08:32:26 –> 01:09:38:16
He’s hunt Gunnison during the heyday. Yeah. He’s killed a lot of big bucks there. And so, but Gunnison seems to be doing well, Blaine in parts of it anyway, half of it, it feels like. Yeah, it, it, it’s coming back. You know, we 154 this year. My, my older boy had one, he screwed up and shot the wrong buck. But my, my friend ended up shooting a 180 bucks second season that he was supposed to shoot. I’ll send you that picture too, if I haven’t already. No, you haven’t. No you haven’t. Yeah. That’s a lesson that he’ll learn. Yeah, it’s, no, it does seem good. People had some good hunts and then of course there’s always, it was warm drive tough year in Colorado for sure. Yeah, for sure. Anyway. For sure. Well, we’ll be looked forward to seeing you some of the show. Appreciate your time and yeah. Being there for any of our listeners or members that wanna wanna talk with you about buying to sell ’em. But yeah, we’ll see the show. You find any property that takes one or two or three less zeros. Let bro and I now you’re my first saw guys. I gotcha. All right, Blaine, talk to later. We’ll see you. Alright, bye. Well all think that probably wraps it up for today, huh? Anything else we need’s? We got a few more Q and As, but I think we we’re, dude, we’ve got another podcast.
01:09:39:02 –> 01:09:58:22
We’ve got a whole nother podcast. Maybe we’ll wait till this next magazine, the January, January magazine’s almost at the printer. We’re about ready to finish this thing up and we better get it done and then we’ll finish these q and As. But we appreciate everybody sending in your q and as for us, and hopefully we’ll be able to give you our perspective on it and things like that. So yeah. Anyway. All right, sounds good.
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