The Epic Crew talks about hunting and hunting properties with Blayne St James and then answers more questions from listeners. Some question topics included deer water habits and needs, types of boots for different hunts, what are the best value hunts available, if we could choose any hunt what would it be, any new positions available at Epic, straight vs angled spotting scopes, what we look for when hunting a new unit, should young hunters get in the points game, and what to do with 0-3 points vs 20 points.
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
Anything to do with Western big game.
Welcome to the epic outdoors podcast, powered by Underarmour.
Hey everybody. Jason Carter, epic outdoors crew here in Southern Utah. We’ve had a lot of rain lately. Been pretty awesome. We’re pretty excited. We got a lot going on here. Bronson’s actually on the first time of the year, him and his boy went up there to Yukon in reached this smashed a couple of just absolute awesome Rams. We’re looking forward to seeing the photos. So just a little, you know, just throwing that out there. It’s something for us all look forward to it starting off the year. Right? And we’ve got a lot of enthusiasm from, you know, here in the office, as well as members looking forward to what’s what this year is going to bring. So like first blood to get jealous.
I can’t wait to hear the story
And the little bits of inReach messages that we got. It’s definitely a story. Don’t want to ruin it for the podcast because I’m sure it’ll be fun to, to listen to. So anyway, what about you guys got anything good going on?
Y Montana and Wolf came out today a little bit late, but
Frustrating
Did it just hits. So we’re heading toward results and that’s what’s going on in the license app side of things.
Yeah. Montana rifle. Antelope came out here. We are in August. That’s a good time. August, a good time to have some results. Come out, make some fall hunting plans. But anyway, that was good. We drew some guys. Congratulations. The guys that drew and got lucky. That’s awesome. You know, it starts with tags. You gotta have tags in your pocket. Of course, we played the Colorado return list. I ended up getting a tag. Some of us didn’t get tags. Why it didn’t get a tag
Still tagline
Tagless tag list at Seattle,
Colorado,
Colorado. I don’t know Josh where you try and
Not really halfheartedly. It’s just,
There’s something about getting a tag, like you just get the tag and then pay for it and then send it back. Yeah,
It feels good. Anyway. That’s that’s the major part of the battle is getting the tag. Well, here on this particular podcast, we wanted to call our good friend Blaine, St. James of St. James sporting properties, kind of visit with him, seeing what he’s got going on. Maybe hopefully he’ll slip up a little bit. Tell us where he’s hunting a big deer, what he’s found and who knows. You always learn something from Blaine. He’s, he’s a good guy in the industry, very smart, intelligent guy, and good hunter and privy to what’s out there, especially Colorado. A lot of that Colorado Wyoming country. He spends a lot of time out in the Hills, looking at ranches, fishing and hunting as well. So he’s got an eye for, for good properties, good game and properties that you know, that have the ability in genetics to produce great game, as well as the, the tag allocation systems with landowners.
And so if you’re looking at picking up a good piece of property or investing, you know, he’s a, he’s a great resource. He’s, he’s got his pulse on, on the economies, the local economies and, and property valuations. And then, you know, as far as the hunting side of things, too, which of course we’re all interested, he might listen to the podcast is, is a hunter. At least, hopefully if you’re not a hunter, we welcome you to leave. All right. So anyway, let’s you were going to say welcome you to join me, to welcome you, to leave. Get out of here. All right. Don’t be bothering us hunters. All right. Let’s call Blaine and see what he’s got to say, guys, how are you doing?
Doing well? I heard, I heard you got to hunt. You’re getting ready to go scout for it, huh?
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been scouting pretty hard. We’ve got some tags, you know, here in Utah for a change. Actually, Jen has got a deer tag and I’ve got a deer tag. My kids got deer tags. And so we’re just, you know, been kind of spending some time out, but also trying to take care of the office. You know what that’s like? It’s like, you don’t do the scouting. Right. You don’t do the office. Right. And you’re hoping everything comes together. You know what I mean?
It’s still jelly donut, right. Pressure over here.
Yeah. I usually get a little on your shoe, so whatever. So anyway, here we are in August. I know you’re a busy guy, you know, I’ve been trying to get you on the podcast here, but what do you got going? I mean, what’s August mean for you for hunting and St. James sporting properties.
Oh man. There’s a, there’s a lot of questions to unpack there.
Just write them down. Where are you hunting? Where’s the big buck. Hey, number one.
No, we, well, you know, it’s just an inner, it’s a tough time of year, right? We’re all family guys. And it’s a school seems to be starting earlier and earlier, right? So you’re kind of juggling sports and, and work at all. A lot of clients coming into town and getting ready for hunting season or looking at properties. So that kind of spreads it in and trying to set up, sell cameras to the retrieval cameras, excuse me, to document wildlife. So it’s just a lot of moving parts, right? So August is probably July and August, our peak time, as far as being on the road and traveling a lot. And unfortunately I gotta do a little car shopping. I was on the road last night. Got you a little bit of a fender bender down in Denver. So I’m trying to decide if I want to go to the dark side and buy it four to six with GMC.
So that means you’ve got a GMC and you’re trying to decide if you’re going to switch. Don’t probably don’t switch. Well, you don’t have back problems. And it’s probably because you have a GMC.
There you go.
What, how bad of a fender? Cause this could be our next truck. M truck.
You know, it wasn’t too terribly bad. You know, two cars got totaled. I was pretty fortunate. Now less there they’re kinda swerved around and I didn’t pull my trailer. I probably could have stopped as at four feet shy, drilled this pickup truck trying to navigate T-bone and another guy. Wow. It was, it was a fiasco, but all good man, minor details, every walked away. So we got insurance.
Yeah. Well, it’s hard to find vehicles. I know. Wyatt, have you been trying to find a vehicle?
No, not me. Oh,
What do you mean? You’ve got a brown Tundra that you’ve been trying to send down the road.
No, I’ve been debating. I don’t really do it hard, but I’ve been thought about it. I
Thought that meant you were well on your way.
Jason’s been truck shopping for, I tried to buy a truck yesterday because it was in the parking lot and the battery died. They were junk. Well, Hey, maybe
They’ll show
yellow, which is in my mind a terrible color. It’s yellow Ford ranger and the battery was siding there out jumping it. And I’m like, that’s a truck I’m truck. And they’re going to be mad right now. Let’s go out and snag it, you know, turns out it’s pretty new and they’re happy with it. So anyway, well I’m right on. So we’ve got, you’ve got that. You’re, you’re obviously a scout in a bit and then sounds like you’re busy with family and whatnot, but tell me a little bit about the economy and, and maybe a little bit about the properties and things like that and what you’ve got going on that way.
Yeah. It’s interesting. Let’s see how I can stay on course with this, not take you down to me, rabbit holes. I truly think. And I, you know, I’m pretty transparent. You guys know that
Well, that’s what we live
For at that. I think we’re at the height of the market, you know, certain segments, you know, we, we operate in multiple states. I think some states have already Crested and are probably, you know, slowing down a little bit, Colorado, New Mexico. We’re still holding pretty strong right now. And so that’s, that’s kind of interesting. So there’s, there’s, there’s a lot to unpack on this one. Actually, I got a lot, I got a lot of thoughts on this.
Well, that’s what I, when I, when you weren’t able to say anything because we hadn’t called you yet, I basically introduced you without you knowing. And that’s what I that’s what it hasn’t, that’s, that’s what I like about you is you’re able to, you know, talk about the local economies, the valuation of properties from a Hunter’s perspective, also from a business perspective, also from just even a, maybe a non Hunter’s perspective and, and, and a guy that’s just looking to maybe invest some cash or whatnot. And so you’ve got a good handle on a lot of angles on properties buying and selling and both, I mean, this would be a good time for a guy to offload some property maybe. And so, anyway, that’s, that’s, you know what I like about what you’ve got going on. And then, and then of course you’re diversified in a lot of different states. So,
Well, I, I, it’s all kind of break it down a little bit so that the segments in the market I think are good. You won’t see necessarily a pull back on, you might see him slow down and possibly stagnate, but Hey, you’re not going to see massive depreciation is, is essentially going to be probably two and a half million and higher on those types of properties. I do think when you start getting below that number, a lot of people finance it as interest rates continue to accelerate and go up. I mean, they’re probably going to jump out to 7% here pretty soon that will impact not that these aren’t expensive properties, but in terms of ranches, that kind of lower end properties, but they’re still, you know, a lot of money, right. But the guys are financing it all of a sudden when you’re going from rates that are, you know, sub 3%, some cases to now you’re jumping into six, 7% interest rate with that’s a lot for three to five years, you know, you’re buying how it goes down quite a bit.
But most of the guys who have a substantial amount of cash on the sideline, they’re not buying these properties or buying a bigger property. So I do think there’s going to be opportunity coming down the road to pick up properties. Again, that kinda got priced out from a lot of people. I think guys who were patient, that’s gonna, that’s going to be a sit and wait, unless, and here’s where I fall into this category because I was dead set against personally investing in the market right now, because it’s hard to find value in real estate on some of the, on the smaller end properties. And I was just telling my agents that, and they’re probably going to kill me for saying that again, I’m being honest. Right. It sounds like, you know, that’s, I’m going to, I’m going to pull back a little bit, but street, man, I found that perfect ranch for me and my family. I hadn’t been on the market in 50 years now. I pulled the trigger on it and we just closed on it yesterday. And I’m in part of my strategy, kind of going into this, how I create values, the last several ranches I’ve owned. I bought adjoining properties and put them together.
Okay. Putting ranches back together or whatever.
Yeah. So that’s how we’ve got a long-term track record of creating value for our clients. And as well personally, by instead of breaking up ranches, actually putting them back together. That’s, that’s kinda what I’m in the middle of now. And I made a good deal on one piece. And the other guy that I’m closing on in a few weeks, I’m overpaying probably 25%, but I need the piece and it creates overall value for the entire project. So
Because it seems nowadays people are into breaking them up and selling smaller pieces, you know? And, and, and so it’s kind of maybe counterintuitive, I don’t know, to be building, you know, putting back together like you’re doing, you know what I mean?
Yeah. We, that’s not, you’re absolutely right. And that’s why we’ve kind of had a lot of success in doing that. Jason it’s, you know, occasionally you do pick up a good deal and then you got to sit here and figure out who the neighbors, how you can add to it. How do you create more value? Whether it’s putting in a conservation easement, setting it up for your, your family later down the road, you know, things like that, but it’s, you know, it’s just being patient and finding the deal. And what I’m telling people right now is just be patient, you know, if it’s the right deal, let’s jump on it and you gotta move quick. If it’s the right deal, you still have to move quick. There’s a lot more buyers out there than there are good properties.
Right. Okay. Well, I’ve got a lot of questions. Is there a big deer on this property? Quote, the tag allocation, where are we at on transferrable landowner tags? Like, that’s what I liked. Another thing about you is you get to know how, how to acquire tags and the whole tag system and you know, things like that. So where is this property that
GPS coordinate? The interesting thing about this area, I’ll tell ya. It’s, it’s, we’re so much privately very little public land that the outlining for an over-the-counter unit is actually it’s, it’s pretty phenomenal, like consistently in that’s area, 200, 3 50 plus bulls. So it was kind of, kind of lucked into it a little bit. Yeah.
Yeah. All right. Well good. How about fishing? I know you’re a fishermen. Is there a fishing on the property?
No, this was just a hunting. We got ’em, you know, we’ve got turkeys on it. We got some white tail mule deer, you know, there’s I mean, you name it. It’s it’s, it’s got pretty much everything on it. You know, for me and family and kids playing sports, it’s about three hours away. So I can zip down there and get them out on some over the counter tags and not too terrible. A draw, a mule deer tags. So it’s, it’s a good, it’s a good situation for us. And we’re out in life right now.
Okay. Well, you’ve said enough. I already know where it’s at. It’s a good zipping down three hours, Turkey, white toe. I mean, you know, why it’s really good at this too. I know he’s got some ideas, but he never says anything. That’s what I like about why he just quietly knew before I knew guaranteed.
Well, here’s the good news. I got a lot of clients who surround me. So you’ve got to get through their answers before you get to me.
All right. All right. Well, we were talking, you know, earlier, there’s not, you know, John was talking and, and of course John’s into the photos and video and the court and Josh here in our office does the same. And anyway, I think they wanted to kind of talk about documenting wildlife. I wondered like guys who have property, what tips do you have? Like sometimes you’re not even thinking about selling, but you can do some things. So 10 years down road or two years down the road, you know, when you’re, when you are ready to sell or, or you pass away and your kids take it over and they want to sell w like, what can you do to, to facilitate, you know, maybe taking some pictures or helping yourself sell your property.
You don’t for us. I tell you what I tell everybody, read, they’re going to sell your property right away. It’s going to take 12 to 18 months. There’s not a whole lot in between. I can now consistently tell you that. And one of the reasons we fall sometimes in that 12 to 18 month category is all these guys. They don’t have any true documentation of what the wildlife is on the property. So it takes us some time to get out there and be able to prove it up so we can look people in the eyes, Hey, this is what’s on this property. This is what you can expect. So there’s not misaligned expectations and conflict when they try to buy something. So if, if you’re a potential seller, I would highly recommend, you know, investing in some good trail cameras. We’d be like, quite a bit.
And then, you know, there’s other companies out there as well, you know, but for us kind of getting out there and putting those cameras out there and document the animals, not just during the season, but kind of throughout the course of the year. So then it kind of paints a picture of, Hey, this is, we’ve got a resident herd, right? Or animals are here during rifle season, but not necessarily archery, or it’s a bull factory. They’re there early and they lead or an archery. You know, we can tell this story, all these little things. That’s what really helps us sell these, these ranches. So that’s what I would say. You know, you really spend the time and effort to document the wildlife as much as you can. And then we come in and compliment with what we do.
I wonder if there’s a need for a service to come document your wildlife for you. Cause like some guys don’t know how to run cameras or don’t know what they’re looking at. A guy like me, come document your wildlife. Hey,
This
Is what was killed. This was what was killed. This is what’s left. We could increase your value of your property. Blaine would let me come, smash up. Let me smash at two Hondo light tail.
That’s the Jason, I got to tell you about a 12 agents. I’m like, there’s a lot more value in those animals being alive for us, for the next guy to come by. That is you shooting
Well, people chase dead ones, pay light when something has been killed, there is something about it, but
You’re absolutely right.
They do. So let’s see. So John did that kind of get you to where you want it to be. So it’s just putting the, kind of the, the grain of thought in people’s minds of things they should be doing. Even if they’re not thinking about selling right now, you know, that it could, could really increase the value of your property. If you’ve got that stuff, you know, for, for blind to work with when you do want to sell
And it’s using quality stuff, because here’s the thing too. Sometimes we’ll a sellers, Hey, I love this photo. And it’s like, it’s my favorite photo of the entire ranch, or check out this meal, deer elk, the quality is so low. We can’t use it right, because other websites and it’s just, so we found ways to kind of work around that a little bit. We’ll create a, we encourage people to reach out on our properties because typically we’ve got more information on them. It’s just not online. So we’ll create a Google drive folder or something like that. And we’ll put the sellers photos in there, but they do have them. And then we make these guys sign off that the animals are from the property. So anything that we sell, if it’s not located in that listing, like saying, Hey, this was shot in the area. We stand behind it’s from that property. If we get it from the seller, they signed affidavit’s will be put in writing too. This is what we documented here. So that’s one thing. A lot of people are skeptical on with real estate folks when they’re seeing animals the same on multiple listings. Right.
Well, and yeah, and you could, I mean, now with phone scope, you could, you know, turn your locations on and make sure these guys turn their locations on and they could film or take photos through a spotter. You know what I mean? And I mean, you know, date, time and exact location, we should do a podcast on locations someday, you know, but a lot of guys don’t even know that, you know, they don’t even know their phones automatically logging locations, or, you know, a lot of guys do know and turn it off or whatever. But having said all that, that could help a guy like you, but then the property owner needs to know how to find scope. So yeah, one of the other things I’ve kind of wanted to ask is just the process. Let’s say, I’m, I’m interested in starting the process with you and trying to find a property. How does that usually go and, you know, timeline? What does that take? Like what are things that you can do to make it a good process or, you know, some, some tips on that.
Yeah. We’re very much about relationships and not transactions. And again, this is our DNA, this isn’t just the kind of lip service. Most of the time when somebody calls me, they don’t really know what they’re looking for. They have an idea. So we kind of start drilling you with questions. And I tell people, I say, look, what it’s are listening to somebody else’s, we’re going to find the right, the right parcel. And I’ll start asking them, Hey, is this going to be a family ranch? Is this, you know, for you specifically, do you want to entertain that here with, with other folks? Do you have family members who don’t want to hunt? So there’s a lifestyle component to it, like be closer to a resort as we started kind of painting the picture of what they’re really looking for. I just tell them, we’ll go at their speed.
We’ll start sending some listings. What do you like? What you dislike, recreate a profile for the individuals. So you don’t lose track and start tagging these, you know, the most haves and things we don’t like. And it is a process because like I said, I’d say 80% of the time, that’s pretty solid right there. Most people buy with a, you’re not anticipating cause they don’t know what they don’t know. So it’s an education process. We just come alongside, you start to educate me. You know, a lot of people say they want to buy in Montana’s example, then we start talking about the difficulty sometimes with landowner tags. So we ended up pivoting down to Colorado or New Mexico or, you know, people ask her about Utah and you know, there’s some opportunity there, you know, with deer tags and things like that, but there’s not as much opportunity. So a lot of times people end up kind of moving in another direction. So really it’s, it’s getting to know the client, seeing what they making them think by asking them questions and then kind of catering the search based on those, those answers.
Yeah. I like it. Well, I want to go back to your property. So, so, so no, no, I want to go back to the subject. So yeah. So on your property, are you going to hunt your property or are you going to try to make it a safe Haven and grow the biggest freaking Turkey meal to your wife? I don’t know. You know what I mean? That’s a serious question. Right? Are you going to just try to shoot something that’s totally maxed out and just, you’re going to follow him name, you know, something we all love to do.
I had, I wrestled with this, Jason. I did. That’s funny. You asked that. So I’m making this a family place and I had to kind of step back a little bit. And what does that look like?
Smash and grab. You’re going to smash and grab everything.
No, but I may not be as
Well
Stringent with my kids is I thought, you know, I got four years and six years until they’re gone right out of high school. And so I’m kind of keeping that in perspective personally, you know, like my, my oldest son, I said, we’re going to be at least one 60 plus this year. Okay. You’ve killed a couple bucks. I saw him trying a little bit, you know, my youngest son, you know, he hasn’t shot anything yet, so I’m not going to deprive them of that at this point. Ultimately I would like to get there with the elk and mule deer. I think they’re going to bounce around a lot, but I’m doing some massive habitat improvement, right? I’m making this more of a legacy piece. So we’re doing, we’re going to do some thinning out, you know, some fire mitigation, which also helps kind of get some additional feed coming in. We’re doing multiple water projects out there. You know, we’ve got some dam rights. So we’re, we’re gonna do a little bit of irrigation, not a food plot, it’s normal agricultural practice, but we’re going to have some, w we’ll have some fields and things out there to kinda attract some wildlife.
Yeah.
It’s, it’s going to be a fun place. It’s beautiful too. So it’s, I’ve kind of took that into consideration. If I want to just a hunting place, that’s all it was was honey. There’s probably some other things I would look at, but for me to check a lot of boxes of getting more utility to come down there in the spring time and kind of go look for sheriff and hang out or shoot turkeys, even in the summertime, it’s a beautiful property. So I, I, I made it more of a multi-use property than specifically hunting. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, you’ll know if something has some special genetics and maybe, maybe, oh, Charlie’s off the list. You know what I mean? And not on, not on the hit list or something just cause you’re saying who knows.
Oh, for sure. You know, and it’s really a 180 plus area where we’re at. So it’s like I have two kids a couple then I’m going to, I’ll get a little more serious about management for sure.
Tell me, I just had one quick question about some of these properties. I hear like if you’ve got sage-grouse on property, like you, you got a little bit of a goldmine on some, in some respects. Is that what’s, is that a thing?
It depends on the state
Conservation easement. Gunnison, Colorado.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can put it into conservation and needs met and we don’t have affiliation with his group, but I’d tell you every, every group’s a little bit different, you know, it’s Rocky mountain elk foundation or a nature Conservancy. You guys like that people we don’t like to work with people we do that are more pro hunter. Sure. But the guys that we found that we really like, and some of their partners at Cattleman’s association, they’re very pro landowner versus just the land. Right. I, if that makes sense to try to work with you. And we’d like seeing those, if we’re going to deal with the property has got a conservation and he’s been on it. We like seeing that. And really not every state’s worth doing a conservation easement in, I’ll be perfectly honest with you. Colorado’s are the best in the country.
They changed the rules last June to where you can get potentially up to 90% of the diminished value back in the form of state tax credits that you could sell as a non-resident provide 87 cents on the dollar. A lot, a lot of people know this, including my competition. So I’ll just aired it out there a little bit. But we’ve, we’ve used that to take people who say we’re in a certain cap price category, price point. And I said, look, you know, we could expand your purchasing power by doing this conservation easement by a multiple of X. So we’ve taken him, whether it’s, you know, I’ll just say 300,000, that’s not the number, but 300,000 to 500,000 or 3 million to 5 million is more realistic. And that’s, that’s been a great tool for us and then conserving the property. And then it, if it’s done properly, guys, not to lose you and all this, but if it’s CACs agriculture at the time that you do it, it will maintain its act status and perpetuity,
No kids.
So what’s nice about that is, you know, you need to be taxed, act agriculturally to get landowner tags, but say, you really do want to maximize this for, for wildlife in some areas it’s not as having cattle on your property summit helps some. It doesn’t matter how dry it is and things like that. If you don’t want to have cattle out there and you’ve got into conservation easement and it was an act status at the time of it, you’re going to maintain your, your access and perpetuity where you don’t have to run cattle out there.
Well, all it’s all I’m hearing is that there’s, if you have the right agent, you’re going to save millions or make millions. And if you don’t, you’re not similar, similar to the right accountant, but you don’t want to go to jail. So
No,
No,
You don’t want to let Jason know where it is.
I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about the money. So Blaine talking about different states, which states do you specialize in?
So resale from New Mexico, all the way up to Montana, Utah, Idaho, we’re licensed in the Midwest, but we don’t really advertise it a whole lot. It just depends on the client. You know, we’ll go over there to do deals for, you know, Kansas, Nebraska and stuff like that, but we don’t want to be spread so thin. We really like to focus on the Western states and yeah. That’s
And I know you specialize, you know, personally in hunting, fishing type stuff, I’m guessing that’s the type of, of agents that you are hiring as well, that have the same knowledge that you do.
That’s our niche. It’s gotta be a strong hunting, fishing component to it. We won’t mess with it. Let’s just relationship every once in a while you do a deal for a relationship, right? Yeah. But it’s, yeah. Other than that, that’s all, that’s all we really want to be. We’re not trying to be all things to everyone. And once we finally kind of own that, our business flourished. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and everybody’s got the same common denominator, whether you make $50,000 a year or 50 million, everybody loves hunting and you’re kind of into it. Most, most of the good people. And I really are so fortunate to deal with the hunters and fishermen, for sure.
Well, it’s way more interesting to sell hunting property than say a, you know, a hundred Plex apartment, you know what I mean? Or whatever. So for you personally, and so where your love is, you know, you’re going to do better because you’re more into it. And you’re, you’re trying to find that next awesome property or, or 15 more properties or whatever.
Yeah, for sure.
So how do our listeners get ahold of you or, and what’s the best way to go about that? If they’re interested in talking about properties or, or getting the process started?
Yeah. I mean, you can feel free to just look it up on the website and call, call us on our 800 number or you can reach out to me directly on my cell phone. Seven oh five, nine six six oh eight, nine eight, nine. Yep. Not a diva. I’ll take phone calls.
Geez. Is that even politically correct? Nowadays? Who knows? What are your pronouns? What are your pronouns? Blaine?
I didn’t do very well in English. I didn’t know what a pronoun
Mean either.
I’m going to take university Alabama. I can’t even spell that.
All right. And it’s S J sporting properties.com.
Yes, sir. Yeah.
Right on. Hey, so do you have any special hunts you got, you’re lined up for this, this fall, other than your personal piece now?
Well, yeah, I’m trying to wrap up the super slam.
Oh, no kidding. What do you got
Sick of Blacktail deer. I’ve been sitting on this for about three years and I’m taking the family up. We’re going to go do a boat based hunt. And I got my wife and my two boys and kind of want to finish it all out together.
It seems like this is where a client came in. We talked about this last time. Didn’t somebody you knew or, or whatever, just a relationship you had up there.
Well, no, I had a client. That’s my backup. He wanted me to go with them, but I didn’t want to just go by myself, Tam. I really wanted to make it more of a family deal and just face it. You know, when you do something like this, there’s some sacrifice in it. And early on, you know, my family, I was away a lot. So there’s some sacrifice there. And I was like, I would rather finish this together than just go check a box. And he pulled back and waited three years for my kids to kind of get a little bit older so they can go with me and go up there and hunt. And hopefully we all harvest Blacktail deer and kind of commemorate the moment together.
That’s awesome. That’s pretty fun. Take some bear spray.
Yeah. Well, I’ve taken my kids.
they’re going to be between me and the bear
Coming to faster than me. We’ll see. No, no. So we got that and I’m hunting out east again. Mule deer hunt over here with, with Bruce again and you know, 20 go smash a big bull and then yeah, just taking the kids down to our ranch, kind of getting them out more.
Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, you got a lot going on. Well, right on. Sounds good. Anything else, guys that you can think of? No, I think I asked all my questions. You did? Yeah. All of them. Yeah. All of them. All right. We even got there. We don’t have
Is you know where to reach me.
Yeah. So it’s, let’s see. 9, 7 0 5 9 6 6 0 8 9 S J sporting properties.com. Blaine St. James, the best in the business. And it’s always talking dollars and cents and good investments. And I just care about what’s on the property.
We’ll show you we’ll document it.
Alright, Blaine. Well, we sure appreciate you
And our gentlemen. Good luck. This season. Look forward to seeing how you do
Wishing you the best. You bet. Appreciate
It.
Well, there you have it. That’s awesome. But it’s, there’s something. Yeah. There’s something to being an, an agent like that and knowing all the different angles he’s, he’s dealing with the financial angles, the tagging angles, all the genetics. Yeah. And you spend more than five minutes around them. You know, the dude is smart. That’s what you want. When you got someone looking for you. Geez. How do you get him on retainer? You know what I think that’s kind of what the process is. Like you, you start the conversation. Yeah. He’s on retainer looking for you. Yeah. So yeah, he’s into it. You can tell he’s into it. So super good friend of ours. Awesome guy. Don’t hesitate to reach out to him if you’re considering selling or if you’re considering buying, that seems like a seller’s market for a minute. But like he said, things are changing fast. So anyway. All right, well guys, what should we do here, Josh? It looks like you got more question and answer type stuff. Keyed up and ready.
Yeah. We’ve got a few more questions to get through. Do you guys feel like you can do some?
I know why it can. Yeah. Ready?
We’ll see. I there’s a few. We may get through them all in this one or if not, we’ll have to
Do some more. All right, well, let’s get going. Yeah. Let’s start. Start us off. Question reader, guy,
Ryan being a Rhoda says hi guys in the high country during the summer and early fall, is it possible that deer can get all the moisture they need from the morning Dew on the leaves and the vegetation rather than spring seeps creeks, et cetera. It just seems like some box live in areas, nowhere near water that time of year. And I’m wondering it for years. Love the podcast
Guys. Dang, Josh. Take take it.
I’d say yes. I mean, I know I’ve, it’s funny. I remember some deer that I’ve hunted in the past and I’m thinking, I don’t know. I wish I would have spent more time just watching them and their patterns. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out where they were watering. For some reason it was felt like it was a strong component to me to figure out where they were watering. And I felt like it actually took me away from what that deer was doing and caused me not to kill some deer because I was more worried about where’s that deer watering than
Glass.
Yeah. Then he’s been right here on this Ridge and well, where’s he going from that? Rachel? It doesn’t really matter. He’s on that Ridge every time I see him. So don’t worry where he’s going. He’s on that Ridge.
Yeah. Have you ever figured that out? Where’s it going?
No, I don’t know.
’cause he hit water twice that I know of in three weeks.
And so do you think he’s getting, do you think,
I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t care if it’s the desert either. I mean, there’s deer that are living in the desert, you know, and the pinyon Juniper or whatever this time of year, especially, I mean, mud puddles, things like that. They can walk, they can drink and, you know, while they’re feeding or I think a lot of times vegetation itself has enough moisture in it that they don’t have to go physically go to water. There’s some animals that do, you know, I think like an elk they’re big enough. Some of those, they, they tend to go to water Devin and I were talking about it the other day with some of those bulls and like Arizona and stuff. They just, sometimes they just do. But I think a deer, especially in the high country, in that they just, there is there’s enough moisture and they don’t have to necessarily go to waters to survive. So
Can imagine dev and talking about elk and Arizona.
Why would I do that? I don’t know. We were just talking about how hot it is down there and how we could be thirsty if you were an L
All right.
So we’re hoping it gets harder.
Right? It’s weird for me to think. Cause I hike into some of these places and I fill in like, I need three liters. Yeah. You know, and to think they’re living there and just don’t need as much water.
I was in the high country last weekend. And it didn’t dry out to like to write about when it started raining again, it was wet everywhere all day. Yeah. Some of those little Aspen leaves at 10 drops per inch of Aspen leaf, you know, if they’re hammering some of that stuff, they’re getting a lot of moisture just from feeding.
What do you want to chime in?
I would agree with that. I’ve been on a couple of high country. Hunts were shoot. My legs had been soaking wet or walking through that mountain cabin and stuff early in the morning.
And then I, I, you know, even there’s a, there’s a place out here in Southwest desert where there’s, there’s there’s deer in sand type country and nobody knows where they water. Like nobody knows like relatives, nobody knows. And it’s like, do they really not water? And I think there are animals that learn how to exist without watering. But having said that, I also know another guy that hits it really hard. That comes up with waters all in and around where I’m running. Camera’s on waters, just little there’s little seeps in places that aren’t on apps that aren’t known that more than you think you think. And then, and so is that going on? Is that occurring? And then I’m also dealing with, you know, sand pots, you know, sandstone and stuff. And I learned a lot. I, you know, I learned a lot from Sarge.
We tracked and tracked and tracked and we tracked him with Jeff and I and others, a combination we figured of 40 miles. And in a matter of just a few days and he took us and he took us to all the dry pawns looking for water. And he finally ended up at a sand pot, whether it was pollywogs and pollywog that’s telling me that there’s water there a lot. You know what I mean? And it was a dry year. And so while we’re going along to each dry lake bed and sand pot, you mark them because a lot of years there is water there. Right. And so he taught us a lot by tracking and, and, but he was looking for water, but then there’s other times when we swear that there’s there’s deer, that don’t water, you know, it just don’t water. And then, and then there’s other guys that are running on cameras, like up in the high country of Wyoming on water. And sometimes it’s just, maybe you get them in a high-frequency area. Maybe they’re, it’s a social thing. Right. They, they just, it just water out of ease. It’s easy. We’ll go over here and drink or whatever, but then they need it. You know what I mean?
Not all at once.
Yeah.
I think it would probably surprise you to how far some of these dear old travel for water, between water and feeding areas and such, and it would probably surprise you.
We killed a buck in Nevada. We, we had him on water, ran running truck cameras during the season and it was legal and he watered. And then we tracked him and we went clear up, clear up and it was five, five and a half miles. And we smashed him like, you know, and that was one night he watered. And before he betted, like, you know, and then, and he would only water like once every once a week. And so we’re like, Hey, he came in, we have to track him. We don’t have a choice right now. We know this track is his, you know what I mean? And so, anyway, I don’t know what that teaches anybody, but just, I guess they will, what are we saying? They don’t have to water. They do sometimes think they water out of convenience or, or baby. It’s just, you know how it’s like people, people that come from Mexico or Southern Arizona, it feels like they don’t have to water very much when they come up here. Right. But John’s meeting three liters up on the top of the mountain. You know what I mean?
That’s like that he’d never drinks water. I’ll be three bottles down. And he’s like,
But I think people climatize, I think you get used to something, you know what I mean?
And I could see where a deer once a week, once every 10, 15 days or something probably goes and has a significant, you know, when they do drink, they’re going to drink quite a bit. And then throughout the course of the next week or whatever, they’ll get whatever moisture just to kind of keep up a little bit, you know, they can get that from vegetation, but they may only have to go to an actual water to drink so many days. I’ve seen that as well.
Yeah. Yeah. And like on your desert sheep hunt in Utah, it was just surprising how many, like little mud puddles we’re drinking out of, but we’re filtering it, but know they’re just discussed, sucking off a rock.
And I feel like the bigger deer prefer little weird things like that little puddles and yeah. Bottom of canyon. You’ll see where water will run and fill. And it’ll only be there for three or four days, but it’s just crushed and they don’t have any other water.
I love finding those little secret. There’s a couple of times when I was, I was like, oh, this is fricking money.
Five days later, it’s bone dry while it was there.
Or like years later, like I’ve got a couple of waters still in my mind that were just unbelievable and had giants. And then there hasn’t been water there for 10 years. Yeah. You know what I mean? With all this drought and waters come and go and change, you know? So interesting stuff. Maybe the, the moral of the story or what the question is getting to is maybe sometimes we focus on water more than I feel like we
Should. I feel like it’s the first thing you do when you pull up on it or a little
Water, high traffic areas. To me, it’s high traffic areas. It’s like, where are they going to be social? What are they going to the high traffic areas? And then, you know, but that’s probably to a fault, like a lot, like you guys are saying these big deer don’t get seen. They don’t get cameras. And because they have, they don’t, they don’t like to hang with, you know, others, you know what I mean? They get honoring containers.
Utah deer used to get a lot of moisture from apples. So, you know,
I
Ate a lot of apples throughout the.
Why a drink so much water. He probably loves apples too. I was thinking about why, why, why drinks more water than anybody? I know he would be one of those that would drink a lot of water. He was a deer. He
Would drink on the pond,
Get him on the lake and I don’t drink any water ever. so just
Make sure the fridge runs out, you know, where he’s going to be
Straight to Maverick
And it’s an emergency to where’s the watch. There’s no white
Hot. I’ve tried to talk about this last cause they’re not good for us. And I want the young folks to not drink them as much, but there’s nothing like a twist top white twist top. You can say, Hey, if you ever known a drink, that’s good. Warm diet Cokes. Not I drink at first third and throw it away. White monster warm. Good warm. They’re good. Cold. They’re good. Everywhere.
Twist top like 32 ounces.
No, I don’t know what it is.
It’s huge.
One a day and maybe a little small white on the end. Well, you know if you’re under 25, I guess, you know, stunt
Brain development. So
Worst competition for
Us, dumb
Kids. Oh goodness. All right. So why, it’s why it’s a heavy drinker. I’m a light drinker. I’m a desert buck. Why it’s going to be on the top and the green.
I only go to specific water. It’s gotta be cool. Running
Water. I know dally only. I’m not
Drinking. No pollywog.
Why is that? Devin is not water after cattle have been there
So far. We got one question in 15 minutes, we got we’re crushing
This one’s for Wyatt.
Here’s the next question. This could also be for Wyatt. It contains a word. He doesn’t like it says what type this comes from Eric Miranda. What type of boots do each of you run and why?
Why does it like the word run?
That’s the word you’re going after? Yeah.
The other day you did mention that you don’t run.
Why would you run
The specific
Was if you see me running, there’s something desperately
You
Should run to
Mean. I would rather do the StairMaster.
There’s some scenarios, I guess he probably could run, but just for fun is not one that jumped into my mind.
I ran after a deer in Mexico and it was good. I mean, you know, but rarely do you have,
That’s a scenario when it’s okay. Probably just to wake up in the morning and jump out there on the street and just go.
I used to
Try not to get hit.
I used to do it when I was a little kid and I just felt like I was really doing something nowadays you go run a block or two, the thing it’s not worth it kudos to those of you who do,
But for boots on the earlier season hunts, I’ve been using the UA hover boot, and then kind of as the season goes on or maybe a little bit colder to get a little moisture on the ground, I switched over to Kenneth track.
Oh, okay. Like it
A little bit more heavy duty. Rigid boot. Yeah.
I’m the same. Yep.
Kind of depends on what train you’re into. Yeah. I wear kind of tricks if it’s super steep Rocky or if you’re packing weight, packet something. That’s a good point too. Yeah. I think it’s good to have several different pairs of boots. You know, something more, that’s a little even stiffer, like a mountaineering type boot. If you’re gonna be doing some steep stuff or something or packing something out and it’s got a lot of support as compared to, if you’re just cruising along, checking cameras are not in very steep country. They could say that that hover boot is really good for something like I’m really flexible on light and you can really cover some ground. Like
It’s like, it’s like early season archery and the desert. Like we do a lot. It’s, it’s hard to beat a really light boot.
That’s why I like weightless hovers and they’re super
Nice, super light.
Probably run a little bit better in one of those, then you can attract.
Who’s gonna know who’s gonna find out.
All right, Devin, he’s the fastest I’m sure.
What are we dabbing at doing the tough Mudder?
You know, with those trail running shoes, I bow hunted them. Yeah. Like they’re just so like quiet.
I like a tennis shoe.
No shoe. Yeah.
Yeah. Yep. All right. Let’s move along.
Hey, Tim Fiddler asks us with the cost of Hunt’s rising. Where or what do you see? The best value Hunt’s available.
Okay, Tim, he’s a good dude.
He sent us water. Yeah.
He sent us water. He met us at the expo super good guy. And he actually does some serious hunting. So well, Devin, do you want to jump into this?
Sure. I think anything you can draw is going to significantly help for one. I w people we send out emails and some of those are some screaming deals they really are. Yeah. And even above that, if you call up, call me, call us and we have a call list. We can call you before those hunts, even go to an email. So keep that in mind. I think a lot of guys time and can leave any day. If something happens, there’s stuff I just got. I’ve got openings today. You kind of forget
For the emails, but you don’t know if you got something specific, don’t be afraid to call in or email [email protected]. But Devin is kind of the point man, to the sons with guaranteed tags. And of course, Wyatt and I, and Josh and Adam and everybody, John help, you know, help facilitate that. But somebody’s got to compile the data and, and, and Devin’s that guy and really does a great job at keeping track of what’s available. We had that outcome come in, Devin. We’re talking about it today with three 50 plus bulls.
I have another one for dear group of four dropped out today. Third season, private land. Like there’s good stuff all the time. You just,
You just never know. And then one day we’re like, man, we don’t have anything good. And the next day it’s like, holy cow, liquid. You know what I mean? Things happen. People breaking ankles, toes, whatever
Specific thing you’re looking for and budget and size, everything. The more specific, the better, because I could say, I know exactly who’s going to want this tag or this hunt, but yeah. Going back to the value, anything you could draw, like I think toil in general, if you have a couple of points, it’s a great value. There’s some awesome hunts and big bowls.
Yeah. And I think that like, we’ve got a lot of younger listeners specifically to the podcast, but that’s, if you don’t know what we do, that’s where we can help you is you’re applying and hunting potentially in your home state. You should be gaining points even when you’re young. Even if you’re doing points only just to stack those up for, when you’re making a little bit more money, you can afford it. Well, if you don’t have the points, then it’s going to cost you thousands of dollars more to go then, then, and the only way you can get points is time. Most
Of the time it’s about devil.
Yeah. Yeah. I just can’t tell you how many times I’ve been grateful that I’ve gained a few points in whatever obscure state it is just to have the opportunity to go just to just, I have the option to say no, or yes. You know what I mean? Where otherwise you don’t or you, or to buy your way in is, is quite a price to,
And it doesn’t even take a lot like Colorado last year, when I, when I first applied for Colorado, I had no plan. I got three points, something like cut my eye. Boom, awesome. Our trio con, you just never know.
I just never know. And that’s the nice thing. If you do join our membership, you can just call us, talk to one of, one of the guys here and say, this is what I’m doing. This is what state I’m from. What else should I be doing? You know, this is my budget. I can’t really afford, you know, to buy high-end hunts right now or whatever your, your case is. And we can specifically say, okay, what about New Mexico? What are you doing here? What you should be adding at least these other three states, something like that. So I like it. Some of these hunts, you got to plan way in advance and you know, and you’re kind of you’re, I dunno if you call it a payment program or whatever you pay deposit, and then you kind of work on it and just know that it’s coming up and, and kinda offsets that, you know, 20 or $30,000 bill, if it’s brown bear or sheep or something like that, you know, and then, and then there’s other, other hunts that you just, you, you know, why you’ve had a few things on the bucket list and then, you know, it’s more of an opportunity if a great white tail comes along great, you’re in, if it’s a caribou, okay, let’s do it.
You know? And so I think guys that have an open schedule that are willing to accept something that comes along, right? That’s some, it’s an opportunity. It’s not like if I have to do caribou this year, well, you’re going to have to pay for it. You know, whatever you just book it and go. But then, but if you’re willing to wait a little bit, take, take the hunt that comes along. Yeah.
And along those lines, cancellations aren’t as common as they used to be that they’re not maybe true cancellations, but there’s discounted stuff because of the timeframe or whatever. But I wouldn’t say, wait for the perfect $10,000 Dall sheep, cause it’s probably not ever going to happen. Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think those days and prices are gone.
Yeah. Yeah. Those specific, but I mean like just, just like you’re hunting white till this year and it’s just because it, it worked out right. It was the right hunt with the right friends, the right outfit or things just kind of worked out, it seemed to work into your schedule, but it wasn’t like 20, 20 twos, your white tail year, you know what I mean? It could have been a number of things, but a muskox or whatever.
Yeah. Just kind of kept an open schedule. And so I kind kinda fell in there. I’m still, still looking for a few things. So yeah. Like where I’m trying to fill it up. Well, Colorado tag, speaking of that though, I think probably one of the best, whether it’s a value or not, they’re hard to get, but we talked about it yesterday. There was a tag that was gone off the turnback list yesterday. And it was like, Hey, that saved me three grand. And I got it for
400, you know?
So that’s something to look at, especially if you can’t afford for the land landowner tags, something like that really work these turn back lists and, and, you know, second draws, things like that to where it’s maybe not taking points and you’re either snagging a tag, that’s going to cost you 10 grand or a tag. That’s gonna take you 16 years to draw, you know, that’s a great value.
And that Liz gets refreshed each week. Right? Yeah. So, I mean, we got, Y you’re going to have an opportunity once a week for the next couple of months, something’s going to give, and there was no special, like there’s no special formula to work. There’s just turn back system. I guess we’re onto the turnback system for just a quick minute. Guys are always wondering if there’s a special formula to that. And there’s not really, it’s like we got on there and I mean, you do have to type fast. Right, right, right.
Yeah.
I mean, sometimes if you have fat fingers, something, it may, it’ll probably cost you a tag. So you want to be smooth on the keyboard,
The mayor with the system. Like, even if you’re not, if there’s something that’s on that list, it’s not, you’ve really want still go in there and look around and get a feel for how it is versus going your first time with the tag you want is there.
Yeah.
And then you may have to, you know, maybe you want to 44 third, but maybe by the end, if you just want to go home, you’re gonna have to take a 34 second, you know, and just go hunt. You know what? You may have to compromise and say, okay, that’s not my top choice, but you still get to go hunt. And that’s better than sitting home.
Y if there was a, I like the Idaho tags, the general elk tags, deer tags that came out, like there was a ton of those.
There was yeah. The last, what two runs of them. There’s been quite a few. There’s another one that goes on, I guess, tomorrow.
And it’s not hard to get them. Right. Like we, I mean, yeah. They put you in a queue, but like,
Yeah. I guess it depends on, on the queue. I guess we just kind of, they randomly assign you a number and then that’s when you get to go in and see what’s available. So there is a little bit of randomness to it, but if you’ve got a low number, you probably have a pretty good chance of getting attack.
Yeah. And so, and there was hundreds and hundreds attacks.
Yeah. There was, I think like 150, this last runner, I think there’s well over what? Two, 300. This is the last time we were looking at it. So a lot of tags
Anyway, things you can do. All right. Just, I don’t know. That’s a little off subject on the particular question. Question. Reader, guy,
Glenn landrace, one tag. Any species? Any weapon? Any state slash Providence? What would it be for each of you? Who’s going to answer for allergies, Arizona statewide tag. Maybe
There. Yeah. It’s super raffle. Why it’s going for the gold right there.
Go big.
So, all right. Well, antelope, Jason,
I just saw your wheels started. I don’t
Know.
Just kidding.
So you need a, some gov. I do need a good truck chaser, but anyway, no, I do go hit it. Have to be
Arizona strip deer rifle
For me. Right. I like it. Mine would be Montana sheep Rocky, because I just don’t know if I’m ever going to draw Rocky. I started on desert sheep in Utah. That’s a hard one. Rocky’s a hard, hard. That’s hard. yeah. What a bottleneck. Okay. All right, Josh,
I kind of along John’s lines. I, I feel like a desert sheep tag somewhere, you know, and Arizona and Nevada something, a desert. I don’t know. I feel like I really need to kill a desert sheep in my life. And I want a big one so that it probably you hit.
Okay. All right. I like it. I’m in. If you get it. I’m in Wyatt.
I went off with the Arizona statewide tag I told you I want to Colorado
Touch. I want to Colorado, the second season,
The big one off my bucket list. He, few years ago with that moose, I’m kinda thinking brown bear probably would be something I’d be really interested in right now.
Well,
Last night
I quenched that one. I haven’t even killed one. I went a couple of times. I was like, nah, that’s enough. No, well, you guys are gonna laugh. But what if I said elk? Yeah, laugh. I don’t know. I’m telling you, the elk are so good here in Utah this year. I’d probably like, you know, like right now this moment right now, I’d be taking an elk tag. I’d give back all the dude tags. I have shocking. So now they want to know which state, what unit there is season archery probably cause these bulls are being found right now. So probably do our tree and polygon. Oh God, something like that.
Anyways. So there you have it, Utah elk, Archer. I don’t know. You know, I like these big deer. I’d take a, you know, Arizona, Arizona raffle tag. Yeah. Like a 12 be late. I didn’t know those 12 be late that I killed my big deer on I D I want to do that again. I want that whole experience again. I don’t, I know, I know I’d go out there and probably wouldn’t even see a 200 and that’s the way that country goes out there. But I want to, I want that experience again. So that’d probably be my number one, but for this year, this moment in time, this day, just, you know, the elk, it’s hard. It’s hard to, we wouldn’t have predicted the elk are as good as they are. Right. Let’s just be honest right now. We’re pretty good. Yeah. As good as they’ve been in a long time. And so w Hulu has predicted that nobody. And so, you know, although it was a decent year of S w we were all, yeah, that’s going to be a good solid year. It’s as good as we’ve seen in LA many, many years. And so, Hey, I guess a little bit of an opportunity. So, you know, if it’s a great elk here, hunt elk, if it’s a great deer, you’re hunting here, but I love the big deer. Obviously. Everybody knows that. So. All right. All right. Okay. Moving on. All right. Let’s see.
Andrew Cassano asks, does epic anticipate hiring any new consultants or other employees anytime in the relatively near future,
You guys are going to quit soon. No, I’m here. Sign up. Five-year non-compete oh, goodness. I guess you never know, but anybody, if you, anybody out there has amazing programming experience, you know, we have a really good program where he’s a super good dude and one of our best friends, but you, you could have a couple of those kinds of guys. There’s just enough going on. You know, I think that we’d take an in-house guy that would do do along those lines. Don’t you think? John? Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. The digital stuff. Like we can, all, there’s always more work, always more work. And we’re always looking to expand a little bit, but, but yeah, no, I mean, you can send your resume in John and I pick on doors.com or [email protected]. But having said that we, we do have a great here and you know, one thing about a business, you don’t want to mess up the mojo.
You know what I mean? You just, it’s, there’s a unique dynamic that goes on and on in a tight knit office and especially one where you know why it’s dealing with a client and then Devin ends up dealing with the same client on a different aspect. And I may end up with them and have the line open lines of communication, where we’re all really good friends. We’re, we’re, we’re a tight knit group and we all want what’s best for the client. And it’s not, there’s no, there’s no office weirdness. Right. And so that happens in offices that, that happens at times other on the other place,
How fortunate we are, the team just gels together really well. Josh is Josh. John
And Josh went right down the dirty mind track.
Good Devin was are with me, but we’re good. Let’s keep going. I didn’t say anything.
Sometimes why it bullies us. That’s all I say.
Why, why it does bully?
I’m just kidding. It’s pretty good. Now you got me lost on where we’re at in this field. Yeah. Let us know. Okay. Let’s hear the next question. I’m
Always looking for good people. Yeah. How about that? The
Next question comes from Tanner. Stanford. Not sure what he’s talking about here. I think it’s spotting scope related. He’s asking straight or angle pros and cons.
Oh,
This rabbit hole guys, old guys, like straight young guys, like gay,
Old. Hey, I bought an angled scope. How about that?
How do you like it?
I’ve never used it. And I don’t know if I will. It’s the heartbeat. It’s it only comes in angled and it is the best scope out there. It is. It’s the best. It’s the clearest. We all tested
It all saying it’s a paperweight is what you’re saying. But
The house in the basement and my Suarez in my
Pack, do I sell it?
It’s brand new. But, but I think part of it is, you know, you kind of, whatever you raised on, right? Yeah. Kind of what you’re raised on.
I think there’s pros and cons enough to each of them. You just got to use the use one. And you’re going to have to, I guess, take some compromise with one or the other
Target acquisition with the straight I’m. I’m looking through my Bibles. You don’t have crooked vinyls, right? There’s no angle by animals other than the BTS. Definitely
A pro for
Them. Yeah. So you have target acquisition. And how many times you have three seconds to look at an ad five seconds, but having said it with angled, you’re closer to the ground. If you’re on a tripod, you don’t have the wind movement. Things like that was straight on a window Mount you’re you’re in a better spot. Generally speaking angles a little bit tougher. Yeah. So
I think just by a longer tripod anyway, taller tripod,
The tripod and then yeah. Good point, John. And then, you know, but, but there’s th there’s, you know, it’s nice that the neck fatigue and things like that, that, you know, people, people tend to like the angled for, for things like that.
I’m sitting on something for hours sometimes all day, you know, stop for me to just come through that. Your head’s more in a downward position. Yeah. I feel like I don’t find myself adjusting my tripod as much with an angled spotting scope. What you do is straight.
So what’s your personal, what do you use?
I use angled.
You do? Yup. Okay. Josh,
I ain’t gold. I actually have a little teeny. You guys have seen that little teeny straight spotting scope. I carry it in the car with me everyday. I’ll go over the mountain. And it goes in my truck
Car. It’s good gas mileage
Car. It’s like an 11 to 33 by 50 or whatever, but it works great for just throw it on the window really quick. Even hump, even angled. I
Have no
It’s straight. It’s straight, but I strictly use it just out of the truck or the car or whatever.
And then you have to
Have angled when
You’re by
Both ways full
Face. Okay. You go both ways, John I’m straight man, all the way through it’s straight and angled. You are. I didn’t know that. Okay. Well, I’m, I’m been straight for years and years. I am going to use a scope that was the other day I was looking at an animal and I was wishing I had the most clearest scope. Money could buy
What you have,
Which is the hardest, but it was in the basement. The other thing is doesn’t fit my pack. Very good. Like the, you got the long side pockets that are straight they’re made for straight. Right? I’ve got two and they just fit so well the straight streets, do you know what? We did have a guy that’s a well-known guide cheap guide that called me and he bought the swirl S T a R ATS angled, but the old version. And it’s the, the, it’s an inexpensive considering swirl inexpensive version because it’s the 65. Cause it’s lightweight and the small shedding, the weight, you know what I mean? And, and I know Adam’s got one and keeps it because of that reason. It’s just great for sheep hunting. Just lightweight, still, still great glass. It’s just maybe not the best, but it’s, but it’s great for backpacking. And the weight shedding weight is more of a value at a certain point.
The optics are good enough. You’d rather have less weight in your pack. You know what I mean? So I don’t know why we’re on this subject. I guess I just thought that was interesting. We haven’t generally we’re selling the modular system cause it’s state-of-the-art glass, but sometimes weight comes in into play and good enough is good enough. Right. So, all right. I guess with that, we just start to mentioned, we’ve got some great inventory that we, we kind of NL twelves doctor on the shelf, just for the hunts you call first can ship it today. The first time ever
In how long? When two years. Three.
Yeah. To, to, to some, yeah. Right.
I’ve never seen one on the shelf. It’s just
Hasn’t happened yet. I’m going to say they hit the end of the way to say it, but we’ve had hundreds and hundreds on back-order like, it just is.
Yeah, we’ve sold. So
I’m just saying the NL twelves are next level. You have to have a pair if you don’t or in Elton’s we actually have one pair, a lightly used, you know, 10 by 32, the actual 32. So a little bit smaller objective that we would, we all, we always make screaming deals. Right. But, but anyway, having said that there is a, there is a demo model. And by the way, we have a few of those Devin don’t we have a few, a few little vendor models hanging around rifle, scopes and things.
Would we say they were lightly fondled?
Yeah. Was trying to make it appealing. I don’t know. Funnel.
They have a seal on the box once you cut it. Yeah. Sometimes we peek at it and look through the look at the radical. And then we put it back.
Nothing’s heavily used here.
Never been on a rhino.
Never. We used
A couple of vortex rifle, scopes, a couple’s eyes,
The XY stuff. I’m telling you this, stuff’s hard to get some of this stuff was on back order from last September. And we’re just now getting it in. So don’t, don’t mess around. It’s not you can’t in this day and age. I mean, trucks are the same way and I, can you get me on a whole nother tangent, but this is not the day and age of they make them every day, go buy you one. You know what I mean? Sometimes it’s like, what can you find? You know, what can you find? And so if you, you know, you’re going to need something in a month or two, you might ought to call us and snack something or visit with us on what we’ve got on coming in. So we mentioned this a before, but Adam was going on a sheep hunt, needed a camera and gave his old camera away to his daughter. And then he’s like, Hey, which camera should I get? Well, I’m like, dude, there’s nothing available. He ended up paying double for.
So pride made in 2004, right? The camera he wants and likes
2021. Wow. No 35 millimeter. No, it was, it was a 22 digital camera, but just a point and shoot that’s tiny. Like sometimes
that’s basically what Adam’s camera
Is. The Diaz 4k could, could use. They actually take great photos. You could do that. Set it up. Do a time. I right. Throw a truck camera in your pack at all times. Hey, it’s illegal here in Utah. Yeah. It’s not I don’t have to have a selfie stick. I don’t have to add nothing. I got this truck camera. It takes great video
Too. And an old cabbage, hard to get.
Now you can even set it up and then do the whole, you know, taking a little video clips and pictures of, you know, breaking down the animal or whatever. Right. Do a time-lapse you could, and that would actually does it. I want to see the photos
Hunting related activity though.
Oh, here we go. he likes, he likes to talk like he doesn’t like officers, but he, he is one time. I think the mole in the office, we got the gaming side, which is their sidewalk. You’re an eyes side.
Speaking of, I saw a game warden this weekend Panguitch lake had his red and blues on with the truck pulled over on the beach,
On the beach.
I don’t know what was going on over there.
Walkers. There was
A least, probably a 19 inch cutthroat in his possession.
It was serious. Does the officer know you can to pull now? Geez. Leave the guy alone. I’m the only one that doesn’t know what red and blues are. Oh, the lights I was thinking, you know, I don’t swim trunks. There’s no, John, John wants to go swimming. All this talk of water. You are a two or three liter guy. All right, keep it going. Question rider guy.
The next question. Austin roar asks when hunting a new unit, specifically Western Wyoming. Apparently he may or may not have a tag there. I’m assuming how would you narrow down scouting locations? If the area is large and you, and you won’t have time to scout at all, what do you look for on maps, et cetera? This will be an early September hunt that goes into October
Wyatt. Start us off.
It’s probably the first thing I look for. Glassing points. You don’t see cover a lot of country from the top of a mountain or the top of a hill where you can spend three sixties and get a lay of the land. And then eventually you’re going to look into feeding areas probably.
Okay. I like it. I look for access cause I’m lazy, but okay, John, I don’t know about lazy. I think it’s, if you can find good access, you’re making good use of time, right? Yeah. Right. I’m just joking. But yeah, that’s a big deal for me. If you can’t get into an area, you know, first thing Josh is doing, I’m going to guess. It’s looking at the e-bike regulation. Seeing how much the bondage is allowed on the trails. Is this a seven 50 water higher? Or
I got to go on eco or sport mode.
What else? Anybody? How do you narrow it down?
I would say along with what these guys said, have an idea for the scale. Sometimes you go somewhere in real life and you’re like, whoa, you know
What I mean? Like,
Yeah. I thought this was going to be an hour hike and I’m not even a fourth of the way there, like have an idea of measure that those things look at 3d imagery or whatever, to have an idea of scale. So you’re not wasting time.
Okay. I like it.
I’d say if you have some kind of an app, see if there’s any wildlife layers on it, first of all, our vegetation type of layers, things like that. If there’s any kind of feed that they’re going to particularly like or hitting a tricky time about that kind of year, a lot of times deer could be stripped and velvet. And a lot of times you’ll see deer strip right there and September, October, and a little bit of a movement too. So just be ready for that. You could, you know, be catching deer, moving vice versa, you know, just don’t think y’all are going to go in there glass. And every morning seeing the same things, you could see different stuff every day.
So I like to, you know, we have that member experience program, you know, where we would send guys a list of members who’ve hunted there in the past. And that’s great if you get your maps and you call these guys and you’re, you’re, you’re able to write fast guys will spew a few areas. They found that, you know, good animals and whatnot. It, depending on the season that they hunted and, and like you guys say the migrations, it may, there’s some areas that I find sheds and they, and, and the same buck in the velvet within a mile. Right? And so they may not migrate much or they may read a little bit and they might travel a little bit during the rut. But other than that, they don’t move a ton. And then there’s some areas you’re going to find, you’re going to have migration.
You’re going to have to deal with that. And Onyx does a good job of showing those corridors in certain areas. And some areas, you just know it, you know, there’s Nevada units, we’ve all haunted them where we know there’s a movement from a north to south or whatever, down in entire mountain range. And when do they start showing up? And it used to be like, for example, you know, over here in 22 to 21 to 23, like for deer, the magic day for us was like October 28th. That’s when all of a sudden it felt like overnight, there was a difference. The winter range was loading up with in the rutting activity and things like that. Everything was kind of getting keyed up until prior to that there in the middle or wandering around or just in a summer pattern, but are smart, right? Hard horned, early October, smart, thick trees.
And, and so that may make a difference on, on where you hunt within units or a cluster of units, you know, obviously burns and things. I was thinking about this for a particular tag I have. And I’m actually thinking like, I know where there’s big deer on the winter range and I’m not hunting the winter range. And so where do those big deer come from? And that’s where maybe the migration patterns I’m actually going to go reverse the migration and hunt the summer range where the, where the start of that arrow was, you know what I mean? Like, and I’m going to ignore some other mountain ranges because there’s not as many big deer that winter off those other mountain ranges. And I’m thinking there’s something to do with either the feet of the genetics on those mountain ranges versus this other mountain rights. Right.
Just something in the back of my mind. And I’m probably overthinking it. Like there’s not a perfect migration corridor. They, they come from all corners of the earth at times. Right. But, but it’s kind of in the back of my mind, you know, and then like the water’s like, you know, Onyx, you guys were shot. I there’s layers on Onyx. I don’t even know exist. Right. And you guys, we, we were looking at all those little Springs, like we were having to bring in data from other GIS files to overlay Springs. Now these little blue dots, droplets are showing up every
Area so far
Some areas, right. Which is helpful. Right? Some like we all talk about water, why it especially wants to know where the lakes are, but, but there’s, those are, those are helpful. Those are, those are some helpful tips, you know? And then also we’ve got these layers of, of state wildlife management areas and there’s books on are these open to hunting or not open hunting. And so anyway, there’s, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of angles. I think, Y you look kudos to why I want to say out loud, why it’s taught me quite a bit about Onyx. Why has Onyx open all day long? And I think it teaches you a lot and we’re going from layer to layer from all the different aspects of it goes there, layers or whatever. And then also the top, oh. Versus the satellite imagery or whatever. And I feel like knowing it’s one thing to say, you have Onyx, but it’s another thing to know how to use Onyx. You know what I mean? And I just feel like Devon, you’re the same, Josh, you know how to use it very well. We’re all, but you know why? And I are on the non-gaming side. I
Don’t know how I’m on the game. He said, I
Don’t either, but I used to be on the gaming side. But, but anyway, and so I, I dunno, I just see, you know, why, and I, you know, it just because our offices are separated a little bit, maybe we converse a little bit more, but I just feel like you’re pretty good at using Onyx. And I think why don’t you even put a guide, help take an antelope clients? Not, not necessarily our guys, but on where to start. And they smashed bucks. I’m just saying, and all you did was look it on it.
Yeah. There’s a lot you can learn on Onyx. If you spend the time and just kind of do around with all the different settings and different filter, I guess they filtered layers is what they’re calling on their different layers, different levels. And you can learn a lot. A lot of times when I’m consulting guys I’m on, on X, you know, look looking at stuff, refreshing my memory of, of units I’ve been to in the past, or we’re just different, different areas to, to kind of look or maybe check.
Yeah. Very helpful. And it doesn’t matter if it’s Alaska. I mean, it doesn’t matter where, where, where it’s at. You’re, you’re looking at it and you can,
You use different mapping systems to cause some will be more updated. Like if you look at Google earth, in some areas, it looks like it was taken yesterday. You could see different roads, new roads compared to an old map. Like I would overlay different maps. I always do that.
Yeah. I’m still a paper map guy. I freaking love paper. Right. Does anybody know? Does anybody have a guess at how many paper maps I have. I mean,
Cabinets full I’ve seen them. Maybe that could be a hunt giveaway, giveaway, optics, giveaway. How many paper maps does Jason have? Some of those it’s gold
Pick one. It’s got some notes on some
Of those. Yes. I’ve kept it. It’s like when I was a kid, didn’t have a GPS and I just get lost. It’s just how you learn.
I’d like to think they’d be a valuable part of the estate when I’m gone. I don’t know your kids a Burnham. They would too. It wouldn’t give to crap. And they don’t realize like I’ve lived and died by those like fed the family with those. You know what I mean? Like emotionally attached to those things. That means we’re old.
When they’re cleaning out your basement, they’re going to be asked again. Why does dad keep these?
You couldn’t even wipe your boat with these. This is hard paints, waterproof, waterproof. This is terrible. Yeah. Oh, he probably wanted to reuse them. So anyway, I do both. I have the Onyx and it doesn’t matter what mapping software, there’s other softwares that are, there’s actually other softwares that have some pretty cool, you know, ingenious ideas on, on, you know, hunting groups and parties and sharing way points and things like that. You know, sharing a hunt co quota hunt or whatever. There’s a lot of, lot of pretty cool stuff out there. Digital digital helps. And so
Devin said to, you know, you go out there, there’s a few different hap options in the mappings, different arms. Some of them, their maps are updated a little bit different and things, especially if they’re doing habitat treatments or something, he grew as a man on one. It changes where you show up and it’s burnt out here, bath. It looks green and lush. So yeah, it can work.
Guy gets very frustrated when that happens. The way I saw it as
If it’s moonscape.
Yeah. That’s a problem. The wildfire fire is amazing. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And then how about, how about the current conditions you guys show me? I’m like what?
Yeah. He’s always wondering how we know when the storm is going to,
And I’m looking at, I’m looking at a current radar, right? Just Google, current radar and click on one of them. And you can see some radar activity. These guys are going into like Onyx and doing current conditions and it overlays the radar on Onyx units. Right. Of what’s currently getting rain right now. Like, I’m like, what, what what’s next?
Devin’s going to be using that next week when he goes to particular state and they’re getting hit us instead of precipitation at monitors, like the herds of crickets. So he could stay ahead of those. Oh, get in your boot, put it on the waves. Waves. Yeah. There’s some problems with crickets around the country. Yeah. I don’t know.
We should have an epic version of, you know, custom maps with Onyx, make a deal with Onyx and do the epic version. We go on and add some way points and do some little custom something or other
Private file on there.
That’d be cool. Right. You know what happens? People think, yeah. He’d never put the real good stuff on here. So we’re going to go to the exact opposite of all these way points,
But you’re more than welcome to share with ours with us.
I just tell people the truth. They never believe you anyway. Right. It’s
True.
Why Y it lives and dies by that. All right. Okay. I think to round out that question, y’all know, I love to pump our service. So if you, if you have a tag that’s worth driving out of state for, you’d be crazy to not spend the $150 to become a member, to talk to one of us about that specific unit and get the member experience list of that. I’ve got so much awesome information. I went on a, on a hunt a couple of years ago in New Mexico elk hunt. And there were two or three guys that shared unbelievable amounts of information with me. I’m talking and kill photos with locations, type thing on purpose. And just telling me which tanks to put cameras at. And so how do we extract that out of you pay you $150 Damian, 150 bucks just become a member and you call and say, I’ve got a tag in New Mexico. Pretty good. The people. Why, why would I always make Wyatt throw up in his mouth a little bit? He can’t believe how much I share. Oh,
I called you out a time or two for I’ve never been
Super nice. I am super nice. You get me on the right day. I’ll give you everything. I may even jump in the truck.
One thing to go along with what John said, we actually had a member that sent us a message today. Actually we say, next time you talk on the podcast, it goes back to the member experience stuff, as well as just us. But he was saying, you know, I I’ve helped out 20 different guys over the years, people call in and about some special tags. It’s not just a general season tag or whatever special tag and says, you know, I’ve only ever heard from like one or two of those guys. I think that’s something too. If you ever talked to somebody like that, you know, maybe jot down a name, jot down a number, keep that and touch base with them. Because he said at sometimes I don’t feel like giving out quite as much anymore. Cause guys are just like, ungratefully taking it. You know? So be grateful for the information that you get and, and help give some feedback or let it go,
Call him back and say, Hey, I appreciate you. And by the way, this is how we did and give them some more. Right, right. To add onto what you told me. You might also think about this area. If you ever hunted again, because I found this and this and this, like, people appreciate that. Yeah.
Or you could update his information. Like Devin said, Hey, jeez, we went there, but it’s burned down no way. There was a such and such there. And now it’s burnt. So maybe your information you’re giving out, it’s not quite as relevant anymore because something’s drastically changed since you wanted it lasts. So that guy, you know, Dan, Ryan, I appreciate that message. And he just wanted to kind of share that, that be grateful for the information that you receive from other guys and give some info.
That’s more frustrating than giving them the farm and having them take every chicken and never text. And I already call you back. And how to me, I
Asked guys that all the time, good or bad. I want to hear about it. I want
To hear back.
And I mean, it
Said
It on the podcast before, but like, we really mean it.
Yeah. I want to hear about every 200 inch or you saw, all right, keep going, question me, your guy.
All right. Dylan or Ehrlich. I think he’s all that said, says I’m young, but clearly want to play sheep where I can, am I spinning my wheels? Buying points this late in the game? If not, which state should I be applying for? Say when it comes to sheep, just a points. Only applications, not a, not a way to go. Always want to have your name in the hat. Yep. Just starting out. And you’re gonna be a long time before you are, you know, max point situation. Or if ever you will, can draw a tag using, using your points, but basically the best strategy, in my opinion, to draw sheep tags, having your name in as many hats as possible.
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So we’re doing, I mean, if you’re just starting out, I mean, you know, we’d be doing Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Montana. We drew in Oregon, New Mexico, New Mexico. You gotta front the fees. I mean, there’s a little bit of, you know, each one of them you’ve kind of got to weigh it out. Is it worth it? And if you’re applying for multiple species in Nevada yeah. It’s worth it. The odds are long. If you’re applying for multiple species in Utah. Yeah. It’s worth it. But the odds are tough. So anyway, but having said that somebody draws, we usually talk to these people. We, we know the system works. We’re talking to happy tag holders all the time. And so anyway, you’ve got to just play. It it’s been awhile. Well, no, I guess I drew a Arizona sheep tag here just a couple of years ago.
But I mean, at times we’ll go through a dry spell in and you know, we’re playing the games too. We didn’t, I didn’t have max points down there, but I did have a chunk 22 points. And so, you know, I had a number of names in the hat, but then Oregon didn’t have any, any point system at all for sheep and Adam and I both drawn there. And, and so, you know, random tags do come and they do happen and people beat the odds and you just gotta be in the, you got you’re young, but you gotta be, you gotta have your name in the hat. Like why it was saying, we know we all have guys in our service that are doing points only for sheep, you know? And if you absolutely can’t go for a hundred percent, you cannot go then find do that.
But if you would take a tag, oh, I’d take a sheep tag and make it happen. If I, if I absolutely had that opportunity, then you should be having your name in the hat. And generally speaking, it’s the same cost with the exception, like New Mexico, there’s no point system. So if you couldn’t go, you wouldn’t apply. But, but having said that, like, have you have your name in a hat? Well, you know, have your name in the hat. You just never know when that opportunity is going to come around. And when you’re talking about 20 to 30 year, you know, process of getting one of these tags, don’t sit out like, don’t, don’t say, oh, well, I’m not going to do it because it’s not worth it. I’m behind the game. Well guys, older than you were dying all the time, you know, you’re going to be at the top sometime. And you’re talking, it’s a long time. So don’t wait any more. If you can afford it, get your points. If you can’t afford it. Don’t but yeah, if you can afford it, don’t say, well, I’m just behind. Yup. That’s right. Alright. Apply, apply, apply. Y’all.
This question is going to lead right into it. I guess basically a similar thing, but does ask for some specifics, Garrett Loughlin here says, how do boys for the upcoming question, answer episode, I was thinking it might be, might be helpful to answer questions for hunters like me who are only just starting to apply and have zero to one points in different states. Think y’all covered some of this in a previous podcast, but it might be helpful to touch on this episode as well. Also on the opposite end, what would you recommend for hunters? Like my dad and his buddy who have 20 plus points built up in Colorado for deer he’s in his sixties now. And I’d love to see him and his buddy land a great hunt before they get too old to go out to the mountains. Thanks, Garrett and Texas.
Okay. Well, Devin, I want, I’m going to put you on the spot. What was your comment about Colorado and zero points the other day?
Oh, I said I’m not, I don’t. I said I’m not going to do any more zero point units
Ever.
I don’t plan on
It, but boom. And then what’s your theory behind it,
But probably have no more than five or six going forward, zero to five or six,
Zero to five or six because there’s landowner tag opportunities. There’s turnback tag opportunities there. Second draws. If you apply as a second choice, you’ll still gain a point are still hunting, but like Jana, she had over 20 points still didn’t kill a buck. We could have been hunting her every five years, every three years guarantee she would have smashed a book and maybe a giant, maybe a giant, right? We’ve all hunted. Why you and I have hunted some amazing hunts together.
Yes we have. And we’ll point draws
That why it wouldn’t let me ever forget
Burned all his points.
I convinced him, grandpa Jason come out one night and talk sense into him. And we ended up drawing some useless tag.
We had a good time looking at a lot of little deer.
Hey, I’m a positive. The problem with me, I’m a positive.
There could have been a big deer around any bag. There
Was probably, we just didn’t
See it. It just didn’t hit the right band at the right time.
But having said all that, I am a positive thinker and I get it. I get excited over the stupidest stuff. And then pretty soon y’all are excited and then we do something dumb, but
Happens to the best of us.
But anyway, so I think part of this is, it just depends on the zero to one point. So there’s, there’s, there’s there’s plans, right? If you’re wanting to hunt region G in Wyoming or region age, maybe that’s happening in one once every eight to 10 years or, or six, you know, five to 10 years, depending on the particular region and special irregular price licenses. And then, so you’ve got a basic plan and Wyoming, and then you’ve got to supplement that with a Colorado plan. And then maybe we’re doing like right now you can get an, you can get a general tag in Idaho, one of these turnbacks or even get one December 1st. And I always get one of those and I have one right now. And, and so there’s things right? There’s things that, that, that you do. And so the zero to one point, you know, it’s just starting to apply and I have zero to one point, but, but there’s things you do while there’s some states that make sense to go for the gold, right.
Go for the golden Arizona, but hunt Colorado often hunt Idaho general often, you know, quench your thirst on some of these other easier, you know, tag tags that come around that are a little more plentiful, more opportunity to get a tag and then hold, hold for, you know, say Nevada. I mean, we’re constantly looking at the first come first serve. It’s not easy to get a tag, but we’ve all gotten the tag in the past. And so I’m just saying there’s there’s opportunities, but you gotta get a plan. And I think that’s what we’re good at is having a short-term mid-term long-term plan. And, you know, Garrett doesn’t just need a short term plan. He needs a short-term mid-term long-term. These are my learn long-term strategy. This is my midterm strategy. And then this is what I’m going to do pretty regular until I get to where I have enough points to do some of these other things. What do y’all say?
That’s exactly how I look at it when I’m consulting or even my own goals. There are short-term mid-term long-term keep guys hunting while you’re waiting for some of these phenomenal states to hunt are phenomenal states to draw your Arizona, Utah, Nevada states, states like that, where you could get lucky and there’s random tags there too. So when we keep your name in the hat and you could could draw, there was zero to 1.2. So,
Yup. Yup. We saw, we’re not afraid to supplement our, our draws with landlord texts. We’ve all bought them. Right. You know, so if the landowner tech comes up and it makes sense why or a Nevada, you can kill multiple theories. It’s not like you can just draw a tag and you’re done or buy one landowner tag and you’re done. You can draw tag biotech, whatever by five tags, if you want. So it’s kind of a crazy state that way who knows New Mexico is looking like it’ll have a decent year for, for deer. You know, if a guy can draw tag down there, it’s hard to force that draw. And there’s no real, you know, good landowner deer tech system down there. And so although the elk is good, good opportunities there. So anyway, great, great opportunities. And then there’s a lot of different, there’s a lot of different options, a lot of different states and each state would, and the system kind of dictates the plan to those similar to Splain St. James, what he’s talking about. He knows the finance and he knows the line or tag. And, you know, he knows every aspect of buying a piece of property. We know every aspect of making a plan. You got to the states, every state has it, a little bit different system and nuances and turn backs and other opportunities and then landowner tags or whatever. And then some states are just flat tough to draw and have giants. And so that might play into your plans. So what else are we,
Oh, just looking at the second part of his question. What would we would recommend for hunters? Like my dad and his buddy who have 20 plus, I feel like a hear about these situations off of
Well it’s cause they stress, you know, I’ve got 20 years. Well, you know, the way I looked at some of that stuff is I have 20 years in those 20 years. I didn’t just, I, I blindly put in for those, right. Like I didn’t think about it. You did it. Just do, just do it, but you didn’t, if that was the only thing I was doing. And I think about that point every single year, heaven forbid that guy’s going to have a bad hump because he’s just right. Because that’s the way the stars align. It’s so tough.
They teach you when you’re like investing in the stock market, they say don’t become emotionally attached to one thing. And I feel like in the hunting a guy, I’ll say, okay, this is the unit I want. And it’s like, man, you’re not going to catch it. You’re going to, you could chase it forever. And you’re not going to catch it
By the way
That has he’s. So emotionally I’m going to hunt there.
And maybe that unit kind of came and went with quality exam.
Exactly, exactly. And it happens. It does. Oh, you can’t, you got to kind of have an open mind. That’s what I tell guys. If you, if you go for an 18 point unit, go do it.
Well, I think the biggest, the biggest thing for, for guys like that is they’re just, they’re trying to make the most value out of that 20 points. If you have an exact 20 points, they’re applying for units that take 20 or 21, and then they don’t account for point creep and they don’t understand why they didn’t get drawn. And I haven’t been able to draw for three years and I tell a guy, I had a guy slide this out and I’m like, you tell me, you want to go this year. You let me pick the unit and the season and I will get you attack.
Exactly.
But they’re too scared to get attack. Don’t be scared to get attack. Don’t be scared to get attack, get it over with and go hunt a couple more times before it’s over. You know what I mean?
I know just last night I was talking to a guy that had done this, saved a lot of points, you know, and then went and hunted a unit last year. And he had a great Honda in the end. But you know, he basically said, my points, your points don’t owe you anything, you know, they don’t owe you anything. And so you still have to go hunt. And he said, I wish I would have went and hunted two or three times with those two over the last 20 something years than I did in once, because I’ve actually killed better bucks on lesser units than I did on my 2020 plus unit. And so I think that’s just it. And that’s easy for me to say, I don’t have 20 points in Colorado. So it’s easier probably for me to say, but I guess that’s my thing.
Just your points. Don’t know you, anything, take your dad, pick a unit. There’s a lot of great units where you can go over there and have not a lot of guys hunting there with you and not a lot of competition, but great deer numbers and the potential. The saying, when you come around the corner for anything, you never know, just go take your dad and go have a great hunt and be with him, make a memory, whatever happens on as far as what you kills, what you kill, but just go have a great aunt that way.
I like it. You’re afraid of losing 20 points and not having a quality experience. Maybe that’s when you say, Hey, call Devin. See if we got an outfitter that can help you make the most of it. And instead of being disappointed that you wasted 20 points. And even if you’re, you know, you don’t typically go outfit it or something like that, you can pay for some access or, you know, make the most out of that. Just go out on a limb, you gotta get it over with you gotta go out on a limb. That’s what I say. You know, of course I do a lot of that night, a lot of texts, so whatever, but I’m not scared to fail and you gotta be scared to fail off set at a hundred times, you got to, don’t be scared to fail. It’s okay. You know, failing, isn’t really failing.
It’s just go out on a limb, try try it. It is good to have a, and it do, you know, apply, apply with, you know, make an educated decision on where you apply. And that’s where we come in to help you in where we’ve got your best interests in mind. We want you to succeed. We want, you know, if we have happy clients, we’re succeeding to here at epic outdoors. And so we’re going to give you the best knowledge and, and the best, you know, help you make the best educated decision possible. And this is we, we live for this stuff and we’re, we’re dealing with it every single day professionally. And so, you know, run a bias and, and then make your choice after, after we talk and maybe don’t do it. Why it didn’t follow my, every, every word of advice, word of advice.
Cause sometimes I just, I don’t know. I don’t have good advice. Usually could have been in the best out of my life though, too. He said it. He said, you don’t know if you’re not there. Yep. Okay. Are we, are we done with this? I think we’re done for now. We’ve got a few more, but I think we’ll save them for another one where we’re hitting an hour and 45 minutes. So let’s talk so much, but let’s throw out a thank you out to a few of our sponsors. We like to think triple S Polaris here in Cedar city that will service and, and sell you a machine, ship it to you anywhere in the lower 48. And so they really know what they’re talking about. Contact them at 4 3, 5 8, 6 5 0 100. And just they’ll take care of you. We, we talked to Colton on the last podcast or a couple ago and, and you can tell they they’re into customizing these machines and getting you something.
What is triple a stent for? Yeah, shoot. shut up. I’m wondering if there’s a little what else does it mean? I’m not going to say going be bad to me. That’s in this podcast so I can figure this out. What else we got John, we’ve got vortex and we also sell vortex. So if you’re looking for re value where we can get you a lot of glass for it for a good deal, give us a call on some vortex. We got some great stock on vortex right now. So give us a call on them. We’d also like to think a phone scope and pyro putty. We’ve worked with them for a lot, a lot. A lot of years, they’ve been a great supporter of epic outdoors. And so go check them out. Phone scope.com and their pirate buddy stuff is on that website as well. So if, if you don’t have an adapter for your phone already, where you can get it hooked up to your, your a spotting scope, you’re missing out just you can get awesome. Awesome footage. I think one of the new things too, this year, they’ve got GoPro attachments and, and everything. So pretty awesome. The love it. Yeah. Yep. And another one is a fierce rifles. It’s a big sponsor of the, of the podcast in epic outdoors. Devin, maybe give a little spill on this.
Yeah. We take it away, buddy.
Call those guys one of these days on a puck
Should,
But no, they, one thing they’re doing now since, since a couple years ago, they’re bringing everything in house and we actually went there and saw the new building next to the new building. I mean, it’s crazy. They they’re, they’re doing a lot of cool stuff. It was very impressive, but I shoot him. I’ve shot them a long time. They do what they’re supposed to. My brother just got one. We’ve actually been pretty impressed with their turnaround times. Definitely. Yeah.
Why had even pulled the trigger? That was a miracle in and of itself.
It’s getting another
One. You get Wyatt to drop, drop the hammer on a tag or a big purchase. You’ve done something, huh? Yes.
Carly didn’t even have a few bills from
His own bills.
Maybe he took them
To those, your bills or her bills.
They were my bills. They were in the guest under the guest bedroom mattress.
Josh is brutal. Nobody’s asking him his opinion. You don’t have to take
No money under my mattress. I don’t need anybody in my house. Even if you try, you won’t make it up the driveway. Cause if a kid rides his bike by freaking chuckers back again,
Have chuckers
Chucker at my house
In a subdivision. And they’re on your rooftops.
I just got a picture of this morning. Not even the church.
The FedEx man. Hadn’t made it from the sidewalk to his house and he’s like, you showed me. That’s why it’s anything. But what are you doing to my house? Why are you talking to me? He’s like, I’ve got a package, man. Turn around. Okay. Lift up your shirt. Okay. Drop it on the porch. Nobody’s getting in Wyatt
Town. It’s
FedEx. It’s not that bad.
I was supposed to pack weapons on the FedEx truck. Aren’t they? No, no,
No. Do you know these rules?
And I just don’t think you’re supposed
To, but how do they deliver a gun to your house?
Well, I mean, it’s on their person loaded, strapped.
I think if I was a male, man, I’d want to be strapped. I’d have it with a hammer on it because the dog
Take this woke environment they’re done. I knew that. Did you guys see the video of the 80 year old
Liquor store guy who
Shot the burglars? Yes. Shotgun only. I wish he would have, Hey, we could hook him up before buck and he’d do some damage
To
Petty. When that guy wouldn’t be going to the last day, what was he shoot? I’d like to know the load he was shooting because that guy’s arm could have been off.
We went from fierce firearms to
Shoot executive while the guy was about it. And then did you hear he had a heart attack? I had our taxis recovering in the hands of the old man that shot him afterward had a heart so much.
Adrenaline is too much
Awesome. Oh, there’s video in California? No, no. Was it in California? I didn’t know. Sure. I thought it was Texas
Aimed more towards the center
Next. I think it was Texas. Yay. So if you want to go check out the fifth fierce firearms lineup, they also sell shotguns. But go ahead. They do arms.com or call 4 3 5 4 2 4 6 2 0 0 4 0. Shouldn’t have me reading that. I’m always like dyslexic with the numbers. Oh, don’t admit fault, John. You’re perfect at everything you do. Don’t let these young guys have anything on here. Oh, and then one last shout out today. The stealth cam stealth cam.com. And I, I spent the weekend picking up my cameras and what’s left of them. What’s left of them. Yeah. And so if you want any models for next year, we got flooded stock because everybody had to go pick them up. Yup. The stills cam slow sales are a little bit slow with Nevada’s Utah’s new rule in Arizona can’t even run them. Yup. That’s kind of crazy. Isn’t it?
If you want to buy one to put one in your pack for some trophy shots, listen.
No, I can.
It’d probably be easier to use in one of those old cameras Adam uses. Sometimes
You could even do a cell cam and get it to your phone and instantaneous upload, send it out, throw it up on the ground. These are good ideas. I was trying to teach Adam how to have an apple watch and trigger your phone from the apple watch. But I don’t, I don’t think he took it. No, that was a
Cause here’s you still have to like slash ready, literally developed in three to five days, he comes the office of it’s on this brick camera. He’s like, there’s my buck, you know, through it.
Hey, I made, I made the cover of Eastman’s one year on with a 35 millimeter. How about that? Awesome. They work. They work. I wonder, do they even sell 35 millimeter
Still don’t use
A right bashing. Let’s thank our listeners. It’s been amazing. These question and answer podcasts have been really popular. Yeah, we got the stats have been, well, this is why I think so we get through five questions right in an hour. And I think that’s the way we do our consultant. We’re so thorough. We want to answer the question to its fullest and vet every angle out. And I feel like that’s what we do with guys hunting schedules, their plans. We, we treat it as if work going on it. I mean, you guys w I love Y Y it lays awake at night for who knows why? I mean, it could be some guys obscure antelope or a Barbary sheep and some something he didn’t even book who knows. Let me just mention it in passing and he’s fret and wants the guy to have a good hunt Devin. You’re the same way. Like you, you want to hear, if you don’t hear back from a guy, you’re like, I wonder if he bad a bad hunt. I wonder if he had no, he had a great hunt. He just hasn’t unpacked his gear yet. You know what I mean? I feel like that we care Josh. You’re the same way. Me, Adam, John. I mean, we just want the best for guys. We want them to have the best experience possible. And, and I think we take a personal as if we’re there ourselves.
Sometimes I worry about guys going on hunts that, or you try to tell them, realistically, like man here, 82 years old here,
We had a guy buy a land owner tag, and you’re like, Jason, he’s going by himself on this particular tag. I’m like, Hey, he’s a bad day. I’m hoping I’m doing that.
We find, but it’s still like, we care. We really do. I worry. But, and I hope the best for you.
And I think that’s part of not selling something that we don’t feel like it’s a good fit we make, we vetted out, make sure it’s a good fit. And that’s old school that, you know, that personal attention like that. And, and customer service is like, it’s old school and it doesn’t generate revenue left and right. And isn’t scalable. And you know, like a digital platform only is, or some of these other things, but that’s what we know how to do. And that’s what we like doing. And we’d like to be a part of it. We also like to learn ourselves and you learn, you know, we learn a lot from our members. Our members are hardcore guys and it’s their, their excitement is contagious to us. If somebody has a great hunt while helping antelope, I kind of get excited for a minute. Right? I’m listening.
Same thing. I had a guy Coues deer in New Mexico and he killed 117 incher. I listened to that guy. That’s a rare giant in New Mexico. I listened to that guy. He, he, he’s going to teach me something. And it’s interesting to me because there’s not the top of my list. I do need another big one. But it’s one of those things that you, you learn, right? You’re always Wyatt. You you’re keeping notes and on what guys have done in the past and whatnot. And it’s interesting. Those things are ma who make our clients, who they are. They’re they’re hardcore dudes.
Yeah. We have a lot of hardcore dudes in our service.
And I think people don’t realize, you know, you’re talking to, what would you say? 50 to 70 guys a day or a lot, a lot. A lot of guys. So there’s a lot of information that’s coming both ways. So anyway, if you’re a member you call in, you’re going to benefit from that. Yeah. So we love what we do here. Check us out epic, outdoors.com. You can give us a holler at 4 3 5 2 6 3 0 7 7 7. If you’re looking to buy optics, give us a holler. If you’re looking to maximize your tags, you’re looking for hunts. You’re looking for tags. You want whatever it is, let us know. We, we are starting. Hunt’s Devon, you’re taking off next week. I’m going to be taken off actually as well, doing heavy scouting. So anyway, lots going on, but there will be somebody in the office here to help you out. We’re all coming and going a bit, but we’re supposed to be out in the field. That’s where we learned the most. And so anyway, we, we practice what we preach. All right, everybody. Well, we wish you the best of luck out there. If you kill a giant, call us first, we want to see it. And we want to hear about it and for taking the excitement. So anyway, good luck. We wish you the best
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