Ep 264: Wonderful Winters, The Utah Hunt Expo and Talkin' Elk, Mule Deer and Sheep in the Southwest

Anything to do with Western big game.

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Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson. That's it, Bronson, it's you and I, buddy. Well, how you doing? I'm good. Although, we've been grinding in the office. Better in two days. It's been a really aggressive grind. Went down to SHOT Show. It was awesome. I'm seeing a lot of our partners down there. Super good partners we have and met a lot of people too. But then, other than that, Bronson, that was like, what, a 16-hour smash and grab? Pretty much. And it feels like you're a week behind when you come back. Right. This time of year. Right. With the magazine we're working on, getting to the printer, with just the volume of calls that are people calling in, members. Time of year. Arizona's on the front burner. Wyoming's on the front burner. It feels like everything else is right on its heels. And then, you know, it's just a busy, busy time of year.

It's hardly, there's not a busier time than January through about March. It's been fun, though. Everybody's so excited. I can't get over, I don't know what it is. And I know I'm a huge fan of the prior year going away and the new slate. I love that. But, and having said, and we're talking about the same freaking stuff we've talked about every January. It shouldn't make us that much more optimistic, but somehow it is. When you've turned the calendar, you forget. That last year may have been rougher than you want it to be. No, and you look back on it and you think, you know what, we're talking about doing stuff right now that we talked about doing last year. And if we would have done it last year, we would have been way more successful. Whatever. I don't know. We're turning, we're turning a page and here we are. Well.

And we're answering questions about Wyoming deer and antelope and stuff that is a long ways from now as far as deadlines. Yeah, but we're also watching it snow and snow and rain and snow and snow. Yeah. Especially in the southern, southwestern states, southern Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada. Wow, what a turnaround. And I know that even the northern states, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, you know, they got plenty more. There's not a state out there that is under normal right now in terms of the western states. The only negative I've heard is potentially possible, and I haven't even verified this. I want to drive over there. Maybe we should drive over there and take a little break. Over to Eagle, Colorado, and you hear that there was snow, rain, rain, condensed everything, hard crust, snowed on top of it.

But maybe deer can't get to the food source. Potentially. That's the only thing I've heard. Well, northern Utah, parts of southern Idaho, we've heard a little bit of concern. And looking at the weather right now, it looks like we have about a 10-day window. It's colder, but no new snow or storms coming. A little bit of a break. And those deer in southern Idaho, Wyoming, I mean, 25 degrees, 10 degrees, or zero at night. They're built for it. They're built for it. What I think is funny is we get an inch in our parking lot, and we're wondering if there's going to be a die-off somewhere. And we've got to remind myself, what was normal 15 years ago? If that would have been normal. All of this was somewhat normal maybe 20, 25 years ago. I don't know. But we're back at it. We have had wetter storms in southern Utah, wetter than we're usual. Like, a lot of ours have had rain mix.

It melts the snow from the previous storm three to five days earlier. Rains an inch. You have no snow. Mud everywhere. The last three or four hours, 20% of the storm turns to snow, and you've got another five inches. And then it rains again. So it's not piled up at all, but our mountains are stacking it up. So what does that mean? It means range conditions can usually be optimal, which usually means antler growth can be optimal. We're also coming off in these states we just talked about phenomenal monsoon, summer, and fall moisture last year. Well, we're looking at the harvest photos, and there's tall, green, beautiful grass. It's in every photo. Yeah. And you just remind you that these animals have incredible body conditions. They go into the fall winter. Yeah. And then if we can have a winter that we haven't had since 2019, which that was more of a spring than a real winter.

We just haven't had big winters and springs, which is usually critical March to May to get deer and elk really off. So I want to talk about something that we didn't say we were going to talk about when you and I were conjuring stuff up. But we took the other morning, and we get on these tangents once in a while. Of course, we got you because we're freaking grinding on the publication, and there's only so much typing we can do for hours in a row. So we have to digress once in a while. Digress. And so we went and we did, remember, we went to that year to date, this year, last year, year, year, year, year. Oh, yeah. The snow tell stuff. Right. Okay. And we went through, and we looked at the percentage, and any time, like right now, let's just call it an average of 180% of normal. Or 200 plus now. 200. Yeah. 200 now.

But when we were looking, well, five days ago, four days ago, it was like 180. And we were like, okay, now correlate that with the good years, okay? 2005. We went clear back to 2005. 2005 was an incredible year. We killed several 220 bucks that year, saw a 250. The largest buck I'd ever seen in Nevada was in 2005. And then we went through the years. Remember the good years? And we went through the years. 2011 was incredible. 2012 sucked. Yeah, like 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 were all pretty good years. But then you'd have a couple, one or two terrible ones, and it would be 2013 was rough in Utah. It was tough. I just remember that. People, family members turned back tags. Yeah. 2016 was incredible in Nevada, remember? Yeah, 18 was terrible. Yeah. 2019 was phenomenal. Phenomenal. Killed a 220 buck down in a desert unit that never produces. And really has not been since then, since 19.

And we're talking these southwest states. So Arizona, southern Utah, Nevada, southern Nevada. Elk have had differences in those states. But New Mexico, the deer have really been terrible. Or last year was moderate. Last year. Right. The strip was moderate. Kybab was better in the strip. Well, and the... The gaunt was okay, but it wasn't. Kybab had a good year. It did. And we're seeing, you know, those tag reductions and things like that in the new burn and whatnot. There's just, there's multiple factors for that. A few dynamics going on there. Right. It's higher elevation. It always gets more precip than 13 B&A anyway. Right. But there's a direct correlation. Those incredible years directly correlated with 175 plus percent moisture this time. Yeah. Except for 2019. Which it came in March and April mostly. That's right. It was 100% or 110. It was fine. But normal.

But not the pretty blues and purples we'd like to see. Yeah. But then if you changed it from, say, January 10th when we ran the query the other day to April 10th, then it was like 200 plus. Right. It had incredible wet March in April. Incredible that year. Which is great for animals too. Right. Because normally they don't have to fight snow for very long. But the bad years were all the terrible colors, right? All the burnt oranges. Crimson's. Crimson's. I don't know. Blood reds and all that. All the nasty. And you're just like, okay, those were bad years. Those were really bad years. And it's really hard to get in your mind, is it even possible that Nevada would ever be good again? Ever. Ever. Okay. Now there's another aspect that we've never really dealt with before is this long, whatever drought you want to call it, whatever, long stand.

And a pretty aggressive drought has also affected populations. So when you have two bucks, yeah, you've got two good ones now. Yeah. Yeah. But there's going to be only two of them. There's no competition for feed because there's only two bucks to eat the feed. That principle is what you're saying. That principle. To some extent, the same thing goes like with sheep in Nevada. They've had die-offs, literally die-offs because lack of water. Yeah. And you see it in the checkout summaries for sheep. We just looked at kind of a preliminary checkout. There was one 180 ram killed. Out of 300, right? Which is absolutely incredible, right? Yeah. But nothing even got close to it. No. Low to mid-70s. Abnormal. But you can testify to the drought that you've experienced when you're running cameras, which you can legally do, everybody.

You can legally do it at a certain time of year up until the end of July. So you're running cameras. You know. I know what I'm used to getting pictures of and what I do now. How about the dry guzzers you walk up to? Yeah. Yeah. You know. And dry ones. And then what you find walking around them or people even find later. Right. Because you pull them down in July. I usually don't go back. I don't live. I'm two, three hours away. But I don't go back until a month before my hunts. Some of those years in August and September, they're dead, dead sheep. Yeah. Tight little draws and whatnot. And you're just like, man. It was rough on them. It was. And we all want to just scream just game and fish. And hey, they're not perfect. But having said that, it's really hard to beat a drought. You can't trump Mother Nature when she was that brutal. Like 2020 and 2020. Yeah. 2021.

The deer we hunted over there. The dust. How deep was the powder dust? I don't know. Still. Still in whatever truck. Whoever's driving the trucks we drove back then. I'm sorry. I'm still blowing my nose and getting that dust out of it right now. It's been three years later. It feels like. It was brutal. And the strip. Everything else. And the strip's another thing. Like, think about how good the deer are going to be. Plus, we're going on, what, the second year that you can't use trail cameras? And trail cameras are responsible for all the death that occurred down there. Pretty much. Pretty much. There's, you know, very little, if any, live water. So, you've got catchments. You've got ponds that have been built by the ranchers and different things. And so, anyway. A lot of reason to be optimistic. Cameras were very effective down there. Water and consistent water.

Now, if we can string three to four normal years or somewhat normal together, we can start growing deer herds back. But I think, yeah. Yeah. But the antlers, especially in units where we have good buck populations and good age structure already in place. That's probably a point of emphasis. When you have those things already in place and now you add water, it's immediate. It's one year in those types of units. That's what I think is interesting, Quinn. We love to tease Wyatt. Can we throw Wyatt under the bus while he's not here? He said he was too busy to be with us today, so let's have it. Well, what I love about Wyatt, he's very careful on where to use his points, as he should be. It's easier for us to burn his 20-something points. It's easier for me to burn everybody else's points but mine. That's right. You know? And so, it's normal. And so, he's like, his point was, hey.

We're spurning them on. We are. And so, it's like, hey, you know, is it the second year, you know, you have one real good moisture year. Is it really the second year, if you have a decent moisture year two years in a row, that you see that real positive influx of quality? And it's just not, Bronson. We were looking, not for deer. Well, and it goes back to that, what we just said. Units that already have a decent age structure. If you're a general season unit and it's had three terrible years of production, most of your deer on those units anyway are yearling to three-year-old bucks. And if you don't have any of those living to four to five because of the drought, it's a different story on a general. You just don't all of a sudden have giant bucks on a general everywhere. No, but I really like it when they grow 40, 50 inches.

A 170 is not, I hate to say 220, okay, but I have seen 187s to 237s. We've seen 210s in Nevada, 215s go to like 160, 170 the next year. Split air blind bucks that are the same thing. What about the one I'm sitting in the blind and he comes in and all I see is ribcage. I mean, he is the worst drought and I don't know how long and he's a three by four basically. And I have sheds at 220. I'm just, I mean, these are documented. I know that deer, like I know that deer. He's blind in one eye. He's on the same water with three other bucks. Like that is the buck. And it's not even recognizable. And we talk about it a lot. Utah's the second driest state. Nevada's the first. And we live right here basically. So we live. We dig our wells deep. And we live praying for rain every day of our lives. It's just what we're preferring to do. I go back to it. Remember Game and Fish back in the day?

And I don't even want to say his name, but he was, you know, we were talking about management. And he would tell people, people that we know well, pray for rain. You know, and it just makes it. It kind of would irk you a little bit because it's like that's a crock of crap. And if there's not other things being done at all and you just say pray for rain, it's like kind of a stick in the eye. Oh, that's not your crutch. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, if you're working on predators, you're working on habitat, you're working on other things and you're doing what you can, it goes back to controlling the variables you can control. Like you do the best at controlling the variables you can control. Maybe that is habitat restoration or chainings or reseeds or burns or controlled burns or making the best of a natural burn or whatever. Control the variables you can control.

And then go ahead and probably ought to pray for rain. But Mother Nature can trump a lot of other efforts and tag cuts and season adjustments and weapon restrictions or all the other things that you intend to limit harvest or change harvest or whatever. But long story short, we are excited. But you want to kill still Hound Wyatt for a minute? No. Oh. Nope. All I want to say is he's not right. The second year can be awesome. But honestly, you take advantage of it on the first year. If it's good, the first year point creep is going to be so bad the second you won't draw. I think this is at times when people are like, I've never seen that buck before. And all of a sudden, there's a 220. Where did he come from? Oh, you saw him. You saw him last year. He's just not recognizable. He's a 165 buck, just a four point. Yeah. It'd be like a dude going from 165 to 310 pounds. I don't know.

Or vice versa. Vice versa. Unrecognizable. Where did this guy come from? All right. That's probably a bad analogy. Anyway, so you can tell we're excited. I know you're hopped up on Monster. I drank one a few hours ago. I don't know if we could even run this business without Monster. Do we owe our business to Monster? Hey, speaking of, Expo's coming up. Okay. So, yes. Let's talk about that. And then I want to go back to Utah. All the excitement we have in the SKUs in Utah. And Wyoming. So let's jump. Well, no, no, no. Don't let me forget the Monster topic when we talk about the Expo. Those of you who attended last year. Let's talk about it right now. Let's go to the Expo and then come back. Let's crush it. Okay. All right. Here we go. So here we are. What? February 2nd to 5th. It's coming right up. What is that? 10? I don't know. It's the 19th today. It's 1150. 1050.

It's about a long time. Two weeks from now, that's where we'll be. But we've got a big booth. As always, we're going to have some of the biggest animals harvested, killed in North America in the last year or two. Yeah. Always fun to see some of those all finished, dried, lifelike in our booth. We have some great taxidermists that- A 50-footer, man. Yeah. That work stuff into our booths quick. We're also, you may remember, we had coolers last year there. We did. Didn't we? What did we have in this group? Monsters. Okay. I think, from what I'm told, that's happening again. We got a lot of free monsters coming, everybody. So stop by. You can stop by when you're feeling down and need to pick me up, or when you're feeling great and you just want to go higher. You know? I don't think Jana's going to let people feed their kids under nine and a half years old.

They're going to have to show some proper ID before she's going to divvy those out. If you walk up and open your kid's bottle and start- Putting it in a sippy cup? I'm going to pour a monster in there. She might stop. She might. It happened last year. A guy who's letting a kid sip on. Just a little. I'm not saying he was too much. I don't know what the proper, what would be the proper dosage for a three-year-old.

I mean, I'm just saying it happened. A lot of vitamins, kids. It did raise. You just don't want family services on your butt. So anyway. So that'll be there. But I guess more importantly, but that is important. More importantly, we're going to bring a lot. We've gone out of our way. We're about in our, what, third year? Three and a half years into our years of being optics dealers, we've added companies. Yep. And we've also gotten a little bit smarter. We've also lived past the COVID supply chain nightmares that impacted optics and a lot of other things dramatically. And we've stocked up big time. And we're bringing that to the Expo. And that's, we want to hammer that home. If you're in the market for new glass, bino, spot and scopes, range finders, whatever it is, or trail cameras, we're bringing it and we're ready to make deals. Look for our whiteboards daily. In fact, I think Devin.

Devin's daily deal. It might be Josh. Devin does not want it attached to his name. I don't know why. Yeah. Devin's daily deal. Bronson's bundle. Things like that. Right? Yeah. Pollux package? I don't know. Hey, there's just going to be a lot going on. We're super excited. And we're going to have our optics trailer there. So we're going to have our 50-foot booth. And then we're going to have our enclosed trailer. It's black. You can't miss it. It's got all the optics logos on the sides of it. And it's going to be freaking jam-packed. Yep. We'll bring it. So we're probably going to have it. We shouldn't have very many. This is where we're going to have to say we're going to have to order that. There may be, you may have an obscure one-power red dot somewhere that you want that we may not have there. You never know. But, hey, we might.

Utah changing, potentially changing the technology or something. Maybe somebody's going to want to. Stop by and try us. Just see if we can pull it out of the hat. Yeah. All right? Look for the whiteboard. We're going to have some deals of the day. We're actually authorized by a lot of our companies to have show specials at these. And in some cases, we can bundle them with trail cameras or things like that. Bronson, we get to do what we want. Yeah. We own the place. We're going to make some deals. We're going to bring the cameras we have. We have the QS20s, the QS18s, which are actually a brand new camera, but they're discontinued. But they're new. We bought them. We have them. We're going to be giving some of those away. Same thing with the Max 32s. It's incredible. Great. Great for kind of a long-distance shot. I love those cameras. And quality pictures and video.

But then also lock boxes for those. Sometimes lock boxes have been hard to find and expensive to ship. Come there and pick them up. Yeah. You know? Yep. We need a duffel bag to pack 10 trail camera boxes around. But, hey, you're going to get a workout. If somebody is, maybe it's a wife or kid. I don't know. But anyway. Let's run through the companies as well for all those that may not remember. But we're going to be selling Zeiss, Swarovski, Vortex, Leica, Six Sauer range finders, Revit range finders, Vortex. If I didn't say that right. Stealth Cam. I think you got it. The Sigs. We really do have the 8Ks and 10Ks. The 10K binos. I mean, those are really hard to find. The 8K, it's incredible. And we've got those. So, anyway. And you won't find a better deal. That's the one thing I like. I don't know. What do you call our business model on the optics, Bronson? Well.

It's kind of a same pricing whether you talk to Adam or I or Devin or Wyatt or Josh or anybody. It's kind of a no-dicker, bottom dollar. Guys know their members know they're going to be treated right. Yep. And there might be even some incentivized deals this weekend on certain things that we have a lot of, we bought a lot of, on a discount. We're authorized to discount them a little bit. Or they were on last year's prices before things went up on 1st of January. Things like that. So, if you're in the market, stop by. Pretty awesome. You know, we'd love to stay home. It's fun. And you're safe on shipping and all that type stuff. I like people. I like, I could have sold trucks. You know this, right? You like making. Jason is a deal maker. I am. Well. So, he says on one hand, no haggle pricing. Bronson's bundles. No haggle pricing. We're all the same.

On the other hand, he's inviting you to come make a deal with him. We can't let people walk away without filling their arms full of stuff. No, it's all good. We've also got a lot of swag going to be there. Lens cleaning kits. All kinds of stuff. Sponsored by Zeiss. It's pretty awesome. I mean, our partners are great. They're excited, too. Actually, Zeiss is going to have a booth. Swarro is going to have a booth. Vortex is going to have a booth here. Usually, they do. I don't know for definitive that they normally do. They do. If you want to see a full product line there and look through things side by side, we stock definitely the most important SKUs for every optic line. In vinyls, spotting scopes, things like that. Stuff that people use. If you know what you want, come and check with us first or last. However you want. Check with us first or last. We'll send it home with you.

I guarantee it. I am going to be offended if you don't buy from us. How about that? It's offensive. And while you're sitting there shopping, drink a cold monster. All right. Yeah, and those are $2.50 apiece or whatever. So, anyway. First come, first serve. Pretty awesome. It starts on a Thursday. Ends on a Sunday. We're going to have the entire crew there for the most part, plus or minus, the entire time. And, I don't know, kind of excited. Everybody's excited. Of course, we're diving into the publication side of things right now, and we haven't even started packing the trailer. But I'm sure probably midnight before the day we're supposed to leave, we'll be packing a few things. So, Bronson, you said something about SKUs.

We liken the SKUs. I like talking about SKUs. Utah is, like, famous. I love all the little knick-knacky hunts, all the little opportunity hunts. I love that because it spreads out the applicants. Basically, your first choice count. Then they go to the next applicant. And so, I love that. It makes you really apply for what it is you want, and it might be an odd SKU. Well, Utah's had to do that. They don't issue a lot of limited entry deer tags on the traditional limited entry deer units. You know, I think it was, like, 1,000 to 1,500. If you want to count the. There's only, like, 600. You spewed out 2%. I mean, we made. You made me fact-check myself. I didn't make you do it, but if I just mention it, you can't help it. You have to do it. I think it came out at 2.4. Yeah, it was. I mean, we figured 60,000 generals, plus or minus.

You've got to do those dedicated lifetimes and a few others, right? 65,000. Something like that. Maybe 70. 75, whatever it was. Yeah. You know, 1,500-ish limited entry. Yeah. Yeah. But they've added SKUs, if you want to call it. Some hams hunts. Some late muzzleloader hunts on the general seasons for deer. It's not improved drawing odds dramatically, but it does spread out some people. It gives some people in the mid-tier point options some other options to look at. But the biggest change coming for this year, no question, is with elk. I mean, this magazine that's getting ready to go to the printer the next day or two, the elk section for Utah is unbelievable. The options that are in there now. Archery in December? Like, who wants to hunt elk in December? Somebody does. I might be raising my hand, boss. Yeah. Are you? I don't know. You're going to leave deer and go to elk? Oh, no.

You know this. But I'm just saying, if I didn't have deer point, that's the one thing about it with residents. We have to choose. We can't be doing deer and elk. And so, you know, other than general or whatever. But, I mean, you have to choose. And it doesn't overlap any other hunts. I will say that. And in certain units, we're going to talk about this newly formed mid-December archery elk. Arizona has one. I think it's more in late November. It's not December. It's a November hunt. But it's just mainly to give some opportunity. Basically, it's to take your money and take your points. And not kill any elk. And not kill any elk. And that's kind of what we thought. But honestly, Bronson. There's going to be some of these units that bulls are standing around. They are. Herded up. Never been hunted in their life. Their guard is down. Opening day is going to be interesting.

Because you're going to have scouted. People scout, right? Scouting works early. And scouting works late. Yeah. This is well post-rut. It's three to four weeks. Three weeks or so after the late rifles are over. Maybe some storms have moved elk even into more weird places. That's a new hunt formed this year for Utah. You know, if that's not appealing to you, how about the October rifle elk hunt, which is going to have half of the rifle tags are going to be in this October hunt or more. So they're reappropriating. Let's call it reallocating. Whatever. They're going to, percentage-wise, going to put a good chunk of the tags in that October hunt. Yeah. And it sounds great because it gets them out of the peak of the route. Utah's always struggled with being able to add tags and add tags and maintain quality because they've had the archery hunt for 28 days.

And, you know, an 11-day or a 9-day, sorry, early rifle hunt right in the peak of that. And then another, you know, 10- or 12-day muzzleloader hunt finishing up September. There's no more days in September to kill elk. We've talked about this for years. So here we go. That finally changed. The management plan, which is usually approved for five to some cases seven to ten-year period, but in this case five, was changed. And part of that was to increase opportunity without crushing the quality. Some of the very upper-end age objectives on units like the top-end units like Boulder, San Juan, Beaver, Pabont, Monroe. Knocked them down a year. Bookcliffs, Roadless, knocked them down a year. What's that going to do? Increase tags. You can give some more tags. Yeah. But you've got to distribute them.

And then you've got to decide how are we going to have that take to bring the age class down, and where is that take going to occur? Is it going to occur archery that now goes to September 19th in large part? A five-day early rifle. Yeah. The 20th to the 24th of September now is going to be a five-day-er. And they're going to be like 10% of the rifle tags. Yeah. Not 10% of the rifle tags. Yeah, 10%. You know? And then you've got the October, and then you've got the late. Yeah. And then you've got the late archery. Yeah. Have I got it right? Basically. So you've got an early archery. You've got a five-day early rifle. A 12-day muzzleloader. All in basically the right. In September. Okay. Then about October 7th, you've got a mid-season rifle hunt. They call it a mid. Which is going to have the bulk of the rifle permits. Then you've got a late rifle.

And after that, you've got a late one, which has always been there in most units. In November. And if that's not enough, let's throw some arrows at them on the end. That's right. So when my percentages were spewing, you know, the other big change about Utah is there may not be perfect uniformity within units. There hasn't been in the past. There's been units like Wasatch and others that they've been really sensitive and not given too many late because they're prone to snow and they get very vulnerable. Every unit's got its unique set of circumstances and dynamic. But there's some guidelines given to, you know, 15% muzzleloader, 25% archery. Some basic guidelines to help the biologists and whatnot. And then they can make recommendations based on that. 60% of the tags go into rifles. And then that's going to be split up between three rifleants now.

So the biggest other takeaway is that Utah has now shifted their application period from end of March to the end of April. April 27th. So you're going to now be able – and the purpose of that is so that you're going to be able to see permit numbers recommended and go through some of the public meeting process. By the 27th, it may not be fully ratified by the Wildlife Board, but it's been vetted heavily and you know – Roughly what you're up against. I'm applying for a unit that now has one non-resident tag and I thought I was going to get a maximum point tag. That's going to go on a random draw. Oh, that's right. I'm not applying. I'm switching them. Which the early rifles is probable. Yeah. A lot of the early rifles, just as a warning, are going to go to one tag for non-residents. Yeah.

So if you apply for it and see that, you're also going to be able to go in and – what's the term you like changing your application a lot during that? Plug and play. Yes. You're going to be able to apply and not have to pay – You're going to be able to plug and play free of charge. Not have to pay 10 or 15 bucks every time you do it. Free of charge. Just like Nevada. I love it. Sometimes I plug and play just for fun. Like, come in. I'm going to change my fifth choice to my fourth choice. Right. And then when the period actually comes where you can't change it anymore, you're like, oh, I wonder what I ended with. I don't know. You never know. Utah's going to allow you to do that. And it's beneficial. It's nice to – you're still going to find out the draw results the same time mid to late May. But you're going to be able to make a better informed decision.

It's going to be especially important this year on elk to see – all right, what permit numbers are going to be out there? What I love is the questions that are coming. What's going to be my drawing odds for the late archery? I mean, or I don't know. How many points is it going to take? How about the early rifle? Who wants a five-day hunt? Not a lot of guys, but New Mexico has worked well for it. But people have wrapped their head around it. Nobody's wrapped their head around this yet. How about the archery that now goes to September 19th? That's a big deal. It's a great season. It's a big deal now. So you're going to have people that did do the archery or did do the rifle or did do the muzzle change. They're going to change. I think you're going to see more people that did the early rifle in the past switch to the archery and the muzzleloader.

The muzzleloader 12-day hunt is still the 25th of September. It opens and goes early October. Early October. It's a phenomenal date from a rut standpoint. And it always was. And the mid was available, but not on everything. You know what I mean? That's right. It was only on three or four units. The biggest thing to remind you on the mid-season hunt in these limited-entry Utah units is it corresponds identically to the general season spike hunt that is on all these units. San Juan. You think you can go to San Juan on October 7th and just chase screaming bulls with 20 or 30 people? There's going to be hundreds. You're reminding me. This is the way Oregon works. They're dealing out spike and cow tags at the same time as the trophy rifle. And it's frustrating to the hunters. I've got all these points. I'm going to go out there with 35 people. Oh, no. No balls.

There's four or five hundred spike hunters. Whoa, where'd all these camps come from? Well, they're all hunting elk. This is the Opportunity Family Hunt. The spike hunt in Utah. You know, I wish. I saw a 390 bull, but we gave her heck trying to get the spike running with him, and we blew him out of the country. Right, Logan? You've done that. Logan, you have blown big bulls out and ruined somebody's hunt. Tell us you have. Inadvertently. We're not saying deliberately. I mean, who does it on for now? Nobody does. Yeah. So, has it happened? But it's right. I can't confirm or deny it. Hey, wow. He's actually going to law school. That's a Gen Z right there. I do not take responsibility for my actions. Logan, do you take responsibility for your actions? I try my best to. That's why we like you, Logan. Well. Anyway, so I guess you can sense the excitement.

And I think the excitement is just everybody trying to guess what everybody else is going to do and how this is going to affect odds. Pulling tags. Lowering the age class. That changes everything. We lower it. We need to have more take. Okay? Well, it's anybody's guess what the late archery is going to do to take. It's anybody's guess what the five-day rifle is going to do to take, right? Yeah. Probably still going to be 100% or dang close. Yeah. But, you know, it does change people's mindset. How big a boy am I? How are you going to hold it? How long? You can't hold out for nine days now. Am I going to go to day three and a half? On day two. On day two and a half, you're halfway through your season. Yeah. On day three at noon, you're halfway done. Yeah. I got 20 points. I'm at day 3.5. I was going to go downtown for lunch, but now I think I'm going to sit here for a minute.

I'll sit this wall and shoot the next wall that comes in. Right? I don't know, you know. Lots of fun stuff going on. And so, anyway, but the SKUs are nice. When you're dealing with a state like Utah, in the past has had very few tags because we hunted the rut. Very few tags made it to where people were scared to apply, thought it was a waste of money. This, that. You add all these extra SKUs. A lot of times you can have the same take, but take people's points and take people's money. Right? You get to have, and have different things to apply for. Options. The idea is to hopefully maintain roughly the current quality that's on these units. Some of the mid-tier units only drop like half a year in the average age. You know? Yeah. The actual oldest, those old, what, seven to eight-year-old units, they drop the most. You know, I already listed them off. There's only five or six of those units.

So, potentially could see more tags on those units than some of the mid-tier ones that were already right within age objective. You may not see overall permit numbers increase. The distribution's going to be what changes the most again. Lots of fun. There'll be a lot to pay attention to after you apply in Utah this year. Up until the deadline, there's going to be a lot of plugging and playing going on. Lots of it. All right. Well, do we want to talk about, I don't know, maybe something that's non-state related and then go back into Wyoming? Yeah, let's do it. Let's talk about guns. Well, let's talk about John. John's got his wife back. Okay. All right. So, anybody that listened to our earlier podcast, John basically had to leave his family. For two weeks. I mean, it tells you his wife. Would you ever leave your wife? Would you ever leave your wife? John did. Okay. All right. Just teasing.

John had no choice. He had to come back and talk with senators and governors and maybe even the president. Yeah. I mean, could you imagine? There was a resolution. Could you imagine asking Biden for help? What would he say?

Remind me your name, sir. Remind me your name? It took me a year to get a, you know. Where are you going with this? A WNBA player to come home because I thought that would buy me a bunch of votes. So, it took me a year to do that. Tell me why I should get your wife home and your mother-in-law who's not got all of her papers to be here as a U.S. citizen forever. Okay. Okay. Tell me why I should do that. But, John, bless his heart. No, I don't think he's even with it enough to really ask any of those questions. But, anyway, keep going until the end. Because the aide would ask you the questions. Yeah. Not him. And then they would spin it. But, John got, one day, we're at work and John wasn't here. Right. Where did he go? Well, he went to California. Tijuana. More specifically. He drove to California. Got out of his truck. I think walked. No, he bought some ponchos.

Bought some ponchos because it's like, what are you buying ponchos? It's raining. What are you doing? He's like, I'm walking into Mexico across a well-established entry point. I will say that. He didn't have a shovel and a pick. He flew his wife and mother-in-law to, basically, they said, it's, okay, so John's not here and he's authorized us to go ahead and spew to the world that he has his family back and that we could say what we wanted. Right? You heard it, Logan. Yeah, I can verify that. So, and so we get to tease just a little bit, but having said that, Jen said, John, I am done with Mexico. Right? Basically, basically, they're at a resort. It was a fun family vacation and Mexico is a blast for when you're vacationing, but when you're detained or not allowed to come back, you start to get very frustrated very fast. And that happened. And John says, I'll be there in five minutes.

I'll be there in five minutes. So they flew. He drove. They flew to Tijuana from wherever they were coming from, Cancun, to Tijuana. And? After two weeks, I might add. Oh, yeah. I think it was like two weeks. Oh, yeah. So, anyway, John went over there. John went in there because apparently.

The paperwork was more in order than it was before, which. Well, and apparently, I guess, certain land crossings. You know, you're dealing with airlines and in an airport the first time and everybody's in a hurry and it's safer to just tell you to go sit down. I can't help you. And we've been down there, Bronson. You can be told one thing and the next attendant tells you another thing and tells you another thing. And your paperwork's not a problem. Right. And at some point you make it, right? Yeah. So I think he was just trying a new port. New port of entry, so to speak. It's kind of like when one of your kids comes to you and mom tells them one thing and they said, well, go ask your dad. And then they come to you and you don't know what just transpired. And you're like, yeah, sounds good. When mom says, no, I don't think that's a good idea. Go ask your dad.

And you say, yeah, you don't know what just transpired. You tell them, go have fun. The kid's like, yeah, I love dad. What? And his wife's like, what are you doing to me? You're back. You're usurping my. I said, I didn't know what you just told him. I know. You got to warn me. I know. I didn't know that you just said no. That's right. Stay home and do your homework. Same principle. So John walks. He gets in line. And he says the line is three quarters of a mile long of people trying to enter. This is not vehicles. This is body. Bodies. Body to body. Yeah, body to body. What I thought was funny is why it's like, did you go in the tunnel? I don't know what he was talking about. I don't know. I haven't done it. That's the question, Wyatt. How do you know there's a tunnel? Have you been there? Yeah. I don't know. What were you doing in a tunnel down there?

So anyway, John's in this line that's three quarters of a mile long. But they end up working their way up and basically they open up the little, the passport and the proper stamp was happened to be there. The guy's like, after some, after some initial indications that it was the same problem that they had before, the guy brings up and says, well, this is what, this is what they're looking for. Oh yeah, it is. See you. You're good. Oh, they're stamped. It says they're good till November, 2023. They walk in. They walk in. Where's the first place they went to eat? Do you remember what he said? No. What'd he say? I think it was McDonald's. How American is that? Well, I don't, I think John offered Mexican, but Jen was not having it. He had enough beans and rice. Anyway, way fun. They came back. Of course, the dog was happy. Everybody, I mean, the dog freaked out, started eating like normal.

Dog did, John didn't have to feed it with a puppet that looked like Jen's face or something. Whatever he was doing. One kernel at a time. Anyway, fun stuff. Everybody's happy, which means we're happy, Bronson. We're happy. John's getting more sleep, I think, now. I think so. Yeah. You know, he was a little peaked there for a minute, but he's catching up one half hour at a time. So, anyway, let's dive into Wyoming really quick. There's lots of questions. Of course, Bronson, we're dealing with the Wyoming elk application deadline is January 31st. Everybody is cranking and thinking about using their points. Everybody's nervous, A, that there's going to be a price increase on the special elk, deer, and antelope, as they've warned and indicated that it's going to be going through this legislative session.

On top of potential tag allocation adjustments on the 90-10 split that hasn't happened with those yet. And then even potentially the preference point system change. And so, all of this, let's call it rumors and more rumors, but is potentially in the works down the road. Yeah, there is. And obviously, we don't have all the answers. The number one thing is get an application in for elk by the 31st. There may be some much clearer decisions you can make. You know, clear up until May 8th when you can amend your application after seeing what goes through the legislature this year might be clear. If they pass permit increases for regular and special or anything else severe, it may motivate you even more. You'll have a few months to plug and play with your application. Change it to a unit and like, I'm done with this, and be guaranteed to draw, hopefully guaranteed to draw.

We're anticipating pretty good, really good point creep, more than in normal years because of just the uncertainty. And it's kind of rightfully so. I mean, we're all feeling the same thing. We don't like change after you've invested so much into a point system. But there is no guarantee in these states. There's just not that it stays the same forever. Arizona's made changes to their non-resident allocation, you know, that not all the non-resident quota can go in the maximum point pool for like elk and deer. It dramatically lengthened the logjam for strip deal at deer hunters. It ticked off the people with lots of points. For deer. But it also made it more equitable and feasible to apply. It is probably a fair system. You can't have them all going to max point holders. You know, kind of get some of the same arguments in Colorado, like for deer and elk. You know what I mean?

But anyway, regardless of that, we're getting a lot of questions. This stuff can change literally daily. They have votes in committees and then on the floor, you know, daily this time of year. And stuff gets shot down daily. And then modified and hybrid type things come out. It's hard to... That's why you don't see something out in print. By the time we put something in print that this may be happening in Wyoming, it's all obsolete and it's a hybrid of anything that just went. So we'll try to keep you up to speed on the podcast like now. We'll let you know what changes, what happens. And the implications of that, but the bottom line... The potential for change is what people are nervous about. And so they're saying, do we use the points? And you've got this influx of people that went from either points only to actually applying for a unit or choosing units they can actually draw in.

And so you're going to see a bump. And you can cut it on artificial or whatever. But I mean, just kind of this bump of a perceived change brings in more people willing to draw. Yeah. Or just the nervousness. Yep. So if you are into that category, make sure you just apply either in the regular or the special draw for a hunt you think you would like now by January 31st. And if you modify, you have to stay within that price bracket. If it's regular or special, you can modify, but you have to stay within it. Or you can withdraw. You can withdraw altogether and do a point in the summer or switch the unit. Right. Up until May 8th. Right. But if you withdraw, you're not going to get your refund until after they run the draw. So anyway, very, very interesting. Yeah. The other thing with Wyoming, you may have noticed they moved the deadline for the moose, sheep, and goat.

But moose and sheep most notably to April 15th. Or 17th. Yeah. I think it's the 15th. Maybe 17th because of a Monday. I don't remember. Right. Right. But anyway, later than February 28th, which it's always been. And the main reason for that, they haven't come out and said it, but it's obviously to be able to see permit recommendations like they recommend in April as well, much like what Utah's doing. Because the 90-10 split did occur. It did happen. And there's a possibility based on overall quotas in certain units, there may not be a random moose tag or two at all. In the entire state. Or if there is, there is one. Yeah. And so those units. And where is that? Therefore, you better modify to that unit or you're actually in for a moose tag, you literally have 0% chance because you've got to have at least four, the way it is now, at least

four non-resident tags for sheep or moose for three of them go to the max point holders and one of them go in the random draw. That's right. Well, you've got to have four. What is that going to be, 40? Math tells you it's got to be 40 or more. Yeah, because we only get 10% of the total now. And so, yeah. Anyway. You're going to have to gauge that or sit it out. I'm telling people, just sit it out until April. And if you've realized that there's not going to be a random tag, just do a point in hopes that this rumblings of the point system going to a squared point system happens because then you'll actually be in the draw. You have a chance. But there still may be a four-year, you know. Implementation period. Yeah. Basically, when they change it, they're looking at letting people wrap their heads around it for four years.

Burn your points for four years and then it's all squared system, which means you'd have to buy four years of points for moose. That's $600. $600 for sheep just before you again have a random chance. So just keep all of this in mind. And there's a lot of moving parts. And is it worth it? I mean, you know. For a moose, no. No. I'll answer that question. I don't know. You got max points in Montana. One state I've ever played. Kind of fun. Kind of fun. I think I played Idaho once in my life. I fear the year you get it. Yeah. I'm scared every year. My plans will change whenever you decide to go up there. You're not out there. We're going to be in a swamp. I promise. You've heard it, folks. I do not have to buy waders. But I don't know. I'm going to probably do it. We're going to be out there and get in a swamp donkey. So I don't know. We'll have chili for the whole office.

Chili meat for the whole office. Just promise me you won't be too picky.

Meats meat, boss. All right. So anyway, kind of fun. There's a lot going on. We're super excited. Obviously, deer and antelope, wait. Don't be applying yet in Wyoming. Let's wait. See what the winner does. May 31st. They held your money a long time anyway. Might as well just apply in the end of May when you may know of any permit increase fees or things like that. You have to front the tag fees. Yeah. So why would you pay them now and go forever? So anyway, wait a little bit. But hey, whatever. We're answering questions on the daily about it. And we're fine to do it. We're kind of excited, actually. If it's a decent winter but not severe, we're going to see some big deer coming out of the state of Wyoming. We all know this. There's some big deer in the winter range. I mean, an average winter in Wyoming, you're going to have a little loss. I mean, it's Wyoming.

Usually the fawns are the first and then the old second. But they have had, it has been a big enough animal since, what, 2017, 18, that you've got some older bucks there that haven't been through a tough, tough winter. Hopefully, this one doesn't end up that way. It could go either way at this stage right now. It's not critical by any means. We stay on top of that daily with people we know that live on. You know, it'd be nice to have a, be able to do a podcast that we could spew everything like we do in the magazine. But maybe it was a paid subscription podcast where we could just freaking really talk. Jason's meanderings, we'd call it. Bronson's, I don't know, brumblings. I don't know. I don't know. What do you call it? I don't know. I'm just saying it would be, I think there's some validity to it. So I don't know. We give out a lot.

We've been accused of giving out too much information on the podcast for free. If you think this is a lot of information, join epicoutdoors.com. Go on there. Join. $150 a year. You get the publication. Get our take. And then you can call in. Call in and talk to us, too. Email. I mean, we don't like being mean people. We don't. It's been, it feels like maybe this year, recently, we've had a lot more non-members calling in and want to go over all their scenarios and states. And it's just, we try to be nice. That's kind of weird. We try to address that. But we're starting to get over that because when I'm talking to you, there's a member waiting on line on hold or has to hang up and I have to call him back later. Right. So it's just not that we want to be ignorant and say, are you a member? But our girls are going to probably reinforce that a little bit more.

It's not because, you know, we don't like to talk hunting and all that. But man, you don't call your doctor up on his cell phone and want, you know, diagnose your whole, you know, everything without going into his office. I like him to give me Z-Packs without going in. Like, just get a Z-Pack. So you're one of those guys. Well, I mean, I pay for it. What's a Z-Pack? I don't know. Well, it's like a big, like a boost. A vitamin boost. Let's just, for all intents and purposes, it's a prescription vitamin boost. Prescription monster. I know I drink those too. My nails grow like crazy. That's good as prenatal right there. I swear it is. And the girls don't have any. Janet can't even say anything about it. Did you take prenatals? Yes. Why shouldn't I? I identify as a prenatal taker. I don't know. I'm just saying. I'm just saying, Bronson, I would pay for it. I would pay for it.

I'd pay for it to be able to get a Z-Pack at will. Especially right here at the Expo. We're going to be passing around 14 variants of COVID. You know, or whatever. We do seem to always get sick after one of those things. So, before you shake my hand, wash your hand, please. All right, everybody. I don't know what else to say. We sell firearms here. Fierce firearms as well. Kind of fun to do. We don't do it. We dabble in it. It's pretty fun. We can make custom orders. We have guns here in stock. I have our FFL and whatnot. It's fun. It's fun. All that kind of stuff is fun. We frankly have had a hard time pilfering the inventory as it comes right off the assembly line. Josh wants everything that comes in. It's firsthand. He gets to run the bolt first. And if he falls in love, we can't even touch the gun. You're like, hey, boss, don't wear it out. Jeez, good grief. That's brand new.

Pretty fun. It's awesome. But anyway, everybody, anybody that's interested in going to the expo, go to HuntExpo.com. It's February 2nd to the 5th, as Adam said earlier, 2023 at the Salt Palace here in Salt Lake City, Utah. HuntExpo.com. You also get to go there and apply for the little $5 tags, $5 tickets to get in for the different tags. And there's a lot of hunts available to apply for. I think that's the other thing, Bronson. You should have your name in every hat you can have it in, including our epic hunt giveaway. In our membership drive, we're giving away dang near $200,000 worth of hunts. Some of the best stuff we can find that we want to go on ourselves. A lot of them are this year, too, to where the inventory of incredible hunts. If you said, I just got gifted or whatever, this amount of money, I want to go spend on a great hunt. I won the lottery, and Biden wanted some taxes.

And after the taxes, I had a few bucks. So, yeah, go try to buy some of these hunts. It's not possible. And it's mainly because these outfitters are great. They're popular. And we've had to secure these years in advance. And, you know, now we're looking at some of these states like Nevada deer, Utah deer, Nevada elk, you know, others that, like, should be off the charts. Like, anyway, so, yeah, the principle, and we do it ourselves. We obviously don't play our own draws. We can't do that. But we play the raffle. It's funny. Logan asked. Logan, no. Employees can't play the draw. That's right. Well, I had to ask. Yeah. But, anyway, to the extent possible, it's another name on the hat. Whether it be this, whether it be different organizations or things like that, we've each won some wild stuff, things like this. Yeah, you especially. Really? Yeah, you've played a lot. I haven't.

Well, you won that sheep hunt. You won the sheep hunt. Yeah, I did. I did win a sheep hunt. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah. A couple of them, Bronson. Well, no, one. Yeah, we had a sponsored package. We won one in the early days of Epic. Oh, yeah. We did win that at the Full Curl Society. Yes. It's called Sheep Camp. We did one of those at Epic, and we gave that away. And we gave it away. Membership drive. In our early days. Yeah, we did. But I did win. And then you won one. For 2024, be going up to Northwest Territories. I did. Yeah, so it happens. I mean, yeah, and yes, what you're talking about has happened to us, too, is playing some long shot odds. Yeah, and some of the state raffles. Right. Or things like that. But, anyway, it's nice to keep the dream alive. That's really what it is. And early in the year, the dream is alive. About May or June, it's not. I am so freaking excited for 2023.

I can't stand it. And it's not even... Dude, I mean... It's not even that much different other than the moisture. It's just... It goes back to the kills, though. Like, if I could just get tags and not go, I'd be probably happy, too. Yeah. I like the kill. The kill. Not meaning a dead animal. The kill of acquiring a tag. Yeah, acquiring a tag. You buy a tag, you feel like you've done something. I mean, it's hard nowadays. Yeah. There's money. I don't understand it. It feels like there's a few bucks everywhere. The sheep show money was unbelievable. Proved it. The tags. They're selling there. Governor tags, 300 plus thousand on a regular basis. Used to be Montana only. Yeah. For Rockies. Now there's a handful of them all that broke 300 plus. A handful. For Rockies and Callies. And Callies. A Callie? Really? For over 300? Yeah. It happened. And so anyway, it's just crazy. It's fun times.

It's really fun times to be a part of. And there's just a lot of opportunities out there. And that's our job is to capitalize on Western Big Game hunting. All the opportunities, anything and everything to do with Western Big Game. We also apply, guys. We have an application service. We charge $50 a state for the first species in a particular state. And then if it's two or more, it's $100. So you can apply for all species in a state for $100 with a $750 cap. So the most we charge you is $750. And then you're responsible for your own state license fees and application fees and whatnot. But we apply you as if you apply yourself. Similar to a tax accountant. So anyway, and we choose, most guys, we choose the units. We kind of get what they want to do. And then we play it as if it's our own. And we've done this for 20 plus years. Dang near 30 years.

So anyway, anybody that needs help, I think we're the most affordable and knowledgeable application service out there. We live for it. And we love to draw our clients' tags. You know, that's our job. Get them the right tags. If they draw the wrong tags, it's not so great. And so anyway, we work hard on it and we touch every application. All right. Bronson, I'm about done. Yeah. I'm calling it. You happy? It's lunchtime. It's lunchtime. Logan, are you happy? Of course. I'm all good. Yeah. Well, just ever since Logan came, the video cameras showed up, all kinds of weird stuff. I'm kind of, I don't know about this. I feel, I feel like the government's spying on this room. I just learned that he adjusted this camera over your shoulder and I says, oh, I know they're here, but I didn't know they literally were being used. They're used. They're used. So apparently these are on YouTube.

And whatever I've said or done or looked like. You've been on YouTube, boss. I apologize. YouTube. I did not know. Epic Outdoors has an account on YouTube, right? I don't remember signing a disclosure saying I could be videoed during a podcast. Do you mean you're worried that you haven't given your rights to use your image? You haven't given Epic. My likeness. Yeah, that's right. To use your image. Well, hey. You own Epic, boss. It's kind of like a radio voice. My wife is in radio forever and she could record her country show for four hours. She could do that in our house. Right. In a closet. Right. Okay. Didn't have to get makeup, but hair on. Nothing. Hair done, nothing like that. I kind of thought podcasts were like that too. Well, yeah. I could just work in here and talk only. Now I have to think about, all right, what am I doing? What am I? Right. Right.

What's Logan going to portray your image as? Yeah. Which clip is going to be used? The one that I scratched my nose a little too vigorously? The one you just did right now. That's right. I always make sure you guys look good. Okay. It's pretty hard sometimes, but I do it. I want to hear. That's what I want to hear. That's a good answer because I am not, for an hour, I've never, I've never, how many of these we've done? 250, 300 of them? I don't know how many. What are we at? 264 is this one. I've never had to think about what I'm doing. I can scratch something. I can take a drink on the side. That's good. I can, you know, point a finger at Jason. Whatever. Any of my five fingers? Any of my five fingers? We can laugh when it's inappropriate. I don't know. Any of my five fingers? Right. If I laugh too much, he can cut my mic, but now he cuts my mic, but I'm over there laughing.

That's why you only hire people that have your best interest in mind. And the interest of the company. That's your job, Logan. That's right. Make us look good when we don't look good. Logan's killing it. We're proud of you, kiddo. Thanks a lot. We're teasing, but anyway. All right, everybody. We look forward to seeing everybody. Bring some... What? Don't bring Bitcoin. Anything but Bitcoin. And we'll send you home some awesome offers. Trade and barter? All right. Sounds good. We'll see everybody February 2nd to the 5th at the UnExpo. So you'll see you next week. Thank you.