This episode will have you on the edge of your seat as Jason and Adam share the times that they got stuck in the desert with NO WATER. With all this snowfall and moisture we have to reminisce on a time when water wasn’t so plentiful just to keep our perspective in check. Jason and Adam talk upcoming deadlines in the month of April and their excitement for Nevada, Wyoming and New Mexico Big Game. Logan is back to defend himself on his “shed hunting” trip he had last week and the adventures he had, all of which didn’t amount to much time spent looking for sheds.
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00:00:01:05 –> 00:01:19:20
Anything to do with Western big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson coming at you from Southern Utah. It’s awesome. It’s like freaking 70 something degrees Bronson. The last couple days I’ve seen nothing but major water coming outta that canyon. Yeah, it’s the canyon’s spitting hard right now, but it’s got, it’s nothing what it’s gonna be like. No, but I, I, I mean from, we’ve been watching day to day and two days ago it was half of what it is y what it was yesterday. And who knows what’s gonna happen today. The mountain’s warm. It’s unbelievable. And yeah, they’ve got it diverted in like three different streams and it’s, there’s significant water coming off that hill, so will be for months. Kind of crazy. How about, how about Josh was, went skiing over the weekend, snow skiing? Yeah, he did. It was, I don’t know, spring break for his kids or something like that. And he lit, he’s burnt to a crisp on the right side of his face. ’cause apparently you right up going, you know, west to east, spent too much time on the left west to east. And that south face just cooked him. I don’t know. I, I mean, hey, kudos to him. Second to third degree burns on his face it looks like. Yeah. The old man went snowboarding. How about that? Yeah, John did it. John was up there too.
00:01:19:24 –> 00:02:28:15
They saw each other up there. Yeah. Kind of crazy. I don’t know. I’m looking. Yeah. And then how was John or Josh walking yesterday around the office? Seemed a little bit bow-legged and shuffling. Yeah. He was wounded. Sore. Yeah. Yeah. Muscles you don’t use if you don’t ski often. Yeah, a hundred percent. And if you try to ski, ski aggressively, I skied as a, as a youth couldn’t do that through high school sports and all that, just because of kind of a team rule. But skied very little after it got expensive. Of course you get. And then I got other expensive habits like hunting and so I don’t ski and now I’m, geez, I’m kind of scared to get back into it. ’cause you’re gonna blow something out. It’s the same reason I quit playing church ball and stuff. You’re gonna blow an Achilles knee, everything else back. You quit chasing tie around the house. Yeah, exactly. Well look at your kid. He watched, he’s 16. He’s had how many shoulder problems? Oh, due to snowboarding. Ski. Yeah, he’s had surgery. Yeah. I mean, he’s down and out. I now have a permanent tro cam scouting friend for the summer. No job or nothing. And my kid boss, because he can’t lift ice, he’s an ice deliverer. Right. He doesn’t, one of the jobs builds ice. Makes ice cuts ice. He could sell. He probably drive. Yeah. Is he gonna drive trucks? No, he can’t. Oh.
00:02:28:22 –> 00:03:48:07
CDO gotta be 18 probably, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So what do you got? I’ve got a buddy for the hills. Okay. Sometimes he’s awesome afterwards. That’s a slave. Oh, well, hey, if, if we did human trail cams nowadays I’d do, he’d be my human truck camera. So, Hey, he’s your last son. You might need to pass on on something. I don’t know. Ashley’s, Ashley’s as hard a hunter as all of them. So anyway, she’s killing it. You can’t quite give her the the slave driver job though. She’s a girl daughter. You got daddy. Take care of his little girl. Justin, go pound on the post. Oh yeah, you gotta dislocate his shoulder. Nevermind. Nevermind. All right. Here, here’s the coyote gun. Oh, it’s your right shoulder. We can’t pound that. That’ll have to shoot all the coyotes. Oh yeah. Just have me a Pepsi. Justin. Just have me a Pepsi. Can you gimme that? Oh, poor kid. Anyway. Bummer. He’s still getting trucks muddy. Trust me. I’ve been sending him out. He is been, can’t be driving. Looking around a little bit. Not, not been out and about. Can’t drive the stick or is he back driving the stick automatic? No, no, no. He’s been traveling to Arizona, cranking the hills and I mean, if he trips one time, you’re back in for another three to five months. It’s a problem. I said, those rotator cuffs, you don’t mess around with them.
00:03:48:18 –> 00:05:11:19
He’s like six foot two or something and, and just like, you know, you go down hard, you’re a heap. You’re all arms and legs at that age. Don’t be clumsy, you know, so anyway. Well we don’t have anything specific today where there’s a lot of kinda loose ends. Bronson, who knows, who knows where this is all gonna go. And sometimes these are our be best podcasts. But anyway, we initiated the mules matter movement, so to speak, and with the help of everybody in the hunting world. And we appreciate all the support as we kind of talked about the challenges that, that Mulder are facing, whether it be droughts combined with harsh winters, harsh winters up north, droughts down here now, you know, just the changing of of weather patterns makes a huge difference. As well as management with the, within the state. And then maybe even some states being apathetic to change when they need to change and, and you know, trying to put that off as long as they can, just for obvious reasons. Lots of reasons. They want lots of participation. They also wanna generate revenue and there’s balance budgets to balance and o and other, other things as well. You know, there’s a lot of people that, that are, some people that just absolutely don’t care about an age class and structure and proper management and 14 other variables. And so anyway, trying to keep us all happy and that’s not easy.
00:05:12:19 –> 00:06:19:25
We did bring up some of those challenges and talked about some of it and then we just thought, well, the least we could do is, is try to, is is try to not kill the babies. You know, you know what I’m talking about. Well, yeah. And I mean some of the states of you and I a little bit. Yeah. And you know, this last week, I think it was Friday, we’re getting ready for this May magazine, which we do cover Wyoming antelope and deer. Main reason why we put that off and don’t cover it earlier in January is for the very reason of what happened this year is since you don’t have to apply for those till the end of May, we put those off to gauge winter effects on deer end or antelope around Wyoming before we go to print. And by the time we go to print, we normally have the permit recommendations so it makes sense to put it off till like an April mag. Yeah, well obviously thankfully you did because you could apply for those back in in January. Yeah, yeah. Luckily you can amend, it’s easy to amend your application. But, but we’re seeing monumental. So Friday they came out with an additional set of permit recommendations that went even deeper in most places, especially for antelope.
00:06:20:00 –> 00:07:42:25
Some deer eliminated tons of doon tags all over the state for antelope and eliminated or cut severely even more buck or the an any antelope quotas throughout the state, which just, and I’ve gotten, I’ve, I’ve spent hours and hours as, as we’ve done in other states, Jason and Idaho and Utah and other places watching these YouTube presentations about from biologists that are given around the state. And it, man, it sounds bleak up there. And these were, these were done. Wow. These weren’t done this week. These were done. Some of them you’re reading them and they were the initial Yeah. Permit cuts. And now a month, a month later things have worsened. They got more big crushing snows and they’ve gone deeper. I bet you’d see and even hear the, I dunno desperation even more if, if they rerecorded those today. But anyway, enough said Wyoming Yeah. Is making some changes there. They’re cutting some season dates off the end of some of the western popular g and h units to end them the end of September. And don’t go into that first week of October. Also go into three point or better in, in those areas. And they specifically say this is 100% to prevent, to prevent from harvesting yearling bugs because they’re, they’re basically saying if a buck is strong or a fawn is strong enough to just to survive this winter, we want him around a while. Yeah.
00:07:43:10 –> 00:08:51:18
And, and they’ve already, and so you and I, 90%, so you and I teased a little bit and we’re saying in part in some states, and even, you know, even let’s just say within Utah, you know, we’ve seen where they wanna, they’re increase in tags. Tag would kill the babies for one reason. Kill the fass down south, save the fas up north, you know, or because we’re potentially gonna save some fass up north, let’s issue tags and, and harvest ’em down south because they, you know, they’re not up against winter kill ever. Just different from the perspective. They’re making stuff three point or better to save every two point that makes it And and other places, Utah. Yeah. Southern Utah. They’re, they’re dramatically increasing tags in some units for the, with the sole rationale that we have a big fong crop coming in this year. A big fong crop at two points. Yeah. That’s the only reason they can base it on. Yeah. It’s the only thing that’s happened since deep cuts last year. Yeah. Yeah. That’s Kill the babies. I know. And I, and it’s, it’s a little awkward to say it, it, it kind of jerks a little bit about it triggers you a little bit and which it’s supposed to we’re, I, I’m not a fan of of, of, you know, harvesting the small ones. Well, I’m okay with people having an experience and, and you kids and all that are totally different.
00:08:51:18 –> 00:10:01:07
We’ve said that a million times. But I mean, when you dramatically increase by what, what they’ve done in some units in southern Utah just based on the fawn crop that’s coming up this year. Abnormal pressure on those young bucks. Yeah. Well, and let’s put it, how many three, 4-year-old bucks do we even have on these units because of the drought, right. We we’re not even out of the drought. They’re so slow to cut tags during the drought, but so fast. One good moisture year, we’re gonna add add ’em right back. Right. It’s just my frustration. So there’s a lot of, I don’t wanna get going on it, but we’ve No, no. And they’re, you know, we’ve lot of frustrations enough. We’ve vented plenty. But we kind of wanted to do a little bit of a recap because this Muley matter movement has got so many, so much traction. We’ve had a lot of donations that’s significant by personal, personal people. Not, some are quasi businesses, small businesses. Some are just individuals that don’t want to be named, that are, that are throwing in a optics. So, and, and legit not, we’re not talking their, the, you know, 10-year-old used optics. We’re talking new inbox optics and so it’s not gonna be a rinky-dink thing. We’re not giving giveaway hats and t-shirts. No. I mean maybe, well, maybe along with a good significant prizes. That’s right. And so we’re just, we’re so excited about it.
00:10:01:08 –> 00:11:17:01
We just appreciate all the support out there anyway. And, and, and it’s not necessarily, you know, support for us as, as well as just that the, it’s raising an awareness of let’s let’s not shoot the young, you don’t have to, let’s shoot the moms. Let’s just, you know, do our, do our best to, I mean, we gotta do something. We gotta do something in addition to what the states are doing sometimes to help our own. Cause this is our own industry. We all own this me, you, the members of Epic Outdoors, everyone listening. We all own this industry. And so what can we do? There’s, there’s things we can do. Yeah. That may, may not make a difference with the states, may not. Maybe at times we have. But this is something we can all do. Everybody can throw in a little. And it’s, it’s been way fun to be a part of Save some bucks, pun intended. Well, yeah, let’s, geez, we’re gonna save some bucks. You know, the one thing I wanted to talk about on a three pointer better, you know, is I worry a little bit if it’s three points on one side and a fork key on the other side. You get this, you know, shoot, pray, leave lay concept. Wow. Say that again? Leave, leave lay. Wow. That rolled off your tongue. I haven’t heard that before. I haven’t either. Wow. It was just divine.
00:11:17:20 –> 00:12:20:11
Well, no, but I mean, you know, shoot, shoot, pray, leave lay. Okay. You just get that concept of hope. People are hoping that it’s got a three on one side and then they’re nervous, they walk up to it, they’re nervous, and they go back to hunting and pretend that they didn’t find it. And it, and that has happened. It’s, it’s shown itself years ago in other states. A lot of states, other places that, that’s been a, that’s been the number one reason. They, they don’t stick for very long. Right. Is the leaving lay. So if they do that, I, I just think maybe three points on both sides. That way you have to actually consciously view it, look at it, count ’em, and know what you’re know, know your target and more so than just hoping Oh, he is got a decent frame. Yeah, yeah. Decent. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, he’s got an eye guard’s. I mean, you know, I mean if he’s a forkey with, with eye guards or I don’t know. That’s a breeder butt leaving. Hundred percent. Yeah. Especially if he made it through Yeah. Up north. That’s, and he’s got I guards. He’s legit. I’m telling you. And it’s gonna be, it would be if you see a, a, a yearling two point this year Yeah. In Western Wyoming.
00:12:21:06 –> 00:13:30:28
Take your hat off and say do good things my friend, because he’s one of the Yeah, right now you’re talking 90 to 95% fond loss on the leather radio, radio call falls. You’re talking up a 85% adult in places. Mortality. Yeah. These, these are significant. Oh, you know, sometimes threshold crossing type figures. Yeah. Meaning, meaning you’re crossing a threshold now that meaning may not recover just by simply backing off a little bit of tags. You can double your herd and you’ve got three or four or six or nine or whatever. Right. I mean, so to speak. Yeah. And you can’t double, you know, 4.5 and get none. I get that. But I mean, I’m just saying when you double low numbers, you get nothing. And it takes so many times to double to get to anywhere. And we’re not gonna quit hunting. And we’ve shown, we’ve shown that, I mean we’ve, we, we closed units how many years ago? Actually, Bronson, why don’t we talk about that a little bit? How long has it been since the units closed in our lifetime? You did case studies in, in college on those. Well, we did, we, well some of ’em are in Utah, so I’m more familiar with the book Cliffs. The Henrys, the gon San Juan gon, did we close the book Cliffs? It seems like we did. I know we did. San Juan, Henry’s, Henry’s and Ponag Gone. Absolutely. For sure. And Pons.
00:13:30:28 –> 00:14:37:23
Those are the ones in, in southern Utah. San Juan. I know, I, when they open it up, there was giants. So keep going. Yeah. So just interesting. You don’t see it anymore. I, I just wonder why, why in the past, why was that decision? That’s a dramatic change from normal. Yeah. This was in the eighties. Well, we had a lot more Dear Earth than we have today. Collectively. Yeah. But, but it had slipped from whatever normal was to the people at the time in the eighties, that they felt, I’m gonna close this down. So what happens? And I know what happens. I know the answer to these things, but I mean, what happens when, when they close ’em down for, and it was like a five year stretch, you know what I mean? Yeah. Most of ’em are not more than five to seven years. That’s right. Without digging it up now. I mean, it was, it, it, for some reason there’s an intangible they didn’t even hunt those prior. And those are the ones, those, those are what obviously have the babies. Yeah. But, but just no hunting pressure actually saved those too. There’s an incidental of impacts, whatever. I, I don’t know what it is. It’s intangibles, leave lays or intangibles, whatever. I don’t know what it’s pressure in general, I dunno how to do it. Just, they were left alone and they did good things and they did left alone.
00:14:37:27 –> 00:15:46:00
Even those that weren’t hunted prior, just like they did better. But, but I’m, I’m sure we’d have to go superpose and I mean, some of that could have been, it was a perfect time that they closed down with, you know, 82 to 85 in Utah and certain places was monumentally wet. Or, or, or, or like saying going to a draw for Colorado was perfect timing. ’cause you didn’t have the rough winters from Yeah. Oh three to Oh exactly. Oh five or oh six. So you had this perfect. Now if they would’ve had really rough winters in oh one Yeah. Or oh three. Well, and then you wouldn’t, we wouldn’t have this example. Well look Colorado and look at, look at, let’s say in Southern Utah or Nevada, if we had have closed units hypothetically and after, after, you know, 20 20 20, it, 21 and 22 were, were just as bad. You know what I mean? Right. It would not have had, so a lot of it is just you get lucky a little bit, little bit like sheep transplants or other things that sometimes you’re doomed right from the start because of whatever. Right. But, but anyway, and we’re not, we’re not saying, hey, everything needs to be closed down. But I mean, there’s, there’s instances on small scale, small have an scale, you 85% loss. How do you, how do you just back off pressure come back two or three years later?
00:15:46:07 –> 00:16:46:02
How do you, I mean, how there’s, there’s plenty of sheep herds in New Mexico that aren’t hunted. They call it. They don’t have what they consider to be a viable population, but they have a population. Yeah. I mean, sometimes there’s not viable population viability. Yeah. You know, there may be some of that in places. I know there’s sheep in, in Colorado that aren’t hunted. Well, there’s, we saw unit, unit one 30 in Wyoming for Deere. It’s always been a 15 tag type unit, which is kinda like debatable. Well, I have a, they call it a late season, but it only goes till October 31st. But why even have 15 tags? There’s kind of a unique, let the region h deer migrate down to the open stage and hunt. Well, they’re cutting that to five tags. I’m thinking why even have a hunt for five? Probably because they already had, well, people apply for it back from January. Like we were talking about when, when you gotta skew, it’s hard to get rid of it. You know? And, and that’s, I think I contend there’s all I along those same lines, I contend, you know, there’s times when the management hunts have gone too long. We’re not there. Welcome. We’re not there. Welcome. It’s, maybe it’s okay to pull those out.
00:16:46:11 –> 00:17:47:23
If we go to a three pointer better in northern Utah, it would be okay to transition outta that sooner than later as soon as we we’re back to where we need to be with while two or three years a good farm production. You got, you’re, yeah. It doesn’t need to be forever, but maybe there’s some different things tend to hold on and, and remain. I think there needs to be some outside the box Yeah. Process. And I, I applaud I guess Wyoming for thinking about that because it’s not common. Most states, I don’t really know of many other states that even employ that. And it’s controversial. There’s maybe some states will conflicting, we say it doesn’t help. Whatever, there’s a lot that have to line up to, to, to really demonstrate something to work. You could do it in a bad year and then drought and it get masked by the drought. That’s, Hey, we’re not recruiting any more bucks by doing three point or better. Well, it was masked by the fact that it went in two to two dry years back to back. You know, so there’s things like that. But I guess man, just as some of these agencies and wildlife commissions look at these things that are, you know, hey, we’re in our, I guess upper forties, not you Logan.
00:17:48:02 –> 00:18:48:13
So, but in our lifetime, I’ve not seen something this widespread in my lifetime as far as all of northern Utah, that much of Wyoming and even northern part of Colorado. I mean this severe, I I haven’t that, that much country. I haven’t either. No. And, and it goes back, you know, I haven’t either. And, and so we may need to, you know, cruel in usual times require cruel and unusual remedies. We to be, well it was, it was after some of the winters in like 92, 93 that, that, that Utah had to go to a draw for the general Yeah. That, that was what started it. Yeah. And you know, we’re now, we’re doing a draw now. We’re the unit by unit draw. Nobody likes to see opportunity go away, but at the same token. And they’re like, yeah, if we take away opportunity, how do you get kids hooked on hunting? How do you get ’em out there and you know, give ’em the opportunity if you cut tags. Well, if you don’t have a good experience out there, if you don’t have something for them to see and hunt and harvest, then what are you hooking them on? You hooking them on. You can take them camping right now. Yeah. What are you hooking them on?
00:18:48:15 –> 00:20:01:15
If there’s nothing there, my kids are addicted, but I, but I work, I also work at other multi-state opportunities and, and, and yeah, you could say that that’s not possible for some people. But, but if you had to just rely on Utah general, I mean, and they draw every two to three years or two every two, every other. And then the product during these drought years has been, yeah, you can find bucks. I mean, you can, but it’s, it’s tough for people, some of ’em to find bucks or if you hunt casually, you know, a casual family or hunter. It, I contend that just having a tag isn’t good enough. Right. For some you have to have a product on the mountain and, and when times are bad, we all suffer, including the kids. Yeah. And when, when times are good, we hopefully all prosper. Yeah. I think it’s commendable. There’s private, oh, private enterprises and, and cws or, you know, that are considering, from what I’ve heard, that are considering not hunting, not, not commercially hunting their place. And, and I think that’s commendable. And I think it’s similar to cattle or sheep or anything else. When you’re dealing with, you know, livestock or animals or wildlife or whatever, things change. The price of hay changes that maybe there’s a drought and they have to pull off the range earlier than normal. And that creates hardship and it’s unfortunate.
00:20:01:18 –> 00:21:06:27
And then on the good years, they, they do well. And hopefully some of these guys do really well on the good years. And, and I think it’s commendable. They’re willing to take care of the resource and, and, and look past their, their checkbook at times. You know, but also they’ve also got a reputation with Yeah. To hold out to realize. And I, I do not wanna take I hundred could I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna lose my reputation. I’m gonna lose 10 years of business by taking people these next two years that I shouldn’t be taking. Or, or 10 years of a great reputation all of a sudden turned sour. And you got, you know, internet trolls crushing you over a bad hunt that you were sold, that you, that you went ahead with. Yep. Yeah. And so there’s some of that, it’s position. And if that happens, the public shouldn’t be able to hunt those places either. If, if we’re in effect shutting down an entire operation. So, which a lot of reason we’re bringing that up is a lot of northern Utah is heavily private land. It’s where 90% of the CW mus in Utah are, are up there. You know, maybe 80%, whatever the number is. But it’s vastly private land. Yeah. So, so it’s kind of, kind of interesting. There’s, there’s just a lot of moving parts and I, and we’ve talked so much biology. I’m actually tired of it.
00:21:06:27 –> 00:22:22:29
Yeah, me too. I think I do want to talk a lit just, just a little bit more, you brought up a good point about buck door ratios in Wyoming, even on the general areas. And I’ve often wondered personally, why, how can a place like Wyoming in, in even parts of Idaho at times have, you know, offer basically over the counter opportunities for the residents with, you know, an unlimited number, you know, and maintain good hunts. People that’ll spend, people will spend 10, 12, 14 points to go to region G that’s over the counter for residents. Like why is that? How can they do that and command that kind of point level, which obviously that people are being provided a decent experience or they wouldn’t be willing to go and we wouldn’t be talking about it in a publication. And, and you and I surmised a few things. Maybe there’s, you know, the population base of people in Wyoming is such that they can, they can get away with a little bit of that. And maybe it’s just the nature of the units and extreme and little bit more physical forested and physical mountainous. So you don’t just crush everything that walks. There’s escapement, whether it be because of terrain or timber, things like that. And it’s a also a very unique season to hunt on a, on a general sea. There’s no other general seasons that hunt September 15th, right.
00:22:23:01 –> 00:23:24:21
For two weeks, you know, it used to be three weeks this week year it’s gonna be two and you could contend a September 15th. Makes deer pretty vulnerable. They’re in a summer. Yeah. They, they kind of are just right at, they’re coming out of velvet, but they’re also right at that phase that, that they can get tough. And it feels like with the added pressure, what we normally hear and see is they’ve learned over the years to get smart and go to the timber. To dive to the timber. Yep. And so, yeah, they manage those units for 30 bucks per hundred dose, which I mean by other standards in other states, that’s like a limited entry type unit in Utah. Or that’s better than a lot of states, a lot of states, you know, for a general season area. So that, that, that’s a, a testament to the productivity of those areas. But at the same time, and they’re above that. They’re, they’re above that, that now prior pre pre winter. Yeah. Going into the winter they were like 34. I I I read 34 bucks per hundred dollars. Which that’s high. It is high. I mean that’s, you know, we, that’s some of our better units here in Utah. Yeah. I mean we have some, some in the forties, even higher. Some are in the forties, like, but gon or things like that. Henry’s but impre, but impressive. Yeah. Honestly.
00:23:24:28 –> 00:24:36:12
And, and if they’re within their threshold, you know, we’re critical. Hey, y’all ought to be changing things up and, and we’re, we’re a bit critical, but in, you know, cri being critical set aside if they’re within their management objectives, well, maybe, maybe that’s why that we also talked about that slow to change. And you tell the other day though, we’re talking about buck todo ratios, but at what point does your buck to ratio do you get versus carrying capacity? Yeah. Versus how many deer do you actually have with that buck todo ratio and, and after a big winter in Wyoming, those are the types of questions they’re gonna have to really, well look. Alright, what, okay, we’re, we’re, we’re okay buck todo ratio wise in a year or two, but our deer numbers are 20% of objective. And Zach and Zach mentioned that we have this moving target all the time and we’re changing our carrying capacity objectives and we feel like we’re chasing our tail and never, and then at some point people forget what carrying capacity unit could really have, because you haven’t seen it for 20 years. You know, I mean, only the, the elderly in our hunting community remember what a caring capacity really looks like. Well it’s just like we’re we, we joke early winter on about some people don’t know what a regular, a regular normal winter’s like. Yeah.
00:24:36:12 –> 00:25:47:07
So, so, so you see a bunch of snow really hard and, and it, and it turned out to be in most places, especially say it did very northern Colorado and all that, but initially even in southern Utah, you know, we got people, you know, freaking out. We’re gonna lose a lot. How are they gonna, they’re like, this is, this is, I mean this is the first above normal severely above normal we’ve seen in 10 plus years. So normal gets warped into a new sense of normal. And yeah. That, that notion of carrying capacity or that notion of how many deer can we really sustain on a unit. Yeah. A lot of times it feels like that just gets lowered and lowered and lowered because, you know, we’re so far below it or not, they just lower the objective or not discussed at all. Yeah. Maybe it’s just not discussed at all. All well that’s the point of emphasis more than anything. Yeah. Growing more dear. And so yeah, it’s just kind of interesting. But anyway, so there’s a, there’s a lot going on. I guess our point of it is just to say, Hey, these tag numbers have been up adjusted again up there in Wyoming. Utah’s having meetings today as we speak. We’ve been listening in talking about c committing things to death and whatnot. And maybe, maybe some adjustments in our system a little bit coming, who knows?
00:25:47:18 –> 00:26:56:07
Didn’t, didn’t even know that was really up for debate, but it sounds like it is today a little bit. So they’re having some good discussions. And again, we, we appreciate the people that spend some time. We, we know a lot of them and they spend a lot of time working on this stuff. And there’s like, we all know what they say about opinions and, and we have ours and everybody has theirs and and whatnot. And so it is, it is what it is. It, we’re just, everybody’s trying, trying to look out for what’s best for the wildlife and what, and from their perspective. So anyway, some positive broon, some positive New Mexico’s gonna run the result or run their draw maybe this week it’s been a week or so. Yeah. Yeah. And how excited, you have a tendency of sometimes being a little early than their advertised date, which I think’s the 26th of April, but sometimes they’re a week or so early. Well they’ve gotta, they’ve gotta sift out the felons and sift out a few of these other, you know, make sure that the draw’s clean and, and the applicants are clean and everything’s ready to go. So I think there’s quite a process in getting everything ready, but it’s, it’s coming together from, from my understanding and I just, I’m gonna put you on the spot. Oh geez. Just came to me. I need to remember what I applied for.
00:26:56:07 –> 00:28:06:04
You can ask me what I applied for. No. Okay, good. I want to hear a 380 inch bull story. I don’t know that you’ve, what year was that spewed that story? It was a draw tag and let’s, let’s just call it 18 or 20 s think it was, I think 2019 if you keep, so 2019 was actually, it was actually a pretty good year, at least here in Utah. Nevada was really good year. I imagine New Mexico had that same result. Arizona usually when Nevada Utah have good years, we have good years in, in Arizona and New Mexico as well, 2019. Awesome. So I, you you, you know, they have two different draws. They have a regular drop where, you know, we, we give 6% of the tags. People that are willing to do anything, they could go guided, they go self-guided, they do whatever they want, they could eat the tag, whatever. And then you’ve got 10% to go into a guide pool for non-residents or residents, whoever applies. Well and that guide pool helps at times. That’s the only pool that’ll be issued attack where a non-resident can get attacked if you’re dealing with a low tag with a 10 tag unit or something or 10 tag. Huh. There’s only gonna be one non-resident tag and it’s gonna go to the guidepost. So that particular year there was one-on-one. Yeah.
00:28:06:04 –> 00:29:14:19
There, there was, it was before they, I guess reinforced that they used to round and it was, in that case it was eight, two and two. Well, then they ended up tightening up their rounding Yeah. Procedures and whatever. So now it’s like 9 0 1 now. Right. In that same instance. But, but yeah, I’ve, I’ve entered the guide draw on occasion for certain like, like for sheep and things like that. Mainly because get absolutely an extra tag or two. And I know that doesn’t seem like monumental, but I mean I you’re, when you’re looking at one tag, two is double. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So anyway, this was one of those years, it was also one of the years, like we’ve talked about often with New Mexico that in, in a good wet year, which 2019, if you remember it rained and rained and rained all spring here. It was just wet, wet, wet was a, an average winter up until about March. And then it just turned on from then to May. It was, which is not, not as usual for us. And and northern, Northern Arizona, New Mexico got it too. So it was one of those years feeling like, alright, this is when you just go out there and draw something weird. Well there was a, a new unit that opened up that had a nerdy rifle with 10 tags for rifle. Rifle. They had been only hunting like archery. Yeah.
00:29:14:20 –> 00:30:15:05
So I put it down as my first choice. I mean just like, well 10 tag unit, you better put your first choice or you know, why put it, you know, and then I, I don’t even remember what I put on the others. Might’ve been a, that one might’ve been the same year. 16 B wilderness had the early hunt too. Yeah. An October one. Yeah, it might’ve been that same year. So I’m gonna put those two back to back, which is not really an aggressive draw strategy, but No, it’s actually terrible going for the one tag in a unit or two. But, but it was also an area that was overlooked because they’re not easy that that one is, well it wasn’t desert arid low densities. Yeah. But giant potential. And, and I don’t know what I did second, third, honestly. It could have been 16 B wilderness, but it may not have been. But anyway, I, I was more aggressive on the third, whatever that was. But I, I drew, I drew my first choice and I remember I about crap. You remember that? Yeah, I remember. I mean ’cause we had to look four times, times. I don’t remember the bathroom accident you drew, but remember we, yeah, I read the hunt code to you and we’re like wow, that’s what it is. But how was that? How are you the only person? You’re the one statistic. You’re the one and whatever.
00:30:15:07 –> 00:31:15:24
What I love is you can’t draw 50% odd, but you’ll draw the one in a hundred. I’ve drawn weird the goat in Alaska over one in a hundred. I’ve drawn some really wild ones. Antelope in Arizona, you to 10. Oh yeah. Shouldn’t draw that. No you shouldn’t. You got an 87. The 87 inch didn’t draw truck chaser, you know, but, but you do. Did you chase him? Did or did he chase you? No, it was all, it depends on who you asked. It was all me and him, but I was chasing him. I think you’ve even spewed that story once. Oh yeah. But it seems like it was a thunderstorm of epic proportions. I I was, it was actually after we, I had a friend of mine, Eric Hunt in Arizona. He, he knows unit 10 well. So he’d offered to come up on the hunt and just glass. I’d found this buck and a couple of others. This the one we, so we’re talking antelope now instead of helping. Well I just, I think it’s just hilarious. But you’re out in antelope country and you’re the tallest thing and you got a gun over your shoulder. I remember walking back to the truck, it’s pouring rain and lightning all around us and I’m like, we’re gonna die. One of us is gonna get hit by lightning. There’s lightning hitting all over. It is pouring. And, and I, I didn’t dare put my gun on my shoulder.
00:31:16:03 –> 00:32:13:15
’cause why the highest thing above your head? It’s gonna be a lightning rod. It’s gonna be your bullet. So I carried my gun down in my head and I’m just stretching. You know, we don’t got heavy packs. We got an antelope in there, but it was, it was only probably, I don’t know this half mile smashed it. Oh. And took care of it about 45 mile an hour run. Dude, I pretty much, yeah, I wish I was there. Well that yeah, that’s what I meant by I chased him. I air mailed him, I put my sticks in the bush, got my gun up and I don’t know if they weren’t actually on the ground, you know, the actual stick something. But I shot my gun, fell down into the bush and, and, and, and, and I’m like, he just took off running. I’m like, what? Full? It’s like 300 or three 50. Like it’s a dead goat. So I just checked one in and luckily he was running straight away from me. Straight. We all know how fast and a major I, I had to kill. There’s a major kill zone. That’s what, four inches in diameter? Yeah. Total. Yeah. And I, I think I’ve told the story, but, but I had no time to range and dial. And by the time you range and dial, get on your gun, he’s moved a hundred yards so it doesn’t matter.
00:32:13:25 –> 00:33:20:23
So I just, you know, he was a big antelope and I’m like, so I just put it right on his butt, raved it above his head of his head and just shot and crumpled him out. Pretty impressive. And went up there and that bullet hit him right at the top of the tailbone. Went in and out in about six inches and hit him right in the back of the head. Wow. Yeah. I love that. And I just remember Eric getting on the radio. He’s like, bro, that was something I said, well I’m glad glad I had a witness ’cause ’cause it was the wildest shot I’ve ever made in my life. But hey, I air milled one broadside at three to three 50. So. Well it’s not all, but anyway, way past a truck chaser. Now let’s, let’s move back onto this elk story. Yeah. So anyway, so we’re out in this. It’s long shot draws. Yeah, long shot draws. I drew it. So went down there and my guy Jordan from premium months, it was an awesome trip. He had already scouted down there. He’s from New Mexico. So we had been looking around, but it’s the type of unit too that these elk roam a lots. Yeah. Especially at night. There’s lot movement. There’s scatters miles, there’s scattered, scattered, scattered trees. It’s very flat. They can roam miles and miles at night. So five or eight miles. Yeah.
00:33:20:23 –> 00:34:22:20
You can’t to and from water like cattles can be. Yeah. They’re just really like that. And so anyway, after, you know, fir I dunno, first day or so we saw several bulls. I saw one that was, you know, probably a three 50 ish bull but you know, maybe right three 40 or 50. I, I forget exactly now. But he is a really solid bull. But it’s like, nah, not a no-brainer. And then that evening we ended up seeing the bull that I ended up killing. But he was on a little piece of private and that unit’s got a healthy mix of public and private with all throughout it. So you just gotta be, you know, willing to deal with that. And on a five day hunt though, you know stuff, you’ve hunted these, you’ve hunted several of those types of units that a bull gets tied up on private and you hunt ’em for a day or two and all of a sudden half your hunt’s over. Yeah. Five, five days. So your hunt is a five day season. They all are total season all the firearm hunts. To my knowledge, what I love is that they’re a five day season. What I hate is that they’re a five day season. At least you have closure. Yeah. For good, good grief. Yeah. They can’t go on too long. But anyway, the second day he had moved, he moved his cows down off and was Rutten.
00:34:22:20 –> 00:35:22:19
We got into position and you know, he had a big group of cows and took his while to, to sort him out. He got on this thick seated ridge and they all started bedding down. He couldn’t see the bull. And so we actually split up, you know, he had one angle on the ridge. I had another, I snuck in, I was 500 or something yards from him. And finally the bull got up out of his bed and started, you know, rutting cows, you know, just like they do in the middle late morning. And, and, and I hammered him. I just kept hammering. I just remember I kept shooting, shooting at that bull. ’cause you know, I had no spotter right with me. He was, you know, I don’t even remember if he could see the elk Jordan, but, but you know what, an elk standing on its feet. I’m not one of those proud guys that likes, that likes to proud how many or pride himself on how many one shot kills they have on an elk. I don’t care. I want the elk dead. And I rocked him. He stood there, I rocked him again. He spun, I hit him again. Anyway, it was, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of shooting. Well, four or five times. Well, yeah. And you don’t have to say everything. Okay. Like this isn’t a tell all. I don’t care. I think it was more than five.
00:35:23:02 –> 00:36:29:21
I think it was five. So no more than five. No more than five. No more, wasn’t it? But he just soaked him up, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it a 300, wasn’t it a 300 Rome? I can’t remember. That was a two. That was a seven m It was Red Rock Precision seven. Okay. Regular. Did you already say that? No. Okay. But anyways, that gun, I love it. It was, you know, 500, 5 50 or something like that. But, and he was also in cedar trees. So meaning if he, you shoot him mean he runs it out of your gap and he’s not hit perfectly. You got problems in cedar trees, you know. So as long as I could see ’em and he just kept standing there stiff legged, he was getting another bullet. I didn’t care if I thought he was dead on his feet. But that was awesome. We walked up to straight six, like 3 81 super long beams, big fronts. Anyway, it was awesome. Gorgeous bull’s. What think just a perfect six. When you think about a desert bull, I don’t think about a long, tiny, beautiful giant, big backend. Just beautiful bull. You know what I mean? You just think in the desert, you’re just thinking it’s gonna be a stuy heavy, a monster wide weird tree. There’ve been a ton of feed down there that year. Ton of feed. There’s a lot of feed down there.
00:36:30:12 –> 00:37:41:27
And they grew well, and it was a, I dunno just the right year to drop beat the odds of one in whatever. It was terrible. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was one in 64 that year. Yeah. Oh, I don’t, I I can’t remember. Which is bad. It was tough. But anyway, there’s, there’s some pretty, pretty awesome experiences down there. I’ve had some of my, I’ve killed, you know, some of my best bulls have come from New Mexico and same, same premise what you’re talking about. Just odd great years, great moisture years in odd units. Yep. It can happen in any of these units. I I mean it’s going to happen this year. This year. Yeah. That’s what I guess Arizona and New Mexico, it’s gonna happen. That’s what I guess I kinda like about it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a even a a 37 or a 23 or a, you know, 38 and some, you know, your unit. Even some of these just crazy outliers that aren’t really outliers on great s you know, can produce as good or better than anywhere else. I mean, the ages there. Old, old freaking dinosaurs. Let’s just call Sean real quick. Who my, my kid Sean. He went on a, that youth hunt killed his first archery buck. Oh yeah. On tuby, a late archery. And he also killed his first elk on a 15 youth muzzle, didn’t he? He did First Elk. Yeah.
00:37:41:27 –> 00:38:53:14
Was that Oh, was a little screaming. I don’t even know if he was Wonder. 14 or 15, probably 13. How old does he young? I don’t know. Young. I don’t know. 11 or 12 Rocking a muscle loader. It was a giant heavy mu loader in the clock. God. You know what I mean? And so both were rut like crazy, weren’t they? Oh yeah, 15. It was awesome. So that youth end early and it kind of gives them the jump mobility impaired and youth in, in New Mexico where they have those seasons. Not all units have those seasons where they have those seasons. They get preferential treatment with the exception of like the vi Adell that’s kind of a late oc like an October 28 youth or something. There’s some of, some of those exceptions. But anyway, I just want to hear, I have no idea what Sean’s gonna say. I have no idea. He’s never really been on the podcast. Well, we call he called you a couple weeks ago and you answered on the podcast, remember? I know. And he, and he was just like, ah. But anyway, let’s just see what he says and see what his memory a if he answers and then what his memory was like. Hello, what are you doing? I’m working. What are you doing? Well, we’re working right Bronson, you betcha doing a podcast right now if you got a quick minute. Yeah. Yeah. I got a minute.
00:38:54:02 –> 00:40:12:22
I just wanna know, Adam and I were talking and we’re kind of talking, new Mexico’s draw results are about to come up and you’ve had a couple of experiences, a your first archery deer spot in stock and then also your first elk with a muzzle or, and Sean, you were so young. I don’t even know. I I actually don’t know if you remember. The Elk was a long time ago. The elk was a long time ago. I that’s man, nine years ago now. I think I was 11 because 11 or 12 on Utah or anything. Yeah. So we went down and did the New Mexico and just, just, I guess just wanna, other than we didn’t kill the three 70 bull that, whoa. It was one of those muzzle loader. Do you remember Sean? What happened on that bull? Oh yeah, we had, we had a misfire with the muzzle loader. Well, it actually, I think, yeah, I remember it, it, the firing pin dented, dented the primer but didn’t really hit the primer. And the bolt was slightly up. The bolt was just slightly up. Okay. You remember Sean? Yep, I remember that. Yep. And the bull was right there walking outta range. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of crazy. But you ended up killing a bull. Yeah, we ended up with one on the last day, I think the last morning. Yeah. Well, let’s talk about your archery deer experience a little bit.
00:40:12:22 –> 00:41:22:15
And two B. So we had a, Shawn ended up drawing two B on the archery, the late archery January. January. You told me first of the 15th or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So what did you, what did you think of that hunt, Sean? Well, I did it twice, right? I think I hunted it two years in a row, right? Yep, you did. And the first year was awesome. I mean, I missed a 200 inch plus. I forgot how old were you there? Like 13 or 14 or 15 somewhere? Yeah, I think I, I was, I wasn’t driving. Well I had a permit because I remember I was driving, kind of driving then. Oh, I remember you were 15. You were trying to get me outta the driver’s seat and it was like two in the morning. Dad, I wanna drive, I wanna drive. And I’m like, no way. So I did, I way, dude, I let him drive we home going across the nav. Oh. And, and remember Sean and I could not fall asleep. I mean, I was jerky. Just scared. Oh, scared. Crapless. This kid’s gonna dude run you off the road on a, this kid unfamiliar highway too in another state. Yeah. I’m trying to keep him off caffeine. And then he’s thinking he’s big and Dr Can drive and I am, I am white. Probably put a full day in here and then jumped in the truck as we do all the time.
00:41:22:17 –> 00:42:30:01
And anyway, do you remember Sean? Yeah, I remember Even though, oh yeah. Oh yeah. I remember. It was back when you had the Tacoma. Okay, well, so anyway, go ahead. I want you to just tell the story. I guess if you, if I could shut up and let you talk, I just, I, it brings back a lot of memories for a dad. So, yeah, I mean, we had, first time was a lot of fun. There was just deer everywhere, everywhere you went. We found a lot up on the forest and stuff. Ended up missing the big deer. And then how far I got, I don’t know, I think 50 or something ish or less. Yeah. And it was, it was a big deer. It was, it, it was no, no joke. No joke. Giant frame and cheaters out both sides. It was, it was no joke. It was, it was no joke. But, and what, I don’t know that you missed him on purpose. I don’t know. It was your fault. What do you mean? Hey, we found the arrow and we found where it, he deflected hit a limb or something. Yeah, it did. It was one of those things. It’s just kind of a, the buck was standing there and we jumped out and he was kind of getting away and it was, I think it was 50 yards.
00:42:30:14 –> 00:43:33:17
He arranged him and I shot, and I knew when I shot that it’d missed, I wa it deflected off a branch. It went flying up in the air. But you, it was just one of those unlucky, but you shot at your first 200 inch or though, that’s what you did? Yeah. Yep. Shot at my first 200. Yeah. And then was it that trip or was it the next, next, did you kill a buck that week? That day, next day. Yeah. It was the next day or the next. We had a, I think we had four or five days down there and ended up killing one on the very last morning. Just a little three by four. But it was good for first archery box. Oh yeah. It was unbelievable. Spot in stock. Sean got out and he’s like, dad, I’m gonna shoot him. Remember? Yeah, I do. Yep. Keep going with it. Yep. I, we just, another one of those things, it’s just a lot of thick country, so you’re driving a lot of roads and drove up on him and he kind of ran over the ridge and we got out and just kind of snuck our way to the edge of the ridge and poked over and he was still standing there, so just kind of lucked out. Well, and I’m trying to leave him, so I’m watching from a distance.
00:43:33:23 –> 00:44:42:06
I’m just trying to leave him go like, let him and the deer be go, you hunt the deer, so make that happen. You know? ’cause if you got two, two dudes out there stalking a deer. I mean, it’s just, it’s just an, you know, it’s just overpowers him a little. And I, I mean, if it’s just Sean, he’s what, what are you, Sean? Like five foot three at the time or whatever. You’re really young. Yeah. Something, something close to that. Well, you’re really young, like you’re, you’re 11 years old or whatever. No, nah. You’re way past 11. Yeah. So you’re probably Yeah. A little taller than that. But anyway, you’re out there stalking this deer and, and I’m back there just watching it and, and like he draws back and I’m like, are you crapping me? Like this is gonna happen right now. Let one fall and Sean take over. Yeah. Shot him. I hit him. I hit him far back in the first one. And so we ended up having a track job. It was last night we were gonna be there. And so we were just pretty much tracking him until we could get out. Anyway, it ended up five or 600 yards later walking up on him in his bed and had put another one in him. Awesome. It was awesome. Yeah. It was blast. It was blast. It was a lot of fun. Yeah.
00:44:42:24 –> 00:46:04:22
The second year we went down there, not so much. It was just the winter and everything that was going on that year. The deer were all spread out and Yeah, I remember it being really tough. Yeah. Tougher. Tougher. Oh yeah. Still for sure. Still still good compared to what we experience here, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah. We, I mean, we could have shot smaller bucks that year, stuff like that. It seemed like you turned trophy hunter overnight to me. Yeah. You’re pretty picky. Well, why don’t you shoot a few, four points. Yeah. You know, wanna up the game a little bit. Want something better. Yeah, that’s right. Well, all right. Yeah, it was Sean, tell me how many, how many bucks did we see on that trip in, in your estimation and deer in general? Oh, hundreds and hundreds of deer. Yeah. A handful of, you know, a handful of bucks. I don’t, I don’t remember how many. Quite a few. Four points. Lot of four points. I was stocking bucks almost every day. Multiple times a day. Sometimes that’s, yeah. It was what you need for those kind kid with a bow. Yeah. Pretty fun stuff. Yeah. Sean, did you, do you have any special story you wanna talk about? Anything? Any other deer hunting story or any other story? Oh, I don’t know. I’ll have to think of an embarra. An embarrassing one of you. Oh yeah.
00:46:04:23 –> 00:47:14:07
Hey, Sean, you and I’ll talk after and we’ll get that ready for the next podcast. I’ll call you. Sean doesn’t know any embarrassing stories. We need the juicy ones. Sean. All we could think of one. No, no, no. I could, maybe a time your dad slept in and it, you woke up in the tent and it was at nine 30. Sean, my opening day. Sean sometime. Sean. Sean. Has that ever happened? I don’t remember a time of that. No. Or I don’t know. You got all the way out there opening day and he left his gun back at the house or something. I don’t, I don’t know of anything. I’m just wondering. It’s trying to jog your memory. No, never happened, man. Huh? It’s hard, hard to think. Hard to think of. Yeah, exactly. I, I know there’s been times, how about the time you left your tag. We were in New Mexico archery, deer hunting. And you left your tag at the motel. Nope. That doesn’t strike. These are, these are supposed to be stories about you, Jason, not Sean. We’re asking, these are about dad being frustrated as a dad. We’re not talking about me anymore. Well, you think Sean, and you got my number. You know how to get ahold of me. Yep. And we’ll get you back on anytime you’d like. Sean, what’s your, what’s your favorite species to hunt? Mule there, of course. I like it. I like it. All right.
00:47:14:11 –> 00:48:22:17
Sounds, sounds good. Well, appreciate you coming on for a quick sec. Yep. I appreciate you calling me. Okay, we’ll see you later. Alright, bye. I don’t know those youth, the youth opportunities down there are, are pretty significant. That one’s not a special season. They get, they hunt against the adults too, but it’s a separate draw, draw pool amongst kids only and better odds than the adult draw pool, stuff like that. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s kind of exciting. One of the first, I guess, bigger states that comes out with multi-species draw results. Yeah. New Mexico always is. So it’s kind of, we’re all excited about that. There’s a few others like, you know, Montana, deer and Elks, but gonna be coming out here in the, this week, possibly by the end of the week or early next. We’ll see. But it’s not the whole state, you know, sheet mo scope, bison, all that. It’s not, not, doesn’t come out until later. So New Mexico is one of those, the first that has a big, big release and you look for green, not red. Yeah, that’s a good point. They color code ’em and it’s kind of, kind of exciting. But you know, what I like too is just they don’t have an age, you know, they don’t have a minimum age requirement. You just need to have hunter ed and so you can take kids really young. Yeah. We’ve all done, you’ve done your two boys.
00:48:22:18 –> 00:49:24:04
I took Ty down there, his first deer before he could hunt anywhere else too. So it was just, it’s good for that. Colton killed his first deer at nine years old down there. I mean, just man. Pretty, pretty cool stuff. But anyway, yeah, Bronson, that stuff’s coming out. We’re, we’re way excited. Especially on top of a wet year. We’re just, we get so excited for our members that draw, gimme green, green. This is a year, man. I want to, it is. You want I, I haven’t even put in for antelope. I did. And I don’t do that every year. I I did too. I told you, I I, I applied for DI know where you applied. I know where you did. I mean, it’s a 14 day drive to do you need a passport to go down there? I might need a, do you have to dip into Mexico and come back in? I don’t know how you even get to that spot. I’m just teasing their brain. They make, they make two lane highways that get there for sure. So I’ll be there. But anyway, I don’t know. Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty fun. We’ve got a a lot going on, Adam. I mean, we’re working on Idaho. We’re working on Idaho, deer, elk can antelope as well. And you know, some, some, there’s a, there’s a few changes up there for sure. I mean they’ve, they’ve made some adjustments.
00:49:24:04 –> 00:50:39:21
They’ve had, you know, they’ve had those August and December hunts up there and they’ve done away with some of that because they were lar in large part were brought on for deprecating elk and, and to deal with that issue. And it actually, I mean, it it, it did the job. It did the job in large part. It did the job, but it also, you know, it also, I don’t wanna say hurt quality, I, but it did, it ac actually curved quality a bit in for elk, like in unit 45, 52 and 45 units like that. Yeah. Yeah. And 46, I mean, it did its job out there in the desert and, and you know, people could hunt like, like in 45 you could hunt the whole unit and and whatnot. And so when, when you did that, you know, you ended up taking bulls off of private too and, and, and you know, the center of the unit and other places. And so you end up with, you know, kill rifle hunting bulls August one or August 10 or whatever within the season that, you know, when they’re somewhat vulnerable and it, and it takes a toll. December they were vulnerable December they’re vulnerable for different reasons because of, you know, herd up big, vast open country to find them. But yeah, gonna be some changes there. I haven’t gone through ’em all like, like you have yet as I’m working on Wyoming and some other stuff.
00:50:39:24 –> 00:51:55:22
But, but yeah, that’ll be done here in the next, you know, 10 days or so. Emag will probably be live within 10 days, I’d imagine. Yeah. A week to 10 days, something like that. And, but then, yeah, quite a few deadlines coming up here too in the next, we’ll call it three weeks this month, dude, we’ve got Idaho, sheep, goat, moose. We’re due April 30th. We’ve got Kansas is due April 28th. We’ve got Montana, sheep, goat, moose, bison, do May 1st. Wyoming, obviously we’ve talked about that. Sheep, goat, moose, bison. April 17. Yeah, that’s coming up real quick. Utah, the 27th. Yeah. Of April. So April is jam packed. There’s a lot to do. So make sure you stay on top of the 10 to draw schedule and ’cause man, there’s a whole lot coming up then May’s pretty busy too intense month. So yeah, there’s, it’s an intense month. It’s kind of exciting. We’re also of course 60, 70 degree days. How about I I’m so excited just to be out and about. We’re, we’re dying to get out in the hills and shed hunt locally here and, you know, not have to drive a state away or whatever to get out in the hills. But anyway, trying to avoid even, it’s like these guys staying here in the office, they’re scared to just take a walk in the hills ’cause people will think you’re shed hunting. Yeah. Just how do I do that?
00:51:55:26 –> 00:53:10:24
How do I get my exercise? Yeah. Can’t get my steps in around the office, you know, gotta do something. But if I get hiking the mountain in the morning, I’m gonna get turned in and I gotta fight that. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna throw a little shout out out there to Under Armour. You know, they’ve got a lot of stuff on the, on the horizon. They generally come out with their, with their new models, clothing and whatnot and gear generally in July and August. And that’s the schedule, you know, that’s kind of the schedule for this year as well. You’re gonna see a lot of, you know, the new products and whatnot, basically coming out in force in August. And so you can get on our website for 40% off cards, coupons, codes, whatever you wanna call it, up to $2,000 per one. So get on our website, you can download that and grab it and then, you know, kind of wait, you know, build up a shopping cart and kind of a list of items you’d like wait and make the best use of that card when you’re, when you’re willing to spend a few bucks. And so anyway, you can go check out what they’ve [email protected]. They’ve obviously, you know, all sporting activities, you know, they’re, they’re making clothing and shoes and boots and clothes for as well as hunting.
00:53:10:24 –> 00:54:38:05
They’ve got a hunting section on there and got the Ridge reaper line of, you know, camel, which is awesome. It continues on. And Baron and Forest and whatnot, as well as other patterns as well. So anyway, just great, great people. Happy to be associated. They’ve been a huge proponent of ours and supporter and, and we appreciate them. So. Yep. Also wanna give a shout out to Blaine St. James and his crew at St. James Sporting Properties based in Windsor, Colorado. But they, they licensed in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. They’re built around the idea that more often than not, the recreational value of a property exceeds the agricultural value. And they wanna bridge that gap between supporting property buyers and recreational ranch owners and Blaine’s crew have over two decades of real estate experience, founded a brokerage, not to be everything to everyone, but to be specialized in marketing and sell the finest sporting properties in the west. So if you’re looking to buy or you’ve got family looking to sell, reach out to Blaine. You can email them at [email protected] or 8 7 7 3 5 4 7 2 4 7. Or they advertise in our magazine as well. But he’s a hunter. He knows how to value property. He knows how to find what you’re looking for too. We’ve had a lot of members buy and sell properties through Blaine and he’s a, he’s a hunter. He knows he’s got a knife or stuff like that.
00:54:38:05 –> 00:55:48:17
Whether it be you give him your goals, your needs, what you want. If you’re looking to place to, you know, just a secondary ranch or you’re looking to put a place to retire and move out west, he can help you. So, super smart guy. Yeah, he’s a good friend of ours. And like Adam said, he just, he just got an eye for it. He’s got an knack for it. He’s, he’s just awesome at what he does. We also want to throw a shout out to Red Rock Precision super good people. Kurt Pilcher and his boy just, just awesome. They, they support us here at Epic Outdoor Doors. We support them. Make incredible rifles, very innovative. They’ve got some new stuff coming out. Pretty awesome. You know, don’t want to, don’t want to. Probably ought to get ’em on a podcast when they’re ready to talk about it. ’cause they are some new things work they’re working on. They are. And I don’t wanna really, you know, say anything, you know, too early, but, but they are working on some things. Very innovative. And we’re gonna be, you know, a major affiliate with that and partner with them. So really excited for that. Appreciate them. Red Rock Precision. Go on. You can go find ’em on the web, get ahold of ’em. They’ll do anything custom that you want and you know, calibers, whatever. And just, they just feel great in your hands.
00:55:48:17 –> 00:57:04:01
That, that that Red Rock rifle of mine. It’s in a 30 nozzle regardless of the caliber. Just an incredible feel. Bronson, we’ve killed a lot absolutely. With their rifles. Absolutely love them. I’ve got a couple brother’s, got a couple, used them a bunch. So one last shout out I want to give to stealth cam. We’ve obviously we’re dealers of their products. They make great products, they’re always innovative too. Looking to try to upgrade models, tweak a lot of, a lot of technological changes that have come into the stealth or truck camera world over the last 10 or 15 years. Monumental changes, whether it be from, you know, reactor or fusion cellular cameras. All, all down to the SD cameras for whatever you need. Whether it be high video quality is what you need, or just coverage cameras, whatever they, they make ’em check ’em [email protected] Or if you’re interested in buying some cameras, it’s getting very close to that time. You just start finding out you draw tags, maybe need to run some cameras or update cam cameras that are getting older, used, weathered, all that. Give us a call here at Epic Outdoors. We’ve got a bunch in stock. We’re stocked up with lock boxes and cameras both. So when you find out what you got, give us a call or if you wanna look at all the products they have, again, check ’em [email protected]. So, pretty awesome. One, one last shout out.
00:57:04:01 –> 00:58:20:28
Let’s, let’s a little shout out to the guys there at phone scope. Super good guys. If you didn’t video it, it didn’t happen. Of course. I can’t show you guys that I’m hunting big deer unless you video it. Yeah, that’s right. So you can tell stories, but we wanna see to believe. And then there’s some phone scope footage that Wyatt and the boys won’t show us. Why, why do you think that is? Bronson? There is. Oh, I know there is. I’m gonna ask them why get in there next. Absolutely. There is. Hmm. They’re videoing some big, they’re, they’re on some big animals. Anyway, appreciate those guys. They’ve got some great products. Just allows you, I mean, they’re the originals, the OGs, you know, for producing a way to video animals. And as technology gets better on the phones, of course the video footage is incredible. I’m videoing in 4K now. Oh. And I do it with ease. That’s awesome. Their products. So P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P-E. You can find ’em out there in the big wide world. Logan. They’re Oh, Cheston and family are right there from where you’re from. Beaver County, baby. How about it? Best place on earth. Really? Oh yeah. Nice. Why don’t you tell us why it’s so awesome. Well, some of the most incredible hunters and families live there, right? Yeah. No. Well, me especially, my family’s from there. Yeah. Oh well. Yeah, they are. That’s true.
00:58:21:01 –> 00:59:32:06
What do you mean you, you act like you forgot that or didn’t know it. Well when you said best hunters in the nation, come outta there. I was just thinking about me and my family. I think they are. You were there too. That’s true. I think they are. But your dad has me on speed dial boss for a little few recommendations here and there just to get on. Just to help us find somebody to get unstuck. Oh, how about this, Logan? I just wanna know what was going through your mind when you 75 miles an hour down the highway when your dad or you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, there’s part of that. We can go over that story, but you guys text me. They’re lat long and that’s all you got. That’s all I got. So I yout know they’ve got a, well, I’ll it to you might be a 400, so you don’t know what that means. And it says we were last here and you got coordinates and not a point or pin on a map or anything. Yeah. And I’m just like this, this is my location. 34.93 random number. Mine is one 11 and I’m thinking Yeah. And it’s a 6, 7, 8 number. Yeah. So it doesn’t say come get us. It doesn’t say, it just says, if you is my location, come look for my bones. Come look for my bones here and let me to rest.
00:59:32:24 –> 01:00:38:04
Tell me what, what you, what happened and why you guys were, why were you, why did I get this random text of a la long? So we were driving around this old two tracker road, a road that we shouldn’t have been on and a truck we shouldn’t have been in. We were in a big old duramax driving down those two tracker rough roads. Bronson and I now own axes. Why? Why, why do, why are you hating on axes? No, I love ’em. They’re great trucks. But on those two tracker roads, they are rough and heavy. Oh yeah. And we weren’t, we weren’t planning on it, but it got to the point where we were on it too long to turn around. You’re committed. Yeah. And so we had to just ride it through the rest of the way to camp. And we get going and we get up on some of these hills. Is that about the right camera right there? Yeah, sure. Nailed. I wasn’t even recording on that one, but okay. Keep going. Hit record. He controls everything anyway. Yeah. So we, we get going on top of these hills and there’s a lot of snow that hadn’t melted off yet. We didn’t know that. And what were you doing there anyway? This wasn’t Arizona, let’s clarify that right now. It was, it was Arizona. We were down in Arizona looking for sheds. Okay. All right. Keep going. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:00:38:12 –> 01:01:52:10
Spending money in their state. Right? Buying, buying fuel. Yes. Maybe even side-by-side tires. Hey, shout out to a little gas station right off that highway. They make a good burger for a gas station. So there you go. Supporting the local economies. Okay. Exactly. Keep going. So we get up on top of these hills, start hitting some snow drifts and man, they’re deep and they’re those iced over ones that have been there since who knows how long. And it would’ve taken us like four hours or more to get back the way we came. Just ’cause it was so rough going. I wanna interject Bronson. I’ve hunted this unit and the road they took, I never told ’em to take. And it literally, it was nearly half the night to get to a paved road in a half ton. It was the most brutal road I’ve ever been on. It would’ve been tough on a side by side, rocky. Oh, brutal. And you hit the pumpkin about every other, what? Every 20 yards or something. You’re just dragging and these guys are and tore up in a three quarter ton diesel. Yeah. And I made it out. I, I was committed. I’m like, I’m gonna spend the night out here trying to get back to the pavement in dry conditions. Yep. These guys happened to take that road. I don’t know why. Why? Well, because, you know, we were just doing shortest distance between two points. Yeah.
01:01:52:13 –> 01:02:59:29
And you would naturally say this looks like a major road on Onyx or a map or anything else. You never take that road. Keep going. Yeah. Well, you know, we hit the glass and spot. There was some elk, but we hadn’t found the horn. So we said we’ll just go deeper into the belly of beast is why we stayed on that road. Yeah. And so yeah, we start hitting them snow drifts and we are like, it’s too late to turn around. It’s, it’s probably dang near eight o’clock by this point. And so my dad says, we’re just gonna get through these, these snow drifts and we’ll just get out the other side. So he just gooses it and we’re blowing through snow drifts. They’re deep and it’s, you know, slowing the truck down pretty good as we hit ’em. And we hit 1, 2, 3, 4 in a row, probably 10 yards apart. And we hit that fifth one and it just high centers us the on snow. Yeah. The snow is so icy and drifted that it packed up under the truck and we were high centered. Those plastic air dams of these nice pretty trucks are, I mean, do you guys have one left? Like, was is there one under that bumper that those pla black plastic air dams? Yeah, that’s exactly, that was how did you leave plastic in the hills? No. Well that’s littering Jason. I’m just wondering, I’m just thinking about those.
01:03:00:03 –> 01:04:03:03
We didn’t leave any plastic from those things underneath, but our grill is a different story. Handyman Jack. Yep. Handyman jack. You know it. And so we’re high centered, we’re jacking the truck up, getting rocks underneath it, trying to just get enough to just roll out using the handyman on a tow. On on the tow hook. Yeah. And now tow hook tow. And that’s when you get the, this is when you get the coordinates. This, this is why you got the coordinate. So Yeah. When did, when did you guys think we better send somebody and hey, and I feel honored. You guys thought I would drive from Cedar City, Utah. What is that? Seven hours? Seven? I mean, one way, 6, 7, 1 way. Six or seven hours probably. Yeah. On the worst road in known man. I would probably get those coordinates, look at it on a map and send my boy, Hey, here’s a gas card. Do good things and, and a winch. Maybe two win inches. We, maybe two winches. We jacked the truck up three times and it kicked the rocks and sticks out and we couldn’t get out. So my dad had azo Leo one of those satellite phone packages and he’s, I don’ts how that works. How does it work? What is that? Is that the, so the XO like Bluetooth, it’s not the Elon Musk thing. You know, that’s, that’s like wifi isn’t it?
01:04:03:14 –> 01:04:58:01
I’m gonna learn something Bluetooth to your phone and then it gives you this app and you can text people through satellite coverage on your app. You guys use a different, your phone. Your phone. It’s like, it’s like in reach we use, we use inReach sim. Same type thing? Probably. Yeah. But you don’t have to buy a device for it. It works through your phone. Or do you have to buy the device? No, this one you have the little square and you like carabiner onto your, all right. Okay. It’s an in reach type. I think it’s the same, the same general idea. Competitor’s a relay boom, boom text. So that was the text you got. We were like, I was like, I’ll bet Jason knows somebody that lives near here. Oh, okay. That’s what you were thinking. That’ll come and throw us toe. I was like, Bronson, but that only that was being summoned at some point. And I don’t know who this is, I don’t even know who it is. It was supposed to, where are you to say here’s my LA long, where are you? You’re like, who am I supposed to meet? Where? Well, it doesn’t come through on a mapping app that I have. Yes. Because I don’t recognize that it’s called Zulu or whatever. It was supposed to say, Hey, we’re stuck. Do you know anybody that could come do us a good deed?
01:04:58:01 –> 01:06:05:00
Did you, did you think you sent that message? Well, my dad typed that in and sent it and then hit the, the coordinate sent. And so I don’t know. I don’t know what had happened. Well, I’m gonna screenshot what I sent you. Yep. And so our, our idea was put two hours later put Yeah. You put those in the, you put those in the onyx, those coordinates and send somebody out to save us. Oh yeah. Finally the, the fourth or fifth time we jacked out that truck, we finally got big enough boulders underneath it. It rolled off. We got turned around, we blew back through all those snow drifts. And, and you’re like, this way we’re going now. Yep. Got back to camp at like 3:00 AM Oh, one of those nights. It was a, it was good night. This is one of those times when you just wonder like how many of those trips can a, can a Chevy handle? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like they’re pretty significant trips. Jason, you oughta know more better than anybody. Well, dude, I went through, that’s a regular, I went through motor mounts. It’s got 49,000 on it. Why? How does a truck go through motor mounts? You know, better than anybody. I’m just gonna say it again. Well then you said you were shocked. Rough them. Rough row. Rough. And then I thought, wait, what, what, what’s happening to your truck right now? New shocks.
01:06:05:04 –> 01:07:09:17
I got a shock somehow. I don’t know how it went off. I don’t know how, I don’t know how. I blew a shock. And we’ve had trouble with those shocks. Reservoirs shocked. I don’t know. And they’re not cheap. So anyway, so handyman Jack will jack up a, a diesel engine. It will like a full, they’re a heavy, heavy truck. Usually. Usually guy take guys take two to four ton, you know, floor jacks for a diesel. But one side at time, that floor jack, one hook at a time wouldn’t have helped you necessarily. You’d had to holler it out with a shovel and yada yada. Yeah. And that, that handyman Jack is at least 15, 20 years. He’s had it since. I don’t even know. I’ve got my original high school. Yeah. They’re heirlooms. Yeah. I I never get rid of mine. You know how many times that has saved me. Yeah. I haven’t used it in a long time. And that’s, that’s a good thing. Well, that’s a good thing. You, you would Oh no, I, yeah, I would. I mean, but, but I’m surprised. I used to, growing up in high school, our, my dad had a 75 Chevy Blazer. I don’t, and they had beefy be rear beefy. Oh. Solid metal bumpers. Like you just hook into a bumper, you would make me a shop class. But they’re like 4,000 pounds a piece. And just what he’s described. Jack it up.
01:07:09:17 –> 01:08:17:12
Throw anything you debris Yeah. Limbs, anything underneath there. You’re begging to get a little bite. Yeah. So yeah. That’s a desperation planning man. Jack is a love-hate situation. I’m just surprised that they’ve gone, they haven’t sent more people to the grave than they have. Well I, I’m sur I mean, dude. Yeah. If that Jack gets away from you and smacks you and Well, you’re usually not gonna kill you. It’ll, they’ll probably loose teeth. Yeah. Oh it’ll a lot of lost teeth from handyman. It’ll break your jaw, won’t it? Oh yeah. Split lip for sure. Did. Have you done it? No, I watched, I watched my dad give himself a split lip on one of those handyman jacks. Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah, but you have to have one. Oh, I’ll certainly have. There’s two, there’s two brands that me and my dad owe our lives to from that trip. Whatever tie downs have the little bungee cord right by the hook to hold a side by side on the trailer. That’s actually, I wanna say somebody in Beaver invented that or something, but I don’t know. I don’t know. They they do have a bunge, like a big Yep. Thick rubber stretch. It’s thick and they just, they go with the bounce really good. And they don’t loosen up. Yeah. And they’ll, if but that one actually drug your side-by-side drug. Two of those, your side-by-side and didn’t break the rubber Uhuh. Yeah.
01:08:17:13 –> 01:09:25:09
Ba it drugg the tires. Burn the tires on. Yeah. Those tires were flat. They should be a sponsor of this podcast now. Yeah. That and handyman Jack without side Jack left. You want, you want to, you want a high lift brand. You know what you need. You know what you need your side by side drive your side by side. Why weren’t you guys driving your side by side? Well it was cold and it was open cab. It doesn’t have SiriusXM radio. Right. They don’t have SiriusXM and they don’t have some, there’s something to be said about Sirius satellite radio. There’s also something to be said for a cab side. Byside Bronson, we’ve talked about this. Oh, I’m a believer. I didn’t even take mine off last year. I just unzipped it. How do you get the dust out of it? We hate dust. What happens is they’re dusty. Well, mine, mine, mine has airflow through the top and it pressurizes the cabin. I don’t get dusty. Hmm. So you have a little, you have airflow over the top of your head and at times like when you, when you’re in the winter and you don’t ha it’s not dusty. You stuff a towel or jackets, extra jackets up there. That’ll pressure keep the wind. It’s just, I’m not sure on the Pioneer Bronson, you’ll have to tell me does that have that. ’cause I know the towel might air Honda.
01:09:25:09 –> 01:10:26:07
You get air, you get air through it. You do. And and you need it in the dusty time. You need a little bit to keep it going back. But, but in the winter, yeah, you can shove it. But I, I didn’t even do it last year. And then I have an then Bronson, we have the Epic Polaris machine and it doesn’t have, it has an open cab and it’s incredible for a hundred degree days. 80 degree cab trail cam days. Like, so it’s kind of nice that you don’t have to tear your cab off, got a roof, got a little bit of shade, but, but no, nothing else. Yeah. And you don’t want a cab sometimes. But anyway, you had that trip out there in Eastern Utah and it made you believe it. Like you take one trip like that, it’s worth the price of the cab. Yeah. And I just got it. I just got it on late last summer. I knew, I knew my ear, I knew my early fall, meaning August and, and September. Remember I was busy. I, and so I’m like, I’m gonna get this on because by the time I get back from all that, it’s the end of September and it’s not hot anymore. Yeah. I’m gonna need it. ’cause it’s gonna be raining, it’s gonna be right over. So I had it put on in July before I even left up north last year.
01:10:26:16 –> 01:11:33:00
And I used it hard. I used it hard last year. So I used it year before actually too. But, but I take, I can take it on and off the, the back portion. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t want it all on there. Yeah. I I don’t use it in the, the spring. But it’s nice in those monsoons they can hit you. Oh yeah. With vengeance gallons and gallons. Yeah. Vengeance. Yeah. And it’s nice to have a cab machine too. I usually don’t in the summer, but, but I, I have, I have the kind that I can keep the front cab with the doors on if I want. And the back part isn’t. So you, you know, have all your car going back there. It’s just kinda easy to get in and out of. But I don’t know the best machine I’ve ever owned. You ever, have you ever heard me say something? Never heard you say that. I’d like to know what you’re gonna say next. Was it standard Cab? Now? It’s funny. We call side-by-side standard cab. So one bench seat Polaris Ranger Cabbed out with, and I had a diamond plate toolbox in the back. You can put all of a full elk, all quarters and everything in it. And it was, it would pressurize itself like that. And it was just unbelievable. And then really easily removable doors pop up a window a little bit. Get the airflow for the summer.
01:11:33:12 –> 01:12:44:01
Oh yeah. And it was, had a lift. Oh. It just, it was just right. It wasn’t too long. Like sometimes those, those double wheel bases that they get too long, these high center and when you put a lift on ’em, they, they quirk and tweak and, and they just, sometimes they’re not. Right. And then sometimes the lift machine’s. Right, right. That one was right. Why’d you get rid of it? Dunno. Well, I mean you just still don’t know. No, I don’t really. I want it back. Yeah. Yeah. And then, but the people I, I remember I sold it to it, which is actually we had a cheap with close relatives. We had a she with it and Yeah. Nevada it together. We did What do you remember? Tell me. I just remember, I just remember that bike, which you didn’t have it long. I think it was 2 43. Was it? Yeah. Oh yeah, we had about that. Yeah. Yeah. We cranked that and we also cranked this down on the springs. Do you remember we we hit a lot of scouting on, on 2 62. Yeah. We scouted a bunch of units that year. Taking a state white hunter. Do you know, I, I know this is winding down. I I get it, but I, I don’t want to quit. I’m so freaking excited about hunting Nevada, the desert. Oh yeah. I even people and we call it a desert friends, whoever gets attacked. Yeah. Me. Yeah.
01:12:44:08 –> 01:13:55:06
Okay, good. Hey, he said it. Tell me any tech tell you’ll be there was any tech? Tell me how you feel about it. Oh, well it, part of the reason is, is it’s been a rough few years and we’ve been anxious to get back because 2019 was a pretty solid year over there. And it hasn’t been since we’ve taken some, we could tell that story for a minute. But anyway, keep going. We’ve taken some, we’ve taken some licks on the chin. You talk about eating dust. Was it 2020 or 21? I don’t know. Oh my either one. Oh my gosh. 20. The stag year killed an awesome stag with a membership drive winner. But man, we ate dust. Oh, that deep of, of powder deep. Yeah. Some of those roads shout out to any vehicle that makes it. Same thing with the strip. The strip will eat a truck like that. But I think it’s what it’s those years, those good years keep you going back every year thereafter. And really what we should do and what we’ve learned, and I I don’t know why it’s taken us, there’s been, you know, in our lifetime, Bronson, you know, we haven’t been a part of official studies per se. You have in some your Yeah. Five years of heavy biology and, and you, you know, dealt with a lot on the, you know, being the president of, of EUS back then is what it was called.
01:13:55:15 –> 01:15:07:19
But you just, you know, you just, we’ve, we’ve proven a few things and the one thing we’ve proven is, and and there was always a question, do drought years make big antlers for deer? Mule deer specifically in what desert or high desert? Well, you know, whatever. 7,000 foot. Seven to nine, five to nine, four to 9,000 foot type elevations. And people were wondering, you know, in drought years, well the feed that does grow is so rich. Be, you know, and, and does it, could it actually make for big deer versus just, you know, wet years where, you know, there’s, everything’s everywhere. Yeah. And we’ve proven, dude, we know for a fact there’s big deer grows in wet years in these type of areas. You can’t make it happen in those, in those off years. And we’re talking not slightly off. They were massively off. And you can’t make it happen. I mean, the amount of big deer, you guys are sick of hearing about it. ’cause we’ve talked about it for a few years. But it was, it was rough. You’d have over, well and on good years, you’d have over 20 bucks, over 200 inches on truck camera in two or three units that we could run hard. And then on drought years, you, you might have one one or zero. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s significant buck would go from two running the same spots. Oh yeah. Yeah.
01:15:07:25 –> 01:16:22:27
Not, not like you moved and tried new areas with And why, why is it, why is it the same places produce big deer year in and year out. Like, you know, I’ll, I’ll run, I’ll think I’m gonna, I’m gonna find the most obscure little water a a break in a line from a farmer drop, whatever. Right. You’re gonna find something obscure that nobody knows about. And it’s, it’s the common areas that produce giants. The proven, the proven. It’s the feed. It’s gotta be just the habits. Mule deer are very habitual in terms of, of dispersion, in terms of where they’re raised, where they water, where they do well, they don’t, they don’t know mats very often. I mean, you know what I mean. Right, right. They’re, they’re not like elk in that regard. Right. Elk or nomadic. They’ll, they’ll do crazy stuff year after year, year after year. Sometimes they go back to the same thing. Other times you never see of a bull again. Ever. Yeah. That, and that’s happened on specific units and, and bulls that we were a part of that that’s happened. But these deer, so anyway, just excited. They can’t be contained almost. I mean, and so when then, we’ll you can buy landowner tags in Nevada and, and there’s affordable tags in parts of the state. They’re, they’re hard to find anymore. What’s affordable Bronson like go ahead find that for me anymore. Are trucks affordable? Our it’s food affordable.
01:16:23:02 –> 01:17:34:25
She pumps aren’t, I mean there’s a lot of houses our eggs affordable. I I mean, you know, concrete, affordable, what steel, affordable, you know, whatever the case products in general affordable. So we’ve spent a lot of time draw tags, wasted points, bought landowner tags and off years. Yeah. And it’s really hard to stop yourself ’cause you wanna be there because when it’s good, it’s good. But yeah, I think I’m in double, I’m in double digits for deer points for sure. Yeah. Well it’s been 2012 since I drew a tag. So Yeah. I’d have 10 or 11. Yeah. We’re ready to blame on the table. And so yeah, so cash it in anyway. We’ve been in some, some weird o off units in, in special years and, and hunted multiple big bucks. Multiple big bucks in kind of u units that are not known to be super special. You know, kinda like, like that same principle with New Mexico. Sometimes you gotta do something weird in a good year. What’s looking to be a good year? Do do a different weird risk yourself. Stick yourself out there a little bit. Like in New Mexico, you can’t just stick to the Gila. I mean the odds are terrible. Y you know, I’ve never drawn a healer tag.
01:17:35:03 –> 01:18:43:12
I don’t know if you’ve drawn maybe one or two, but, but the fact that you get multiple choices there and in Nevada, use ’em well, don’t be afraid to, part of it is put yourself out there a little bit. Make something. Yeah. Make something happen. Hopefully in a, in a, in a really good moisture year, which we haven’t had for a long time now. At the same time, yielded numbers are way low in these units. We’re talking about way lower than they were five years ago before this bad drought. So you are still gonna have to grind, in my opinion. It’s not gonna be like the same deer that were there five years ago. Now we’re there to just grow. ’cause a lot of those deer are gone. Well and water’s change. Like springs change the, the the what the, you know, areas that we hit really hard Yeah. Five, 10 years ago don’t even exist anymore. The water doesn’t even exist. Gonna be, I haven’t been out to ’em yet. Right. I don’t wanna be caught acting like I’m shutting. I’m just checking the water out there. But this is this maybe hopefully some of that old time knowledge, like there were springs we found in Yeah. Weird units or even popular units that have disappeared and the new generation of hunters might not have, they might have been dry when the June new generation was really looking there. Even looking. Yeah.
01:18:43:18 –> 01:19:51:11
You know, so maybe that’s where being old. Yeah. It’s gonna, the old black book’s gonna get pulled out this year. Springs and lat longs and waypoints on old GPSs. Yeah. But I gotta find a charger for it to, to turn it on. To even turn it on. Right. The over varietal, back when Onyx was Montana mapping company or Montana hunting company or whatever it was. And rhinos we thought was the best thing that could have ever been invented. And they were at the time, right. You could transfer waypoints via the radio. Hey Jason, you got my location. Yeah. And, and then, and then we put cards in, you know, like microSD or micros or whatever and even big ones. Yeah. You know, and so anyway, there’s some, there’s way points in there. I ship, I have a physical one that I keep in a special place. I tell my kids this is an heirloom. Like take this. Well I I’ve got one of those with a lot of waters in the deserts of Utah. Desert sheep country. Well you’re talking a lot of pots, like they’re not on maps. Like not what? Just stuff that will save your life when you need it to or that will allow you to hunt certain areas. Seems like you and I got dry in one of those pots. Do you mean you’re now on? What do you mean? Seems like that, that are now in a, well go ahead.
01:19:51:11 –> 01:20:57:00
Oh yeah, we, that sucked. Yeah. We How long ago was that? And that memory is etched forever. What year? That year? Same year. I had my duck elk tags that 20 2008. Nine. Eight or nine. Yeah. Because they started roughly the same weekend. You had a, you drew a desert sheep tag and I drew my elk. Yeah. And back then it’s kinda like now Utah, you found out like the end of May and by the time you find out what June is like the hottest month, the gnats are out and it usually doesn’t rain. And, but we were what, how, how old were we there? That was 15 years ago. So what were we, thirties, mid thirties. Three, four mid thirties. Right. In other words, bring we were bring it on, bring on anything in the world. Bring it on. So we drove out there, we marched in and it was in a year, not like this year we’re having right now. It was year. It had rained for two, three months. Yeah. And all of the places that I thought, hey, we’re gonna go in their camp for three, four days. Scalp. It used to be big, big, let’s call ’em swimming pool pools. Swimming pools. Literally like hundreds or thousands of gallons of water. Yeah. Were dry.
01:20:57:11 –> 01:22:04:02
Every one we went to and we dry committed, we went in all in and we had to now like realization put in a Leaf River trail camera that had DSS and CSS batteries and, and CF cards. Do you know what those are? Logan, do you know what a CF card is? Compact flash. I do not know what a CF card is. Okay. They’re about, they’re about an inch and a half, two inches by two inches square. Three or four times the size of an SSD card. Yeah. Do you know what an SSD card is? I do. I do. I work with those a lot. Lots. But, but, but that, that was only 15 years ago. Yeah. Can you believe that? No. And the, we weighed the cameras. They were with the batteries. They were four pounds with the s Yeah, I remember. And then the camera and batteries in ’em and the lens on ’em turned yellow from the sun. And we over, over the course of like three months, at least two of those in there. What were we thinking? What were we thinking? Stupidest. But we were mid thirties and back then we, if they had have made a cellular, we would’ve been all, yeah, you probably could’ve got ’em. But I mean it was then the realization is we cannot stay here anymore. And it’s a long ways out. And do you just remember hiking would hike at, at progress And it’s brutal.
01:22:04:05 –> 01:23:14:16
When I say brutal it’s a hundred, 105. It wasn’t 115. But for Utah, that’s hot. And when you’ve gone all day hiking in there, you know, well it’s 10 plus miles. It’s, oh dude, remember Okay. The deep part’s 25 miles. Yeah. We were 17 to 20 miles to where we went. That’s right. Each way. And now and now you gotta go back out probably six to eight until you hit for sure water again. We went the full way in, put the camera in and wanted to and realized we can’t stay, there’s no water in here. We can’t camp here tonight. We’ve gotta go all the way back out to where we know there’s water. Which is the river. Yeah. Okay. But along between there and the river, we were out. Okay. Oh, we were dry. No, we were out. I just totally out. We weren’t, we weren’t tearing anymore. Right. Not sweating anymore. Not sweating anymore. I just remember it was a, we’d walk felt like two to 300 yards and have to sit down and just rest. You remember that? We did that. We didn’t even talk to each other. No, we didn’t even talk because we knew we were, but honestly it was back then we were too, too dumb to even write our last will and testament. Like it was, we didn’t have anything to send a la long out to our friends. That was nothing like that. Not that they’d respond anyway.
01:23:14:16 –> 01:24:23:12
If they were Jason, apparently. Oh, there was nothing I would respond. I am never gonna leave you high and dry. I think you know that. But there was, this is pre I would’ve let you worked on that truck another day. Probably. Make sure you really need me. We didn’t have a choice. It’s seven hours each way. And we’re, we’re, we’re putting out a magazine, bro. I, I’d been like, Bronson, what do you think? Alright, keep going. Yeah. It was just a, I remember it was a, it was a grind. It was, you know, we were in great physical shape. We were young, but we’d been all day 20 something plus miles hiking and outta water. And you, you knew where you had to get. And it was, it was just all you could do. We’d, we’d go two, 300 yards, try to find some little shade overhang or a cedar tree or something to, it was just, we were weak. So in this kind of country, there’s natural funnels where when it rains, there’s a natural funnel where the water goes. And then it drops into a pot. Drops into a pot. Drops into a pot. They, every single one all day long was dry that I had marked. They weren’t life. And then we were on to new untested, uncharted territory. And we were going down one of these little, let’s call it a little draw or a little sandstone draw. And what happened?
01:24:24:03 –> 01:25:25:00
We found one. Yeah. We tiny. It was, it was like, I just remember it was like a godsend because this was like, this little thing should not have water. Of all the things we checked all day long. It was open to the sun. Yeah. To face the south. But it was just the, the sandstone must not have been as porous or something. ’cause sandstone sucks up water. It does. Just by nature. Right. And I don’t know, it must have had a layer of something in there. Different mineral. And it wasn’t big, but we got it. And it was stagnant, but nobody cared. We did not care how to drink it straight up. Yeah. And it was, we sucked and sucked and sucked through the water pumps and beat those water pumps up. And we used them in the river later and, and ruined them. ’cause that silty a fine silt in the water will ruin ’em fast. But I just remember getting to that river and just sitting there. Didn’t remember how long we just sat in that river hours just drank. And I don’t, and we were right there and we were happy We weren’t going any further. No, but it was a, it was a humbling experience. But let’s call it a 17 in a another 12 out. I don’t, because it’s another five from there out at least. Yeah, it was. Or seven.
01:25:25:18 –> 01:26:32:11
I can’t even fathom going out and trying that right now. Hey, I, we were, I am a realist. I am. I don’t, I just know that that would’ve, that would crush us right now. I think one of us would be scratching our initials in the sandstone. Right. Well, and we were too young. I never really realized we were too young to realize you’re kind of trouble. Is there a heat? Can you get a heat stroke? And really didn’t even those don’t cross your mind. We weren’t gonna, in my mind we weren’t gonna die. But nowadays, and, and I would hate to think, well, well what, what, what would a Gen Z Well Logan, is your generation tough? I just want to I know you’re tough. I believe you are tough. I’m glad we got that out of the way because I don’t know, there’s no juice boxes out there. No juice boxes, bud. There’s several in my pack at all times, so don’t even worry. Yeah. Well it was just one of those, I I’ve had two of those experiences. That’s one of them. So, and roughly half century of living. We’re talking about this one. And I had one other when I was doing my graduate hiking for desert sheep. Very similar that I, I got probably weaker, more delirious. I don’t think it was like hallucinating, but it was just like total empty.
01:26:32:20 –> 01:27:38:18
But I, two times in my life and we’ve lived in the desert. Yeah. So it was a significant, well you can talk about a little bit and then I’ve got one on that I’ll talk about. Yeah, it was, tell one more. It was significant. I just, it was very similar. So I don’t wanna sound too redundant, but I was, I was, for two summers, I, I did my graduate research project on desert Bighorn sheep and watering sources in southern Utah on the compares plateau. And Mo you know, you get outta college in the what, April? Late April, early May. So your, your season to do your master’s project is from, you know, June one to like mid-August when you gotta go back to the coursework, which is what the hottest time of the year? The hottest. The hottest. There’s no hot. August is August one to 10, but the Nats are out. It’s just a brutal, I don’t remember when it was, but I just remember. And this was also in the early two thousands. Like 2000 to 2002. Okay. What would we what what I hiked with paper maps in my pack. Yeah. Oh yeah. I know all 2002 was an extreme drought. And so by the way Oh yeah. And so I would look at routes and, and I, I’d have a truck and a four-wheeler and try to, you know, ’cause you can’t get picked up. You’re out there all alone.
01:27:38:19 –> 01:28:41:19
You get drive to a certain point, maybe leave a four wheeler here. So you could do a loop of, let’s call it 10 to 15 miles in a day as you’re mapping and GPS and spots. And I got, I, I either missed a canyon or the topo I was reading was more of a one to a hundred thousand instead of seven and a half minute, one to 24. And I didn’t have the detail to know which canyon do I need to get out of this canyon on and hike up and back on top. And I way, way overshot it, way overshot my canyon. And by the time I topped out I realized I am way, I’m a long ways away and I have no water. Yeah. And I have a lot, a lot farther to hike back than I thought. And I just remember, I remember the intervals that felt like 50 to a hundred yards when I got, when I topped out and I’m walking on a road, I’m walking on a flat road. But I remember I could go like a hundred yards and I have to just stop. And I, I I never felt like I’m gonna die. I was never to that point. I just like, I, I’ve gotta just make sure I, I don’t, you know, tip over or something like that. But I just remember never been part more parts of my life and I left my pack.
01:28:41:25 –> 01:29:48:08
So I, I didn’t, I didn’t need to pack anything. I mean nothing in there. It was gonna save my life. Wow. I had no water. So I just left it. ’cause I know I could come back and get it. But it was a scary moment. Finally hit the truck and I remember just starting to g guzzle water and I’ve never had this happen. I would guzzle a quarter water and I remember threw it all up. Water. No, I just think the body was just so empty. Gotta go slow. Yeah. And I, I didn’t do that. I remember just throwing it all up. Luckily I had tons. I could keep doing it, but it was a scary moment mine. I was. And I think you’ve, we’ve been around each other enough. I’ve, we’ve heard each other’s stories a little bit. But man, mine was, my dad drew a desert sheep in San Juan. He drew this desert sheep and we had fat cat, fat cat motorcycles. They were, they were Honda fat tired motorcycles. We gotta define that. Like, because they were in 86 and 87 and, and you know, ’cause Beaver County, all the farmers used them. So every pipe, about half of the fat cats that Honda built have made the rounds through Beaver County and became farm animals, farm machines and hunting machines and then moving a sprinkling pipe. ’cause they don’t sink in the mud as much.
01:29:48:18 –> 01:30:58:03
And there’s probably a thousand fat cat frames in farm fields down in Beaver County at some point. So they’re just, they were one of those bikes. We didn’t have side-by-sides. And the four-wheelers had mono-shock. Like, which you were raised on. I still remember the Henry’s mono-shock story of, of the old rancher. Oh yeah. Right. Rough right. Yeah. Manual shift or, or a foot shift. And so, you know, or a push button shift, but not the matic transmission and things that we have nowadays. You know, belt driven stuff. So we use the Honda Fat Cat to even navigate roads. It’s not that we were using ’em cross country, although back then a lot of people did to shed hunt. Times have changed. Well, just, they’re easy to, that would’ve ride. That is skinny. Looked down upon. Do you remember that Logan? To do what shed hunt off of, off of those four wheel fat cap motorcycles. I never did that. Okay. So this is beyond the Gen Z crowd Bronson years ago, years prior. Well, and they were 30 years. They, they’re more forgiving to ride. They’re more like a tw now. But they were even fatter. They were like three wheeler tires. They weren’t even clutch. They were just, you let out like a four wheeler, you let off the gas and, and shift. Right. Well and they were more forgiving to ride in the desert and sand and all that.
01:30:58:03 –> 01:32:03:27
You didn’t, you didn’t put ’em down. So that’s, they were, they were easy to ride. They were. My grandpa had one. He bought a brand new one. Yeah, those was kids. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which I still had it. I remember we bought brand new ones from Monticello, the Honda shop shop in Monticello on land. Yeah. That’s where my grandpa goes. Yeah. So anyway, we just u used them on an old, old uranium road or whatever. It got us up to elevation. Basically had to hike our guts out. We hiked up on top. And this was summer. There’s September openers as you know, we hike up on top and I, I was prided myself on being a good glasser. Yeah. And sure enough, you know, I was gonna glass a she a sheep and I did, I glassed a ram as far as I could see as far as I could see up on top of the mess. And you know, you’re, you know, whatever in the mornings are cooler and the evenings are cooler and you know, it’s cool. And then it’s starting to get hot and we’re gonna go after the sheep and see what he is. And we don’t, we don’t have that much water. But you don’t think a lot about it. ’cause I can see it. I can see it. That’s still four miles aerial each way. And, and not to mention how many cuts you gotta go around to get Yeah.
01:32:04:01 –> 01:33:16:16
It’s not a straight line. No, not at all. It’s canyons tight. Yeah. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them. And so we get going and we go to the very, and then by the time you get there, you’re committed. You’re two thirds of the way there realizing you’re, you got water problems and, and then you gotta finish it because we saw ram and what if it’s the ram and here we are and now we’ve gone here for all this pain and suffering. We’re here and we’re gonna finish the job. And it’s a dink, we, we walk over the edge and Yeah. It’s a couple of dink rams. Yeah. And for sure they’re the ram for sure. Like, I’m like Yeah, that’s where what I saw. Yeah. And we gotta make it back. And we’re outta water. With the exception, we each, we, we, we, my dad saved a little bit for a rainy, the trip out hour, whatever it was, the death water. And we got, yeah, we got to where we were a third or half the way back, and it’s a hundred and something degrees, as you know, in September and down there. And he, he turns to me and he says, Kay, this is it. I’m gonna give you this water. And I’m, I’m, I’m stopped. I’m done. I’m sitting under this tree and you take the water and you make it back.
01:33:17:00 –> 01:34:17:20
And then we had a gallon at the bike, and then you replenish and get back to me. And then you, and then you come back and you get me and bring me water. And that happened. Yeah. And I don’t know how I made it back to that bike I had, I still had, I mean, it was tiny. He had, let’s call it a pint that I got. Yeah. Little flash. And I’m, and I stopped and I had, I had to stop every a hundred to 200 yards. And I, and I took a nap. Yeah. Every a hundred to 200 yards. And I don’t know how long I was out. I remember that’s, I don’t know what that does to you, but that’s that feeling. I feel like that’s what you have to do. It’s feel like all you can do to make it. Yeah. So you’d get a little bit of shade, you and whatever you, you know, and stopped and started and stopped and started all the way back to the bike. Did the same thing. And then I took a nap at the bike. And then I’m like, I gotta make a back. And so I took what was left and I went back and I, and I met up with my dad, gave him the water and we made it back to the bikes. Wow.
01:34:17:21 –> 01:35:34:23
And then we went down, we had camp trailers with generators and it was a day and a half. We laid on the floor under the air conditioner and we ate and drank and were merry. And we ate and we drank and we were married. The last thing in your mind was a desert sheep. I didn’t, we didn’t care about nothing. We didn’t care about nothing. Just get your body swollen back up. Didn’t matter of, we drank water, it needed fine liquids, whatever it was. We drank Pepsi’s and, and water and ate all that we could eat. And it was a joyous experience. And it was, it was one of those that you just look back on and, and you know, just kinda one of those experiences that you carry to the, you remember Oh yeah. Carry to the grave. Yes. And that define you a little bit. Yeah. You know, and I think it’s some of those experiences that maybe, maybe some of the, the younger generation don’t experience as much. Bronson, do you ever get lost anymore? Not anymore. But I also, I I, you’re more cautious. ’cause one of those, one or two of those, you can always get caught out in a storm. Snow is when you’re not supposed to snow, you know, whatever, kill something, but dark and now you’re gonna be way late getting back. But we’re, I’m way more prepared now than I ever was back then.
01:35:34:27 –> 01:36:44:01
Way more for, for some experiences like that. Way more prepared. And I think they make you, I think they make you tough when you’re in the Yukon. And you and I have both done ’em, you’ve, you’ve done some of those mountain hunts, you know, more than I have. Like you, you know, and even Alaska, you know, I’ve, we’ve done it. I’ve done some of those sheep hunts and, and I’m telling you there, they, there is no, I’m not gonna make it. There wasn’t, we weren’t, we’ve done hard. You’ve done hard things. Yeah. And so it’s just, how am I gonna, how am I gonna make it? That’s right. You know what I mean? Yep. No, it is seasons. You for sure. Seasons you teaches you, helps you be more prepared. Helps you be more, cautious is not the right word, but just more analytical now when I am, when I’ve got a place that I need to go scout or a place I need to go look for something that’s, I’m gonna be exposed. And you’re going to a little bit of unknown ’cause water in, in southern Utah, we don’t have, we don’t have a lot of seeps and springs. It’s natural water in sandstone, potholes, Taha go in that location. We call ’em Tejas, earth and earth and potholes. Catchments, you know, in the, in that. And that’s what you survive on.
01:36:44:02 –> 01:37:46:00
And I’ve also gotten better about when I know not to go, like these last couple summers, like not the summers like to come off of a winter you had nothing and go like, you’re asking for trouble going on real, real deep stuff this spring right now. Bring it on, bring up. Well that’s why I was a little bit surprised that Paul being, as wise as he is, he, that he kept forging. ’cause ’cause honestly anymore now, and it’s what happens is you get to that point of no return and you just assume I gotta, if I make it through a few more snow drifts, I’m gonna make it. But we’ve all done it and I’m not a kid anymore and I’m just over it. Yeah. I’m over getting stuck, you know what I mean? If I can help it. That’s what I mean. I went, I took two trips out to Nevada. Right. Flatten level. What did I tell you? Totally got stuck. Yeah. Okay. I came back and you’ve been here ever since. Need, need to replace motor mounts in my truck and I’m not, and I’m, and I’m like, and I told, what did I tell you? I’m now happy to be in the office. I’m just fine here. Yeah. You dodged a bullet. I had to walk, walk miles and get picked up at night and Yeah. Send an s oss send some la longs. Yeah. Yep.
01:37:46:08 –> 01:38:53:10
The kids went out, got stuck and you know, luckily they had a shovel and then some people came and helped push ’em out and this and that. And anyway, anymore we’re just careful of making sure we take what we need and trying to got a lot more tool awesome tools now. Yeah. Than we had as kids too. It was a handyman jack and a shovel. No inReach, no s snap phones, no nothing. Yeah. You know, and I just think about the places we wanted as kids and nothing we bad uphill an old Bronco in, in three foot of snow and broke the back, the back drive Line U joint and had to, had to take bailing wire and, and take and hold up the drive line. It’s not dragging. And we were in four wheel drive, but front it was front wheel drive and you know, there is no, who are you gonna call? Oh, yeah. You know, so you’re getting out. So anyway, I don’t know where, what, we gotta end this. Do we just end it and call it a day and go eat? Yeah, that’s right. Drink and be married for lunch. That’s lunch. Yeah. On that note, let’s go. What you drink and be mery. I’m, I’m over it. Okay. Let’s do it. We’d like to thank all of our sponsors here at Epic Outdoors. For top of the line hunting, clothing, and apparel in every environment. Visit under armour.com.
01:38:53:17 –> 01:40:04:07
We’d like to thank Under Armour for being our title sponsor and making this podcast happen. Visit our website epic outdoors.com for discount codes to Under Armour Hunting apparel, handcrafted quality precision rifles from start to finish. Red Rock Precision is one of our sponsors and many of our staff uses Red Rock rifles. Visit red Rock precision.com to find out more. If you’re in the market for a hunting property, our sponsor at St. James Sporting Properties specialize in premier hunting properties throughout the west. Check out available hunting properties at st james sporting properties.com. Good looking comfortable. Camo describes Ku u, the new bush pants from KU u. Keep your legs comfortable while walking through the thorns and bristles. Visit ku u.com for sizing and prices. Kenna Trek makes great boots for any situation. Most sheet punters in the high rocky altitudes. Use these boots to keep their ankles in. Check on the rough terrain. Visit kenna trek.com to learn more. We at Epic Outdoors are a fierce firearms dealer and have many popular models in stock and ready to ship. Call us if you would like help deciding which options are right for you. Fierce long range Rifles are a great rifle and many of our employees here use them. Visit fierce arms.com to learn more. Triple S Polaris specializes in custom setup hunting side byside. They deliver right to your door nationwide.
01:40:04:08 –> 01:41:24:12
Visit s ss polaris.com to learn more For affordable, long range rifles and shooting schools, visit thompson long range.com. Hoyt is top of the line archery equipment. Hoyt is the official bow manufacturer of Epic Outdoors. Everyone on our staff shoots a Hoyt bow call. If you’d like to visit about their different models or visit hoyt.com. Thank you. To scope the best camera optic adapter out there, phone scope makes high quality phone cases and optics adapters. Visit phone scope.com to learn more. Stealth chem has high quality durable trail cameras that we all love to use. Check them [email protected] or call us. To order today here at Epic Optics. We are a verified dealer for Swarovski Zeiss, Leica Vortex, stealth cam and more. Call us today to visit about the available optics we have and what would be right for you. Or visit epic optics.com for only 150 bucks a year. You get nine issues of the Epic Outdoors Magazine and unlimited access to our Hunt consultant, as well as access to our verified research website. To see all the other member benefits, visit epic outdoors.com. If you hunt multiple states, our services are essential. The Epic Outdoors license application service is for you. If you ever miss deadlines or would like help developing your long, medium, and short-term license application goals, give us a call today at (435) 263-0777 to learn more.
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