This week Adam and Jason sit down with Deputy Director of Wildlife Mike Scott to talk about all things Nevada. With moisture levels this year there has been a very exciting buzz centered around Nevada and we here at Epic feel it just as much as you all do.
Be sure to check out your options for Nevada Big Game applications at ndow.org before May 10th or give us a call today to go over your plans for the state of Nevada and all things Western Big Game.
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
00:00:01:05 –> 00:01:27:06
Anything to do with Western big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. What up everybody? It’s Jason Carter. Adam Bronson coming at you from Southern Utah. We’re talking about Nevada today. Bronson one of our favorite states ever. Well, especially when it rains. Finally Chip it. So it’s obviously no secret. It’s a dry state. Utah’s, I think technically number two behind Nevada Drive State in the nation. And, which is weird ’cause it feels like Arizona should be born in New Mexico. Well, they get so much monsoonal. Yeah. Rain down there that I think it just catches up. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah, it’s on the front burner. It’s May. Can you believe that? I can’t believe it. It’s May 2nd. It’s, it’s amazing. We’re two days into May. It’s amazing. Well, Bronson, so we’ve had a heavy weekend and actually, yeah, think five or six days we had maybe Utah deadline the 27th. Kansas is 28th. Idaho the 30th. Idaho the 30th. Yeah. I mean Montana, moose, sheep, goats yesterday. And, and the magazine for the June and the June. California, Arizona, June, which it marks the first of our bi monthlies. Yeah. Basically. So June July is basically the last of our monthly and we start in the last of the state max, which is basically a yes. May 1st is always Uno de Mayo is always a holiday in our un in our class. Okay. I like it. I like it.
00:01:27:09 –> 00:02:37:28
Usually by May 1st we are done. And it was happened to be May 2nd. We do a, let’s do this. Let’s give away something because it’s Uno de mayo. Uno de mayo. I like it. It’s the epic holiday dude. I mean, think about it. Yesterday we were ecstatic. Why? ’cause our life changed. Instead of coming in at three in the morning, we now get to come in at eight and do a normal eight to five. Or if May 1st, the first morning that I golfed before work, both of us and was here, I was only here eight minutes late. I was here at 8 0 8. Hey. And I still night. And I’ve been retrieving trucks in the middle of nowhere. So, so Justin, so Justin’s, he’s out Turkey hunting with Ash. They’re killing it, you know, and making me proud. Of course I’m working or whatever, doing other things that I’m supposed to be doing. Other dad projects over the weekend and they slide into a ditch and he runs a stick through the radiator and it’s like, puts a whole, like double my thumb. And thank goodness for JB will that had to be a, I mean Cedar a whole had to, don’t know. Yeah, you’re in Cedar Country. So I seal well meaning that’s a tough stick. That doesn’t, if it was a brittle stick, it would’ve sto in 40 pieces. Oh. I had to basically take vice grips to get it out.
00:02:37:28 –> 00:03:46:19
Like it was jammed in there and it actually bent, it curled up the what? Skid plate. Just totally curled it up and then jammed in there. And I thought, and I can’t get a box trailer in there, like a dump trailer that I have or whatever to, to load it up. Haul it out. So you gotta limp this thing outta here somehow. Somehow. And do you drag it through four foot big old washes from the runoff. You got all these big ditches. And I’m just like, this is a problem. This thing’s outta water. It’s down low. So I take JB Weld, I take a torch, freaking light it up and just get it cleaned off and then throw a whole freaking deal. The entire thing of JB Weld in it. And then just left it over the weekend. Went back. That sounds a SE certified. Hey, hey. I know this. It doesn’t leak a drop. It doesn’t leak a drop. Bronson. Justin’s like, I think I’m gonna pay for a radiator. I just don’t wanna be stranded down. And I’m like, do that. I don’t know. I think it’s fine. Come on. I think it’s fine. Alright, let’s, let’s get to get it to be 120 degrees stuff swells. Shrinks. I’ll, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll throw bars, leak in it just for good measure. ’cause that’s fine. Pepper, you know, all that plugs, those little fine holes. Huh?
00:03:46:21 –> 00:05:01:06
Wanna throw sawdust in there too? Well, I don’t know. I dunno. Some goo. Anyway, we got it home. So Bronson, when I, I went and did that this morning and then we both rolled in about 8 15, 8 20. It’s the first time I can remember. Oh yeah. Yep. It’s nice. Sun’s shining. And deadlines just mean there’s a few, few less front burner projects. Doesn’t mean there’s not front burner projects, but the dimensions are leaving and having to write another magazines over and all those, like we just said. Yeah, if you wanna go check out the eag, it’s online. It’s the live right now. How that for Arizona and California, you can’t apply Comply in California. You can’t apply in Arizona yet. It’s not hot on their website. But California’s hot, California is, and Arizona’s published their regs. So, hey, I thought you’d be able to apply but not yet. Moved it up. Some internal difficulties. There’s been some people, you know, retire from the department and I think some of the reports reflect that. But anyway, they do good work down there, especially on these wet years. How about that? I mean, what are we complaining about? Pretty awesome. Yep. We’re so excited. Bronson, I think we should outline your hunting schedule because you got a whole or two and maybe a listener has an, an idea of I don’t have much a whole or two in your schedule. I need something on my schedule.
00:05:01:24 –> 00:06:11:16
You got, I mean, you got some plans. Well, yeah, got some. But I mean it’s really, the next 45 days is honestly all year long. You’re always optimistic to try to draw an Arizona Elk or New Mexico random draw something. But really most of my stuff, so, but I want to be, but these latter states, I’m going all in. What does that mean? Nevada? Nevada, Utah. You’ve always gone all in Colorado. What does that mean? Well, what I do is just changing the mentality. What I do find interesting, I didn’t really want Arizona to New Mexico anyway, is you’ve been plugging and playing in Nevada because you can. Yeah, I love that. And you just kind of change your, your ordering and then it makes me want change my ordering. And so I go look and plug and play. I look at my kids’ stuff. And by the way, May 8th is the last Amen Day for Wyoming and Wyoming. You brought it up and I went in and made sure my kids, everybody was good. And I’m like, oh yeah, I do remember applying for that. I, I’ve lost track. Well, January’s a long time ago. It was, we’ve been through a lot since then. We have been through a lot, a lot of early mornings. It feels like a lot’s transpired. So let’s give something away. It’s freaking Uno un de deo de cinco deo whatever. Uno de mayo. I like it.
00:06:11:20 –> 00:07:22:09
Uno deo cinco de miles’ Friday. Epic uno de holiday. What are we gonna give away? It’s truck camera season. Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s give away three of them. Three huh? To one person. Or what do you think? Yeah, I don’t know. Or you wanna do one or do you wanna do three individuals? Logan’s good. Let’s do three individuals. What do you think Spread the love one camera sim seems chintzy. I like the all or nothing giveaways. Yeah. Okay. All right. And it’s easy, right? That’s what you’re thinking of, Logan? No, I it makes your job easy. Okay. Okay. Outta the enter Logan, what do, what are they gotta do here? I mean, what do you gotta do? Usually we gotta do, well, let’s tag, let’s tag Uno de mayo. So U-N-O-D-E-M-A-Y-O. Yeah. Pretty uno de mayo. Yeah. Hit translate into your phone if you tag, spit it out and see if that’s right. Hashtag uno de mayo. What do we wanna see? We’re gonna go on there and hey, there’s one point. Have to put the word epic in there ’cause there’s probably Uno de mayo. Well, we’ll tag our account. I’m gonna look right now on the hashtag, hold on. Tag our tag. Our epic hunt account. Use hashtag epic uno de mayo epic. Huh? Say it again. Tag our tag our epic hunts account. And then use hashtag dude Uno de Mayo has 5,000 plus posts. Yes. That’s what I mean.
00:07:22:21 –> 00:08:28:03
Do epic uno de mayo. Okay. It’s probably none. Zero less than five. Okay, let me do that. Let’s see. You add a word, it’s gonna be easy. Tags does not exist. That’s right. There is not one. Okay, so E-I-C-U-N-O-D-E-M-A-Y-O. It’s not every day you can make a brand new hashtag. Well, we just did it. We seem to do it often. That’s right. So if you, if all you do is tag epic uno de mayo and you tag epic hunts, obviously in your, in your little write up little verbiage. What then we’re gonna get, we’re gonna do a random drawing and let’s do it by Friday. I want it fast before Synchron. I want the odds to be good. Oh, Bronson, I’m sick of the bad odds. Let’s make the odds good by Friday. Short application periods. Okay. Which reminds me of our epic membership drive. Okay. A short application period. Okay. By Friday, at what time you gonna draw the line of sound? Logan? What time do you wanna leave work that day? That’s basically what it comes down to. Oh, Logan, do you even work? I I try my best to work. We got the GZ clocking in. No, he he’s outta school right now, so he’s Yeah, I know. He’s got not his plate’s lightened too. Yeah, I dam my all means something to this guy too. Do you want full, full-time work part-time work? What are we doing with you?
00:08:28:11 –> 00:09:27:25
Let’s, what are we doing with Logan? Don’t put it at midnight that night. Logan does whatever he wants. 1159. He’s gotta be here at midnight. Yeah, let’s keep Logan here. No, let’s just do a good, like four or 5:00 PM Yeah, do a mountain, mountain, mountain time. Let’s do four. Not in Arizona either. Let’s do four o’clock. Straight up. Four o’clock. You run the draw at four 20. You get outta here by five. All right. Okay. What do we wanna see though? What are they posting? Well, I don’t know. Whatever they want. Some kind of truck camp pick or something. Okay. Whatever you want there. Don’t you think a scouting pic? I don’t care what it is. It’s hunting related don’t Right Broza? Yeah. Hunting related. Okay. Epic hunts tag. Epic hunts. Here’s the hashtag. If your anniversary was Uno deo, we don’t wanna see pictures of that. We just wanna see hunting related pictures. That’s right. And we’re not gonna, there is no, not a single post on there. We’re not gonna put a post on there if there’s only three freaking people. We might make this an annual. Might make it an annual. Yeah, it is kind of, we tease always that May 1st is like a holiday around here and we’re gonna turn it into one within five years. I want it in the Google calendar. On, on your iPhone. Come on, come on. I want Google to put it on the Google calendar.
00:09:27:27 –> 00:10:39:29
How about I, I don’t know. Same as Mother’s Day. Pretty important day. Uno de Mayo, epic. Uno de mayo. All right. So anyway, Bronson we’re su you know what else I like about Nevada? I freaking love the turnaround. We’re gonna know draw results before May 20th. Yeah. Four or five years ago. I can’t remember exactly when it was. They, it’s always been that they had 48 hours after they run the draw to do it. But that’s, they could take a month and a half to run the draw. Right, right. But now it’s like legit. It’s legit. You’ve done the 10th and we’re talking tens or hundreds of thousands of applications. Yeah. Yeah. And they turn it around when less than 10 days. Yeah, they do. They have a quick turnaround, which makes it awesome because you can make plans, you can schedule vacations, you can just get excited. We know for a fact, normally you have to wait for the April and May spring moisture to, to know if you can have big deer because, and we were dealing with that during drought periods. Now I don’t know that it matters what happens in May. I don’t know that it matters. Not this year. There’s so much water. It’s good enough. The snow is not even close to melting. No, no. And not even close. So fun. So fun to think about. What an incredible opportunity for those few guys that draw it.
00:10:39:29 –> 00:11:43:23
They have come down tag numbers, but the quality experience is like none other. So for all species really in Nevada. That’s what I like. Yep. So we’re, I, I think Bronson, let’s call Mike Scott, deputy director. He’s the new deputy director. And we both know Mike from way back. He’s dealt with all of this Panka pooch, south Eastern. That state. Yeah. That was he was he biologist there? Yeah. Yep. And of course he was out in the hills running cameras and hunting and loved big deer and hit it just as hard as anybody we knew. So I don’t know. Let’s give him a holler. I just want to talk, let’s just talk about New Nevada. Yeah. State of the state of the nation of the state. State of the state. State of the silver state. A silver state. Ah, what’s the price of silver right now? What’s the price of copper in Nevada right now? You look up the price of silver. I just wanna know. Yeah, I mean, I’ve got just a little bit of it. I don’t know. 24, 25 bucks an ounce. What’s it that, who cares? Well, there was a guy that, it’s not gold hunt gold. It’s not gold in the silver state. It’s not gold. And when he died, there were millions of dollars in the bottom of the six. We’re talking gold. I know. Not silver. I know, but I still want to know. What does it say? 25 45 an ounce.
00:11:43:23 –> 00:13:09:03
Yeah. How about a, how about a, okay, things are getting good. Of course with inflation, that probably means about $10 an ounce. But anyway, let’s call Mike, see what he’s got to say about his own state. Hey there. What do you got going today? Not too much though. Oh really? It rain. How many? It’s raining in Reno. Oh yeah. Raining good in Reno. No way. Let’s look up the radar and make sure. Wow, we, you never know. Maybe we’re getting a little bit of that, hopefully. Mike, how many meetings have you had today? Say that again? How many meetings have you had today? It’s been a slow day. I’ve had four. Well, we teed up. Just this is Adam, but we teed up a little bit that you’re wearing a new hat in the department, so Yeah. Yeah. We appreciate you taking time with us. We’ve also talked about knowing you for 15, 20 years ago, and you lived just across the border from where we do and where your roots were. But yeah, appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to talk about the state of Nevada Department of Wildlife and Hunting. And of course the application period’s coming to a close in the next seven, eight days. But yeah, and you’ve even got, it looks like a commission meeting coming up, of course with tag numbers and whatnot. I guess you’re ready for that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:09:08 –> 00:14:30:01
That’s, that’s, well, Friday and Saturday, but Saturday’s the, the big day where, where we’ll go through all the quotas and, you know, get final approval on those. So, you know, that’s always a, a kind of a long day with us. But, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s engaging. It’s, it’s fun to, it’s fun to sit and, and listen and be a part of that. So still, still like being a part of it, you know, maybe talk about that process just a little bit. We’ve got biology and sound management and all of these different things that come into play, but then you’ve also got the politics and social aspect of, of making people happy, right? Your customer, the client hunters, you know, and things you guys like to personally see on the landscape, you know, and obviously you’re seeing it from a different perspective now, being the deputy director. Tell us a little bit about that process and all the different aspects that you’re, you’re taking into consideration when you make your proposals. Yeah, so, you know, I, I am wearing a different hat now and, you know, it was, it was really hard not to be in the room with, with all the game biologists and supervisors this year, staff coming up with their quotas. And you know, that’s the first time in, in over 30 years that I haven’t been in the room.
00:14:30:07 –> 00:15:50:25
And I did pop in for a bit, you know, here and there just to, just to kind of see what was going on. But, you know, it’s a, it’s a long process and you know, we’re, we’re trying to use all the science that we, that we can, we, you know, we, we fly all these populations, we count ’em, you know, we have population models that, that we put the data into and, and you know, we, we end up with these population estimates and we, we run ’em through the arrays that, that distributes tags to the different weapons groups. And you know, there’s, there’s, I mean we manage by buck ratios and, and bull ratios ram, you know, I mean we, we do a lot of that. And so, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s an interesting process. It’s still fascinating to me. And, you know, even, like I said, it was, it was hard not being in the room this year, but, you know, we, we have a, a different social dynamic in Nevada. You know, we, we really try to manage for, for quality animals with, with all of our species. And, you know, it, it, there are, there are people that believe we should have more tags and there are people that believe we should have fewer tags. And you know, we try to, we try to find a balance where we can please our customers as best we can.
00:15:52:03 –> 00:17:04:17
Well, and it’s, you know, you’re, you got these sideboards as well with, you know, drought. Like we’re, you know, coming out of, you know, 15 years of it, you know, real rough drought the last three or four years until this winter. And so, you know, with, you know, antelope and sheep and deer, you know, production being way off, you got, you know, populations doing one thing and, and obviously we’ve seen what’s happened with the tag numbers the last two or three years as well for some of those species, most notably the deer and in some cases sheep too. And, and you know, it’s a, it’s a balancing act and I don’t know, I don’t know what percentage of keeping people happy is a win for you guys. ’cause it feels like, I dunno, 51% is not even attainable sometimes, but you know what I mean, you’ve got your balancing a lot. And we have our version of, of your cab meetings, we call ’em the RAC meetings in Utah. And you go through those, you know, regional or local level, you know, county, county advisory board meetings where you, you know, present your recommendations on a more local level. Individual units have a lot of people to attend and give their input on individual units. And then those, you know, get incorporated, you know, on up to the commission meeting and go through different layers.
00:17:04:22 –> 00:18:18:12
And this is now the final, I guess, vetting weekend that you guys got coming up to say, all right, you know, factor everything in what we presented because your permit numbers have been out as far as your recommended permitting numbers out for a couple weeks now, whatever it is. And so, yeah, now it’s time to, you know, finalize those and tweak ’em, if any, based on input from public or biologist and things like that. Well, and what I find interesting is you turn that over to the board and so you take it from the scientific side of things and what you guys put it out to the public professional recommendations are this Yeah. And then we turn it over to this board that’s made up of lots of different facets of society and, and I guess they make the final rule and my final decision on some of this stuff. Yeah. And that’s, yeah, you know, it’s, it’s, I I’ve, I’ve always, I, I mean I grew up with the Nevada system where we, we have county game boards and, and each one of those boards has anywhere from five to, I think one of them has nine members. And they’re, they’re, they’re generally engaged sportsmen in of some of some form. Some are are true trophy hunters and some are are people that, that just, you know, that, that just want a, a tag. Some are upland game bird hunters, some are big game.
00:18:18:16 –> 00:19:36:28
I mean, you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, a pretty broad group of people and they represent each county. We only have 17 counties in Nevada. And really two counties are, are, don’t really have active county game boards. I guess maybe one county really only doesn’t, but the rest of the counties generally put in some, some information and, you know, they might, they might disagree with our recommendation. They might agree with them. And, you know, so you, you get these, these varying degrees of, of agreement with different people. And you know, if, if most of the, the quotas that we, that we recommend, you know, it’s an estimate, it’s a, you know, we’re, we’re putting out a a, you know, a population estimate with a, a number of tags. And sometimes people want a few fewer tags. Sometimes people want a few more. And generally we don’t get too wrapped up in, in the, the, the small numbers of, you know, changes that people wanna make. You know, it’s, it’s rarely do we ever make any mistake that is, is so drastic that we can’t fix it the next year. And we manage for such high buck ratios, bull ratios, ram ratios, you know, in Nevada.
00:19:36:28 –> 00:20:55:23
That, that generally if we, if we have a, a a, a number of, you know, a quota that’s, that’s too high, we might get down to what we’re trying to manage for, you know, for gear we might get down to 30 bucks per hundred dose. Is that what you’re trying to manage for just roughly? Yeah, just across, across across Nevada for in general, for the, for the standard units, now we have, you know, we, we manage for, for three different types of units. We have standard, we have non-standard and we have alternative. And the alternative units are the, the units that I guess some people would would call them quality or trophy type units, where we generally manage for about a 35 bucks per hundred in those units. But most of the other units are, are at 30. And then there are some units that we don’t, we don’t even survey. They’re the, the real low density units. And we try to manage for about a 45% success rate in those units. Yeah. And so if we, if we see higher success, we, we might raise tags a bit. If we see lower success, we, we lower tags in those units. But the desert, the other one air real era desert units that you just can’t do have a quality survey on. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Exactly.
00:20:56:07 –> 00:22:20:17
So on the alternative trophy ones, I mean, are you, is there just a standard, you know, is it the 2 41, 2 45, 2 31 2 twentys? I mean, or, or I mean, you know, what units are those? So up in the northern part of the state, it’s oh one four, which is north of Reno up by Gerlach. Yeah. I believe the, the Sheldon, which is oh three three is managed that way over in the eastern region. Oh. Unit 0 8 1 and 0 6 5 are both alternative units. And then down in the south it’s areas 23 and I think 22, 23 and 24 are all managed that way. Okay. And back in the day, just for the listeners that, you know, maybe are new to Nevada, you used to be back, you used to be in area, so area 22 would be 2 21 to 2 23 area 24, 2 41, 2 45, area 23 would be 2 31. And so just, you know, that, that carries on that, that terminology, Carrie carries on, I don’t know how many years ago you guys got away from it. I know. We get, we get, you know, stuck in our ways of how we, how we talk about things and, and you know, I, I hear a lot of things from back in, you know, early in my career, you know, ’cause we have three regions and it’s the, the, the western region and the eastern region, which are in the northern, northern half of the state and the southern region.
00:22:20:20 –> 00:23:45:00
And so when I started, they were regions one, region two, region three, and you know, so you still hear that terminology. And same thing with the areas. We, you know, we fall into that, that trap where we, we still use the old language. So somebody got, I apologize if I do, somebody got jealous, the somebody was reaching one. So they just, now that you’re the west region, you’re not one Exactly. You’re no longer number one. Exactly. Well, well, so with everything that’s, that’s out now, what’s, what’s about to go to the commission meeting? Let, let’s maybe just jump in, I guess, and get your general feeling and thoughts about, you know, as we’ve alluded, we’ve, we know we’re coming off some extreme drought years and obviously this last fall and winter has been really, really good grout throughout all of Nevada and Utah. And of course we need more of those to come. But what’s the general, what’s the general vibe feel and what does that look like in terms of, I guess, general permit recommendations throughout Nevada this year? Yeah, you know, I I I have been an avid avid hunter for, you know, really my whole life. And, you know, I mean, I feel like if, if somebody draws a tag in Nevada, they should have an opportunity, not, not gonna say a guarantee, but an opportunity to see a quality animal or, or to hunt a quality animal.
00:23:45:06 –> 00:25:02:21
And, and I, I think we’re still doing that. We’ve, we’ve tried to do that through my whole career. We’ve always been really conservative on the number of tags that we, that we put out. And I, and I, I still believe in that. And, you know, I want everybody to, I, I mean, I, I wish we could give everybody tags. We just don’t have the numbers to do it. And you know, but I, I do, I mean, I’m an avid hunter and you know, while I want to have a tag, I, I want to have the opportunity to, to hunt a, a, a quality animal. And so, you know, that, that management scheme, I think it’s just in general, that’s how, how Nevada manages and, and it’s, you know, this, this, it’s not my, it’s not, you know, I haven’t dictated any of that. It’s just been what we’ve done and through my whole career, we’ve, we’ve tried to maintain high quality in Nevada and we’re still doing that. Yeah. So, you know, you, you talked about the drought that, that we’ve been under, and it’s been, it’s been really tough. Drought has, has really ravaged Nevada, different parts of Nevada have been worse than others, particularly the northwest and then south we’ve had had some issues with, with desert sheep.
00:25:02:22 –> 00:26:09:23
And you know, just a couple years ago we were filling guzzlers with helicopters because it was, it was so dry, almost like you couldn’t Bronson and like Adam literally saving sheep because it’s some of these places, there’s, there’s not free water. There’s, there’s not like no seep springs all that to, to feed to water five, 700 sheep in the muddies. And we remember, it’s almost like you couldn’t fill ’em fast enough. Like there’s so many guzzlers in Nevada, right? Yeah. I mean, you guys were, well, we were having to fill, we were having to fill ’em multiple times. It wasn’t, it wasn’t like we could go and fill ’em up one time and, and, you know, and and walk away. Yeah. We had to fill ’em up and then we had to fill ’em up again and, and then we had to fill ’em up again. And so, you know, I, I think we ended up flying in, in one summer, we flew in like 265,000 gallons of water into, into various water sources, you know, guzzlers down in southern Nevada, Eastern Nevada, western Nevada. You know, we, we did a lot of work that way. And that, that was just a couple years ago. And so, you know, here we are with, you know, we’ve been trapping a lot of animals, putting collars on a lot of deer the last few years. And we’ve been seeing body condition is, is poor.
00:26:10:10 –> 00:27:25:00
And, you know, it, it’s, it’s troubling because, you know, a, a dough that gives birth to a, an underweight fawn that fawn will never, never grow to the size of a healthy fawn. And you know, that if it’s a buck fawn, he won’t have the size of antlers that he would’ve if his whole life underweight healthy Right. His whole life. Yeah. He’s never gonna catch up. And so, you know, we, we’ve been dealing with that. And then to see this winter and this winter’s been tough and, and you know, all, all of all of the fisheries people are are just jumping up and down. Yeah. Because there’s, there’s a ton of water, which is, which is, you know, which is awesome, but it’s been tough on some of our big game herds. Yeah. So I think deer, deer have been hit particularly hard and you know, we’re gonna see some reductions in, in deer tags, but the conditions that are out there are going to be phenomenal. And if, if anybody is ever thinking of, of drawing a deer tag in Nevada, this would be the year to do it. So I think, I think when you were talking about poor body conditions, you’re talking about pre 2023 fall, like it feels like all the, the game animals came into the winner in incredible shape this winter specifically. Is this different? Yeah.
00:27:25:04 –> 00:28:31:01
And then now they’re coming out of the winter with the exception, and we’ll get to that, let’s say area six, area 10, you know, area seven parts of it or whatever, you know, where we had some, maybe some winner loss. Other than that, down here in the trophy areas, maybe even over where you’re at thing things are incredible and the, the animals that are alive are on the landscape are gonna be maxed out trophy potential wise. And I, I think that’s in, in layman term what you’re talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I think with respect to body condition, animals should, should be coming, you know, now that, that winter’s, I I would say winter’s over, even though, like I said, I’m looking outside and watching it rain here in Reno and, and you know, rain, rain is a good thing in Nevada. We don’t get enough of it. And you know, we don’t see enough of it, but rain, rain makes things grow and it, it, it puts fat on animals. It puts, you know, it makes those animals in good body condition and, and that that results in, in better horn growth as well, better antler growth. And so, you know, I I would expect that this year’s gonna be a, a phenomenal year to, to have a tag in Nevada.
00:28:32:02 –> 00:29:40:15
You know, like I said, the tag numbers are gonna be down, but if you drew do draw a tag, you’re gonna be in good shape. There’s gonna be, you know, there should be some quality animals out there and and less competition with, with other hunters just because there are fewer tags being recommended. That’s a very, that’s the very stuff we’ve been talking about. Exactly. Yeah. It’s like if you, if the big, if, if you could get attacked, do everything you can to get attacked. If, if you can get attacked, it’s, it’s the year you want one, even these odd units, you know, Mike, you’ve been through enough of these droughts and then we see Bronson, you, you and I hunted in Nevada very aggressively over the years, when you see, even in the drought era, you know, you’ll see a slight with, let’s call it a, you know, you have a wet April and May, and all of a sudden the antlers just come on, dear. Specifically, you know, we’d, we’d have on trail camera like 20 bucks over 200 inches. And then if you go into a dry year and then have a dry spring on top of it, and you just have marginal conditions overall, you can’t, can’t find one. Maybe one, maybe one, maybe one. Yeah. And, and it’s amazing. Same exact places you found ’em the year before. Well, in the same deer, same camera. The same deer.
00:29:40:15 –> 00:30:55:07
You have the same deer. Yes. You know that deer has a split ear. He’s this, he’s this. Look at the difference. There’s, there’s, there’s five bucks here, there’s five bucks here again. Yeah. 40 inches off or whatever. Yeah. Or 40 inches better. And that’s the year we’re having right now. So the downside is not as many tags. And so draw, you know, drawing odds will be tougher and whatnot, but when you’re out there, those who get the tag, you’re gonna have less people, less teams, and you’re gonna have big animals. And, and you know, antelope too, an Bronson, I think we over, we overlook the antelope in Nevada. It’s unbelievable. We talk about it a lot. But we, upper eighties, they’re hard, but they are, oh, they’re special. So Bronson this morning has been plugging and playing on his antelope choices. And it’s the, it’s the, it’s the species that, I mean, just kind of is overlooked in my mind. It’s just overshadowed and overlooked and go, go try to kill a Boer and see how hard it is. And Nevada’s known for ’em. Well it, it goes back to what we’ve been taught. We’ve always had this philosophy of Nevada and Mike’s reinforced it is they do, they, it is a state with scarce resources from a, a big scale wildlife population standpoint, consider considering Utah or Colorado or something, or all the western states factories. It’s the dry state in the nation.
00:30:55:12 –> 00:32:01:23
So my point was, what we’ve been saying is, yes, they, even before the drought, it’s always been you, you start managing and that that 30 bucks per hundred dose that you managed for, that’s a postseason ratio, right? Mark, Mike? Yeah. That’s a postseason. We’re going, we’re starting that. That’s after the hunts. I mean that’s impressive. Yeah. We, we manage Utah’s best limited entries for 35 plus. Yeah. Best, best. We’re talking the three four Henry’s gon Henry Henry’s pons, that’s it. Two, well those are called the premiums. That’s, but even though, and Oaks Oaks is awesome, we don’t manage 20 or 30. I know that’s the same. So my point is, and and the same translates to Elk, which they don’t really have. People ask us a lot of time how, I just want better odds. I just wanna shoot a six point bull in Nevada. Well, okay, there’s no better. Like they’re all better than that. Way better than that. Way better than that. And way great quality. Well, we’ll have guys that’ll say we want three 30 bulls. You can do that on every unit. Yes, that’s right. That’s our point. There’s no like, Hey, I just wanna shoot a five point bull. Well, there’s nothing where they just give a ton of tags to just go shoot five point bulls. That doesn’t exist in about it. It’s a quality product. And to your point, antelope is one of those too.
00:32:01:24 –> 00:33:05:29
It doesn’t matter if it’s desert, sheep, California, big horn, you know, goats, it doesn’t, you know, elk, deer, antelope. And they’re big, they’re big in, they’re big. And so I don’t know anything really big with potential and, and, and they’re hard to draw. And then you have to, what, a three or two, three year weight on an antelope. So you kind of want to get a kind good one. You get a tag as a non-resident. So, and I think, anyway, it’s pretty, pretty awesome. You get any kind of tag in Nevada, there are easier to draw units like four deer, especially for deer archery, deer, middle of the state area 14 area 15 or some of these even even up north. Yeah. You know, there’s, there’s units that are easier to draw and that’s fine. And there’s plenty of guys that want those tax. That’s great. You can work the odds a little bit on archery antelope or archery deer muzz loader deer or even rifle deer on those type of units. But yeah. And, and you know, even those, even those units that are easier to draw, I guarantee you there are people that will shoot big deer, really, really beautiful animals out of those units. Well, what’s crazy is those, a lot of those units have no population base of people to be out scouting and working it. Like you drive across Nevada, you’re by yourself.
00:33:06:04 –> 00:34:10:01
I mean, you’re, you, you better take some tire plugs. You might wanna take an extra battery. I don’t know, like gas. I mean it’s impressive. That’s what I love about Nevada way in between towns in, in Nevada for sure. Yeah, it is. And so anyway, pretty, pretty impressive. And so yeah, I think you’re, to your point, there was a two 50 buck, remember killed on that late archery area tent, you know, I, I mean a literal giant. And, and it just reminds you, geez, don’t be overlooking stuff. One of the hardest unit clusters in the state Yeah. Has for all intents and purposes and, and has good high deer deer numbers, but not necessarily known as a, as one of the best producers. But there it is, you know? Yeah. You just don’t know where they’re gonna come from. So Yeah. That’s the type of year that’s, that’s even truer in my mind. So, so pretty, pretty incredible. Yeah. So on the, you know, like desert sheep, you’re obviously, you know, you guys are cutting tags a bit that’s in relation to what’s out there on the landscape. You’re still dealing with, I wanna say what, over 8,000 sheep alive in the state of Nevada. Yeah. 8,000 deserts. Yeah.
00:34:10:12 –> 00:35:23:18
You know, the, the desert sheep, I mean that, that resource, we’re dealing with some disease issues and, and there’s units that, that are, you know, dropping off numbers, you know, related to disease, some related to drought, combined with disease. And, and you know, they’re, they’re, they’re some that are down a bit, but in general, again, you know, it’s a really, really quality hunt. And you know, I know, I, I actually saw Adam on, oh, when I hunt last year, I was just gonna say like on most units, you’re, you still don’t even ever see anybody like the muddies in that is kind of, there’s a lot of people there, but like, it’s almost rare to see anybody. But ran into Mike last year in Nevada, southern Nevada. He ended up smoking around, I guess you guys kind of watched Bronson and Smash around? I think so. I don’t know. It was, it was pretty funny because my buddy and I were, were there and, and we were, you know, our, our other, the, the hunter was actually a, a little ways away. He was, he was in a different part of the mountain. But my, my friend, you know Right, right. First light, he, he goes, Hey, I found a ram. And, and I said, is it good ram? And and he says, yeah, it looks like a really good ram.
00:35:24:04 –> 00:36:26:29
And you know, I’m, I’m messing around trying to get my, my phone scope up and everything. And, and all of a sudden we hear, boom. And I, he looks at me and I look at him and, and he said, was that, was that on our side of the mountain? And I said, you need to check out and see if that ram’s still there. And he, he gets in his spot and scope and he looks and he says, oh, it’s still there, but his feet are up in the air now. And Adam didn’t even know anything about it. We had no idea were there, we’re all looking west. And, and you know, that’s where the sheep is. And we’re, I dunno, roughly a mile in front of Mike or roughly, I don’t know, mile and a half, whatever it was. But so we’re all looking one direction, you know, we knew what the ram was from the day before and we had tunnel vision waiting for it to get light. And fortunately they didn’t move anywhere overnight. And it wasn’t until, yeah, we were walking up that we looked, you know, looked back and you know, the other crew was coming up and say, Hey, there’s some other hunters back here. I think as we look back and see a truck like, well it probably hunters, but I guess we’re Adam said, he said, you wouldn’t believe Right.
00:36:26:29 –> 00:37:26:16
Believe I saw in the field you wouldn’t believe it. And what a beautiful ram. Gosh, that was a, just a absolutely gorgeous ram too. And so we, we, you know, congratulated you and your hunter on that. That was, that was well done. Well that was down in McCullough’s, which is one of the best units in the state. Yeah. It’s pretty, pretty awesome time. Very good. Like hunting, like hunting Nevada, desert sheep. It’s usually, I’m done hunting. I in Utah it’s usually warmer. I have been snowed down down there in southern Nevada before. Before, oh, remember when we were rain, it was rain every day. Oh yeah. I’ve been to the cola’s and it snowed down there. Like that’s that year, three or four years ago it was nuts. But, but normally you go down there nice weather, you enjoy the weather, you know, I’m sure Mike at the time he is up around Reno, it’s way warmer down there. It’s not anybody asks you for help on the desert sheep hunt. It’s, it’s real easy to say yes, I’ll head to the desert and have a, have a fun time down there looking. It’s a good time. So, oh, what a, what a fun time. Yeah, absolutely. It is. So anyway, well we like, you know, what we like about Nevada too is they have actual seta aside tags for non-residents.
00:37:26:16 –> 00:38:34:28
And so you can go on and you can be guaranteed that there’s gonna be a tag or two or whatever issued five in, in the muddies. But I mean, that are actually issued to non-residents. So you know what you’re drawing on. Oh, I get that aside, you know. Yeah. Conversely to some states where it’s an up to 10% and you’re applying for maybe a statewide quota of 10% of the tags and you don’t know what units those are gonna be drawn from, like in Idaho or some cases Montana, you know, where they can come from in Montana, but it doesn’t guarantee you’re gonna get one there. So we like that it does make it very definitive in terms of what you’re, what you’re applying for. And while you’re doing that, you might as well be applying for the California bighorns, elk, deer, antelope, anything of interest. Now you’ve got mountain goats for non-residents. Yeah. New brought back in for this year. That’s, that’s new back again this year. We, we did open up the mountain goat hunt for, for a non-resident. So again, you know, you got the Ruby Mountains and, and what a, what an amazing resource that is. Holy cow. Yeah. I was fortunate enough to go and, and fly that with our biologist up there a year and a half ago in January.
00:38:35:15 –> 00:39:54:16
And, you know, being in southern Nevada, I I, I had, I had been in the rubies a few times and, and hiked around and blast and seen goats and everything. But I, I’d never had the opportunity to fly ’em and actually go count ’em. And, you know, truly that’s one of the, one of the, the most, you know, best days of my career was to, was to just see as many goats. I mean, ’cause the, the, you know, we had a record survey of mountain goats and, you know, ’cause they’ve been struggling a bit too. And, and now we’re seeing some growth in that population. We’re seeing some, some survival of kids and, and you know, so that, that’s, that’s looking, looking better. And you know, it’s exciting to see that that population starting to bounce back. Yeah. How are the Rockies doing? Obviously we can’t apply for ’em, you know, as non-residents, but seems like things, you went through some struggles there. It seems like things are you’re looking decent. Yeah, we’re, we are struggling. Our Rockies are struggling a little bit and that’s, that’s mainly disease issues. And we do have a couple of units that are still open that what’s exciting is the Ruby Mountains is, is back open again. Yep. And, you know, so, and we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna hopefully, we’ll, we’ll continue to see that population increase.
00:39:55:04 –> 00:40:58:23
And we’re, we’re trying to solve some of the disease issues on some of the other units. We’ve got some, we, we’ve we’re, we’re collaring some animals in some of the units over in the eastern side of the state trying to figure out why, why we’re not seeing mature rams. And you know, why hunters aren’t, aren’t able to find some of those, those mature rams. We know they’re there. There’s, there’s, you know, we do get a report here and there of people seeing them. But good grief, it’s, it’s been so difficult for our hunters to, to actually find them. But we’ve, we’ve closed some of those units and, and you know, left other ones, you know, opened up the rubies and so it’s, it’s a quality hunt, but again, a pretty low number of tags and we’re gonna, we’re just gonna be working on that, trying to increase those numbers and get that back to where we can, can, you know, have a few more tags. I don’t think it’ll be too long. And the rubies will produce those giant rams you guys were known for. Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. You know what we like too, Bronson? ’cause we’ve had a lot of kids, is the $15 hunting license fee for kids? Oh yeah.
00:40:59:00 –> 00:42:04:17
It’s kind of a no-brainer when, when Nevada started that, I mean at least, but at least by the time they’re 12 and 18, they get what, five or six points built up for, you know, or they’ve drawn tags. Maybe you might still need to be fairly aggressive. Anybody starting in Nevada should be maybe a little bit more aggressive about their application strategy just because it’s generally, like we’ve talked about, it’s a quality state for all species. It’s not real easy to draw, but it does soften the blow from a pocketbook standpoint to play your kids dad for the dad and Yeah. Up until they’re 18. And then, then after that you get, hey, you know, either you gave them a gift for six years. Yeah. Or, and and, and we get to decide how serious they are about it. And if they are serious, why dads a lot of times will keep going, keep it up, keep helping ’em through college and whatnot. But I just love how it’s so affordable. You know, you’ve got a a $10 application fee with the exception elk of course we got a little predator fee and a few, you know, very small incidentals on that. But, and then 155 non-refundable hunting license to gain points for not for the adult non-residents and then 15 for the kids. Yeah. So includes fishing and everything else. It’s just awesome combo. Yep.
00:42:05:20 –> 00:43:22:23
We’re we’re looking at at doing some more things for, for youths and juniors as well. You know, we’re, we’re, I don’t know if you’ve applied for Nevada yet, but Oh yeah. Can actually, you can actually, you can actually donate and buy a a a a youth a license or a a, you know Yeah. Hunting, fishing license now. And so that’s awesome. We’re, we’re looking at, at trying to, trying to increase the number of, of juniors that are involved and you know, we realize that, you know, we need to grow this sport and trying to, trying to get people involved and keep ’em involved, get ’em into the outdoors, you know, I mean it’s such a, such a noble, you know, endeavor to try to try to get people outdoors and keep ’em involved in this, in this sport. And, you know, we believe in that and, and we’re gonna invest in, in youths and juniors as best we can. So that’s a, that’s a new thing for us this year. That’s awesome. You know what else Bronson? They’ve got these PIW tags. I’ve never been able to get one, but they give three non-resident deer, PIW tags, partnership and wildlife allows you to hunt any open season. I mean, if I drew one of those, I’m probably giving up everything else in my life. Silver state. I mean you add those on top of it, you Yeah.
00:43:23:01 –> 00:44:33:01
You got silver states who are good for, that’s a either resident or resident governor tag, you know, August one, they’ll what end of the year roughly? Maybe plus or minus on something. But bottom line you could hunt. You’re, you’re the lone ranger out there on that one. Well, you’re, you wouldn’t even run, you wouldn’t even run to Mike Scott out there on the hunt like that. Oh, I hope not. Can you still write tickets? Mike? Can you still write a ticket if I were to do something bad in the hills? No, no, no, no. I, they, they took my gun and badge away a long time ago. But you know, I I, I, you know, the biologists, all our biologists used to be commissioned and, and we used to, you know, I, I used to drive around and, and it, it gave me a, a really good reason to stop and talk to people. Yeah. And I really enjoyed it. Yeah. You know, it was, it was really good and yeah. But, you know, I don’t know, we’re, we’re, we’re still dealing with, with a lot of the same issues that other states are and trying to, trying to keep game wardens in the field and, you know, get, get people. I, I mean one of the challenges for us is, is just in general, I think we have about a 20% vacancy rate right now with, in our agency. Yeah.
00:44:33:01 –> 00:45:43:27
So, you know, there’s times that, that we, we can’t get to the phone or we can’t call people back in, you know, in a timely manner. And it’s simply because we’re, we’re, we’re struggling to keep people employed. So. Yeah. Well it’s just that day and age, it’s tough. It’s tough to keep up with inflation and other things and, and whatnot. It’s just e everything seems a little bit tough nowadays, but that’s what I really like about Nevada is you don’t sell your soul. You guys, you guys do do what’s right when it comes to tag numbers. I’ve known, I’ve personally seen some of the, the vehicles that you guys are running 150,000 miles of dirt road and, and whatnot and living within the budget, just living within the budget and working your guts out and, and not, you know, you could, you could decrease this to 20 bucks per hundred dose and issue a bunch more tags and, and maybe, you know, lighten the, the pressure of, of maintaining budgets and whatnot. And so anyway, and with the, the, the mentality of, of a trophy experience, a quality, call it a trophy quality experience for everybody. What a, it’s a, it’s a great excuse to support Nevada. Just I love that state. So anyway. I do too. No, I appreciate what you guys do.
00:45:44:28 –> 00:46:52:05
I know, you know, I, I’ve known you guys for a long time and I’ve, I’ve seen some of the, some of the, the, the pitchers of the animals that you harvest and, and you know, I just, I I admire the heck outta you and, and I appreciate everything that you guys do for us. Well, there’s a lot of residents that didn’t like to see those Nevada bucks leave the state. Fair enough. You’re talking to one, Hey, you got a tag, legal tag holder. I mean, it’s, it’s a way, way the chips fall. I, but well, you know what, anybody that’s willing to come to Nevada and, and work hard deserves to take home a quality animal. Yeah. And you know, I mean, I’ll I’ll be the first one to, to be happy for you when you come to Nevada. So. Well, I think it’s, it’s good too to remind people that all five choices count. And so you can do there, there’s some good and bad. I mean, it, it allows for lots of valid applications and so, you know, which can be tough on draws, but it also, Bronson, that’s why you’re plugging and playing so much is like, I can choose my top three or top one to three choices, and then what am I willing to accept on my, on the bottom end?
00:46:52:13 –> 00:47:57:25
It’s usually weapon types, you know, I still kind of want generally these handful or so units that I personally want, but then it’s turns to muzzle and archer usually, you know, versus maybe a, a late rifle hunt of course. Right. Which is a pipe dream a lot of times. So yeah, it allows you to do that. We encourage people to keep that in mind. Don’t use up three or four of ’em on the best in the state and thinking one better odds at the end’s, gonna make sure you’re gonna get drawn if you’re, you know, have your criteria in mind that what you’re willing to accept and hunt, given the parameters of this year, meaning most of Nevada with, you know, is, is at or above normal, moist everywhere is above normal in terms of precip and more average stuff is gonna be able to produce above average animals to some extent this year you’re gonna see a new state. I mean, I, I had a guy tell me, he says, you guys are gonna have, you guys aren’t even gonna put two 20 bucks on the cover this year with all, I don’t know if that’s true, but you’re gonna see a new state and, well, it’s been several years in a row. Like we used to say, you never have two bad years in a row. Those theories have been blown out over the water. This drought Yeah. Had a death.
00:47:57:26 –> 00:49:05:21
We didn’t know what we were talking about. No, but, but we’re finally, hopefully gonna come out of that and like, like’s been said, it’s gonna be tough to get a tag, but we like Nevada just a purely random draw. Your, your points are squared. And so, you know, yeah. First, first year applicants got a, got a, got a chance. Yeah. You know, well, you know, the other thing that, that even if you don’t draw a tag, you know that we still have that first come first serve system that Oh yeah, that’s, that’s going. And so people that do draw tags and, you know, they might go scout, they might not find what they wanna see, or they might have a, you know, some conflict that comes up and they turn their tags in. And we do have that first come first serve system. And so people can, can log onto that and, and if the right tag pops up at the right time, they can buy it and, and go hunt it. And I know a lot of people have been pretty pretty happy about that. So we’re, we’re excited about that. That’s it. That is putting about a, I don’t know, anywhere from a thousand to 1100 people in the field back, back in the field where before those bags were going unused. And so now we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re putting those tags in people’s pockets and letting ’em hunt.
00:49:05:25 –> 00:50:09:03
And I think you can turn those back to the, to business day, prior to the season starting and then Yeah. And you can get all your points back. And so, you know, it’s not a, not a huge deal, so to speak. I mean, obviously lose some permit fees. Yeah. But I mean, if you’re, yeah, your points may be worth a lot more than a permit fee if you really can’t go do a hunt justice, that’s it. And then you throw it back. And then some lucky guy that’s watching the computer 24 7. I mean, literally it’s all night, all day, all night for seven days a week. You know, somebody’s gonna get lucky and snag a tag. Yep. You know? Yep. That’s possible. They do. Really cool system. So yeah, we, again, you can apply for Desert Sheep, California, big horns, elk, deer, antelope, goats. You can also do the silver state tags that are good for one person to hunt the entire state for four or five months, whatever. Yeah. Same as the, it’s the same as the heritage tag. You know, it’s the, it’s a governor’s tag. Exact same. Yeah. And we, and we, we kind of make fun that those are bad odds and they are, but every year, Carter, we know multiple PIW we have call us. We have guys every year, maybe even half the tags will call us. They call us.
00:50:09:03 –> 00:51:13:16
So, so they’re real people at the end of those statistics. They’re live breathing hunters. Yeah. And they’re not, that tag’s not coming available on the first company serve? No, no, they’re not. So, but we, you gotta have a name in the hat and I’ll, I, I’ll be the first to say it. My name’s in, there’s, I do it. I don’t, I don’t care. I’m a sucker for stuff like that. It’s in, is what it is. The what if scenario is the upside is pretty up. Yeah. Real quick, Mike, you guys had I, I mean, a great winner, but with that, rarely do you have winner loss? Had a little bit experience mostly in the 1 0 1 to 1 0 9 Rubies country and Area six and a little bit in Area seven a little bit. Yeah. Area 10 was hit probably the hardest of all of ’em, but we did see some loss in both six area six and area seven. Yeah. Those, you know, we did, we did reduce tags pretty dramatically in 10 and a little bit less so in, in six and seven. And, you know, those are our big deer areas, but, you know, we’re gonna, we should see them bounce back. It might take a couple years Sure. For those numbers to, to bounce back to where we’d like to see ’em.
00:51:13:16 –> 00:52:33:05
But, you know, we’ve been working on mule deer for a couple years now, just trying to, you know, trying to, we, we’ve started a, a mule deer enhancement program and we have 14 different subcommittees around the state of Nevada that identify what they think the limiting factors are. And, and they, you know, then they propose projects to address those limiting factors. And so we’ve actually started spending a lot of money on some of those projects for, for the benefit of mule deer. And, you know, we recognize that if we do good things for mule deer, it’s gonna benefit all the other species that are out on the landscape. And so, you know, it’s a, it’s a a, a good program. We’re continuing it this year and, and, you know, into the future. And, you know, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s tough when you, when you want to increase mul deer to see a, a really tough winter come along and, and knock you back. But like we say, the habitat conditions this year should be ideal. Yeah. And we should see, you know, I, I know a lot of the, those around the state are gonna be in good body condition and hopefully they’ll, they’ll end up having twins or triplets and, and we’ll see some, some bounce back with, with, you know, recruitment. But, you know, it’s a, it’s a, a tough deal when you see a tough winter like this.
00:52:33:08 –> 00:53:35:23
And only in part, only in part, yeah. Only in parts of it though. And I think with that tough, we have it here in northern Utah, but then down south, I mean, people are giddy. Yeah. That’s, that’s so excited. It’s hard for us to be like that. ’cause we realize there’s other half of Utah that doesn’t think as, as excitement about bring on, we’re ready for rain now. That’s right. Let’s bring on the rain. Yeah. And they’re flooding away. But, but it’s just because what we’ve, we’ve been in a dust bowl for along down here and southern Nevada where we like to play around too. It’s just been literally unbelievably dry. I I, it’s, I’ve never lived through anything in my adult life, you know, maybe as a kid, but I wouldn’t pretend to know what I love. Remember it was unbelievable. What I love what you guys doing, doing from Mulder too is like, you remember Bronson when you applied for Deere and whatnot, and then it says, by the way, do you want a lion tag? Are you sure you don’t want a lion tag? So I like it. Hey, I got one. I’m just saying, I mean, and you guys are basically, you know, you’re selling line tags, but they’re affordable a hundred bucks, 104 or something like that. You want people to have ’em while they’re in the field. Yeah. Gives, yeah.
00:53:36:03 –> 00:54:48:10
You know, we, we, we want people to, to be able to have multiple opportunities and, and, you know, if they happen to, to see a lion and, and have the opportunity great. Smash it, you know, which is, you know, helping again, helping deer. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, so, all right. Well, we appreciate this. Anything we left out, Mike, that we didn’t, that you’d like to cover or, or highlight that you feel like’s noteworthy that we missed on uncovering? Well, the only thing that we didn’t really talk about much was elk. And, and I, I would say that elk are gonna be, you know, they, they probably wintered better than, than, you know, the deer did. But our elk populations are, again, you know, they’re, they’re smaller than a lot of, a lot of the adjacent states, but we do have some real high quality bull elk. We’re talking world class. I think you’re being humble at saying high. They’re, they’re amazing. Yep. When you get announced tag in Nevada, and there’s a reason why you have a, you know, a seven year wait after you draw. I mean, it’s a one or two life in your lifetime as a non-resident and maybe even residents, I don’t know. But, but it’s, you really have something when you get an out there. Well, there’s reasons that some of the landowner tags are going for 45 to $85,000. Yeah. You know what I mean?
00:54:48:10 –> 00:56:01:28
Just for landowner tag, I think that’s speaks volumes to, you know, the kind of quality tag that you can draw. Yeah. And the year we’re coming into anticipated antler, growth wise, things like that. So You’re right. Yeah. It should be pretty good. Yeah, it should be good too. So I don’t know. We’ll, we’ll see. But you know, we, we, there is a reason for optimism and you know, like I said, if there’s ever a reason any anybody wants to apply in Nevada, this would be the year to do it. And you know, if you, if you do draw a tag, you stand a, a chance of drawing a, a really, really high quality tag. And, and you might be able to, to hunt a, a, an exceptional animal. Something special. There’s one other thing we didn’t cover, Bronson. What? Well, I was just don’t say chuckers. It’s freaking chucker heaven. Okay, but what not that, I mean, it’s stupid. I’ve been up there in that oh five one and they were flying. Have you ever had thousands of chuckers go before daylight? You’re flying all around your truck because they’re on the road. I mean, Mike, it’s unbelievable, but I hope so. Yeah, but what were you gonna say? Say not chucker? Well, I just, Mike’s a trophy deer hunter, and I just want to know a, Mike, have you applied and b what were your five first five choices? All five choices.
00:56:04:05 –> 00:57:13:01
Just teasing my tea. You really want me to say that or no? No. I just want to give you a hard time about it. No. Yeah, Carter Carter won’t even tell me his mike, so don’t even go there. Me trying tell you. I I did apply, but I would just about guarantee that, that, that all three of us are applying for probably the same Aries. Okay. Okay. Back to, to his roots. Back to the roots back. Okay. Even though you’re based outta Reno, we’re back to the roots. All right. Well, yep. Yep. Well, I, I still, I was down in OT for, for 15 years and I still have a, a love for that country and, you know, I’ll, I’ll probably continue to apply there for, for, you know, the rest of my hunting life. And I just, I love the area and, you know, regardless of the number of tags up, down, whatever it is, I, I want to go hunt that area. I don’t, I mean, there are a lot of people that’ll play the odds and look at different areas around the state and, and I respect that, that choice. But I wanna go back to, you know, 22, 23, 24 and, and just see the country that I used to fly around in and Yeah. And I know, you know, different rock piles, you know, it, you know it like the back of your hand. Yeah, you can, you can just say it.
00:57:13:05 –> 00:58:23:03
I know you do hump the remnants of what he left. They’re 20 years ago. I mean, you want to hurt the grandsons. Yeah, yeah. I do. I do. I just like the area. Do you, I got a, I just got a question. It’s not, not official business. Like, do you miss the good old days? Like when I was in Nevada in 2000 to 2005 and six and all that, let’s call it pre-trial camera. Just back in the good old days, you felt like if you, if you busted a tire, you’re gonna be there until you figure out how to get out. You know what I mean? And I just, do you miss those good old days back then? I do. I do. Absolutely. They, because they really were good old days. Yeah. And, you know, but at, at the same time, you know, these are the good old days for somebody else. So, you know, there’s, we’re we’re still living in a good time. Yeah. Yeah. We are. It’s an incredible state. I just love how you can get lost out there and you can go all day and not see another truck and coyote hunt from one end to the other. I mean, just endless, endless, amazing country, but, all right. Well we have an affection for that. What, Mike, real quick, what, for the 15 years you were down there, what was your official job title down there?
00:58:24:03 –> 00:59:32:15
I was the, the game biologist for, for areas 22, 23, 24 and 27. Okay. Pretty special time in your life. Really? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I miss it. Yeah, I miss it. You know. Well now I deal with, now I deal with different things with the agency and, and I still have a passion for it and I, I, I, you know, I grew up in this agency and, and I, I, you know, I, I really appreciate the, the purpose and the passion that all the, the, the employees have. And that’s been one of the reasons why I’ve, I’ve stayed so long. I probably should have retired about three or four years ago. But Are you past, past retirement eligibility? Oh yeah. 30. Yeah. I’m way past it now. 30 plus. Yeah. Way past, but well anyway, stick it out. Still good. Stick it out. You’re doing good things. We appreciate it. Well, we’ll be watching the commission meeting. We don’t miss, we don’t miss them, so, okay. Let’s see what happens. But thanks a lot. I appreciate your guys time. Thank you. We appreciate your time, Mike. Thanks a lot. We’ll have you on again sometime for sure. Very good. Thanks Mike. Very good. You guys take care. Alright buddy. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Alright, bye. I’m gonna go change the maps. Just, I just, just because you can’t Yeah, I love it. They’re the king of the plug and play.
00:59:32:20 –> 01:00:48:23
Utah went, I hate the states that don’t allow you to amend. It’s Arizona this day and age of, of electronic, you can’t even play on paper in the same state. Like how can you not get into it? Idaho, whatever. Well, I mean officially, you know, not an easy plug and play. You can, yeah. You notary notarize. I get it. Stuff. Set it in. But anyway, I just like to play around, screw around. If you can apply the last five minutes or three minutes of a deadline, why can’t you amend your application up to that same period? Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense. Yeah. Your application doesn’t stick until 1145 or 1159 that night. Why can’t you go change it anyway? If I was king of any state, that’d be the first thing I’d do. Well, maybe not the first, but, well, Bronson, you know, we’ve had a lot of deer, big deer stories, elk stories with the guys. Everything. I don’t know that we necessarily need to tell. Talk, tell another about a story. I think we’ve, we’ve, we’ve, we’ll talked about it, we’ve experienced it. It’s hard to, it’s hard to talk a lot about it because it’s time to make more stories. Yeah. Which means we need tag. Yeah. And so it’s true. Like he said, if there’s a magic wand or if there’s anything lucky that you have to rub rabbit’s, foot four leaf clovers, anything you have rub it before, before May 10th.
01:00:49:17 –> 01:02:03:20
So anyway, so, alright. Kay. Well, it’s the year you want to tag in Nevada. There’s no question. There is no question Force the drop force the drop. That’s not possible. But it’s not, it’s not. It’s me. Just, there’s some weird units out there. We call ’em weird. It’s just, they’re, they’re somebody’s special place, like the local knowledge. You can’t, you can’t, I can’t overemphasize how important local knowledge is. It’s our, our weird unit. Obscure unit is somebody’s treasure and he, he’s watching a big deer year to year. Well, it’s like for us, like say the northern or northwest corner of the state, I don’t personally have interest. I’m more like Mike, I wanna hunt the units personally, I wanna hunt myself where I’m familiar with, where I broke lots of bread down here. Yes, that’s right. I, and I know there’s good deer to be had in other places way far away. Like we should be doing an oh three, one or five. I don’t something, I just don’t. But I, I like to take part a lot in my hunts. Those are a lot harder for us to scout people from Oregon, Washington, California. That makes complete sense up there. But like you said, those type of units this year, you’re gonna see stuff come outta units that people are gonna be like, I didn’t think that was still possible. It’s fun. It’s so fun. I I can’t wipe the freaking smile off my face.
01:02:04:08 –> 01:03:12:12
No one. We’re gonna have submissions like crazy from big deer. Big, big antelope, desert sheep, California bighorns. Anyway, what’d you say? The results state was May 18th or 19th. Yeah, something like that. Yep. 19th May 19th is kind of like tentative hosted on or before, but you know how that goes. Seems like that week of about the 15th, it won’t be later than that. 15th to the 19th is gonna be a big, there’s a lot gonna come out then. I mean, Utah could Utah’s a little bit delayed this year, their commission meeting. So it maybe is a little bit later than that. But Nevada, you know, Montana, moose, sheep and goats should be right in that week. And then you get into early June and then you got a whole nother, you know, Colorado stuff like that. So it seems like that last two weeks in May, it just seems like it’s every, it’s coming every two days coming. There’s that. Then you’ve got Idaho boo sheep and go, we, it’s another good reason we’re resting up and only working 40 or 50 hours a week, you know? Yeah. We’re gearing up for scouting season, you know, gearing up for everybody calling in anyway, telling us their results. All right, well listen to the podcast. Go, go tag us on Instagram like we talked about earlier. We’re gonna give away un uno de mayo prize on Sco de Mayo, on Cinco de Mayo. How about that?
01:03:13:05 –> 01:04:27:06
I like it. So anyway, we like it. I like it. But anything else we need to cover? No, dude. Heck no. I mean, we’re doing, we’re doing good. We’re getting trucks and geared up and it’s always fun. Hey, five o’clock somewhere. It’s all right, guy. Yeah, it is. Five o’clock. Let’s, let’s get outta here. 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. 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.
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