This week Jason Carter and Adam Bronson sit down to discuss the anticipation leading up to the end of the draw results season, the growth we can’t wait to see and a few last minute reminders to apply to some of the last application opportunities. We also get our friends Chad Roberts and Justin Vanhulle on the phone to talk mainly about what Idaho and Arizona are looking like this year and what they expect to see out of their favorite states. Each of them also shares stories about some of the coolest bucks they’ve hunted, especially one that scores upwards of 290″! Thank you to everyone reaching out to sponsor the Muleys Matter program! The website is finally live, visit it here!
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More shock calling, precision less juggling devices. Whether setting your sights on the elk you’ve been chasing or ringing steel, the all new razor HD 4,000 GB delivers all the range ballistic and environmental data you need for absolute accuracy When it counts. The Razor HD 4,000 GB takes the top tier laser range finder and building in an onboard geo ballistic solver. Stop by your local Vortex dealer to check out the all new Razor 4,000 HD GB today. 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. We’re pretty excited, Bronson. There’s a lot of things happening. We’ve got tags gonna be coming out. We know we’re gonna draw. Right? Right. Positive. I’ve said that pretty a lot. And it’s almost June. It hasn’t worked. Hey, I just want one of them. Himalayan snow Coss. That’s what I want. I think you can just buy those OTC, which is about what we’re gonna have to do. I I’ve been kind of Googling them. Have they in Nevada? Yeah. I want one. Okay. I’m a big bird connoisseur. Well have out it boss talk out. Other things to do, places to be, Hey. I don’t know. It’s just something interesting. It is. You know. But no, we’re super excited here. We’ve got draw results. Utah, where are you? Where are you? Huh? Bronson? No comment. No comment.
00:01:25:21 –> 00:02:39:13
Bronson wants to crush ’em here in our own home state. They’re holding out on us. I think they’re just mad at the public. ’cause they, we ended up putting a little pressure to cut tags. Not us. Everybody. Everybody that’s interested in deer just because of the A drought, b winter, winter conditions. I mean, you name it. We’ve had some forces against the deer recently. Sure have. But yeah, that’s about one of the last, I guess, of those big states. But Colorado should be out. Who knows? We might know Colorado results before Utah. How about that? Ah, it’s, it’s kind of fun. Lots, lot’s happening. A lot of deadlines. What? Wyoming? May 31st for the non-resident. Deer antelope as well as resident elk on May 31st. That’s right. June 1st is an antelope in Montana. Okay. Hey, honorable mention, this is a comprehensive list. Okay. That being an honorable mention, you’re talking about snow co starting off today. Go ahead. You’re gonna bring up California next. Go ahead. California, June 2nd. Oh, I like it. Are you gonna apply? No. And why not? ’cause it’s 200 something bucks for a hunting license now. Just for a hunting license. And then what does it give you? Nothing. I mean, a couple of potential up to a couple of non-resident sheep tags. Up to one total elk, one total animal. Could be a cow. Tooley could be a non-resident.
00:02:39:14 –> 00:03:43:29
The Cowley tag we’re treated pretty fair on deer, but, but there’s no big deer. So anyway, Iowa’s on the 4th of June. I think you’re applying this year, or did Yeah, I am. You’re going. Didn’t know we weren’t talking about that. Well, no, I’m just, we’re just making conversation. I went a couple years ago. That’s, I do. And you’re going this year. I do, I do things opposite of what you should on drought years. I hunt the heck outta stuff with landowner tags and everything. And on really good years, I go to Iowa. Why, why would I do that? I don’t know. It’s end of October, 1st of November. There’s variety, spice of life. I’ve been told there’s no mule deer seasons going on at the end of October, 1st of November. So here I am. I know where I, I’ll be sitting in a tree. I I’m gonna be sitting in a tree in Iowa. Okay. Call me a tree hugger. That’s me. But that is the fourth. Then the fifth, we’re gonna have Idaho, deer, elk, and antelope. Those of you that did not apply for sheep, moose and goat can apply there. What did you apply for? I did Sheep and I. You did not. Did not. So you’ll be in for it. I, I’m, I’m in dear. Actually already applied. So I did sheep. And then last but definitely not least is Arizona deer and sheep. And that’s gonna be due the sixth.
00:03:44:09 –> 00:04:54:24
So we’re not a bison point and a cr, you know, no Sandhill crane, gold, Turkey, Sandhill, crane. Do I have anything for Feather Halene point? Yeah. Get a point. Hey, how about that? No. Yeah. I don’t know. Pretty, pretty fun. Does certain interest. And I’ve got certain, no disinterest. Pretty fun time of year. There’s just a lot going on. So if you end up with a tag, please call us. We wanna know about it. We wanna help you be successful. At least make some plans. So we work with great outfitters. Yep. The best of, and we got a memorial weekend coming up. So hopefully by the time you listen to this, you can, you’re on your way to somewhere fun. Maybe the lake. Maybe tonight. ’cause this is coming out tonight, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’ll be tonight. Logan doesn’t waste any time. We do need to run it by Jana sometimes. Unless we’re on a good behavior. Well, we just, sometimes we just say, say dumb stuff. Do we? Well, I mean, they say we do. I think we’re very intelligent. Well, we say everything we say is gospel and respectful and it always has my stamp of approval. So I, but I don’t know Logan, I know your family. Gen ZA Gen Z stamp of our approval is probably not what Jen is from the Marshall household in Minorville. Anything goes. Yeah. I say it always sounds good. Well, he’s a yes man. Eternal optimist.
00:04:54:25 –> 00:05:58:12
We like that too. Just like our optimism on drum results. Yeah. Which hasn’t, hasn’t come to fruition yet. We are, Nevada had a slamming door. I mean, it was, it was a brutal draw. Of course we knew it was gonna be, but your hopes are still high. But when the deer tags were 70 to 80% reductions over the last two, three years. Yeah. Unbelievable. There’s not a lot to be given out. But that’s what’s impressive about Nevada. They’re running, you know, they’re kind of, their goal on Deere is, you know, 30 to 35 bucks per hundred dose depending on the unit and area. And, you know, they do what it takes. And man, they’re living on a shoestring budgets. Unbelievable. You know, the, the, I don’t know, maybe less deer tags. We should look that up. Less deer tags than any state period. Probably. Ill bet California has 10 times. As many as what I think’s funny is there’s units in New Mexico and, you know, one unit 23, they, if you add up all the, all the deer tags they issue. It’s like much as all of a seventh of Nevada in one unit. And it, and we’re talking to Mexico. I don’t know, I just, a little, little bit of shout out there to Nevada for being, being willing to cut tax. You know, a lot.
00:05:58:12 –> 00:07:04:19
There’s kind of a sediment out there among the residents that it’s been a long time coming and tag cuts. Were slow to come. And so now we’ve gotta really slash ’em. And, and so anyway, hopefully they can get things turned around. Sometimes you just can’t control the weather, Bronson. Yep, absolutely. And I, mother nature trump a whole lot of things. I was always one of those, you know, growing up is, you know, I didn’t under, I, I guess I just didn’t understand the implication of weather. And some of the biologists would say, well, you know, what can we do to change wildlife? I pray for rain. And I just, I hated to hear that. Feels like you should be able to do more than that. Yeah. Control the variables. You can, but man, the variables we can control aren’t near what weather can do to you. They’ve been in a death grip and now it’s green from she sea to shining sea, it feels like. I mean, across the southwest, it’s unbelievable. I go out each night just on a little drive, Jen. It’s like, what are you doing? I’m like, God, I watching, I just start. I just want, I just, I’m getting in that habit of driving west. Yeah. And dude, what’s west? Jason? Oh, two foot of grass. Okay. What else is gonna west? Well, I don’t know. I mean, maybe a big deer. Good. I like it. I like it. Good.
00:07:04:25 –> 00:08:07:19
I am so excited. I don’t know why there’s gonna be more giant deer and with g per tag issue, you know? Right. Yeah. Percentage wise it’s gonna be unbelievable. Yeah. That’s my opinion. It’s, yep. Yep. All right. So anyway, we rattled off the deadlines. Everybody should be applying even, I mean, if you’re doing points, obviously Wyoming, you wouldn’t worry about it. Now you’d do points this summer. You know, things like that. There’s a few other point deadlines. Montana, you know, Bronson, we were talking about the OTC in Arizona with CAPS and, and how we don’t, we don’t have, we don’t have an OTC tag. Right. And when they were issuing ’em, we weren’t even thinking we wanted ’em. Then we were like, you know, we should, we should always have tags. Well wish should have one now because it’s actually a lot closer than maybe in Idaho. Not, not a lot, but, but a fair bit closer. And we usually get an Idaho general tag. Yeah, we do usually try to get one. I didn’t this year. You did? I have the last couple years prior to that. Haven’t always used them. I’ve turned ’em back sometimes. But that’s, tags give you options and these gives you options. And especially if the, a draw year’s tough gives you an option to go down there.
00:08:07:21 –> 00:09:13:10
Especially if you don’t draw a deer tag in the Arizona draw this year, then you can go down and start hunting, you know, some of the August and September seasons. Yeah. And if you don’t kill, get a hunt maybe December and draw a line there and they’ll say like, or buy another one for the next year. Yeah. You know, buy another one in December for the next year. And you’re hunting bucks that were grown this year in the wet year. So we’re gonna Yeah. Be able to see Yeah. Antler growth and, and then decide in December and start and, and it’s a, it’s a calendar year, so we’ll start January one and be able to hunt some January seasons. Yeah. You know, so kind of cool. So I might rethink next year just to have, I mean, 300 bucks is worth It’s, that’s, that’s a valid option to just have in your pocket. Yeah. Anyway. And you can hunt archery, COOs, archery, mule deer, whatnot. And a lot of those. So you can go on the website and see when the, when the harvest limits, the quotas were filled in each units. Yeah. Subunits that around the state. And some of ’em didn’t even fill. No. So yeah, there was some that filled early and you know, maybe there’s some units that will not be available in January. There’s, there’s actually a few of them, but then there are some options there for January.
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So, kind of fun. Anyway. Well, Bronson, I was just thinking, I’ve talked to that Chad Roberts a little bit. You, you know him. He’s killed a freaking giant down in southern Arizona in the back in the day. Very hardcore, interesting guy. You know, desert guys that are called Desert Rat. He’s a desert rat. But I mean very, you know, very specific on deer. And he’s methodical. He’s gotten yeah. Gotten heavily into sheep with Eric and some of the Eric Hunt guys down there. Eric. Yeah. And very methodical hunt’s specific deer. I like, I like that. You thinking I giving him a call? Or is that next? Yeah, no, I want to, I want to call him. Okay. I want to see what he’s doing. Sometimes I wanna just see what his workout routine’s like. Remember he was just, he’d go, he’d be running out in the desert in 110 degree weather. You’d think humans aren’t supposed to do that. They’re not. But he does. They’re not. I just want, I don’t know. I wanna see what he’s doing anyway. See what his plans are this year. Got 2 45 plates on his back. Running out in the desert. I don’t know. He could though. He’s a beast. He is a, he looks like a burly dude. Oh, he’s a beast. Yeah. Hello. Hey, you out jogging out in the heat yet or No? We were just had money on.
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You have 2 45 plates on your back out there training right now. Somewhere in the sun. Don’t you do that, start up that routine here shortly? Or have you been doing it? Yeah, here shortly. It’s not, not hot enough yet. Not hot enough. Enough. What do you mean who does that? I guess people like Chad. What’s your routine like? Well, you wait for it to be 110 or what do you do? No, I’ll, I’ll start going here next couple weeks or so. I just let it get in the hundreds and let you really sweat. Yeah. Just work my way into it. How do you do it? Or what do, are you truly waiting for it to get hot? And is that by plan and then, and how do you do it so you don’t die of a heat stroke or something? Well, you just hydrate the day before and sounds easy, slow, slowly work into it. It’s not like you go and just, you know, bomb five miles on the first day. Yeah. Then just, just keep pushing. I guess that’s what you do when you live in southwest Arizona though. It’s like you got, you can’t just sit in an AC for six months and then Yes you can. Well, yes you can. Well come out what, November 1st and try to be in, you know, smash and grab getting in shape and three weeks I before sheep season, season November one. It’s back to cool again.
00:11:44:27 –> 00:13:09:16
I know, but you can’t hibernate during all summer. So does it, does it help you? Does it, I mean, do you feel a difference and pretty soon you’re just like, yeah, bring it. Oh yeah. So if, if I was just to hang out in the office, you know, all summer long or before it got Yeah. Hot and didn’t do anything outdoors, then anytime I did go outdoors it, it’d be too much to handle. But if you’re out and pushing your limits, you know, on a normal basis, then it’s just another day. What’s the, what’s the desert look like end of May here? What’s it look like right now? Central eastern Arizona. It really, really green. Lot of, lot of feed on the ground here in southwest Arizona. It’s, it’s, it’s still pretty green, but you can tell it’s starting to dry out better bush and stuff. It’s starting to dry out, which I like to see. Keeps the disease down. Yeah. Keeps your animals healthy. We don’t want ’em overly fat going into the summer. No, I mean, let’s seriously talk about this a little bit ’cause that’s not what we like to see up here. So I just want to kind of get your theory behind that and then also talk about maybe when the monsoons are good for you down there in southern Arizona.
00:13:12:11 –> 00:14:40:03
So, I mean, it’s just like you or I, if we were, you know, let’s just say 80 pounds overweight and went and tried to do something on a hot summer day, you wouldn’t get around too good. Right. You’d probably overheat and end up in the hospital. But if you’re a little on the leaner side and healthier side, you can, you can tolerate more. And you know, these deer, when we have really wet winters, they’ll get super fat and it doesn’t, we don’t really have a transition where it’s like 105 degrees for a month or two and then it’s hot. It’s, you know, we’ll, we’ll be in the nineties, low hundreds, then all of a sudden it just seems like we’ll get a week where we’re one 16 to one 20 and it’s consistent and the nights don’t get below a hundred. And I mean, they have no, no escape other than to lay under a tree. So if you’re well insulated, you’re not gonna, not gonna do very good dissipate heat. Yeah. Yeah. And so when do you see that antler growth? You know, I mean, you’re a little later than everywhere else it seems like, but when do you, you know, I guess how do, how do we get to that fine balance of not fattening up but having great antler growth? It, it’s pretty tricky.
00:14:42:00 –> 00:16:10:15
Some of the, we’ve noticed on the deer, you know, central and a little bit further to the east, they’re more moisture dependent than these desert deer are on this side of the state. Like they need feed all year long. And if, if they don’t get it, then they’re, they’re doing pretty poorly. It seems like these deer on my end of the state have adapted to, you know, not just not getting it. And they, they seem to do better when things are spread out and it’s, you just, you know, got enough feet out there to, to live off of rather than excess. Yeah. Staying fat all the time. Well, I like to see, you know, rain in December, January, maybe a little bit in February. It greens up, greens up a little bit and they have some post rut feed on the ground because, you know, they, they’ll burn it completely off during the rutt and if, if they can recover, you know, just recover before going into the summer, then generally the antler growth will be good. And they’ll start, they’ll start pushing things out pretty good, but they really won’t start branching out until August in that range. So, you know, you like to see, like to see some more feet on the ground by then. That’s when your monsoons is usually late July. And that’s usually when you’re hopefully that your timing that right.
00:16:10:27 –> 00:17:24:15
Us usually August, early September, we may get a shower here and there in July, but not too much. Yeah. So when you get that feed and, and on a, on a really good year, the an is, I mean, are you seeing swings of 40 plus inches of antler growth? Oh yeah. Yeah. But it, it, you know, and it, so depending on the Deeres, most of the times it say if it’s, we have a really bad drought and the deer go struggle solid for a year, solid it, you know, it may take two years of good weather to recover. ’cause it’s always body. They take care of the body first, then the horns. Well, and you’ve got, you’re just a harsh environment, you know, it’s not like it’s a harsh environment when it’s good down there a lot of times, you know what I mean? It’s a much different, you take a mountain deer and put it down there, they’re dead in two weeks. Oh, oh for sure. Dead, I mean, dead, dead, dead. You know, it’s, it’s his office mentality. Or you take a desert deer and put it in the mountain, they’re dead in, dead in two weeks. They just got, they, they have to evolve where they evolve and live and ruing and body and everything else. And fine balance. That’s what makes mul deer more delicate than elk.
00:17:24:15 –> 00:18:48:21
You put elk on the moon, on the earth, on the sun, they live everywhere out in the desert. That’s right in the sagebrush up in the pines. They live in Aspens. Yeah. So that’s in, that’s really interesting. And so you’ll see, you know, the same deer year to year could be up, down, up or down 40 inches plus. Or, I mean, what, is there any, you’ve, you’ve followed specific deer and you name ’em. I mean, have you, have you got any document, you know, documented big swingers? Yeah. Yep. That you put your hands on the next year or just laid eyes on the next year that was, you know, this and then he turned to this or stuff like that? Yeah, I mean it also depends on the year that, that they’re born on. You know, if they’re born on a bad year, generally speaking, they’re not gonna, I mean they’re, they could be big deer, but they’re not gonna be genetic potential score monsters or anything like that. So who knows how, how do you get another, how do we get another Chad Roberts giant? Oh, get a lot of luck. A lot of, a lot of, a lot of the right things have to take place and he’s gotta escape my wrath for a few years. I mean, remember that, that deer should have never made it that long. Yeah. So we, we would’ve never, he accidentally made it to 2 95. Yeah.
00:18:48:27 –> 00:20:11:20
Accident, what was it, 2, 2 95 or Yeah, 2 95 and yeah, seven, eight, something like that. So just, just because he should have been dead at two 50 or whatever. Yeah, two 40. Yeah. So, and for on that year, first started following him, you know, as a 3-year-old and he was probably 2 40, 2 50. And then we had a really, really bad year and you know, he was still big, non-typical, but he was 2 0 5, 2 0 6 something in there in that range. And then immediately following, we had a, you know, a great year and he maybe got back to, to two 20 in that range. And that’s the year I shot him and he ended up getting away and living. And then he just really blew up. He was probably two 60 the following year. And then he went darn near to 300. So, dude, what was he a seven, six or seven then? How many years was that when you killed him? He was se he was seven when I killed him. Yeah. Did you have o one of his teeth cut? Yeah, we had, we had him aged. Geez, you knew. You knew. I mean that’s how three, how, you know how good he was? A three. That’s how you know, he’s dead at this and he’s calling because I want call bss. But that’s just it, it’s the truth. We’ve seen it in other, yeah. We have genetic places three or 4-year-old Three too. Yeah. On the strip.
00:20:12:11 –> 00:21:29:14
The thing of it is, is, you know, I just never saw anything like that down here. So I had a, I I could tell he was young in the face when I first, you know, started looking at him, but then he’s this monstrosity that you think, no way can this year be three or four. So at that point you’re just, is he gonna make it another year? Is he gonna make it another year? ’cause you, you assume he’s old. He didn’t really know how old. Yeah, yeah. And he had a lot to give. Yeah. He took it on the chin. Some dry years and regressed and came back and took a what, you know, shot came back. Geez. Drew bigger. I mean, and so you got other deer like that. I mean, you know, do, have you looked back on that, the moisture that year? We can look back on some of this stuff. Have you looked back and, and decided which months were dry and which months were wet and just kind of mapped that out and how, how did that look? You know, a, a little bit. I’ve, I’ve watched it with other deer more than anything. I really started paying attention, you know, after I didn’t just put all the puzzle together or even think I had any idea leading up to killing him.
00:21:29:16 –> 00:22:56:06
But, you know, I, I started paying a little bit more attention afterwards and watching other deer, how they recover and whatnot. And I still don’t, obviously still don’t know it all you, you think you do and then one changes your mind anomaly. Yep. So, but on, on average, you know, I just, I like to like to have a good wet winter and then for some poster up feed and let it, let it dry out a little bit. Dry out. Tell monsoon time. Is that, yeah. Is that kind of, you know, talking about 2023, what’s your vibe? How’s it, you feel like it’s shaping up for what you just described? We’re looking good. Yeah, we’re looking good down here. They had, we had a good monsoon last year. Yeah. So they had, you know, they’ll have substantial time recovering the bodies, you know. Yeah. Should be never got stressed going, going into a horn growth year. So it, it, it’s, it’s looking really good. Of course it’s just gonna, you know, depend on the weather and how it, how fast it does dry out. And if the monsoon then comes this year. Yeah. Yeah. And then you’re in trouble. But that’s what we don’t, we don’t factor that in up here. Our monsoon, when it comes up here late July, August, it’s, if it comes, it’s too late for our deer. You know, our deer is Oh yeah. Just spreads ’em out. It spreads. Yeah.
00:22:56:11 –> 00:24:00:13
But antler growth, it doesn’t, doesn’t do anything. But it ha But it has nothing to do with ho growth at that point. No. Right now we’ve got, if it didn’t rain again from now, we’re gonna be good. I mean, it’s so green up here right now and it’s, and we’re kind of in a monsoon little, it’s just more just heavy clouds. It feels like Washington right now. Yeah. Here it’s been raining, weird monsoon weather and not even outta 80 moisture. I mid 80 here. Moisture. We have not hit 80 yet and they just have moisture in the air. It just weird. It’s weird here. So we’re we, we’ve still got deer with velvet running around down here, you know, end October, first November. Yeah. Crazy. The horn’s drying up obviously, but you know, they’re still packing velvet. Some of ’em are hard to even found on that. Crazy. Yeah. So yeah, things are, things are just a little bit later. What, what’s your, what’s your opinion on the, on the over the counter adjustments and the harvest limits and things like that? You know, I know not a lot of residents were nervous about all that and, and just, of course, change just bothers people a little bit. Yeah. But what, what’s your feeling? Not just your favorite areas, it’s just statewide. What’s your feeling?
00:24:01:08 –> 00:25:32:11
Well, I, I know towards the central part of the state it affected, you know, around Phoenix and whatnot that those guys got shut down, you know, fairly early or a lot faster than some of ’em would. Like. Is that just close to the population base though? Like easy places for hunters to go? Is that more due to that than anything? Or do you think they had those harvest limits too low for where they should have been? You know, I, it’s hard to say. Yeah. It, it’s really hard to say. I think what happens is guys will wait until the end, end of the year and think, well I’ve, I’ve got another tag in, you know, in, in January Yeah. And end up just whacking a little forkey or spike or something like that just to fill the tag. And that’s, that’s where you run into quota issues and also deer number issues. You’re not giving a chance for these bucks to mature and they’re taking slim Pickens right off the side of the road, you know, instead of, you know, getting out there and hunting some of the harder bucks. So I think that’s where our numbers problem lies the most is really they got it tagged and they wanna fill it. They got, yeah. Too many people I’d really liked to, I’d have really liked to seen them just do away with December altogether. It, it eliminates that.
00:25:33:01 –> 00:26:35:28
So you don’t, if you didn’t kill I know, I know, I know, I know people are gonna cringe it, you know me saying that. But it would keep the younger deer from getting killed. Right? I mean, if you start, if you start the year in January and with a fresh tag and you know, you got all year to hunt, you’re gonna be a little more picky. It’s probably not gonna shoot that spike on the side of the road with that. Makes sense. Well, and you can hunt ’em in the august, September, which are pretty common for most of the state. You got, it’s hot and, but you get that chance to hunt ’em. But don’t just view that tag as a throwaway tag. I’m gonna clean up December. I’m gonna clean up in December. ’cause I get to start over January one again. Yeah. You can only kill, you can have multiple tags, but you can only kill one day or year. So calendar year. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean if, if that, if that’s your deal and you, you know, if, if you’re happy with shooting a spike or whatever, then fine. So be it. You know. But if, if you’re gonna do it, just do it January. Call that your deer, call that your deer for the year. Do that. Yeah. If or August or eat the tag. That’s an interesting take. I never thought of that. I yeah, that would definitely change things.
00:26:36:13 –> 00:27:49:05
It’s different ’cause Yeah. The seasons go into different years, but the harvest is by calendar year. Yeah. And if, if limited the, the December, you wouldn’t be overlapping with rifle hunters. No. You know what I mean? Very few. There’s some coups. Yeah. The coups. Yeah. Coups do the COO stuff, you know. Well, even a few late meal there. Yeah. And we place a few, not widespread, but a few. Well, Chad, you, you know, you’re, you’re a trophy hunter, but you proved you still got it. He smashed a deer with a bow. Sent me things. I still got it. I still got it. Tell us about that a little bit. Sometimes you do need to kill. Like you need to kill. And I’m, I’m in that boat. I’ve been a little too picky, a little too long that, and that was, you know, I, I knew it was gonna be a great year or, you know, setting up to be a great year. I went out and saw a good buck that I, you know, I, I’ve known for a while. He’s, he kind of went downhill a little bit. But, you know, I was sitting out there by myself and went, you know, it’s been a while since I’m gonna smash this thing since I’ve stroked one. So I’ve, you know, went down there and put a stock on him and it worked out.
00:27:49:08 –> 00:29:02:29
And I was, I was happy, you know, and that’s, but that’s the beginning of the year. And you know, I’ve, I’ve killed big deer, but it, you know, I didn’t wait till, I mean, and I didn’t wait till the end of December and say, well, I’m just gonna fill a tag. So you killed Sandy. You, you killed it. 2023, you’ve harvested. Yeah, I’m done. It was January. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it’d be a good guy. It’d be a good night to have in your back pocket, Jason to, for if you had a tag in the desert, because he’s not gonna be a competition. I know. Chad, I’m, I’m coming down. You can’t shoot one until next January. Yeah. Are you coming down, Jason? No, I don’t have a tag. So I didn’t get a tag. And so I don’t have one for 2023 unless you draw something. So I don’t know what the rules are for the out-of-State guys, when they, when you actually have to get your tag for December that calendar year. Get it in December. December. And I think it’s good for the following calendar year, Roger. That’s when, that’s when they went on sale. Like, I wanna say the first, but first week, we’ll call it that in December. Yeah. But anyway, anyway, they sold out within what, a couple, two, three days. And I don’t remember. Don’t, anyway. Well, yeah. Kind of just keep your eyes open. Oh, yeah.
00:29:04:04 –> 00:30:21:06
So let’s talk about, let’s talk about sheep a little bit. I know you’re super excited. You’re into these sheep heavy and, and you’re hitting all your guys’ units, all, you know, some of the thirties, forties, all of those, you know, crazy units. And they’ve done a lot of splitting of, of seasons and adding tags, but trying not to create enormous pressure within any specific season. So they’ve, they’ve had ad seasons and whatnot, but kind of what’s your take? It feels like things are doing really good like this, you know, tag numbers. The state of the sheep are really good. Yeah. Paint that picture. They, they, they are doing good. If you would’ve told me that, well, for say three years ago when they put, let’s just say they put eight tags in 45 CI thought for sure it was, you know, it’d just kill everything off. And last year, 45 C had probably one of the best years it’s ever had. I think there was 180 inch ram and two in the seventies killed out of there. Yeah. You know, and I just, I would’ve never thought that. And then 43 B the same way. They’ve had a bunch of tags in there and you thought they were gonna ruin it out there. You kind of thought, you thought they were gonna ruin it.
00:30:21:06 –> 00:31:46:13
They had eight tags in there, you thought it was like, eh, it’s just one 60 rams and it’s, you’re just gonna kill Yeah. Kill a bunch of nice rams. Good place to hunt. But if you don’t need a giant and then they killed you. Well, so it, I’m a believer if you, if you work hard enough, you can, you know, you can, there’s something to be found. Yeah. Yeah. You can dig something up just about in just about every unit. But that, you know, that’s, that can be pretty challenging. And then I think my biggest problem with having that many tags is it’s, it’s these guys wait, or everybody waits. It seems like, you know, 30 years you get a tag or whatnot and it, it should be a trophy hunt or a, not necessarily a trophy hunt, but a hunt that you’re gonna remember for your life. A, a pleasant hunt. And if you’ve got, you know, three guys, four guys all challenging for one ram, they can, I mean, they can ruin a hunt real quick. I’ve just been used to over the years, you know, one or two tags being in a unit and there being some respect between hunters and whatnot. And it just, you, you didn’t run into the issues of stepping on people. And that’s my only problem with, with increasing tag numbers. But they’ve got it split up.
00:31:46:13 –> 00:32:53:00
And, and most of the units that they do have, you know, over four or five tags, they’ve got it split up into two hunts and I don’t know, big desert out there. Yeah. And that, like, that 45 C that you’re talking about gave nine tags last year in two different seasons total of nine. And so, and your point is, is you would think places like that, or 43 B or whatever would’ve, you know, would’ve seen a reduction, deteriorated quality and, and, and is it just, it must be Adam. I mean, it must just be the, the Rams six, eight years ago, they’re killing Yeah. Six, eight years ago. Were born in, in a perfect year. And, and they’re just, they’re big that, that one to three year, first three years of a, there’s a lot of research that goes into that on sheep, just like mul there. Yeah. But that first three years of life has a lot to say with how big a ram can be. He’s gotta have good genetics in that. It has to be there. But if he’s born on good moisture, if he’s born on good years, good feed their, their bases. There’s a lot of research that they can get. You know, bases never shrink. They never grow and then shrink. You don’t have that happen. But if they can grow in that first two, three years of life, they never get smaller.
00:32:53:08 –> 00:34:03:01
So they maintain that and can get bigger. But if they stunned, it’s maybe the wrong word, but if it’s really severe on ’em, kinda end up starting off on a slow Yeah. You nev you don’t often then at five and six just start blowing up sometimes if you, your bases aren’t gonna get exponentially bigger. Yeah. They, they can. But it’s that first three years can dictate a lot on a sheep’s life too. Rams, I’m talking specific and that’s what I’m just wondering Chad. I mean obviously we’re hunting this things come and go, right? We have ups and downs. Oh yeah. Especially with she Yeah, yeah. Cycles. Nevada seems like they’re cycling down down. It’s the opposite. And then Arizona, it’s like, I mean, never been better in our feels like our life time. Take a 20 year snapshot Arizona game and fish, they’re frolicking. I mean they’re giggly over this and offering more tags. You know, they’re touting they’ve, this is the highest tag numbers in history and, and things have never been better. And we know that’s not gonna stay that way. You know, just Well, and take the resource when it’s then there though. Yeah. Just takes, takes a few bad years and things can go the other way. And the kofa struggled for a while due to drought and cats lions and stuff. Yeah.
00:34:03:01 –> 00:35:30:18
Made a problem with cats in there, but once they got it, the cats cleared out then, you know, things made a turnaround. But no, it, they’ve invested some money and it looks really good. You know, knowledge is changing all the time and We’ll, we’ll see. I mean, we will see what the long-term outcome is, but it, it’s really shocked me so far. I I, like I said, I, Eric would call me and hey, they’re putting this many tags in this unit, I you’re outta your mind, you know, because I, I’m on the ground and I, I’m looking and I’m only gonna see so much. I’m one person looking around, you know, and fishing wildlife or fish and game or, or flying it, you know, they got a little better idea of what’s really out there. Yeah. But you’re, you’re doing a lot of research and you’re, you’re going up to a guzzler and seeing 50 or 60 sheep standing there at times, right? I mean there’s, yeah. Yeah. And it’s gotta be just mind blowing, you know, on, on some of that when you’re seeing what you’re seeing out in the field. Yep. Ride the wave. It’s here now. And you know, like I said, I like to split season approach. You know, if you can’t split a unit anymore than it’s already split. ’cause that, you know, that’s another way to make people hunt certain portions of ranges.
00:35:30:18 –> 00:36:55:08
Some areas are harder to access than other portions within the unit, but at some point your splittings done and then you just gotta Yeah. Divvy tags on two, two and a half weeks long seasons instead of 30 days. Like that. Two, two and a half is plenty. It is. I mean, you’re wait, you, you’re for the most part, yeah. You’re not gonna spend 30 days. No. You know, and sheep are moving around a lot between mid November and the end of December. You know, they start transit transitioning into their winter hangouts and whatnot. So you’re gonna see different sheep that you haven’t seen all year. You know, it’s just, you can, you know, if everybody’s seems to be looking at one spot, you can, you know, in most units you can dig into stuff. It just depends on, you know, how bad you want it. So you made a comment that, you know, if it’s just a matter of work ethic and you can find a big ram in any of these units, do you, do you feel like there’s sheep that aren’t getting seen in every unit? Like you’ve, or do you feel like at times you’ve vetted out all the sheep in a unit? I think, I think there’s big rams hiding out that you don’t see, you know, let’s just say that you get a ram that really just wants to hang out in, in the bottoms of the washes and whatnot. Yeah.
00:36:55:15 –> 00:38:17:22
You know, at the, in the foothills and doesn’t make an appearance up on any higher ground. You know, everybody’s goes for animals too. They’ve got their own personalities just like you or I. Yeah. Some people jog in the desert, wait 116 degrees, you’re gonna, you’re gonna see that guy, the guy that’s laying under a tree. I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be in a covered wagon, my side by side. So, so if you got, if you’ve got a ram that’s living, you know, low and rollies and Yeah. And, you know, little cut up washes and whatnot, you go out there and look, if he isn’t standing on something that day, you’re not gonna see him. Right. You know, you just, it’s part of it. It, I mean, they just, you’ll find him from the bottom to the top. Like, I know some of this country, you’re just like, you know, be careful on, you know, I mean, make sure guys are in shape if they, you know, pick certain units and whatnot. But I mean, because it’s extremely rugged and maybe a little higher elevation. It’s not high elevation, but I mean, you know, just rugged, gnarly, mountainous country. But then you’ve got ’em from the bottom also clear up to the top. Yep. Spread out. Doesn’t matter. Could be anywhere. Well, I’m ready to go apply for Arizona. I know what you’ve been telling me, what you’ve been thinking on.
00:38:18:03 –> 00:39:40:17
Well, I already told you, but I’m still Wait, you gotta wait for Utah and something crazy that happens that changes my whole plan’s moving forward. But Chad, have you applied? Have you already applied? Yeah, I’ve been applying. Yeah. Yeah. For, well, I haven’t applied this year yet, but no, that, yeah. Yeah, that’s what I was wondering if you’d applied already. We, I mean the process is brutal. You gotta check out for each individual species. And so we got, I did verify a lot of family how my family licenses are good. So that, that saves one step. Yeah. I don’t have to buy any licenses. This, this draw cycle saves a lot. So there’s one step checked off. Yeah. Anyway. All right. Well, well, any parting words of wisdom? Oh, we could dive in on how you scout deer, but I don’t wanna give too many secrets away. That’ll be another talk that’ll be after the draw comes out. We’ll talk about that. Call him back. Yeah. After He is actually running in the desert at one 10. I just wonder if that’s bss, are you really out there running when it’s 1 10, 1 15? Yeah. How, how long? I’m, I’m a lunch break. Okay. So what’s that? 30 minutes? 45? Yeah. 30 minutes. How, how do your cowork workers feel without, you know, when you get back, are they dripping, dripping, sweating? They’re, I mean, it’s nasty. I’m not gonna lie. Not gonna lie.
00:39:42:06 –> 00:41:18:16
Usually go up and tell us. I I wanna hear from you a little bit on how you deal. ’cause it’s on people’s minds, how you deal with immigrants crossing and whatnot. Are you worried about ’em? Things like that. Just, just teach us something about that. ’cause there’s a lot of people that think about that. So a lot of the, a lot of the smugglers, you know, that, that are pushing people we’ll, we’ll see them and, you know, herds of 20 or 30 people just getting pushed across the desert and they’re almost look like they’re in a dead sprint going across there. There’s usually no problems at all with them. The ones that are running drugs, they don’t wanna be seen. Just like, you don’t want to, you know, see them. Really, my advice is just, you know, turn and go the other way and they’ll turn and go the other way as well. I mean, we’ve dealt with this my entire life down here. Could it be bad? Yeah. It, it, it, it could be pretty dangerous, but, but for the most part, they, they’re not gonna wanna draw attention to themselves. So, I mean, if you think about it, if a drug smuggler killed a hiker, you’d have every federal agency around choppers. That’d be them. Yeah. So they’re, they’re trying to be in incognito as much as possible. So, so you don’t worry about it.
00:41:18:21 –> 00:42:42:01
Like you’re just, every day you don’t even think about it. Right. Don’t, don’t, don’t look for con don’t look for confrontations, don’t be confrontational. And that you’re probably not gonna have a confrontation. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, take matters into your own hands. You’re not the DEA yourself. Right. Don’t, are you taking, taking a sidearm or, I mean, you’d probably just have something. You always have, but, you know, I, I don’t, I don’t carry a sidearm. This guy runs in the desert. Jason. It just, it, I mean, it is what it is. If, I mean, you run into someone with, you know, semi-automatic weapon, what, what’s the sidearm gonna do for you? Not, not a whole lot. Right. So taking a peace shooter to a tank fight. So, so you don’t worry about about it. You’re just out. I don’t you’re just out. I really don’t. You’ll hunt deer after, just go do your business. Yep. You’ve seen them pretty regular, probably on, on sheep hunts and things like that, but just don’t sweat. Yeah. And you know, I’ve called a few in problem with that is if, if you’re hunting a particular area where you keep going back and you see people you know, and you’re calling ’em in every time those spotters pick up on that, and then you yourself, you’re calling ’em into border patrol. Border patrol, yeah. Those spot there, there’s spotters everywhere.
00:42:42:17 –> 00:43:57:12
Watching these people that are, you know, from the other side and telling them where to go and how to get there. And if you’re in the area and all of a sudden border patrol keeps showing up and busting these people, then you’re, you’re drawing attention to yourself now. They know that somebody’s you’re Yes. You’re the one tipping ’em off and, and you’re ruining your own hunting, hunting area. Yeah. ’cause you’re converging with agents and so it’s just, it’s a, you try to just do your thing and they do their thing and let the da do their thing, you know? Yep. I mean, a lot of ’em get away, but a lot of ’em, you know, a lot of ’em do get caught. They’re a lot of ’em, they wait for ’em to get to the roadway and pick ’em up and take ’em back. I mean, it’s just one of those things you gotta live with, just gotta live with down here. Does the partial, does the par partial Trump wall help in parts or no? Or Oh yes. It, it helps a lot. Yeah. And, you know, I’ve seen videos where, you know, people have cut, cut the wall open and push, you know, a section of it open where you can go through. What they’re not telling you though is that there’s also cameras along that fence. You know, you’re, you’re slowing ’em down is what you’re doing.
00:43:57:20 –> 00:45:29:06
You’re giving officers a chance to respond and make an arrest. If there wasn’t that wall there, then they would just be running through by the thousands and dispersing and you would never have a chance, at least, at least with the wall there, you know, not, not everybody is gonna be able to scale it. You know, they’re sure there’s a few people that it can, but for the majority of people can’t. If somebody comes up and cuts a hole in it, then they’re gonna pick it up on their imaging sensors and stuff like that. And there’s gonna be an agent there fairly quick. So yeah, it, it’s done some good and I can see it from my house, so. Oh, you can just, the spans for miles. Yep. Wow. The general consensus of the locals is they like the wall, obviously. I mean, I’m just probably saying, stating the obvious, but I’m just, it’s interesting ’cause we don’t even think about it, you know, for, for the most part. But, but it also really depends on which side of the aisle you’re on. Like you, some people shoot theirself in the foot just to, just in spite. But generally speaking though, it’s a good thing. Generally speaking, we’re, we’re glad it’s there. Slowed. Slowed the, slowed the flow a little bit. Yeah. Just slow makes you feel safer. You feel safer, you can see it from your house. Do you feel safer? Yeah.
00:45:31:22 –> 00:46:55:28
I mean there’s obviously you’re still gonna get some through. Yeah, I mean that, I’ve never really, I’ve never really felt unsafe. I don’t like the idea of there being 800,000 people on the other side just trying to get across at one time. That makes you a little nervous. Yeah. You don’t know who these people are. It interesting. It definitely helps. So it, it definitely gives you a little bit of peace of mind. Yeah. Well it’ll be interesting, especially on the sheep. They can’t just go, come to and from, you know, like, I mean, probably affects the units right there on the border too. Okay. Little bit of movement. So be Yeah. Some of that country. All right, Chad. Sounds good. Anything else you wanna offer? No, I can’t really think of anything. I know I, we asked you like, I asked you to talk today, so I know it’s not something you like to do necessarily, but it’s just interesting and it’s great as people are trying to apply in Arizona, just talk about the sheep and a few things and just also a different type of deer questioning. Yeah. Like it’s a totally different, your growing cycle that you went through, atler growth, nutrition cycle is totally different than what we even fathom or even comprehend. It’s not even, not even it’s apples and grapes.
00:46:56:00 –> 00:48:23:16
Even from, even from one side of the state to the other, you know, same little bit different soil deer, a little more used to getting weather. Yeah. These deer aren’t, I mean it’s just Yep. Little, little things and it’s a constant, constant learning process and things you think you got dialed in, you know, you look and learn something new and that kind of, it goes out the window or it could have just been a one off thing. I mean, it’s always, it’s always a, a challenge and you, you try to grow, you know, and get better, but, all right. Okay. But as far as, as far as the sheep go, it, it, it’s looking good. Time to get a tag. Alright. Yeah, that’s what I’ve been waiting for. Never been better. I’m gonna make it happen. We haven’t drawn Jack, Jason’s had his turn. Jack, we haven’t drawn Jack. You can’t draw 50 50 odds boss, but bro does draw. I’ll draw one and two or three, four. Oh he does. Pretty regular. That’s what I’m good at. Pretty regular. All right, Chad. Case. Sounds good. Well, I appreciate it. Have a good day. And thanks for the time, man. You have a good weekend. All right, you too. Be safe. Catch you later all. Bye-Bye. It’s a totally different world down there. It is. It’s, it’s interesting. Bucks and velvet still growing the velt, finishing velvet in October, November. I know they’re rutting up here.
00:48:25:06 –> 00:49:27:06
Trump wall’s, interesting. All that. Everything. It’s just interesting because we don’t live there and caravans running across the desert by 2020 to 30. Posses they’re herds zone called them herds. It did. It’s just interest. Is that the right terminology? I don’t know. Maybe a of people, what is it? A cluster group clan? Yeah. I don’t know. Well, no, clans are usually related, aren’t they? They probably are. I don’t know, related. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s interesting. It’s like a herd of people is the wrong terminology’s. All I was saying, I think there’s a lot of sense in what he’s saying is, you know, they don’t wanna see you either. So unless the reason we asked him is we get a lot of questions from hunters. Not, not always in say southwest on sheep and all that. ’cause there’s not very many hunters, but you move a little bit further east in some of the 30 sixes and all that in the co country. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot. You’re in the thoroughfare over there. You are. And it probably, it, it obviously differs by reaching to the state too. A lot of those residents don’t sweat it either. It’s just, you know, or at least seem to. So they’re doing their thing. You stay doing yours, which is looking for deer.
00:49:27:12 –> 00:50:31:27
When you say we get a lot of questions, it just makes me smile because there’s some people out there say, I get a lot of questions about this and I’m thinking, I don’t think you do well. But we do, we do about that specifically. We get a lot of questions. Those 36 is dear. Yeah. It’s not like we’re lying about that. No, Bronson, yeah. Dive into the Rex. I know you need a new pair. I do actually. It’s been probably three years and I need, I just reminded me today, need to get some on order and get ’em broke in. But anyway, I’ve got their new little booklet here. Yeah, we all, if you’re a past buyer or maybe even just a, I don’t know where they get their mailing list. You may have gotten one of their new catalogs for their spring or summer collection. But anyway, they got a bunch of, bunch of, you know, fun kind of training boots, the quarry Bridger lows, slide rocks, something like that. In addition to, you know, the Desert guide, hard grabble Hiker Mountain Extreme. Or I should Chad what boot is Mountain Guides, but I’m not sure. Yeah. But anyway, I, I use heavily the desert guide in a lot of my desert sheep hunts. They have no insulation, they have no waterproof membrane. I don’t need that. I don’t want it. I use those too.
00:50:32:05 –> 00:51:43:22
It’s just, it’s just a great well-built leather boot that, you know, it’s tough. You need it tough ’cause desert’s harsh. I don’t want a soft sided boot. I hate ind boots, but, but I, unless you need it. I, I use my, you know, I, and even on my mountain guides that I have, I only have 200 cramps. I don’t, I don’t like them hotter. ’cause when you’re hiking, your feet get hot, they sweat, you start rubbing, now you got a blister. Yep. So I, I don’t, I don’t use ’em. Desert guide. I don’t need ’em. If it rains, it’s not. And they get wet. So what, I don’t care if my foot gets wet, it’s never, I’m never cold, you know, when I’m wearing them. So I like that. I to get some on order. But anyway, check ’em [email protected]. K-E-N-E-T-R-E k.com or 802 3 2 60 64 if you know what you want. But jump online. You know, they got free shipping on everything over a hundred bucks. But it’s the time to start looking at boots because for most people you need a little bit of break in time. You know, my feet have always worn Ken Andres great. I I don’t really need to break ’em in other people, whether they be them or something else. Feet are very unique to individuals. Oh man, you gotta, you gotta baby ’em. Don’t, don’t grab something too late in the year. Double check what you have.
00:51:43:22 –> 00:53:07:28
If you can’t get through the year, it’s time to get something on order. Now I’m gonna hang up after we’ve done this podcast feed, get something on order, are so sensitive. Yep. Now I also wanna throw a shout out to q You, you can check everything [email protected]. Just an incredible company. Been with us from the start and vice versa. Went out there to the Mountain Academy. Kind of a customer appreciation event where they gave away, I don’t know, 40, $50,000 in, in items. Also had 40, 50% off of a lot of, you know, just returned items, not used items, just, just returned Different sizing, maybe slight color corrections stuff. Yeah, just a few of those things. But I mean, arm loads like people, it, it was an unbelievable experience. What a great company. It’s, I mean, huge force in our industry. Maybe the largest camel clothing type company out there. So anyway, just, just awesome. They came out with their new catalog as well and all their different products. You might check it out. Also go to ku.com. Very easy. KU iu.com, you know, got some really good friends. Even, you know, Kevin Wilkie, they brought over. I mean, they’ve, they’ve got a lot of, you know, people that we know and, and significant people in the industry. Brendan Burns appreciate his relationship over the years and with us and, and whatnot. Just some hardcore hunters that work there, they, they live, they live for it.
00:53:08:16 –> 00:54:35:14
It’s not just about sales necessarily bringing on people that all their stuff. So anyway, check all the ultralight hunting [email protected]. Alright, Bronson, let’s, should we call another buddy of ours? Sure. Who? Justin Van Huey. He seems to be knocking down some deer. Of course, we’ve had, we’ve known him for years. Helped him get tags here and there where needed. He’s also, they, they draw tags like crazy. Their family’s well versed in Hunter. He got lots of hunters. He’s always pulling something in the family. Always. And you’ve, you, we might need to jerk his chain a little bit. You saw him up there in Idaho. I got it. Smashing a big deer. But anyway, just, it’s always funny. He is interesting. Very candid. That’s what I like about Justin. You don’t even have to wonder what he’s thinking he’s gonna tell you and just maybe would get a deer story or two out of him. So let’s do it. Give him a hug. We’ve had a few in the Maxine, his ears or pitchers kill big deer. We have to ask him for him though. It’s not like he’s bragging at all. Hello. Are you even working today? Actually him? Do you even believe in working office job today or are we in the cockpit of a, some machinery? I’m actually out in beautiful Fairfield, Idaho. There you go. Then you’re not working. I know, I know what you’re doing there. Oh, yard work. Maybe.
00:54:35:24 –> 00:55:49:18
I love your Instagram posts about just hammering people that don’t work and work ethic. When, when are you gonna start posting some of those again? Real, the the real work ones? Yeah, all of that. I love those. I’m just hoping this AI stuff runs all these Instagram influencers out of business. I love that. What do you have, why are you so anti influencer? They’ve influenced you. You, you’re making posts because of ’em. Oh yeah. What are we doing in Idaho? What, what are you actually doing? I know you got a kind of a summer place there. You just take after the winter kind. First time you’ve been there in a few months. No, we got a piece of property over here that we’re kind of doing some development on, so. Oh, okay. I’m actually, believe it or not, not setting road signs today. Putting up the road signs. Digging hole. So, oh, did you name, did you name them Van Huley Lane or what are you doing? I think cheater. There’s one cheater Lane. They’re already named. They were already named, but I think there’s one that’s Buck Buck Lane or Buck Alley, something like that. Oh, okay. There you go. Did you get a small buck? Small buck alley. Two point. Yeah. Two point lane. Yep. Well, cool. That’s awesome. Well, I just want to talk to you about Big Deer, big Bulls.
00:55:49:18 –> 00:57:00:22
Seems like you guys are in the throws and always killing stuff, even on drought years. You killed, didn’t you kill a net book Typical in Nevada on a drought year? I, I lose track. You’re killing, you’re Yeah, killing everything. Two years, two years ago we killed that. I, I think it was like 1 99. It ended up netting, so yeah. And that was in a tough year, was it 2000 or 20 more? Excuse me. 2020 or 2021. 2021. Yeah. Felt like the only one in the state. It felt like it, but yeah, when you smashed it, I don’t wanna minimize somebody else, but that felt like it was like the only Yeah, it was a cool deer. The, you know, it was just nice. We didn’t have a lot of pressure on that deer either, so it was kind of fun. It took us forever to get it killed, but it was kind of nice just to have that deer to ourselves for a while. And you know how that is. Well, it takes time. And one thing we teed it up just before we called you Justin, that you know, you’ve, whether it be on your own accord, you know, you have connections in multiple states as well, or, you know, occasionally through us, you’ve always, you ride out good years and bad years, meaning you don’t, you don’t sit ’em out.
00:57:00:22 –> 00:58:02:16
Like there’s an example you didn’t Most people Yeah, a lot of people me set it out. Yeah. Well, I actually don’t. I did I harder than ever on drought years than a tank. But, but you know what I mean? You ride it out, you gotta just, I mean, I guess it also is the carrot dangling from working hard throughout all year long. You gonna spend your time hunting deer or a little bit of elk, but really on deer and you ride out some tough years. You gotta keep your foot in the door on landowner relations and outfit relations and all those types of things if you’re gonna, you know, want your foot back in the door in a good year. So you just ride it out and hunt your guts out. But you always learn something or in some cases kill big deer when you’re maybe not always expecting it. So part of it, yeah, when it comes to meal, you know how I haven’t been like hunting big deer for as long as like you guys have, so, you know, the first time I ever went to Nevada was just 2010, so, you know, yeah. I just wanna hunt every year and still in the learning process, learning something every year. So just, yeah, that’s just keep hunting every year, but you’re killing ’em.
00:58:02:19 –> 00:59:15:22
I, I mean, is there, are you have any start any specific stories that you know, I mean, what these deer have taught you are, are you hunting specific name? Deer. Deer you guys are watching from year to year? Yeah, probably. You know, it’s, after doing it this many years, it’s just kind of starting to come together the last few years. I mean, we didn’t, didn’t kill that many big deer before, you know, before the last couple years and just starting to, you know, figure it out. And then also I’ve gone away from being spread out. I think that’s kind of the biggest thing that I did at, at the beginning was, you know, had too many tags and was hunting elk and other things that kind of all at the same time and have just really kind of fell in love with hunting mule deer and just, just concentrated on that more in the last three years. I’m doing it in about, I wanna say two main areas like Idaho and Nevada and a couple key areas. You know, you’ve, like I said, you’ve got some roots there in Idaho, live in Washington, but roots there in Idaho and then, you know, southeast Nevada and kind of keeping it, that’s what you mean, reining it in instead of trying to be five or six places and be a hero everywhere, rein it in and being focused more. We’ve talked about that harder.
00:59:15:22 –> 01:00:24:27
It does feel like you’re very focused. Yeah. Like I, I already have too many tags and I haven’t gotten any, you know what I mean? I just feel spread out already. I’m doing Iowa and a couple other things that don’t, shouldn’t matter to a serious milder guy, you know what I mean? And, and so I think you’re right. I think you hit the nail on the head about focus. Yeah. And then time, you know, I’m lucky that with work and everything that set up, I mean, our whole company between me and the boys just is runs focused so we can hunt every year. I mean that’s, yeah, most of the guys that, most of the guys that work for me hunt. So, you know, everybody kind of knows October shows up, you know, we go to about half manpower really for most of the month. October between everybody. You planet year, year round though. You plan for that? Yeah, yeah. And the guys all put in, you know, my wife in the office there puts pretty much all my guys in for the draws in a couple states. So we usually pick up one or two tags, you know, somebody in the company draws and we end, we all end up hunting together, so it’s kind of fun. So tell us, I mean, basically logging is what you’re doing. What do you, what’s your main state? Yeah, it’s, it’s all based around trees.
01:00:25:00 –> 01:01:33:27
I mean, we do like what we call contract logging, which is just big industrial tree farm. We’re just killing the trees, putting ’em on a truck and shipping ’em to the mill to a, you know, to a, a sawmill. That’s the bulk. And then we do some land development stuff and we do a lot of river restoration work. We’re pushing the trees over and they’re putting ’em in the rivers for fish habitat and different stuff, but it’s all based around trees basically. How is it being a tree killer and living up in Washington? Well, it’s, it’s, it’s fun. I mean, it’s nice. I mean dealing, but political wise, yeah, I don’t turn and go towards Seattle. We turn outta my driveway and go towards a hill. So you’re about, aren’t you a Seahawks fan though? I think you go there one on Sundays, maybe We don’t. Well, we used to go downtown a couple times a year, but we don’t even, it’s too much. Don’t even do that anymore. Just watch on TV now, huh? Okay. No, I, I don’t even, don’t even go. Yeah. Are you dealing with mostly private landowners so you’re not having to deal with the government too much or private and then a little bit of state? The state set up pretty good, you know, they’re, they’re mandated to make money for school, make money off of state section. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:34:07 –> 01:02:34:03
So very rarely do we get on federal ground and if, if we do, it’s, it’s, it’s a headache. That’s when you’re gonna run into your problems and protest. And just like we have in Utah, it’s like we don’t have hardly any in your, and we don’t grow trees. Like you guys can grow trees, the water, oh, you can probably, you know, cut the same ground. What, every 10 or 15 years or? Oh, no, no, it’s, it’s 40 to 50 year location for most of that stuff, depending on, depending on elevation and stuff. So, yeah. Okay. So a 40 to 50-year-old tree is usually what we’re killing in, in most of the stuff. Okay. So tell the boys are actually on some bigger wood right now. I should be home, but they, that’s probably the nicest patch of trees we’ve logged in 10 years or so. So Really? No kidding. That’s private. Yes. State ground. They, they, they have some older stuff that they kind of target like a 90-year-old type timber, but they’re kind of about outta that stuff, so Yeah. But we should be talking about deer, not trees. Well, that’s kind of special.
01:02:34:09 –> 01:03:42:18
It sounds, yeah, well, 90-year-old tree, we’re talking about your, you know, what you do in your business to make you, you know, be able to, you know, plan around it, you know, plan the business around, you know, be busy probably summer and fall and then I’d imagine the winter it’s harder to, harder to do that anyway. Late, late fall and winter starts to slow down. But yeah. Let’s talk about big deer. What do you wanna talk about? Well, you told the big one in Idaho last year. How, how do you do it? I in Idaho year after year? I mean, what, what are some of the things you do? Oh, just, you know, learning the ground, lots of good friends with lots of knowledge helping out, you know, and just covering a bunch of ground. I mean, Idaho’s tough. I think it’s probably, they cut a bunch of those elk tags down this year. I, I sure wish they would’ve, instead of losing that revenue on the elk, keep that and would, would cut some mule deer tags back. I mean, it, it is a little bit over a hundred it seems like. So some of those, those, you know, those especially like 44 hunting, not as ripe right now. Yeah. Hunting deer that are, yeah, hunting deer that are coming out of those general units. And then there’s quite a few tags in 44 they’ve added to ’em since, since we started hunting here.
01:03:42:22 –> 01:04:54:09
So with archery tags and such, but, and then, you know, 45, they just get congregated down there. So you just get a, a wider variety of deer that that end up down there, all of which have been hunted before they get there, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But it’s all numbers. I mean, you’ve, you’ve been out there before, you know, you just gotta cover ground and look at as many deer as you can. You’re not hunting a specific deer necessarily down there unless you’re hunting those early seasons, which I never, I never have. Not like Nevada where you, you can scout and you’re, you no. If you’re hunting on a draw tag or landowner tag, you get to hunt, you know, early, you get to hunt the fruits of your scouted bucks versus migratory type deer in large extent in Idaho. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, that’s fun. I mean, I, I probably enjoy the Nevada stuff and just concentrating on one deer, you know, and kind of learning his, learning his habits. I don’t think, I’d have to think I’ve ever hunted a deer multiple years there, you know, or one that I knew for sure. You know, most of ’em have been stuff that, you know, has blown up year that blew up this year. Whatever deer this is were we’re, yeah. You might’ve known him, but he grew 30 inches, so he’s not recognizable. Yeah, yeah. So I like that. I like that.
01:04:54:12 –> 01:06:08:15
The big, I like that dropper beams, buck you killed. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was a grind too. You know, we, we had never, we were in there, we had a couple deer that we were concentrating on, and then last year was the, I think the one that we wanted to most interested in was hitting water. And it was pretty, it was pretty wet with storms and stuff down there. So we ended up going to a different area and we were looking for that, a buck that Greg Kro ended up killing there with the, with all the kickers on it. And we’d never seen that dropper buck. And we were in there looking for that kicker buck. And the evening of opening day a bow, Joey Vincent glassed that deer up. And so of course we just changed, we put a little move on him that night, didn’t, didn’t get in on him. And then ended up finding him the next day. And there were some other guys in there hunting that had glassed him up and ended up talking to them and, and put a little move on him. I actually missed him with the bow the second day of the season. Hmm. And then he, he disappeared, I think the next time we saw him look for him. Every day was like 21 days later, about three weeks, geez. Into the muzzle.
01:06:08:15 –> 01:07:13:24
And we had looked, was it still archery or was it muzzle loader by then? Was he turned up archery. And we had actually been, had kind of looked for him hard for like two weeks and, you know, looked in some places. Some guys had seen him a couple years before that in some other higher country. And we looked kind of everywhere and we’d switched over and were hunting another buck, that heavy deer that we killed with a gun right at the, the beginning of a rifle. And, and he just turned back up. We were kind of popping in there every couple days, somebody to go look. And Nick was in there, Nick Vincent was in there one evening and turned him up. And so went back in there, took us about another week. He was going to the one place that we didn’t wanna go look for him, which makes sense, just us being hardheaded. We looked everywhere where he’d been. And once we kind of figured out where he was living, well, it was interesting. So he, he disappeared for like another four days and we looked and finally we’re like, okay, we’re gonna have to go into this, this hell hole and start looking for him.
01:07:14:11 –> 01:08:24:07
And so Joey and I kind of decided after the morning that we were gonna go in there, and Joey actually looked at some, some aerials and stuff, and he is like, you know, I think we should go down this one road, start here a little bit early in the afternoon. And we drove down, it was like, you know, like three o’clock in the afternoon or something, drove down this road. And I was like, well, let’s just get out here. And we jumped out, I set the fifteens up, looked across, and I just caught him moving from beds in like six Juniper, just one glimpse of them. And you know, you instantly knew which one, which that it was him. And so then we, we screwed around with him that night, didn’t get him killed. And then I think we, we ended up seeing him one other time, and then I finally picked him up just a flash of a big deer first thing in the morning. And I couldn’t tell if it was him, but there was really no, there was one bull that was in there, and the only other set of deer tracks we saw were his. So Joey was up on a knob, called him down, and I just watched where I saw him disappear right at daylight. And Joey went and got up on another knob and glassed him up at it.
01:08:24:07 –> 01:09:42:09
He was just within 20 yards where the last place I saw him was. And we ended up, you know, screwing around with him most of that day. We tried coming in on him and the wind wasn’t right and he was, I think he was an older buck. He was moving like every hour he would probably unb bed, feet a little bit move. Well, he kept moving one direction every time he unvetted. So he finally just got set up and, and he, one of the times when he un ed, he came straight at us and we were kind of, we couldn’t see him. We could actually hear him walking. We were so close to him. And then he beded again and we were able to move around there and crawl around on the ground for 15 or 20 minutes and found him in his bed and shot him in his bed. Geez. With a muzzle loader. That’s awesome. Unbelievable. Yeah. And that was last year, 2022. Yeah. That was all these years, all these years run together for me. Yeah. That was the dropper beam. Yeah. So tell us, tell us the story about this typical, I know you posted, I’m just, I just grabbed your Instagram real quick to check, but October 8th, 2021. But tell us a little bit about him. What a giant. The one that 21 1 99 net 1 99 net. Okay. Yeah. So that was another buck.
01:09:43:00 –> 01:10:57:21
I think Joey just glassed him up, was out looking in like middle, middle of July. And he had some video of him and just decided that was a deer. We were gonna hunt and found him before the season a couple days before the season and hunted him hard with the bow. Just, we would see him, you know, probably once a week might, maybe once every four days he would show. And he was going, coming out of some, some stuff that wasn’t as thick and going back into, you know, he’s never betted out in the open. He’s always betted, just would disappear. Kind of tried everything, tried cutting him off, ambushing him and got close a couple times. But he was always with other bucks ne never stalked him in his bed or anything like that. It was always either him coming out at night and trying to get a move on. It just didn’t work out. And then kind of did the same thing with muzzle loader. I, I spent a bunch of time in there, muzzle loader by myself, would see him. Never really had an opportunity. The one day Jared, my oldest son, was there helping me and we had seen him the night before with all the bucks in a spot, and there was like six or seven bucks in there before, you know, two hours before Dark gets light.
01:10:58:10 –> 01:12:05:01
All the bucks were there except for him at like, you know, 200 yards. That was, that was with Muzzle loader. And so just never got a chance. And then went in there, of course we figured we’d have, you know, during the whole time we just never had any pressure, which was nice. And, and then come rifle season, we, we saw him every day during rifle. Same place, same, same, same place. And there was nobody in there. And so the first day we didn’t get a shot at him. The second day I missed him with a gun at like 600 yards, which was just totally my fault. And, but you know, we just kept hunting him and then I think we, we didn’t see him the third day, I don’t think. And then the fourth day we saw him right at Daylight and, and were able to get him beded for the first time in a thick hole and kind of the same thing. Snuck around there for an hour, hour and a half trying to get an angle on him, and finally got where we could see him in his bed, I think like 340 yards and, and just killed him right in his bed. That’s awesome. A lot of time, man. I mean that’s what, that’s, I mean, that’s what you’re talking about archery.
01:12:05:08 –> 01:13:08:10
You’re talking about muzzle litter and you’re talking into the rifle a lot of days, man, it’s what big beer take, I mean, they don’t come easy and then in a drought year, it’s not like you got options from B, C, D and F. You know, you don’t have that. And why does he grow, why does he grow that? Well and you know, drought just kills his stuff there. What would he been in a butt year makes you wanna that? Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know. And it’s hard to, it’s hard to get a typical deer, you know, to get numbers like that where, where they’re actually that big when you’re field judging them. I dunno, that seems like the hardest thing to look at a typical and figure out where they’re gonna be. So the hardest ever, you’re thinking you’re shooting a one 90 and he hits the ground at over two gross. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You, I mean, you just never look at a deer and go, oh, he is got, you know, it’s hard to say he is got 26 inch beams and 19 inch G twos and, and, and really Yeah. You know, commit to those numbers. Right. So, right. Yeah. So he was a little bigger than we thought, but yeah, just a cool deer is, how is he, I mean, did you officially enter him in the book? Yeah, I did. Yeah.
01:13:08:10 –> 01:14:27:03
So, so you got him, I mean, 1 99 or you said Yeah. 1 99 change or whatever. Geez, tell it didn’t. Yeah. And then we, oh, go ahead. Then I killed the Idaho buck that same year on one of the late hunts. Yeah. Another typical that was kind of a, kind of the opposite of him, like a narrower buck, you know, big giant G fours, good beams, everything. And he ended up official in 2 0 2, so there was, there was 2 2 0 2 gross. I think he was 1, 1 97 net somewhere right in there. Something like that. Yeah. Pretty crazy. But killing a pair of book typicals in the same year. Yeah. Yeah. Those are, I mean, that was probably the best two deer I’ve ever killed, so Yeah, it was, it was fun. Did you, were you, did you take first in the buckle typical wise in Nevada that year, obviously? Yeah. So Nevada’s got that kick. Carson Wars, the silver belt buckle, and they give, they give a buckle for first, second, and third place. I freaking love those buckles. Like it’s, I don’t do, I hate trs. Do you ever worn one? Oh no, you don’t wear those, you put ’em in your safe. Okay. Well no belt buckles by name. They’re belt buckles. I know, but I mean, it isn’t, I don’t know what it is about those buckles in Nevada. I wish taught did. I don’t know.
01:14:27:23 –> 01:15:25:06
I I and hu I want to see you show the, that sheriff with a buckle. I hate awards. I wanna see somebody wear one. I hate, I don’t hunt for awards. I hate awards. But those buckles are freaking cool. Well, you gotta have a whole drawer full of ’em too, so. Well, I mean couple if you need one. I-I-I-I-C challenge you two right now. I don’t have one. So I wanna challenge you both of next year. You’re gonna get one this year, you’re gonna get one. I want, I want you guys to wear those, the expo next year. I want, I want you, I want a picture of the dime bucket. I’ll wear the non-typical buckle you wear. The typical buckle that, let’s do it be twins, let’s do it. Bring and they have to be on your person, not just pulled out. But I just think it’s such a cool award. Like Boone and Crockett will give you a little sheet, but I, I don’t even, I or trophy or I don’t even care about that stuff. But these buckles, they’re silver buckles that kick cars sword. They’re cool, don’t you think? Justin? They’re freaking cool. It’s super cool. Yeah. So just a little, you think I’m gonna get one this year? Want with an antelope? What do you, what do you think? Well, well dude, you got you. I don’t have an antelope. You got a deer tech. Yeah, it’s possible.
01:15:25:08 –> 01:16:28:06
And it’s that kind of year. It’s possible. It’s good. What do you think? So anyway, just a before we leave that, just a little shout out to the Nevada record book, envy record book on Instagram. Follow ’em. You can kinda learn more about that. It’s, it’s awesome. I I freaking love those. They do it for all the species. But Justin, what do you think this year’s gonna be like? You know, all the, everybody’s saying it, it should be good. It seems like there’s plenty of water. I think the biggest thing is those deer, the shape they were in last year, I mean, they were fatter going into the winter than they were Yeah. In July. I think they had excess. They don’t have to recover from the drought body-wise, this year they have it going to the spring, the feed, the fall, and then the feeds, the weather. It was dumb. And then now we, we still have it. It’s crazy. Yeah. It’ll, it’ll be a miracle for to get a buckle this year. Any of us, I think. ’cause I think there’s just gonna be a lot of giants that pop up Yeah. And get killed everywhere, so. Yeah. Yeah. It’ll, it’ll be fun. I mean, we’re right there. What are we, you know, three weeks away from starting to be able to get an idea of what stuff’s looking like. Yeah. Yeah. It’s gonna be fun. Ready for cameras? Yeah. Yep. Geez.
01:16:28:12 –> 01:17:40:28
So tell us Idaho looks good too. So does it like, ’cause it was kind of had an off year last year. Yeah. I mean, it just, this stuff here, these deer can get south of the bend and they, they winter pretty good. And I mean, this is as much water as I’ve ever seen here, so Yeah. It’s, it’s raining here right now, actually. I’m sitting on in the rain, but, and the winter kill didn’t affect you? It was only, you know, far eastern, east I 15 those valleys southeast corner and all far Yeah. I, I haven’t heard of any here. So I’m, I’m in, I’m sure there’s little pockets like everywhere, some of that higher mountain stuff, but I haven’t heard of anything terrible, so. Yeah. Didn’t your wife kill a giant in Idaho? Like two 19, I want to say. I can’t, can’t remember was I think it was 17. Yeah, that’s the biggest deer, anybody in my family. Is it really? Yeah. She wears the, well, how big bought the buckle in the family then? Wasn’t it two 19 or gross or something? Wasn’t two 18? Yeah, it was like a, a 10 by 11. Not, not an old deer. It was a, it was a younger deer. It would’ve been a giant, probably a four and a half year old deer if I had to guess. Wow. But just, yeah, killer. Just a, just a gift. Like glass it and kill.
01:17:40:28 –> 01:18:51:24
It just, just happened. Oh yeah. Had never had never seen it. We actually kind of went into a little bit different area that I hadn’t hunted that much. And it was afternoon, we had just going and doing an afternoon hunt and it was just me and her and set up the KOAs and was glassing on some big peaks and a couple bucks. Walked out, threw the spot. There was like three of ’em. And through the spot and scope, I knew once I looked at him, we were gonna kill him. But I had no idea what he was. I could just tell he was a good frame deer with kickers, kickers out both sides. And you know, I think the biggest deer she’d probably killed was like 160 inch deer. So we, it was, it was pretty late in the evening, but we jumped in the pickup and ran over there, got, you know, cut the distance a little bit and then we had to hike up a pretty steep knob, maybe, I don’t know, maybe a mile. Got up on the knob and as soon as I got there where I thought he would be, I glassed him up with the fifteens and he was bedded, kind of beded uphill a little bit. And when he turned his head I was, I, I didn’t even tell her, you know? Yeah. I saw all that, all the stuff on the back and all that trash smash.
01:18:51:24 –> 01:19:51:14
When smash, he turned his head and I just got her set up. It was like 400 yards and shot him in his bed too. That one was a little bit more of a rodeo. It took us, took us a little bit to get him killed. But she, she hit him the first time and just was, had to move around a bunch and got pretty close to dark. We ended up having to back out of there and found him right where he, right where he left him in the morning. But that was a long night. Mm. Yeah. Well, what about this, tell me a little bit about this deer you killed last year in Idaho. I, I don’t know if you killed it or who killed it, but anyway, it was a, I think you killed it. It’s a nontypical, a couple inlines off G three. G four. Yeah. That’s a, you know, that’s just a, I don’t know, he’s a little bit over 200, like, you know, just kinda one of those, another younger deer. He doesn’t have a giant frame. He’s just solid. You know, kind of probably similar to that deer you killed in Idaho. Yeah. That one year. Yeah. So something like that. Deer had a lot more extras than this one did. But yeah, just a, just a good young deer.
01:19:51:14 –> 01:21:01:09
It’s hard to got, you know, you’d like to be able to walk away from that, but you really can’t turn oh eight, you know? Yeah. 200 plus deer you’re gonna walk, not gonna walk away from them. Yeah. That was another one. My, my youngest son glass that one up from a long ways away and it took us a couple days to get in there. He was, they were rutting pretty hard, but ended up getting in there and getting him killed. And then Not a deer you knew about or anything like that. No, no. Not a deer. I knew about just covering ground, covering the numbers pretty much, huh? Just covering ground. Yeah. You, I mean you’ve hunted Idaho, these deer rutt pretty good here. I mean, you get to the last 10 days of October, they’re rutting and if you’re, if you’re hunting Yeah. It, it as much as I’ve, I’ve never seen them rutt, even in November, hardly in Nevada as hard as they rutt here in October. Yeah. So just different. So yeah, I mean, and, and we get, if you get in these better units, like if you’re 44, 45, you know, you got kind of, you got the rutt and you got migration going at the same time, so you just, you can never know what what’s showing up. Yeah, yeah. Every day’s a new day. You look at the same place the year before, day before. I love that. Yeah.
01:21:01:11 –> 01:22:04:23
It’s, it’s fun. Just rotations. It makes it too. So you don’t have to spend all year scouting. Like you can scout Nevada or Utah or whatever, some other thing. And then if you’re hunting Idaho, you can just, you can go and work it hard while you’re there, but you don’t have to to spend for three months kinda like Colorado while we, same, same principle. We usually show up in hunt Colorado hard for a week and, and go home. Take what you get. Yeah. I think if you’re good 44, I’ve, I’ve never been able been good enough to do it. But I mean that September 15th start, it’d be nice to find a deer in the summer. Yeah. If you had time to do that. But you’re busy doing what you’ve been describing in Nevada, trying to kill, find your deer, kill archery or maybe muzzle. I mean it’s, you can’t be everywhere, but you could, you could try it this year. You could try it this year while we’re in Nevada. You let us take your Nevada tags off any, any and all and just go try that. I think that’s a personal, that’s a great personal goal. Justin, September 15th, kill a buck. I think not missing them on the second day of the archery season would be the first goal. There you go. All, it’s no joke that killing a big deer with bow is hard. That is hard as a bow.
01:22:04:24 –> 01:23:12:27
But it’s also why you love hunting them with a bow too. ’cause you get first crack, you’re hunting them right after, you know, you can punch paper all year long, but when you, you got a two hundred oh, two ten two Yeah. Coming close. It kind of gets to you. Yeah. It used, it used to be nice in 44 when there wasn’t an archery. Right. You know, that would be better. I, I don’t think I ever had a tag too many tags in here then, but Yeah. Yeah. When you had then, then they weren’t bugged at all. Now they got I think 40 archery tags. So they, they get pretty decent pressure I think. Yeah. From that. Well, well, awesome spectrum. Big thing. I mean, you’ve been doing ’em during tougher years, so Yeah. I I think didn’t you and Bronson break bread up there one night up there in Idaho? Well, we got talking before we called you today, so, hey, we gotta talk about the sec, this secretness of meal deer hunters time because we all the time when Justin test you test your, you being truthful or not. He, he tested my you of, you guys always shows up somewhere it seems like. Well it was just funny. We’d been text and it was a year. I had a tag up there and I knew you did, but it was like, I’m alone at my, I’m a, this is mul deer hunters right here.
01:23:12:27 –> 01:24:18:27
This is mul deer hunters for you. I’m alone eating dinner. I’d get walked in there front along and I order whatever, and I get a text from Justin, Hey, you and Idaho Hunting. I love that, Mike. That’s so awesome. Yeah. Just got here. That’s one for the books. Oh yeah. We’re at, where are you at? And he’s, he’s texting me. He’s looking at me from across the restaurant, texting me, testing my integrity right now. That’s the funniest story. Whether I’m in Idaho hunting when he sees me, right. They’re looking at my phone and texting it. It’s the funniest story in the world. And funny says, well, why don’t you come over and join us for dinner? I look, oh, hi, what did you have to buy? And then I think I went to my favorite spot the next day. And you were parked right in my, the spot that I was there. Sorry. I mean, I don’t know anything about that. It was probably my first time there, but, but it was just, that’s milder hunter’s test. So fun. Say you in Idaho yet hunting. He’s looking at me saying, no, I, I’m just, I No, no. I’m not sure when I’m gonna make it. No, I, I just, I got hung up. What would, what if I’d have said that? You know, I just, I’m trying. Oh, Justin would’ve, he would’ve kept it going. Oh, really? Really?
01:24:19:01 –> 01:25:25:05
There’s a guy that looks just like you sitting in the restaurant I’m in right now. Then where would that have gone? It’s awesome. It was funny that deer you killed was cool. It was a cool deer. Yeah. You know, you wish, you know, just like we were saying, you wish a deer had everything. He had a basically a three point side, but sometimes Baal point was that the Baal point, buck base, Baal points, basal points are the, those are the, that’s the coolest points they can have. Maybe, maybe kickers off, kickers off the G four and then basal points, I don’t know, split beams, triple I guards. There’s a lot cool things. Deer math 35 wide. I mean, there’s a number of things we like, but that’s what makes me older. There’s not two slick four points can look similar to each other, but outside of that they all, they’re all different. You want every one you’ve ever seen. You want that one and the next one, they all look different. Want ’em all. They’re all unique. But we’re, we’re excited about Nevada too. So this is, I mean I’ve had tags for two, three years and chickened out on a couple of landowner landowner tag here and there. Yeah. You know, decided I’m, I did get a little busy as you know, had some sheep hunts up north and things like that. And then would look like, hey, it’s gonna be a tough year.
01:25:25:11 –> 01:26:40:23
I bailed, but this year I’m not bailing. I’ve tried to get him to bail. No, no. Just in jest. All right. Justin, anything else? No, I just, thanks for everything. You guys do appreciate the help over the years with everything and say thanks to Taylor Price and price trophy hunts on the help with those guys. So Yeah. Good guys. You guys have dealt great relationship and friendship over the years and he’s got, there’s a lot of, lot of, lot of good hard hunting dudes over there right now. They’re just, man, you kind of watch ’em grow up and then all of a sudden they, they just turn it on and watch out. Yeah. Well I think that the buckles what they got three, three of the deer buckles this in this last year. Yeah. So if you like buckles, it’s pretty good. Oh, that’s great. Good deal. Basically, I guess we gotta tell, tell the listeners ’cause a lot of people don’t know about it, but I mean the, the buckles are, you know, for a non-typical muer, they give three, the first three, the best three that are, that are entered into the Nevada record book. And then same thing with typicals. So, and then you got elk and aunt sheep and everything else. So anyway, if they’ve got three out of the six, that’s 50% of them last year, right? Yeah. Unless do they give ’em for rry? No, they don’t. Straight up.
01:26:40:23 –> 01:27:49:17
Just typical and non-Typical six, first, second, third. Right. Justin, first, second, third. What’s that? Just first, second and third for typical and non-Typical. Yeah. They got three of the six. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah, what did they get? They got second on the typical and first and second on the non-Typical. Yeah. Just on a tough year, you know, just, it was just tough year. So yeah. Anyway, they’re best producing dudes out there. All right. Okay. Sounds good buddy. Well, good luck this year, man. You don’t really need luck. But yeah, look forward to seeing. I’m sure we’ll be passing you on the gravel somewhere. We’ll, we will, yeah. Count on that. Just don’t crack my windshield. Okay. Thanks again. Everything, you guys talk, appreciate it. You betcha. Bye bye. He downplays a lot. What do you mean? He’s downplaying? He’s, he’s been killing it so pretty. He’s doing great. Pretty, he’s, he’s in a great run, you know. Yeah. Especially starting Nevada in 2010. I remember when he, you know, was buying a few tags from us Clear back then, and, and getting cranking and then it does come together. Like he’s saying it’s nice to be able to hunt, build upon knowledge and units. Yeah. And kind of local knowledge, whatever, you know, you can’t replace local knowledge and you get that with time, even if you’re not a local. Yeah. And it just, that’s right. Same thing for ido. He hunts familiar country there.
01:27:50:01 –> 01:29:11:27
He’s, you know, bought in a, I call it a summer home, whatever, the second residence there. So he likes something. Yeah. Repeated country. And that’s, he’s admitted it, it’s paying off for it. Is the last three or four years, probably more than the first three or four years, of course. Wanna throw a little shout out, out to Thompson, long range. Sure, sure. Appreciate them and their support here at Epic Outdoors. Great guys, mark and Scotty Thompson up there. They have the critter lick attractant, as well as long range rifles specializing with the rep Weatherbee and Low Pol scopes. And he’s got a custom scope built, you know, to their specifications and very affordable long range setup. Appreciate them and their support. Again, Thompson long range. You can reach out to ’em at 4 3 5, 7 1 3 42 48, 4 3 5 7 1 3 42 48. And just great hunters, great guys. Killed a lot and done a great job over the years. And again, appreciate their friendship and support and business affiliation. They also supported the MUEs matter movement that we’ve initiated here at Epic Outdoors, MUEs matter, they do matter. And, and it’s nice. We kind of started this, you know, our company did basically based off of the premise that, that they’re, they’re hurting right now just with the winter kill and the long-term drought and whatnot.
01:29:11:27 –> 01:30:23:18
And to basically, you know, encourage guys, not to just kill something, to kill it if you, unless you really want, if you wanna, if you need meat, kill it. That’s what hunting’s all about. If you, if you’re hunting for a trophy as well as the meat, great, you know, hunt for a trophy. But don’t just kill one to be able to say you killed one instead, you could leave that tag un punched, submit it to us here after the hunts. After the hunts by, we’re gonna do a dr, you need to submit it before December 1st. There’s a few later hunts. But that’s, that’s the deadline we’ve put on there. We somewhere. That’s right. That’s right. So anyway, there’s a Mule’s Matter movement. We’ve got an Instagram page, mule’s matter. We also have a link on our website. Logan, do you wanna talk a little bit about that? Yeah. Website just went up yesterday. It’s epic outdoors.com/mm-home. Or if you just go to epic outdoors.com and look at the slider on our homepage, you’ll be able to go right to the Mully Matters home. Got a little bit of a description on what the mully matter movement is, as well as rules and how to enter, what tags are eligible and how to get those in as well as a prize list. It’s just a shell of a site. We actually don’t have all the prizes loaded. Prizes continually come Bronson daily.
01:30:23:20 –> 01:31:31:27
We had a freaking rifle show up yesterday. Yeah. Browning. Thanks for them stepping up. And then I think you’d mentioned Thompson. Thompson, they, they donated what, a couple long range shooting courses, didn’t they? They did, yeah. And, and it’s just awesome. It just, I mean, it just shows you, we’ve got a actually a, a, a large item list of items that are gonna be given away, including, like you said, a couple of long range courses through Mark and Scotty Thompson. And it’s, it’s awesome. That’s gonna grow. By the time this wraps up through the fall, it’ll be double what it is now. Probably. I mean, it just keeps growing weekly people step up. We’ve had members, members step up with cash prizes as well as optic prizes. Some that wanna remain anonymous. Others, you know, don’t care either way. And so we’re gonna have a little shout out to them as well as shout out to the companies that are stepping up and, and just fun. It’s just fun. It’s fun to give away stuff. It’s fun to create an awareness. We, we all have done it. Nobody likes to go home empty. You wanna smash one at the end. But you know, when we’re, when we’re struggling right now, we can, on top of what the states are doing, we can even take it another step forward, you know, forward and, and leave a few other, a few more bucks alive. Okay.
01:31:32:13 –> 01:32:42:01
For down the road. Yeah, that’s about it. We don’t, again, it’s not like we’re gonna have some official rules and you’re gonna see some of that, that basically just a landing page for now. It’s gonna grow and we’re gonna, and we’re gonna fill it in with the details and we’re gonna keep this going year to year to year. So pretty fun for sure. Kind of something to do. It has nothing to do with us financially whatsoever. Everything donated is given away. Yep. Everything donated. Anything we’re donating and everything that people donate to the cause is gonna be given away as a prize. So we’re not keeping any of it. No overhead. Just a fun thing. Something to have in the back of your mind after you go hunt your guts out this fall. Don’t find what you want. Know that there’s, all right, instead of punching a tag on something, you send a un un punch tag to us. Be entered in it. So anyway, we do have a membership drive going. The epic hunts and optics giveaway. You can go to our website to get details for that. We’re giving away incredible hunts. Eight different hunting opportunities as well as a rifle bow and optics pass package, not just a rifle or bow. We’re talking, it includes the rifle, includes a bow and optics, 15,000 plus dollar package and, and whatnot.
01:32:42:01 –> 01:34:03:16
So anyway, you can go to our magazine, you can go to the website, epic outdoors.com. You can get a free, you know, a free entry basically for, for joining Epic Outdoors. And then an entry for referring guys as well as buying tickets and, and participating in that. And so give us a holler at 4 3 5 2 6 3 0 7 7 7 4 3 5 2 6 8 0 7 7 7. Go to epic outdoors.com. Get in there. If you don’t find that you’re successful over the next few days and you’re still got an open schedule, you might participate in that. Just another drawing, another op opportunity to grab onto something world class that Bronson our eye would want ourselves. That’s why we picked them. That’s right. Well, hope ever have a great Memorial Day weekend. Be safe. A lot of graduations out there. Graduations to college, high school graduates and families and be safe on the lake. That’s awesome. The mountains, wherever you’re at. What a great time. Good time of year. It’s, it’s a great time of year. Spring is sprung. It’s time to get out there. Spring is sprung. Yep. All right everybody, 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.
01:34:03:24 –> 01:35:17:03
Red Rock Precision is one of our sponsors and many of our staff users, 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 SS Polaris specializes in custom setup hunting side-by-side. They deliver right to your door nationwide. Visit ss polaris.com to learn more For affordable, long-range rifles and shooting schools, visit thompson long-range dot 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.
01:35:17:03 –> 01:36:22:13
If you’d like to visit about their different models or visit hoyt.com. Thank you to Phone 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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