We have officially entered the final countdown for our Summer Hunt Giveaway! If you haven’t gotten your name in the hat for some hunts, now is the time! The crew has a good chat with Colten Petersen (IG: @heavyhorned), to discuses some of the bucks he’s been on for the past few years, and these are not your average bucks. Colten has had the opportunity to hunt and harvest multiple bucks scoring over 200 in his life, and if you ask him its all luck. But we know the real story. It takes hard work, dedication and resilience to have success like that as a Mule Deer hunter. We also get a chance to hear the story of Wyatt’s Alaskan Sheep Hunt for the first time!
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
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Hey, everybody. Before we get started on this podcast, we just wanna throw a little shout out to ourselves. We’ve got the summer epic hunt giveaway. It’s our summer membership drive. We’re giving away a freaking ton of Hunts gear, all kinds of stuff. It’s just awesome. Geez, upper hundreds, dang near $200,000 worth of stuff. Everything from dol, sheep, elk, deer, antelope, even. We’re excited about that. Barbery sheep and, and an optics and gear package, including rifle and bow. Just a ton of stuff that we’re gonna give away in about 10 days. We’re talking, we’re down to the last week, week and a half. Make sure you go to our websites. You can call in (435) 263-0777. Or you can go to the website, epic outdoors.com and grab some tickets. You can refer a friend. You can join. If you’re not a current member, that’ll give you an entry in there. So there’s a lot of ways to get your name in the hat. Some of the best drawing odds we’ve ever seen. It’s just, it’s just crazy. And we’ve even done a little bit, a few different hunts. You know, elk would be, you know, this particular tag would be valid in Utah and Nevada. We’ve also got an archery only mule deer hunt out on eastern plains of Colorado. So there’s some different hunts as well. Antelope tags that are landowner tags, a pair of ’em for you, friend, family, whoever. So anyway, go check it out.
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Epic outdoors.com. Make sure you get your name in. Of course, we’ve got a lot of draw results that have come and gone. And then we’ve got a few coming out. All the regular application season is come and gone. But anyway, if you’re left without a hunt or you do have some open time in your schedule, why that would be another way to get a great world class hunting opportunity. Again, these are hunts that only that Adam and I or John or anybody here in the office would do ourselves. We only work with the best and we’re proud of it. All right, let’s start this podcast. Anything to do with Western Big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour Beak. Beak. Beak. You like us. Stop. Mr. Nothing but good memories. Hey everybody. Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, John Peterson Cash, cash Land. And Logan. Logan Marshall, the famous whoa. Sippy cup. Logan. We got in here with us. Southern Utah, sunny southern, Utah. Bronson is ever gonna get to be 80 degrees. It’s amazing. I don’t, it barely touched 81 day. I think maybe it’s supposed to be in another week, but it’s unbelievable to be mid-June and Southern Utah. And even the places further south of us aren’t hitting the mid nineties or hundreds. So it’s not like we hit get really hot here, but we get mid to upper nineties. Yeah. And it’s, it’s been monsooning or whatever you’d call this. El Nina.
00:02:54:16 –> 00:04:05:10
El Nina, El Nino, monsooning, Mona, whatever. It’s been unbelievable. Big Mac. I don’t know where I’m at right now. Mr. Brown is a big V. Feels like I’m in. I mean, it’s the perfect temperature every day. It it is. And it’s not even really been windy, which is unusual too. No, like, it’s just crazy. Crazy. What’s came, what’s in the forecast? We’ve been talking about more. Oh, seventies. More of the same. Wow. Maybe a week from today. It’s gonna hit 80 maybe. I’m just excited. Lake Powell’s rising. Oh yeah. Like crazy. Yeah. We got trips planned in a couple weeks. Yeah. I want it to cover rocks. Of course. It just just makes other problems. You think it covers rocks, but there’s always other ones that are I dinging a prop. I got a new prop coming and they make more every day for hundreds of dollars. You can buy new props. So did, did you ding a prop or did rocks touch the bottom of your boat? No, I dinged a Well, I mean, you know, did you run it the ground? I tried to, like I did, I tried to garden in shallow water, rode it to till I rot a till, till gravel. Dude, you’re out in the middle of nowhere, 30 miles up lake or whatever, you know, at least it’s gravel and not bedrock. Well, we’re fishing it slick rocks. Yeah. And we’re fishing it.
00:04:05:10 –> 00:05:21:24
And then you, you know, you’re, that finder’s saying deeper, deeper, deeper. Everything’s good. Yeah. And all the sudden’s, not all of a sudden you’re gardening. There’s wrote a one inch of water. Yeah. So anyway, whatever made it back. No problems. That’s the life of Lake Powell. You know, when I, there was guys that always said, when you’re looking for a boat, you just always ask them, is this a Lake Powell boat? I never really understood what that meant. You don’t want a lake palbo. There’s a lot of potential hazards. Well, there’s that you’re gonna encounter. It’s a better time. Lots of loose electronics everywhere. ’cause the waves beat you to death. Every, every, every day is a monsoon trying to get back to the dock. So, you know. Anyway, it’s, it’s fun. Like I’ve got some trophy gouges in the bottom of my boat, John. So let’s, should we talk about your, you, your gardening experience was different than mine. You were full bore pedaled down. What, what are those machines? Yeah. You know, when you’re, when the freeway needs to be repaved and they run it over the pew and it chews it up and spits it out in a window. What is that called? That’s more what, what John did asphalt chew upper? Yeah, because there was, there was no, I was pulling a skier and so we were going 30 or something, you know. Yeah. Your, you’re pedaled down.
00:05:22:02 –> 00:06:36:21
And we came to a stop immediately. Did you? Oh yeah. Everyone almost was ejected from the boat out the front. Geez. And it, it was, what did the skier do? Did it pass you? No, he, he, he bailed. Yeah. When he saw he bailed got us he was gonna slam. Yeah. So crashed. He was okay. Because yeah. It’s so, it was such a small spot. Like the, and, and we were high centered up on top. Like my boat was, for all intents and purposes, on dry ground outta the water, out of the water, off a trailer. Yeah. There was maybe an inch of water running. Still 4,000 RPMs. But, you know, but John’s an amazing John, I just, kudos to you. You can rebuild anything in life. What is it? YouTube. How is it that you know how to do everything? Oh yeah. YouTube. I mean, you’ll take a 1960s trailer and make it vintage, brand new worth $400,000. He put all new wood bottom trailers in the boat. You rebuilt the boat. Yeah. I rebuilt that boat pretty much with new, a new wood bottom. A new, I mean, geez. But, but I was a hundred yards from the shore. Wait, wait, wait. A hundred yards up on shore. No, no, no. There was, you could, I was going along the shoreline. I’m a hundred yards from the shore. Yeah.
00:06:36:24 –> 00:07:38:24
And there was a little fan and there was a little tiny spot where fan gravel Rock. Yeah, gravel. Welcome to Lake Powell Grave Bar and welcome to Lake Powell. We were on top of it. I mean, lake Powell. That, that lake’s changing with every foot, two foot, five foot of water, plus or minus, let alone 50 or hundreds of feet different. Yeah. It’s a new lake. Every, every day, every time lake, every time you go on there, within a three to three month period. Yeah. We save a lot of rocks. And I go down there now, the ones that are 70 feet out of the water that I thought were problems two years ago. Yeah. I look at they’re like 70 feet out. Yeah, no, they’re glassing vantage points. Yeah. Now I sit on those rocks. It’s, it’s the truth. And so I used to mark ’em. I always mark ’em on my onyx too. It’s funny. So you know not to hit ’em. That’s right. And now we go by, you know, and the fish finder, you mark ’em and stuff and it’s like that. Am I ever gonna need that point again? Should delete it’s crop marks on the top of it’s four, it’s 40, that two for years of water. And now it’s probably this year we might start to, those might mean something again, after 70 feet increase, I say about that, like yellow and a little, you know, box.
00:07:38:24 –> 00:08:43:27
What’s that little emoji on the freaking onyx? It’s a little square treasure chest block. Like a, I don’t know, like a salt lick or whatever it is. Like a little, anyway, I say that’s rock. That means avoid that. Talking to Lake Powell. Wyatt just joined a series. Lake Powell, the Powell. You love Lake Powell. I, I don’t know that it’s a, it’s a love you pro proposed. You proposed to wife, didn’t you? Your wife loves it. So that means you love it. Yes. Yes. I guess. And you proposed to her there? I did, yes. Lake Powell. So very fond memories. I forgot about that. Part of the, part of the, I guess the Jensen part of the lake has been loan rock be watered. Yeah. Lone Rock now has water round. Yeah. So this year might have water. So good for you. They’re already planning a trip. You get to now go back to Lake Powell. ’cause you had a year off. Yes. Because it was, I did get a year off. So I’m excited for you. You’re going soon. We’re just talking. We’re going fairly soon too. So, yeah. July, I believe. Gotcha. Good. So anyway. Interesting. Well, that, that experience of running into the ground taught me how tough the bottom of the boats are because, so, yeah. So did you have to refinish the bottom of this boat? I, when we hit, I swore the bottom of the boat was gonna be gone.
00:08:44:02 –> 00:09:51:17
Like, like a hole hole. I wouldn’t like a big hole. Like you’re gonna have to helicopter. Yeah. The boat shell, right. Yeah. Or, and there’s a couple gouges that are, that are pretty good. They’re significant, but not a big deal. You could run that thing off the trailer, drag it down the road for three miles. You still wouldn’t have a hole. Wow. Wow. Why did you have to replace it then? No, I didn’t that not that a different hole he’s talking about. No, I replaced like the floor inside. Inside. He, he rebuilt the inside underneath the rip the carpet out. Put the, yeah, the, the outside or the underneath in the hole. Fiberglas stuff. I mean, it’s got some scratches, but it’s not, you didn’t even put a new resin underneath it. I didn’t even do anything. It, it’s not even deep enough to one little prop in You’re back in business. Yeah. Yeah. Well, amazing. How’d you get it back out in the water? So it was, I was up on the water so much. We rocked the boat back and forth. So we lifted one side. Had the kids dig out the boulder. Well, they’re like small rocks. Big gravel. Yeah. Big gravel. Yeah. Like two, three inches. Yeah. The kids, you know, dug it out. Then we rolled it back the other way. Dug out the other side by about when we were, you know, about good, ready to push off. Good.
00:09:51:27 –> 00:11:04:27
Then a couple people came over with ropes and pulled us out. And then they pulled you, pulled you back to No. Was your prop My prop was cratered brown. You could probably a third hammered, but you could live with back. And we got back No, far no problem. Yeah. That’s amazing. And Oh yeah. It’s crazy. Anyway, these are good stories, Wyatt, that are coming your way. I forgot about that story actually. Well, Jason had a slight run in. That’s what brought it. Well, I mean, I just, he’d guard rock does he called it. He gardened. He, well, I was rototilling some rocks underneath the water just a little bit. You know, it’ll happen because Oh, it’ll happen. It’s a matter of time, everybody. Right. And I had a spare prop under the seat, but I didn’t need it. But I gonna, I am gonna replace it. I want it. Right. Perfect. I want Perfect. Anyway. Fun times, but welcome Wyatt. Wyatt, you were on a phone call for a minute. Yes. Customer service, doing good things. Right. How would you describe your life and the rest of ours after, let’s say Tuesday, June 6th, after Tuesday? It’s a whole different world here at the shorts today. I mean, is he really? It’s not old. Whoa. I saw him cleaning his desk, like with like cloth. Oh yeah. That was something I couldn’t wait to do. Really?
00:11:05:06 –> 00:12:16:19
I’d been putting it off for, well, just cleaning off the dos. Yeah, just, just paper. There’s also a few things that are there that are, that are like kind of deadline things are stuff that you refer to a lot that are glad to putting away Yeah. Regulations. Put put ’em away. Yes. Regulations. Epic books. Epic magazines. Put ’em back where they go and make it look like closing out files your computer. Yes. Geez. Minimizing window. Yeah. No, not minimizing closing windows in your, in your browser that, you know, state application sites. Well, it’s a lot better. You’re right, Wyatt. It’s in fact we got a skeleton crew around here right now. Why the other half going, why we’re so excited for your year this year. You’ve got some exciting plans and, and I, I don’t have to dive into all of them. When you’re ready, you can tell why. Don’t wanna dive into all of ’em. But most of them. And, but, but just, I want you to be thinking about a hunting story. You’ve done a lot of guidance too. It could be a guidance story. Just something fun. Something fun. We’ll throw a throw a few stories on the end of this podcast. But as we get going, Bronson, maybe do you want to dictate how this is gonna go down? Order of events here. We’re gonna call our good buddy, Colton. Let’s give Colton a call first. Okay.
00:12:16:23 –> 00:13:30:04
He’s, he’s gonna be a good talk for big mule deer stories. Okay. After that, let’s maybe then get into a little bit on our own schedules a little bit. Which is not final. I wanna say that it’s not final, bro, but we’re all Bronson, we’re all some consulting. So if you’ve got any good ideas, now would be, John might be need it more than me. I might need it more than anybody John. We’ll get into that later. John. We can spend points and money we’re really good at, especially other people’s. Yeah. Points is not gone so well. So no, we need to, money might be, we should have taken that into our own hands a little more. You were in France for two weeks. If you’d have just given us your card, we could have made something happen. Yep. Yep. We would’ve got Jenna affair, we would great tag. She’s got a tag. So this year you, I’m like, okay, I’m gonna have to hunt my wife’s tag. Hard, not me hunt it, but take her because it’s hard. Scout it. Hard, hard. Which got a general, she’s gonna have to get up early and Yeah. Which she’s fine with. As long as she has like cell service, cell service weeping. She’s like, yeah, she’s got weepy. She can sit on the point and eye glass and she scrolls. Isn’t that what the French call it? Wey? Yeah, it’s wey something. It’s really, yeah. Oh yeah.
00:13:31:02 –> 00:14:47:15
It’s spelled the same. It’s it’s just pronounced different. Yeah. Wey. Wey. Okay. There’s a lot of, not just French, but like English, like British English words that are like that they, they phonetically say them instead of like how they got Americanized. So I think the important part of this is this conversation gonna be coming up after we talk to Colton is a, I mean it there’s a lot of people in that boat. Yeah. Is what do I do now? Right? What do I do? It’s June. It’s about over. Yeah. And like you said Adam, like what have I really got to look forward to? Like what would get me excited to go to Colorado or to go to wherever. Right. Wherever John, what would get you excited? Right. Same with everybody else out there. So anyway, that, that’ll be a fun conversation. Colton Peterson, Wyatt killed a freaking giant last year. He did last year and the last few years. And last, I dunno, last how many this one graced our cover. I don’t know how many he wants to talk multiple. Talk about, yeah, pick one. I think he’s one of our only two time cover guys with ginormous. He might be dear. Don’t know that for a fact. John could probably do that later. But anyway. Yeah, one of the, one of the few, maybe there’s one other Vince Bloom maybe, I can’t remember. I can’t remember if he’s sat.
00:14:47:15 –> 00:15:57:15
Yeah, it really concentrates up there in Northern. He had that velvet elk and then that Oregon Mulder, he really concentrates his efforts up there, it seems like. Anyway, in that northern part of the country. Utah, Wyoming. Yeah. Idaho. All that country. And well, we’re trying to do it in five or six states or, and usually underachieving in five or six of them. He’s sticking to where he knows stuff really good. Well, I think he’s good at that. We’ll, we’ll ask him what he thinks his, yeah. Maybe what he thinks his secret to success is. But it feels like it’s, I’m gonna ask him if he thinks we should making good on the, on local knowledge and hunting repeated Yeah. Repeated areas and stuff. Yeah. Yep. I’m gonna ask him if, you know, less is actually more Right. All type principle. And Carter needs that talk this year. I think I, I offered John some of my stuff. Did you? Yeah. The problem, especially the white tail stuff. Yeah. That’s, he’s giving away. I’m having a little buyer’s. I don’t know if this is a white tail year. Maybe though. Hey, it’s always up to be an incredible white tail. It is for me it’s, I’ve heard it’s never getting better. It could be one of the most incredible mule deer years that’ll here I it could amazing for Blacktail. That’s true too. And so anybody that wants to do Blacktail, we’ve got options for you.
00:15:57:27 –> 00:17:06:27
Sikka, Columbia, Columbia, whatever, whatever. So yeah, I’m just not sure I picked the right year to do the whitetail, but hey, those opportunities came and I snagged them. Okay, well let’s call Colton. We’ll find out what deer he wants. Well, which one of the last three he wants to talk about. And I really, this the, the one that’s on the recent cover. Yeah, that’s, I mean, dude, the stupid big, yeah. Framed stupid. Big boxy like this. But yeah, tings like this, this, but he claims that it, you know, I know initially that just, you know, not just a total accident, but somewhat lucky. Let’s get it from me and I just have a hard time believ it. Well it was late in the hunt. A I mean, a hard time. I, it wasn’t like an opening day but, or opening week. He knows what he’s doing. He’s a predator in the woods. Let’s give him a holler. Hello. Sounds like some 30 fives rolling down the highway. Yep. Yeah. Well it’s Adam and Jason and John and Wyatt and Cash and Logan. We’re all here. You got a few minutes to talk big dear. Yep. Got y’all. Well good.
00:17:07:07 –> 00:18:21:01
Well we’re just, we teed it up a little bit just with, you know, who you are, where you’re from and how you’re really, really good at, at, you know, that northern Utah, Southeast Idaho, southwest Wyoming kind of where you put your, I mean you obviously guide in Southern Utah units and things like that. But as far as personally, you know, we’re wondering sometimes Jason and I, and we start trying to chase everything around all of Western US and sometimes you wonder if that’s less is more. And so that might come out today, but let’s, you know, how’s things first off is this is the winter broke finally and you got green everywhere up there finally with Yep. It’s kind of, it’s kind of crazy how fast it changed Winter took forever and thought it was never gonna stop and then all of a sudden it just left real quick. Yeah. Well I know I haven’t been up as far as where you are in north, you know, northeast Utah, I guess very extreme northeast corner, but everywhere else is green and pretty in Utah. I know that. So I’m sure it is up there. Yep, it is. What do you think, I mean, what do you, what’s your kind of forecast of all that country? Not just Wyoming, but all that country?
00:18:21:03 –> 00:19:36:19
Like, I mean obviously nobody likes to see a heavy winter kill, but, but, but what do you think, what do you think this year’s outlook looks like? Yeah, so that’s, that’s really hard to predict. I mean obviously we can’t really foresee what’s gonna happen in the future when I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately. Really it comes down to your mindset when it comes to hunting. You know, if you don’t have a good mindset or positive mindset going into it, you’re gonna have a hard time staying focused and and dedicated at 3:00 AM on a trailhead. So really truth is there’s gonna be less deer. I don’t know how, how drastic that really is gonna be, but there will be less deer. But on the same note, there’s still gonna be big deer killed. There’s still gonna be big elk killed. So I don’t know if that answers your question or not, but, so basically you’re gonna have to be willing to accept that you’re not gonna see, you’re not gonna, maybe the buck, if you did hunt it last year, somebody or a buddy did, may not be right where he is at or he is dead. But basically tell yourself there’s something big here. I just gotta find it going with that mindset. Yep, yep. You have to, you have to have the right mindset.
00:19:36:29 –> 00:20:52:29
’cause if you’re really worried about whether you’re making the right decision or not, and, and then you go in, you’re already starting off on a bad note. Yeah. If you have one slow day up there, no dear, you’re like, they all died and it’s easier to drive home and you know, yep. Burned all my points. I made the mistake, it shouldn’t be doing this. And, and it’s just a downward spiral from there. So really it’s your mindset and that’s hard for all of us to do. Yeah. And a lot of people I’ve talked to, you know, pro, I’d probably say 95% of the people that were deciding if they should put in for some of these units up here, whether it’s in Wyoming or Utah, most of them backed out and, and it wasn’t, it was just the unknown. It was, gosh, I should wait four or five, whatever years. But when it comes down to it, it could be worse then. Like that’s what we don’t know, like, have another winner. You could have another partial winner keel coming up this year or next year or three years. That’s just as bad. Who knows? Yeah, for sure. Interesting stuff. Well, Colton not to, I mean, not to know. You’re a humble guy so I don’t necessarily want to, you know, embarrass you or anything, but I mean, how you’ve killed a number of big deer.
00:20:53:15 –> 00:22:10:27
How many, how many giants have you have you killed over the years? And it seems like it’s fairly recent in the last, I would say decade. Yeah, for sure. All, all luck. I really lucky guy killed. No, no one will believe that. 10 or 15 over 200. Every one of ’em was luck. Yeah. I somehow they walk in front of my bullet every year or arrow. How many, how many of these giants? I mean, how many two hundreds have you have you taken? It’s just, and it’s more or less just interest. It’s just a, an appreciation for all the hard work that you put into this stuff. Yeah. I think I’ve killed six over 200 and then pile of deer between the 180 and one and of these two hundreds, like, I mean they’re, they’re big deer. Yeah. This, this cover bug, this last cover bug multiple over two 20. Yeah. And one of the cool things is too, he has a lot of history with these deer too. I mean that’s one of the first things when I met Colton was just the history he had with mule deer and big mule deer was just unbelievable. Following ’em from summer to winter, sheds 50 miles, trail camera photos, everything. How are you Colton? I mean, are you using trail cameras up in that high country And if you do, what do you find that’s somewhat effective?
00:22:11:24 –> 00:23:35:16
And so, so you’re not so in Utah before they started making law changes or whatever, you know, salt was very effective when it came to locating Yeah. Animals, whether it was moose, elk, deer or whatever. And, and with all these new law changes, it definitely makes it harder to use truck cameras effectively in the high country because the country’s so big and it just swallows you up. You can’t just go scatter cameras out like some of these other units where you can drive and walk 30 minutes and hang cameras. So when you’re like, just specifically talking about Wyoming, it’s really hard to be effective with trail cameras there. ’cause you’re not supposed to use salt or any type of bait. And so whether you put it on a spring or a saddle or a tree line or whatever, yeah you could get, get something, but it’s just not as effective because of the laws placed. Yeah. Just very random encounters. If you get something, it’s a supplemental versus Oh yeah, I can find a bunch of deer to hunt off of my trail cameras. It’s not, it’s usually the other way around. You know, maybe seen a deer, no of a deer and wondering, alright, how big’s he ro roaming in here and oh, I got a picture over here. That kind of gives a piece of information, basically. Not, not often a oh, there’s a new deer you’ve never seen before type thing. For sure.
00:23:36:01 –> 00:25:02:24
So are you finding, I I mean you’ve, you know, I guess you’re just, I mean, even though it’s less effective, you know, it still seems some guys are doing decently. I mean they’re, they’re doing everything. They’re, they’re g glassing heavy, obviously that’s the main, the, you know, the main way to scout on some of that high country. But running a few cameras too and just key locations and things like that you’ve learned about over the years, I’m sure. Yeah. It’s, are you, oh, go ahead. I’d, I’d probably say, you know, in that high country stuff, whether it’s wherever you’re at in high country, I, I tend to try to locate an animal before I would even consider hanging a camera. Just ’cause of how big the landscape is. Yeah. But like all northern Utah, like I’ll run a bunch of cameras for all the big game species and you know, I might have a camera set in lower country where there’s a lot of elk and catch a up comer buck or a buck that’s big. And then I’ll hone in on that. So un unintended. Yeah. Whether you’re doing one. Yeah. You know, you, you guide elk up there and some moose and sometimes a buck shows up and you know, there’s a bonus basically and in a random place. And then it starts from there and you try to fall and then hone in on where’s he actually living and things like that.
00:25:02:29 –> 00:26:07:03
And Wyoming is, it is vast. I mean it all, it, it looks the same and you’re right, like a saddle or tree line and there’s generally water, a lot plenty of water even in the desert. Yeah. The desert has running right now streams. Like it’s, yeah. It’s not gonna be a normal, but even even dry years, it’s just wyoming’s a different desert than down here. Yeah, yeah. You know? For sure. Yeah. So, so are you, are you finding it effective? Like you’re sinking months and months after the season even, and I know that’s gotta be helpful. Like what, like what Wyatt’s saying is how much time and energy and following these deer and, and, and, and you’re doing it just ’cause you love deer, but it’s gotta be helpful too, is learning everything you can about ’em to being successful and harvesting some of these giants. Yeah, a hundred percent. So a lot, a lot of hunters out there, it’s, they just do it when the hunt is, or they draw a tag and, and then they’ll start scouting a couple months before and then it’s over. For me, it’s always been different.
00:26:07:13 –> 00:27:42:13
It’s year round and let’s not talk to my wife about this because it’s a sensitive subject, but I’ve learned so much from following year round, learned so much from watching them migrate and, and then showing up on their rut grounds and then moving to their winter grounds and then watching how they act and, and just the transitions it’s taught, it just teaches so much. And, and it doesn’t just happen. You can’t just do that one year, two years. Like it’s a consistent growth process. Yeah. Something you gotta stick, stick to it and and grind it out. Yeah. And you know, when I was thinking about it, when Adam text me and asked to come talk to you guys, I was like, gosh, like I didn’t know what I was gonna say or, or obviously, but with my success, obviously there’s a lot of preparation that goes into it and, and just as much luck. But I would probably say I’ve learned more from failing and mistakes in the field than I have killing a big deer, you know, killing a big deer or a big animal. Whether I’m guiding somebody or for myself. I, I’ve been able to achieve that from heartache, from mistakes, from things that I screwed up and, and that taught me like, okay, I can never do that again. And that’s, that’s been probably what’s helped me grow most in what I love.
00:27:43:24 –> 00:28:49:15
Well, and to add to that, maybe you’ve, you’re also, and it’s a little bit different from southeast Idaho to northern Utah to southwest Wyoming in terms of how you acquire tags. But I guess I would just still lump that all into their general season type easier areas though easier. You’re not talking about waiting 15 or 20 years to hunt, you know, ponant Henry’s limited entry type stuff. If you do that, you’re not gonna hunt. I mean, you do get a chance on good moisture to hunt really big deer and it’s phenomenal. It’s great. But if that’s all you wait for, to hunt big deer and go hunt, you’re not gonna learn how to fail. You’re not gonna learn from your mistakes and all that. So you’re hunting, you know, many of those areas every year or maybe two outta the three or maybe all three of them some years based on preparation and planning with friends both Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. And there’s something to be said for that. Hunting repeated areas and, and areas you can hunt, hunt a lot. And instead of, you know, of your six deer, I don’t, I don’t know of ’em all over 200, but I, I don’t know if any of ’em are on a primo limited entry hunt. I I don’t think they are.
00:28:49:15 –> 00:30:06:09
Maybe you could correct me, but they’re just from a lot of freaking time and effort and learning, like you said, and doing things repetitively. Yeah, a hundred percent. I I haven’t been able to draw a limited entry dear tag yet. I think I’m pushing 20 points now, but I just, you, you nail it right on head. I’m like, I’m not gonna wait to chase big deer till I’m 40 something, you know, till you get a scot tag and you happen to draw it on a dry year and then you end up with just a buck and now you’ve, you killed, you know, you smashed six giants be because you, you know, got a lot of elbow grease in it. A lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that’s honestly moving forward 21st century and 2023, that, that’s more and more how you’re, how you have to do it. Ta tags are hard to get, not just talking to Utah and these three states we’re talking about, but everywhere Nevada is incredibly hard. Arizona for a quality meal, there’s incredibly hard New Mexico, it’s almost impossible ’cause there’s so few real true units. So Colorado’s moderated. So you’ve gotta, we’ve said it a lot, you gotta make more with less and you gotta try to put more into maybe the, the more average tags that you can get easier. And, and it’s not gonna happen every single year. It surely hasn’t.
00:30:06:09 –> 00:31:26:05
For you, you’ve been on a great run, it feels like though, it feels like every time you’re killing a big one, but, but you’re also, you know, adding nat adding layers of info year after year in the same areas. And something to be said for that, I don’t think that’s an accident. You call it luck and, and it, it does take some, but it’s, it’s luck is, you know, proceeded by a whole lot of, whole lot of effort and preparation. So something, so are you, Colton, are you concentrating, like do you find yourself, I mean it, you know, just concentrating in that area ’cause that’s your favorite area and that’s the way you like to hunt. What’s, what’s, you know, or is that even something you consciously think about? I mean, you know, what’s your formula for which tags you get and you like to hunt? Honestly, you know, just like you guys just said, it’s, I, I can’t say enough about how special general seasons are and, and I think that the world has kind of put general seasons in kind of a bad category. Like it’s like the, the crap unit. It’s, it’s, everyone can be there. There’s orange everywhere, but really it’s, they’re by far some of my favorite units to hunt. And it, it requires more effort, that’s for sure.
00:31:26:06 –> 00:32:44:15
You can’t, there’s not a general unit that can compare to the Henry’s where you can go down there and drive the dirt roads for three hours in the morning and, you know, see 50 to a hundred bucks and, and not even step, step off the road and, and some of them being over 200 inches, you know. But it, it, it definitely requires a lot of work. But, you know, i I just focus on where I can get a tag and then try to just go off what information I have. And that’s specifically, like I talked about piling up my information year after year. So last year, what box did I see? What box were on the cameras, what box have people been talking about? If I get a tag, I’m gonna hone in on those deer and try and figure ’em out. It just, it definitely requires more work, but the deer are just as good on general season as they are in limited and special quotas. That’s awesome. Let’s talk about this, you know, this latest cover. You, you’ve been on a couple of our covers with just giants, but let’s talk about this latest one. Maybe give us a quick story on that sucker. I mean, what a what an absolute slob, giant freaking four point frame and then just stupid amazing shooters.
00:32:44:15 –> 00:33:57:15
It really, I, I don’t even know where to start other than it’s the first deer over 200 inches I’ve killed that I did not know about. And I’m talking like within an hour of me first finding him to killing him. You know, I, I was hunting a, a different deer, you know, and I, I assumed the other buck was maybe like two 20 or something, and basically took me all day to get up in there, set, set a couple tents up. I had a couple buddies with me and it, it is funny, you know, one of my buddies, we, we hiked in on Sunday and, and I respect him. He, he said, I’m not going to hunt on Sunday. And I said, that’s fine. You know, he was totally cool hiking in and he is like, I’m not, I I just won’t pull the trigger on Sunday. And, and I said, no problem man. Well, we’re setting up the tents and I kid you not like, I look off the hill and it was less than a hundred yards. There’s a buck, a little buck that’s feeding through the timber patch and it’s probably just a 2-year-old three point. And I’m like, oh, that’s, look, had ’em look at and it’s kind of cool or whatever. We’re 10 miles in there. Anyways, it was two, three minutes later I looked back down there.
00:33:57:21 –> 00:35:21:13
There’s a buck that’s probably, you know, at least 180 5 and he’s feeding, there he is 80 yards away. He is got a split three, probably seven inches deep. And I looked at my buddy and he, he is like, I’m not shooting him. I’m like, dude, grab your gun and kill the deer. Like that’s, that’s self-defense. It’s close. We can ask for forgiveness later. Yeah, you’re gonna be just fine and I’m not gonna bring his name up, whatever, and hopefully doesn’t give a spot. I’m like, dude, just kill the deer. Like no one’s gonna know. Just dude, that’s an awesome buck. Anyway, he is like, Nope, not doing it. I’m like, okay. Anyways, buck just fed, fed into the timber. I’m like, holy cow. Anyways, so there was probably an hour left of life. I literally walked a hundred yards from the tent and looked into the drainage. I just sat there and wasn’t really expecting to hunt, just kind of relaxing or whatever. And it wasn’t too much longer heard a bull. There might’ve been two or three bulls starting to go off. And this was, oh, the very, this is, I think there’s only two or three days left of the hunt. So this is the beginning of October. I think the hunt ended like six or something. Anyways, this is the first day that I’ve hunted in this, on this season last year, like the first day I’ve, I’m only hunting like three days.
00:35:22:03 –> 00:36:41:21
Geez. And bulls are screaming and I’m like, oh, I’m gonna try and see what, what tight caliber bulls in here. And it wasn’t too long, too much longer. I looked down in the very bottom of this drainage and it goes flat and it’s just really thick willows and I, with my vinyls, I see a, it look to me like a dough. It’s just coming outta the willows. It just, it just wasn’t where you would see a big deer. No. Anyways, I grabbed my scope, put it on, and immediately the only thing I remember was short twos narrow frame and some couple cheaters. I mean, I didn’t even see a split three, I didn’t even see how long the cheaters were. I didn’t realize how long times were. And I was like, oh. I’m like, that’s actually pretty good deer. Yeah. So I’m looking about a thousand yards straight down hill, which is over 2000 feet drop in elevation. So when you’re looking down, obviously you guys know on an animal like that, you can’t really tell actually how big it is. Looking on down is the worst look to, you’ll under judge stuff sometimes that way. And then you’re also thinking it’s about to get dark. I gotta lose 2000 feet just to confirm what I hope I’m thinking and I gotta hike back up to camp.
00:36:42:24 –> 00:37:57:25
All these things are racing your head as it’s time to either go or, or, or not go for that night. For sure. In my mindset, I know it’s a bad mindset, but I’m okay eating tags. Like I’m either, if I’m gonna kill a a deer, it’s gonna be big. And if it’s not, I don’t need to kill, you know, a 180 buck or whatever. Like it’s okay. I’m, I’m okay within myself. I don’t need to. Anyway, so I flew off this finger ridge and immediately got engulfed in pines. And I, I, well, well back up. Before I dropped off, he had one little buck with him and they immediately laid down. Like I watched him lay down, but I was looking through a big pine, so I was like, okay, take off. Got a chance. I took off and, and, and I knew dropping all this feet in a matter of minutes. I was like, I’m gonna hate coming out of here, especially if I don’t kill this deer. But I have, I have to because I don’t really know how big this deer really is and I just, I need to at least know. And so I flew off and I was getting closer and I was trying to like look, so, so I was kind of like, it was like a finger ridge, but kind of on the north facing side. So I’m really in thick pines.
00:37:57:25 –> 00:39:19:05
So I’m, I’m looking, trying to look out of the pines on my same hillside and it’s really hard to do. So anyways, I finally get down and I’m looking where I thought he was. I’m like, gosh, he’s not there. He got up crap. And all of a sudden I saw the little back. I’m like, oh no. So I looked just next to him. He’s sitting right there so hurried and pulled my scope out of my pack and put up just to look. So I’m roughly like 200 yards from him now. And I only looked in my scope for probably maybe a second or two seconds. And I’m like, yep, I need to kill him now. And, and still, I, I didn’t even look at detail. I didn’t even know it was beam split. Didn’t even know how to split three, nothing like that. And so hurry and grabbed my gun and it was really, it was complicated because I wanted to lay down and I didn’t wanna screw it up. But all the undergrowth wasn’t allowing me to do that. I couldn’t even sit down because the, the bowels from the pine trees on the same hillside as me were in front of me. And so basically I had to raise my tripod up to a point where I couldn’t even kneel. I had to be higher than kneeling, but low, higher than kneeling, but lower than standing. So it was a really awkward situation.
00:39:20:00 –> 00:40:49:08
Anyways, I just freaking hoped that I didn’t screw up and disclose it. And, and I watched both of ’em jump up and they ran into the willows and, and he didn’t act hit. And I was like, oh crap. So anyways, I dropped down, went over there and the little bot came out and went running, but the big deer didn’t. And I was like, oh, by the time I got there, that’s a good sign. I had to get a, I had to get a flashlight out. So I started to look kind of where he is. Beded, no blood looked where I thought he ran nothing. That’s where I was starting to get sick. So I went up a little higher and I only went in like 10 yards and piled up and going in there. He, he had piled up so his head was under his body and pulling his head out. I literally about puked because everything was way bigger than I even imagined. It was a very special experience. ’cause usually when I go up to animals that I’ve helped people kill or I’ve killed, I, I usually know what we’re gonna grab. Yeah. I usually know have a really good idea. And this one was so far off. I mean, I didn’t even know if it was a 200 inch steer. I knew he was good, but it was much more, much, much more. How much more, just get the dimensions.
00:40:49:10 –> 00:42:10:06
He’s obviously on the cover and everybody that there’s been a lot, most lot of listeners have seen it. But I mean, we’re talking a ginormous four point frame and then big freaking long cheaters straight out. But how, you know, anyway, what, what’s his frame? What’s his trash get? Get some numbers. Let’s talk a little bit about it. His frames 2, 2 11 Girls’s 2 36. Yeah. Is that a Wyatt score? I’ve never of official that one. No. All he needs to So bring him down. Yeah, bring him on down. We’d love bring him. Well I guess we did see him at the expo, so Yeah, well yeah, but I mean, geez, get it final, final. His, his G threes were 17 inches. Yeah. Wow. And the dwarf, you know, we had shorter G twos than, but those threes, I don’t know if I’ve heard of a bigger one. No, that’s as big as they make. Yeah. And so that with those big threes, it probably, I mean his twos weren’t as short as they look, but when they’re next to those trees. Yeah. And then his fours were 16 and a half. Yeah. Dang. I think the one, the one, the big cheater I think was eight inches. Just everything was super long. It was really neat.
00:42:10:20 –> 00:43:33:14
Do you think, I mean, is this a deer you think you’ve seen on the winter range or have history that you’re not, that you don’t remember sometimes or just, or even seeing that buck in the summer in previous years saw that? Yep. This is crazy. I I, when I walked up, I was almost a hundred percent sure I knew what deer it was. A buddy picked up his sheds and I think last year he was like 1 98. And so I was pretty sure I knew what deer it was until I had to wait a whole year and see if the butt came back. And sure enough he showed back up bigger, same, same looking type deer obviously not as big that deer showed up. So I’m like on the winter range. Wow, what deer is this? Who this? Yep. And it’s crazy. I, there, there’s, there’s so many deer out there that I have no idea about. They’ll show up on the winter range. I run cameras on underpasses through Wyoming on mi migration routes and I’ll get hundreds and hundreds of bucks and and never see ’em again. Never. Some of ’em I have seen on the summer ranges, some of them I’ll see later in the winter, but there’s other bucks that are like, I don’t ever see pictures of sheds. It just goes to show how many bucks are really out there that Yeah. Are going unseen.
00:43:33:16 –> 00:45:04:28
Well the winter range was loaded this year and it does, it gives you big country gives you hope that, that Colton hasn’t named ’em all. That’s right. Well, and it’s, but if you’ve been to that part of Wyoming, it’s vast, it’s rough and it’s timbered in a lot of it. And yeah, there’s a lot of sun range to just swallow ’em up as they spread out, you know. How many miles are you finding, I mean, some of these will, some, some of ’em don’t travel that far and they, I maybe they went or near after or whatever, but how many miles are you finding a lot of these deer will go? I think on average it’s, it’s between 30 to 80. 80, 60. Pretty average. But you know, some of ’em, some of will be, you know, over a hundred miles, but a average is, yeah. 60 I would say long ways. I mean, you know, you go eastern US that’s across sometimes two states. Yeah. You know, out, out west that’s a, that’s a hop, skip and a jump. And we have a few units like northern Utah, maybe not quite that, but like ponson deer move a long, long ways. You know, not always 60 miles, but that part of Wyoming is fairly well documented through that, you know, mule deer migration initiative that there, and even northern Colorado, Southern Wyoming. And they’ve done a lot of cool stuff there and tying this together.
00:45:05:00 –> 00:46:17:16
So that’s why, back to kind of where we started talking today, the winter loss and the pockets that got hit. You don’t even know what summer range, you know, the general ranges they go to, but the specific areas that, that these deer go to winter, how far they’re pulling from. You don’t even know how to, how to say how bad it’s gonna be and where that bad is gonna be throughout the whole western part of Wyoming. Yeah. So like you’re saying, Adam, like they could have major, you know, winter loss in this geographic area, 15 by 15 or whatever it is. Right. But where does that look like, but where do those, where what does that look like on the summer range or in, or when you’re in the field in October or September, you don’t either one. It’s really hard to, to figure out because of that 30 to 70 miles. Yeah. You know, so some deer. Yeah. You know, don’t you know, there was, there’s a couple couple bucks that I’ve seen on the summer range, which is kind of, kind of cool and unique. There was two bucks that summer together and I was able to locate where both of ’em ended up on the winter. One of ’em, so both of these are, are region G deer, one of ’em went to pretty much the heart of the winter range, right. By La Barge. The other one went to the red desert.
00:46:18:09 –> 00:47:43:09
Wow. Geez. And they deer and they summer together. Yeah. And they summer together. And, and that, you know, that my buddy ended up killing the buck that went to La Barge and I think he was just over 200. But that other buck that’s still going in the red desert, he went, he, he showed up there this winter, which is crazy. He showed up down in the back to the Red Desert. Yeah. In the Red Desert this winter. Yep. Again, another crazy thing, you a lot of times we think like okay this Wyoming herd, if any of those mule deer are coming down, like through Sage Junction heading to Emington, you think okay, they’re G deer. There is a buck that came through this winter headed to Emington that was a region H deer that far north. Wow. Geez. Yeah. And kind of crossways a little, just kind of it’s awesome stuff. Yeah. Yeah. We’ve even learned, we’ve even learned stuff like Josh, he’s not here today, but these ponson deer that migrate from the ponson back up over the top of Pengu and, and winter north of between Cedar and Perin. Like you’d never think, think that that’s the weirdest in your life that AEG gone Summer buck is gonna go up over the top of a summer range that’s way higher than where it’s summering and go north. And you know, we’re just, you don’t think that way.
00:47:43:13 –> 00:49:04:01
And they get down, they get killed there, killed on the second weekend of the general on the sage brush. Anyway. The crazy lot to learn. Well, what do you, are you hunting Idaho a bit? Or or here and there? Or how often are you doing Idaho? So yes and no. I, I have a young family and so I definitely have to be smart with what, what time I spend away from ’em. And so I’m very, very active in the Idaho part. Have some really close buddies that really have it, you know, on lockdown and the deer that they’re finding are amazing. But I just have to be smart with where I place my time and where I spend it. ’cause I also am a father and Right. A husband and wanna take care of what’s important. So, you know, when, when my, I didn’t have all these kids. I was hunting all these states, you know, but once I started getting a few kids, I was like, okay, I need to hone it back a little bit and just focus on one or two specific spots. So do you usually, do you usually hunt at least two of the three up there? Your yourself? Yeah. At least two of three. Yeah. That about right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:04:07 –> 00:50:23:12
And have you found, like, Adam kind of has alluded to that less is more is actually, even though the kids and family have required you to concentrate on what’s most important to you, you’re actually more effective and and for sure knocking down some of these. Yep. I, I, I found, so back in two, let’s see, 2019, that first buck that you guys put on your cover that I killed with my bow in northern Utah. I had Idaho, I had Wyoming, a region GT tag. I had dedicated tag in Utah. And, and when I found this buck that I ended up killing in Utah and, and realized how big he was, I knew that I was going to regret it if I put my eggs in all these other baskets. And it was unfortunate because I’d finally drawn G but I didn’t put the time that I wish I would’ve because I had another buck that was to, to me well worth Yeah. If I could harvest him than trying to kill like Trump everything else. It’s like, I’m not gonna go kill a 200 steer in all three units. You could, but you’re gonna need a lot of luck. And so less is more for sure. Let’s maybe talk about that dear a little bit more.
00:50:23:12 –> 00:51:37:11
That’s one where you had years of knowledge kind of kinda sheds and kind of connected the dots to where it finally came together on the summer ground that the one in 2019? Yeah. Yeah. He, he girl scored 2 52 and was 41 inches on his outside. His inside is 19 is a really unique frame, big flyers. He, he was a buck that two years before I killed him. He showed up in Logan, like downtown Logan during the Rutt. And that’s what happens a lot of times in up here in Logan is a lot of these mountain Deere will migrate off the cash and then come down in town. And so if you don’t really have a good idea of what’s, what’s a city deer or not, you’re, you’re not gonna know. But when these bucks show up during the Rutt and they have black antlers and you’ve never seen him before, it’s like, oh, where’d you come from? Come out of the dark forest. Anyways, he was just a young, young buck with cheaters on each side. I think he’s like one 70. I didn’t really think much other than that deer could be something special. It’s gonna take a year to know. Was able to pick those sheds up. Not that I really tried, I didn’t put much effort into it, it was just, I pulled up and he’s laying there bald and they’re out there laying there.
00:51:37:11 –> 00:53:10:03
So picked them up the way I found out where that deer summered, well he summered on Beaver Mountain, the, the ski resort. So a lot of people go up there, a lot of people, there’s a lot of scout camps, girl camps, fan reunion reunions, bike trails or whatever. So the buck during the summer was shown himself. He was out on the lawn, he was out not, when I say lawn, he was out on the ski runs. Geez. All that stuff. And so a lot of people very visible. See Yeah. A lot of people were seeing him. He wasn’t stupid, but he saw people. Yeah. Yep. He was letting, letting everyone know he was there. And so pictures started getting out. I got a picture fairly soon in the summer, knew exactly, you know, what deer it was. And so I’m like, okay, I need to at least go figure ’em out. Went, went up there, put some cameras, immediately started getting ’em up. And that, that next year, I think he was like in the one nineties and I had to decide whether I was going to hunt him or not. And I chose not to just ’cause I felt like he still had more. Anyways, the next year was pretty crazy. He came back and he looked like, I mean, early summer, he just looked like a four point frame and it was, I’d say three to four weeks difference.
00:53:10:03 –> 00:54:34:18
Like there was points coming out everywhere and starting to lose sleep. Geez. I grew six 60 inches in one year. Wow. How do you, do you know how old he was when you killed him? Did you take a tooth or, or do you have a guess? I guess I, I, I didn’t, but I, I think he was only five. Wow. Are you finding that so we can quantify, we can watch these droughts come and go and down here in some of the southern country and you know, and we can track antler growth really consistently with water. But how, how about that high country talking about that, are you, like, obviously he was at the right age and he blew up, but do you find that they come and go with water? Or what do you find affects them in the high country? Year to year? Yeah. In the high country. I don’t believe that the drought had that big of an effect as it does on the southern states and southern units for sure. ’cause there’s, I mean, on a drought year, there’s still gonna be really big deer in the high country. And you’re, I mean, you’re probably, you know, there’s years on drought. There may not be a 200 steer on the pond count. And you, and you’ll see some of those bucks that were 2 20, 2 30 the year before, and, and they’re 180, 1 90 on that drought year.
00:54:35:21 –> 00:55:55:10
I think just those mount those, those high country deer are affected differently. Maybe hard, hard winter might have more of an impact them coming out of a hard winter. And even if it is a good summer, that, but generally you’re just saying age is probably just number one thing. They just gotta get old. If they’ve got the genetics and they get old, they’re, they don’t have the wide swings as much as somebody’s old deer. Five to five to 9-year-old deer down here can go up and down and up and down. Yeah. Year to year. Yeah. Up and down and maybe live their whole life and never really meet, re reach a maximum potential. Yeah. Yeah. If they’re, if they hit, you know, 2020 in the last, you know, few years have been kind of rough and that’s their prime years, you know, say five to seven, and they haven’t been able to manifest that. But watch out. It’s 2023. If they’re alive, they’re gonna bring it. Yeah. It’s interesting. Right. What I hope, so there, there’s a, there’s a buck that shows up in Jackson Hole every winter. And, you know, he, he’s posted on social media, not a lot, not like some of these other bucks, but this Jackson Hole gets pounded with snow, like feet and feet and feet. And this deer gets bigger every year and keeps coming back. Hmm. And so, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s just a good reassurance.
00:55:55:10 –> 00:57:16:18
Like, hey, even though there are some bad winners, they’re, these deer are very resilient. Some of them really can, can get through it and, and, and they get bigger. Hmm. That’s awesome. I don’t have anything else. I want to, I, I could talk for hours with you ’cause you, you were such a wealth of info up there in that country and, and it’s interesting to us. ’cause it’s not our backyard and, and it’s, it’s, there’s a lot, there’s a lot to be gained. Anybody else have anything for Colton? What a what a what an accomplishment. You’ve, I mean, you’ve killed lots of big deer in recent times and it’s just a testament to the, the focus and energy and time and years and months and days and whatever that you and your family have put into this friends. And you’ve just done a great job at knocking down special deer and it gets us riled up. And, and, and of course, I mean, found a big old pair of sheds this year. Yeah. I, I appreciate that, that you guys wanna talk about that for a minute. Well, we would if you, we, but we didn’t, we didn’t want to go somewhere. You didn’t want us to go with it, so. No, that’s, dude, that’s, that’s totally fine. Talk about, let’s talk about the king. Yeah. That, that was something else that riled the west pretty good. Yeah.
00:57:17:16 –> 00:59:08:14
But very, very special experience to, from the get go. I’ll be honest, I had no intentions of even looking for that deer. I didn’t even have intentions of looking for him last year. And I didn’t. But let’s see. So last year he had drop time, year four. Okay. So three years ago he showed up and was just a buck, like one 70 had like a dinger on each side. Nothing, nothing. Just took some video of him. The next year he showed up, he put on mass his two split and had a couple cheaters on each side. And I think he was like 1 95 that year. A buddy picked up one side and then someone from Idaho picked up the other, up to that point that deer was under the radar. Dang. The next year, which is last year, not last 2 22. Yeah. Not, not last year, the year before when he had the first drop time. Yeah. Showed up and, and he started turning heads and really impressive deer. I think that set wasn’t as big as he looked. I think the, the big side was 1 0 3, and then the other side was 78 with probably a four inches broken off as two. Well, last year he shows up and this is an amazing, deer explodes, the winters hit really hard probably beginning of January. And the snow packed into the point where you can’t get on two tracks that are opening more.
00:59:08:15 –> 01:00:32:02
So the way it works up there in Wyoming, there’s a certain area that two tracks close. And where the buck was, was where the two tracks close. So a lot of people are going up there filming the buck and then January 1st starts the roads close, snow pounds. And I don’t know what it was, but it seemed like from January 1st on, no one was seeing the buck. And I don’t know if it was, ’cause people weren’t going out there, if the snow was way too deep and discouraging people. But once that snow started hitting, the buck started shedding really fast, really early. And basically if you were to go up there and do a trip, you weren’t seeing very many bucks packing. And it’s probably just, all right, that was it for the year, whatever, just out. It’s hardly very many bucks packing. Anyway, so I was up there looking for another buck the end of January that I had lost. And I was driving, I wasn’t where the king was, and I looked over, it was probably like 10 in the morning, looked over four or 500 yards, and I saw two deer standing in a draw. So pulled over, pulling vinyls up about crap. I’m like, holy frick, it’s the king. And that it was, it wasn’t till then that I was like, I should probably keep an eye on this deer because I don’t think nobody knows where he’s been missing for a minute.
01:00:32:12 –> 01:02:01:26
And I got, got him in my scope and you’re, you know, late January, February, whenever it was. It’s getting closer now to time. Yeah. And other bucks have shed. So Yeah. I mean, so I was like, ah, I better put some effort into it. And so I started, I thought that he was probably going to shed pretty soon just because everything else is shed, he’s a really big deer. And basically everything that I believed up to that point went out the window because I felt like if it was a really bad winter, stressed, they shed early. Yeah. Yep. If their bodies are in bad condition, if they were hit during a hunt, they were hurt in the rutt, they usually dump earlier. Well, he kept them, and long story short, he kept them a week past when he shed the year before. Wow. And I was just like, what the heck is going on? I was getting frustrated. Anyways, I, I kept going up and lucky we were there when he shed and we knew right where to go and it was a pretty special experience. Yeah, man. Then you had, what, two and a half, three months to basically wait to be legal for some people that don’t, don’t know what Wyoming had a initial, I guess shit closure until May 1st, then it got postponed. Was it the 10th or 15th? I don’t remember. 15 eighth. Yeah, 15th.
01:02:02:05 –> 01:03:23:22
So tell you that was probably one of the hardest things to do is drive away from one of the baddest mules ever knowing that they’re laying there. The only thing though is it kept snowing and snowing and snowing. So they were probably getting buried. That’s maybe the only, the only good thing about it if it was a light winner, like they’re just, they would be, you know, just out there seeing from outer space. They’d be in the local bar. That’s right. Instead of here in Utah where they belong. Yeah. So yeah, I’ll bet that was a long wait. Pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. Every, every snow storm after he shed, I was like, yes. Keep, yeah, just bury him deeper, deeper. So keep him buried kinda of like the year prior he was still maintained being somewhat lopsided like 126 inches, but, and what, 90 on the other side or something like that? Yep. Yep. And then with inside, you’re what CREs your two forties or something? 40 to five or something. But, but one of the most amazing 240 inches ever built, like ever built mass. And I think it just captivated the whole world. A whole hunting world was captivated by this deer. He’s over 40 inches wide and, or, or 30 what? Just under 40, I guess 39 or something. But you can correct me if I’m wrong, Colton.
01:03:23:22 –> 01:04:43:21
And then just, but then just the look like he’s just the shock and awe, you know, you just don’t have deer like this alive anymore like they used to have. Yeah. He’s a, he’s a specimen. Somebody would paint or draw. Yeah. That’s that type of deer afic a fictional buck that you would draw. You know what I mean? That’s the type of deer when you look at ’em, it’s like, oh yeah. Well those, those don’t really grow. No, that’s kind of the deer you use. You, you paint, you paint those deer, you paint ’em and draw ’em and they’re figment of your imagination. That’s right. But anyway. Oh, I mean, when you went and held them, I mean, are they, they as, are they dense? I mean, they just, they they are as impressive as you could have even imagined. Wow. They’re heavy, heavy, heavy. And that one side just isn’t right. The right side. Yeah. That big side is 126 inches of freaking dense bone. Yeah. It’s, I mean, they’re not light super, super heavy. It’s just, it’s special. It’s very special. Geez. If, if somebody gets the privilege to harvest that deer, they are going to be blessed. Oh yeah. Yeah. Huh. All right, well, well that’s pretty awesome. What can you say about that? A lot of mul deer overloaded. I’m I mind spinning right now. Well, Bron Bronson needs tags. Colton, you have any, you got any ideas for Bronson?
01:04:43:21 –> 01:05:49:18
Well, we gotta, yeah, there’s a, I mean, I, I’m rethinking maybe I don’t, maybe I need one and put everything into that one. I feel like that I do feel like less is better. Less is more. Less is better. It’s just hard at this stage in our life is how many more hunting seasons do you have, Bronson? How many more do you have where you’re physically and mentally and you really want to make the most of the tags 50 50 more. Yeah, you’re gonna be a hundred. So gotta be optimistic. Colton said you gotta be, what was the word he used? No. A realistic Yeah. Mindset. It’s a mindset. Yeah. You gotta have a mindset’s. Well, what’s that? Let’s put, you want Peter to be realistic. You got 15 boss bull crap. 65. You ain’t gonna be running cameras. Come on. Come on guy. No, I, I got my boy will be like 30, 35. He’ll running ’em for me. It ain’t gonna run ’em the same. Yeah. Gonna micromanage him. You’re gonna micromanage him. So he puts ’em upright. That’s right. It’s all, you’re right. It’s, you’re right. I mean, I, we all count ’em. I mean, whether you’re but but less tax. So it’s hard.
01:05:49:24 –> 01:06:55:29
Our, I guess our point, Colton, I mean, you’re gonna get this way when you get old like us is, you know, as, as you see, the years go by and they go, they went by really fast and then you’ve got x amount of years coming up and that, you know, they’re gonna go by really fast. So you grab every tag in the world you can, or even that you thought you wanted and then you end up doing nothing justice. Yep. Kinda like when Covid hit water was in short supply cases of water. You grabbed one every time you saw one. Oh, we convenience stores. We still have those stupid 500 gallon fricking storage bins. What do you mean? I got two. I mean, who, 600 gallon. Who needs that? I could shower in that for three weeks if I needed to anyway. In my basement. All right. Colton, you got anything else that we haven’t asked or that you wanna offer while we got you on? Oh, it’s, it’s good talking to you guys and I, I appreciate, appreciate the opportunity and, and that you guys feature some my bucks that I’ve been able to harvest and it’s just a great privilege, so I appreciate it. Oh, we appreciate you being willing to visit with us on a workday. And I know you got plenty going. I’m not hearing you rolling down the road anymore. You might have pulled off or something.
01:06:56:15 –> 01:08:00:22
Yeah, I, I, I pulled, I pulled off so I didn’t wreck or anything. Well, we appreciate it. We do. Thanks a lot. We know everybody’s busy and got stuff to do and you could be doing, but thanks for taking a minute. It’s good for us problem. Good for listeners, so No problem. Yeah. Best of luck on your hunts this year. Okay, thank you. Alright, you too. Okay. Take it easy. Be safe. See you guys. Bye. He kept mentioning luck. There’s a lot of preparation going he’s under, you know, and you can’t, I don’t, I’m sure he is being a little bit time to talk about a little bit humble, but, but it does like it Wow. On general units, you’re, you’re dealing with lots of other hunters, elk hunters at the same time on top of deer hunters in Wyoming because he had archery elk going on at the same time he rifle deer. Oh. And just pressure and what that does to older bucks makes ’em go underground in that country. Yeah. It saves ’em, you know, and, and, and they’re in timber. They just dig in deep. Yeah. And it’s why you can sh you know, have a chance to show up the last three or four days, whatever. So said it was three days. Yeah. And, and still have a chance to kill a deer like that.
01:08:00:23 –> 01:09:06:10
Well, and your outfitters are allocated permits and, and they’re, they’re only allowed to hunt in certain parts of the general regions. Yeah. Certain camps. And so where, whereas like he, as long as it’s not wilderness, he can go wherever he wants or, and anybody or with the resident, he can go wherever he wants. Doesn’t have to even camp here. He can go the coyote out, you know. And so end up where he ends up, you have a little bit of freedom if you’re willing to stretch it, hunt on your own too, you know, you can get creative. But anyway, that comes with years though. It’s anybody that’s successful, anything in life, it comes with years of, of being there. He’s, he’s been up there years, A lot of prerequisites. Yeah. That, that can’t have time to go through ’em all. And knowledge builds on knowledge. Right. Like, well he said it red desert versus, you know, la barge versus whatever. And then the summer range is in no different, this summer range, that summer range, this summer range. It’s just like the local history we have here. I I know. I till about here, we all places we’re gonna go look first when we hit a unit. Yeah. When we go. It’s that local knowledge. You can’t beat it. I’m gonna at these till pockets. That’s the first place I’m hitting. ’cause Yeah. Odds are when something’s good. Right. And it’s a good year.
01:09:06:18 –> 01:10:16:29
There’s gonna be something good there. But his local knowledge is different than the, than his neighbor. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because he’s had, he’s been blessed with a, a job that allows him to, to run a little bit a a good wife and family or whatever. And, and even though he’s, he’s been constrained a little bit. A little bit. Yeah. He watched the king for how many days in a row. Yeah. You know what I mean? He does have a little function and he also lives within a, you know, two hour proximity or whatever. But you gotta be willing to drive two hours daily. Gas, gas, gas, sleep in the cab of your truck probably. Yeah. That’s definitely something that a lot of people don’t take into account is how many days he went out and probably didn’t see a decent deer. Right. To every big deer that he did. Lots of bald boats. How much time he did spend stupid amount of time. Yeah. Yeah. And good for him. He said two things. And I’m kind of curious on, on if you guys have any experience with, with this, but one was the most, you think you’ve seen one deer grow in a year and then range, like how, how far you think you’ve, you know, a deer has traveled I think like Yeah, well that’s as high as probably I would say 80 miles is on the far end of the spring.
01:10:17:00 –> 01:11:20:19
And that 60 inches is like the far end of the spec. The far end. Yeah. It’s normal. It’s common to be 20 to 20 to 50 inches. Yeah. 20 to 40. But I mean, if places like that where genetics are superior places, like strip things like that can happen. Huge, huge swing. Huge growth. That’s not, there’s only, but there’s body conditions. There’s, you know, what the year prior condition ag is, you know, the bad year and then the good year, is he getting over the hump? Is he end the half, is he going four and a half to five and a half, five and a half to six and a half? Or is he going from seven and a half to eight and a half? Yeah. Yeah. You know, or three and a half to four and a half. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. And there’s a lot that goes into that stuff. That’s so interesting. But 30 to Yeah. 20 to 50 inches. Right. 20 to 40 inches. Yeah. One of the things he mentioned too was talking about high country and the drought, how it doesn’t really affect it. I I was shocked when really how much moisture there is. Even on a drought year when you’re really high. When when I had that oak tag up on the penguin, I mean it was drought still here. Yeah.
01:11:20:25 –> 01:12:30:10
And, and you had, you know, neck, high grass, just lush, lush, lush up there and the burn great. The burn over that the whole unit not, you know. Yeah. Not just where you’re hunting, but the unit as a whole had, had helped injected a lot of good high quality feed into it too. A lot of the country you were concentrating to are riparian areas. ’cause that’s where the cows are. That’s where the bulls are gonna be like, you know, I mean there’s, there’s other, other parts of the unit we’re pretty dry. You know, there’s a lot that goes into all this stuff. But it’s fun, it’s fun to think about and stuff. We didn’t even consider in the nineties or 2000. We didn’t even put two and two together. That deer I shot on the Henry’s, I think I didn’t have the sheds from the near before, but I’ve got video of him. He’s probably, he probably on about 30 inches, 30 inches with a broad head in his shoulder. Yeah. He got shot as a 4-year-old, about one 90. I mean, I figured he was around one 90 in the video and he is like 2 21 as a, he was five. He was only five. A lot of that was five. Yeah. And a lot of that. We’d have to go back. What year did you kill him? 2019 before that? Seven 18. 17. 17. 17, 16. It was a good year in Nevada. 17.
01:12:30:10 –> 01:13:32:20
But I mean 17 year 30 inches with a broad head in his shoulder. I mean, a lot of times have it on my desk. A lot of times a wound on one side will kick their antler weird on the other side. Yeah. Or a weird broken abscess tooth. And their jaw. Jaw or they’ll regress period. Score wise. He didn’t, he didn’t skip a beat. I mean it just, it was interesting. Yeah. Didn’t, didn’t even know it. The meat cutter. Yeah. Told me I how to, and I saw you probably found one of mine in, in the off shoulder that ’cause you know, deer Diane Road, that pieces break off in there and he’s like, no, this one’s been here. A little longer’s been here a while. Yeah. And, and it had, he’s the one that he’s, he put it in my cut and wrap meat box. He said, you’re gonna want this. Yeah. So anyway, just interesting. Well, with options, you know, there’s a lot of people looking for options. I think we should talk about our membership drive and all the crazy hunts that we’ve got coming out on this membership drive. I wish I could apply because I know John wishes he could apply. I wish I could apply. I’ve got nothing John. Those are choices. What do you mean? We all have choices you give. I’ve applied if if car blanche gimme an open check. Gimme an open check and your points. Yeah.
01:13:32:26 –> 01:14:40:01
I will have you some tags boss. Yeah. But but he didn’t draw you. Utah general. Most are not hard to draw. I’ve got points too. Well it’s probably these young kids that don’t deserve the tags that got your tags. Exactly. They’re those dang young kids. Don’t get Joan started on that vain. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. We’re talking about sheep tags, but Okay. Don’t put words in my mouth. But in general, it’s been a tougher draw year for us around the office. I mean, yeah, that’s really collectively everybody. I mean, I can’t remember Logan, do you got a tag? I got a general tag. Good. That’s a win. Yeah, that’s a But that a win. But he also chose not to apply for some things he could’ve got because he was gonna have a heavy talked school. We talked him into it later in the year though. Yeah. There was one thing I really wanted that I applied for, I didn’t get. And then after that I just decided I was prioritizing school over hunting this fall. So Yeah. What was the thing you didn’t get? I really wanted to hunt Arizona out our tree out. Hey, I’m with you. And I looked, the points came out and I was like one shy of some average stuff. Yeah. I mean, still what I wanted cash. You didn’t get to Utah. You gotta Colorado. So, I mean I’ve got Colorado. You’ve got something in your hands.
01:14:40:12 –> 01:15:46:03
I’ve got, I’m gonna live vicariously through a few people this year. I think you are not. I’ve got some family members that have some Oh yeah. Lisa tags. My wife’s got a tag that I’m really excited about. It’s just a general tag. But I’m excited if a specific deer comes back. I’m really excited. But, well, yeah. And I’ve got, I’ve got a family member. I’ve got two people. I’ve got somebody with an archery tag and somebody with a rifle tag that are pretty awesome. You know, Utah, my dad this year, so I’m, I’ve got a couple thoses that I’m really looking forward to as well. Like you said, it’s, and they’re long awaited tags, so it’s like, and, and good stellar limited for Utah tags and good years. So I’m really am looking forward to it. My brother last year had one, he won an expo tag and we had our guts out guard off how that went. It was a rough year. Well, but hey, it’s an I was there with you. It’s a freebie, you know. Yeah. But it was, it’s a freebie. It was a freebie until you, until it’s four grand fell up your truck and it’s day after day, turns into week after week, turns into trail camera after truck and whatever, day after day. All the scouting, all the prep, all the, it wasn’t free. Yeah. What a difference a year can make.
01:15:46:07 –> 01:17:01:21
But anyway, we’re, we’re all gonna have to live a little bit vicariously through some others, some their tags and, and it’s gonna be a lot of bounce around. I but anybody wants a white tail tag? Let me know. Wyatt, can I interest you in a Oh, I’ve still got the one from last year. A big old deer rat. Oh yeah. You, the way they run those white tails run. They just look like a rat. I got in their face too. A long nose. Those gnarly big old freaking bucks are just a big old rat looking at you. They’re special though. Smart. You get offend some people. They smart. I want a giant, the problem with it is you have to give up everything else in life. And you’ve done that Bishop. Feels like That’s a good point. I, I know. I feel terrible about my, my choices. We all have choices. Well, let’s get back to this. I made bad choices. The choices. Here’s some good choices. We gotta, we got, we got Bronson Peterson, we’re giving away some hunts. We’re giving away a doll. Sheep hunt, Alaska doll sheep for 2024. Give you a year to prep for it. Yeah. And, and these hunts, we’ve we’re not, not to be a broken record, but they’re hunts. We would want ourselves. We, when we see opportunities and find opportunities, we, we buy ’em. And this is a pretty short drive.
01:17:01:23 –> 01:18:06:27
This one is always our second one we own. It’s like 45 or 50 something days by the time we announce this thing. And June 19th this year, which is, is I think the Monday after Father’s Day. That’s the deadline. And that’s coming up really fast. By the time this hits, what’s tonight? Eighth? Eighth or ninth? This will be live. Yeah. You’re gonna have 10 or 12 days to get these in. But yeah, starting out the Alaska doll sheep, obviously to give one of those away in June, it’s kind of hard for everybody to plan an August hunt two months away. So this one is for 2024. That is with, you know, up in the Brooks range. So if you’ve got time to plan, go try to book a 2024 doll sheet hunt somewhere right now. Go try to book one. You can, you can’t. Yeah. You, you can’t. We book this while you can’t book any, a lot of these hunts, go try to book ’em for 25. That gets hard. Not that’s even Canada or Alaska. Yeah. For 25. It’s getting tough. So there’s a good opportunity for that. So things come available, Bronson, that, you know, you and I or John or anybody in the office would want that. We would want, we, we think about this, putting ’em in the drive thinking two a year. Two, none of these are leftover hunts. These are planned and most of ’em years in advance.
01:18:07:00 –> 01:19:17:27
So what’s next? So we also have a Utah elk hunt, which it’s, it’s published as a Utah, but it’s a Utah Nevada. It shares the border Atlanta architect’s good for both sides. So it’s pretty special. It’s very rare opportunity. Rare. And we have a Nevada hunters that draw, or Utah hunters that draw can hunt both states too. It’s very unique. And we have a, a good friend of ours that went last year and smashed a bull well over 400 inches on that particular hunt. So when it came available, we jumped on it. It’s a rifle hunt. September 16th to the 20th of this year. 2023. You’re gonna be one of two dudes. Yeah. And you’re gonna be first. Yeah. It’s pretty special. So anyway, awesome opportunity. We’ve got another New Mexico elk hunt. Mexico’s gonna be incredible how good New Mexico’s gonna be this year. I mean, it’s, it’s unbelievable. They’re, it’s, they’re a southwestern state. Yeah. You know, the monsoons last year, the winter this year, this one’s in unit 34, 36. We left a little bit open ended so that the hunter could choose archery or rifle or muzzle it or whatever they wanna choose in terms of, you know, so it’s appealing. It’ll include the landowner tag and guided hunt there all included. So it’s either it’s got got a private ranch option too. Yeah. And 36, right? For, for archery. Yeah. Yeah. 36 or 37. Add some, you know, everybody can apply for that.
01:19:17:29 –> 01:20:27:04
Pick the hunt you want, the window you want, whether it be, you know, first of the 24th sometime in there for archery or October hunts for firearms. So that’s, that’s gonna be a good one. We’ve got another mule deer hunt. This is, this is an interesting, that’s with ECO outfitters Alex Nestor. Just an incredible opportunity for an archery hunter. You know, it’s, it’s just one of those things. It’s a five day hunt and, and it’s, you know, it’s very flexible season dates. You’re gonna be in November in the rutt out on the planes private land guaranteed landowner tag. And he’s stacking the deer up. He’s stacking big deer up. So, so just a great, great opportunity for archery. And the, and the drawing odds are stupid. Good. Yeah. That, that one’s archery only. And as you’d imagine that, you know, the majority of hunters are not just archers. Yeah. You know, so your archers are going after that one. Well, and the rifle hunters have to skip and look at the next one or the next one that we got for. And we, we get the different, you know, we get to look at, you know, what people’s preferences are as they send in the, we’ll call ’em applications. They send in their tickets and, and the odds are they’re incredible. Yeah. The odds in over the entire drive or, or the best we’ve seen. Yeah.
01:20:27:05 –> 01:21:36:13
I don’t know what’s going on out there in the world. But anyway, the, they’re the best we’ve ever seen. And this particular hunt for the deer quality, you’re hunting. It is archery, but you’re hunting hard horn, mule deer, like in the rut. Some people don’t like the velvet. Yeah. You know what I mean? You get a hunt. Hard horn, big deer, private land. That’s right. Pretty special considering the odds of this. Yeah. Going through this hunt, putting together the pictures. Just big deer after big deer after big deer on this one. Yep. Next one. We have a Nevada, we’ve, we’ve often done these Nevada landowner tags in unit 2 31. Well, we live right here and they’re big deer and, and we feel like we can, well the versatility adds to it. You get a hunt, you get a book, your hunt with the, with the outfitter, which is taken care of on this hunt. And landlord tugs are still good for all seasons. So you’ve got all kinds of flexibility. Archery, muzzle, loader, rifle, great bucks. I mean, 2 31 is, is well known when it’s a good moisture year, it cranks out as many good deer as any unit in Nevada. It really does. It’s got more numbers than a lot of other units that are maybe in the southwestern part of the state, not quite as arid. And so when it’s good, it’s usually really, really good. We’re anticipating this to be a phenomenal year.
01:21:36:13 –> 01:22:47:09
So that one’s, that one’s like a no brainer. And you can’t hardly find lander tag. You couldn’t, they, they almost were non-existent this year because of some of the tag cuts and things like that, that endows done. Which then, you know, you know, cuts, draw tags and landowner. Landowner tags were lower because there’s fewer deer. And the just, you know, a lot of it is just a product of the deer hitting the field. They count the deer in the field and some years they’re just less deer than private. Yeah, that’s right. So there was, there was very few tags considering, you know, other, we saved one other years. And so, and we, there was even one that went at auction tag alone for 28 KI mean, unguided. Yeah, unguided. So just, just an incredible opportunity that we’re proud to be able to give that away. We’ve also got a third season mul deer hunt. It’d be November 11 to 17 coming up seven days with clay hill, hill guides and outfitters. Just an awesome opportunity guaranteed landowner tag down there in the swatch country. Alamosa Valley man, well known for, for great deer, great opportunity down there. He does really good. And we just appreciate him and his support. Over the years, we’ve given a number of hunts away with clay and, and our, our hunters love it. You see tons of deer. I love that place.
01:22:47:09 –> 01:23:52:10
Killed multiple big deer right there in that same unit. Personally. A lot of us have hunted. But John, you’ve hunted it multiple times. Great unit man. Anyway. Now Bronson, this is for you boss. Why’d you tease it? Why the one? Why like that? Well this is the one that you, you would want. Your name is a pair of landowner tags for antelope, buddy. Well, you’ve killed more big bucks than most people. This is more like this more big what? Antelope? What one dude you’ve killed a pair of a pair of big bucks, haven’t you? I can’t think of a pair. Oh, you need another I, I drew an Arizona tag and killed a great buck. And that was mostly luck because I drew in a great year in Arizona. Which is, I had it in my mind. You killed a pair of, maybe you have it. How big have you’re thinking of Devon and Wyatt? Well, I know that pair. Yeah. So that’s the famous duo. But I don’t know about that. I’ve killed three antelope books in my wine. These guys smashed multiples. They killed a pair up there in Wyoming. Para Nevada. I’ve only killed one in Wyoming. Killed one in Utah when I was like 15 years old. ’cause you gotta pick in Utah. Deer, elk handle back then. I think we could do everything. Yeah, I know we could. Yeah. Yeah.
01:23:52:10 –> 01:24:56:25
So I drew it and I was like, I say 15, I don’t even my first or second year hunting. 1450. I killed one before you knew what you were doing. Like, like your buffalo, you drew buffalo about the same time. 15. 15 years old. Yeah. So I just still remember on that book I shoved it, John, I stole a tag from John and I didn’t even appreciate it ’cause I was a kid. See? So, so I mean now you would really appreciate that. Now, like back then I didn’t have my own vehicle. So you just like, I would, I would’ve scouted more if I, you know. Yeah. Anyway. But yeah, I, same thing. I killed an antelope, multiple antelope in Wyoming. One in Arizona. Didn’t know what I was looking at. For me, they’re always an add-on and it just feels like there’s always something. So we’re giving ’em a pair of tags. Yeah, pair of tags. These are unit wide landowner tags here in southern Utah. Mountain Dutton, Ponant. So two of you, whether it be you and a buddy, you and a, you know, father, father son deal, you know, father, daughter, daddy, daughter date, whatever. Smash and grab you and your wife truck chasers. Do it. Yep. Take it. Go off a good time. Have a couple of ’em now. It’s awesome. I’m glad we’re giving a pair away. The odds are gonna be phenomenal about Yeah, that’s, that’s a good one.
01:24:56:26 –> 01:25:56:23
We always usually have a couple that are like that. That was just a brainchild one day and we made it happen. You get to choose archery in August. August 19th to September 15th. Or you can do rifle September 16th or 24th. So, all right, Wyatt? Yeah. The final hunt we’re gonna talk about, it’s one I’ve been down and done personally. It’s a Texas auto ud, a hunt, I guess UD add or Barbary sheep. Same species there. First class operation down there with High West Outfitters. I mean, this is a guaranteed to be a good hunt. These guys are just awesome. And they, they put guys on big rams. I killed a 35 and a half inch when I was down there. Anything over 30 is considered big. And why it makes me look’s 30 all long. Like it’s time my window to why it’s off. He makes me want another one. I mean, I shot ones like 28 and a half or nine, I can’t remember. Yeah. I honestly don’t remember. Nice. 28 and a half or 29. Right. And it’s just a, it’s just a nice part of it. But I want one, I want like that why? But one guy, I had a, I had a guy comb me the other day, Wyatt, talking about the sun. They were concerned about, it’s only like a four day hunt. And I reassured him about the number of odd add on these ranches.
01:25:56:27 –> 01:26:53:29
And maybe you can talk a little bit about, about that. I mean, four days is, is a semi shorter hunt. It’s not as shor as like some antelope punts, but, but that’s plenty of time because of the well-managed ranches and the number of animals. Right, right. Yes. I went early. I went in February, so it was kind of early, I guess still winter I guess is what you’d still call it then. It wasn’t even early spring did it. Snow like a half inch down there and they shut everything down, snowed a half inch shut everything down there in Texas. But yeah, we had no problems half inch and nobody went to school. Yeah. For a week. The diner was closed. We went and tried to get breakfast. The diner was closed before we went out. Really Airport, delayed our flights and other things. I mean, this’s a Texas when they have giant four wheel drive trucks. That’s right. Yeah. It shut down the even understand postal service. It was, it was kind of crazy. But, but yeah, we saw plenty of, of good mature rams on that hunt. And those guys, they just know what they’re doing. I mean, they’re gonna put you on sheep tough, a lot of sheep good guides. I mean, they’re not over hunted. It’s not, you know, so don’t worry about that. Those are shorter hunts. You don’t need, you don’t need five to seven day hunts on those.
01:26:54:08 –> 01:28:09:29
So Pretty awesome. And we also have a kind of a, you know, we call it, I don’t know, optics pass package, but it’s an optics bow. A rifle ginormous $15,500 package. Bronson. Well it’s stupid. I’m looking forward to get rid of that bow and gun. We’ve had ’em marked for like six months. No, I mean we’ve had ’em marked and well Bronson’s a check the box kind of guy. And it is, they do, you look at ’em and you’re like, get it out the office. Well, because sometimes some, Hey, what’s up Bo? Oh yeah. And, and it’s, I’ve looked at it six, seven months here. Still here. I’m gonna get rid of it. Yeah. Fierce, twisted rage. 300 rum. We’ve got a a 60 to 70 pound Hoyt, VTM, you know, a SUA 95 objective. And we also have an A TX or an STX. You get to choose angle or straight, not gonna tell you which way to go. I’m a straight guy. Personally. The Leica amp plus, you know, three to 18 rifle scope, vortex, razor, hd 4,000 GB rangefinder that knew Rangefinder they came out with, thought that was fitting. And then a pair of zes 15 by 50 sixes and the six hour kilo, 10 Ks, the binos, the range finding binos. So dude, man, I didn’t catch your breath. That’s a huge list. Yeah, we’re gonna have to do some reordering time. That stuff leaves Bronson.
01:28:10:13 –> 01:29:20:03
I’m glad to get rid of it. I I mean it’s been stacked and piles and I want, I like getting rid of piles. Yeah, yeah. Checking boxes. Yeah. And there’s like, it’s my job. There’s a couple ways to get your name in the hat and if you’re thinking it’s really hard, it’s, it’s pretty easy. Like as low as $25, you can have your name in the hat for one of these hunts. And you know, the more tickets you buy, the better deal it is. If you, if you get the $200 package, then you’ll be in for that. The headlamp, the headlamp, the freaking el epic headlamp. I freaking can’t wait. Custom you can head, you can, you can shine. So you get that automatically. Let’s say you can spotlight animals at a hundred yards. It’s stupid. You get 10. You on record. I on record. I dunno. I’m, I’m blown away. I te So we tested it, we, we had a test. They’re, they’re, they’re lined up to be showing up here any day. But anyway, just a, it’s, it’s a sick headlamp. It’s pretty. So you get the headlamp, you don’t, you know, you don’t have to win it. You just get it and you get 10 chances as well. If you buy that two, you have to buy the 200. Yep. You buy the 500. If you buy the 500, then you’re in for that bonus package of all the, the, the gear.
01:29:20:07 –> 01:30:28:18
All the crap. I just lined up the bow, the rifle, crazy. 15 grand. And then if you want a free entry, just get, get a friend to join. Refer somebody or join yourself or join yourself. We have members that say, yeah, what about me? I’ve joined, you had your name in when you joined. Good. Everybody’s got a chance to win something. And everybody will get their name in. If they join you get you join, you get a name in there. If you refer somebody, refer somebody. Get more names. Unlimited amount. So anyway, it’s awesome. We’re super excited. And this is the John, are we in the last week, week and a half of this whole 10 days I think. Yeah. About that. And if you get, if you listen to this podcast, depending when it comes out, podcast, podcast going into the weekend, you know, we’re not gonna be here over, you know, Fridays and through the weekend, you know, generally get into the summer. We sometimes aren’t working most Fridays anymore. Like tomorrow we, we have it off. That’s right. So, but you can always go to epic outdoors.com and, and buy tickets over the weekend that way or you know, we’ll be here, you know, Monday through Thursday probably. Well, yeah, I guess, yeah, that next weekend we actually close down to Monday. So the Monday the 19th, we’ll be here too if you are really a procrastinator. Yeah, we’re super excited.
01:30:29:14 –> 01:31:34:21
You know, we’re excited to give away a bunch of these hunts. You got a week and a half, you can get your name in. I’d get your name in a few times if you can at all swing it. It’s, it’s pretty awesome. Draws are about over. Yeah, I mean it’s, we’re down to that. That’s right. We do have a lot of draw results coming out. Some of ’em are tougher to draw States, Arizona, California, you know, residents, deer tags that are not too hard. But yeah, good luck getting a sheep out. Kinda. We’re pretty, you know, and we’re going to four day work weeks around here. Wyatt, are you excited? I’m excited, yeah. Ready to spend some time on the mountain. Yeah. Yeah, I am too. That’s pretty awesome. Me too. I’m back on the golf course. Just about, had an ace this morning. It was pretty impressive. And I don’t even golf. I’m, I’m looking at, I’m like, whoa, that’s legit. Those two little 200 yard par three. Oh geez. That’s, that’s the ball, that’s the divot right there then inches. But I’m more, more happy because my elbow surgery is over back. That to me, looks like to me, I would, I would liken that. I would liken that to the big one got away. I had to witness, it was a tap in birdie from 18 inches. But I mean the ball Mars was, so you killed the 20 26 2 inches.
01:31:34:21 –> 01:32:34:00
Inches from the cup from 200 yards out. What? 1 78 call. Gimme, can you just call it a gimme and be the guy I was with And I had a witness and he said, that’s a gimme. I said, no, I’m doing this. You know, put it right in. Yeah. But I had one the next toll I missed. So anyway, I like it. But hey, I’m back golfing so at least I not getting time. So are we really gonna let Wyatt off without telling us a deal? A story, our story? Tell us a story. No, we’re not, I tell us story, tell story. He us A quick story. Okay. So we’ve got enough mule deer today. So I, I think we’ll talk about my sheep hunt. Oh yeah. Love it. Yeah. I probably never have talked doll sheep back in 2015. So I wasn’t extremely young, but I was definitely a younger man Then Were you in the twenties, I guess late twenties? Yeah. Yeah, late. I have 26, 27 I think so. So later, later twenties there. And I was just down at an office with a buddy and we got a phone call from an outfitter and it was a $9,000 doll sheep hunt. I’d never heard of one that cheap pun cancellation. Right? Was it summer? Yeah, June or July. It was cancellation. So it was July and we had to be there in August.
01:32:34:27 –> 01:33:31:12
So it’s like back up, get on the plane, all the, I’d never been to Alaska. Only dreamed about it. Yeah, yeah. But I thought about it, you know, this is opportunity of a lifetime. You know, I’m not a rich man, but I’m gonna throw what I have at this hunt and yeah, I’m gonna kill a doll sheep. So ended up there opening week and I think it was the 14th this year 10th. 10th is opening 10th. So it would’ve been like the 10th or so I ended up up there in Alaska and had no idea what to expect. I borrowed a bunch of gear to go on this hunt. I mean I had no idea what to expect. I I was a hunting guide in Utah at the time. That’s when I was guiding full-time for, for a living. So slow rolling the pines. Yeah. Kind of thought I was in pretty decent shape for, for Alaska. But it’s a whole different world. Once, once you get up there and see that thing, I mean it’s no joke. It’s a whole different world. I, I wish I would’ve trained her. I guess I really didn’t even have time to train jet youth. But you had 26. Yeah, but I had youth 26 had no quit in me. So yeah. Were you drinking Mountain Dew at the time? I was drinking Mountain Dew at the time. You were well prepared.
01:33:31:23 –> 01:34:36:05
Another interesting thing that I found out on this hunt is I couldn’t stand the taste of mountain house meals. I I don’t help What it freeze dried meals. I just never eaten them before. Well they stuff you up a little too. Yeah. So I could, I looked off when I’m out there every night. So what did you eat? Snickers bars. You did snick Snickers bar. Yes. You ate Snickers the whole time. So you created your guide, like gimme your Snickers and I’ll give you my mountain house. ’cause I would take the mountain house. Yeah, seriously. Ate Snickers. Sold. Luckily I had taken a bag with me of just candy bars. I didn’t know what to expect so I just threw a bunch of candy bars. Peanut, like it’s got a little bit of everything in. There’s satisfy. They do satisfy. And they got nuts. They got a wide variety of good things. They cut the hangry. I figured it was good. So anyways, luckily I took a handful of those up there and how we decided we were going to attack this hunt was gonna be the rafter river. So it was pretty, pretty cool experience. We started, you know, a base camp there. Dropped a big raft into the river and just you and a guide, just two of you. There was three of us. So there was a guide and a packer with me. So dropped, dropped into the river and started floating down.
01:34:36:08 –> 01:35:39:07
And I mean it was awesome. I mean just big old canyon with valley floor and big old, you know, side hills on both sides. Fishing. Yeah, I mean we’re glassing up sheep just instantly just using lambs, using lambs. And they were all down in the lower, I guess they were, they would call the area the crags, which was about, I dunno, three quarters of the way up the mountain. There’s these big old set of ledges and everything below it was kind of green and, and grassy basins and meadows and everything above it was just shale rock. So as we’re gla going along, we’re glassing up black bears and doll sheep and even some caribou. We saw some grizzly bears just kind of floating down the river. And I think we ended up doing, you know, 10 plus miles of river that day. The next morning got up and we’re only about two miles into the river and actually glassed up the ram that I killed on Hyundai two, just laying up there. And it was above what they called the crag area. And, and the guy did not really want to go up above the crag area to hunt rams. I mean I, I was fine with it too. It looked pretty rough up there. Was he a lone wide or He he, he was, he was all alone. He just laid up there on kind of a, kind of a pyramid looking, looking hillside.
01:35:39:16 –> 01:36:43:01
And he just laid up there on the very tip top of it and just basically stared down towards the river all day. I know when they do that, you’re like, how do you, there’s no way to get close to him. Yeah, I feel like that sometimes. But you get onto their side of the mountain and somehow there’s enough cover. But anyway, yeah. Keeps telling the story. Anyways, we found them day two day, all that day. We watched the ram all the next day, watched the ram and he didn’t move 40 yards in in these days. Just kind of got up, spawned circles. I don’t know what, what he was even finding to really eat up there. There wasn’t, there wasn’t much food. And then the next day we actually watched him the whole day too. And that’s kind of, we got a, i, I can’t remember how they got the message. Must have been an old inReach or a satellite phone. He, he talked to the, the main outfitter there and the guy said, Hey, there is, there’s weather’s coming so you guys better be better be ready. Might have to force the issue or something. This, this might be our last, you know, good day of hunting. So we, we, we talked about it and decided, hey we, we got this ram this is really all we have going, so we’re gonna make the climb and at least try ’em one time.
01:36:44:01 –> 01:37:40:10
So made the, made the hike up the canyon through the alders, crossed the creek 150 times, got up on the backside and was able to come along the top. And as we’re kind of sneaking in on him, I I kind of knew like, we’re gonna be close when we see this ram. Like he’s gonna be, we’re gonna be right on top of him. Just the way the, the terrain rolled off there. And anyways, we can come over to just this little teeny rise. I can see just the top of the ram’s back and I’m, I’m trying to get set up for the shot and the guy’s like, no, we’re getting closer. So we, we dropped down into the next goalie and then I really knew the next time I popped up on this ram, we were gonna be really close. Like how far were you a minute ago when you’d saw a hundred yards? Oh geez. What, geez. A hundred yards. Yeah. And the guy wanted to get closer ’cause he wanted to make the call. He wanted to oh, you know, make sure it was illegal ram and we weren’t so that a hundred percent sure. We were looking five miles when we were down the bay wanted we a long ways. Okay. Yeah. So he wanted you would’ve cut the distance in half. Yeah. Wanted to cut the distance and a lot more than half from a hundred yards to 50 yards.
01:37:40:19 –> 01:38:38:09
It was close. And anyways, so we, we get down there and we, we crawl over the last little bit and it was actually the, the little kind of rock ledge that kind of blocked out at me, seeing the whole entire ram from a hundred yards away. It’s, we crawl over the top of that and we have the ram at 30 yards. Is he batted still? No, he’s standing there looking. He’s, he, he hears this, he sees us now. So he, he’s looking up there at us and the guy gives me the thumbs up that it’s illegal ram. And did you just, what was shot offhand? No, I was, I was laying down Oh really? Laying down, having my backpack in front of me and just easing up. And he was just staring at you? Yeah, just staring at me. Shocked. Hit, hit the ram. He ended up kind of, kind of going over the edge there to where we lost sight of him back towards the valley. Back towards the river. So we lost, lost sight of him there. The guy and myself kind of, you know, had a little argument on whether I hit, hit or missed the ram. He was thinking I, I’d missed it. I was pretty convinced that I’d hit it. It was 30 yards. Yeah. Yeah. But, but it’s hard to, hard to really say though too.
01:38:38:09 –> 01:39:46:23
There’s not a lot of reaction that something that 30 yards happening that fast too. So we finally, you know, dropped down over the edge there when it dropped down over to the edge where we lost sight of the ram was able to look down and the ram had found, fallen about 1500 feet and was caught up down there in the Wow. Could, could you see it? Yeah, I could see it. Did you glass it or with your eye? Yeah, I glassed it down. Well I could see it with my eyes. A big white thing down there and glassed it and took a minute to confirm it was a sheep. ’cause it just looked like a big tangled ball of white. But wow. We were able to drop down off there and recover it. That, that day. I was gonna say at 30 yards your muzzle blast might have turned him from a doll to a fan, but after rolling 1500 yards, he looked like a full blunt stone. Yeah, he was, he was pretty beat up. I mean, geez, funny to real funny. He, he broke. That’s awesome. Three to four inches off each horn. Oh, did he? About snapped one horn right off. Like it was a wow. It was a sad deal to get down on him, but it was getting back together still awesome to recover. Yeah. Did you find some of those tips? No. Oh. But I didn’t think so. Geez. Wow.
01:39:46:25 –> 01:40:49:05
Well, awesome story. That’s pretty, I mean that’s what you, that is a great story. I don’t, we shouldn’t have Wyatt tell more stories. He needs to be, he’s a good storyteller. He’s kind of like, I don’t know who’s he? Like who’s a, I dunno the good storytellers of like Louis Lamore. Louis Lou Lou. He’s very particular on nicknames Cousin Louis. But I like it. Would you agree with Louie? No, I don’t know about that. I mean, cheers. We can’t even, nothing Will, doesn’t wanna be called Louisie. You and I’ll end up calling him Louie. Nothing will stick. Oh, it’s all good. I like it. That was a good story though. I liked it. That all she we’re Pull some guiding stories outta you too. ’cause there’s some funny ones. Yeah. Tho those will be some good ones, but we ought to get some clients to, to talk about those ones so they can at least defend themselves, or I can defend myself. You’ve actually talked about maybe we should call ’em. Yeah, we could visit with them. All right. Well, it’s awesome. One thing we want to, just real quick, we’re done. This has been way long, but let’s just talk about the MUEs matter. We, the donations. Keep rolling in Bronson there. Yeah. Maybe say what we think we’ve got since we said last time we’ve got more. Well, I, I mean, roughly.
01:40:49:13 –> 01:42:14:18
We, we’ve, we talked about Browning and, and a Browning package and whatnot. We’ve also got a tripod that was donated by Cany Tripods we’re, we really appreciate them. Good, good friend Ryan. Ryan Iverson. He, he’s thrown in a, a gift certificate for a stone Glacier backpack. I mean, legit. He had it sent and we’ve got it here. Ready to give to somebody. There’s gonna be a, a Longhorn Bull photograph. It’s a large metal print. Huh? By Trevor Thompson. Just, just awesome. PS might be popular for Texan. Yeah. Or who knows, right. Cabin deco, things like that. PS PSC, outdoors photography, A steadman’s jewelry. They’re doing a MUE necklace. It’s, I’ve got one. It’s awesome. It’s great. Big deer antler. Yeah. You wearing em? Exact one? No, not today. I should actually. And then also some earrings. I’m not wearing those, but they are awesome. So for him and her, whatever, or both for her, whatever. Anyway, we appreciate them. And then the rock slide and rock cast guys up there, Ryan, Avery, Robbie Denning. Anyway, they’re sending in something significant, so they just keep rolling in and, and we’ve got a stack of ’em. And, and of course that’s on the spreadsheet. Dozen dozen on the website. We’re dozen, dozens of winners. Dozens and dozens. Dozen. We were already at that. And so, 50 plus probably as we keep adding to this, we’ll announce it.
01:42:14:18 –> 01:43:30:18
I guess before we go hunting, you gotta kinda announce the, you know, official rules by August. ’cause there’s some people that are bow hunters. Yeah. And they don’t, they wanna know before they flip the string on a meat buck, what the, what the consequences of them missing out on are. So we’re gonna announce that lease by August 1st. If you have a chance to kill a buck with a bow, just slap him. Slap him. Just freaking knock him down. That’s right. Well, but, but if not, send us in. Yeah. Send in the tack anyway. Yeah. If you ha, if you missed other podcasts, basically to be in the drawing, you, you gotta send us a tag from 2023 that’s not used after you hunt. We’re not doing it until November 30th. We’re expecting people to go hunt. Take your women and children, whatever, woman and children and the hills friends and family go hunter guts out. But yeah. But instead of just see what you’re killing. Don’t shoot it just Yeah. Instead of just killing something to kill it. Why maybe you think twice. That’s all. And so, and there’s a link on our, on our website, which is awesome. That’ll be great. But anyway. All right. Big facts, big laughs. Big laughs. Roll into the weekend. This is a fun, fun podcast. Yeah. Let’s go. I’m hungry. Let’s go get a Snickers. All right, sounds good. I don’t care who you are. That’s some funny cry.
01:43:31:00 –> 01:44:44:24
Snickers, save. Why it’s life. We’d like to thank all of our sponsors here at Epic Outdoors. For top of the line hunting, clothing, and apparel in every environment, visit under armour.com. We’d like to thank Under Armour for being our title sponsor and making this podcast happen. Visit our website epic outdoors.com for discount codes to Under Armour Hunting apparel, handcrafted quality precision rifles from start to finish. Red Rock Precision is one of our sponsors, and many of our staff uses Red Rock rifles. Visit Red Rock precision.com to find out more. If you’re in the market for a hunting property, our sponsor at St. James Sporting Properties specialize in premier hunting properties throughout the west. Check out available hunting properties at st. James sporting properties.com. Good looking, comfortable. Camo describes Ku U, the new bush pants from KU U. Keep your legs comfortable while walking through the thorns and bristles. Visit ku u.com for sizing and prices. Kenna Trek makes great boots for any situation. Most she punters in the high rocky altitudes. Use these boots to keep their ankles in. Check on the rough terrain. Visit ken and 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.
01:44:45:01 –> 01:46:11:06
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