This week Jason and Adam sit down with the Nevada DOW and talk big game in the West, and Nevada specifically! June 30th is the deadline for the Nevada Dream Hunt Application so be sure to get your name in the hat for that as soon as possible!
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Anything to do with Western big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody. Jason Carter. Adam Bronson coming at you from Southern Utah. It’s a hot, sunny, freaking perfect scouting weather. Hum. Bronson finally turned summer. It looks like this week’s maybe, well last week, a couple of days, but it’s been a long, long time. I think Vegas and maybe St. George’s sneaking a hundred in or close to it. So, which is kind of crazy being almost June being over with perfect weather for tire plugs and, I dunno, lake Powell. Yeah, it wasn’t too hot. You and John went to Lake Powell. I wish I was in Lake Powell instead. I was using 14 plugs and two cans of fix cement. Fix a flat cement, fix a flat, and parts of your T-shirt sleeves. I’ve done that before, by the way. Whenever outta plugs sleeve. Too big a too big a gash man. You run outta six or eight plugs. I’ve done wood, I’ve done a wood sticks like, like sticks, you know, I’m like, oh, it works. I had a whole sleeve of a cutting plugs out of a sleeve, out of a shirt once. So run out sleeveless on one side because you had to go number two sleeveless on the other side. ’cause you’re plugging tires. I don’t think the shirt ever got worn again. Let’s just put that there wasn’t enough of it left. No.
00:01:25:21 –> 00:02:23:26
So yeah, it got me home. And that’s, that was a motto. Kinda like you, it’s scout season. You know what’s funny? Is it, it, it’s interesting, you, you throw a spare tire on your side-by-side. But what good’s? The spare without a jack that can jack it up two or three feet. Because with your suspension, the suspension on these ones, well, yeah, on the razors, it’s never ending. That spring just keeps stretching and it leaves the tire on the ground. Just stretches and stretches. It’s two feet. I think when I got done, I jacked it up this morning to, you know, really take off, throw the good spare on so I can go grab the other one fixed properly and man, it, it had four foot of clearance. It looked like it’s probably three and a half foot clearance. Sick. And then once you get driving it, then the, the suspension chills out the bubble. Jack doesn’t cut that. No. Unless you have timbers two feet tall, then you might start. Nope, I was looking for, what do they call it? Snatch blocks and different things for the winch to figure out. Okay, if I go over a limb of a tree back down to the bike itself, lift that tire off the ground, the back end up. That’s what I was looking at. Lift the whole back end off the ground. Yeah. Yeah.
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That I was thinking about it and I’m thinking, you know, it’s pretty smart. I just don’t know. I need a little more tools than what I had. And I had an old janky fricking air compressor that was all broke down. And anyway, it got enough air in there between that two cans of fix of flat 14 tire plugs and a T-shirt. I made it home. In fact, we ran the rest of the day. It’s crazy. Sean started doing 70, 75. What? And I on a half half of a tire. I’m like chilling out boss. That thing you got. Oh fuck that thing. Motors. Yeah, I know ’em. But you start throwing a plug of two at a second. I told him, I said, what’s your life worth? You know, it’s on the rim about 10 minutes ago. You know what I mean? So anyway. Yeah, we’ve been running cameras for, I, I don’t know what waters, Bronson. What, just a little scouting tip from you for the rest of the world. What waters do you choose to put cameras on? Streams shorter than a hundred yards. Okay. And did you see any, A couple. How about this? Tell us about your, well, I don’t know how much time we got. We’ve got a call our good friend over Mike Scott over there in Nevada. But tell us about the time you were scouting maybe two weeks ago, three weeks ago. My AC went out.
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And when you, you know, basically donated your front bumper to the state of Nevada. Well, yeah, I mean you get going on some of these two trackers that haven’t seen a whole lot of action since. How about any action? The locals know better. They know there’s water everywhere. Well, or or last year since the monsoon season ripped some of these apart and you know, they’re never graded. So your four wheelers side byside are fine. You, you get the, you get a, you know, full-grown or even half grown truck going into one of those. You’re gonna half grown truck bumper. What’s Logan’s truck? It’s Logan’s truck full. That’s a full-grown. I’m a full-grown truck. Truck. I call a half a half gun. A full grown truck. Well, because the size and dimensions are full grown. Yeah, they are. I mean, but, but the guts are half grown. Yeah, but I mean, I’m just talking my guts the size. Well meaning the engine, the engine towing capacity, all of that capa you know, they’re Logan. It’s, it’s, it’s compliment. Half grown trucks are made for the Arizona strip and rugged places. Okay. Half grown is like the zero two Tacoma, stuff like that. Oh, I see. Okay. I call this half yours is half grown inside, but exterior, you’ve got the big grown connections. Yeah. Yeah. Just different. I see.
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I’m, but anyway, yeah, I, I had to jack up a couple tires and load a bunch of rocks to get outta that one. And by yourself? Yeah. Found out that my office hands were pretty soft. ’cause just running a shovel for like 30 seconds. I ripped the whole palm of my hand off. I mean, hey, I looked down at, I’m like, where’s my hand? I got a skin condition. I don’t know about what the heck. I hit the shovel twice. 3, 4, 4 times. They make what they call leather gloves. Yeah. Finally healing up. I thought you had golfing gloves or something in there. Well, you golf with I, I’m a Right. So you golf with, you put, when they put a glove, glove on your left hand, your right hand doesn’t ever get ever. So it’s, you’re just screwed. I’ve got keyboard hands, man. Yeah. So how, how did your AC work that? Yeah. And then that didn’t work either. I had a little thermos sensor go out. So you, and that caused 14 other issues. Well, kind of that were attached. Just, you know, your fan won’t shut off. You’re thinking you’re gonna overheat, you’re watching it, you’re paranoid the whole time. But it, the truck thought it was in worse shape than it really was. The truck was fine. It had never even got hot. Yeah. But your temperature sensor’s bottoms out. Doesn’t move your fan’s kick it on all the time.
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Kicks off the AC ’cause ’cause it’s probably trying to, you know, dial back resources. Yeah, there you go. Dial back. Yeah. So, but these smart trucks are smart. The the interesting part is when you take it into the dealership, they know exactly what you’re talking about. They knew exactly what it was. I started describing always your power stirring out too. I said no. He says well some, a lot of times that goes out with the ac. With the AC attached to the thermostat of all the, all those little things. Quite frankly, sir, you’re lucky to mail at home. It’s like it blew a timing belt and all those things. Well that’s what you were thinking initially. Well, all the auxiliary power for split supplies second until I popped the hood and then saw that was not the problem. That was then I knew it was electrical and I wasn’t gonna fix it. I was just gonna, you know. Yeah. So now overheat or not overheat back every, after every extended weekend we make trips downtown to resupply and regear. We gotta talk. I got trailer bearings and tires this week. Oh yeah. Trailer bearings, you Yeah. Tires. Wiring gray CRCs gray css that break off. I mean, it’s nonstop. Just the time down. You’re using stuff hard. It’s gotta get fixed. It’s gotta work. Right. So anyway, one of these days though, you’re gonna say I had enough and you’re gonna send orange down the road.
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I don’t know. Got a good little truck. Little half, but, but hey, little half pin. I start pushing a hundred thousand. Yeah. Hey, you got one. You know what I mean? They’re good little trucks. Geez. Get pushing a half. A hundred thousand. I’m getting another one that’s in the works. You just can’t believe how much gear it takes to get out. Stay on. Oh geez. And when you’re there, you want to have all your options. You need sawzalls and drills and there’s just a lot plus all your optics plus your inReach plus 14,000 other things. Well, and it also, when it’s the first couple of times Yeah. Of the year. Like I came back, I told you, I says I’m not, I’m not midseason four. I need, I need leather gloves and a shovel. Well I have to shovel, shovel. Well you and, and you were like, Jesus, I was grateful. Smart enough I had to shovel. There’s no snow and mud. But you still throw one in ’cause you don’t know why. You don’t know why. How about a heman jack? I have one in all the time. I don’t have one of those, but I do bought have one have last week. You did? Yep. I had to get one. I do have, call it an aftermarket, you know, two ton bottle jack. You know, they’re bigger than the janky ones they have behind your seat. Yeah.
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And then you don’t have to get that out. But the older you get, it’s funny, like I went, we got the three ton jacks was offroad giant, three ton floor jacks. I want take it everywhere. I don’t care. I want the ease of lifting something off the ground. I hate it. I’m not rolling around the dirt like I did when I was a kid. I’m over it and I want it to work. Get down there and tweak your back and then you’re out for two weeks. Yeah. So anyway’s, so what happens with 40 somethings? Nah, pushing 50 50. So anyway, yeah. Now we’ve gotta go get more tire plugs, more fix a flat, more air compressors and back on the road. So ready for Thursday night. So speaking of four day work weeks, Nevada scouting, just all kinds of stuff going on in Utah. I mean, gonna be heading to Wyoming soon. All all of this crazy stuff. New Mexico, Colorado, whatever. We’re just going a hundred miles an hour. But Nevada, it’s, it’s kind of fun because Nevada, Utah we’re, it’s kind of our backyard. So it’s our initial scout within our two hour, two three hour loop of town here. Yep. That’s where we’re damage pond. All this stuff all around. Yep. Utah, general pa, Southern Utah, Southern Nevada. Yeah. So with, with that in mind, Bronson, everything’s kind of coming to a close. We’ve got Idaho, elk, deer, and antelope coming out here shortly.
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And what else is left? I mean, Iowa came out. Arizona basically has charged cards. Everybody’s not happy with the point creep that occurred in Arizona. Got crazy. No question about that. Jump six plus points. Seven of these. Seven maybe. Yeah. On early hunts. And the chibas, big surprises for everybody. People are just realizing it’s a pretty darn good year. And with 20 and you’re not drawing anything else to 23 points, let’s call it 2024. Max is 26 for Deere. So you’re three to five points behind that. You have no other options. Yeah. Three, three C. So the early rifles, I remember what else he gonna do. And that’s just because they manage the state for bulk generally with the exception. Yeah. Those exceptions we talked about right there. Yeah. So guys are just saying, hey, dump, let’s go dump. Yeah, let’s dump ’em, let’s go early. Rifle goes to November 5th this year. And yeah, good moisture year. Yep. Stars aligned. Yep. Low tag numbers, which is fun. It’s fun to be in the field when there’s, you know, relatively low pressure considering prior years. And then overall deer numbers are fine. Quality’s gonna be incredible. You know, are all by all estimations. And so anyway, we’ve seen a lot of point creep that might leave a few of you out there. Tagless, tagless in Seattle, running out of office. So yeah, here we are. But I’m usually the last to give up. Well, you are too.
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We’re, we’re kind of junkies at times, but total tag junkies. But there’s, it’s about time to give up. I’m still applying. There’s a couple. I’m way over full and I’m still playing. I’ve, dude, I’ve been doing raffles left and right. Yeah, I’ve done, I’ve been doing those. But you did, I you did Idaho. I did sheep, so I can’t You’re still waiting on Idaho. What if I did it stupid? Did one of my kids Idaho. So we’re still playing raffles left and right. Yeah, those are different. You know, we always the dream, well I guess dream the, the, the, the ones you dream about. But in the case of Nevada, they actually call ’em that Nevada dream tech. So that deadline’s coming up here shortly. What is it today, Bronson? Is it the 26th? 26th. So we know about three, four days. Yeah, 26th. So we’re sitting at Monday the 26th. The 30th is Friday. It’s got this week. So, you know, kind of interesting. We’re huge fans of Nevada. Nevada has like so few deer tags right now. And, and of course Deere’s just kind of on on our mind. But I mean, hey, we take a sheep tag and we can get ’em, you can apply for what both species of sheep, deer, elk can animal. Yep. I think a bear. But we’re not talking about that. Well, no, they’re bad things that happen.
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Bears and Tahoe and break-ins and cabins and giants and greenies. Well anyway, not a good combination. They’re people too, Bronson. All right, well let’s call Mike Scott. Let’s just get a feel for what’s going on over there. He’s always fun to visit with a wealth of information and knows what he’s talking about. He’s the deputy director over there in the state of Nevada. So let’s just keep him holler. Hello, Jason. Hey, how are ya? I’m good, how are you doing? Good. Bronson and I are sitting here at the podcast table, just, you know, talking about options that might be left for the year. Of course Nevada Dream Tags is one of those. And you guys are right in the middle of it. We’re right in the middle of it. Yeah, absolutely. So I’m sitting here with Mark Freeze, who’s our habitat chief and Oh, nice. Yeah. So yeah, we’re, we’ve been talking about the dream tags and, and you know, this process is coming. It’s getting a little bit short now. I think this Friday is when it, when it 30th, right? Yeah, I think so. So that’s when it, that’ll be the last time that you can apply for it. Yeah, we’re, you know, Adam and I always, always apply for it. You’ve gotta have your name in the hat to be able to win anything.
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And people that complain, you know, a good portion of them just don’t have their name in the hat, but you do have to have your name in the hat, just kind of wanted to go over that. You know, it comes, when it comes down to the end, this is when everybody starts realizing how tough the draws have been to ’em and, and you know, usually have somewhat of an open schedule. And so this is, it’s a nice time actually for guys like Adam and I and everybody else out there to consider, you know, what, what, what their schedule looks like and, and what kind of opens they got and what an, a credible opportunity here to get one of these tags. Yeah, absolutely. Amazing. And, and you know, we’ve talked about it a little bit before, but you know, for this year, I mean, as, as you know, long and hard of winter as we’ve had, we haven’t seen habitat conditions in Nevada like this in a long time. So, you know, with respect to antler growth, horn growth, it’s, it’s gonna be an amazing year. It’s unbelievable. Adam and I with that, Adam and I were wondering when the, when Nevada Department of Transportation’s gonna go around and clean out some roads, like there’s so much water, there’s five foot ravines in on some of these dirt roads. Some of these counties got a lot of, lot of grading to do.
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A lot of ’em did get done after the monsoon season we had last year. You know, they, we’ve both been stuck in the last two weeks in Nevada. Different places. Oh, we’ve stuck wich out. I mean, it’s crazy and, and it’s nobody’s fault. We’re on two trackers that I’m sure aren’t even gonna get graded. We, but even, even good roads got, we’re we’re having a good time with. It’s, but geez, the water that you’ve had, and a lot of it was probably just spring snow melt runoff too that go gli them out, you know, in some of these southeastern parts of the state where Yeah, we’ve been begging for it for a lot of years and now we got it. And you’re right, it does look, doesn’t come without a price. Ours has been tire tire plugs and handyman jacks, you know? Yeah. So, you know, we’re still looking at some flooding conditions in Nevada on, on the Walker River and, you know, I, I mean it’s, it’s hard to believe the, the amount of water that’s coming down some of our, our drainages right now. And I, I’ve seen some videos of, of some of the little streams in Nevada that they, they right now they look like the Truckee River. Yeah, it is crazy. Well, and you’ve got these little no rs that are just washes that, you know, we’ve been to before and you got a trickle of water that goes 50 yards.
00:15:57:25 –> 00:17:04:05
Yeah. You might be able to throw a trail cam or things like that. I’ve got some of those I ran into, they’re going out, they’re going a half a mile still out into the sage bush valley. And I’m like, well, this was a waste of drive into here. I can’t throw camera a mile and a half a crick now. Well, yeah. And that’s the one thing that we’ve been talking about a lot of this in, in the office here is, you know, the one thing about a lot of water and which creates a lot of feed, but it spreads out the game. It’s really good for the game and we’re usually in favor of that. Anything that’s good for the game, but we kind of wanna break too. Like, it’s nice when they’re concentrated on water or a particular reseed or chaining or whatever for the feed, but there’s feed everywhere, everywhere. The worst stuff is good looking this year. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. But yeah, our habitat is, is in as good a shape as I’ve seen it in a long, long time. Well, let’s talk, this is really good for the future of wildlife and of course, you know, you know, fawns and calves and whatever, everything that’s gonna come up through the ranks, it’s just awesome. What a nice break you guys are. You guys have, like us here in southern Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, fill in the brunt of this long drought.
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It’s really hard to be a biologist and, and answer to the public and, and, and whoever powers it be, you know, during drought conditions. There’s just not a lot you can do about it at times. But let’s talk about the dream tags and kind of some of the different projects that they can fund and help out with, whether it be, you know, reeds after fires or chainings or whatever things that you guys have done and seen in your tenure there. Yeah. Thanks guys. This is Mark Freeze. I’m the new Habitat Division administrator here at Nevada Department of Wildlife. I mean, dreamt Tag’s been an awesome supporter of projects and funding those projects. I think I look back from 2016 to present dreamt tag’s almost contributed $2 million towards our fire rehab program. Wow. And that’s that over the last six years, we’ve been able to implement 570,000 acres at a cost of about $12 million. And so we, we think Dream Tag, you know, a hundred percent of the funding that comes in through Dream Tag goes right on the ground in seed or aerial contracts to get, get that seed out.
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And so we’ve been, we’ve been blessed to have that partnership, but they also do other conservation projects in addition to fire rehab such as pinon juniper removal into Sagebrush encroached habitats or Aspen stands helping us, you know, enhance the values of those Sagebrush and Aspen stands as well as spring rip repairing and Meadow enhancement and protection. I think, you know, with Dream Tag support, we’ve been able to take on about 1680, 80 acres in the past six years of spring and meadow improvements at about $2 million costs. Wow. And then Pinion Juniper removals about 45,000 acres, you know, at almost $5 million cost. So yeah, dream tag’s been awesome contributing towards the habitat which we can enhance to provide better quality habitat for Nevada’s wildlife. Man, that’s crazy. And you’re talking about this amount that it’s raised, but, but then you were talking about the cost of these projects being even much higher than just the, just the, I think you said $2 million over the last, what, five or six years or whatever it’s been. But you are also just being able to leverage other funds, right. Federal funds or other state funds or federal funds with that money to make it all stretch a lot farther than just your 2 million. Talk about that, just a little bit on how, you know, those progre, you know, you bring money to the table, you usually get matching sometimes two or three times for it. Y yeah, absolutely.
00:19:45:23 –> 00:21:06:10
That’s a great point. You know, for, for the fire rehab projects alone, you know, $2 million since 2016, you know, we take that and match it with our wildlife and four fish restoration grants, which are a three to one match. So we take that $2 million and turn it into a, a net total of $8 million for, for fire rehab alone. Wow. And so those dollars are critically important to provide that match component for that grant dollar. Wow. So maybe let’s just dive in just a little bit deeper. Like you have a fire, what’s next? Like how are, are you, are you seeding every fire or is it based on fire per per fire type basis and, and location and things like that? Like how does it, how does that work? That, that’s a great question. It really depends on the fire year. I mean, we have years where we’ve burned more than a million acres where we can only treat, you know, 10 to 20% of the acreage out there based on the, the amount of funds we have have and the seed on the market. But there’s other years, I think last year we had 58,000 acres burn and indel alone treated 65,000. That’s not including VLM for service, any other partner. So we were able to make up some ground last year. But it really depends on that fire year.
00:21:06:12 –> 00:22:23:29
And typically what happens is, I mean, this year it’s gonna, it’s not gonna burn for a little while ’cause of the green, green conditions out there. Yeah. But usually we’re monitoring fires as they burn through the season. We’re coordinating closely with our federal partners, Nevada’s about 84% public land, most of which is Bureau of Land Management. Okay. So we’re monitoring those planning projects closely with the partners. ’cause they do require authorization to go and seed spray herbicide, those sort of things. And so we’ll go through the fire season and usually September, October, when things start winding down, we’ll prioritize projects. And we’re really looking at where are the highest wildlife values from our perspective and where can we get the biggest bang for our buck or, or create the best uplift. And usually where those two intersect the highest values and the greatest uplift is where we’re sticking our dollars. Well, selfishly, Bronson and I want to get a dream tag, so, but if we don’t get a dream tag, we can get the feel good from, you know, being able to, the tag we draw down the road, the got benefited from dream tag dollars. Right, right, right. Maybe there was an increase in whatever permit down the road because of all the go habitat restoration or whatever go. That’s another way you gotta look at it. So, yeah.
00:22:24:02 –> 00:23:44:05
So anyway, it says here, I’m just, we were kind of on the Nevada Dream tag.org website just said, all money received from the raffle les the cost of the dream tags purchased by the non-profit and any administrative cost charged by the community foundation of Northern Nevada must be used for the preservation protection management of restoration of big of game and its habitat as determined by the advisory board on dreamt text. So there’s an advisory board that gets to kind of al help help allocate funds and things like that? That’s correct. Yeah. There, there’s an advisory board and anybody could submit projects and endow does frequently, you know, we show up to the meeting, we write the proposal, we talk about the proposal and its values, and then the board basically votes on whether, you know, you get funding or not have an opportunity to ask questions, specific questions about the projects. Okay. Well the one thing about these tags, so Bronson and I have looked, of course we write this, you know, we, we talk about all the western states in, in epic outdoors publications and whatnot. But you’ve got PIW tags, you’ve got the silver state tags. All of that is separate from the dream tag. The dream tag is basically like a PIW tag wherein the, the winner will be able to hunt any open season That’s right. Archery with that particular weapon type. That’s right. With the Right.
00:23:44:08 –> 00:25:02:28
Any of this, the, the six species, they could, they could hunt any open season in any open unit. Yeah. Right. Yep. And so that would be for deer, antelope, desert sheep, California, bighorn elk, and black bear, any open season until you harvest that animal. Yep. Yep. Okay. And, and then the residents and non-residents, there’s no designation everybody can apply. This is for anybody and everybody just strictly to generate money that’s, you know, sell tickets to generate money. And you know, I mean, the whole idea is that this money goes right back into the conservation of those species to, you know, hopefully make more of ’em, make better habitat and, you know, allow, allow, you know, an an increase of, of the same species. So, okay. And then, you know what I like too is that anybody can, can participate. So they’re five bucks, bro, in their five bucks. Yeah. You can’t even buy a sandwich for five bucks. No. And so anybody can, anybody and everybody, you know, even newbies, Logan even broke college kids like me. That’s right. So anyway, anybody and everybody can at least have their name in the hat and then, but there’s no limit. You can, you can buy a ton of tickets if you want. If you have unlimited numbers of tags, you can purchase as many as you want. And, and again, the money is, is goes to a, a great cause whether you win or not.
00:25:03:02 –> 00:26:08:09
But you know, if you do win. Wow. What a year to have a tag in the Nevada What a year. That’s what we can’t get over. We’ve been out there, we’ve experienced it. I, I haven’t seen like it, we’ve talked about it for months and people are probably getting sick of it, but you, you honestly can’t believe it until you go see it. Nice. I had clean with out the radiator, I had to clean out the radiator. It was loaded with all the seeds and stuff. Yeah. And it’s, and they’re green. They’re not even dry yet. Right. And it may not necessarily, you might not see a net result on say, bighorn sheep right now, this moment. Yeah. But it is nice to be out in the hills. Oh yeah. It’s just nice to be out in the hills when it’s green. It’s gorgeous. It’s cool weather. Yeah. Crazy. Been crazy. I don’t know if Vegas actually hit a hundred this last weekend. They talked like they were going to for the first time of the year, which is crazy later than ever. It’s later than ever. But it’s been a weird, crazy awesome, awesome summer, spring, summer, winter, everything. We’re stringing together almost 12 months of incredible weather from when it comes to, you know, rangeland health, which then translates to, you know, animal health, you know, reproductive health in terms of good farm production.
00:26:08:11 –> 00:27:09:25
I mean, it’s everything you’re hiding prong horn and deer fawns out there right now, where in the past there was no new regrowth in plenty of these areas. And so it’s all, all, it all adds up when you have a lot more ground cover. So many little, you can hide ’em, there’s probably gonna be more mice and rabbits at some point. So there’s more game for coyotes to eat. And not just fawns, I mean just, it’s all cumulative. So it’s, it’s good for everybody anyway. Oh yeah. And you know, I mean, it was only a couple years ago that we were filling guzzlers with a helicopter and couldn’t keep up. You guys couldn’t keep up just trying to, trying to, you know, keep, keep animals alive on the landscape. And, and now, I mean, I I mean I think most of our dozens are probably overflowing. Yeah. They’re, they’re, and they’re not, most of them are not. A lot of ’em aren’t even getting used right now. I’m just Yeah. Only because they’re clear full and there’s water everywhere around them. And, and that’s good. They’re getting a break too. The downside is it’s hamper scouting a little bit and it spreads ’em out, and we’re disgusted about that. No, it’s good. It, it’s so good.
00:27:10:00 –> 00:28:16:21
Just we, we, we did a pod or I did a podcast with you a couple weeks ago and, and I told you then I was looking out my window at the rain and I’m looking out my window again and it’s raining, you know? Right, right. North of Reno right now. Come on. So, you know, we’ll, we’ll take all the rain we can get, but you know, there are some places around the state that are, that are, you know, flooding and, and you know, we’re, we’re waiting for some of those waters to recede. But, you know, I, I would take this every single year. I would take this over the drought years because Oh yeah. The drought years, you know, drought makes us all look bad. Oh. And you know, it’s just, it just, it, it does, it does so, so little for us. And I, I just, I love, I love seeing the rain, so keep it coming. Nothing like it. Yep. And so, anyway, I know, you know, the odds, the the chances of winning are tough. There’s no question about it. You buy one ticket, yeah. You’ve got a chance. But I love it. Right on the website it says, the more raffle tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning. That’s, that’s obvious. I think, you know, spend a few hundred bucks if you got it. It’s, it’s definitely the year to do it if you’re ever gonna do it.
00:28:17:14 –> 00:29:35:17
You know, waiting periods do not apply. So it doesn’t matter, you know, any, anybody can apply and just maybe not the felons. But other than that, if you’re not a felon, you’re eligible. Am I right? Pretty much. I mean, you know, if you’re, I guess if you’re, you know, six years old, you might not be able to Oh, okay. I legal hunting age. Yeah. But everybody else, yeah, absolutely. I, if you’re eligible to, to hunt, you’re eligible to apply for these tags and, and it, it would be an awesome tag to have. And I’m, I’m with you guys. I, I really want one. So we’re, we’re just super excited here. Anybody that wants to go on Nevada dreamt tag.org, you can go on there. You can, they’ve got a list of the facts. They’ve got everything cleared. Cleared to checkout. It’s basically $5 a ticket. Of course there’s slight incidentals doesn’t come in at 5.00, but very, very inexpensive to get your name in the hat. So Yeah, I did find this real quick. I’m gonna read this real quick. Just go clarify it up. It says the endow will draw the completed regular draw nearly a month before the dream tag raffle occurs. And you can apply for tags in the big game draw without fear of jeopardizing dream tags options. If she should happen to draw a tag and endow draw and then win the dream tag for the same species.
00:29:35:22 –> 00:30:46:01
You must return the endowed drawn tag to obtain the dream tag. But hey, you just get an upgrade. The dream tag is gonna be better than what you already have no question about. So you just, here’s your chance to upgrade. That’s all. Yep, yep. Definitely an upgrade. Alright. So anybody that has questions about that, there you have it. If you, if you’ve gotten a tag with the same species while you can be able to upgrade, not gonna be able to kill two unless of course landowner tags and all that’s separate. So. Alright. Well, anything else you guys would like to add about, just to highlight it? I mean, I like the fact everybody likes the fact that, you know, a hundred percent of it goes back on the ground. That’s compelling. Of course you can’t get a better percentage for return on the investment than that. But anything else you guys would like to add to it? You know, if anybody’s interested in seeing the projects they fund on their website, there is a projects tab at the top and you could click on that. You could go through, I don’t know, it’s up to 80 or 90 now, different projects and you can see how that committee’s put, put money on the ground. And so folks may want to check that out. And then anybody who does draw a tag this year may want to be out there scouting this July.
00:30:46:10 –> 00:31:58:23
’cause there’s gonna be places that road roads are washed out, you know, BLM four service counties can’t get to. And so I think, you know, it’s, it’s a blessing to have this much moisture, but it could be a little bit challenging too to get around in the field this year. Yeah, no, it’s good. We just went to that tab and it, there is quite a list on, there’s pretty, the pretty impressive the date, date they occurred and the amount of money they put forth into it and by, by project. And then there’s a grand amount, the original match and then the proposed date and, and all kinds of stuff. Yep. Just crazy. So anyway. Awesome, mark, looking for good things. Of course you got a got probably got your hands full. You are you dealing with the entire state and all habitat within the state? Yep. Yep. But it’s, it’s a good year to step into this hole. ’cause man, it’s raining right now’s rain, you’re not gonna have to worry about too many fires. Fires are hard on things and if we time it right, by the time a fire season gets bad, it’s the monsoons will kick in and, you know, maybe we get wet, wet again like last summer. So yeah, habitat looks great. Yeah, habitat looks great. Makes your job a little bit, a little bit more pleasant when the habitat looks so good. Yeah, yeah, it does.
00:31:59:04 –> 00:33:01:07
Yeah, we were just driving across Nevada. We went to Ely this last weekend for the Wildlife Commission meeting. And you know, driving across it, it, I mean it, you know, parts of Nevada, it, it looks like Ireland and, and then, you know, you look at, you know, the wild flowers that are blooming all over the place. It’s, it’s absolutely gorgeous. And then even the sagebrush that’s been looking, you know, fairly peaked the last few years. This year, it’s robust and healthy and happy and, and it just looks awesome. So it’s amazing the difference. It’s amazing the difference. It really is. I’m out there taking, it’s unbelievable. Okay, can you picture me my picture? Me taking pictures of flowers? Okay. You are. I did. I showed ’em to you. I, I showed you the video of the, of the globe maow, you know, fields that were as far as Yeah. The orange tinch I could see for 10 miles I had, I had, I have a field of orange. I have an entire field of purple and then the yellow mixed with bitterbrush and the bitter brush is in full bloom. And I’m taking pictures like a greenie. I, and I’m just, whatever I it’s just something you don’t see every day. That’s right. It is, that’s exactly right. Cactus. Cactus is flowering. Everything’s flowering. Yeah, absolutely. It’s gorgeous.
00:33:01:13 –> 00:34:09:17
And you know, you think about, I mean, our upland game birds are gonna be, they’re just gonna go crazy this year. It should be a really good year for that. You know, it just, I mean, whether it’s s lizards or, or small mammals or like you said, rabbits and, and things like that, pastor and birds, everything should get a, a real good shot in the arm this year. And we, we appreciate these years when they do come and so, well, Mike or Mark, if either one of you guys killed a Himalayan snow cock Oh, I’ve got two elk tags in my pocket as we sit here and I’m probably gonna focus on that, but Okay. We, well, I was just wondering, I mean, I don’t, if you guys, we, we tease about every once in a while when we have a light schedule, we’re gonna go head to the rubies and check one of those off. We’ve never done it. I just wondered if either of you have done it. That’s all. I just wonder. I I’ve never killed one, but I did, I did go fly mountain goats with, with Scott Roberts, our biologist for the Ruby Mountains a year ago in January. And Wow. I I could not believe how many of those things are flying around up there. You’re kidding. Flushing ’em. Well, they’re everywhere in the snow in the dead of winter. Yeah.
00:34:10:00 –> 00:35:17:12
Well, they has to call him snow cop, you know, you know, snow, they’re, they’re, and they’re way up in the rocks and, and of course, you know, you’re in the helicopter and they just, they’re flying down and you don’t want ’em, they’re flying like a magnum chucker, but there’s a lot of them a magnum Chucker la Yeah. They’re, there’s something else. And I had a, you know, a, a person asking me about this just the other day and I said, good grief. There’s so many of those things. And, but you know, you also look at the Ruby Mountains and it’s go up and get one, go up and get one. It’s an ugly man’s mountain. So, you know, big, steep, rocky, and you gotta be pretty dedicated to get after those things. And so I, you know, it, it, but if you ever do, I might, I might meet you out there and, and tag along with you. Yeah. It’s just interesting. At least there’s a good, a good population of them. At least you’re seeing them. I mean, I don’t know. It’s kind of Yeah, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re, that population seems to be doing really well, so just interesting. Oh, it’s just one of those unique species of Nevada just Yeah. A little fun fact for Nevada. It’s just kind of interesting to talk about it once in a while. I just wondered if you guys had smashed one, but, yep. All right. Okay.
00:35:17:15 –> 00:36:32:01
Well, hunting’s, what makes this, all this biology and everything go round endow and, and whatnot. So the sale of, of tickets and, and of course the dream tags and all the different POWs, silver states and, and then just the application process. I mean, it’s just awesome. You guys got quite a great program going on there. Of course, we’re huge fans always have been. And, but Nevada’s kind of close to where we’re at here, but just you guys, you know, take pride in, in managing for quality and then when you have, you know, when Mother Nature helps you as well, it’s just everybody’s excited. Tag tag numbers are low. Of course, we’ve just got done with a brutal drought that we’ve never seen before, the likes of, which we’ve never seen before. But, but generally speaking, the guys that are, that have tags are gonna have a world-class experience in the state of Nevada. It’s impressive. Yeah. This, this, this should be a tremendous year and you know, I, I just can’t wait to see some of the animals that are harvested down in Nevada this year. It should be pretty impressive. Yep. Well, we appreciate you, fellas, so I’m glad to see Well, likewise, it’s raining out there. That’s awesome. Yep, yep, yep. We’ll take all we can get. Thanks. But we appreciate what you guys do and, and the partnership that we have with you guys, so well, appreciate it. Yep.
00:36:32:08 –> 00:37:48:03
Review with everybody, get your tickets in by June 30th and Yep. Mark will start lining up the projects. That’s right. We got, we got plenty to do. The list is about head endless, so we can, we can just keep using that, that money to do really good conservation project. Okay. All right. All right guys. Appreciate it guys. Have a great day and yeah, we’re looking forward Friday it closes. Everybody get your names in envy dreamt tag.org. Go online. You’ll be able to grab any and all tickets that you want for any and all species and, you know, no limits there. And you can’t win unless you play. So. Yep. Okay. Thanks again guys. Appreciate it. Have a good day. Okay. Thank you guys. You bet. You guys be, talk to you later. Talk to you later. You bet. Bye now. Bye. Well, dude, we’re done. I get myself fired up. Well, yeah. Don’t know what, how much you gonna spend, spend something. No, no doubt about it. You gotta donate. Always worse. It’s always worse in the year when you don’t have you enough. It’s really easy to worse meaning, easier to, oh, it is. You’re gonna, you’re gonna go. It is, it’s easier to when your schedule’s a little bit open. Yes. The other side of it is, it’s really easy to support a state that, that works so hard to have quality animals.
00:37:48:14 –> 00:39:02:11
Well, for, for with the most limited resources that are the driest state in the nation. Yeah. And their habitat is collectively dry limited. They get nature, get the most out of what they have. They do. They squeeze everything they can out of it. And for being a state like that, they’re gonna have low, let’s call it, you know, low tag numbers. Yeah. Generally speaking for elk, deer, deer, elk, and all of them. I mean, it just so happens it’s a, it’s a dream for desert sheep, you know what I mean? It’s got dream habitat for desert sheep, but, but generally speaking, how do you fund a state and then on tag numbers like that and then you, they’re also striving for 30 to 35 bucks per hundred dose in all deer units. Yeah. How, who else does that? Yeah, it’s so impressive. Now there’s other spotted places, kind of like spot zoning. Bronson, like basically we got certain units that they manage for high buck to do numbers, age class, things like that in Utah or Arizona or whatever. But Nevada, it’s like statewide. They want quality everywhere, you know what I mean? Yeah. Pretty easy to sport ’em. So I’m just gonna win big. All right. Well, we got anything else? No, I don’t think so. Logan, what do you think? All good. I think I’m gonna be buying a ticket or two into that thing. Yeah, it’s, yeah, no brainer.
00:39:02:18 –> 00:40:10:19
You got like, you know, three or three plus months to hunt deer, deer, elk. You got archery, muzzle loader, rifle seasons, multiple rifle seasons. So Yeah, like even a college student say you can work, you can work time in to go hunt state somewhere. It’s a story, a sweet deal. Especially for a guy like me. So. Yeah, guy. Like anybody, Logan. That’s right. Yeah. Anybody and everybody. So anyway. All right. Talk to guys every year that win these things. Every single year there’s one or two of ’em that’ll call us. There. At least members that call that draw one or two of what do I do now? Well, you got a lot of options, so wish you luck if you decide to play. All right. Believe I would. Alright, sounds good. Get your name in. 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.
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