In this episode the crew attempts to knock out a few more questions from our Q&A and if you’ve ever listened to an episode of ours before, you know we tend to get a little side tracked. In this episode the crew talks about hypotheticals when it comes to hunting, state selection and buck types. The crew also dives into some of the most painful memories to relive and tells their stories about the biggest ones that got away!
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
00:00:01:05 –> 00:01:19:15
Anything to do with Western Big Games. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, the entire epic outdoors crew, with the exception of why, who knows where he is at. He is never telling us he’s out scouting somewhere, I’m sure. Plus or minus a few honey dos. But anyway, we have, we’re gonna finish up this well, or at least attempt to finish up this question and answer podcast we got here. Before we get started, we do wanna thank Under Armour for sponsoring our podcast. They sponsor everything we do here at Epic Outdoors and have for years, since inception of Epic Outdoors itself. All right, thanks y’all. Okay, Bronson, let’s see, actually, let’s mention before we get started on ua, they’re gonna have some, some products that have been out of stock that’re gonna hit ua.com again, hunting products. So by the time this podcast airs, so no kidding, go. Yep. You’re talking about tonight? Yeah, tonight. Okay. Well, you gotta point out for people to remember, they still get 40% off UA [email protected] on our website, on our outdoors, our website. Yep. For anything that’s up to what, two grand. Yeah. And that’s a personal code. You, you go on a website, you click generate the code, it will give you a personal code if you need some hunting gear or biker shorts. Why? There you go. Yep. You can get on there and get 40% off.
00:01:19:26 –> 00:02:42:15
Anything off ua.com. Even golf shoes. Yeah, yeah, that’s true. And we use ’em and they’re awesome. They’re free. Go to go to epic outdoors.com, download it and off you go. You got a $2,000 coupon. Get another one if you spend that kind of money. Alright, let’s see. We’ve got it off. Question Reader Guy, which is the one and only Josh Pollock. Why? Why is it? Dunno. Alright everybody, this is for everybody. This first que this question big. Yeah. Reader C. Here we go. C Newman 27 12 says, biggest deer that got away. This is Cody Newman. He’s up in Oregon. Super good dude. He is videoed a lot of big deer. Take some awesome photos. Yeah, giant deers. I met him in his person’s warehouse up there, actually. Come on. Yeah, in Oregon. Yeah. The freak were you doing up there? Ah, just really working. You’re gonna be evasive. Oh, okay. I was working. Really? Were you dating it Jen? I met him actually before that. Moving on. Okay. You’re up there for business? Yes. Okay. There’s a protest up there, there in Portland. Oh my gosh. Did you really take part in that? No, I was selling rifles. Oh yeah. Okay. Alright. So biggest deer that got away around Broon let go around. We’ll go around the table. Start with you. I can think of that one. And it, we called them the az, but Oh yeah. The only reason there’s two deer.
00:02:42:15 –> 00:03:48:24
We were hunting look like a buck would look like an air, like big airy. And I, I watched the video this weekend. I come across it, the old SD card and I’m like, that was a big deer. He had one little bit weaker front. He did huge bags. 32 to 33 giant bags, 33 and seven, eight stared at you. 33 and seven eights just stared at you too. And that was at the bow. I never even shot an arrow. I got close. He’s the deer we maybe did talk about a while ago. We was feeding in a bush, coming my way, leading the pack. And I was just perfect position. I got 20 more. He’s about 70 anyway. 73. I wanted him to get him within 60. And in I thought I I’d, I’d drill him and all the other deer turned around, fed over the ridge. He looked back, saw him, he turned around about face and I never got a shot. So, wow. That’s honestly terrible. He was like, I don’t even know what happened to that deer. Nobody killed him. No, the other deer we were hunting. You killed him. Like, yeah. Opening day A to the, oh, the muzz loader water. Ka freaking right in the rainstorm. But that’s as far as a deer. I hunted that I, that I didn’t kill. I that’s one that, that I wish I had there. There’s been a couple other weird ones in Colorado.
00:03:48:25 –> 00:05:06:07
Didn’t really get away. They got ’em private and I guess that got away. Yeah. But I mean, I had to walk away and watch ’em on private, you know, but that’s, can’t really count all those in Colorado. We’ve all had deer that Right. Get untouchable places there. But anyway, somebody else. All right. John, can you, do you have a specific one? Maybe in the orange patch here in Southern Utah? Oh, there’s been a few. Yeah. Back in the day when I could actually draw a general tag that, yeah. Got away. Yeah. Okay. It kind of haunt you. Yeah, a little bit. Cheaters and split gts ever. When you were letting your daughter or son Oh geez. Instead of you And then they get away. Yes. Okay. There was a specific, specific box. Such a good dad and Oh, that’s when being a good dad does not pay off my daughter. You’re gonna get in trouble. Go get in trouble. Oh, no, no. I mean, yeah, she bless her heart. Just she, she probably hunted. She hunted most of the hard tree hunt with me. And she didn’t hunt on the archery hunt. She didn’t have a bow, so she didn’t hunt, but she had a muzzle loader. She could hunt the muzzle loader. And so had big deer and she’d, she’d been with me forever.
00:05:07:02 –> 00:06:26:11
And then it was loader and we found this deer and it was right before dark and she just wasn’t tall enough. Like I could see the deer in the scope, but she, she just couldn’t get it into the scope and like just faded. That one got away. Yeah. Did you use that same voice you just used with us? It’s called John’s pretty good with his kids. Oh yeah. Me, I’m lighting them up. It was the, it was the same year. And I think I probably told this story that then we went out with her brother on the deer, on the rifle hunt. First date he smokes a buck. He smokes a buck right in front of her. And I, she had a shot at it, but dad messed up and didn’t have a shell in. And it was click and then he shot it and Oh, I wasn’t, I wasn’t the dad of the year that day. Peterson household’s never been the same. No doubt of the year for one kid. The other one hates ya. Hey. Such his life. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. That’s why you have more than one reason. That’s right. More than one. Some of them, they’re one kid. Some of them you’re gonna ruin and some you’re not. Alright. All right. Devin, you’re deep thought over there. A lot of deer got away. It’s a bummer. Probably the biggest was back in oh seven, Colorado, Boer, big deer.
00:06:27:08 –> 00:07:42:17
And I learned the hard way that was back. Well I had my rifle hooded in my hard case and it’s just rattling on the front of the Honda foreman doing what the law says. Yeah. The next day this butt comes out and my dad still talks about it and it’s coming across his face on Jason does. And I’m running and I’m, I had my little range finder, 464 yards. I remember I lay down bipod, he, his body, he looked giant. And I’m just like, this is happening. Poof. Nothing. Poof, nothing. And then the third shot, I watched him like, look down the hill. Like, what was that? You’re like, and he walked over the ridge even scaring this thing. And I’m telling you guys this thing was mid high nineties minimum, just legit picture. Perfect giant. Like he was like that buck on my wall. Yeah. But bigger with eye guards. Well, I don’t wanna spend too much time on this question. Can we go to the next one? It’s bu bummer. Depressed. A bummer. Yeah, it’s, so, anyways picture, let me finish real quick. I go shoot a box with my last remaining shells. I was like a foot and a half low at a hundred yards. Oh, whoa. I didn’t have a chance. Yeah. That was the biggest, it got away. That’s, that reminds me of Clint. We were in Oregon and he was shooting at that rabbit coyote.
00:07:42:25 –> 00:08:48:00
Coyote was coming at us and he was shooting out and he had in one of those little one, are they coal cases? The Lin case on the, on the four-wheeler rattles him the deck. Anyway, he gets out and I’m like, lay him down. I mean 300 wind back. And it was like he couldn’t hit him with 20 yards sucker kept coming. Rabbit guy, kinda like a rabbit Kyle. Yeah. You’ll have to ask him the story. Anyway, he couldn’t hit him for nothing. And same thing, it’s like a foot and a half or two feet off at a hundred yards. Anyway. But keep it the case. Keep it in the case. You know, everything will be better. So anyway, that’s kinda like the tech technology committee make you put it in a hard case on your forer, they know it’s gonna get knocked off side. So deer, there you go. It’s gonna hurt the electronics, it’s gonna ruin your optics. There was some rattling going on. I had that, I had that one deer named Buster. And I hate to even think about him because he was, he would come into the ER back then, you could run cameras all year round, no big deal. So every night you’d go check, or every day you’d check the camera. Right. And he would’ve come in every other night, middle of the night. So, you know, he’s still there.
00:08:48:09 –> 00:09:52:27
We found every deer but him, we hunted him for like, I wanna say 30 straight days. It was probably probably high twenties or twenties. And to ad nauseum, you know, with good dudes. Like, anyway, just, he was doing something. None, none of the rest were doing. And, and ended up parking my truck over across the road, parked, parked my truck, hike up on the, and and Dusty hikes up on the knob and I stay down there with him. ’cause if he comes out, I wanna be close to him. But I’m just like, I’m tired of it. And the wind was kind of wrong. But it’s only wrong if you know where he is. I don’t know where he is. I just think, I kind of, my gut feel as he’s bedding off the side of this hill. But, and the wind was wrong, but whatever. Blow him out. We gotta change it up ’cause we can’t find him. You know what I mean? Like, if it blows him, who cares? At least he’ll change his routine at, at least I see the deer. Maybe. We’ll, he’ll become huntable now. Maybe we change his routine enough. He becomes huntable. I don’t know. Sure enough, dude, he freaking caught my wind. And the first time we see him, well after the hunt starts, first time we’d see him was like 20 days later.
00:09:53:13 –> 00:11:08:07
That particular day I blew him out and he came around and stood 50 yards off the end of my tailgate. Sit there and stood there and, and Dusty’s watching him. And I can’t see him ’cause I’m not near the truck. You know what I mean? Anyway, we hunted about another two and a half days and call it, you’d never seen him again. He quit coming into the camera change. Yeah, he changed his pattern. All right. Yeah. He disappeared. Managed he left unit. Yeah. And he didn’t, he needed, he needed, he could go down in this great big canyon and there’s water, running water down there and it’s a, and it’s a jungle. So anyway, and nobody to my knowledge has ever found his sheds deadhead, or even seen him again the next year. I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. Okay. Well, who’s next? Why? Why do we have to answer that question, Cody? Well get ready for the next one after this. But before that, Logan, do you have something that got away? That’s big haunting box. Oh yeah. I don’t like thinking about this one. But what, let’s, how about one that you cost your dad? I haven’t cost my dad anything. He knows how to open a wound. No, John had a kid story. Let’s tell, let’s come from the kid’s perspective. Just screw your dad. Logan. I, I honestly don’t think I’ve cost my dad any animals yet.
00:11:08:10 –> 00:12:19:07
Maybe even helped him. Yeah. Well I’d like to think of it that way. Tell us about a deer. I do know. Tell us about a deer you didn’t get. So two summers ago I had just taken two years off from hunting. So I was a little excited. And my dad knew about this buck. This was the muzzle loader hunt. We knew about this buck. He was bigger that year. They killed him the next year. And he went like 180 5. So he was bigger the year before. I don’t know what, he was probably high. One eighties. And so anyway, that summer we’re just driving down the road. It’s like nine or 10 o’clock in the morning. The hunt’s over for the morning. And we got our muzzle loaders all cased up. And we’re heading back and we’re driving down this little road all of a sudden, 70 yards off the road. He’s just standing there big as life. And my dad just loses it. And he’s like, get out. I’ll arrange him. You get out. And so I start, I’m Paul, Paul never loses it. Can you picture, I mean Paul, Paul could lose it over anything. Over two. Over two per dogs. He’s just sociable. That’s what I love being around Paul. He gets excited and so he’s, he’s shaking, trying to get his rangefinder out. And I I, you know, I’m up the same. And you’re like, dad, he’s, he’s 70 yards.
00:12:19:08 –> 00:13:14:28
You don’t need a ring. Get out and kill it. Well, that’s what, yeah, and I’m, I’m shaking trying to get the muzzle loader outta the case. ’cause we were wanting the same. And so I finally get the muzzle loader outta the case, get it on the sticks. I sit down and I’m, I’m on the sticks and he tells me, I can’t remember what he told me. The deer jogged a little bit and was standing at us again broadside. And he told me he was like, just over a hundred yards, like 1 10, 1 20, something like that. He’s like, he’s like the turret’s at a hundred. So he is like, just aim a little high and send it. So I, I put it just a little bit above, just a little bit above his shoulder. And I pull the trigger dust blows underneath him. What? And he stand. ’cause with the muzz loader, they just stand there. And so I, I hurry and I put another one in and I’m trying to figure out how to load it. ’cause it’s been a while since I’ve loaded a muzz loader at that point. And I get it all set back up and I get the cat back in. It goes back to the frustrating dad. He may or may not have been yelling dad. Dad’s like, Logan, pull your head out. He was yelling at me ’cause I couldn’t, well I couldn’t get the stupid quickie load thing open.
00:13:15:02 –> 00:14:33:04
So finally I just broke the lid off of it and he’s bunch of powder something. First he starts yelling at me ’cause I broke the quickie load and that’s not helping. Anyway, we had a, it reminds me of the Bronson household last night with, with ketos instead of, I can only imagine. Alright, keep going. So anyway, I, I shot again and he was, he was significantly farther at that point. So I aimed a little high again and shot. I, I shot below him again and then he got into the trees and I didn’t get another shot. But I don’t know what he would’ve scored that did. You were shoot paper. Did you figure it out? Was it it was, it was, it was shooting a little low. Yeah, you’re right. Quite a bit low. No, I was, it was dead on. I was just a little excited. Would your dad verify that, that it was hitting low? He, I usually tell the story that he gave me the wrong range, so he’ll be very happy that I told the truth on this one instead, instead of one finally came clean on the Epic Outdoors podcast. That’s funny. Oh, Paul, Josh, I probably don’t need to ask you this story, but 2016 Ridge Lake unit BLM Road 5 2 5 2 36. I didn’t kill him. Somebody else did. Next question. Jeff B. Paul moving right along 2 36. Oh, I know, I just, I I think it was on the cover.
00:14:33:04 –> 00:15:47:18
I just don’t go like, do we need to edit some of this right out here in the other road? You, on the cover of our magazine, you spewed a lot of that’s where that deer died. Well, we don’t talk those kind of specifics. Yeah, we do. Over the, the, over the next month, we’re all gonna divulge a very deep secret. I told one of mine last time. What was it? What do you mean? What was on a special tag I had this year? Come on. What, what was that? Oh, oh, that’s a deep secret. Yeah. Well, deeper than some people are willing to go. Who should not be named. Okay. So I like it. It sounds like there’s, I just sensed a little tension. What do you mean, Jason? I mean, you didn’t feel if a guy shoots a two 30 buck you’ve been hunting and, and sleeping with for, and it was two months and it was in 1953. I guess I’d still be pissed. 2016. 2016. He said it’s not even bad a decade. I gave you, I gave you all the details. It’s, it’s raw. I mean that’s an open wound like I’ve never seen. Okay, 7:18 AM I, I dunno. Kaboom. I stand up and I look 200 yards above me and there the kid’s standing over it. Oh. Oh. So I don’t know, I don’t know what else you wanted me to say. Did you shake his hand? Did you say hi?
00:15:47:26 –> 00:17:08:00
Oh yeah. We went up and gutted the dang thing for him. Gave him the American, he didn’t even know how to gut it. Put it in the back of the side by side. All the back of down for him. Oh. What else do you want to know, Jason? Nothing. Nothing. I don’t want to know anything. Okay. Okay. Next question. Question me. Guy shed, I needed later was found and didn’t even get anything. So anyway, next question. Somebody didn’t give it, they didn’t give it to you. Okay. Read this. Jeff B. Palmer says how Listen up. What states does Jason, I don’t nobody else’s name on here is crossed out. States. Jason have deer tags for this year. Jeff, I love when Jeff, Jeff. Jeff, Jeff. Yeah. This this is a, we’re not answering this. What do you mean? What’s, let’s, what do you mean a better talking state? I just a better question. A better question is what states don’t I have? That’s right. Yes. You’re not hunting. Are you hunting? I have Idaho. No, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa. That’s a state. Iowa. That’s a state. It doesn’t say yield there. Yeah. Oh, it says Deer Deer Canada. Our whitetail, deer province. Provinces. Deer. Just deer. Deer tags. Yeah. Canada Province. Canada, Iowa, ab. There you go. There’s the, there you go. Moving right along. Question three. That was all the, it was answered. That’s answered. I dunno, I missed one. Probably Wyoming.
00:17:08:07 –> 00:18:24:10
Yeah, I said that. All right, keep going. Jock Reed Outdoors says With scouting. With scouting. What are you looking for when it comes to Hills? Shade. Ravines. Okay. Scouting. This is a, this is an interesting question. ’cause very appropriate for right now if you’re scouting like right now versus October versus November versus December, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of different things. Shade. Shade’s a big deal right now. Right now it’s everything where we’re taught archery, you know, they don’t bet out in the open. Right. Which right now it’s hot. They need thermal, thermal shade, whether it be from a rock cliff, overhang, rock, rock, you know, stuff. You know, sometimes they’ll bed and up 11, 12 o’clock. Now they’re in the sun. I gotta move on the other side. But I guess I still probably do key in on north slopes more than I do other stuff. And like we’ve talked about many times before, you’d look, sometimes you have to look into the sun because the deer are in the little cuts that are between you and the sun in the shade. And it stinks to glass that way because we’re used to sitting at the sun at your back and everything pops at me. Yeah. Well, well you love, I love gla when they pop at you. But I’ll remember, I remember hunting Nevada and you know how I love these animal activity indexes. They kind of work. Okay.
00:18:24:29 –> 00:19:34:27
Hey, let me, they they do like the fishing thing in the old Garmin. Yes. Rhinos. Yes they do. They do. Because I’ve been in Nevada and it’s been 105 degrees in some of this stuff at 2:00 PM and I, there’s a buck cross the road and I’m like, what? I look up the high animal activity index. Yeah. I’m dead center of it. They’re active. They’re, I don’t know why they’re up and going. They don’t even know why they’re up and going. So I like that. There was another, there was, yeah, the moon does whatever to ’em. There was another time I was glassing into the sun and, and it was just hotter than crap in, in the, in the afternoon. And the bucks when I got up there and put the glass up there were already up and feeding. And it was just counterintuitive like I’m thinking and you just don’t know why. And sometimes there’s just things like that. But anyway, put to Adam’s point, glassing into the sun because they’re beded at, at the shade. And then generally speaking, without the animal activity index, they act like they, a lot of these deer in, in places where hunting act like the sun is a form of cancer or something. Yeah. Like they avoid it like the plague. Yeah. And so as soon as the sun hits ’em, they are in a wash, in a done canyon, whatever. Yeah.
00:19:34:29 –> 00:20:34:07
So you’ve got, it doesn’t matter, you know, right off the bat for the first 30 minutes or 45 minutes or whatever, you know, you’re, you’ve got good light to glass in. And then after that you are, where would you bed? Where would look around and where would you bed? Soft. Where’s the shade work for you? Soft, soft, cool. Damp dirt. Yeah. And then and glass there. Be able to glass there. Don’t you think? I’m joking with the damp part. Just I know what I mean. I, I mean if you wanna make a list, I just did it. Plenty of damp today though. Out there. Oh, we got crushed, crushed. Look for hotter watch, watch high spots out of drainages today. We live in the desert. No, I I I’m gonna attest to Jason’s that whole animal activity index. I’ve seen some weird stuff. Yeah, we were, when we were in Nevada, it was just, it was the second time I went out there and I remember watching these deer feed all morning long till like 10 o’clock. And I said, and the, the weird part about it was, is it did not say that the deer were supposed to be feeding at that point. I think it was just a natural thing. It was later in the year that was just kind of what they did. They fed till like 10 o’clock.
00:20:34:08 –> 00:21:32:23
And, and I was like, well it’s claiming at noon they’re gonna get back up and feed again. And this is, and I was like, this is not gonna happen. But I’m not, I might as well just sit here as to go back to camp and eat. I’ll just sit here by this rock and eat. And I’m not kidding you. At noon on the dot, those deer got back up and went back. Like they got up and walked back to where they were feeding. I’m like, they just sat down two hours ago. They don’t need to be back out. Well it’s, the moon tells me the moon on the other side of the earth tells me to get up. So you guys, well you made a good point though, about the time of year you get into October, the it’s not as hot. Yeah. And there also starts to get a biological clock kind of ticking. Like, okay, ruts coming. You know, sometimes you can get more activity. Yeah. Based on food sources are here now it’s freezing. Maybe at night this feeds gonna die and be crispy brown here soon. There’s, there’s that. Get it while you can. It’s like leftovers at Thanksgiving, you know, at five 30 the next morning your mom’s got it put away. It’s in the fridge and you gotta work to get it again.
00:21:32:25 –> 00:22:45:24
You gotta work to get it out and all the condiments and everything else to go with it. Yeah. That’s a And mag pies wash for mag pies. I learned that too. Devon taught me. Oh, Devon has a great magpie story. Several watch for m what? Let’s hear it. Let’s interject that. In fact. Let look for coming here. Question from Jason Carter episode Devvin. Tell us about the MPI story. Just watch ’em, trust me. Yeah, they do. They they will lead you. They lead you to the meat. Yeah. They’ll land on a buck. Especially in this big sage country. Just watch ’em pick a year. If they go in a little clump bushes and you’re wondering if the deer is there, they’re in there for more than four and a half seconds. You probably should look at that bush real close. I remember multiple, multiple times picking ticks off the back of a buck’s neck. Yeah. Basically. Pretty much. And I think going back to this question, one of the things that, it depends on the area as to where the deer just in some areas has specific, they, they follow the same trails. They do the same thing. And so if you’re glassing for long periods of time, it gives you a chance to learn that. And so maybe, maybe not just glass the morning, maybe once in a while sit till noon or, or longer on a specific area. You find bucks. Watch where they go.
00:22:45:24 –> 00:23:53:01
Watch what they do. Jan and I tracked a buck last year and, and we couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t find the steer. Like what are we stupid? I mean, can we, like, are we even trying? Are we even trying? It felt like we got schooled so bad. So ended up seeing him then losing him. Went in there that night, didn’t see him. Went in there the next morning, didn’t see him. So I said, okay, I’m cutting his tracks. We know where his track is. Cut his track. Started tracking him. He hit every ravine perfectly. A ravines have better feet. ’cause they have the bulk of the water and the low and you can’t see. You can’t be seen. Dude. I said all the time we were tracking and I said, look at our glass of knob. She’s like, I can’t see anything. Yeah, that’s right. Kept going. Look at our glass of knob. Look at our glass knob. We did that the whole time. He owned that hill that you thought, we thought we could see everything on. And there was only five or 10%. Yeah. Yeah. The majority of the time that he would’ve been feeding in there, we wouldn’t have been able to see him. If we’d have been at the right spot at the exact right time that he went through a little, you know, whatever change in topography, then we would’ve been able to see him.
00:23:53:01 –> 00:25:04:00
But we didn’t hit that perfectly. Yeah. And I mean, and it was multiple days. We tracked him again in another spot. Same thing. And he just lived in these ravines and it was just right that you couldn’t see him. I said, look, we were glassing over there last night. Guess what? This is where he was. No wonder. And they make a life out of that. And it’s, I don’t know that they’re that smart. I think they’re pretty smart. But I think also that’s where the best feed is, is down low in these ravines and draws. I think on a year like this, when resources feed is off the charts everywhere I’ve seen. Yeah. There’s a lot more randomness. Yeah. There’s not a lot as much routine this year. Yeah. You get in a year where it’s just wherever you want to go. There’s good fi eat. That’s a tough, that’s tough time. Look everywhere. They’re gonna live in the trees too. Look in hills, look in hills, shade intervenes all of them. And the And the jungle. A jungle. Yep. All right. This next one. Okay. This looks like it was sent in by one of us. Logan. He gone says, is that your all? It’s not me. Okay. No questions. Simply a thank you and great content and resources as a member. Thank you Logan. Oh, appreciate it. You’re welcome. It wasn’t you we’re doing good by the way, with this page.
00:25:05:08 –> 00:26:26:28
We’re supposed to, you know, blow through these and we’re really blowing through ’em through Got you down. Hey, some of these are, some of these are gonna be one word answers, like no red. There’s a couple of those. Redfield. Dylan says, what’s your guys’ knowledge of the Yakima training center in Washington? Unfortunately, this is a one answer for me is, is that, where is that where the Steelers play? We don’t have any personal knowledge, but there is some legit stuff, but we don’t have any personal knowledge of it. Right. So we don’t want to unfortunately blow out somebody’s unit either. So. All right. Next question. Pistol sand, early October. Mule dare prec scout two days and then hunt 10. Or hunt 10. Hunt the last 12 days. The last 12 days migration possible. Yeah, that’s what he’s saying. Well, early October, I don’t know. S my, it’s really hard. It’s pres scout. I love that word. I’d probably go Me too. It’s the best word ever invented. But anyway, I would say Scout, what would you do? I would say scout two and hunt 10. Okay. Personally, John, what would you do? I scout two. Leave. Come back for the last eight. Okay. John? If he said late October, I would buy maybe the migration stuff. But yeah, this says early October. Early October. Yeah. And maybe some units we know in Utah they move early, but in few weird places.
00:26:26:28 –> 00:27:29:01
That’s what I was gonna say. It’s so, he’s probably talking, he’s probably talking about in Nevada, you know, ’cause they have some one, a few units. They have the early, mid, late. Yeah. And then they also have two, you know, like a split. I just, I think the two ga two days. I dunno, I’d take two days there before. Is he talking 10 days and then hunt 10 right after? Or do you just hunt straight? 10, 12. He has 12 days to hunt. 12. We talked about that last time. I mean, after five to seven days and your early October. I’m like you, if I can go back, I will. That mid middle October is like the worst time in the world to hunt. Killed a lot of big bucks in Nevada. October 5th. Yes. Lots of them with no ruing, not very many Migration. On the 10th to the 15th they start moving around and hodgepodge and then they get pushed by a few hundreds. They dig in the, they dig into the brush with magpie. They live in the trees. Alright. Okay. Alright. Yeah, whatever. 12 days is a lot no matter what you decide. Yeah. Oh, it’s probably, anyway, keep going. All right. Kind of follow up onto that. How many mule deer, rutt hunts are happening this year for you guys in the office? Colorado?
00:27:29:06 –> 00:28:53:19
It sounds like there, just do a raise of hand of how many you have and, and somebody add ’em up and say it. I mean Oh, for you, for you personally. Well, just in Colorado. I’m in Colorado. Colorado this year. Who has a Colorado tag? What? Well, okay. Okay. So one, they’re three, right? Three. Three 50%. Yeah. I have the new Mexican one, which could turn into a rat. Huh. Okay. Next question. Screaming Siegel says, do you think mule deer herds in Utah will ever recover to exceed statewide goals? No. Next question. I think there’ll be some recovery, but I don’t think they’ll exceed goals. Peaks and valleys. They’ll never exceed. Yeah. I think there’s too many changes. Too many collectively, people, highways, predators, all of those things in the mix. Yep. It’s hard to know. You know, the answer’s not exceed statewide goals. And if they’re constantly, if it’s a, if they change the goal to a hundred point thousand Deere in the state, that’s my point. That’s what’s a new achievable goal. And statewide, like, you may, you may achieve it in some units, but you’re never gonna, statewide, every goal is achieved. Basically. Will mild deer herdz recover to what they were at in the height of their glory? RJ underscore steed says, are Utah elk behind on growth this year? What do you think, Josh? It says no right here. I’m not sure who wrote that, but I haven’t really been out.
00:28:53:29 –> 00:30:05:13
So Josh are, you’re a lion sucker. I’ve heard, I’ve heard there are some that are behind and down where Beaver. Yeah. Beaver. But I, I don’t think that street don’t also be a very, they’re not behind. They’re fully built. They’re fully built, ready to go right now. Yeah. And they, they put on, they were behind. It was pretty, it was pretty wild to see some of the bulls that were well behind and they, I swear grew more in two weeks than they did in two months. Yeah. So it was pretty, pretty awesome. So the answer is no. Yeah. If you got an elk tag in Utah, Nevada, Arizona Scout now go scout now and shoot opening day. So just from a a b standpoint, what, what could cause that? Probably the delayed greenup delayed Greenup high is, well it was so cold. Had a big, even in southern Utah, we’re not losing animals. We had snow covering cold May and June cold. It never got warm till June. Elk shed in March. And they start growing it. Dude. But you get above 80 degrees, 13 hours later they’re growing March looked like. Or April looked like March to me. Yeah. The whole month. It was just never got warm. And so the real green up and then it then it usually when it starts warming up, it greens up all the way up the mountain. 10,000 feet fast. 10,000 feet.
00:30:06:02 –> 00:31:21:07
It was like July 1st before it greened up. Yeah. And there’s grass at your waist up there now that’s still as green as could be. So they’re, they’re packing it all now. They now that they, they never didn’t have great stuff to eat. It was just didn’t all come in as early as early. Okay. That’s all. Yeah. Up north potentially, I guess. But down, down here in the southern region doesn’t seem to appear to be that way. We answered this one last time. I thought we did let the list. Yeah. Did we? Yep. Yeah. It must have been a multiple question there Might duplicate that led into other questions. It did. Jordan K 8 0 1 says, talk about some of your best sheds. Y’all have found. Oh, I used to be a much bigger shed hunter than, than I have been in the last 10 years or so. Yeah. Mainly maybe this, mainly this job. We’re so tied here in the winter and Spring Scout to be being on top of ’em. I dang near 50 years old. Kind changes. Yeah. I go, I go shed hunt. But I have no, I used to be able to kind of scout bulls or deer know where I was going and know where some bulls have been winter. And now I just go, shed hunt. And mainly ’cause we’re so busy. I don’t have as much time as I used to. But I haven’t shed hunted in 10 years.
00:31:21:20 –> 00:32:39:14
I’m just not into participation trophies. I don’t, I don’t know. There’s, come on. I, I love them. I love them too. It’s fun. Pick. We killed Joshua because of the sheds. We’ve, we’ve found here four twenties. That’s, that’s probably one of your highlights, Jason, that that’s a highlight. Twenties bull. And then it was the next year or how many years later? So we, well we killed, we found him and killed him the next year. Yeah. Yeah. But found 2000 set. 2,002,000 was dry. Yeah. I found the 2000 set. 2001 and then didn’t find 2002. Killed him. 2003. But then, yeah, then I found a set of deer sheds from a deer that I hunted that I thought had disappeared. It Nevada. And I don’t talk about this one very much ’cause people are pretty, you don’t screw around if they see the color of dirt you’re, you’re in, they can figure out what unit you’re in. It’s a different world now too. Yeah. Yeah. So, so sheds are sensitive because people, it leads to well answering puzzle pieces that there’s alive and someone remembers the deer well and then they remember the deer and then they got truck and or whatever. And then they end up with, okay, if this deer was found there, there’s 14 other sets of this other, these other deer should be in the same geographic area. We’re gonna go pound this area.
00:32:39:14 –> 00:33:45:06
And by the way, we’ll show Jason that we have now 10 years of his deer. And that’s what people, they love to do it. So anyway, but did find a buck that was legit giant, you know, and, and glassed up one of his sides. And then, you know, next, by the next weekend we had the other side and, and just, you know, one of the, something special, you know that you don’t talk about too much. Yeah. Found another buck that was legit, you know, big two thirties buck that you just die, you know, would do anything to kill. But then, you know, has to be lying crap. Can’t he never, never, never find him again. Yeah. Just a figment of your imagination, you know? So, but then some of these sheds, you know, you, you kill a buck and then you want to go back and find their sheds. And we’ve done that a little bit. So it’s, and and they, and they do teach you things. Those sheds teach you things, but more when you’re young ’cause you don’t have the points, you don’t have the money to, you know, to buy a landlord tag as much or you know, you don’t have the points built up to command tags like we do now as we’re old and we have the points built up. We can do a lot of things now. And so you shed hunt.
00:33:45:08 –> 00:34:52:25
We shed hunted a lot when we were younger. Yeah. And it taught you a lot. Like it taught us a lot. Like you, when you find the sheds then you know, then you’re looking for late season tags that we know where this bull goes and these guys have killed many governor bulls over finding sheds. And then we know this bull will come back in. We killed Joshua and came back in and, and we killed him Right. Where we find his sheds, you know what I mean? End of December. Yeah. End of December 29th. Three days before, two days before the end of, used to end at the end of December. And so, you know, and we knew he’d come back. We didn’t know where he at. It didn’t even know where he went. There was no cow in the unit that we knew of. Didn’t even have trail cameras back then. So, you know, probably be, he’d probably heard of a hair Yeah. Mares or something for a while up. But yeah, he bread, whatever. But, you know, but, but there’s, there’s so many. So that still that same thing with here in Utah. How many of these bulls that we have, they killed late because of the sheds and whatnot. And so it means something. And it’s sensitive to people. ’cause if that bull or buck or whatever isn’t dead yet, people are quiet. Yeah.
00:34:53:00 –> 00:35:51:27
Well and if, and somebody could find a set of sheds and nobody could know about a particular bull. And then somebody finds a set set of sheds and just, oh, throws a picture up and then now he’s known and people are like, I gotta find that thing in summer. Now it’s on some radars. But what I find interesting is there’s some people that have, that’ll get truck camera video of and photos of summer specific bulls and never know where the or yeah. Never know where it goes. And then those sheds are found, you know, and then it’s nice to, it’s nice to know what that bull scored. Yep. But it’d be really nice to know where those sheds were found because you know that bull’s gonna be vulnerable in the late, especially like this year, Utah, late archery hunt or something like that. Yeah. You know that that bull’s gonna be there. Yeah. He’s gonna be there. Yeah. He’s huntable. Well that’s the thing. ’cause there’s a lot of times, times with bulls they’ll move a lot. Archery hunt, rifle hunt, muzzle hunt, all that kind of stuff. And you’re like, geez, how does a bull like that make it? But on, if there’s a late season hunt, generally that’s where they’ll go to shed and that’s the one hunt you can say, Hey I know where he’s at. Yeah. You know, at least then so you can start backtracking from there.
00:35:52:00 –> 00:37:00:29
But he can help you out a lot. There’s something about picking up sheds like elk sheds you have to put on your shoulder to get out. Like there’s something to be said for if you can one hand them and just not, you know what I mean? Whatever. That was a poundage. But if you can put ’em, if you have to put ’em on your shoulder to get out And Bronson, you’ve picked up a few of them, you guys Josh and did a lot in the Devon. I mean, you know, you know what it’s like. It’s, it’s a special feeling and you keep those shits forever. Probably too long. Really? Huh? Does, I mean is that, is that where I got a few of that I kept not as, not as many. I probably should have, but yeah. Feel bad when you looking back on, well you know they’re three 50 or 60 both. You wish you’d had ’em now at the time. I mean at the time they were really nice bulls but not, not you needed the money for gas. You’d thought well she hunting and pay for itself. You in the way. Yeah. You get 500 bucks for tell your wife you got she money to pay for a new optic or whatever. You need diapers honey. You get a job, you get a job. Babe. Never used that line. Logan never used that line. I’ll write that one down. Alright.
00:37:01:13 –> 00:38:10:02
Anything Devin, you picked up a lot of sheds over your course of time. He’s got some in the basement, upstate stacks. Yeah, I sold a lot of them. Yeah I did too. But I don’t know. I enjoyed finding, I enjoyed more so than anything. I always found old stuff. ’cause I never lived with animals much. I just hiked a lot. I enjoyed that part of it. But I really liked finding multiple years. That was my favorite. Like it was like, I know you’re still alive. I’ve got three sets off you. It was cool and I’m missing a year. It would drive me nuts. Yeah. And it was neat to have places like that that you could go back to that. No, nobody was, they were overlooking for whatever reason and you were fine. ’em we had my dad and I had places like that. Yeah. Southeastern Utah on the San Juan unit that would have three or four years of a bull. It was a five by six. Heavier than crap. I mean just, just he’s back I was right. Or find multiple years in the same day. I love that. Yeah. It’s fun. That’s when you know in the right spot I guess. Yeah. Big deal. Like it’s a big deal. Find shed hunting can lead to killing stuff if you’re strategic about the season as well as just knowing what they score and, and it just helps you, you do it your round too.
00:38:10:22 –> 00:39:19:10
Well you know, plus or minus. There are some shed seasons here and there. I’ll tell you a really quick shed story that involves two of us in the room who may not even know it. No kidding. One of my best days. I found a mid one nineties deer set. Like a three set and a three 90 single. No. Awesome. Right. One day. Do you remember that? No. When? When you saw me on the road. Oh yeah. That was funny. Yeah. John saw you somebody pictures like, is this you? Yes, yes. Is Atler strapped to your four wheeler in the bed of my truck? Yes. Yes. That was, remember was a great day. Where was he? He was in town by then. Was it? I was in town. Yeah. It could’ve been anywhere Utah. He was coming from the direction of Nevada. How long ago was he? You don’t know. It was a stack man. How long ago? Sticking out. That was a third side off a bull I had looked for for years. How did you know Devin? He didn’t. Yeah. How did you get to ask him who he was? Somebody else? Yeah, something. Oh, based on what you were driving. Yeah. Based on, yeah. You was just funny. He knew Chris at the time. Oh. Or somebody drives this. Chris was like, dude my brother. Y’all know that guy? Yeah. Yeah. It’s our Well did he didn’t cover him good enough.
00:39:19:23 –> 00:40:37:11
No, I I mean he can’t cover hell very good. When you got a four-wheeler, you bad. It was an awesome day. He comes and goes through the storm cell. He had a small Toyota and it was overflowing it seemed, I mean they were big, big, big. So what I did on my spring breaks, everybody go here and there. I would literally go by myself for five days. Yeah. It was awesome. Yeah. Back when we were young and in shape. Alright, moving on. And some of the big deer you kill, you want every shed including their forge horn year. You know what I mean? Just the DNAI want their button buck out. Yeah. Everything about ’em. Everything. All right Paul, where are we at? Tucker Ryan. 13 says, can everyone break down their current optic setups? How about we go by peace and everybody just say what they got maybe? Huh? Or do you wanna go by person and say everything you got? Yeah, go by a person. Okay. You start Jason. Well what I’m using, what I’ve got is a a a lot of just stuff. Right. But what I’m, what I’m using is ro nl NL twelves and then I have the NL eights. Bronson loves to tease me about ’em. They’re amazing. He is hunting white tills twice this year. It’s not even about that. They’re amazing. So in L eights and then NL eights NL 12.
00:40:37:13 –> 00:41:46:24
So I don’t need a 10 and I used a six hour, the eight K and 2,400. I kept the older one too for a rangefinder. And then spotters, I have the, I have a, you know, a straight STX 95, 85, 65 snap on and off depending how I want. As well as A BTX. And it’s all kind of comes with me along with pair of fifteens from way back in case I break my twelves. That’s right. And then I have another spotter. I have a harp yet you can tell Jason. And I’m not an angle guy and I have a harp yet, which his angle angles in the truck with me. You can tell Jason and I are about the same age. ’cause other than the eight power Pures, everything he has is what I use. Yeah. Ditto here. Yeah. It’s pretty much, it’s all of us. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and then my kids, I’ve got ’em, the Zeis fifteens, they’re awesome If the Zeiss fifteens are a little more affordable and, but yet, you know, great og Yeah. They’re just, they’re, they’re excellent for, for what they cost and and whatnot. And so, you know, my kids are using that. I’ve also, they’ve also got some of the sc hand me down scopes, which are fricking amazings. Way better than we ever had. Oh come, come on. 20 something year old.
00:41:46:27 –> 00:42:54:13
Dumb is, is there any piece that, that y’all use that you’re surprised you still use? That you, you know, you thought, oh I’m gonna sell this because I have the original bt I replaced it. I had the original BT Xs when they first came out, years and years and years ago. This was a long time ago. BT Xs came out. Okay, well I don’t have they changed it. I don’t know. I’m an ignorant, but I kind of wonder about that. Like maybe know how little coatings changed here and there. I’m just like, eh. Yeah. I don’t know. I have an STS 80 that I thought I would never use when I, when I upgraded and I, I use it surprisingly a lot. Yeah. And we get kids or something. It’s just like a great size and I don’t get rid of ’em because you’ve always got your wife, your kids need something. Like, Jason alluded they got better glass than we had just ’cause I’ve got 10 power SLCs that are 20 something years old. Well why get rid of ’em when you got kids? You know, I got 10 power ELs that I don’t use much from my, one of my kids. I was using a couple of you guys. Maybe just Josh, I don’t know. Use the EO ranges, don’t you Josh? Yeah. I, I kind of switched to range finding binoculars a couple years ago and I can’t go away from ’em now.
00:42:54:16 –> 00:44:00:09
I mean obviously I don’t use ’em during scouting season. But it is funny. Even just, I find myself, I use that rangefinder a significant amount anytime I glass that range, I don’t know. Josh uses the ta the tracking assistant to get back to his truck. How many batteries do you use a year? They’re good. I, I put a fresh one in at the first of every year but I, it’s never gone out on me. But we had a guy too just recently struggle with the Leica and the battery life he had, he wasn’t using the white energizer basically. And then also didn’t turn off the Bluetooth. So it’s constantly trying to pair and Oh. And kind of wore out the battery and so just make sure Yeah. Mean just turn your Bluetooth off on the SIDS or anything. I always have a spare battery’s each truck side by side. Especially when you’re case that’s the one thing with like e ranges, like you have to think of that where the sig, I don’t even take it in my pack until it’s time to hunt. Yeah, yeah. You know, so it’s never getting used. But I found myself evilest even last weekend. You found yourself, that’s the one, you know how he bugs you. When people say I run this, what bugs me is when people find themselves. I found myself, I found myself glassing off. It’s weird. It was really weird.
00:44:01:00 –> 00:45:00:27
So what did you find yourself doing? Oh, I podcast. Don’t tell me everything. But what did you find yourself doing? He called that a trigger You’ve been triggered. Trigger I found myself. Where did you, you find yourself and what were you doing when last weekend? I had my twelves because when I’m scouting I don’t need my ranges. So I just take my twelves with me and because I wanna carry both pairs, but I’m sitting there and see some bulls and I’m like, like, I don’t know why, why are you pushing the button that aren’t there? Just mid-July Joe? Yeah, I, it’s just Why do you need a range bull? Just to see, I I who gives, I don’t know. Like who cares? That’s a, but I, I’ll do it all the time. That’s a tweaker man. When I go to, when I go to glass, like I get up on a knob. Those are tweaker tendencies. They’re, when I get up on a knob, I just, I, that trigger range just goes several different, several different pieces of the range. I’m like okay, it’s 400 yards to that hillside. It’s 300 that side. It’s not to thousand yards tot know. But you’re getting old and you get set in your ways and you kind, you’re used to it. It’s like hypothetically if the tag was opening day right now and had to gun in my hand, how far is that?
00:45:00:27 –> 00:45:54:00
What all but I need to get to, to shoot, I’m gonna put my diary. So I know that if I come here in the dark, I know how far I’m gonna shoot. If I need the six five versus my 300 versus, I don’t dunno, it’s you, you find yourself if you have. And so when you do, what mode do you put it on? Are you, which gun? Like which gun, which profile do you have it on? Whichever gun I’m gonna be using. Sold. Like last weekend. What were you, what mode was it on? I wasn’t using it. I didn’t have it last week. I found, found yourself on myself. You found yourself triggering trying to tweaking for the button. Yeah. Trying to tweak the button. I dunno, could you see him up there with Judson? I coulds that tree’s 960 yards away and, and he’s like, dad, let’s play a little game son. Dad gives that rock. See that rock over there? How far do you think you can throw a rock that far? How far is he got it? Don’t, don’t worry son. You’ll get better at it. 40 something years, you guys, one of these years, 40 something years. Arranging everything I’ve ever looked at at you.
00:45:54:00 –> 00:46:55:28
Something when we hit a knob and we, we get up there, we start glassing and we all have tags and we have a knob and I’ve already ranged everything and a buck hops up and I hip shoot him at 400 yards. Oh come on. You guys are gonna be like, yeah, tweak 400. Keep tweaking. Who couldn’t guess 400. Keep tweaking. I mean, geez. Hold on. Josh is the one guy that would benefit if, if we did away with range Could speaking of technology and all these little, you know, he’s got enough little waypoint sake. He well and he’s got enough, he’s trained himself for 40 years of range finding rocks. Okay. I’m telling you. He he would win at at if we eliminated the rangefinder, I would take Josh with me on my run to tell he played the game. Yeah. He would tweak, he would tweak a non range finding vinyl and probably guess me a pretty close yardage. ’cause there’s stuff that surprise, there’s stuff that surprises me. I don’t know. I, I don’t know why I just do it, but I just find it easy though. Having a range finding. I’m not sure you find yourself. Yeah, I’m sure having a range finding parabins is just, it takes an extra step out for me. I feel like I get a better range just because I have both eyes open. I’m doing the same time. Yeah. And I’m, it’s more steady.
00:46:56:06 –> 00:48:13:12
I’m just sitting there stead it’s, yeah, it’s another, I have to obviously carry two para of binoculars because I have twelves, but I dunno, I range finding mine. Yeah. They don’t a range finding in a 12, at least in swirl. So could get a range finding 15 in a in a Leica. Yeah. Might try. You could. Okay. I know where there’s one, we covered most of that. What’s up? Are we done? Well I think we’re done for today. We’ll pick up the rest of the next episode I guess. Really? Yeah, I guess so. Where are we at? Yep. Yep. It doesn’t matter where we at? We’ve, we’ve scribbled up. Yep. Mark, we’re caught up. Alright, everybody, well, I guess these guys are cutting us off. Go scout. It’s time to shoot your bow or time to go rocks. Tweak with your range finder. Do something. Gonna find myself, find myself running trail cameras and trigger both of you. You camera season is over. You find yourself running a pair of real rangers. There you go. How many times do we see people talking about running stuff on freaking social media just recently? Crazy. Yeah. Well, let’s run. We better run. All right, let’s, let’s find ourselves. Let’s gone back. Our office for the day. Gotta run. 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.
00:48:13:18 –> 00:49:24:12
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. Ken Trek makes great boots for any situation. Most sheep 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. Triple S Polaris specializes in custom setup hunting side-by-sides. They deliver right to your door nationwide.
00:49:24:12 –> 00:50:44:12
Visit ss polaris.com to learn more For affordable, long-range rifles and shooting schools, visit thompson long-range dot com. Hoyt is top of the line archery equipment. Hoyt is the official bow manufacturer of Epic Outdoors. Everyone on our staff shoots a Hoyt bow call. If you’d like to visit about their different models or visit hoyt.com. Thank you to Phone Scope, the best camera optic adapter out there. Phone scope makes high quality phone cases and optics adapters. Visit phone scope.com to learn more. Stealth cam has high quality durable trail cameras the we all love to use. Check them [email protected] or call us. To order today here at Epic Optics. We are a verified dealer for Swarovski Zeiss, Leica Vortex, stealth cam and more. Call us today to visit about the available optics we have and what would be right for you. Or visit epic optics.com for only 150 bucks a year. You get nine issues of the Epic Outdoors Magazine and unlimited access to our Hunt consultant, as well as access to our verified research website. To see all the other member benefits, visit epic outdoors.com. If you, you hunt multiple states, our services are essential. The Epic Outdoors license application service is for you. If you ever miss deadlines or would like help developing your long, medium, and short-term license application goals, give us a call today at (435) 263-0777 to learn more.
Recent Comments