In this episode the crew sits down and discusses some of the recent changes made to Utah Mule deer hunting and what that means for future hunting quality in Utah. We also discuss where hunting is heading throughout the western states. We wrap it up listening to Josh Pollock’s New Mexico rifle elk hunt.
Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service and likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.
You’re listening to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, brought to you by the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo in Utah. Life Elevated. This is an event we don’t miss. So come and see the whole Epic Outdoors crew. February 13th through 16th 2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah. For more details, go to hunt expo.com.
Hey, what’s up buddy? Jason got Adam Bronson. John Peterson. Joshua F Pollock.
Start over. Over Josh.
We’re gonna, we’re Josh. No, we’re not starting to losing. Let’s get this freaking show on the road.
We’re, we’re losing people.
We’ve been here for how many months, Bronson?
What do you mean?
Months,
Days, years. What are we? Days.
Days. We came in, we wrote a, we wrote a publication and that’s it. That’s where we’re, that’s where we’re at. Starting December. What
One? Whenever one goes through the printer, there’s always a little bit of exuberance. Yeah. Emitted from the office. John, even John, even smiling. He’s smiling. He
Caught up on, I dunno why he’s smiling. Trying to, he caught up upon sleep. He was trying to whiteboard you and I with the ads. We don’t whiteboard ads. John did. Did we ever told you that? You know, Hey everybody, you know what whiteboarding is? Tell us what whiteboarding is. John sounds like no, let,
Let’s just water boarding. But it’s, if
Any of you out there have ever thought, how hard is it to
Control Jason?
I don’t like it. Basically. Impossible. Well, he is like, ah, I gotta get, you gotta say this. Aol. No, I’m gonna say it the way I want him. By the way, anybody that’s not the expo, you’re a loser.
They’re the title sponsor. This podcast you,
If you want to go, if you wanna be somebody, you’re gonna go to the expo February 13 to 16. Get yourself a freaking room. Let’s do this. Find us at the booth. Let’s talk hunting. Buy some optics. We’re gonna have some amazing prices. And what else, John? Oh, we’re gonna apply for $5. Freaking 200 tags. We’re
Waiting for that
Minutes. Maybe. Maybe you’re going to freaking buy a conservation tag. Who knows? There’s all kinds of conservation techs. Bronson, you even looked at the list the other day, finally came out.
Oh
Yeah. What’d you see on there?
Oh, some interesting
Tags. Oh yeah. Like
What? Lots. Lots of species on there. With the
Clean slate. You got,
I’ve got a wide open clean slate and a new rifle. Oh yeah. The six five. But the
Re more
That ain’t a new rifle
Is
Not a need more. That ain’t a new rifle. Right?
So tell us about this awesome rifle. We freaking had some projects today, Bronson. Well
That was a secondary project to, the primary project was just to put a new zeis. All right. The
New V eight on it. What is it? The V eight? Yeah. Awesome.
I drink, I drink one every day. So I figured I’d better put one on the gun. That That gun. That gun you.
That gun’s been mauled and abused. Which gun? Oh dude.
Which gun? Which one
That
Gun is? Tell us. It’s only had a V four and it went
For sale. Now it’s not for sale, then it for sale. Then we
Up for seven PRC.
The six five creed more. Okay, well that one has had a scope mounted multiple times.
All we’ve been able to do, we can’t get it to go away. We can just suppress it. That’s right.
That’s the truth.
Think it
It back. So we mount this new one, the V, the V eight or whatever it is, which is an amazing scope, by the
Way. Oh, I can’t wait. Devin and I. So I just decided to throw that on a different gun that was in my safe. That was scope. And
So the one, the V four, right it home, right?
Yeah. Threw it back on. I figured it’s a usable gun. Now
The gun that was for sale was now not for sale. But you guys are by amazing gun ever.
By the minute. You guys are making me wanna
One hour after we mounted the scope. Josh, what did he say?
He said, basically
I said it’s for self for a thousand dollars more than it was yesterday. Exactly.
And you know what’s funny? Sometimes here, here at Epic, we find this to be true. The more expensive tags are hunts, there’s the higher quality of the experience, the easier they are to sell. Add a grand, add two grand. Bronson probably sell by tomorrow. But
Then after it was for sale for a thousand dollars more than it was yesterday. Now it’s the 2025 gun of the year. Yeah. That is gonna be used on every guys.
In fact, if you guys, he’s talking
Bronson, you got a deer coming up perfect for six five, need more.
That’s in, that’s in a few days. I already have another dial down an animal. Gimme an animal. Said gimme species, gimme an animal. We’re like, he throws out some fallow deer. Like, I gotta go down to Australia and hunt something. It
Was a cous deer. No, he
Threw out fallow deer.
Let’s call it a cows cow.
Cows deer. Okay.
Whatever I said, I said a 400 ish bull
Elk. Okay.
You gimme the tag. I’ll shoot it with it. Okay. Okay.
Okay. But the ER’s the most perfect species known to man for a need more. I don’t
Know.
It occurs in in
A few weeks. And so what’d he say? Pollock. Well,
That got side got dope. It and all that.
Family projects. I’ve
Got other guns that are dialed perfectly. Exactly. I just wanna go exactly with that confidence.
So nevertheless, it is suppressed. If anybody’s interested, why give ’em a call? Let’s get him on the right day. Probably save a couple grand.
You guys are getting me more galvanized by the second. I might not hunt with anything but that gun this year, just to prove everybody wrong. And then sell it with a list of the things that it killed that year.
Anyway, so we had projects of epic proportions this morning. We had a couple of Bronson projects. John, we were lightning a trigger for you some pretty soon we’re opening up epic freaking triggers. Whatever. Gunsmithing. What did, what?
Did you get the poundage down to? A two? It was at four.
Yeah.
Was no, Devin pulled it and it was like three mid threes this morning. Anyway. Wow. Oh,
Last time he pulled it, it was almost four.
It was like, okay, I just dare you to question Devin on anything. I’m
Not gonna, I mean, he’s not here right now. Of course, a single, a single shot, 12 gauge doesn’t have a trigger that hard. So it had to be fit.
Geez. So anyway, we did, we fixed it now. But in order to do that, you gotta take the whole thing apart, John. Now you’ve got projects. You and Adam could take your projects together and paint some targets. Yep.
We
Gotta paint some targets. And you might even find some other people down there. Jones
Is gonna be really close. Mine
Shooting some of your painted targets. So pretty fun. Anyway, we’re we’re still kind of in that mode of excited. I guess we’re still excited. I don’t know. I was
Of what?
Just coming out of the field. And then now we’re still dealing with our gear, which normally we’re throwing. Putting it back in the safe. Yeah. Putting everything up. Calling it a day. But then, but then there’s projects, new
Toys, new optics.
You get a five minute break between phone calls and outcome the project. So
Christmas wishes come to pass.
Anyway, pretty fun stuff. All of these things we’re talking about, of course we sell, we sell fierce firearms. We’re selling CVA muzz. If there’s anything you need for, say even Christmas or, or whatever, John, we’ve also got some gift cards on our website.
Yes, we do.
Pretty easy to grab, pretty easy to tell us about ’em real quick.
Yep. Yep. Logan, you just put, Logan did ’em whatever amount you want. Prepaid,
Go on website. You choose an amount of prepaid amount and then it sends you a little gift card and you can either choose to send it to somebody else or keep it for yourself.
And all digital with, with digits, you type,
It’ss all digital. Keeps track of it before you. That’s about, you can use it
Digital with digits.
Digital with digits I used to,
Which is cool. So it’ll deliver on,
You know,
Christmas. You can buy it now and send it on Christmas.
So they’ll get an email Christmas morning. Yeah. Bling. Yep. I,
I may have, I may have screwed the first one up that we did.
What?
Really? Just barely.
Oh, you had a couple, you had an extra zero. It was a hundred dollars and you loaded it for a thousand.
I There was a note, there was a note in the guy’s file that said there was a gift card present. Oh.
I
May have said, Hey, I see here. Oh
No,
You have a gift card.
Oh, you did that.
You ruined Christmas for his wife. I
See you’ve got a gift card from a, a carry. Do you know her?
Well,
I figured, I figured $200 was a sizable amount that he would like to put towards a pair of $3,000 pair of buy notes that he was wanting to buy. And
He was un he was oblivious to the, he had a credit
Back after Christmas and buy two. Josh and
His wife now is mad at us and will never call us again.
So now we got an angry member. All because you’re trying to do the right
Thing. It’s what It’s what I do.
It’s all about perspective. Right. Okay. Well
That’s
What we’re talking about. I thought I was helping with customer service. Well,
We promise we won’t call you. Tell you about any gift cards on file before Christmas. We
Lesson on the first card that was bought.
After that. We might email you and tell you use it or lose it
Right
There By what? January 1st.
We got all kinds. But John, we also, we also have type, I’m just teasing. We also have blankets, epic, all kinds of stuff. Epic, right John? Yeah. All
Kinds of merch. Freaking we hate that word. Yeah.
What kind of, that’s a flatty name. Like mech
Merchandise. I got
The match.
Don’t like swag, but I like it better than merch
Anyway. Yeah. Coffee mugs. We got shoes. We’re selling shoes for craps sakes. Yeah, we’re, I mean,
How do you like their Jason?
All right, so they’re amazing. I ordered what, 10 pairs? Yeah. Jason
Ordered 10 pairs of his shoes. They were pretty awesome.
Okay, don’t
Do anything halfway for now.
Don’t, don’t say who, who it’s for.
We’re just about,
You’re gonna do the Pollock thing.
I’ll write down a cut right there. It’s all good.
Your kids are, your kids are all used to presence.
It’s fine. You can leave it. It doesn’t matter. But yeah, the shoes are pretty awesome. In fact, that’s maybe even a leak of the new epic camo. But whatever. That’s not gonna happen. Right? John?
I
Get yours now. It’s kind of like a rookie trading card for a baseball player. You might wanna get the first ones. First
Gen first and only.
It’s like the first gen.
Alright. So anyway, when we started out, I’m, we’re done white boarding again. John, we never did define whiteboarding for the people, but the people is when John, when white boarding, when John hands you something that says, read this word for word. No, no, not doing it.
It’s kind of like when we had to, I don’t know the last time that happened.
Well, dude
Kind when
Hasn’t happened Brian. I’m
Saying, hey, cover these points. Maybe I watching our Facebook ad the other day. The one where me and you were standing here talking about our drive yellow and we’re reading, what were we looking at the screen and the camera’s right here. And I’m talking over here. ’cause I had to, I was told read that once on there. Not read. That’s
Great. Don’t remember that. We’re we’re terrible
Readers. So I mean, I critiqued myself and it looked like crap. Very
Rarely do we need to take two on the podcast. But we’re terrible readers
Don’t ask me to read. I’m
Illiterate.
Yeah. Afraid I’m gonna mispronounce something. But if you just tell me to talk, we’ll come up with something.
But I’m like, what? What’s your gen again?
Mine. Gen
Z. Yeah. Gen Z. What are you? I’m like a Gen Z. Like you don’t, they don’t know how to spell. They just start and then it finishes a forum.
It auto corrects.
All right. Tell me I’m wrong. Come on.
I’m not a literate.
No you’re not. Well, well anyway,
We’re, we’re not saying anything.
Alright, so what we started off this podcast before Logan hit record, we got a, we were talking about straight wall cartridges and un scoped rifles and things like that. Why? Why were we talking about that?
Some people are interested in hunts like that and Logan happens to have, or a place in his backyard that he may find himself hunting. Hunting Mulder this year. I don’t know. I took
A hit this year. Yeah. Yeah.
We got a few changes in Utah. Some. It’s a big win for those of us, the silent majority of Utah. Logan, I
Would like to a big win. How many? The silent majority is like how, what does that mean? I
Don’t, what does that look like? Keeps saying that word like it’s a lot. But I haven’t heard millions, billions, millions. Millions and millions. Millions and millions
And millions. It’s
Like the uns silent minority.
That uns silent minority man.
They’re, anyway. Well you’re talk, so what you wanted to talk about Utah a little bit more
About saying Yeah, I just think we should talk about some of the changes. Like there’s changes maybe some of which, you know, we’re in favor of or we’re not. But neither, nevertheless it’s creates new SKUs and and changes and we kinda like that. SKUs, SKUs, hunt co new hunt codes spread out applicants and I don’t know Josh, he’s he Josh for example. Josh’s favorite general units now 15 bucks per hundred dollars kind of. They reduce the ratio to help the herd. Yeah. Help the her health of the herd. And we have it. Josh, you need to say thank you. Alright. Yes. Thank you Utah, DWR for listening to the silent majority. We
Also have a new limited entry unit on the thousand lengths, which is gonna be a great skew for people to burn a bunch of points on this year. That’s
Right. Lots of people, right?
I hope.
No. So few
Tags over there. People. I don’t want my bull.
Yeah, that’s right’s a good point. Spread ’em out more skews the better We are in favor of SKUs. We like SKUs but we’ve got
So many skews now. We got so many skews that are like five to 10
Tags. We call ’em special interest groups. And you know, it all goes along with this. The dims of last. Okay. Prior to Trump. Prior to the Trump era, we, you know, we’re just, why
Don’t we special
Interest groups.
It’s probably quicker to talk about the hunts in Utah that we don’t do than the ones we do. ’cause the list is much shorter. The ones we don’t have in Utah. We have everything. You mean you
Can dream you for example? For example. Like where are you going? I’m trying to track, but I’m just wondering where you’re
The SKUs and the different spreading at the, the spreading out of hunting stuff. But good grief. Yeah, I mean if they can dream it,
You know, there’s
A lot of, Utah will pass
Something. It’s nice to think about some, I think more or less, correct me if I’m wrong, you know, as they’re trying to come up with creative ways to allow hunting opportunity and maybe, maybe minimize the harvest to a degree so you can offer more tags and more
Opportunities that well on unlimited entry stuff stuff. But on general they’re trying to, you know, they want increase harvest. ’cause we got two point crops coming up.
So, and I don’t know if they, they wanna increase the overall harvest, but like that would be, give more tags, maintain the harvest rate, but give more tags. So lots of people are spending money, you know, or, and, and I’m not saying they’re just all about the money. I’m just saying in their minds, creating a lot of opportunity, taking out a certain amount of the segment and increasing the health of the herd by going 15 bucks per hundred dose or whatever. On our general, and the general affects most everybody. And I don’t know that, you know, like our specific region didn’t, it seemed like the, we didn’t want it. The, the the vocal minority, which we, we say this in jest, the vocal majority totally,
Totally didn’t want it down here. But, but this, the wildlife board, you know, elected just kind of keep the, keep the state uniform at least with what was proposed. And well, when
You’re king
For a day, when you’re king for a day, you can wave the mac of watch.
You can do what you want. Yes. Yeah. Yes. You know, and so anyway, so here we are now it’ll be interesting there. You’re gonna find this stuff in the February issue of the, of the epic outdoors publication as well as, you know, on our website and whatnot. We’re gonna continue to talk about it and Utah just seems like it was a very passionate, aggressive subject for the last few weeks. And so it’s on our mind and, and people are talking about it. And so we’re talking about it for a quick second. So
I’m over talk. I’m done talking about it
Over it. Yeah.
Just make sure this year, I guess the main thing, just make sure before you just go blindly apply for something, dig a little deeper. Make sure you thumb through the magazine. I would read the, the Utah.
I’m not gonna cover portion. Some of those in Utah section. Well, so I’m just, so the read the website, I’m not gonna probably cover. Well you know the cash general hunt for deer.
Well they, we don’t care about them, but they really care
About us. I know, but I’m just saying. So you may not read about all of those in there, but don’t just apply for a general unit. ’cause you’ve always hunted there. Yeah. Like Logan and some of his
Cies family
Crew. Hey,
Related, you’re gonna have buy new guns somehow, Logan, you’re
Gonna buy new guns. You are a part of the cronies. I
Am. Those are my people. Nevertheless, you know, you just don’t know how some of this is gonna affect hunting down the road. So we’ve got this new plan. We’re gonna do some limited weapons. It’s called weapon restrictions. Three,
Three units in the whole state. They’re gonna try some open
Site rifles, old
Fashioned,
You know,
If grandma tried it though, you can too, Jay. Well,
And and grandma shot 14 of deer that, that weren’t
Hers. Yeah, that’s right. Okay,
So let’s just, let’s just try. That’s
Right the way it was. Grandpa shot a lot of grandma’s lives.
That’s a hundred
Percent true. And grandma just posed for a picture.
And so here’s grandma with this o open sight thing. That’s
The other thing you forget is if grandma could kill one of the, with the 30 40 Craig in 1952, there was a lot of deer.
A hundred percent.
Lot of deer to be. Hundred percent. You could shoot two bucks as of bullets, but eventually you’re gonna kill a deer. So,
Okay, okay. Right. Well, so that’s
Gimme
Those,
That’s when you stop at those mees.
They had a good time. But anyway, okay, let’s move on. So where, how do we, how do we fix this podcast?
No, we’re done, we’re done with you. Huh? So just pay, pay attention like Josh
Said. So the deer is a very passionate subject. Here we are. And we’re watching things change. Before our very eyes didn’t do the four pointer better. There was proposed to be four pointer better down here on Pine Valley. And, and I don’t know if it’ll work or not, most of it, but nevertheless they, they just, nah, we’re not gonna do that one. But we’re gonna go ahead and do the weapon restrictions and force everybody to kind of change their
Ways. Buy a bunch of new guns and weapons for families and stuff.
And I do think there’s, there are gonna be bucks that slip through the cracks, but when you crank tags,
You also might wound more than you ever did before.
And when you crank tag numbers going along in the study, how do you know if the study really worked? That’s right. You know, if you’d leave tags the same and all of a sudden you got all these bucks and
Bucks that was thrown out on the table, but the division didn’t wanna get painted in the corner that they couldn’t raise tags.
Right. And now they can actually raise tags without talking about it. So to the general public. But anyway, nevertheless, kind of interesting.
They also lowered the limited entry and premium lid entry buck to dough ratio objectives too,
To go ahead and issue more tags on the ponds and Henry’s and things like that. What were
Some of the percentages they threw out? Hypothetically? We’re not holding anybody this. I heard it like 15 to 20 something percent maybe. Yeah, I heard, I heard reports to 30 potentially.
I, you, I, I was talking to a guy in, in Bronson, I brought this up and Pollock, you might have heard it. I, I don’t know, we’re on the phones a lot here. But anyway, you and I talked about our offices right next to each other. Talked talking to an outfitter and he was talking about Arizona and it was kind of a, it was kind of a va it kind of resonated with me a little bit. I’ll just bring it up. He said, you know, generally speaking, let’s, let’s from 20 years ago, 10 years ago, whatever, you know, Arizona’s quality of elk was such and such awesome. Some years depending on weather and things like that. But generally speaking better than it is in this day and age. Why this day and age. He says what, like, what, what, what do you think? You know, and we were talking about it and he says, I contend that our tag numbers have roughly been the same on some of these units for 10, 20 years. And, and they have, if you look over the history Yeah,
They’re pretty, pretty. Yeah.
You don’t, you know how to kill elk. Like
They give their, they don’t have
A of predators other than us. And so it just not, they’re not sensitive. Everything wants to kill a deer.
A lot of tags for, for in November December with the rifles. Very co
Issuance of tags. Yeah.
Our trees are always kind of about the same and
Yeah. Late rifles, five, 600,
But what’s whatever. But what’s changed over 20 years,
The yeah. The, the method of taking all of our technologies, optics,
Long range guns,
Optics, long range guns. And he says, I don’t care if you’re talking about onyx camo, I don’t care what you’re talking about. The, the level of of intensity and the intense pressure because the lack of the resource creates even more intense pressure.
Point, point fluency, stuff like that. People
Hiring people, all of these things
Point creep to where you, you’re you’re gonna take, you’re gonna treat it like something special. You don’t get a tag very often. Yeah. Down
There. Yeah. And he says, and, and then the ta but the tag numbers haven’t followed that.
Oh, they’ve stayed the same or higher, of course you’re just killing more elk. Period. That’s
His point. And you, you’re better at killing more elk. You’re better at killing high quality elk. He’s a, you know, and and you get to thinking about it in some of these stories. ’cause we’re talking to the outfitters because we just covered Arizona, by the way, which will be out on our website soon. And and is that the printer? It’s
Done actually. We’re just, yeah.
So it’s kind of top of mind of what we’re talking about. But he’s like, you just see the difference. You see the change. But we’re not reacting tag numbers wise to all of the effects of these technologies and, and increased pressures of
Sorts everywhere in the, almost every part of the state’s talking about the same thing. Just general
Slide. We’re talking about that here. We’re talking about that here in Utah over deer or whatever it is. Nevada has their fair share of these same issues. Every state has these fair and then you throw in a tough winter or droughts or whatever and, and then the passion comes out and all of us and everybody’s angry and ah, but anyway, there we are kind of fun. It we’re actually, before we leave Utah, we, let’s just go back to it, right? We do. We need to talk anymore about it. No,
We’d left. We were in Arizona, Alaska,
Pollock. You’re not very passionate about it, right? No, I mean you stood up. Why do you, you felt you were, you felt like your voice was heard.
You act like you gotta have, you gotta have the, I
Love you gotta like Pollock’s thinking about things Robinson that we don’t even
Know. I know, but you’re trying to get the Viking the Viking in him to just, I am Bell or something out over this stir of the ship.
I love how he, I love how he just nonchalantly throws something pretty, pretty well thought out.
Let’s put it this way. Would he has an, that maybe
Even hits you to the court.
He has an hour in the morning, an hour to night to rehearse things in his head that I’d like sometimes know what he’s rehearsing. Not me.
It’s scare me. And it’s scary. The sp peach
Me, the speeches I prepare
Coming to and from. Do you, do you, no. These just come off the tip of your tongue. Yes. Well, anyway, so Pollock and Bronson, you guys always worked, you know, back in the day, everybody knows you worked for Game and Fish. And so again, you’re dealing with some of the people that you know well and, and whatnot. And so this creates a little bit more passion even and whatnot. So
It’ll be interesting to see what the changes really bring. I, there’s a lot of people that are passionate about it and, and they’ve got some changes that are pushed through and we’ll see
What I think does, I think it’s pretty amazing actually, as we’ve been out on the winter range, just the overall numbers of deer. It it’s impressive. We’ve seen a positive change in environmental conditions and I think we’re seeing that out on the, out on the winter range. Oh yeah. There’s a pile of deer out there.
There’s gonna be more. And, and I mean granted keeping respect, we’re talking since three years ago. Okay.
Three. You’re right there. I’m not, I’m not saying 20 years ago, three, it doesn’t even compare. Right,
Right. But in, in the last, in the last five years for
Sure, we’re talking a modest up pick. It
Looks good. Yes. Yep. Well there is, there
Is. We’re also going into what’s as of now, one of the driest winters we’ve had in, I
Can’t believe it.
So yeah,
We’ve got snowplows ready. Oh, for what? Yeah.
I mean, I mean, and it, and it’s not just here, it’s Arizona, New Mexico, they have nothing down there. So we need something to turn on. But
You did mention,
So
About Powder chasers talking about all this snow going to Lake Powell 24 inches up there in Wyoming.
Yeah. But that’s, that’s the, that’s the Green River watershed. That’s good for Wyoming. Yeah. And we need some of that down here. But yeah. But yeah, Josh, he, I think he might have said it on a podcast, but this Farmer’s Almanac stuff’s, it better start to come into fruition because we
Need some Farmer’s Almanac. I looked up when it did show a good positive outlook for the spring.
Yeah. It, it was actually probably for wildlife and deer. Probably the best conditions you could ask for. If you want me to read it. I actually screenshot.
Well wasn’t this kind of like what last year was too more or less. We had no winter till last year. Till when? About January, February. Wow.
Yeah. But,
And then had a good, but
There again we could discuss some of the effects of that as I felt like. And you hunted the pons Scott, we know guys that came off the strip really hard. Kay. Babs Nevada’s. They needed kind of average or maybe just under average. Yeah. It wasn’t, but the timeliness of it. Maybe it
Wasn’t
Or maybe it’s
Wasn’t terrible, but it
Wasn’t. Sometimes you’re also dealing with just natural cycles. Yeah.
Nevada wasn’t either. But we’re also dealing goes back to that, those dry years we’re just, we’ve got low numbers of column five, six, 8-year-old bucks. And, and I know on a general unit those are almost non-existent. But I’m talking even on unlimited entries. Some of the best units in Nevada just didn’t produce that. Well same thing with the strip, same thing with some of the Southern Utah units. But like Ponce was just, just, just a good year. Yeah. Wasn’t, wasn’t phenomenal. Yeah.
And I think you’re dealing with like Adam saying age classes, there’s several years of age classes a year gone
That we’re missing for two or
Three years. Yeah. Especially our mature stuff. So there’s bucks that can’t even quite grow. What we’re expecting ’em to grow in their minds because they’re not mature enough to do that. Or that they’re just, they were born on years too. When I, I believe that it is true. ’cause I, I’ve seen it when you see it, but there’s there a lot of these me mature deer were born on years where it was incredible drought and that kind of thing. So they just, they, they feel that that that stuff can affect ’em throughout their life. So maybe they just don’t have the potential to be as good as we want ’em to be either. No. As we can see ’em. So we’re kind of dealing with a lack of age class and deer. And then the deer that are there probably aren’t meeting the full potential of what they could have because they were born on some pretty tough years and Exactly. Never started off good.
Yeah. So that’s my thought. So if you start off good, you end good. If you start off tough shape, studies have shown you end in tough shapes. That’s my thought on why as far as why
It’s not aunt
Or girl’s
Potential us, you know, we’re saying it was because it was actually not a bad year on the Poco.
No, it wasn’t bad.
It was, it was average. Yeah. But it wasn’t great or good or amazing
To that. But you take, you take a 2018 deer. That was a rough year. Yeah. 2017 and 19 were awesome. Yeah. 18 was brutal. And so you’re dealing with last year. Yeah. That’s a five or 6-year-old deer,
Whatever. That’s so I think part of that, we, we subconsciously, or even consciously take that into consideration. We ha we, I I think we have no problems understanding no year to year fluctuations. It’s the, you gotta think back five or six years. It’s more of a five to six year management plan that you’re seeing negative effects or positive
Effects. Yeah. On these, on these quality units. That’s
Where we get the passion. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and then you’re dealing with the last three years have been really good. So you’ve got a good,
In three years
You got a really good up and coming group that needs another couple years to be really good. Like,
But if you crank the tags to it, lower the buck to door ratio expectations,
Then they’re never gonna be to five or six.
And then that’s where the passion is. We’re just starting to see an
Uptake. They’re in the back of a truck is a three or 4-year-old now, but
Hey, at least, at least a bobcat didn’t get ’em.
Well that’s not a way you manage.
Okay. Well anyway, that’s what they’re touting. What else? Pollock, throw
It in there. No, that that’s pretty much what I’ve got. So yeah, potentially if, if a buck can survive to make it here in like two to three years, some of these fawns that have been born on these really good years, yeah. We’ve had good wet springs and have, they could reach that, reach that full potential. And if you get a good moisture year mixed in with that fawn being born and getting to an age, we could see all of a sudden, geez
They could, I think my biggest
Complaint with, with the reduction in limited entry and premium limited entry and I know everybody, oh, we need more opportunity people to get the chance to hunt these point creep hysterical. Terrible. Okay, we, we’ve said this before, but there’s like 1500 limited entry deer tags in the state, roughly. Plus or minus, I mean plus or minus a couple. It’s what? It’s alright. By you reducing this, how much higher is that really gonna go? Yeah,
20 to 30. 20 to 30%.
Okay. But the impact for everybody then of the maybe 17, 1800 tags now everybody’s like, oh,
Everybody had a less, that’s
Not what I wanted. That’s not as good as I want to be. It wasn’t worth my 20 something years. Yeah. ’cause you knocked it down a little bit when, and these are units that we’re remember we’re okay with with quote wasting a few deer on the, we’re
Okay waiting, waiting for 20 years. ’cause we have the general to fallback. Yeah.
We can wait waste a few years on the Henrys or PTs or some of these others or you know, you know Oak Creek or San Juan. We can, that we need something like that. We have the general to, you know, maximize opportunity. So I that that’s the thing. I mean the general is what it is. I mean we all wish it was maybe stayed the way it was, at least in this this office, but limited entry. I mean, why, why do we have to knock down that for such little gain it? If you look at the tens of thousands of people applying for deer, it’s not gonna help point.
And you and I could say, what do we care? Not gonna draw. I’m gonna draw one. Adam, you and I have, I I guess I should say hi. We’re, we’re speaking for I have, I’m speaking for me. I I have one coming. You
Get one tag in every 20 years.
I have one coming. Like we, I can choose one right now that I would draw or 10 or whatever. Yeah. I’ve got, I’ve got an opportunity coming so it’s
Not, not not serving and I’m
Not gonna have another opportunity.
Yeah. It’s for, it’s for everybody. Yeah. Whether it be people you go with your family, whoever that are putting in for deer. You just, it’s, we went through the same thing on the elk plan, you know, a handful of years back Right. When they decided to, to change some, limit some stuff. Yeah. And you know, increase tax
In general instead of a global change. We did little incremental changes add the, at the mid, you know, the mid rifle and a few little things
Started late season archery and all those things.
Trying a few things without ruining the whole plan. Right. Yeah. Current plan. So
Maybe it won’t have much of an impact but, but it’s flat out said that they’re wanting to issue more tags. That’s why this is being proposed. And that’s,
That’s the tough part is everybody, they want the type of limited entry experience that guys are currently getting right now that’s taking 20 to 25 years
To, to draw and have more people get that same experience by drawing.
But, but they want that experience. But that’s, but they only want it to take 10 years to draw. But they don’t understand. You’re not gonna have that 25 year experience. If you draw on 10 years, you’re it’s
Not happen. Be close.
Gonna happen. So then when you draw it at 10, you’re gonna be like, oh that was terrible. Well
That wasn’t, but you
Got your tag at 10 so congratulations
What some people want to combine the point systems for general and limited entry and just call it all limited entry and make it all general type quality.
Yeah.
Well I mean, you know really if that’s the where we’re going with it, you wanna lessen the quality experience but let everybody go hunt and then, well
There’s other problems with that. You got the elk people now that’re locked into elk and then they always do the general deer whatcha gonna do for them and ope people, which is very few, but elk is a lot. But anyway, so
Anyway. Lots. Let’s, how about from Utah? Let’s do, let’s move on to dedicated a hunter versus general. How about that? Okay, well what’s your guys’ opinion before we could apply for dedicated a hundred points? General points get a point for both as well as, I don’t care, limited entry deer or one of the other limited entry species as a resident. Doesn’t matter to you. Nobody cares. I mean it’s not
A big deal. It, it personally, personally it just sucks because
I don’t know that the system was broken. That was my thing
Thing. It, it wasn’t, it wasn’t it. I get kind of tired of just hearing this fairness thing. Yeah. So much. That’s what, and that’s all it was out of was because there’s too many guys in one system or another and they’re, they’re getting to do this. It’s not fair. So we need to change it. That was the only reason why. So now you have to either apply general season or dedicated. You can’t do both. And before you could do both and, and it’s been nice. I’m not gonna lie, it’s been great. I’ve been able to build some, some general season points while, you know, applying for dedicated, everybody has drawing a dedicated thing everybody has. And so, but now, now it’s gonna keep me out of one pool or another. So there will be a snot nose 12-year-old that’ll get my general season tag. John, what do you think about that? About that?
Ooh, I like it. John, why don’t you go ahead and get a word in edgewise talking
To the mic.
I dunno. Word hurry up. We only got boss
John.
I devil’s advocate. You know,
Negative, most of your comments we’re dealing with like once in a lifetime, Adam. Yes. Not general. Yeah, this
I’m fine. I mean it’s like, I just don’t understand though. It’s the same system for everyone. Yeah. So
Why is it unfair? Why don’t you play, why don’t you play the game? Why don’t you, do you play the same game? Yeah. Yeah. If it’s not fair, you do the other one too. I don’t know what to tell you. Yeah.
But I just jump in and
Play the game. What
I hate is people that whine that they’re only gonna get one general tag every five years or three for the rest of their life when they’re also currently in a dedicated a hunter program getting three, three tags right off the bat. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like what are we complaining about? Yeah. It’s not that
Bad.
No. You know. Yeah.
It’s all as bad as you’re trying to paint it as far as getting need to have to change program.
And it’s, yeah. It’s another way for you. Yes. It takes an extra point, but it’s another way for you to continue to apply for limited entry and, okay. I didn’t draw Pon Scott this year, but I do get a general Okay. I do have, I dedicated like there’s other options. So you can still hunt fairly regularly Yes. While waiting for a limited entry tag. Yeah. Yeah. So it just decreases that it’s gonna do what they want. It’s gonna make people choose one way or the other.
But if you think about it, you talk between the skews process
Process. I wanna have a really good podcast about what this has done to the limit entry and, and premium limit entry hunts. What are, trust me, what what we feel about those and let,
We’re gonna have an, let’s
Look at this stuff on the general, how much more you’ve hunted on the general or dedicated because we’ve got this change.
Well, and you never know with a, with a new director coming in Utah, you just never know this, all this, all this could change. I mean No, that’s where all this is at.
They’re slated for a three year, a three year mid review plan. It’s like a six year plan that they voted in never
Somewhere. It was a four year maybe that was on the study portion.
Yeah. It, it was kind of different was a year. They say there’s a midway through plan and, and I guarantee you even by the third year it’ll, it’ll be funny the changes that are gonna
Have to happen. I just wanna know who’s gonna write the report of what the study produced. Like who, what is this gonna look like? Correct. No, we kept giving tags and we don’t inconclusive.
Well we had a couple dryers and a wet year in between. We’re not sure if the weather had more to do with it or the tech cut a weapon reference.
We knew there was gonna be an uptick. We haven’t had a winter loss in actually. I mean
It be
Pretty fun. Pretty fun. Whatever. Whatever.
Yeah, that’s what I’m at. Whatever.
It’s all good. Yeah.
Give me a slingshot. I’ll still go hunt dear. Come on.
Just gotta be a part of the process. All right, so moving right along. What are we gonna talk about next?
Well, you guys had a couple of hunts we haven’t even talked about yet. Paul had one. Paul, this, this was so long ago. It feels like we had to have talked about this. But apparently we
Have, this was happened in 1953. This
Was one of your 14 elk hunts that you had this year. It felt like, I know you didn’t have 14, but like it was the year of the wpat for the Viking clan.
I mean, do you guys like elk meat?
No. Yeah.
Not this much. Not
Not too big, big ruddy bulls.
He likes
Good milk sausage.
Yeah, that’s it.
I literally, he’s got 600 pounds of it. Right. That
One bowl is all ground. Nothing
Else. Is it straight up ground?
’cause it’s going be
Spaghetti Utah. Women can do every, anything that you want with ground beef. I ground meat, ground beef, ground bottle, bottle it. No you don’t jerk it. I hate bottled you. So Logan, Logan was raised on bottled meat was too, I big It’s
What’s
Wrong with it? It’s the texture. Add
A little male to it. It’s just like two fish, a little fish.
Fish. That’s, that’s, they like it in, it is like
Two fish in Beaver County. They like bottled meat. You can eat it without teeth. That’s the main,
It
Just, you just put it in your mouth. S swish it
Around until they dissolve.
They swish it around until it dissolves and you swallow it. That’s why they like Paul. Tell Paul.
Hey, I just, I feel like we have to give a disclaimer. Jason, you have roots there. I don’t
Actually, I actually, it is
Actually I don’t, I don’t but I don’t have anything against Beaver County. I don’t
It. It’s the Lord’s country over there. It is. It is.
And what, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pry it in what regard? Like what do you need?
Who, who Country else? In the country. The
Country?
Or what does more with less And we’re talking general deer. There’s what, how many tax? Yeah. 310,000,
200, 10,000. I don’t know. I thought
You produc some pretty nice bucks. I’m just saying,
I thought we were talking about IQs for a minute.
What?
Scratching
That. Well, look, if I’m going to war, I want those guys on my side. Okay. This sounds
Like,
Do I need to say anything else? Are you, are
You running for county commission? You’re act actually, you’re good. You’re looking for votes. So No,
I I do have to What do we know? Yeah, there, I, there was a a plus one point in my book when, when Paul showed up at the rack meeting and made some sense some, well
What he said was what Paul said. Well this, this is logie bear’s freaking dad. Okay. Yep. But what he said in, in a lifetime friend of ours and and whatnot. But what he said was basically, you know, and you guys correct me if I’m wrong, but basically I make my living dealing with data. And I know for a fact you can manipulate data to say what you want.
Absolutely.
Is that what he said? Yeah. Yep. And and we’ve seen it and I guess it’s just hard to watch it ’cause you can say this is what the data says, but Yeah. But, but we could throw in, you know, a buck to door ratio off the ponds and that would make it look like then it cross hatches over here or whatever. Right On this graph. I’m just saying, I’m just saying. I’m just giving a example. For instance, if,
If you mislabel the header, the beaver and a punt and then pretty much
The same thing and, and it was too late to change it and so then you got misinformation but it was just too late to tell you go go
Through the right process again. Yeah.
And here we are. But now we’re in a Trump era. We’re gonna say it the way it is and we’re gonna not gonna live in fear anymore. Before we were living in fear
All.
Hey, do you not feel better when, when I walked downtown, when I walk, hold on, hold on. You
Need to talk to Jan about what he’s to drink.
Stop. Stop something. When I walked downtown, my chest is puffed out this much further. Of course we’re in a Trump era. Hey. Yeah, of course you’re a person now. Absolutely. Before we were browbeat couldn’t say anything. I was a person. How do you really feel?
I was a person. This make me wonder if I was a he. She it. They what? That’s
My point. What am I there? You tell me what I have. There are those people
My head tell me
What I have. Add a cat and a dog and a litter box in the schools. That’s right. Tails. I’m done with that. We’re done with that here. I love it. Freaking boys and girls. Alright, move along. Pollock, you had this elk cut produce lots of ground meat. Yeah,
Well
This was for, so we could make tacos and enchiladas.
This was the second one. So after he got done with the one which he’s talked about the Utah Bowl now we went to
New Mexico. Yeah.
The fire valley.
A week. A week later I think it was. Yeah.
Cleaned up right after three weeks in Alaska, a week in Utah and another week in New Mexico there. But you did, you were pretty smart about this. You invited the whole family. Yeah. This was not just honey, I’m, leave it again. I could
Imagine. Okay. Loie bear. You can get your dig in if you’re fast enough and I don’t, I’m not sure you are actually I’m, it’s nothing to do with IQs. You just can’t beat a Pollock or his brothers. Okay. But, but could you imagine what it’s like in their camp? You, you got the Pollock clan. In what
Regard? They
Got electric bikes. A freaking, you know, what else did you take? Pollock.
I didn’t even, I didn’t even turn
That didn’t use them.
I took it but I didn’t even turn it off.
Of course you took it. What else did you take?
Just normal wall tents and sleeping bags. Exactly. Could you imagine? And
Coolers of food. So funny.
Lots of optics.
Yeah.
I don’t know if we looked up your odds. You may, you remember 1, 7, 800. What were they?
It was like 850 I think or something like
That. That applied.
You gotta have a name in the hat.
Well that’s what I think is, you know, Bronson, you and I have touted like our personal application strategies last month, this upcoming month and things like that. And it does, it does resonate that you have to have a name in the hat. You ain’t gonna get it if you don’t have a name in the hat. Right. No matter what the odds are. And here you proved it. Yep. Basically sheep odds or
Whatever. One non-resident. One non-resident, non-graded attack.
Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was pretty, I mean most of the time you would say it was a dumb choice to even do
You know? Well you get three to play with down there. So you could do two dumb ones and a better thought out.
I mean I thought I didn’t, I mean I thought maybe, yeah, usually
For elk, maybe
Beaver County RQ came into play there. Pen, let’s call it Pengu iq. Yeah.
Yeah. And it worked as you can see. But yeah, I mean when I was doing my application, obviously we were in, in Alaska for the, during where the archery seasons would be. So usually that’s what I apply for over there. The odds are a little bit better. I mean by
From
1% to 6%, whatever. But they’re better odds over there. So usually that’s what I would do. And so Alaska,
You brought up Alaska. How’d that treat you?
Good. Really good. Gotta spend a lot of close.
The wound is healed. Guess
He’s, I don’t know, he keeps bringing it up. I spend
A lot of good time with my buddies. Biscuits and gravy. And
Really?
Did they make biscuits and gravy? Devon, why
I all wt ate. Come on that. And
Stro Now those, those breakfast.
So this is what’s funny. Let’s just deviate for a minute ’cause he’s not here. No wonder
He had,
Remember that one Alaska trip when all he talked about was he ate Snickers? Well it was Snickers and what else? Was there any
Oreos? He blew for the Oreos too early the last
Time. Yeah. But when he was on his sheep hunt and he killed that round, he said straight up, I live off Snickers. And it does, they do satisfy. Oh yeah.
Alright, keep going. But yeah,
No. So I, I put this, this rifle hunt. The last thing I thought about even it’s kind of one of those options you, you put down and then you walk away from and never even think about. And New Mexico wasn’t a place I was even considering hunting. But we apply there, you know, it’s all random draw and so you apply there and just, you know, sometimes shoot for the stars. And I usually always do that on my first choice. Something that I’m like, if I’m gonna draw something as a first choice, if I happen to get a really low number, I’m gonna make it something that’s one of the better tags in the state. So, but it was, it’s weird. So I don’t even care saying it. It was the Via Caldera. Yeah. Aaron in six P. Sure. Never gonna try it again. I’m sure
There’s no reason not keeping that thing a secret.
I mean, but it’s also, there’s some, there was blowing unique stuff with that hunt that was unlike anything else I’d ever really dealt with. What?
Know,
It’s just
No, the big
Mul. It’s what?
No, you just mean the restrictions.
Its right. It’s a national park for
Basically
Oh, for crying out loud
For sake. Like it’s a And
How can you hunt up but not the deer? Did they ever, did you ever get to the bottom of that? No.
Well they, so it used to be a private land ranch. It used to be, I wanna say it was like the Bacca ranch. Yeah. It was a long, long time ago. It was bought,
It was probably when you were in diapers. Yeah. Adam and I were out. But you were in it.
I was a mill till I was 12. I’m from Penguin.
Logan was a twinkle in someone’s eye. Fun. Fun. Not even,
Not even a twinkle.
I still occasionally wet the fed.
Fun fact. I didn’t, I didn’t say my first word till I was three. Really?
Yeah.
I didn’t speak
After I, after this podcast. I find that hard to believe. Yeah. Okay.
Well I’m just saying
He came outta the womb with the definitive answer. A plan. And my
Dad told my mom, by the time he’s 20, he’s gonna speak. Don’t worry about it.
I can verify that you’re making Yeah, that’s true. You’re making up for lost time for crap sakes. Keep going
Bob.
But it’s a, it’s a unique hunt. So yeah, the National Park Service actually runs the property that’s held within that unit. So after I drew, I got a big huge packet in the mail where I had to go and I
Fill some
Information out. I had to get some like backcountry passes things
The most controlled hunt on planet earth.
Yeah. Like I had to that you couldn’t
Even go through the gate until a certain day.
You had to wear orange. It was insane. Yeah. What else? Orange.
And we all had to, everybody in our whole party had to wear, you had to wear like a vest. A
You need to to be
Safe. Something
You need to be safe. Yep.
Well you don’t have to do that anywhere in New Mexico
To say, I I know. I know.
Do
I just want you safe?
Yeah.
Yes. And so it was just strange. I, I got this big packet. You have to go through an orientation stuff. I, I got, yeah. Anyway, if you fill some stuff out you have to fill out. Do
They pass? What do they do? They tell you where you like you can’t go and vehicle access.
Yeah. You pretty well there’s only like I would say, one road through the middle of it. Yeah. So the
Main, they’re
Like right off the, right off the highway. There’s a gate.
No go zone
Right there. There’s a gate right there. That gate. It’s the weirdest thing. Most national parks, they don’t even, they have entrance stations, but they’re never closed. They’re always open. Is it? Seems like that one is.
I know I’ve driven, I drove by on my muzz are deer hunt.
Yeah. And the hours are nine o’clock to five o’clock.
They close and you better be out.
Yeah. Oh yeah. They will give you a ticket. It’s
Not even enough time to get started.
And yeah, it was the weirdest thing. So, so there’s absolutely basically zero scouting you can do. I had some good friends that gave me some tips and some pointers there, some chicks and got me started on, on where to go. But it’s really, you’re just kind of starting blind. So long story short, I went out a few days early by myself, set up camp there. Just actually found a great spot right across the highway. There was a little, kind of a little knoll up on there and I camped up on there and I could actually walk out and glass into the caldera from, from where my camp was
When they’re out in these wide open flash. Just
Rut. Yeah. And there’s thousands. I mean, did you hear some bugler? Oh, all day, every day, all night
To find some sheds. Never,
Never stop.
What did you do with those sheds?
Supposed to pick those up.
They’re all still there. Those protective
Wildlife, they were chipped.
They were all still there. But, so you have to go there the day before your hunt. You do get, you go through this orientation course they have. You come in there, you can take, there’s some pretty weird restrictions. You can only have one vehicle with a hunter and that vehicle can only hold as many hun or you can only have as many hunters as that vehicle will hold. So essentially it was me. So if you brought
A you but passenger van, correct. If I’m wrong, that would be seat belts. You didn’t you, you didn’t look at the seat belt. You didn’t put in five, put in eight. Whoever can fit in here, so
Well, no. So
They, they had, yeah, women and children on the floorboard. By
The time we had, by the time we got there, they’d actually, they allowed, it’s so different. It’s weird. It seems like from year to year, this year they allowed you to have a second vehicle that was kind of like a support vehicle recovery that could come post straps and stuff. So there was two of us. Like I, I went in and then, and then my dad was there. So he had a couple, like I said, I took all my kids, other than my, my youngest, but
Probably did the whole Pollock routine. Drop ’em off, go take the same vehicle out, bring the same vehicle back in, drop some more
Out. No, we could both go there. Did
Your wife go down? I don’t remember. Yep. Oh,
Nice. My wife was down there.
Three kids. Yeah.
Yep. We, we had a couple wall tents and so we went down there. They came and met me after I’d been down there. I tried to do as much scouting as I could. Most of it was just glassing from the highway. And because by the time you’d get in there at nine o’clock, basically those alcohol come down into these big meadows at night and then they leave in the mornings. Crazy. Yeah. Some of ’em actually stay in there all day long. In this one section they just stay, but there’s portions that you can’t hunt. So they send you a map and there’s this portion, there’s kind of like a visitor center and some cabins that you can’t hunt around there.
Don’t want you being,
Yeah, because at this very exact same time, there was like this, I can’t remember retreat, what it was called. It was a festival of some, some sort, that there was an extra three to 400 people in the park all driving Subarus and they’re to like star gaze, look at birds, all this kind of stuff. Bumblebees, like of all the weekends that you would choose, like the first rifle time, this has to be right now, why would you hold it that weekend? The only tender mercy to that was the evenings. They actually, there was two gates, so you could go into the main gate right off the highway, go down to like the visitor center and then their housing. But there was a gate there that you couldn’t be on beyond that after five o’clock. And that’s primarily where you would want to be hunting behind that gate, but at least you could kind of go in and out a little bit. So that was nice. I did, I had, you had to wait till nine o’clock in the morning, but I could stay in there at least till dark and get closer to glassing. I was glassing five miles instead of 10 in the evening. Jeez. So that was nice. All
The guy was glassing 10 miles. What would you use? I mean,
Yeah, T one 15. That’s like, isn’t it? Yeah. I mean you could just tell there’s elk and just kind of watching to see what they were doing. I just wanted to get a gauge of what type of bowl, what size of bowl, you know, to see there’s a million elk in there. It feels like too many elk.
Too many elk, less elk. You might actually have a little better quality and not that you had bad quality. Yeah. I mean solid.
Right.
But density’s
Raw for sure. Yeah. There’s so many to the point. It’s, it makes it hard to hunt. Yeah. Because there’s so many bugles and so many elk. You don’t know at what point there’s bugles over here. Do you spend time waiting to get a look at that bowl to move on to just keep walking,
Seeing whatever you Yeah,
It’s, it’s hard. So just tried to cover as much country as you can. So went through my orientation the night before the hunt. They actually allow you to, you can stay in there. There’s hours for hunters. So they give you a code to those gates at that point. Then the hours are four o’clock in the morning until nine o’clock at night. So you can go in there early and come out late. What if
You shoot one at dusk?
I, I’ll tell you that part of my story
Because that may or may not have happened. Yeah.
And so
Tell us now. Can in, now were you within shooting hours? That’s what I want to know. Of course.
Yes. Okay.
Alright.
You saw the pictures. I thought
It was pictures don’t mean nothing.
John can do a lot with.
I’m surprised they don’t give you an air tag, you know, and say, here you go. Just like, for us and like our lunch that we get. Yeah,
You go, you like kinda like hunger games and they turn you loose out there.
They
Track you and you watch the screen. Oh, Pollock. Really? Yeah. Good out. Good luck getting out on time. Yeah. Good luck. He’s dropping into the abyss.
Yeah.
So he found the big one. So
It was, it was good. The funny part was too, they, they had a whole of park rangers in there for law enforcement and stuff. And in this one medal,
’cause you all are gonna be really, you know Yeah. Really a rough crowd. There was this
One
Medal. So many tags. Yeah. Mean well that
Was the crazy part. There was 15 bull tags, but there was like 20 cow tags.
Okay. So we got 35 people. We need 35 law enforcement
Officers. That’s about what it was like. And not, not a one of ’em was from there. Of
Course not.
So they were brought in from,
From all over the place. Don’t Oh yeah.
Hos I was parked up on the, I was parked up on the road. Glassy and park rangers were just pulling cars over left and right on the oil road
Just to give for, just to
Give them grief speeding.
And so
On that oil drive road, that’s the main highway there
For this fella. Yeah. I mean,
Geez. No, they were pulling over just anybody and everybody. Subarus, no hunters. Yeah. It was, it was Okay.
Keep in mind how, what town we’re near, we might be checking for some edibles and whatever else might be questionable. I dunno. Yeah.
So they, the one guy, they pull this car over like right next to where I’m glassing literally, I kind of got uncomfortable. I was like, I’m gonna walk off a little bit here because I’m like, they’re doing a traffic stop literally behind me as I’m glassing. It was the weirdest thing. So as they got done,
Well if you wanna find the big ones, you need to leave the pavement. Yeah.
So I, I walk up there and I was like, Hey, curious, can you show me on this map, there’s this line out through this big meadow and there was elk splitting this meadow. And I’m like, what is that line? ’cause there’s a no shooting on this side and this shooting on that side. Where is that line? There’s no fence. Or he’s like, yeah, I don’t know,
But good luck because we’re watching give
A shot. I’m like,
Is that, there’s a, I was like, there’s a fence. Is it that fence that’s out there? I don’t know. I was like, is that, is it that road? Because the, the paper map they gave you didn’t, it wasn’t a good map either. And they’re like,
Good luck as he’s radioing for back. Yeah. Since we got a live one, we got
Fight, we got a viking over here going
Anywhere he wants. We got Hans rat bush headed out through the flat. And
So I I I, and that was, there was actually the best bull I’d seen. Well there was one other bull, but the, the better bull that I’d seen, one of the better bulls there was right in there. And I just said, I’m not even gonna mess with it.
Really? It’s not worth a revocation in 49.
I didn’t even mess with it. I didn’t even mess with it. Right. It’s not, yes. So I, they make more
Elk every day in
This place. They make more elk every day. That’s right. I like it. So they just don’t make tags every day.
Yeah.
But you don’t need to shoot one on the line of
No you don’t
Prison and no prison.
No. Yeah. Give up five inches
From that. So I did see one big bull way up in there. He was, he was at that like 11 mile, 10 mile mark way up in there. Geez. And I could just tell that he was just a big bull, but a long ways in there. So then the hunt came around opening morning. We got up really early and, and got up in there. There was some spots. Well we, I guess we went out Friday night and just kind of hiked as mid my, my brothers and I got up in there just because that was the first time you could actually get behind the gate and go do something. So we got up in there and hiked just to try and scout one more time to see, kind of get some country and saw some good bulls. But just, there’s just a lot of like 306 points, you know, 300, 3 35 everywhere you look. Yeah. They’re all over the place and just running around and, and they’re used to people so they weren’t really too scared of you. Yeah. Per se. But they’re also Rutten. Like it was just, it was just, it was really strange. Ask as far, far as that goes park. Yeah. And so kinda like,
Do you even call it fair chase broon?
Yeah.
I mean,
So that next morning we need
A new definition for, so what, which kind of park was it a national park? Well,
It’s like a preserve something. It’s not like a national park, but the National Park Park service runs, it
Makes me wonder.
It’s a preserve.
Tomato. Tomato.
Good point. Good point. So we got in there that morning and we just got in and parked. We were gonna hike the best essentially this old road that was closed. And, and we were just like, well, we’re just gonna start working some of that stuff. Okay. Those bulls had come off of this big ridge down into there that we’d seen the night before. So we just kind of started leapfrogging up the road and with my brothers and I, and one of ’em was, he would, Cody was way out ahead of us and we just were leapfrogging trying to get, that’s what we figured was gonna be the best way was to try
Somebody way ahead. We’ll we could to you. And,
Yep. So I like had Hailey and the, the kids with me and then Trevor was just up a little ways ahead of us and we were just kinda leapfrogging around and as we’d go working along lots of bugles and to the point to where like I had the, the new, you know, pure binal as fourteens and usually I keep ’em in my pack and you walk to a glass of night, you get ’em over your shoulder, put them on the tripod. But you couldn’t do that because every two seconds you were getting ’em out. ’cause all of a sudden a random elk could come walking through the trees everywhere. Yeah. So we just, it was just all day long working, working, working along and then bobblehead
It going through there.
Yep. And it was, it was funny because we’re sitting there right off this, this trail middle of the day and I had actually hiked out to meet my dad, to grab one of my, my youngest son to bring him back in there with us because he stayed with him for the morning. And as we did, we come walking out and I’ve got a rifle on my shoulder, you know, and I’m walking, here comes these old couples with their little walking sticks. What their bucket hats? Just hiking. They’re
Nature hiking. Oh yeah,
Yeah. Hiking up the exact same trail. And you should have seen their faces. We, your
Blaze orange head to toe jumpsuit.
They had, I was coming up to meet my brothers and they had just actually passed them. They were up just off the trail glass. And, and I came around this corner and they’re literally like stopped, just looked at me and were full horns, a rifle on my shoulder and they just like put their heads down and walked like around me. Don’t,
Don’t make eye contact. Danger. Yeah.
And we had some other wound. We caught the viking, my god. After we met back up with my brothers, we were sitting there kind of just eating lunch, passing kind of a couple hours during the middle of the day. Glassing looking, just all sitting there. Bug
Taking time, still going on. Oh yeah. Never even quiets
Down it, it was for a little bit, slightly, it was kind of weird, kind of taking turns, eating glass and having a nap, whatever and grabbing some shit. Some people come up that happened. But as there some people came walking around the corner, they came around the corner and they see us
The whole, everybody in the family’s laying there together. Orange, all of you, right? Yeah. All eight. Yeah. Or six, what? Eight of us.
Just the pumpkin
Patch. The pumpkin patch. John, all John. Could you imagine the Pollocks laying around on the hillside. Big bump.
So they just,
They like come around the corner and they stop Tur turned around and left. Didn’t even,
Were they coming up the trail? So they went back to
Their cars? Oh yeah, yeah. Your
Point. This is my preserve.
This is our canyon.
So,
But by the way, you know who Donald Trump is.
And then
That’s my person right
There. As we were sitting there, that same group, after they left the trail, we were sitting there, there was some elk that had fed down into some timber. We were kind of hoping to be there when they started coming back out. Well as, as those people stopped and went down, they just decided to like go off the trail. So then we’re sitting there glass and they’re just, they busting up, they wandering up through, yeah, just freelance, just wandering up through the timber.
I don’t know. And
It was just, it was a weird, it was kind of weird experience that
Way. Okay.
I just put some orange on. So we knew, we knew there was one point my brother had seen some, some elk. So I, I’d left Trevor down there to watch for those bulls. And we, me and Cody and, and Hailey, my, my sons went up farther up the trail. There was a knob that we wanted to get on where we’d seen some wallows that night where some elk had come down into, so we hiked up in there before and it was just in the afternoon we hiked up to get on that knob and as soon as we got there, started seeing bulls immediately. And it was kind of a weird transition time of year. It was the 12th. Yeah.
12th of October. I, I I
End of the ru. But yeah, the
Numbers is what created
All this numbers bug. They can’t breed all the cows in September. They, they got a breed for three months down there and
The numbers, they just keep each other going like this, you know? Yep. So that’s, what was this like September 25th? I mean? Oh
Yeah, probably no different. It would be, yeah, it would be an amazing, amazing, amazing archery tag in there for sure. But so as we, as we got up in there, started seeing bulls right off the bat, one of the first bulls we saw was actually the bull that I shot. And he was by himself kind of up in this ridge, but he was just feeding along in some, in an old Aspen stand. Couldn’t get the best look at him, but I could tell he had really long beams and then extras stuff’s just stacked on that be, you know, didn’t stop at six. I like, it
Wasn’t classic, classic six by six.
No. And I was, and immediately, immediately I was like, okay, that’s one of the biggest bulls I’m getting amped up. Like that’s one of the biggest
Bull we’ve, we’re gonna out this year. Broing clean slates with nothing but six tags on there. Right. I’m all
In.
And I was like, this was, that was by far, I was like, that was one of the biggest bulls we’ve seen and put together by far. One of the best. So trying to get another look at al as we’re doing that two, six points. Got up outta that timber and started chasing this big group of cows. I mean we’re talking a hundred head of cows, pushing them down and then there’s 15 other bulls just coming in, rag horns and they’re kind of moving off that ridge. Well, as they did. I was like, well two of those six points, one of them, I, I was probably the second or first, I’m not sure how big of a bull he was compared to the one I shot, but I would’ve shot him as well. So I thought, well what they, there’s two in that direction now. And they were, so the bull that I had seen, he was about three quarters of a mile away from us up on this ridge at the top. And those other bulls were coming below him, pushing cows down into those wallow. So I was,
So he’s probably gonna come down there.
Yes. That’s what I was thinking. So I thought, either way I’ve gotta get closer. And there was, there was about 500 yards in. There was another good point to get to. So I was just like, well I’d shoot either one of those bulls so we’re gonna get closer. So my wife and I got up left, my brother Cody, and then my two sons, Judson Hendricks there, left them there to kind of glass for us and we just started moving. I didn’t even get a great look at that bull. I knew we had eight on one side, seven on the other basically. Enough. Well that’s a I was like plenty.
Yeah, that was enough. I mean, even pengu guys can count that. Yeah. You know what I mean? Logan actually I appreciate you helping me.
Actually had nine, didn’t
He? He did,
Yeah. I guess actually had nine by seven
Mean nevermind. They can’t count. Little
Off.
Did he have nine? We got a little devil on the, I got a devil tie
On the one side, so it’s
Horrible. Hang a ring on it.
Yeah, so we, we started moving in and as we started getting in there closer, we were just going along and we get to, I dunno, 300 yards and those two six points. But the paper, I could hear one of ’em coming out and the one six point that I’d set, I’d shoot is sitting, standing there 300 yards drinking out of a wallow.
And, and now you’re like,
And he looked, I can’t just shoot, he and he looked really good at 300 yards. Yeah. I was like, ugh.
Especially on 14 power plus the scope, ride scope or
Whatever. And Hailey was sitting there videoing and I was, I I remember looking back
And got the boys’ hair. Yeah.
And I was just like, I told her, I was like, I should be shooting that bull. Like he’s by far one of the best bulls we’ve seen one of the top two. I’m like, I should be shooting him. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. It was, it was just a, a terrible, terrible decision. ’cause I still hadn’t got look at that bull. ’cause what had happened was, as we started right before we started to walk, he betted down. So there was two other little rag horns that had kind of come down below him, but he just beded down. Yeah. He was in a great spot. But I thought, well, I just gotta get closer. Well those, those elk were there and then you’re left with a decision because now that herd had moved between and us and him. So it was like, I don’t know what we do. Well we
Know what you did, but how did you do it?
Well we just, we just,
No, I don’t know if we know everything we do.
Well I just know which bull died. So that’s all I’m
That’s what I’m saying. Howie died. May always be the bull
Died. So how did you get
Through elk Trust colic
For nothing. So that was the other problem was now there’s 200 head of elk between us and them. And so they were kind of coming, say off the top of the ridge from our left down into the bottom and they were moving down. So I, I just kind of told her, let’s just keep skirting around. Our wind was actually really good. It had kind of switched and was actually coming back down, down slow from us. So we waited, we waited for that to change a little. So the sun was just about to set. So I waited for our wind to get really good and it started moving down away from us. So what we ended up doing was kind of just skirting the edge of ’em to the right hand side. But as you did, we were running into elk that we hadn’t seen yet. We weren’t seeing. And, and I thought if I bumped them, they’re at least gonna bump the correct direction that we’re gonna be going. So as they did, they kind of just bumped back up where they were going. But some of ’em broke off. And then, like you’re saying, they a herd, a little herd of cows went up right past where that bull was Ben. And now
He’s getting off.
And so as they come, well he like, yeah, I’ve already brought ’em whatever. No, I dunno.
And so it was, at this point we were like 500 yards from him. So you’re really, really close. ’cause in the scheme of things, when you’re thinking 500, you’re like, I could shoot easily shoot that far. But he’s up on top of this little bench crusty and I still couldn’t see him. Still hadn’t seen him. But he was up on that bench. But now those cows went past him and they’re moving slowly away. So then it was,
What I think is funny is the story. You think it’s thicker than crap. Look at the kill photo. Yeah, that’s right. Pollock’s talking about wide open country. I don’t know. Go ahead. Pollock. I mean just, that’s the
Top of
The ridge. Okay. They’re
Still timber in the
Bottom. All right. All.
So as we’re, as we’re working up, you’re just, you’re trying to now catch moving elk. Yeah. And in my mind, I’d already said I’m gonna be killing one of these bulls and I just bumped the six points. So now I’ve gotta kill this other bull. And we’re, we’re in there a good five miles now and I wasn’t, geez, I wasn’t going to. And you, the time
Literally was women and children.
Yes. You slowly,
Literally you slowly with a deadline to get out. Yeah.
Right. Well in theory they, they told you they were okay. If you, if you kill something, you text the park ranger. Oh. And let ’em know that you might really, do
You have cell service there?
Well, I had my inmates
Probably on the air attack. Oh, okay.
Probably. Yeah. You know, I had myre stuff.
No sell. Cell phones have
Link,
Star link. You got a pack of starlink
Backpack. So that’s what happens, especially with elk and me, I’m, I I, I do it once, once you get on a bowl or get going, I have a hard time. You’re in close and you have a hard time stopping. You just keep going. Just keep going, keep going, keep going. And so by this point we were gonna be pushing five miles in and when we knew where the bull was at, I didn’t want to have to try and come back and find him again the next day because might too
Impossible. Now you’re like, we are killing.
Yes. So in my, you know, I’m like, I I gotta kill this bull so I’m gonna do
Whatever it takes. So you trust now you just gotta get close. Yeah. Until you can see him.
You, we keep going and going. Well the ridge just keeps cresting.
I hate how top. Yes.
And so we were going along, I was at about the point of puking. ’cause you’re just going, going as hiking as fast as you can. You’re racing the sun
Away from you. John wasn’t close to coughing up blood.
I probably wasn’t at that point. I was getting close.
But
We’re just moving along Farther. Farther
Happens farther up.
And Cody kept on the radio and, and the funny part was, he kept telling me he’s right below those two pines. Well for him, the way he was seeing,
I love that. It
Was like 50 yards, you
Know, two bur trees. What do you mean you can’t see ’em? Well
It was two,
Two green trees. There’s two trees right next to each other. Two birds snacks.
There was two green trees at the top of the ridge. He’s right below those. You. And you couldn’t see, I couldn’t even see the green trees. See?
Yeah.
And so we just kept going up and up and up farther and then you’d get stuck because there would be elk to the left. I’m like, I don’t know if it’s them or not. I can’t walk. So we’d have to stop.
You go, what’s that? Pull out the,
But anyway, long story.
I don’t want, I don’t want anything to do at this place nor the pock clan. Yeah. I mean there are, there are going, it’s right there. Yeah. Keep going 14 miles later. Yeah.
So finally get to a point where I can actually see those green trees that I think he’s talking about. And it’s about still at this point now, we’d hit that point. Now they’d moved 500 yards farther up. Jeez. From where he was at when we first saw him. And he was at the, he was at it looks like at the bat’s about the edge of the ridge top where it tops off behind him in that picture. So he was, he was right there. And I had, you know, five minutes and they were gonna be gone. So we’re frantically trying to figure out which one was
He with the, with the cows. And they’re doing all that.
He is all hurting now. And they’re, they’re just kind of, the bulls are kind of breaking ’em all up and they’re moving out and just happened to get a glimpse of him coming up, up outta the ridge. And, and he was noticeable or recognizable ’cause he was the only bull like that for sure. Well he stabbed, he was the only bull that had all those cow
Long cows. Cows
At this point.
Did have, did he have a cow or too?
Yeah, he had, he had a couple cows. Yeah. But he has those big long beams. So I recognized him. So I just hurried and got down pro as and was just getting ready on him. Ranged him
300 0 4.
Oh he was, he was just under five. He was like four 80 something good little
Bulk
There. Fierce 300 rum. What’d you have?
So I had that 300 rum. And, and I actually in, I actually thought as I was going along, ’cause you can see there’s all these big dead Yeah. Dead timber. It was thick, it was terrible. Terrible thick timber. It’s an old, old burn.
You’re shooting gaps.
But there’s all these branches stick sticking up all those trees. Now the branches are all up
In the air sometimes you can’t see those either.
Yeah. And he was walking quarter and going kind of quarter and away from me going up. And I just, I was like, I don’t know if I can get in there because most of his vitals were covered. It was hard to see his legs, but you could see torso and up. And I thought, well I never
Got the 300 drum. Yeah. I got
The 300
Drum. Hailey said, send it. Woohoo. She’s your, I like, she’s your spotter. She says send it. Yeah.
I,
I
I literally
Make mama proud. I
Literally thought
I have this 300 drum and it’ll shoot through that
Crap. Let’s see what you’re
Made of. It’s, it’s the truth. Yeah. These guys, these guys poo the freak 300. No.
What mean, I have one. I like ’em. I mean,
Paul, you said it best. When do you
Shoot 200?
When you talked about that elk? It’s the 180 up on, I think it was the year before your brother. So I don’t remember what was it on the spike? I can’t remember. No. My brother
Had down
Mid-season night. You were like, you felt like you cut it down like you broke its back.
Yes. Yes.
Shooting it in the chest. Yeah. Yes. Remember I remember that comment. Oh
Yeah. And, and so that bull, he was just slowly working away from me. I got down, there was very few windows. It, it was pretty open, but there was still some standing stuff too that I had to work through. And he just came through an opening and I put a, not high shoulder, but a little higher up just to try and avoid some of that stuff and shot. And obviously it’s, it’s a man’s gun, so
A vikings gun.
It
It, it ain’t a need more. It
Takes you out of the scope for a second. But as soon as I did, I mean it smack You heard, I heard it smack him and then I got back in the scope and I, I couldn’t find him. Like what in the heck? So that’s the problem with
The three right there.
Maybe the bull was laying flat.
And so I, I couldn’t find him. And I’m like, where the heck is he and his two cows were going up and then all of a sudden I hear over the radio.
Woohoo.
Okay. And it hammered him. It dropped him.
Wow. That
Didn’t I didn it didn’t. And it didn’t, it didn’t. Spine shot. His spine was completely fine. It was just right through the shoulders and, and it just, this was it.
It just happened. I love the
Oh, I know. I love it. It was amazing. And
So everybody’s gonna wanna know like what, what your Amma was and things like that. Like 180, you’re using the 180 Norma’s, right? Yeah.
Those Norma Bond strike 180 grand.
Yeah. Aren’t they a blue tip on
’em? Yep. They’re basically an ac they’re basically an Accu bond. Yep. And
In fact, Aon might have a case
Company probably fight that to the death desk. Copyright infringement. Yeah. Each company would probably defend their bullet. But I mean for all they’re bonded.
Ours is bonded specially Yeah.
With a polymer tip.
Yeah. Yep. It’s a bonded bullet and it, it hammered stuff like, like Jason was saying, Trevor killed that bull the year before. That’s what I was remembering. And hammered him. Just hammered him high lungs. But it like broke its spine, you know.
It did actually didn’t
It? Oh yeah. Oh yeah it did. We thought he had spine shot him and had to shoot him again. We got over dead. I
Love the words shock off. Yeah,
Same with, same with this. Same with this one. We got over there thinking, I was thinking I was maybe gonna have to shoot him again because my brother says he just dropped. He’s laying there kicking. I think he might be spine shot. So hurry and get up in there. So we’re kind of getting stuff ready to go. He was dead by, got up in there. The dust kind of eventually just settled and Yeah, he, it
Was just, so then we got Pollock Clint, each one have their own little backpacks. Yeah. You get a tenderloin. Oh yeah,
We got up. So we got up there
And it’s getting dark decided. So it’s like this nine o’clock thing’s not gonna happen. Yep. Did you got
It? So immediately did you have to gut him for once? Like just to let him cool, cool
Out? No. No. So I, I sent my Trevor with half the kids out the bottom to go meet my dad. And
Then With a little bit of meat or No,
No, they didn’t even make it up to the bull. ’cause it was, it was a climb. Okay. It was a climb. And I was, and I knew it was gonna go into the second day. So I had, you know, Cody and my and Judson, my oldest son come up to them ’cause I knew they’d be help. So they came up and hiked figured we’ll
Take captain I and we’ll be back. We
Gotta come back. So we ended up just quartering him and quartering him that night and hung him up. Yeah.
I hate cutting animals. Yeah,
It is nice.
Quartering him gutless method.
Perfect. It is nice. We, we did take some, you know, that was what’s nice about New Mexico. They give you like an antler tag. Yeah. And a meat tag. Why
Don’t all states do that? Yeah. It was like Nevada. You got a taxidermy tag. Like, like, you know what I mean? Transport
Tag.
Come on. Make it easy on us. Yeah. Then you got tax saying, well I’m gonna be, you know, audited here, audited here and we need to copy your tag. Well that was supposed to stay with the meat. Yeah,
Yeah, exactly. You know, so it was nice. So we, we hauled out some meat an antler the night before. Just a safe trip. ’cause you’re already going. So it was then five miles out. We didn’t even go back the way we did. We just five miles,
Miles out.
So it was about
Midnight. I’m calling bs. So he said, remember five miles was all the weaving and radio talk and all of this. And then you don’t go straight out five miles, you’re straight out three ’cause you did the five, the curvatures
And stuff. Hey, I wasn’t there. So I’m
Show the course.
It’s
His story. Look again, he’s got all fluster.
We’ll pull up the onyx if you wanna
See it. I don’t care about that.
I trust you. But
No I don’t. But
The problem was you go in some of that country. Yeah. The nice thing about it was though is there’s logging roads, old logging roads up in there. So you just have to wait. But what it is, you can’t, you know how that cat claw stuff is off those north ridges though. You can’t just, you can’t just dive ball off a ridge. So you actually kind of, we had to stay on those logging roads and keep going in and out to get all the way back. But yeah, he was awesome. Bull three fifties range, you know, next seven
Day went seven by nine. Yeah.
Well did you meet, did you make friends with like the other hunters and things? Like what
Else was harvest? He didn’t hunt long enough. He
Hunted one day. Didn’t even, well, I mean, didn’t even, he
Tried me sometimes people text each other. Eh got one.
He had a few naturalists he tried to encounter but they ran from him. Yeah,
Exactly. I
Don’t know what else was killed. I
Don’t, didn’t didn’t. We did see a couple smaller, six point bulls, couple cows, dead cows in the back of trucks. We talked to some cow hunters that had a cow dang near up close to where we were at. Oh. Oh. And I was like, cow cow
Hunters. You guys don’t break a jeep down in
Colorado because we saw cows off the, off the road. You know, like, I don’t know why you’re
Doing that. Well this sounds like an unbelievable po I’ve never heard a, a story like that. No. In terms of the number of elk you had to wade through.
It sounds, it kind of sounds like that guy I talked to in
Parting the
Scene, Wyoming for unit 38, did it archery. He said he, he never on even on video or YouTube or anything seen, heard bugling like this. Yeah, sounds like that. Yeah.
Thousands of elk. And it’s, it’s, it’s almost a problem. Yeah. The numbers have to be like too many elk
Almost. I think there is but you can’t, they don’t kill any Yeah,
They kill what
Exactly. 60 bulls a year maybe.
I don’t know. Well, I just wanna know, did you waste any meat? I kind wanna.
You didn’t? I don’t know.
I
Like it. That was the second elk. He did in what, two weeks? Second one he brought home to mama.
So we were, we were tired, happy. It was awesome about you. She happy boss. My kids loved it. It was fun just being there with them.
They and the Wal 10 experience. I think you even spent an extra night than maybe needed, right?
We did. Yeah. Yeah. We stayed one extra night just because they didn’t want
Come back. I think you’re good at that, Paula. They’re I think you’re really good at that. Sometimes I hit the road too fast.
Well it was, I don’t know, it was just kind of cool just to sit, sit there and, and I don’t know. We,
You know, you’re probably never gonna be back. No, that’s another thing. And you’re outside wherever you’re camped. I mean, you got, and if you
Had a deer experience like Devvin and I, you you would never be back in that country. Yeah. Yeah.
But I mean the Elk’s a different story. Species matter. Species
Matter based on where you’re at, species. So it was awesome. So I guess the, the main thing is when you apply, apply, apply. Yeah. Apply
Straight for the fence now and then and Yes.
And
You could have sat it out. Literally you, you knew you were gonna be hunting moose in Alaska. I mean, you didn’t know if you had a Utah tag yet. So it’s not like you knew your whole fall. But I mean, it’d be easy to just say, I normally do archery. I’m just gonna sit out. ’cause there’s no points down
There. Paul, do you feel like you killed more in your fair share?
Well, at the time, no. But you know, at the time I was kind of like, I’m,
He’s kind of greedy.
I was like, huh, to I’m tired. I kind want to go back to the office, but
St. John, it’s all about me.
But
Then not about the kids. You’re
Back a day and you guys cruised off to Colorado and I was
Jealous. Oh no, it’s true. It happens. It comes in waves. Yours, you had a
Lot of money. Your, you went for five weeks straight. Pretty much. And some of ours were broke
Up and then we went the back, back half freaking five weeks, you know? Yeah. So it comes in waves. It was
A great year.
All right. Speaking of applying, if you guys need help, let us know. That’s what we do here at Epic Outdoors. Apply, apply, apply. We have a license application service. And of course John, our favorite person, Trump, he says it best. Should we play that again right now?
I’ve had a lot of feedback
On
That. Oh, positive. Of course.
Yeah, of course it is. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. But anyway, ai, you never know who’s speaking. So there you are. You kind
Of blew by the, you know, the whiteboarding stuff. What? So
We wanna go back to that.
Did we miss something?
Alright, give me my, give my, you never even gimme my script.
You never did the the ads, I mean Well that’s what we talked about. The expo at the first No, that you know.
Well, I’m trying to throw a little plug in for our license app service. So why it doesn’t get
Mad. We are, we are trying to make it natural John, instead of scripted. Well
We are $50 a state. One PC a hundred for two or more. Yeah, it could be five. It’s a hundred
State max. Seven 50. Your kids max out a hundred. What else you wanna know?
Yeah, kids under 18 or 100 total. Any and all gain points for ’em. We help you, we help you develop your plans. John, what, what have I done wrong? Nice
Job. Nice job.
4 3 5 2 6 3 0 7 7 7. Or hit us at [email protected]. Go to epic outdoors.com. You can download it in a PF format, a fillable pdf, DF format. John, what else? Oh, you can also buy tickets online. Go to epic outdoors.com. You can buy tickets for our membership drive. Huh? How about that? You can even sign up. You wanna sign up for $150 membership? Go on epic outdoors.com. Very easy to do. John, do we even have QR codes? They could scan a code for crap’s sakes. Put it on our Instagram social media. Do that, Logan. You got it.
Hey,
How even guys in Beaver County can do a QR code
When he crashes. When he crashes tonight. He’s not gonna wake up for
Eight hours. Do not let hour say that You aren’t Smart Pollock. Have you ever done a QR code?
You’re stupid. Yes, I have. Oh,
Nevermind. Sorry. All right. Now for CVA, Bronson, let’s, let’s crank the
CVA that that was yours.
We sell ’em epic outdoors.com. We sell CV. No. Just kidding. We don’t. But you can call him ’em by one if you’d like. All right. Anybody interested in CVA? You got Acura’s. The LRX. The MRX. We endorse ’em. They’re awesome. We actually have em.
Those are on our website. You’re gonna have to hear this really fast. If you want to get one look right here. Try to, Logan’s gotta pulled up. We got ’em on our website. Acura, LR Xs. They’re Optima. V two lrs, Optima V tooth, you know the MXs. A lot of them in stock. It’s a great Christmas present. Walking a you better hustle Christmas or
New Year, you know what else is
Or New Year’s present. You
Know what else is a great Christmas or say even a Valentine’s Day or something. Plus steadman’s is right here, right in our magazine. There’s my buck, there’s a silver pendant and then my wife, you could brand it. She’s wearing my buck
Right there. I wonder if my favorite
Buck with my wonder
How she would term it that way. They,
They also do along with some custom stuff. Speaking of John had, we had a little bit of show me this morning. We were, we were comparing some ivory this morning.
Karen, some ivory.
You had a little show.
He showed me his, I showed him mine. Yeah.
I mean it was pretty cool. Was it awesome? Yeah. So anyway, you can take your elk ivory, they’ll do custom work. They’ve also got stuff ready to stuff. You don’t have to do anything custom. They have stuff ready to go. They
Right, they’re well,
Yeah. The custom stuff takes, you know, a little bit of time. But he’s got Christmas stuff.
If you call, what do they got? You’re
Gonna have to call pretty soon.
I’ve got this one. This shed. Yeah, Ashley loves it. The necklace. Shed necklace. Don’t have that. Do you have the deer? Yep. And
Rings. Oh, owner pecking like
Us. Oh yeah. She would, I don’t know. She would at least lie and say she loves
If you gave them to you, they better like
Them. They’re, they’re also his better mery goes
Both ways. Merry Christmas.
He’s, he’s a serious jeweler. Like they started like his great great great grandpa like in the 1850s or the
Wild stuff is just gold,
Silver. Yeah. And I mean, but so they’ll do like his earrings. They’re solid
Sterling silver, but that not pleated. So chief, I mean, incredible detail on this little penant, like incredible detail. Yeah. So anyway. Well, and,
And, and we got a phone number we can read, but the, don’t these guys come to the expo? John? They
Come have the expo as well? They, yeah, they have. And the, the phone number, give that out. It’s his, his cell phone number.
Eight zero one two zero one five one three seven eight oh one. 2 0 1 5 1 3 7. Yep. Yeah. And by the way, when you say, oh, it’s not really proper, right, it’s 8 0 1 2 0 1 51 37. All right. What? I don’t know, John, am I missing an ad? Geez.
Oh, the whiteboard is, is clean. It’s
Clean. I think you
Throw out a little plug for logie Bears Fund me account. Logie bear fund, my fund, my hunting account.
We can throw out a plug for that. That’s
Perfect. Develop that overnight. Yes. Look at that. Fund me account up and going.
Yep. We’ll post
It. Get you a tag bar. Do we
Got enough time to even talk about another, another?
What I think’s funny about, I just wanna throw a little, little shout out to Logie Bear. Okay,
What did I
Do? This kid goes on a random unit. Okay. Here in the middle of Utah one day or however, how many days were you there?
What are you talking about?
The big 200. Oh,
Oh yeah. How many deserts are there? There not very many. You’re
Like, no, you were there like a day, day and a half. Yeah. Yeah. Morning walks away with a, a picture random picture. Clean it up. We’re freaking looking at a two Hyundai. I’m like, Hey, you were sandbagging on this book. Why do you do that? Why do you want a sandbag on this book? Well,
I didn’t sandbag on the buck. I took pictures. It wasn’t,
You didn’t know what you were looking at.
The pictures were him running, took
Pictures. Think thinking you were gonna be a hero on the ground. Yes. And then he
Was running, it was blurry. I said, that isn’t worth anything. I didn’t even get to look at him. I forgot about
It. Cleaned it up.
I was on my computer. I cleaned it up and I go, holy cow.
Yeah, probably added a point or two. Bronson, quite frankly,
I’m not that good.
It’s all part of training.
He probably wasn’t sure if he was on a general unit or limited entry. He just wanted to make sure first, before he divulged what he saw and where it was.
He did a lot of research for it came out and then it came out through the office. Not even from him direct.
Then he realized, okay, I can’t touch that. The 10 foot pole. Look at this buck I found over the weekend.
Then he is also found some stuff on General Logan, I’m impressed. I’m super proud. Thank you. I love it.
I’m getting
Lucky. Just, just keep ’em quiet. Yeah. All right. Okay. Oh, do we have anything more? Let’s call it a day. Let’s talk about these other stories some other day. Tomorrow
We’re gotta do one tomorrow or the next day. We’re gonna have a lot of fun over Christmas. We gotta talk about deer in the, you know,
More stories.
Reindeer coming. We’re gotta talk about more bucks, maybe
Yourself. I do more stories. Yeah, maybe that, and then maybe we also pick out some of the highlights over the course of the last bit of time and, and talk to some members. Maybe we call some, get some stories. People I like stories. Keeps you going, teaches you something, you know what I mean? What do you think Bron? Sounds good. It’s been tough. You know, the one thing I want to go back to on dear management, we talked about this. Go governor tags are auction tags, special tags with three, you know, for all intents and purposes, get an an entire season. Some VA dates vary depending on the state.
Several states that haven’t even killed anything or they shot a 2 0 2 buck or something, which is a, a great bug, but not one you can for four
Or five months. Most states, most states didn’t kill like, you know, New Mexico or Colorado, Colorado or whatever. I just think it tells you, it’s like Wyatt’s saying, he says, I don’t think there’s a a gov worthy buck, governor buck on the winter range in the entire state. I don’t think there is of Utah. And sure enough that’s happening. Like people are out and about and have you heard of one? No. Isn’t that crazy? Anyway, just and so anyway, just a little something, you know, part of it is part of it’s management, part of it’s just, you know, this down cycle we’re in or whatever. Just things, things to think about that make us realize, which makes it, it’s not just what we’re seeing. It’s really what’s out there
And what, what makes it a little bit more ironic. That and maybe the, the status, what the general deer hunt collectively was. This shear was very lackluster,
Very
Nothing to write home about and, and what are we doing pouring tags to generals and limited entries. Because
In theory,
Both. In theory what think
Well do it in the name of a healthier deer herd and it’s just hard to stomach. It’s hard to swallow that, you
Know. Well, I guess, but the one sure way, you’re not gonna kill a big bucks if you don’t have a tag in bucket.
Yeah, that’s a good point. All right. I like it. We’re ending on a good note. Bronson. More tags for everybody. Everybody get out in the hills. If you need help, let us know. That’s what we do here at Epic Outdoors, right? That’s what we do. That’s right. Cut our freaking tooth on that.
Amen. All right.
Let’s face it. If your goal is to kill big stuff, you need to draw quality tags. Quality tags are typically hard to draw. To increase your odds of drawing good tags you need to apply in multiple states. That’s where an Epic Outdoors membership can help. For only 150 bucks a year, you get access to our consultants, our online tools, and to Epic approved outfitters and members only optics discounts. With unlimited access to our team of consultants and access to the Epic Outdoors Magazines. Applying in multiple states is easy. No more worrying if you’re applying for the best areas. No more applying for a unit where there has been a die off and no more missing opportunities where you could be in the field and not sitting at home. Go [email protected] or call us today at (435) 263-0777 to find out how you can become a member today.
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