In this episode we call Andrew Wankier and Chuck Lawrence, who hunted some of Utah’s best limited entry units for Mule deer and elk last year. Andrew had one of the longest streaks of bad luck during his Mule deer hunt, but stayed positive and was able to make it happen on a 200” buck. Chuck hunted a long hard archery elk hunt, and after 22 days straight, was able to down a 380” giant.
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You are listening to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, brought to you by Fierce Firearms, epic outdoors choice for custom hunting rifles.
Hey everybody. Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, John, Josh, Logan. How y’all doing? Doing
Good.
Good, good. Right on. Well, as we get started here, we got a kind of a fun podcast. We’re gonna have a few, couple of stories anyway as archery season’s getting kicked off here shortly. Everybody’s getting excited for this weekend, especially here in Utah. ’cause there’s so many giants.
So many giants and so
Such good. So fuel wildfires. Such
Good, nice cool weather out there.
Cool weather and you know, moist ground to walk on.
Yeah. Quiet
Mountains. I mean, I was this morning out walking around, there’s just not even a chance of stocking something down without just being in, so, yeah, it’s so dry and crispy and crunchy and anyway, but there’s some nice animals here and there. Right.
Your boot could, could crunch two rocks and create a spark and start a fire around.
Yeah, sure could.
It’s dry.
So anyway, kind of, kind of excited. But anyways, we get started. We wanna thank Fierce for sponsoring our podcast here at Epic Outdoors. A great partner of ours, fierce firearms. Anybody that’s interested in a rifle, of course everybody should be. Everybody gets excited about rifles. I just, it’s kind of interesting how rifles go. Like archery hunters buy new bows every single year. People,
People keep their guns for life. Yeah.
They kind of keep their guns. I don’t get it, but you know, it’s
Like currency.
Wish I’d have had, still had my bow that I killed Brutus with, but whatever, you know? Anyway. Where is that? I’d have to think about it
In a basement somewhere. I think my nephews, couple nephews or Yeah. Kids.
But anyway, but anyway, if you got
That bow call back, you might be
Never let us out. Cash. Cash shot his fierce what? Yesterday? Last, yesterday evening.
Last night.
Yeah. And he, I mean he walked it in, got it all cited in and then just shot it at a thousand. Freaking smashed it within a couple inches of dead center. Yeah. Pretty awesome. Anyway, fierce arms.com. Www do fierce arms.com. 4 3 5 4 6 2 0 0 4 0. We sell ’em, we actually sell ’em. We’re a dealer. Give us a holler. We can definitely get you into a rifle cheaper than anywhere else, including the factory. But nevertheless, Josh, you went up there to their shooting school. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about it?
Yeah, we, we, before last we went up there and spent three days. Everybody else was gone, so I was asked to go up there and shoot guns for three days. So it was a pretty hard task. Yeah. Ended up with a cool medallion there.
Right. It says the one mile club. What is that? Did you have to hike a mile to shoot before? Shoot. What does that mean mean
You retrieved his own target at a, that
Is, if I wanted to see where my impact was, I got shot a Yeti at a a mile. Wow. They had a big giant like Yeti, Sasquatch, Sasquatch Yeti targeted a mile. Really? They had a 300. It was, was he
On his hind legs like, like standing up or was he just
Standing there? Just standing there and it was weird. It was at a mile. 1700 and however many yards that is so far. Jeez. Never shot that before. But they had a 300 PRC there, set up on the carbon rage there. And yeah, first shot, I was surprised. Got up and there was a couple guys went before me and I was lucky enough to get some wind calls a little bit,
Watched them drift a little bit right or left, weren’t gonna do that. Couple wind
Calls and caught up there and hit it for shot shy. Anyway. Pretty, pretty amazing. But not only that, I mean then we went to, had several other guns are coming out with some new stuff that we’re gonna see some we can divulge, some we can’t. I guess one of the things they’re actually doing pretty impressed with is they had a 22 creedmore there. And I never thought that would be something like, ah, I don’t know, you need that. You know, and then you sit down and you whack targets from kind of need 200 to 700 yards and on a gun you’ve never even shot before. And little
No recoil, just fun little
Kid. Yeah. Suppressed 22. Wow. Creed more. And it was just, I mean, it was like shooting a 22, like it was, it was pretty unreal. They had the new Carbon Rogue Mini 2.0 stock that’s on there. Basically it’s kind of like their high end rage stock, their new rage lr. It’s gonna have a little pick rail on the end, an ACA Swiss rail more back towards the mag box and an adjustable cheek piece with a, with a thumb button lever on it. So really awesome. Gotta shoot that, gotta shoot some shotguns. Just really impressed. Then the next day we went out, they’ve got a big chunk of property that’s up in the mountains where they had targets set up all over from coyote silhouettes, sheep silhouettes, steep uphill, steep downhill, all kinds of stuff. It’s where they do their, their shooting school. And you go up there and they’ve got, you know, you, you shoot several targets and it’s really good practice shooting uphill. I mean the one was like just under 600 yards and you’re holding for like three 15 or something, you know? Yeah. Like it’s pretty steep uphill. And
Would the new smart range finders just dial it in and
Yeah, you push the button, it tells you to dial for three 90, but you’re shooting five something and straight uphill and smacked a ram three different times right there. And anyway, pretty impressive. And it was, it was awesome just to be able to get to go shoot anytime you get to go shoot and real life hunting situations like that. Of course it was, it was awesome. So if you’re thinking about going to one of their shooting, you know, they do their shooting schools and stuff and they’ll have rifles there for you to shoot. Odds are you’ll probably end up wanting to buy one. I mean, everybody that shot that mile at a, or that rifle at a mile was just like, okay, I need to take this gun. Is this for sale? You know, because it’s pretty impressive. So pretty awesome, pretty awesome guns. Good experience. Go up there and do that. And it was a great time’s. They are.
So you recommend it for anybody that’s looking to shoot a little bit more, a little better, whatever. Yeah, they put on a good show
And it’s good practice. They had lots of guys there.
They put you up, right? Yeah. In lodging and all that. Yep,
Yep. We stayed there in their lodge. Really nice. Fancy, they feed you everything. It was kind of a dealer summit that they had there to several other dealers and stuff that were there, a few influencers, those kind of things. Just kind of getting guys shooting their guns and yeah, it’s, it’s pretty awesome. It’s one of those things, once you shoot one of those guns, it’s great. I then just last week Friday, have two mountain reapers that I had to go shoot and get dialed in. And whose
Were those?
Mine and Haley’s.
Wow. His
And hers. A six five PRC and a seven PRC. And got those both dialed in. Did
She get the seven or you get the six five? Like who got the bigger
Caliber? She got the bigger caliber.
Does that sound weird to anybody else? I’m just keeping it real. I mean, like she needed, you’re a Viking. She
Needed a bigger caliber. I needed a smaller, I guess needs.
I kinda want a little bigger one for the do all And you don’t, women don’t just get a lot of rifles, right?
Yeah,
It was got, Josh has got the 300 rum that he loves too. Yeah.
But I mean, we joke about Josh being a six four Viking. He’s toning it down. Yeah. But it’s fun
When you just sit there and plink away and it’s, it’s nice. But they shoot, they shot amazing. Haven’t got ’em completely dialed all the way out. Just had enough time before the wind came up to get a good Yeah. Get chrono and get a a hundred yard zero on him. Dead zero. I mean, could grief it was Yeah.
Clover,
Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Geez. It was pretty amazing. They shot. Great.
So when you shot a mile, what does that mean? Like, do you shoot him in the tow or how, how good a shot was
It? It was, well there were just some impacts, but mine was, it was like a, it was like about an 18 inch silhouette was like in the dead center of this big Yeti or whatever, and I hit steel just below him. Yeah. But just below some were like a hand impact or whatever. But
Yours was an actual
Yeah,
It was torso hit. Yeah, it was a gut shot. Yeah. He’s dead torso.
He would’ve betted and I would’ve been able to get back on it.
No, I’m just
Saying that’s totally ethical.
Bigfoot’s been out there for I don’t know how many years and nobody’s ever put him down, so I mean, you’d probably better hit him. Move better than that. I
Know,
But
I, I’m confident he would’ve betted and I could’ve got a second, second round in him
All. Well,
That’s good. That’s all that
Matters. Just an interesting, interesting target. I mean, you’re shooting at a,
You’d have been able to shoot over like two other outfitting services converging on this thing,
Shooting at a standing human light creature. Yeah. I mean, it’s an,
If it’s, if it’s an elk or deer, you won, I
Guess it’s like a brown bear on side.
Well, I don’t know. The last shot, the last, the killing shot is the one that gets attacked. Yeah,
That’s true. You’re not gonna get, if you’re mild to begin, that’s always the case. If you’re mild to begin with, you’re not beating anybody. Yeah.
But it’s crazy. Like you can’t even, you’re sitting there and they’re like explaining to you where the target is on the ridge and they’re like, okay, there’s the point of the ridge. And you come down like you can’t even begin to see, and it’s a big, bright, white painted silhouette, you know? Yeah. On a brown mountain. And you can’t even begin to see it until get you
Hit it. So it’s ethical. Ethical. That’s the way I have some confusion.
You want to do something worth talking about around the water cooler? Hit that thing with the 22 creed more tomorrow. Yeah.
That
Would’ve been with a five mile an hour wind.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, what kind of energy does that have in 1760?
156 foot pounds less. But it’s might not break paper, it
Might not prairie dogs. No. Too
Thick A skin chipmunk might, might walk away.
Yellow belly Marmon for sure. Too thick a skin.
It was just good though, because you, you know, we, we practice a lot. Oftentimes we don’t shoot a lot per se. We, we, we get guns cited in, we verify some yardages and that sort of thing. And you don’t oftentimes just have time to go shoot, you know, at, at a different angles and distances and things like that. And being able to have different types of wind. I mean, even just the wind changing there. It was, it was pretty awesome.
Well, and at those, well at a mile, but even at 800 to thousand
Yes. That’s, yeah, we show
’em all that. It can be blown a different direction at the target than you. And you gotta look at your streamer, your flagging tape there versus where you’re at and just like, okay, what first one,
Every situation’s different. Yep. Yeah,
It was pretty crazy. Just like in between shooters, they had a couple different guns and at 800 yards, you know, it would be like, okay, now it’s your turn. And you were there for say a half hour at this station or whatever, and just in between shooters, like the guy was holding on the left, the guy that was before me. Now I get up there and I’m 10 holding, holding to the right, you know, and it’s, and then some of ’em is just straight on later on.
Anyway,
It was pretty awesome to be able to do
That. You walk away with a lot of brass. I remember going to one of those with you, Jason. And how much brass, I mean, what do you mean? I went through like 80 rounds.
Okay. That one. Yes. That one was in Oregon. Yes. But those were 45 mile an hour winds.
It was unbelievable that one, the term walking it in was putting it lightly.
I thought you did good.
I think I hit that 12 something with the six five, the 67
Or something like
That. Something mile an
Hour. But I mean, when you’re, that’s the one thing about these courses is when you book the dates, those are the dates and so that you get what the weather gives you. And there we were at 45 mile
An hour, full rain gear laying prone down. Oh, full
Rain gear. I was over it. I was good to watch you. I I just was brass boy. Yeah, I
Picked up, we had a lot. Oh, I just remembered
Littered the whole ground. You know, I might’ve
Had 180 to a hundred rounds.
I mean, yeah. That’s
Fun stuff.
Yeah. That was back when brass was brass. Now it’s gold, now it’s
Currency. Yeah, exactly. You could buy something with 80 once fired, six five brass.
All right, well that’s enough about that. Let’s, I think, let’s move on. Let’s, let’s
Have it, let’s talk about somebody that killed something last year. Yeah. To get us fired up for this year.
Got a big old, so we had Andrew Winer here, put in a story here in the Epic Outdoors Magazine, just barely this newest issue. The August, September, 2025 issue. Pretty awesome. It’s out. Covers the points. Alert for Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, as well as Alaska Overview. Just a general overview, not necessarily an application help there. Just more or less, here’s what Alaska offers. Some things to think about as well as an opportunity section. And then of course we have our stories, we have a load of stories, John. Generally we have more stories submitted, then we can print. But we try to really get to everybody. Yeah. So we sure appreciate you submitting stories. Think about that as you get out there in the field. Anyway, Andrew’s story titled Pretty Boy Isn’t Just an incredible velvet clad mule. Deer Killed with a bow. Awesome. Anyway, he’s agreed. John, you’ve got him dialed up basically just to talk about his story, talk about his buck and kind of just, everybody’s gonna be cranking this weekend. Yeah. So yeah, it’s a good, good primer for killing something with a bow or Yeah. Or at least hunting. Right? At least. Hunting. At least Hunting. At least Hunting. Are you gonna be hunting this weekend?
No, I’m not. What? No. I
Got whatcha Are you gonna do dirt bike? What do you
Got more important? I got more fish in the fry. Oh wow.
Fish. Whoa. Literal fish or just talking metaphorically. What do
You got going on? Two-legged
Gals.
He’s a single guy. Well, I’m gonna be
Hunting season. I’m gonna be in the field, but
I don’t have with a dedicated hunter tag. That’s right. So you can hunt archery, muzzle rifle, right?
I could, yes.
And so, and and most people that have archery tags go hunting on they Yes. It’s
The first
Potential day you can hunt.
Most people that have archery tags hunt the archery hunt. I am a really good son, and I told my dad I’d help him scout for some tags he’s got and Oh, really? So
I’m out. You’re at least in the field.
Oh yeah.
Are
You even in the same state your tags
For? No, no. Can’t.
So that tells me you just don’t have anything big right now.
Yeah. That that could be an accurate summarization.
Yeah. That I’ll help you look for Kyle.
Thanks for, thanks for putting it out there. I appreciate
It. Nobody has to follow you at all. In other words, quit. Follow me. Anybody but anybody following a Marshall’s pretty
Well. Going to a, if you wanna waste your time, put an air tag on my truck.
Okay. Anyway. All right. Well, let’s talk to Andrew. He killed a big one. Maybe we can learn something from him. It’d be great to hear his story. Andrew. Hello?
Yeah. Hey. Gotcha.
There you’re, Hey, Jason Carter. Adam Bronson, of course. John Peterson. Josh Logan here. Just calling you up, getting ready for this archery deer hunt that’s coming up. Have you, have you got a tag this year?
Actually got a call about 10 days ago about a turnback tag for archery antelope.
Oh, oh,
Did you
Take it? So, yeah, yeah, I took that. I was like, oh, kind of beating the S there. Yeah.
Wow. Holy cow. Is that, what are you out and about right now?
Yeah, I’m just cruising. I hauled my boys around to go mow lawn, so we’re getting after that
For a little bit. Yeah, that’s a good dad right there. Dad of the ear. I don’t know. Husband of the year teach him. Right?
I don’t know, I think as much time as I was gone last, last year, my wife was questioning that one.
But hey, like we’ve talked about, like that’s one of the lines you can tell your wife. Yeah, I’ll take the, I’ll take the kids this weekend, mow lawns and Little Hunt and live you heavy weekend off,
You
Know? Yeah, exactly. It’s how you stay. Exactly.
Yeah. Spin. Yep.
Yeah, she, she actually drew the, the PNT multi-season elk too, so,
Oh geez. You got your hands full then. It’s Yeah,
I know. She was like, well, let’s just turn my tag back in. And I’m like, Nope, it don’t work. Like it doesn’t work like that. Sorry. Yeah.
Well cool. Well, we’re just, obviously time of year, we’re all geared up archery season’s right around the corner here, at least in Utah, Nevada’s Open and other states are to follow. So we wanted to, we teed up your story being in this latest issue or magazine and thought we’d just call you and ha hear a good hunting story about killing a big buck.
Yeah, it was, it was a good one. I appreciate you letting me share it, you know, it’s awesome.
It’s awesome.
Well, pretty
Cool, I guess teed up a little bit from last year in terms of, it was an archery tag you drew, I believe. Yeah. Here in Utah. Yes. Probably tee up like as far as scouting and if it was a turnback tag, I’m be sick about it. Yeah,
No, it wasn’t. No, I don’t know what’s, what’s gotten into me this year. But no, I’ve been chasing limited entry deer in Utah for 20 years and you know, looked at all different units and have been like, it’s tough to not put in for the Oak Creek living right by my house. So I’ve been chasing muzzle loader for it for years and years and years. And finally when they switched the regulations, I was like, you know, over it basically hunting with the same, I’m basically hunting with the same kind of weapon. Like let’s try the archery, you know, and
Be able to go first.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have, have the first crack at ’em. And it seems like, you know, they always kill some giants on, on the archery right away. And so I was actually looking at the draw odds on Epic Outdoors and was like, Ooh, I think I might have a chance at it. So I put in and didn’t even own a bow and just went with it and found out I drew. And that was pretty awesome, you know, finding that out and telling everyone, and that was pretty surreal.
20 years of waiting and a lot of buildup. Yeah. Now you gotta go buy, Hey honey, I got a tag now I gotta go spend a few grand and get a bow on a set up and arrows and everything else. Yeah,
Yeah. Luckily I had some good, some good friends that helped me out with that process and got that all bought and everything, and it was just one thing after another. I was just like, Ugh, I’m not usually a big spender guy, but I, I became that guy pretty quickly. Yeah, when
You’re
Struggl, but what, what’s that?
When you’re starting from scratch? Yeah. Yeah. It can rack up quick. Yeah. It’s not like you just, oh, get a new side or a new release if you’re starting from scratch, it’s, it’s
Gonna, exactly. Yep. So we shot a lot and got after it and then just, man, we were scouring the unit from end of May till the hunt open, just trying to cover as much as we possibly could and trying to see what el you know, what all was out there. And, and I had a lot of great help from, from friends and family, and it was, we were just talking about it the other day. We were just like, man, I wish we had that to look forward to this year. ’cause of all the prep that was going in this time last year with which deer to go after and, and kind of getting a rough score on all of ’em and which place to go. But anyways, I found out how hard that mountain is too. It’s, it’s definitely not an easy place to hike around and move around. It’s pretty grueling. You’ll
Be in shape after hunting that mountain for many days, or scouting it, that’s for
Sure. Oh, yeah, yeah. I, I learned that real quick. But yeah, I spent, I spend, you know, try spend at least three mornings a week up, up there and during the week going to work a little bit later. And luckily they understood. Yeah. Then we kinda whittled the list down to, I mean, we had about five to six that we’d probably go after my number one deer. We, we saw him two weeks before the opener and then we, he was gone. We never laid eyes on him again until someone killed him in the muzzle loader hunt. Oh, what’d he end up going? I think he was 200 right on the nose. We actually, he, he looked really, I impressive in the velvet, great buck. And he’s still, I mean, a fantastic deer. You can’t say just a small 200 inch deer, you know, but he had lost quite a bit of mass.
I think he was pretty old too, but he was awesome. And, and honestly, you know, so we kind of, we kind of called an audible before the hunt started and my brother, my brother-in-law went and checked on another deer that we had seen earlier, earlier that year and, and we’re like, ah, I think we could probably go after him. And so we, we went and camped out that Friday night and up on a ridge and it was like 60 mile an hour winds, you know, the tent laying right on your face most of the night. You’re not sleeping a wink anyways. And anyways, we ended up glassing that, that buck up earlier the next morning, and we were able to drop in on him. I got within about 50, 50 yards above him and I, that was my first time seeing hunting a a giant deer that close. And I was like, holy, they look like dinosaurs, you know? Yeah.
Geez. It’s,
It’s tough to keep
Your composure when you got that velvet bouncing above brush or whatever. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah. It was, it was pretty, pretty crazy. And my other buddy, I could, I could hear him telling me in my, in my head, he is like, now you’re gonna shoot your bow. You’re gonna wanna look up and see where your arrow hit. Don’t do that. Don’t do
That. Yep.
And sure enough, that’s exactly what I did at 50 yards, I slung it right over his back and I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me.
I’ve done it. Yeah. And they got, and they got away and it was terrible. Happens
To everybody. Yeah. It was just like, oh my gosh, it’s hard to
Break. It’s hard to break yourself of it, you know? I found,
Anyway. Yeah. I mean, and, and you know, I’ve heard, you know, you haven’t been hunting if you haven’t missed, but it still just was like, holy cow, okay. You know, and so we, we luckily found him again and he went and beded down, and as we were trying to make another play on him, we had a giant thunderstorm roll in and just drench us. And we were kind of sitting there watching all these deer come out, all the deer started, started moving. I don’t know if someone walked down the bottom or what, but they, they started coming out and my, the, my family on the other side of the canyon, they’re like, yeah, I think your your buck jumped over this other ridge. He’s, he’s gone. So we’re like, okay, I guess we’ll head back to camp, dry out. And anyway, someone else came in almost where I, I was, I guess from, from from the story we got and smoked in just that afternoon, that same deer. Oh,
Geez.
So I was like, okay, well, that, that buck’s off off the list, you know, and
Welcome to best units
So much from
That most amazing experie you could ever have.
Yeah. Once in a while.
Yeah. I, I think he went 2 0 0 8 and I was just like,
Oh
My gosh,
You gotta be kidding me. You know? And so we ended up going, trying to, trying a different deer and a different canyon and, and, and we, the thunderstorms just kept the wind, wind swirling, you know, not nothing would hold steady enough to get in on a stock. And it’s just, I mean, it’s just hard if you don’t got the wind as you’re just, you might as well just not even do it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I didn’t wanna blow him, blow blow him out. So we kinda re regrouped that that night and Sunday morning we went in, after this deer end up being the deer I end up killing. And I had, I hadn’t even seen him in person. We had one of my buddies, he had had videoed him earlier in the year and about middle of July, and I had got a, a picture of him on my trail camera.
I went and got my, my trail cameras the last day. It was sip and through I’m like, oh, hey, that’s a, you know, decent buck. We should go take a look at him. And we honestly just, we lowballed the crap out of him. But we went in to go see what he was doing, sun Sunday morning. And I, I was able to sneak in on him about, about 60 yards. He was with a group of four other bucks. And, and right as he stood up, there was a big old line of oak brush across his chest. And I was like, of course. You know? Yeah. And, and so I tried sneaking around the other side, this other side to get a, a shot at him. And, and I, I just ever so slightly scraped a rock on another rock and a little two point that was by him, he pegged me. I immediately, and I was like, oh, crap. And he, they just bolted out of there. He went all the way up out of the canyon. I was like, holy cow. Like he is completely blown outta here. So don’t, don’t, that was,
Don’t tell me somebody shot him on top, shot him
On top of the wrist. No goodness. Okay. Thank goodness. That would, that would be it. Right? Just, you know, boom, him right to you, just like hunting geese. Okay. But anyway, so we kind of backed out of there and we’re like, okay, well that I, you know, we probably should give him a day or two. And we went and kind of looked at some different areas. You know, there was that one cool buck that was kind of floating around social media with the crazy right side. He was awesome. We never saw him during, during the hunt we tried to go find him, and we kinda just split up different, different places, got a game plan together. And, and so Monday, Monday was the craziest day I’ve ever had hunting with, you know, my, my dad was kind of my, my Uber driver is what he called me, dropped me off in one of the canyons, and I hike, hiked up the backside as I had, you know, different family members looking into different canyons.
And I was kind of just waiting, got up on the top and waited for the wind to shift and trying to navigate all the ledges and rocks and everything that the oak creeks has for you. You almost feel like a mountain climber more than a, a hunter, you know? Yeah. But, but anyway, so I, my my buddy was like, ah, I think this, this pretty good good buck drop in on him. It was on the west side of the canyon. So I dropped down in on him and we got a little mis miscommunication. He dropped me too far down, and by the time I had realized where I was, I was below the buck. And he, you know, the wind takes my scent right up to him and he blows him out of there. And that was actually kind of a good, good thing. He, he wasn’t that great of a buck, so it wasn’t, it wasn’t too bad other than the steep hike down and the steep hike back up. But anyways, I swung around to the east side of the canyon and dropped in on another buck. And after a few hours of hiking and everything and having some mental chats with myself, that was definitely the most, the most mentally draining hunt I’ve ever been on. Yeah.
But anyway, so I dropped down on this other buck. He was a fantastic deer, probably, you know, 2 0 5 ish type buck. And I was 25 yards above him in some rocks. And he was kind of clearing, feeding all of a sudden, a, a cloud goes over the sun, swirls the wind, and he picks me up. So he, he, he busted outta there, went east over into the next canyon. So I hiked over there and, and my brothers-in-law had spent the whole day kind of just out of the game, just sitting there on the, on the side hill and picked this buck up. And so they sent me the onyx point where he was sitting. And so I dropped in on him again. And I was 60 yards above him this, this time. And I had some squirrels playing on the rocks above me, and they knocked some rocks off of this cliff and busted that deer out of there. Wow.
This is like, bad luck Charlie Brown. I was just like, I was like, we need to call the next guy. This is not even, I don’t even, I don’t wanna go. I’m, I don’t even Exactly. It’s not gonna happen. Exactly. Logan, you Oh, man, I, I’m out and add general status to that. Yeah. Add general. Yeah. At least he’s going from one 90 to two, five bucks, two, whatever.
Yeah. It’s crazy. Crazy.
Kill the squirrels anyways. Kill the squirrels.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I was just like, you have God, to be kidding me, there was a lot of soul search searching, like I said. Anyway, so, so I finally got off the mountain that, that night and I was like, okay, I need a little easier day on, on Tuesday. So we met, went back in and checked on that buck. I had, I had stocked in on Sunday and found him again, kind of the same exact exact spot. And I dropped in on him. And it was a long stock. It took, I was, it was several hours in, and I finally had him feeding up into a little opening about 40 yards below me. He was about five yards to this, to this opening. I was like, okay, sweet. We’re gonna, we’re gonna get a chance at him. And I didn’t know that there was other hunters about 500 yards down the canyon. And they started all of a sudden yelling. And I’m like, what is going on? And they had found the buck they had killed earlier. So they were just, you know, all so stupid
And all
Celebrating like, you, like you do, you know, like, I totally, totally get it. But that, that buck picked up his head and he was like, Nope. Went right back up the canyon. I was like, you whew. That was, that was crazy.
Still not going home.
So I, I had to get off, get off the mountain, kind of clear my head we’re like, okay, we’re, we’re, we’re just gonna go back in on him on on Wednesday and we’ll see what happens. Well, luckily Wednesday the weather started to, to to, to change and the wind was pretty steady right off the get go. And that helped a ton. ’cause I didn’t have to sit and wait for him to bed and the wind shift and everything. And so I was, we picked him up. He was up further in, into the canyon, which worked out better. And so I got up along the face and got with, you know, parallel with him, and I stayed about parallel with him at 50 yards for about 10 to 15 minutes and all that dead mahogany and everything is just, it was hard to see any lane to get a shot off at him.
And, and he had a couple little bucks with him and then they end up splitting him and going west. And I was like, oh man, they’re gonna take him with him. And he ended up coming back towards me. And luckily I was far enough enough to the north that as he came up and ended up coming level with, with me onto the, onto the side hill that the wind was just, was just perfect. And he came up with his head down and he faced me directly. And so I, I drew back as his head was down just waiting for him to turn ever so slightly. And he just finally turned to his right enough I could see his left, left side. And I sent one right into his lungs. And I had, honestly, when I let go, he spun around and broke a bunch of that mahogany that he was standing in. And I was like, was that my arrow that just went through the dead mahogany? I’m like, are you kidding me? And just ’cause of all the other experiences, you know, why not? Yeah. Yeah. And my brother-in-law who was watching it, he was like, no, you hit him there. He’s like, there’s blood everywhere. And he ran down about 70 yards and kind of sat down and then made a little, one more little plunge about 50 yards, and of course buried his head right into a dead mahogany and tore up some of his velvet.
But man, it was, it was just crazy, you know? I mean, just so much emotion and Yeah.
Unreal. That’s the feeling. Unreal. After all the other things that went wrong for five or six days, whatever it was. Oh,
Yeah, yeah. Five days. I mean, I remember waking up Wednesday morning and I was just like, okay, we gotta, we gotta do this. But I have just about had it for a little bit, you know,
Make, it makes muzz loaders think they’re not so bad. Oh, one power scope is not so bad.
I finally, yeah. Like I was, I mean, on that, on that Saturday and even Sunday, I was like, oh man, if I had a gun, you know? And finally I was like, dude, you can’t talk like that. Yeah. Like, you cannot, like you willingly chose this. Yeah, yeah. So stuck it up and get it and get it done, you know, and yeah.
Yep. Wow.
But walking up on him was, was just unreal. And my other family members had beat me to it and they’re like, I think you killed a 200 inch inch deer. And I was like, dude, I don’t even care. Like give a one 90 and we’ll call it great, you know,
I’ll settle for a one 90.
Seriously. And that’s what, and that’s what hunting that, that unit does to you. You know, like I had never had a chance to kill a big deer. And, you know, I’ve, I’ve hunted deer for 20 plus years and, and that just gives you such a warped sense of reality, especially coming outta general units, you know? Yeah.
Options. It’s good to have options. A lot of structure. Oh, there’s numbers of bucks and of Yeah. And you’re first, I mean, let’s face it. Yeah. We’ve talked, I mean, bow hunters and equipment and everything we have is still far superior than it was 20, 30 years ago. So you, even though there’s eight or 10 tags, they kill a lot of great bucks on the archery before the Muzz river hunts. They do. So yeah. It’s, yeah. It’s hard to argue with the results and you know, obviously that feeling is
Looking back on it, you’re, you did the
Right thing. Yeah. It is. Five days is still not Yeah. That long with the bow.
No, it isn’t. No.
I mean, but, but when every day is two or three stocks failed opportunities or squirrel problems and the pressure or people problems
Best hunt in the state. Yeah. You know, there’s just pressure 20
Years on, 20 years riding on this, waiting for the tag and it brings a sense of Yeah. The pressure or just all of it expectation or anxiety or everybody’s telling you what to do and where you should zig and zag and you’re like, why can’t I do any of this? Right.
From their desk,
From their desk, from their rich top with their, you know, pile of treats and Pepsis
And all that.
You can, you can see that that deer, right.
200 inch after 200 inch get knocked off. Knocked off. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty awesome. That
Is. Well
Yeah. It was awesome.
So awesome. Great story. Well,
Yeah, congrats, congrats again. Appreciate you taking the time to write something up for us in the magazine and for those that haven’t Yeah. Haven’t heard it or seen it, it’s, it’s in this news magazine. This what, August, September issue, John, right? Yep. It just came out here in the last couple weeks. Just came
Out.
Okay. Pretty awesome. That
Was awesome. Appreciate you guys. Oh, you
Well hey, good
Luck on on Great story. Yeah. Good luck on your antelope and your wife’s outcome. Maybe got another story to tell us after all that we
Yeah, we’ll see, we’ll see what we can drum up. So
Don’t let your wife turn that tag in. I mean, that’s crazy talk.
Oh no. Oh no. We got it all, all dialed. I didn’t, so anyways. Perfect.
Alright. Okay. Well get, get some moms mode. Yeah. Good. Dad will do.
Yeah, I’m going back to work.
All right. Talk to later.
Okay. See ya. Bye.
It was pretty fun. Yeah,
It’s pretty awesome. I think it’s one of those things, kind of what he said there, you know, I mean, geez, that’s crazy for him. Didn’t even own a bow putting it for, you know, 20 years. That’s one of the things that you talk to a lot of guys that they just can’t, there’s like a mental struggle with archery sometimes. Yeah. You talk to a lot of guys that you’re like, they could draw this tag, but they don’t know if they want to take their 20 years worth of weight and try and bet it all on a, on a bow archery equipment.
Well, and not many people are like, I’m only an archer and you know what I mean? Yeah. And so we we’re all flirting with all of ’em. Like you gotta kind of, yeah. What do you call it? BM ambidextrous. Yeah. You know, use ’em all right. Yep. So he’s not just a hardcore archer. Yeah.
But it’s cool that he could do that. Yeah. Take it, practice enough and do it. It was funny when he was saying there about how I had that similar thing when I had like my first archery elk tag and you’re just so used to hunting with, I mean you kind of hunted with a bow or whatever here and there for deer, but like when it’s a limited entry tag or whatever, there seems like there’s a lot of extra pressure on there. And he was sitting there and saying, you know, look, I don’t have a muzzle loader, I don’t have a rifle. Like you have, there’s something in your brain that actually I feel like is a switch that has to get switched and be like, okay, this is what you’re, if you’re gonna kill, this is what you have to do and this is how you’re gonna have to do it. And at that point, that’s kind of the mentality you have to get if you’re gonna go try and do something like that with a bow and I’ve been there before. It’s, and and then you go out and you just like go
Do it. Yep. And many times it is the drawing odds, not always are archery hunt’s easier to draw than rifle, but yeah, I’d say more times than, than not, they are for mul, they’re an outcome. I mean, not always, but especially deer. So people are set to chase a certain hunt forever and they realize I’m two or three points behind that and it’s, I’m never gaining ground. ’cause they’re only taking five guys off the top every year and they’re just five more to, to transfer over every year and doesn’t make headway. And then finally, yeah, it has to click one of guys this year that did that in Arizona for elk that finally bit the bullet one archery and do the first year and yeah, they’re, they actually bought the bow the year ahead of time and shot it and like yeah. These things are pretty nice. I will do that.
You know, they are
Nice. They’re, they’re forgiving. I mean,
I don’t know. Makes ’em so forgiving. ’cause it, they’re no joke way different than what
We just think of. We, we thought there was Carols from Moab. I mean, Jesus, I mean we thought they were the best thing you could ever make. They
Were, they
Were, they were cutting edge. They were,
I was amazed. That was before rubber
Tires, which we shot re we shot,
That was before rubber tires.
That’s when we were shooting Recurves with a tooth cutoff toothbrush for the, for the arrow rest. Okay. I mean, literally some of my friends did that. Yeah.
Okay. Alright.
So John, we got a break for a quick second. Only you or Logan can do this
Justice.
It’s because we’re it’s because we’re the only men in the office. Yeah.
Shout out,
Shout out to Apex. Who made you purge 10 pounds? Yep.
Apex next evolution.com. And yeah, I
Don’t think you got it all out, John. ’cause I’ve heard there’s 27 pounds of feces in
There. Well, we didn’t talk about it, but none of it, none of it was, none of it was that. ’cause I, yeah, I I I didn’t go at all in really the whole five days.
He did not go number two in five days. Yeah.
The first day I did like normal, clean out, done, done. I didn’t have anything. Even a day after, I didn’t have anything.
Same experience. Oh, bull. I think serious.
Yeah. I think you start skipping the Cayenne.
No, no,
You can’t. The cayenne, whatever you guys
Did, whoever does the colonoscopies should tell their patients to do what you guys did. No, Adam, what Adam and I have been through is
No, you didn’t clean you out. Like that wasn’t
Oh, it stuffed you
Up. It didn’t stuff me up either was it just wasn’t anything just didn’t.
Okay.
I figured that’s what the
Ca was is pulling out the extra news
Of the Cayenne. No idea. The Cayenne suppresses your appetite. Is
That what it does? I thought
It was for other reasons. It’s
So
Hard to drink water and fluid while you’re doing it that you, you’re not going as much as you usually do. So,
Okay. All right, well let’s move along.
Change this anyways. So diff different topic. Let’s, let’s
About good flavored drinks.
Okay. They are actually
Really good. I am addicted to the which one? Peach Mango Conquer. Yeah, it is amazing. Conquer has, it’s my favorite stimulant. Peach mango. Yeah. It’s, it’s like the energy drink. Yeah. I love it. It’s it,
It’s got the wolf tracks. It’s so good. You just look for wolf tracks.
Look for the wolf track on the back. It’s so good.
Conquers your number one Go-to.
Yeah. That if you need it. Good. I one, I select that. I like that flavor. It’s really good flavor. So I just
Grab a packet. I don’t think a lot about it. It tastes good.
You might want run, you might want, depending on what you need out of your beverage, you might look at the back. Back. I’m
Probably gonna look at the back.
Yeah. Yeah. If you chase it after 160 or whatever, milligrams of caffeine from a monster 400
With
One of those, pretty soon you’re at three 50 after 20 minutes.
I just know how my body feels. It’s amazing. Alright,
So anyway, we’ve got a discount code Epic 25. You get 25% off and for hydrating during the hunting season, all natural. You just can’t, you know, can’t go wrong. It’s, it’s a lot healthier for you than, than other options out there
That are synthetic. I know Jana bought some for our house.
Yeah. And they got non-caffeinated. There’s stuff that’s just literally for hydration and recovery called
Pleasure. Yep. Recovery.
Recovery or pleasure or just
The other ones. Other one’s called Quench. Yeah, that’s a,
That’s the one without any
Caffeine. Yeah, it’s hydration and, and those are really good too. It’s, yeah, just, I mean when you’re hiking, hiking, hiking, it’s nice to have something that’s not water again. Yeah.
You drink more. Logan,
You gonna take some with you this weekend? I’ve
Always got it in my pack.
Do you?
Oh yeah. Nice. Yep. That and a pinch a cayenne.
That’s right. Caprice on for the hard days. I, I was sick of
Ca sun after a week. Blow a tire. I have a little Capric sun while
I’m waiting for John to come fix my tire for you. Alright,
Let’s talk to Chuck Lawrence. Josh, you know Chuck well. Yeah. Super good guy. Ends up with a tag. What, 22 years in the making is the title of the story. Just a down to earth awesome human. I think that’s,
That’s a sobering, I mean that last one was 20 years here we’ve got another 20 plus years. These are elite deer, elk tags in Utah. And I mean
John, we should have people that have do well on generals. How
About John next time find
Okay, we can try to find out
Or John next time find kids that draw the first year they draw John, that’s your
John. You
Find a kid on the first year points. Drew a sheep tag. What’s a
Lifetime?
I’m fine as long as it’s not a sheep tag. Oh, kids, kids need to hunt too.
I’ve got ’em, I’ve I’ve got kids that have done that. Not my kids. I know. No, we’ve taken ’em. But
It,
It is funny at the, at the Hunt expo. How many people don’t know, I’m kind of joking. Kind of not but kind of joking. I get some They’re shy
To walk up and introduce you to their kids and family so you might rip their head off
Kids, here’s Johnny. He killed us too. Sheep
In one year and he’s 10 years old.
It’s
True. Anyway, alright, let’s call Chuck. Let’s call Chuck Ry Elk here in Utah. Incredible story. Put in his time. This guy, no joke. Spent a ton of time. Su I say
Hello.
Hey, what are you doing Chuck?
Not how are you guys doing? We’re
Doing good. Good. Got John and Adam and Josh Logan. We all talking about you talking about Big Bulls wanting to hear, wanting to hear this story on the podcast.
That sounds great. I love talk, I love talking hunting and hunting even more.
Well we got a few days before this year’s archery hunt’s open, so we appreciate you taking some time and talking about your archery hunt last year. Just to maybe get people a little fired up or give ’em some optimism or
Sometimes and sometimes these archery hunts here in Utah a little bit early and tough, but you found that out. But also you, like you said, it was the most incredible lifetime experience ever. It seemed like.
Oh, so, so rewarding hunts. The hunt is, the hunts can definitely be difficult. Like you said, they’re, they can be early, they can be a grind, but the, you just gotta work hard and the harder you work, luckier you get as you’re, as you’re hunting those elk. For sure.
That’s right. Okay, we’ll start us off maybe on, you know, why you chose the area, how many points you had getting the tag and then kind of the planning phase and then dive into your scouting and how you did, how you made it happen.
Yeah. So I’ll try to remember all your questions.
Don’t miss one. Jason’s very, I know what you do for a living. You remember everything I said?
That’s right. We’ll talk about that later. Okay.
Alright.
No, I, I had 16 points. I I had actually drawn a, a bull off tag when I was in high school and my dad guided me on a hunt. I killed a bull and with, with my rifle and a few years back I was hunting a general unit with a muzz loader. Killed a good bull in Utah in the general unit. Worked real hard for that bull. And I’ve, I’ve always wanted to, to kill a big bull with my bow. I’ve always been a little nervous doing so because I know the archery can be so tough. Yeah. And like, and like you said, it, it can be early and so there’s sometimes it’s super hot and you’re not the the elk aren’t talking. Yeah. And I, I decided to choose the Boulder unit in, in Utah and it, I mean, almost anymore, it’s like a once in a lifetime hunt.
So it even made me more nervous, you know, with, with it being archery. But I just, I’ve always wanted to do it and I, I used to work down in the Pengu area and, and was on the boulder often for, for my, my work. And I, and I, I really liked the boulder and as I, I moved to a different position. I, I met a few individuals that are friends of mine, Doug and Hayden Johnson. And they, they guide a little bit on the boulder and they know it really well. And so I just, I decided that I’m just gonna do it and if I, if I eat tag soup, that’s gonna be fine. I’m just gonna go have a good experience with ha hard. Yeah. And I mean, based on my points off of last year, I thought I was gonna draw with, with my bonus points, but people always bounce around for unit to unit and they happened to bounce back over to the boulder and after, after the hunt I looked at the draw results and I had actually drawn a, a random tag. So there was, there were three of us that with, with 16 points that actually drew that tag. And three, three out of eight just random. But there were people with, with 17 points that didn’t draw ahead of me. So I, I was close, but I I got lucky and Drew a drew a regular random tag.
Wow. Make you feel a little bit bad knowing those other guys didnt
Get a tag. Yeah. He caused somebody having
So,
So, so bad, so
Bad. I a guy like you actually might’ve felt bad. Chuck, you’re pretty, you’re a pretty good human. Oh yeah.
I, I appreciate it. Thank you. Oh god no, but it it was awesome. It was just, I was so stoked. It it’s, it’s awesome finding out a few months ahead and you get a get to go, you can go scout, you can just, it eats at you though. Until, until it gets there. You can’t wait. I, oh man. I I don’t even know where to start with the whole thing.
Did you do a bunch of, when I, yeah. Did you do a bunch of scouting and have time for that or did you know, hey, well just kind of rest on some of your knowledge or, and your friends when the hunt comes and all. Well, I mean the boulder’s a it’s not like a glassing unit. You don’t go glass a lot of elk on the boulder. It’s not, you know, like other units you can in the summer and you know, you can run some Yes, exactly cameras and what, but even then, you know, it’s just a big flat thick plateau for the most part. And
It, it really is. So my intentions were to go scout as much as possible, but I, I didn’t get to go a lot and it was based off of my past experience on the Boulder and the help that I received from the friends of mine and their experience on the Boulder that was. And I, and like I said, you can’t, you can’t just go throw up some binoculars in a lot of places and, and scout it. So we threw up some cameras and we actually, if you look at the magazine article, it, it, there’s a picture of the bowl in like, like June or July, I think it’s a July picture. And you just kind of have to hunt the area where you, where you see ’em. But they move around so much. It’s a tough, it’s a tough unit and, but that’s how, that’s how I, I was just gonna go wait and hunt it hard and, and hunt areas. You know, I, I think on the boulder you can find big bulls in most areas. You just gotta learn it and hunt it hard.
Maybe even a little bit harder to like single out a specific animal. Just a thick, thick country. Yes. You know? Yes,
Yes. Absolutely. There, there’s a few places. It’s, it’s amazing. I mean, some of the bulls hang out in the desert. Some of the bulls are on the mountain. I mean they’re, they, they’re scattered to and fro and it is, it’s hard just to pick. You can’t just pick a bull ’cause you can’t just watch ’em all day long. You just, yeah. It, it’s a lot of, a lot of, a lot of luck in it is involved with it.
So did you, was your, was your game plan to hunt the opener for a bit when that time came? Or was you saving it for, you know, the last two weeks, which is normally the best time on a Utah tree hunt, but what was your game plan going into the start of the hunt?
So, as you guys are aware, I work for the division of law enforcement and so the opening weekend of archery is usually a pretty, pretty busy weekend. So I, I worked, I worked the opening weekend of the hunt and then I spent the rest of my time, almost the rest of my time on the mountain.
Did you kick people? Did you kick people outta your honey hole? I’m just teasing, Chuck. I’m I know you would never, I’m just teasing. You’re
Not supposed to
Bring that up.
No. But yeah, so I worked opening weekend and then I, I’ve been telling my boss for a few years, like, Hey, when this hunt, when this, when I draw this tag, I’m gonna be non-existent. I’m gonna be non-existent. And he, so he, he knew it was coming. He was really good to work with. And I took my son down with me the, the first week. And he is, he was 10 years old at the time. And so he’s just getting into this, the hunting stuff. And that, that first week we actually had a bowl come in like 30 yards bugling at us, like that first week. And just seeing his, his eyes light up. Oh my gosh. That made the whole hunt worth it right there. Just, just seeing the excitement in his eyes. And I wish he could have been there when I shot it, but he had, he has school and he can’t take a, a month off of school to, to go hunting with me. So, but that, that was, that was awesome, being able to experience that with, with my son.
That is awesome.
So he had to leave, but did you literally stayed from, you know, call it four or five days into the hunt after you had your opening weekend obligations, you went there to stay
Basically? Yeah, I went there to stay. So I actually came home. I was like, I’ll stay home for a few days just to, and then just stay the rest of the time. And I get there and my, my other son who couldn’t make it down, he, but he got sick. He got influenza B and he was, my wife knew how important this was to me. And as, as much, she’s not a big hunter, but she knew how important it was to me and supported me in it. So she said, I’m a little bit of a hypochondriac. I don’t wanna get sick. And she just looked at me and said, you better get outta here. So I get it back on the mountain if you say so.
Yeah, she, yeah, exactly. But I, I stayed the rest of the time on the mountain. I, I actually minus, like, I try not to hunt on Sundays. So one of the Sundays I went down to church in Lola and then, and came back up on the mountain. But I hunted every morning and every evening or all for practically 22 days straight. And that, that, I mean, that’s a toll, it’s a toll on you for sure. Mentally as as well. Like, man, it, it, it’s just tough. And then, and then I had a, a couple bulls come in on a couple wallows that were like, I mean, they were, they were good bulls, 3 20, 3 30 bulls that are hard to pass up with your bowl, with your bowl, your bow when you’re, when they’re like sitting there at 40 yards saying, shoot me, you know. But pa passed up a, a couple bulls like that. And I, I kept having experiences where I was just getting closer and closer. One of the times, Hayden Johnson and I had this full bugling, but he wouldn’t commit. So we just kept going at him and, and, and do some cow calls. He’d bugle back, but he wouldn’t commit. And I, that bull, if he would’ve zigged, just did his zagged. I mean, I, I could of had a shot at him. He just went a different way.
I, my brother and I, we called in, we cow called in, we did some small bowl bugles and a cow called, and we got this, another really big bowl to come in. And this was a day or two before I shot my bowl. He was, he was a big bowl. Dang. But it was like a minute left of light. And I saw one side, one side of him. He was like, he was looking straight on, I know you looked good straight on, but I wanted to see a side profile of him. And he turned, and I’m like, oh my gosh. But I just, I just, I couldn’t get a shot off. I just didn’t feel right about it. So I, I did shoot and, and that was like six days left of the hunt at that point. Geez. And, and so you’re, you’re wondering if you’re gonna have an opportunity like that again. But it was, I mean, there were some cool mornings and, but it wasn’t, it was still pretty warm. It’s hot. Yeah. It was last year. Yeah. It, yeah, it was hot. And the morning that I actually killed my bowl, it was a, it was a cold snap that was, it was below freezing. I mean, I had like five layers on. I was freezing just, just to stay warm. But it, but it got the bulls. They got the bulls going that morning. Do you want me to go into that? Sure.
Gotcha. We’re there,
We’re there. Keep us safe. Yeah. Yeah. So at this point, Doug and Hayden had, had come back. They, they would go back to work and I, I had most days solo. I had my brother down for a couple days, my boy down. I was mostly on my own and having close encounters, but I, this, this cold snap Doug had come down, we separated Hayden went over looking and little other area, and, and Doug was with me. And we went out and did some, some small bugles off this little point. And nothing, nothing was responding like, what the heck? And we did some cow calls and all of a sudden, two bulls, not a hundred yards behind us, just started going crazy. They didn’t want nothing with the bull, but they liked the cow call. And we, we did some cow calls, they’d bugle back, they wouldn’t come.
So we went a little closer, get some cow calls, wouldn’t come. Went a little closer and they, and they just started moving. They started moving away from us. They, they, they were still, it’s still just the start of the rock, you know, it wasn’t super heavy yet, but a few bulls were getting into it more than others. But they, they just took off and we kind of knew the direction they, we knew the direction they were headed. And so we tried to, to get in front of them. So we got back to the four-wheeler and drove around and tried to get in front of these bulls. And, and in the meantime he run into hay. And his son, who’s, who stopped us in the middle of the road, he like, Hey, there’s some bulls bugling right here. And where we stopped, the bulls that we had were chasing, were on one side of us. And the bulls that, that he had found were on the other side of us. So we had bowls on both sides and we’re like, we had just kind of thick what we, what bowls to go after. It was, I mean, it got, it got hot all of a sudden and we, we start bugling and this, the bowl that Hayden had found, the bulls were being a little more responsive.
So we’d, we’d cow call, he’d, he’d scream back and he wouldn’t come though. He wouldn’t come. So we’d go a little closer. Cow call, cow call he’d scream, he’d scream, wouldn’t come. And this area we were hunting was extremely thick. Deadfall and Aspen, little Aspen. Oh geez, the aspen, that’s like four or five feet tall. Yeah. Little sapling. Little suckers. S ling. Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I was looking for. Saplings were coming up, and so we’re hopping logs trying to get closer and closer to this thing. And we’re pretty close now. And I separate myself from Doug and Hayden just to the, to the left, to like 20, 20 or 30 yards. And they do some cow calls. And I, while I was setting up, I mean, it was super thick. I mean, just imagine how thick, super thick, and that’s what it was. And I arranged this tree at 40 yards and it was the clearest shot I could get with my range minder.
And he bugles and all of a sudden you could hear this bull start crashing coming into us, just coming in hot. And he, he, he stops broad side, little bit angling forward at the, where I arranged that tree at 40 yards. No way. He stopped right there. I’m like, one, the one thing you could range. Wow. Yeah. The one thing I could range, and I have my bowl, my bow hold back and he, he stops and I just, I let it fly. And well, sorry. He came in, he bugled like screaming bugle. And then right as the bugle stopped, I let it fly and you could just hear it just thud. And I’m like, Doug says, did you hit him? And I’m like, I think so. But I, I didn’t wanna be overly optimistic ’cause I know how bad shots happen sometimes, you know? And so, and I had to shoot my arrow through those saplings and I’m, I’m shooting one of those mechanical dead meats on, on my, on my arrows.
And so I was like, I hope it doesn’t redeploy. And I shot it through the saplings hit him, and we waited for 15 minutes or so, just, just listening and just, and we, and we walked. I mean, it, it was the longest 15 minutes of my life. And I, we walk up there and I find my arrow on the ground, like dark blood from tip to tip pass, pass through, pass through. Yep. I had a pass through and it, it looked like, it looked like good blood. And I’m, I’m like, stoked. And you guys might think I’m a big Ws, but like, I have been hunting so hard that I actually, I just broke down crying.
Well, no, that’s keeping it real. We’ve
All been kind of a w but when you admit it, it’s a little,
We gotta give you credit for that. You’re a man. Yeah, you’re a real
Man.
But I, I just broke down and I, I think Doug and Hay were like, dude, who is this guy? But, but it was, it was when you put in that much time and that were that much effort and you want it so bad, you sometimes you don’t realize the pressure that you put on yourself. And then I, it kinda just all came out at once. Yeah. And, and with it being so thick, we, we backed out again for another like 90 minutes. Like, let’s let this bull sit down and expire so we don’t push him and, and lose him in, in that thick, nasty stuff. And that was, that was definitely the longest way to my life. But we, we drove off and marked everything on Onyx and we, we came back and right where the arrow was and the blood trail was awesome. We followed that blood trail, that bull did not go more than 40 yards from where I hit him. Ah. And smoke. Yeah. And then
When that bull came in, like, I, I couldn’t tell how big he was, but I knew he was good. I knew like, this is the bowl I’m gonna shoot. And when I came through the thick tree in the saw way on the ground, I was like, holy crap. Yeah. Like that is awesome. That’s a good one that I was going for, man. And I mean, I said a, a little fair thanks. And it, it was, it was so cool. I mean, just be able to have that experience and to be able to hunt public lands and to be able to be up in nature and with God’s creations and, and have meat to put on the table and hunt big bulls with family and friends. I mean, that was just awesome. I, I wish I could do it every year on a limited entry unit, but it was, it was, it was so fun. I
If it would’ve happened within the first few days, it’d just be, it’s almost good. Yeah. When some of these drag out, as long as the end is really good.
Yeah, exactly. I was, I was beginning to wonder if I was gonna, you know, go home and eat, eat and tag soup. I sent a couple pictures of the bowls walling in the mud and stuff to my dad who wasn’t able to make it down. And he was like, oh my gosh, Chuck, you passed that one up. So I’m, I’m just glad I did. I mean, you, you don’t, you can’t harvest a big bowl and you, if you shoot the first one that comes in every time, so. Yep. I, yeah, it was, it was so awesome. I, I, I appreciate Doug and Hayden, I appreciate my wife and my coworkers and everybody that made it happen for me. Pretty awesome and helped make it happen was awesome. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s awesome.
Yes.
What, what the story, the, the, the title of 22 years in the making, where, where’d that come from?
So I had drawn, like I said, in it’s the
General, and you killed a good general bull or something like that. Right.
I’d actually killed a limited entry bowl in, in high school. Okay. Like a 3 10, 3 20 bowl. And then since I drew that limited entry tag it, it, it, after waiting my five year waiting period and, and 16 more years.
Okay,
There we
Go. All right.
That enough is that makes
Sense. Just making sure, I mean, we just gotta ask a law enforcement guy. Just got a, a few details.
A guy that has 16 points, but names at 22. Yeah. You know, we’re
Missing just a few details that all
You gotta pay attention to the details.
Be careful what questions we ask
You. Yeah.
When you’re not sure. Just
Said, I don’t recall.
I missed that. What was that
Adam’s? Just dude, just having a good time. Yeah.
Well that’s awesome. And yeah, your, your reaction after you found the arrow after, oh, I’ll call it 20, probably 20 something days hunting, or 15 to 20, I dunno how many it was. Is we’ve always, we’ve all been in that situation when, all right, this looks really good. This might be the end, this might be a dead bull at the end of this. And yeah, those are, those are good feelings and, and hard, that’s why we do it. It’s why we want to go back. It’s not why we wanna, you know, hopefully new crop of people this year get experience the same thing here in, in a few days. So appreciate you taking the time to put a story together for us in this August September magazine that just came out a couple weeks ago and killed an awesome bull. Three 80 plus bull. Big double sword on one side. I mean, it’s just nothing, nothing anybody wouldn’t want and love about that. He’s a, he’s a giant bull. Oh,
Absolutely. I appreciate you guys putting my article in and having me on your podcast. Thank you.
Thank you. We sure appreciate it.
Yeah.
You, you, did you get another tag? I mean, what do you, what do we got Chuck? Come cl come clean. What else you got?
I, I I drew a pronghorn tag, pronghorn tag this year. There
You go. I knew it. I just knew there was something That’s awesome.
Yeah, two, two limited extra tags in a row. I mean, I,
Yeah, he is gonna be on a right, I guess go after deer and he’ll probably draw that before he is off his five year waiting period. For real.
So
Yeah. Something to shoot for,
Like to do. So I actually have a pretty busy year. I be super lucky. So I drew the pronghorn tag, drew a Colorado tag. I got a Utah general tag. Good. And yeah. And then they created a new cow unit in Utah, and I put all of us in because I’ll just get points, I’ll just put us in. I drew stinking four cow tags this year. I’m like, oh, I use
Four cow. You’re gonna have some milk meat to give away.
Yeah. Yeah. So if anybody is needy and needs some help, needs some meat, get me up.
Do you cut and wrap it before you give it away,
Or do you gotta pack your own meat out of the hills? Bring your own pack frame?
Yeah,
They’re, they’re gonna get it all raw.
Here’s a quarter
Clean, clean or dirty. Oh god. Good stuff.
A lot of fun to be had you and those boys and whoever else, so it’ll, you have a great time.
Yep,
Yep. Absolutely.
Well, thanks a lot again for taking time today and getting, getting some people fired up for this archery hunt. Yeah. Logan might even go hunting after listening.
It might even get me in the hills this Saturday. I don’t know.
Do you have a good tag yourself?
No, I,
A general deer.
He is a general deer with nothing found,
But you never know, Logan.
That about sums it up. Archer seasons are long for a reason.
Absolutely. Oh, they’re, they’re fun though when it comes together. Yeah.
It’s all right. Okay, well guys, have a good day.
Have a good day. Appreciate it.
Take care. See you. Bye.
You know, Chuck, we’ve known him since he was in college.
I was just thinking about that. Like, you know, he was a kid. We worked with him a little bit. Yeah. I mean, and, and I was trying to think about how long ago that was, but long time. Yeah.
He was in college.
It’s just weird to see. Probably at the start of the 22 year age yearish. Yeah. Close to him about seriously close. Yeah.
He wasn’t married. I mean, he’s got 10-year-old kids now and stuff.
Wasn’t he in school? Yeah, in college. He’s in school.
Yeah. Just a good guy. It’s
A guy that, I mean, if you gotta choose somebody that’s a hunter, we’ve got a lot of people that aren’t hunters that are, that are in, you know, state agencies and stuff. I just, I like to have hunters in those positions Absolutely. With
A heart.
Yeah. Hunters are the heart. He’s a good guy.
Yeah. He’s out doing good work. Great guy. We’re sure privileged to know him, be associated with him and couldn’t have happened to a better guy. All right, well, we’re out outdoor edge. Anybody needs a knife by the way, we’re talking about killing, talking about giving away meat butcher, keeping it clean.
Yeah. By the dozen
Great knife, new Razor. A PX just made by Outdoor Edge. Great company. The company that’s been affiliated with, with us here at Epic Outdoors for many years. Just, just awesome. Of course, we’ve had some epic knives with our logos built on ’em over the course of time, and they’re just been great to work with. So anyway, if you need a razor knife, definitely consider Outdoor Edge. Just Google it up, order it up. You’ll be satisfied. If they’re incredible.
Yeah, go on the website and look that new a PX up, it’s, it’s legit. They really came up with some, solves some, some problems with it where you know where to carry the, the extra blades and, and, and cleaning it and all, all kinds of stuff. So really solid knife, easy to change the blades. It’s got a lock on it. The blades don’t come out. Just they, they’ve really streamlined it and that’s a great knife. Yep.
I’ve, I’ve only got one piece of advice when it comes to outdoor edge knives. Remember to take it outta your pack and clean it before you wrap up the year.
A lot of different animal DNA gets spread around with one knife. Right. I mean, from sheep to elk to antelope.
Sometimes you just gotta throw away a pack.
Cote deer and jaw. Oh, it was rotten in there. Geez.
Rot. Rot is normally mine. Dry hard. Yeah,
It, it was, yeah,
Shut down the
Bottom. But you put it in a a in a
Ziploc. Yeah. I had like, I had game bags in a plastic bag and I put all my razors and my handle in it and wrapped it up, forgot about it. Little
Extra
Meat in there and
It wasn’t good. I just chucked the whole, the whole operation.
That’s
How the new COVID 25 will start. Right.
It may have been in that pack.
Wuhan is in Logan’s pack.
Wuhan is in Minville.
If you’ve been feeling sick lately, it’s probably my fault.
All right. Well Logan, good luck. Either looking for your dad or actually hunting, picking up a bow this weekend. Everybody else, I don’t Who’s hunting? I’m gonna be doing a little looking Jason, probably looking definitely Sean, kids, family, friends and all that, but here we go.
It’s hard to say. Killing
On the,
Yeah,
You know what, start it. We’re going, we’re getting in the hills. That’s
Oh, we, we do have a big sale going on on hats. Logan. What’s that? I mean, if you need a hat for taking your pictures, your successful kill pictures, we’ve got oranges. It never
Hurts. We’ve
Got Yeah, it,
They have an epic cat on
It never hurts. Yeah,
Right, John. Yeah, that’s
Right. You never know. When’s your next new lucky hat is about to be be
Born or,
Yeah, total. There’s
Evidence might be considered for the cover. Never know.
There’s no evidence to say wearing an epic hat doesn’t help you kill bigger animals. Oh,
Absolutely. Or doesn’t help you get on the cover. Yeah,
Yeah. Absolutely. That’s,
Anyway, what’s our also cranked out the, we also cranked out the new interface for the gear store.
Yes. But tell us, is it 30% off hats? What was the deal? 30
To 50? Yeah, 30% off hats, 30 to 50% off hats. Yeah. There’s
Something or 50% off. So yeah,
It’s not a bad time to look at the Epic Outdoors store either. Our optics gear store, if you’re looking for para of binoculars, tripod accessories to go with that.
Let’s talk about the new launch, Logan. Yeah.
We made a lot of updates to our store. Make it a little bit slicker and easier for our many customers to go in and log in and see the best pricing.
Yeah, I would, I would say it’s, it’s way easy now. All you have to do
You Yeah. Explain real quick the the actual reason why what we did and why. Yep.
Yeah. We, we’ve streamlined it. Before it was a several step process to be able to, to log in, create an account. Now all you have to do is have an email and a password. Just hit create an account and put to, to get into the store to see the pricing best pricing anywhere.
Now you can’t see pricing without logging in. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep. And so now it’s just not as confusing sometimes.
Not confusing to whether you’re seeing non-member pricing or my logged in seeing my member pricing now you’re not gonna see pricing until you’re
Seeing good pricing. Yep,
Yep. There’s only one price.
Yep.
And it’s low. Yep. Go look.
Yeah, it’s easy. Just look Email. Email and password. It takes two seconds to set it up. Yeah, it takes two seconds.
Take
Me. And a new big thing is the bargain bin. Really? Jason’s bargain bin.
Jason’s used gear. What do you mean Jason’s bargain? That’s what it’s called.
I miss,
I miss some mourning
There. Some over the course of time. We’ve done optics for how many years now? Yep. And you end up with a few items here and there. That’s a good way to get rid of items for super cheap. Yep. There’s spotting scopes, rifle scopes, Lupo scopes. Josh, you through, well some
Of are, they’re not even old, they’re just
No brand new brand. The
Just brand new, they’ve just been on the shelf a minute. Yeah.
Or gen, like a gen one kind of thing. If they’ve come out some other stuff, you know,
Like we gotta call spotter gen one.
Yeah, it’s a gen one. Those, those loophole scopes are some, some VX six’s that were the gen ones. If you’re looking for one of those, you’re gonna get, get one of those for a steel. Just that, that kind of stuff. For sure. We’ve got some of our older window mounts. We’ve got a couple of those left that have like the twist knob to tighten down instead of the quick, quick release. Yep. The non quick release. Those are, those are,
We’re out of all the old tripods that way, right? Aren’t we Josh? Yeah,
Yeah, yeah. I think
So. The tripods were gone. We do have the window mounts that, that don’t have the quick release, so if you’re fine, you know, saving some money, you can buy that one. Or you can buy the new Yeah,
There’s only a handful of those left and just some of that
Kind of stuff that’s Yes, Jan. So opens the door though. Jason, we’ve talked about having a yard sale and we’ve resisted that. Maybe you just bring some of your stuff that’s going on there. Don’t longer to get it on there.
Don’t tell Jana
She’ll,
It’ll be triple. I mean, the worst thing ever is having your wife and, and unbeknownst to me liquid liquidation. No. She just goes ahead and,
Yeah, I haven’t seen you
Organizes my gear.
How many years was this? And you still I know it’s sore. It was shocking many years.
You did it again though. We
Did it again.
I changed rooms and she’s like, really? And you know what’s funny? When she’s in the business, she knows what the cost, you know what I mean? She knows what, she knows what this is and it’s, Hey, it’s her wealth too. Geez. It is interesting. No, you can’t. Kids. Luckily I faster kids, most of which it’s like to hunt and we’re, anyway. Yeah, so you can chalk it up to things like that. None of it’s going to waste. No, that’s right.
All right, well good luck to everybody out there. If you’re bow hunting, if you’re not bow hunting, get ready for the muzzle of and rifle hunts and check us out around the gear store like John just talked about, Logan, Josh, and, but if you’re bow hunting, wish you luck. Take good photos, grab
An epic hat you’ll probably kill. That’s right. Yeah. And send the photos in. Lucky. Lucky.
Yep.
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