EP 102: Sheep Hunting Q&A with Adam Bronson and John Petersen

There's something about the drive to hunt sheep. A little hard to explain, but if you do it, you'll probably figure it out. How do you feel judge a ram, and what do you look for in a big ram? They produce more 180 plus rams than anywhere else. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Adam Bronson here and John Peterson with another Epic Outdoors podcast coming at you from Cedar City, Utah here today. And just want to give a shout out to our title sponsor, Under Armour, for supporting us through the magazine from the startup here at Epic Outdoors. Appreciate their support and whatnot. And producing some great gear. John, you just put a bunch of that to use on one of your late season Colorado hunts, didn't you? Yeah, I just wanted to highlight one of the pieces of gear that I used extensively was the Alpine Ops, the down gear. And they've got a jacket, and it's 800 fill, power goose down. Man, it was great. And they also have a pair of pants. And really, it's just meant for when it gets really cold, throw it on as an outer layer. And both of them come.

Yeah, when you're glassing or something like that. I didn't get cold at all, and it was freezing. And so I loved it. And the pants, the thing that's awesome about those pants is they zip completely both sides. And so to put them on over top of something else, really easy. You don't have to take off your boots, and it'll zip up the whole side. So it was pretty nice. And so if you've got something that's late season, really cold, I would definitely look into those. So UA.com, or you can go to UAHunt.com as well and check those out. Awesome. And again, once again, appreciate the support of us all here at Epic Outdoors. I also wanted to give a shout-out. If you're looking for a new long-range rifle or you found yourself needing that little extra range on a hunt this year, they weren't feeling comfortable making a shot with the kind of setup that you had,

give the guys at Red Ruck Precision a call. They make great rifles. They can customize the caliber to what you want. But also, if you don't know the caliber you want, you can just trust on their expertise for a good all-around long-range caliber based on the species that you're going to be really targeting the most out west. If you want a lightweight sheep and deer backpack-type rifle, that's probably going to have a certain set of specs, a little bit of lighter scope combination, things like that. If you're after something that's all-around, you know, for elk and everything else, you know, maybe a .30 caliber, .28 .30 cal or something like that or larger. So you can hunt elk or anything else with it. But give the guys a call at Red Ruck Precision or visit them on their website, redrockprecision.com. Their phone number, 801-391-7840.

And if you are thinking about either switching from another licensed application service to ours at Epic Outdoors, or if you just find yourself, for whatever reason, missing some deadlines just due to life or work or whatever, or traveling, whatever you're doing, and you're missing some deadlines each year and don't want to do that anymore and want to visit with us about us handling your licensed application services, give us a call here at Epic Outdoors, 435-263-0777. We'll have a consultation with you, go over the priorities that you have, your trophy criteria, your weapon preferences, you know, the states and species you've already been doing, all the ins and outs of that, whether you're self-guided, whether you're going to go guided, physical limitations, all the things that go in to help Jason and I and the guys here govern our unit selection for you.

Get all that nailed down and let us handle that for you. If you're interested in us doing that, give us a call. It's kind of the time to do that. As an incentive for any of you that men may be considering to think about doing that, we are actually giving away a Red Rock Precision rifle, the Epic Series rifle, valued at $8,500. Anybody that joins or renews, so if you're a current licensed application service member and you renew your service by December 31st, 2018, or join by then and join to have us do at least three states for you or more, you'll be entered into one to that free Red Rock Precision rifle. We'll draw that just right after the first of the new year. Somebody's going to get a free gun just as an incentive to have us try out our licensed application service for a year. So appreciate the guys at Red Rock Precision make great rifles,

and we've all put stuff down on the ground with their rifles this year. They flat out work. Okay, today we're going to actually do a part two of a podcast we did earlier on. It's a Q&A section on bighorn sheep. Had a lot of questions when we threw out our Q&A stuff regarding sheep, sheep equipment, sheep gear, different species, how to hunt them, how to prepare to hunt them, all those types of questions. And so we blew through about half of those, and we're going to finish that today. We do these Q&A podcasts every once in a while, and we frequently get some pretty awesome responses to them. And so I just wanted to share with you one from Eli Goff. And Eli was a first-time sheep hunter this year, drew a tag. And this was the message he sent to us. He says,

Hey, just wanted to let you guys know, I followed two of the three tips you guys gave me in episode 89 on how to be a successful first-time sheep hunter. I walked up and down a lot of stairs with an 85-pound pack before the season, and I glassed my tail off. I did not want to hire an outfitter as I'm very much a DIY guy, and love challenging myself. And to be right honest, I just couldn't afford it right now. Anyways, I did a ton of research, talked to a lot of people, and worked extremely hard to prepare for this hunt. After eight days of rain, snow, wind, and shine, I harvested a beautiful ram. Thanks for your informative podcast. That's cool. Well, and I guess, you know, he was obviously not afraid to just go try it, get after it.

And, you know, something we don't maybe talk about here on Epic Outdoors enough is how many tags we eat, how much we learn from the stuff that maybe we don't punch a tag on. And not that that probably was going to happen on a sheep hunt or something like that, but a lot of our deer and elk and all that, a lot of the stuff that we've learned, and then we, I guess, call, you know, perfecting at least our personal strategy is because we do stuff at times that we know we don't want to do again. So, yeah, thanks for Eli for sending that in and for just biting it off. You know, you had plenty of determination to go and do it right, so congratulations. Yeah, if you've got a comment or something we love hearing feedback, you know, send us a message at info at epicoutdoors.com. We're getting towards the end of the year. This is the end of the year almost for us.

We're all about getting ready to gear up and go down and hunt desert sheep with Jason here this weekend. So that's coming up. He got lucky, just flat out lucky, even though he had 22 or three plus points. He paid his dues, you might say, but still he got lucky, and so we're going to be hunting desert sheep in Arizona. So one of the podcasts coming up soon. We'll be hopefully talking about how that went. And sheep, getting a sheep tag is rare. They're hard to do, you know, unless you have unlimited funds. It's tough. And so if you're just into deer and elk, sheep is something that you really should think about adding because, you know, once or twice in your lifetime, you really want to go on a sheep hunt. And once you do, it's kind of like an addiction and you want to do it again. They're fun.

And, you know, and that's, you know, partly why I started guiding sheep hunts is realized I love going where sheep live and looking for sheep and harvesting sheep with people that have tags. I realized I wasn't probably going to do it enough times in my life to kind of quench that thirst, so to speak. And so taking people is the next best thing, and it's turned into a lot of fun. I normally am able to go on 10 to 15 a year. This year, I've already been on, well, I went on my own sheep hunt, as we talked about in an earlier podcast in Alaska. We've also then killed 13 rams here in Utah, desert and Rocky Mountain bighorns this year up to now, with a couple more to go in some of these other states, Nevada and Arizona and stuff. So it's a lot of fun. And over the course of that, you learn a lot of things, just something about the drive to hunt sheep.

It's a little hard to explain, but if you do it, you'll probably figure it out. So how many years ago did you start guiding sheep? Oh, it was just, well, 2007. So it's only been the last 10 or 11 years. 10 or 11 years. And so, and you may, this isn't necessarily something that you would just throw out there, but do you know roughly how many sheep hunts you've been a part of? Yeah, almost 100. Next year, I'll break 100 in whatever that 11, 12 years. So it'll be, and that's, that wasn't ever, hey, that's the goal. I mean, as I start thinking about it now, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to do 200 here in another, within another 10 years. Yeah. So it's pretty fun. That is pretty fun. Yeah. Let's, let's get into the first question. And this is from a listener. It says, I've noticed that desert sheep in Mexico seem to be way bigger than the ones shot in Utah. Why is that?

And are there any other places besides Mexico where I could kill a monster desert sheep? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the quickest explanation for that is there are different subspecies of desert sheep, desert bighorn sheep. And the largest is the Mexicana. And they're found in most of the mainland parts of Mexico, you know, Sonora, most notably, as well as southern Arizona, New Mexico, you know, Texas, places like that. They are the largest. And partly like when you start looking at places like Arizona, New Mexico, part of it's that, that bloodline, the Mexicana bloodline, but also they're in areas that they don't deal with winter much. Some of our units in Utah, which we have Nelson desert bighorn, which we have in southern Utah, extreme southwestern Colorado, all of Nevada, as well as California. California, they, there's a lot of variation in theirs too.

I mean, there's, there's been 185 to 190 inch Nelson bighorn, desert bighorn killed in, you know, California a year and a half ago, as well as Nevada, 185 plus. So it's not that they're, and those are monsters. So I would, I would say that that's as big as you can ever plan on getting because many places you're hunting Mexicana and they don't get that big. But specific to Utah, our, our, our, our Nelson desert bighorn are generally our native Utah sheep are just not as big. And I, it's just partly the bloodlines part, partly to their, probably their somewhat isolation over the years where they were, where they grew in the world. Similar to where, what you look at in mule deer or different things like that throughout their, you know, from BC to Alberta, all the way to Mexico, you got mule deer everywhere in between.

And within there, you've got places and hotbeds like the Poncegant, Kaibab, Arizona strip or places like that, that just, they, the stars aligned when the, the breeding pool and gene pool was created there, you know, over the years and, and got established. And in Utah, sheep are just, they're, there's nothing wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with the desert sheep. I'm waiting for my first one. Um, ironically, um, I've helped a lot of hunters, probably 60 or 70 hunters kill their desert, desert sheep here in Utah. Um, yet to pull the trigger on my own, but, so I love our Utah sheep, but they just generally aren't as big. 140 to 160s, that's where most of them are. We do have a few units in Southern Utah, the Kapirowicz units, the Pine Valley, as well as the Zion unit that have, have introduced sheep from Nevada or Arizona.

Um, the, the Nelson units, and that's where our biggest sheep do come from Utah, but, um, is those units where we've had the, the, uh, Nevada and Arizona transplants. So, um, as far as the biggest places right now to kill, I mean, the best units in Arizona or New Mexico are hands down where the biggest sheep have been, been come from. I mean, with the notable exception of, of Jason Harrison's monster, Nelson I ram that he killed in California a year and a half ago. Um, you've got a ram like that as well as you've got 175 to 185 type potential in, in Nevada, which are giant. Um, you know, Arizona, if you could say that, you know, where's the place, it's just hard to argue with that place right now. New Mexico doesn't kill as many. They don't have as many sheep, but they kill some giants and a few key units that are in New Mexico.

So that's part of the reasons through my eyes, I guess, why you see what you see killed where they are. Fantastic. Next question comes from Vic. Can you explain how the Montana draw system works for sheep? I have a few points, but feel, but it feels impossible to draw. Just wondering if I'm wasting my time applying there. If you got in on the ground floor in certain states, you know, maybe Utah as a resident, Wyoming even as a non-resident, um, or places like that, Arizona. Um, you, you've either drawn a tag in some of those states or you're very close to being guaranteed in one of those states. But if you're not, if you're quote late to the game, you just got to be consistently applying for as many sheep tags as that makes sense. Both, you know, um, financially, you know, cost benefit wise or, or proximity or, or whatever to where you live. Montana is kind of one of those.

I mean, I'll apply in Montana forever just because the upside is so high on Montana sheep. Um, when it comes to Rocky Mountain Bighorn, they're really second to none in, in the number of giants, you know, 180 plus book rams that come out of any states. Um, their system, they square your, uh, bonus points up there. Um, so you get kind of an exponential increase every time you get another point. You get a name in the hat for your application plus your bonus points squared. So if you got five, five points, you'll get 25 names plus your one for the application. That's 26. You go to six points, you're going to go to 37. You're going to go to seven. You're going to go to 50. That's just kind of the way it does it. But there's no predictable way to know when you're going to draw. It's kind of like very similar to Nevada. You don't know when you're going to get drawn.

For a sheep tag, it just happens. Um, they also rotate the units that are available to non-residents year after year. There's some, uh, like 680 and 482, most notably in the Missouri breaks that are almost always, or have been almost always available to non-residents to apply for. But otherwise, they rotate the units throughout the state. And then they impose a 10% regional quota within regions, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and 6 of the tags that can go to non-residents. And in doing that, um, some ask, well, how do you know what units non-residents are going to get drawn in? Well, you, you don't. You just know that because by sheer numbers, non-residents apply in big numbers in those states. And you're going to know that we're, we're most always going to meet our regional quotas in those units because we have so many people applying. But you're right.

If we have four units available to us in region six, we might only draw out of two or three of those units because, you know, 680 might draw two of them and another one might draw one. It might just be the way the chips fall. So, but as far as whether you're wasting your time, it's going to be 80 or 90 bucks a year to apply for sheep up there in Montana, non-refundable. Everybody just has to make that determination on their own. The odds are not great that you're going to draw, but you get going back to what we said a minute ago. You just got to have your name in the hat as many times in your life for sheep is, as you can to get lucky once or twice, you know, especially if you weren't in on the ground for some of these points. And I think you said it well, the, the, what you, if you get lucky and you draw one of those, I mean, it's worth putting in for as many as possible.

Same applies for, you know, some of these raffle tags where you can put in for sheep, you know, like we just announced one for us. If you join or renew your membership, then you're going to be in a doll sheep hunt. And, uh, and we've also got, uh, six other hunts we're giving away, but one of those is a stone sheep hunt. That's right. So for as little as $25, you can have your name in the hat for that. And so if financially you can do it, then, then I do every one I can. That's right. It's like that. So, you know, if, if you're not a member and you like listening, you know, that's one reason to try it out this year. You get in for a free doll sheep hunt. Yeah. So exactly. Okay. Next question comes from Phillip. Thanks for all the great info. I really liked the podcast. What do you guys think the greatest threat to bighorn sheep is?

I've heard, uh, that is easy for entire populations to get wiped out by disease in a short period of time. Uh, yeah, Phillip, it's hard to not, it's hard to argue the fact that the separation and, and disease, disease and separation from domestic sheep and goats, it has been and continues to be the greatest threat to bighorn sheep populations. Now there, that's not to say that there's not isolated places where, you know, super high mountain lion, um, numbers or they're really keying in on sheep can't have a severe detrimental effect on a sheep herd. It's only a hundred animals, um, strong and they wipe out half of them over the course of a year that, that needs to be addressed there. But, um, no, no question about it. But as far as bighorn sheep as a whole, desert bighorn, uh, Rocky mountain bighorns separation,

um, it is the number one thing, you know, it's just these, these animals didn't evolve, but some of the, you could call them more benign bacterial respiratory infections that, that domestic sheep and goats have, have carried and do carry and don't bother them. But just through the process of domestication throughout, you know, hundreds or thousands of years, you know, the strong survive. And when you have a dead one die in your corral, that thing doesn't breed and you don't propagate it anymore. And that's what domestication artificially speeds up natural selection and, and all that and the strong survive. Well, when these sheep, um, were brought to the Western United States, you know, all that wasn't known obviously in the late 1800s and, you know, bighorn sheep populations were, you know, by journal accounts, the most documented big game species that trappers, hunters and

all that saw were bighorn sheep in most places of the West. It wasn't deer or elk like it, like it would be now. So they were, they were, you know, all over the place. Um, and bighorn sheep were, and as, as, um, uh, settlement out West happened and domestic sheep and goats came, accidentally things were introduced. And, uh, in many places, um, that's been the demise of a lot of bighorn sheep herds and they've been expirpated. And that's why a lot of efforts have had been made to reestablish these sheep herds and things like that through transplants and other things like that, like that. And how now through a lot of the research at Washington state university and other places that's gone on to understand the transmission of these pathogens, it's just a bacteria that can be passed from nose to nose contact. Um, and how that, how that's transpired.

Um, it's not something that's an easy fix to where just vaccinate every sheep and it's going to be taken care of for life. It's, it's a little bit like some of the flu viruses in humans. They, they alter, they have different strains. It's never, never, you know, it's not like certain diseases where you get one inoculation and you're done for life. You're not going to get it. It's not like that with, with the sheep. There's a lot of different strains, a lot of different variants going on there, but separation. And that's why you'll, you'll hear that, that, uh, that's a main priority of a lot of fish and game agencies to separate, to have barriers, to have, you know, kill zones. In other words, this is where we want our bighorn sheep. But if anything crosses this highway or this valley, we'd just as soon go take out the

bighorn as to run the risk that it's going to go, you know, contract something. And then the rut go back and bring it back 40 miles back to something. You just, you just rather do that. So that's, that's hard. There's a lot, uh, a lot of reasons to, uh, you know, for disease transmission, but separation is the number one thing. And, uh, you know, get involved in your local state or, or even the National Wash Sheep Foundation chapter to help to learn more and stay on top of that. But that'd be what I'd have to say had to be the biggest threat. And, and some of our listeners may not know, but you were involved in, in, uh, sheep transplants as a biologist for the state of Utah. What, besides separation, you mentioned vaccines. Um, and you said, you know, it's not the, the cure all. What's the goal with that?

And the, the, they're trying to find out the difference is, is when you're talking about disease with human beings that, I mean, that's the most important, you know, disease research going on in the United States is not for bighorn sheep. And so when you talk about the money, both from either the private industries like pharmaceutical companies, whatever, you know, the ailments that, that, that either kill or cut the human life expectancy down, everything's going into that. You know, the life expectancy for humans is, I don't know, 70 years or something like that now. It used to be in the thirties, you know, 150 years ago. Well, bighorn sheep, even though they do have money that raised for them, it, it pales in comparison. You know, the, the, the rapid acceleration of, you know, the, the, um, inoculation or vaccine

type stuff is just not had the time to be able to, or the, or the funding to simply to be able to find the silver bullet. I guess that's the, that's the, put it out in a simple way. Um, versus a, and people when something, when something, you know, look at all the epidemics that come out in people, um, what happens, usually it's, you know, millions and billions of dollars get thrown at it. So let's get that solved, you know, whether it be in the United States or whatever, every other country. Um, and I guess the best way, and I've said this a lot to people, if you look at, if you look at a fairly, what we would call a fairly benign disease of smallpox, it's, it's a little bit worse than, you know, uh, chickenpox and things like that. But when European settlers brought that with them to the Western United States and introduced

that to some of the native American populations that were naive and never been exposed to that, it started wiping a lot of them out. But we don't look at that as a super threatening, terrible disease. Well, that's the same type of thing that's gone on with bighorn sheep and domestic sheep and goats is they, they evolved completely isolated for hundreds or thousands of years without any of that, those bacterial strains being at all exposed to them. And once they were, it just was like, you know, boom, it just started wiping them out. And so that, that's the best explanation you can give. It's, uh, you know, they're stuffed at domestic sheep and goats and can live with and harbor and they live just fine. But bighorn sheep just haven't had enough time on the evolutionary, evolutionary scale to live with and, you know, natural select for that, you know, survival of the fittest type thing.

Okay. Let's break for a little shout out to Kenetrek, one of our sponsors, Kenetrek Boots. And, uh, if you were on a hunt this, this fall and you had any type of foot problems, then, uh, now's a great time to look into Kenetrek Boots. Uh, my brother, Chris here at Epic Outdoors went up and, and did a video. It was an informative video on, on lacing boots. And that's up on our, on our Epic Outdoors YouTube page. And I love that they've got such a knowledge base and it's the things that they do, the innovations they make with their boots aren't just on a whim or, or gimmicks, but there's some, some actual science and knowledge behind it. That video alone changed how I laced up my boots, got pressure off of certain portions of my foot. I used to have problems where my foot, my feet would fall asleep. And, uh, you know, I was like my boots, you know, done up tight, especially for, for going

downhill. And, but I'd have a problem. My feet would go to sleep. And just watching that video alone laced up my boots a little bit different. I'm still able to have them tight, but my feet didn't fall asleep. So if you've got any, any foot problems, uh, then go check that out and check out kennetrek.com that's K E N E T R E K.com or call 1-800-232-7014. Okay. Next question comes from Daniel. Based on your personal opinion, I'd like to hear your top picks for the states or areas where you think the best rams from each species are desert, rocky, doll, stone. All right. This, this is a little tough for maybe the fin horns, I guess the doll and the stone only because it just seems like in, in some years, the biggest ram or two of the year just comes out of some outlier area for those, um, uh, for you listeners that may not know, um, a

Boone and Crockett entry for an all-time record book entry for a doll and a stone sheep is a 170 net, which is, which is giant. To me, it's probably one of those minimums that's way higher than it probably should be. Maybe 20, 30 years ago, it felt more attainable than it does now because, uh, that's a, that's a real special animal. But, uh, I guess I, my, my two cents on it from a doll sheep, I still think Southeast Alaska in the areas of 14C, the Chugach range, the parts of the tall Keetan, but Chugach and the Wrangell mountains, um, really, they're really known for producing heavy, heavy based rams and, and great scoring sheep. There are other places in Alaska, whether it be the Alaska range, occasionally the Brooks range where some real freak giant comes out, not as much of a freak in the, in the Alaska

range as maybe sometimes the Brooks range is, but I would say as a whole, ram for ram, I would say Southeast Alaska. Now I realize a lot of the Canadian outfitters or friends that we have up there might say, well, hey, what about the Yukon or Northwest territories? And they're absolutely right. I mean, you have a super wide range. If you look at, if you look at where desert sheep are found in the Southwestern U S on a map, it's like tiny compared to all of Alaska, you know, and all of the Yukon and Western Northwest territories of Alaska for doll sheep. So when you're, you know, your distribution is that big, you're going to have hotspots throughout it. Kind of like what we talked about with mule deer a minute ago. So there are some great areas within Northwest or the McKenzie mountains and Northwest territories

where, you know, the Northern parts of the Yukon that produce some giant doll sheep as well. So it's, it's kind of probably if you're looking at doll sheep, you probably need to first make that determination. Am I going to go, want to go to Alaska or I want to go to Canada? And then you can probably start down a little bit better. One thing to keep in mind about Alaska and that the 14 C and the 13 subunits down in the Southeast part of the state is they are a draw.

That, that does limit your ability to just go hunt them whenever you want. You do have to draw. There's no point system in Alaska, but if you want to draw one of the 14 C subunits or 13 D subunits, you're going to have to draw. And the odds are pretty tough. You know, one to 3%, depending on if you go for the first hunt or the second or the third hunt, which some of those have three. But I would probably pick South, Southeast Alaska. And maybe I'm partial because I went there again this year and the Rango mountains and I killed probably the biggest doll I'll ever kill. And you know, it's just, I'm fresh off of that. So it's all I can, you know, I'm, I'm, I have a personal affinity for that. When it comes to stone sheep, you obviously kind of, you know, you get to narrow it down a little bit more because, you know, you've got British Columbia and the Southern Yukon

territory versus, you know, it's not quite as widely distributed as the, as the doll sheep. But, um, even within them, there's hotbeds within the, you know, I would say the North Central part of British Columbia is kind of where, what's known for, you know, the biggest stone sheep. But having said that, um, there's a lot of variation in that. Some years, the Yukon, the Southern Yukon, um, concessions, outfitter concessions there will kill the biggest stone sheep of the year. Other years it comes out of BC. And so it's not like it's just an always number one. It's not quite like a, a Missouri breaks, uh, Montana scenario where there's, there's only one spot. Um, a lot of differences in, in, in hunts, um, between the Yukon and Northern BC. It, mainly in the color of the sheep, the further North you go into the Yukon, they get lighter. They get lighter.

They're not as dark throughout their body. They're a little bit more white faced, white legged, you know, and, uh, gray flanks and, uh, moving into even just salt and pepper. The further North you get up into the Yukon where you call them more just a fan and sheep. Um, so, uh, that, that's, you know, that one's really hard to nail down when it comes to Rocky and desert. In my opinion, I mean, it really just got to come down to, and that's, I guess, what our magazine does. Some people, if they're too busy every year and they're saying, Hey, I don't want to just do points only because then I eliminate myself from having a chance. Right. But, but if you want the biggest desert sheep right now, um, you'd have to look at Southern Arizona and New Mexico in the last few years. I mean, you look at the rams that both of those states have produced and they're really second to none.

Again, we talked a minute ago about the giant, uh, California can throw out a giant 180, 185, and even last year, 190 caliber, um, desert bighorn, as well as Nevada. I mean, when you start talking to one, 170 plus desert bighorn, in my opinion, that's a really big Ram. Now, if you have the best tag in Arizona, if you won the lottery in New Mexico or bought one of the auction tags, that's not a Ram you're going to target. But, but for 99% of the public, a 170 plus desert bighorn is a, is a giant. And, uh, you know, Nevada is a, uh, Nevada pumps out more desert sheep than all the other states combined when it comes to tags. So, um, but, but the very best is probably only from about four to five different units. The very best when you're talking about, you know, high one seventies to push in one 80 plus. Um, but I would say desert sheep be the Southern, um, Arizona units.

A couple of those units sometimes only have one tag. We as non-residents can apply for all of those units every year. I'm expecting some big, big things to come out of Arizona this year. Their season, like we talked about earlier, opens December 1st. And mark my words, there's going to be a couple of giants, um, killed in, uh, Southern Arizona this year. Some wanted Rams. I'll just leave it at that. Um, when it comes to Rocky Mountain Bighorn, you really have to look at Montana. Like I said, while there's book Rams that have come out of, come out of Oregon nearly every year, um, Washington every year on the one raffle tag or auction tag or Idaho, which, you know, one of our licensed application members, Ryan Benson killed a giant 188 inch Rocky out of Idaho, the Frank church, um, this year. Um, in general terms, their collective numbers are not that high.

They're not that high to kill book Rams in, in, in Idaho or Colorado. Having said that, they killed a 205 there this year on a private landowner tag situation. So it's not like they don't have them, but, but Montana is, is just a cut above from, from the Western side of the state to the Eastern side of the Missouri breaks. They produce more 180 plus Rams, you know, than anywhere else. And so that's kind of the Holy grail for that, in my opinion. But having said that, I'd take a tag in all of the lesser known, um, desert sheep or Rocky mountain sheep states. I mean, I just, just give me a tag somewhere. I mean, I drew one of those in Oregon. A California bighorn was a unit that opened up the East Beatty's Butte before it had Albert Peaks and some of those other units lumped onto it. First year it opened a non-residence. I just put in for it and drew it.

And, uh, Hey, I got to go hunt sheep. I didn't kill a giant ram because they aren't there. They're California bighorns kill the ram just shy of one 60, but Hey, I got to hunt sheep. And, uh, I would, I would take that opportunity in most states. There are a couple of states like Arizona and Montana where I, I stick to more of the elite units because they've got what no other state has. So anyway, and, and with the sheep, we're talking most of the time guys are going to go on a guided hunt. And, uh, especially with the doll sheep and the stone sheep, we have so many members that go every year. We really get a lot of good feedback on what areas are doing and what there's what, what people are killing. And so if you're looking at that, I highly recommend, you know, giving us a call talking about what you're, what you're specifically looking for. And, you know, each guy's different.

You got different physical, um, capabilities. You got different goals as far as size and how many times you've been. So, uh, give us a call and we can really help you narrow down what you should be looking for personally. And, uh, so the next question kind of dovetails with that, um, questions from Kim's, if you could have a free sheep tag right now from anywhere, which tag would you choose? Um, I, I'm going to give two. And I know that wasn't, she asked for, I don't know if Kim's a he or a sheep, but they asked for which one, but I've always kind of had more of an affinity for desert sheep. And it's mainly because I grew up in Southern Utah. That's what we're immersed with. So I would probably pick a, give me one tag in any one specific unit in Arizona. And I would probably pick that. However, when the Missouri breaks is cranking and I guess collectively, you'd have to say

that they're slightly down right now compared to what some years, um, haven't heard as many giants coming out of there this year. And I, and the word giants is really anything over one 80, one 85, in my opinion, is a really, really big ram. But when I'm talking giants, I'm talking the one 95, 200 inch plus like they can produce.

That's a hard, cause if I could put my hands on my own 200 inch Rocky mountain bighorn, I don't know if there'd be anything that could top that because there's really, you really can't say that desert sheep are really going to ever get to that point. Um, so that's what it would be is the Montana statewide tag in the year where the stars aligned and they had some 200 inches to chase. Um, otherwise it'd be Arizona. And how many a year are we talking one or two? Yeah. When you talk 200 inches, you're talking, you know, that most you're talking three to four a couple of years ago when that happened. Um, so it's not, you know, it's not like there's very many, but that's a, and I'm not saying the number would define that trophy. I mean, if it was a one 98, that's still, uh, you know, unbelievable. Phenomenal ram. Anything one 95 to two Oh five is just truly elite.

So a ram like that, that was mine, that would be hard to say that it could ever get any better or, uh, you know, an Arizona ram. I think you just, the look of them Mexican rams that are one 85, maybe pushing one 90. That's, that's as good as it gets to me. Okay. Next question is from Wyatt. Hey guys, I have a quick sheep question for you. I've been on a few sheep hunts with friends, but I always find it hard to judge rams. How do you feel judge a ram and what do you look for in a big ram? Yeah, that's a, that's a tough one to just answer simply. Um, I'll, I'll do my best, but then I'll maybe liken it to antelope a little bit. Um, most people probably hunt deer and elk more than they hunt antelope. And so when you go antelope hunting, sometimes people have that same question. How do you know when you get a big one?

And they look, oh, they want to see a tall one, but we all know there's a lot of tall antelope that, you know, don't score very well. You know, usually mass and prong length will, will trump any kind of length, uh, deficiency on, on an antelope. Kind of the same with sheep. Generally mass will count for about 40 or 60%, in my opinion, of a ram score. There are some exceptions to that, but you generally, it takes an older ram to get mass from the halfway point to the tips. A lot of people, I think will confuse seeing a long, pretty slender ram. Now we're not talking about dull and thin horned sheep because those are all long and thin and pretty. I'm talking about Rockies and desert. A lot of people will see a long, pretty, and even almost tipped, tipped ram that'll have their lamb tips in and they'll think, wow, it's a big, long, pretty ram.

What you don't realize is the longer a horn is, if it's a young ram, if he's a, let's say he pushes 36. All right. You divide that horn by, by four, you know, so that's what, nine inches. And so your mass measurements are getting pushed further out on that horn versus a 32 inch, heavy, heavy broomdram where now you're only going every eight inches. Your, your mass measurements are bunched more up to the, you know, up to the midway and top of the horn. So a lot of people will confuse a long, pretty, you know, tipped ram with a big ram. And sometimes that can be the case. I'm not saying it can't, but for the most part, I look for mass from the halfway point to the end. Generally you're going to want, that'll be an indicative more of an older ram or even a broom, a broomdram that's got more mass in that from halfway out. Now there's a lot of differences, you know, where a sheep come from.

We've talked a lot in this podcast about the Missouri breaks in Montana.

You really can't compare a sheep and how it looks from there with a giant, giant body, 300, 350 pound or something like that with a Rocky Mountain bighorn from, you know, let's just say parts of Colorado or Idaho, a lot more slender, you know, you know, so their relationship with their body size, their head size and their horn size based on where the ram is from and the genetics have a lot of differences as well. And similarly, you can put a, there's, there's desert sheep in, in, in certain parts of, of Arizona that you take, you know, you take a, you know, set of horns on and you put in another part of Arizona and they'll look like a completely different ram just based on the fact that the body sizes can be so much different. And you also got to know generally the, the, the checkout summaries from the units that you're looking at, what are your, what are your base sizes normally?

Are you talking about 14 inch bases? Is 15 inch bases super rare and almost never exists? Or are you talking about 15, just maybe 16, just over 16 inch bases? Because like I talked about earlier, you start at the base, you'll, you'll make an outside measurement around the horn and you divide that. You take a mass measurement at the base and then one quarter half and a three quarter. And if you're starting at 16 inch bases and you don't taper that much, you really got a big advantage over something starting at 14 inch bases. That's maybe four inches longer. You're going to beat it every time on the mass. So mass and mass from halfway to the tip and, but really try not to get, there's not a one size fits all because there's so many differences for deserts and Rocky mountain and bighorn throughout all their range in body size, head size, basal size, based on the units and regions in the

state you're hunting. You got to get kind of familiar with that. So you know what you're even think you're looking at before you show up there. If you think you're looking for a 14 inch base and you shoot it like a lot of units in Utah for desert sheep, 14 inch plus is a great base versus, you know, parts of Arizona or Nevada or other places that you might hunt 15 inch plus bases or pushing 16. It's a totally different beast when you're starting to do that. So anyway, that's my thoughts. It's not an easy one to answer. The biggest thing is to get out and to look as many sheep over as you can. And if you're from a certain state and you want to hunt sheep in your own state, look at sheep in your own state. You'll see differences even within your own state. But when you start crossing states, it really gets difficult. You got to reset the calibration button when you go from somewhere.

I even find it myself when I'm, you know, I've got at eight or 10 desert sheep hunts and then all of a sudden, boom, I go to start hunting Rockies and they're a hundred pounds bigger and their heads are bigger and everything looks different. You start putting the desert sheep horns or Rocky Mountain bighorn horns on their desert bodies. They'd look like 185 rams just because that extra hundred pounds of body weight and the proportions of them, the bigger head just kind of swallow up the horns more and they don't look as big as they sometimes are. You know, 170, 175 Rocky Mountain bighorn in Utah is a really nice ram, but that's a giant, giant desert. You take those same horns and put them on a desert body and they look 185, but they're really only 170, 175. So it's just, you got to kind of know where you're at, hit the calibration button, but

more than anything, just get out and look at sheep. So, and, and speaking of looking at sheep, you've got to, you got to be able to really, you got to be able to really see what you're looking at. And what I mean by that is have great optics. I mean, the best optics that you can have. I mean, I find myself packing my biggest scope more than my lightweight scope and I've got them both for different hunts, but the less, the more walking you can cut down to have to, Hey, I better go check out that ram and close the distance another mile. Um, just, just waste time on your hunt. I've, I've, I now packed my big 95 millimeters for Hotsky almost all the time because if I can weed something out and then just keep glassing, I'm much further ahead than, than packing that little 65 that's lighter and things like that.

Now, if you're on a backpack hunt and things like that, you need to have, where weight's more of a paramount to anything, you're going to have to make some concessions, but no matter what you're looking for, um, it's that time of year, whether you need new set of binos, rifle scope, whether you need, uh, you know, spotting scope, tripods, all the accessories, give the guys at Kent's optics a call, uh, Northern Utah, 435-257-7014 or kentsoptics, K-E-N-T-S, optics, O-P-T-I-C-S.com. They're hunters. Um, first and foremost, um, they, they, whatever you're looking to, uh, get out of your optics, um, talk it through with them. They've got selection of all the, all the top brands, you know, Vortex, Nightforce, Swarovski, Zeiss, whatever you're looking for. Give them guys a call, uh, maybe drop a few hints to your wife or significant other. If you're looking for some Christmas ideas, drop it off.

So, um, that time of year too, if you want to get, uh, drop a few hints to get a new set of binos or spotting scope. So, yep. And they've been a great sponsor. We share a booth with them, uh, at the, at the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo in Salt Lake in February. And, uh, so if you'd like to come to that event and, uh, they've got a world-class shed collection that's, uh, that's in our booth and just phenomenal and it's good people. So, uh, they make things like this possible. So if you've got a choice, you know, give them a call, at least check out their prices and what they've got to offer. One, another big, big shout out. You can't talk about, uh, sheep hunting, um, without talking about the folks at QU and the gear that they produce for us for strictly the world's most advanced mountain equipment. They are, whether it's packs, you know, the Icon Pros or Icon Ultra Series.

Uh, they've got a pack that will fit whatever you're looking for, whether it's just a light scouting pack, whether it's a, a mid-sized backpack pack or, or the, the big boys, the Icon Pros or Icon Ultra 72 or 7000. And you're going on a backpack sheep hunt. They've got everything. They've also got, um, all the gear from head to toe, from socks to, to beanies and everywhere in between the layering systems, um, and the clothing, um, the modular clothing type layering systems that will meet every demand that a sheep hunt will put upon you from rain gear to insulation wear to base layers and everything in between. Um, go, they're only available online at QU.com, K-U-I-U.com. Um, great. Another, another thing you can do is drop it and drop a few hints there, whether it's a gift subscription or a gift certificate for Christmas or whatnot. Um, you know, drop a hint there.

Great gift ideas on there. They've got some sales on going on right now through this time of year as well. Great supporters of us here at, um, Epic Outdoors. We believe in their gear. We use their gear all the time and we know what, I know what it's done for me on my sheep hunts and I don't go on my sheep hunts without any of their stuff. Uh, that's exclusively what I have and I appreciate their support of us here at Epic Outdoors. So, um. Okay, last question. One more question. This one's maybe a bit more, I don't know, lighthearted is maybe the wrong word. It's not serious, but it's. It's a fun one. So we've got Dave who says, hey guys, love hearing your hunting stories. I know sheep live in some rough and remote terrain where anything can happen. What are your top two stories of the craziest experiences you've had while hunting sheep? Well, top two.

Well, maybe John, John, you can maybe talk about one after I talk about one because, you know, I know when we went out hunting with Jason, it was, it was probably, it'll be your first backpack and that's been, geez, is that? Oh, 10 years or so. 10 or 12 years ago. Yeah. Quite a while ago. But for me, there's one that really stands out to me. It was with my brother and I and my dad. We were guiding a desert bighorn sheep hunt in southern Utah with a gentleman named Mike and he's become a great friend and a great supporter of us here at Epic Outdoors. He's hunted all over the world. But anyway, we spotted on maybe the third or fourth day of his hunt, we spotted a really, really good ram in a deep canyon that we knew we were going to have to go the next day. We're going to have to go back to camp that night and get all of our gear, take our sleeping bag, our pads, you know, food, everything.

We're going to have to, you know, leave, leave my dad as a spotter on the canyon rim, but we're going to have to go, go in deep after. And so we did that the next day. We had already pre-scouted the routes into the canyon. We knew how to get in there and it took us all, all day to get back in there. And the ram had a bunch of use, tucked back into kind of a box part of the finger side canyon off that big drainage. As we were starting to make our, I guess, our closing, you know, 1,000 or 1,500 yards, which is, you know, you're starting to, you know, up until then, you're staying out of sight, but you really don't need to be quiet. You start to get about 1,000 yards and you're going to come in and out of sight a couple of different times. You've got to start being careful. We climbed up out of a wash bottom. My brother was in the lead. Mike was in the middle and I was in the back.

And we were just kind of picking our way up out of the wash, up through this series of little ledges and cliffs. And we got up to this little layer of slick rock that my brother Aaron went around the corner and walked. It was not in a situation that we thought, hey, everybody be careful here. Something bad could happen. It just wasn't. And he went around the corner just fine. Mike was probably five, you know, yards behind him and I was probably five or 10 yards behind Mike. We're just, you know, just trekking. And when Mike walked around that corner, that ledge broke. We'd had a lot of rain in southern Utah. And when you get a lot of rain, that sandstone can absorb a lot of water. And I guess this is not a fault on Mike because we were all roughly the same weight. And I'll just leave it at that. He was not an overweight gentleman.

But when he walked around that corner, about a six foot wide and about a four foot thick piece of sandstone that we were walking around on just broke free and fell more or less like an elevator. And I watched it right in front of me. And as it fell, Mike literally, like you see in the movies, tried to grab the edge of the cliff or the building, just like you see people do. And you're thinking, all right. And they dangle until they get saved, right? In the movie. Well, as I'm running up there, I realize, you know, he's got a full pack on and a rifle strapped on. And I mean, so you hit with force and he didn't hold it for more than maybe a half second until he fell off. And it was probably a 12 to 15 feet free fall onto uneven talus slope. So when he hit, it wasn't like he just stuck the landing or could stuck the landing.

It was like, you know, you hit with a lot of force with, let's just say a 50 pound pack. And he fell down. I saw his head hit the rocks and I just immediately, you know, I couldn't jump down. So I just said, Mike, Mike, you okay? But I saw his leg. And what I saw, I thought, he's not freaking out in pain or something. So maybe my eyes are just, you know, his leg was turned clear to the back. Clear 180 degrees. Yeah, just, oh. And, but I, but he started holding his head and I said, are you okay, okay? And then he grabbed his knee and lifted it and says, no, my leg's messed up. And I knew what I had seen or thought I saw was really bad. And we're literally, the ram is, you know, eight to 900 or a thousand yards back in the canyon here. We're stalking the ram to kill it. And our hunt is over. You know, it's, it's not one of those, hey, let me shake this off. This is a bad deal.

I didn't know if the bones were out or the skin or anything like that. But first off, we got down to him. We had to get him up out of that, out of that hole to some extent. Sent my dad, my dad called, called for help, which was kind of a funny story because, you know, if you've ever tried to call 911 from remote parts of the world and request a helicopter, it's not as easy to just have happen as you would think. Because they're an issue, they probably get a lot of those calls, you know, especially in Southern Utah where a lot of people come to Southern Utah. There's people, you know, foreigners, there's people that are out of their element all the time. And I'm sure call in emergencies, quote, emergencies a lot. Yeah. They've got to make sure that there is an emergency. That's right. So my dad's telling them where we're at and he says, well, I can see on the maps.

I can see a lot of roads. So I'll send a deputy in there, drive in there and get you out. And my dad's like, you do not realize where we're at. I know where we're at. You're not driving anywhere in here. These are uranium roads that were built in the 50s and haven't been driven on since. And we're going to need a helicopter. We can't get him out of here. We had probably 2,000 to 2,500 feet vertical descent getting down in there. So, and there's no road. The nearest road is up where my dad is. And you can't get a guy with a severely broken leg. You just can't do it. You just can't carry him. And he finally convinced them to get a helicopter in the air. And, you know, we got Mike up out of that little hole and up onto a bench because we knew we had to get him to a spot a helicopter could get to him. And we only had to move him about 100 yards and we got him to a spot there.

While we're waiting for the helicopter, I came up with a bonehead. I'm just like, why don't I just walk back in this canyon and try to bump these sheep? Maybe they come right out here by you and you pound that ram. And this has a really cool ending. And so, I walk back in the canyon and normally the sheep in this unit are pretty spooky. And I thought, because it's a V canyon and they're in the back of it and we're out of the mouth. And I thought, well, they may run right out by him at 200, 300 yards. Well, I get back in there and these sheep are tame. I mean, they're just, I'm 50 yards behind them just making noises trying to hurt them. And they're just looking at me like they'd never seen a person. And I'm literally hurting them and I'm like, this might work. But then they got down there and then they peeled off and climbed way up high. And he wasn't able to get a shot.

So, we got down there. I had to build a little fire so the helicopter could see us. They flew over us the first time, came down there, picked us up. If you've been to southern Utah and seen our huge wind gate, red sandstone cliffs, you know, picture Moab and all that country, you know. And you're down in the middle of that. And I'll remember, I'll never forget what this pilot said to us. And he must not be a hunter. But he got out and, you know, hey, nice to meet you. I'm blah, blah, blah. He said, what are you guys hunting down here, moose? And I just looked around and I'm like, there couldn't be anything more different than moose-looking habitat than where we were. I mean, the highest vegetation is 8 to 10 inches, you know, little bushes and grass.

And if I was a little quicker on my feet and I wasn't a little bit more, you know, I was really somber over a guy's, you know, quest for his final North American Ram. His Grand Slam was done. You know, you're thinking, what's going to happen here? He's going to have to get out of here. Are we going to be able to finish? Blah, blah, blah. I would have been quicker on my feet and just said, no, caribou, you know, or something like that. But I didn't. But we loaded Mike in the helicopter and they took off. We obviously didn't know, you know, wished him well and didn't know where they were taking him. Then we had Aaron and I, my brother and I, and all of Mike's pack. And it was a long night out of there because we had already heavy packs and we had his. I don't know when we got middle of the morning sometime, you know, late, late morning, 2, 2 in the morning, something like that.

We finally topped out and got up there. And then we had Mike's truck and all of our trucks there. We had to leapfrog them all up to northern Utah. It was, but long story short, he had a severely broken leg. He had to end to go. They flew him home to Washington. Did put a bunch of screws and plates and all that in. But he recovered well and he hunts like crazy. You've seen a lot of his stories in our magazine, coincidentally, after this. Fortunately, the Utah Wildlife Board, they do have provisions for freak things like this when something happens. They allowed Mike to roll his tag to the next year. We brought him back and we killed his Grand Slam ram on his 50th birthday. It was pretty cool. That's awesome. The same unit kind of had that redemption. But that was pretty wild. I mean, that was, I don't, you know, I had another instance and this is, I guess, my second one.

Had a gentleman that we had pre-scatted his ram. And this was in Nevada. And I had, he was living kind of on a hog's back ridge. And so we had, me and the hunter was going to go on one side. And I had my spotter and other guys going on the other side to look. And it just so happened that the ram was on our side. He was on the other guy's side that night before. And we were going to hike up to the top and come down on him. But he was on our side. And we killed him right off the bad opening day. 40 inch plus desert sheep. And, you know, we're high-fiving, you know, back-slapping kind of like you do when you take something. And we both said, hey, well, he says, I'm going to try to call my wife and tell her. And I said, okay, I need to try to get a hold of my guys. I couldn't get them on the radio or phone. We walked out to a little point there just a couple hundred yards from where we shot.

Hadn't walked up to the ram. Remember, it's three, 350 yards away. And I got a hold of my guy. I said, hey, ram's down. Come over on our side. You know, don't go to where you're going to go. And probably did that for five minutes. Went back over to him. And he was sitting down on the rocks. He's pure white. He's dripping sweat. And this is November. And we hadn't hiked very much. So I'm like, something's going on here. And, yeah, he, as I approached him, I says, you don't look too good. And he goes, no, I think I'm having a heart attack. And I'm like, yeah, something's not right. And he says, we're not going to walk up to the ram. I says, we've got to get you out of this mountain. I says, I've got a sat phone. I'm going to call right now. He says, well, I don't know if I'm to that extent. And I says, well, I don't want your wife and family, you know, look at me.

He said, why didn't you do more? I says, so I'll tell you this. If we, the truck is literally only 400 yards below us. And we just got really lucky. You know, we actually got a little unlucky because we drove right into the herd of the sheep. And they kind of scattered. And we got out and moved a couple of yards and killed them. But I said, well, if we dispatch a helicopter, because I've been on that. I've been on that before. They're probably going to come out of Vegas. It's going to take a while here. And I says, if I can get you to that truck, I can get you to the hospital faster than the helicopter is going to be. And it'll be a lot cheaper, blah, blah, blah. But I says, really, if you have any problems, I'm going to stop and call. Well, we, my buddy got over there at the time. He had some aspirin in his pack, which I don't even care. Aspirin is like for the 1960s, right?

I'm like, I don't know anybody that carries aspirin, but I carry some now for this. You know, aspirin thins your blood quick. Yeah. You can even have the children's aspirin. You just chew and put it under your tongue and all that. For an in-the-field situation, it's, you know, the doctors later told us that that may have saved his life. Turns out, you know, he had had some stints put in his heart. And so, you know, he had had some problems in the past, but he was feeling fine. But he was having some blockage issues. And so, anyway, gave him the aspirin. He said, I'm feeling better, I think. So we basically babied him. And we walked with him, holding him up to the truck. Got him in the truck. And I looked at my guy and I said, drive. Like, drive like he stole it. I says, drive to the nearest town. And they did. And when they got there, he was calling the hospital there from his phone.

Just saying, hey, I'm bringing a patient. I think he's having a heart attack. Just be aware. They were ready for him in an ambulance. They actually took him by a reds and blue ambulance through from Mesquite, Nevada, up to St. George, Dixie Regional Medical Center. And he had a couple stints put in. And, you know, all is well that ends well. But after that happened, it was really weird because I sent him. And then I'm like, okay, I've got a dead big ram right behind me. I don't have the tag. My hunter's not here. But I've got to go take some pictures, just skin it, get the meat off the mountain. So I took a few pictures. It was kind of weird, sombering. You're hoping the guy's not going to pass away. And then I got it off the mountain. And then I was still left. I'm like, I've got to go plug this thing at the game and fish. And I'm, again, not the hunter. And my hunter's not here.

And they're going to have to just believe my story. And fortunately, when I went to Las Vegas to do that, they had somehow caught in that transmission on dispatch and knew. And I said, are you guys that had the guy with the heart attack? I said, yeah, thankfully you've heard about it. So I didn't have to sell my story to you. Got it plugged. And so then I'm done. I'm breaking camp. And I'm going to head back to Utah, which is where we live. And this is only an hour and a half from our house in southern Utah. But I thought, do I take the horns? I almost stopped. I wanted to. I called my wife. I says, tell me if I'm doing something wrong. I want to. Because this is the next day. He's stable. The stents are in. And he's doing well. I wanted to walk the horns into his hospital bed. Bloody skull. And just because he hasn't seen it. He doesn't, you know. And she's like, you better not do that.

You're going to get. You can't bring stuff dripping blood, you know. Into the hospital. Into the hospital. So I said, all right. So it was three days before they let him out. Before I met him down in the parking lot. And he got to hold his sheep and all that. But once again, all is well that ends well. But it's kind of stressful situations. Some stressful situations that fortunately ended well. But those are probably my two that are the craziest. And I don't know, John. I don't know what you want to talk about. Well, maybe we save. Oh, okay. Maybe we save my stories for a full podcast. Well, hey. Stay tuned for that. Because it is a full podcast. It is. Well, let's maybe. We'll talk about Jason's pending Arizona desert sheep hunt here in the coming weeks. And we'll talk about his first desert sheep hunt in Utah. How about we do it? We'll talk about desert sheep hunting with Jason Carter.

We'll talk about the new round two. How's that? That would be awesome. All right. So we have probably gone a little bit long today. But anything else? I think that's all the questions. Oh, let's give one more shout out to Hilleberg Tents. If you're in the market for a tent, now's a great time to buy. Especially they've got some that can handle the late season winter type. Four season tents. Four season tents. So Hilleberg.com. And we thank them for being a sponsor as well. So it's getting to be that time of year where we're almost done hunting for all you listeners. And you're going to hear a lot. I know through the summer and the fall, we've had a lot of feedback from you. Where's more podcasts? More and more and more. Well, it's frankly, we're not all here together enough to do that. We do try to do the best we can. We get back. We do a few.

But we're just a bit about to get back in the groove. And we're just about to get back to talking about stuff that matters. And that's applying for hunts, planning for next year, and how our hunts all went this last year. We've got a lot to talk about. And we appreciate you listening. As John mentioned earlier, if you're a listener of our podcast, but you're not a member of our service at Epic Outdoors, please consider joining. Right now, it's $100 a year. You get nine issues of the magazine, plus all the consulting with us and strategizing with you and what's important to you and your plans, as well as you get it entered for a doll sheep hunt. So consider doing that. You can do that at epicoutdoors.com or call us, 435-263-0777.

And if you're not a member and you really don't know what you're going to get out of a membership, I think the easiest way to boil it down is if you're hunting in multiple states, even if you're not yet, but you're really into hunting, you enjoy listening to us and getting into, you want to get more into hunting other states. Basically, you know, if you hunt your own personal state, maybe you get a great tag every five to seven years or something like that. and then you're looking at some once-in-a-lifetime tags, the more you branch out and make applications to other states, the more frequently over the years you're going to draw great tags. And really the difference between killing great animals is having those better tags. And the more frequently you can get a better tag, the more often you're going to kill a great animal.

And so we're here to help you navigate that, start to get points and build points, in multiple states. You're not going to apply in five states next year and draw five fantastic tags. It's a process, and we help you navigate that and help you build a strategy so you can draw great tags more frequently. And we get questions sometimes from listeners that hear us here and then call and say, hey, tell me more about your service, and why would I join you guys versus something else, some other tool or resource? And I think I'd just come back to boil it down to our research ability. We've done this longer than anybody else, both from a Western hunting perspective and a magazine perspective. While though our brand and name Epic Outdoors might be newer to some of you, we've done this longer than anybody else that's in this Western hunting consulting application tag business.

We've done it longer than anybody. And we therefore have a lot more experience also going and doing what we're talking about personally. And so let us put that experience and research to work for you. If it's only one or two tips, I can't tell you how many times we get told by somebody that the one tip that I got from Adam or Jason or John or Chris or Jeff or whoever, on this one thing was well worth my membership. You know, whether that was a part of a unit to go hunt, whether it was don't, you know, maybe you should rethink your point situation here on Wyoming elk or Colorado deer, and it totally took them off a different path than they were thinking. It goes over and over and over. That's what we're here for. Our job's to get, I mean, we live to go on hunts. We live to get on the best quality hunts that we can ourselves through the tags that we draw and acquire.

And that's what we realize that you guys want to do too. And we're here to do that and try to make that easier for you. So give us a try if you're considering doing it. Again, epicoutdoors.com or 435-263-0777. Until next time.