EP 107: Applying in Arizona and Wyoming. January Magazine Overview

It's looking like it could be a rebound year for Arizona Elf. Would I pay that amount of money for the 1 in 346 drawing odds? Just got to get out there, glass, hike, cut track, do everything until something works. Anything to do with Western Big Game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter here with the Epic Outdoors Podcast. Got Adam Bronson here, of course, and John Peterson and Chris Peterson as well. Well, Chris is running the computers as he always does, and he's also got a mic. He'll be visiting with us too. Anyway, before we get started, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring our podcast and sponsoring about everything we do. They're pretty awesome partners. Of course, they've got awesome gear, and a lot of it's for sale right now. They've got a lot of their models that they're going to carry forward through the 2019 season, and the 2018 gear was the best stuff we've ever seen. So, anyway, feel free to go on UA.com, check it out, and leave a gear review if you have some of it and you like it.

So, anyway, we just do want to say thank you to them, and we'll kind of get started. This podcast is a little bit of a different podcast. We're going to cover the January issue of the Epic Outdoors Hunting Magazine. A lot of you know we do a monthly magazine from December through June, and then bi-monthly after that. It's not free. You do have to join. A membership is $100 a year, and, of course, you can call in and get some tips and strategy, and a lot of guys have questions beyond what we actually can write because we can only write so much. Well, and that's worth mentioning, too. You know, we can't just sit here and go through every single unit in the state of Wyoming for elk or sheep, moose, or goat, or whatever, as well as Arizona antelope and elk, which is all covered in the January magazine

because, you know, that is covered there, and that is a paid service that we do provide for the people that subscribe to our service, which is $100 a year. Get the magazine, the consultation, all that. We're glad to give a little bit of a bigger overview, I guess, of each state, maybe highlight some of the new things that are in each state, talk about the deadlines and things like that. But there is a lot of information in the magazine, which you can actually view online as an e-mag if you join as well or get the paper mag or both. But there's other stuff worth mentioning, too, that maybe we'll dive into that we actually start mentioning in this January magazine, too. One of those, Jason, is the hunt planner, Epic Hunt Planner feature, the digital research service, and tools that we added to our website here just the first of the year.

Yeah, on page 7 of the January magazine, you can read a little bit more about it. Adam did cover it, but kind of preface the magazine. He did talk about the Epic Hunt Planner, like he was talking about. It gives you access to all the western states, and you can go on and click and point your way to happiness. Basically, you can check out the drawing odds, a lot of different information on there, and unit breakdowns and whatnot, so you can kind of do even minimum point queries. Say you had two points, give me everything that I can draw with two points in this particular weapon category or whatever, and that'll give you your options. Kind of jog your memory or make you think of some things that maybe you hadn't otherwise thought of and be able to have it at your fingertips. Well, and while we try to cover the majority of what we would call the better trophy or even the better mid-tier

or even the good opportunity hunts in our magazine, there are some units that we don't either dedicate space to or we can't fit them all. You know, Wyoming has 80 or 100 different elk units in the state, and if we just went through and tried to go through the drawing odds of all those, it would be a little bit cumbersome. We've done that before in a former life, I guess we'll just put it that way. And we've kind of confined it to what we feel are probably the better, you know, 75 or 80 percent of the better elk hunts in the state. There are some exceptions to that. Maybe they're extreme private land only units that only appeal to a very tight margin of people. But the Epic Hunt Planner and the drawing odds are going to be for all units in the state. You can also then do overlays with either Google Earth or topographical maps on top of unit map, unit-wide GMU maps.

So that just allows you to be able to visualize your GMU of interest along with private land ownership and things like that. There are some of the states that have individual features, but our website allows you to have all the western states at one spot. You can click from state to state, species to species, not have to jump around to each individual state hunt planner. You want to make sure you realize this is our feature. This is not, you're not going to go there and click on Utah's hunt planner or Idaho's hunt planner. This is the Epic Hunt Planner. With similar information you'll find on that information, but it allows you to do it in one spot for all the western states. That's right. And we do have, we kind of kick them off with the states and species and our take as far as a species introduction, the overview within the particular state and the species.

And you will find that they do correlate with our magazine and overlap a bit, but it does give you the digital version of our magazine, which is actually better if you take advantage of it. Like Adam said, we go through more or less all of the units. It does have the mapping like Adam talked about. I think that's an awesome feature. And we've got state-of-the-art GIS type mapping features on there. We've hired guys that are passionate about this, and we've dealt with them for many years, and one of them is Adam's brother. And what a super guy he is, extreme hunter, and he built it as if he wanted for stuff that he would want himself. And so, anyway, pretty awesome, great feature. We're going to add, we're going to continue to add and make it better. But right now I can't think of anything to make it better. It seems pretty awesome. We'll probably do some dedicated podcasts to it,

but there are some awesome layers in there as far as migration routes and winter range and summer range and all kinds of stuff in the maps. But if you're going to, you know, all the research that you can do in the magazine, a lot of it you can do right on your phone right now. If you want to research mule deer, you can go directly to mule deer, you know, go to a state, go to a unit, and research that right on your phone. I want to emphasize that, you know, we've been a consulting and a magazine producing business now for a few years, and our fee's been $100. What we're talking about now with the Epic Hunt Planner being added to our website for our members, we're not raising the cost of your membership. We're just adding more to it. We're giving some more tools for those of you that like to spend more time or have some time maybe really digging deep through a unit, analyzing maps,

and like we've talked about some of the features, whether it be drawing odds, minimum point queries, and all this. This is just something to add to what you already get in the magazine, and we feel it's super value-added. We are also going to continue to evolve this. This isn't what you see today is we're going to bring out for every state, but we're also going to be adding to it, and we welcome some feedback on that. If there's other features that you guys feel like you see that you like, you know, send us an email or something. It comes out at perfect timing with the government shutdown. If you guys are out there bored, sitting in the office, and wondering what to do while you can, again, point and click your way to a big buck or whatever. And so, anyway, jump on epicoutdoors.com. Of course, with the membership, you can set up your login.

You've got an account, and within that are member-only benefits within, including this Epic Hunt Planner. Before we get started, we do want to let everybody know we are going to be at the Hunting Expo here in Utah, February 14th to the 17th, up there at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City. We encourage everybody to go up there. You can apply for 200 different Utah Big Game tags. They're $5 each, and you can apply for everything, or just a few of them. But you've got to be in person to validate that. You can actually apply online, but then you need to validate those, and they make you show up in person to show your support for the convention. We will have a booth there. We're partnering with Kent's Optics, and I don't really know if we should call it a partnership, because we've always had a booth in the same spot there.

But we do have a 20x50 booth set aside, and Kent's Optics will be up there. The Harrells are great people. They were there with us last year and had their world-class shed collection, as well as selling optics at incredible prices. And they're an advertiser within the Epic Outdoors magazine and support us, and, of course, we support them. And so, anyway, feel free to attend the Hunting Expo, February 14th to the 17th, here in 2019, Salt Palace Convention Center up there in Salt Lake City, Utah. Don, apply for more tags, because that's the season. It is time to apply. Well, it is. It's the first of the year, and it's amazing. You know, the holidays is kind of a down time a little bit for all of us with families and everything like that. But it's amazing that January 2nd hits, and it blows up. The phones are going nuts, and everybody's gears shift to, all right, what tags am I going to get?

And our phones have been off the hook for the last week and a half. Especially Jeff. He's getting crushed right now. Yeah. Sorry, Jeff. But, anyway, we gave him the option to come in here, and he said, well, you guys can hammer it. So, anyway, here we are. But it is. It's time. And it is time to make plans. And if you are, you know, Jason talked about the extra $5 tags at the Western Hunting Expo. If you want to have a chance to win sheep hunts, for all of you sheep hunters or aspiring sheep hunters and want a chance to win a sheep hunt, we're proud sponsors of the Full Krill Society Social that's held on February 16th. It will be at the Western Hunting Conservation Expo on Saturday morning, February 16th. They have 11 sheep hunts they'll be giving away there. You can either sign up for the Full Krill event online and buy your tickets online now,

or you can actually do them when you get there. They have a booth at the Expo. There are a variety of hunts, but there's at least one hunt for every species. I believe there's one Rocky Mountain and one Desert Sheep, and then the rest are Dahl and Stone Sheep. And they have certain criteria that kind of affect the drying odds. Some you can never have killed any sheep, period, to be eligible to apply. Some you can never have killed a Dahl Sheep. Some you maybe can never kill the Stone Sheep. So it kind of weeds out people. And then there's others that are open to everybody. So they're literally something for everybody. There's different hunt packages online at fullkirl.org. You can buy the tickets there. We will be there. We're sponsored that Saturday event. We've been there for a number of years. And it's always fun to watch people yell and scream

and run up on stage after winning a $20,000 or $40,000 or $60,000 sheep hunt. It's pretty cool. So we'll see you there. We'll be there as well. I think the Expo's a really great time to come and meet us and say hi. A lot of guys do every year. And the guys that come from out of state seem to make it a tradition every year. It's fun. You got entertainment at night. You got a banquet you can go to. Auctions. It's just a great time. Awesome. Yeah, good time. Don't miss it. It's something I look forward to every year. Get to see a lot of people in the industry that maybe you don't see all year long. But then the Expo, you can count on seeing them. It's a good time. This Full Curl Society banquet is a lot of fun. I like watching people win. I mean, it seems like all of us know somebody who's won. Oh, yeah. And you look at things like this and you think, well, do I really have a chance?

Well, you do. Like, we all know people who have won. So be there. It's a good time. And you have a chance to win a sheep hunt that you probably would never get any other way. That's right. All right. I like it. Hey, as we get started in this magazine, Adam and I did publish articles on our application strategies. Of course, these are, this is about all you can put in 3,500 words or less. It feels like, yeah, it might be 37 each of us. But anyway, we did go through and talk about our basic strategy, the way we go about applying for different species or states, our youth, which we've both got kids that are killing us with tags and trying to break us. And so anyway, it's time, gas, everything else. But we love it and we're right in the middle of it. And so we did kind of give that strategy. We did it last year as well. We like to start this magazine off basically as the January issue.

It really, really does cover in depth the different states. And with starting with this issue, we cover Arizona elk and antelope and then Wyoming sheep, moose, goat, elk, and bison. And so check that out. We will have a full podcast on our application strategies. And we'll probably do that next maybe, huh? Next week or so. These are two articles that I love because as I read through them, then it gives me ideas each year and maybe little tweaks that I want to do. So that's how each reader can think of their own strategy as they're reading through your strategy and take little bits and pieces from it. Well, and what's definitely changed for me, and Jason alluded to it, is our kids are now all years of hunting age and so are mine, Jason. And it's just like it's a big deal. I mean, I'm already planning Thanksgiving next year, and it's January 5th.

I might be elk hunting in Arizona with my girls. You did. We talked about it this morning. Yeah, I might be hunting with my girls next year because the late elk hunts are shifted late and start like the day after Thanksgiving next year. So we might be having Thanksgiving in Arizona if I can get away with it. If they want to do it, but it's, you know, kids are tough. We talked about, you know, one- and two-day hunts. There's running across the state, crushing an antelope or deer, running back, getting them in school. And it's like, geez, I can't keep up. I'm glad they're younger than us. But it's a lot of fun. And so it governs a lot of my plans a year. And I wouldn't have it any other way. But it keeps us on our toes. And like John alluded to it, if you've read it once before, there may be just something different that I've even talked about differently now

than two years ago because, you know, maybe I killed a – no, I can't think about what I killed that I don't want to kill again. But I killed a big antelope, so maybe I don't care about another one. But that's not true either. But, you know, Jason killed his second desert sheep this year, so he shouldn't care to ever draw another one. That's not true, Adam. He shouldn't care to ever draw another desert sheep. That is not true. Although, you know, there are a lot of things out there for everybody to apply for, kids, including dropping bombs on moms. And so there's plenty of cows, does, ewes, and everything else to apply for. And we can kind of help you with that as well. But so far, we've actually been – our kids have been eating tags. We've been – I mean, literally, I had to slow the flow. Kids had Colorado tags, Utah tags, Wyoming tags, New Mexico, Idaho.

And it's like there isn't a problem getting tags for anything. No, there's not. And if you want to just put meat in the freezer, there's a way to do it. Mine is chock full right now mainly because of my kids this year. It smells like Italian, Polish, jalapeno, sausage, slash brats. I mean, did you smell it? You brought it home from me. It's unbelievable. Oh, it was. You can smell it. I was like a couple of boxes of something in here. And maybe we need to do a barbecue. Anyway, but one thing you also might be aware of, we're actually doing our 2019 Epic Hunt giveaway. This is by popular demand, frankly. We've given some hunts away the last few years, sheep hunts and some moose hunts and whatnot. And we get a lot of feedback that people love to have an opportunity to maybe apply for something. We talked about it at Western Hunting Conservation Expo and the full krill hunts there.

People, members, like to have a chance to win hunts that maybe they can't otherwise either afford right now or maybe it's a dream someday, but they're not in position. But they want a chance to win that. So we've added to that. We're giving away seven epic hunts. One of them is a doll sheep hunt. The only way that you can be entered in for that is to join our service before February 28th. Either join or renew. So current members that renew or any new member that's looking to join that will be entered into a fully paid Alaska doll sheep hunt this year, this August, opening hunt. This is a great hunt. Brother Aaron actually went on this hunt with the outfitter, Mike Litson. And then we've got six other hunts, Jason, that why don't you dive into how people can maybe win one of those. Yeah, and I think, you know, before I get started, it is nice.

And I liked how you started in with people like to apply for things they can't otherwise apply for. You can't apply for fully guided hunts. There's no way to go apply for this fully guided hunt. And so it adds value to what we've got going on here. We've got a stone sheep hunt in British Columbia, the full curl stone outfitters. This year, August 1st to the 14th, we've got Alaska brown bear. I may need to do that because I didn't kill one last year. But anyway, might have to go along with the member. But May 10th to the 25th, 2020, we wanted the spring hunt, and they only do spring hunts every other year. And so we had to schedule that one out a little bit. We do have a Nevada 231 fully guided with 8-mile outfitters. Everybody knows. Callan Brown's been smoking some giants. And so it just seemed fitting that we give away landowner tags. Landowner tag and guided hunt included.

Adam and I, and John as well, we've already paid for the landowner tag. So whoever's going on that, we've got the tag reserved and paid for it. Same thing, we've got a New Mexico archery elk hunt, unit 15 with David Matthews. That will be with a landowner tag as well included, plus guide fee. New Mexico antelope with a good buddy of ours, Jack Huntley, of Land of Enchantment trophy hunts, kills giants. We chose his best ranch. He's killed 90-inch antelope on this ranch. And then a Colorado mountain lion hunt with Black Timber Outfitters. Adam, tell us a little bit about them. Yeah, they're based down there in southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah. They hunt both the San Juan County side of Utah and then that southwestern Colorado. Hunting big cats, hunting places that not a lot of people are running hounds.

And especially on the Colorado side and killing, it seems like a little bit bigger or older age class than what you're used to on the Utah side. So we're giving one of those away. Dates to be determined. You know, lion hunts are very, very flexible. You can hunt during, you know, December through maybe, you know, March or April of 19 and 20 next year. So all these, you can have plenty of time to plan your hunt in advance. And, again, the hunt and the guide fee is fully paid for. The only thing you have to buy is your hunting license and obviously getting to where you want to get. Tips and a few other things. Stuff like that. But, anyway, those are all to be entered by February 28th. You have to buy those tickets by February 28th. We'll do the drawing within just a day or two after that. So the ticket options, John, jump into that.

Well, first, I was going to say the thing that sets these hunts apart, they're not opportunity hunts. These are trophy hunts. You know, Adam and I, especially Adam and I because we do a lot of the consulting and whatnot, we wanted hunts that we would go on ourselves. We would want hunts that we would want to buy ourselves. So ticket options, as low as $25, you can buy a ticket for $25. After that, you can save a little bit. If you do, like, five tickets, you can get a $100 package for five tickets. If you do 10 tickets, $200. You're also getting, if you do that 10-ticket package, you're going to get a $40 knife. Custom Epic Outdoors series Outdoor Edge knife and some replacement blades that come along with that. Really awesome knife. And then there's a 30-ticket package for $500. You get the, you save $250 off of the single-priced ticket price.

You get a knife and $100 in phone scope gift card. That's right. So, anyway, what an awesome opportunity. The Epic Outdoors, Outdoor Edge knife is one you can't buy. We've sold one or two to guys that walk in with $100 bills. But for all intents and purposes, it's not for sale to the general public. So you need to go ahead and, if you purchase that $200 or $500 ticket package, you will be getting a custom Outdoor Edge knife. As well as, of course, like you talked about, John, with the $500 package, we're giving away phone scope, a phone scope package, $100 gift card where you can go online and get the phone scope of your choice, which would match your phone as well as the optics you're using. All right. Well, we also... Where are we at? Do you want to dive into Arizona or do you want to talk briefly about the wolf stuff? I love killing wolves. All right. Adam and I love killing wolves.

We just, it's busy this time of year, but we'd be doing it right now. Well, we usually set aside a gap maybe February or March, try to time it with some snow or things like that, and head to Idaho, frankly, just because that's closest for us to get to. But went through a wolf hunting update article covering the states, you know, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, briefly just talking about how they go about issuing their tags. Most of them are on a quota situation. Most of them remain, have areas at least within the state that remain open most of the winter long. Talk about, you know, hows, where's, and when's and all that. But basically just to give people that have cabin fever or have an opportunity, I mean, there's no secret sauce to killing a wolf, especially in the lower 48. You've just got to get out there, glass, hike, cut track, do everything until something works,

because, you know, these aren't really naive wolves anymore running into a howl, you know, coming in to defend their territory. Those days are over. They've been hunted. They're smart, smart animals. But you can't kill one if you don't go try, so there's some ideas there that we kind of threw out there at you for something to read during the winter months. One thing we do believe in hunting wolves is you shoot them when you see them. So make sure you've got a long-range rifle. If you jump in, grab like a Red Rock Precision rifle. Absolutely. Phenomenal accuracy out of these rifles. I've got even their lightweight gun. I think it comes in at 7 1⁄2 pounds. I put a lightweight scope on it with Kurt Pilcher up there at Red Rock. And it's an incredible rifle. It's unbelievably accurate. And you can't go too high a caliber. You just need to be able to lay down, dial, and smoking.

I smoked a wolf at like 725 yards. Sometimes they're a little sure I smoked one at 300. What was yours, Adam? At 540. Yeah, you're not going to – I mean, you might luck into one in the timber at 100 or 200 yards, but that's – you just got lucky. You can't count on that. You need to be able to lay down and make a shot as they're working up a ridge or if they're, you know, bedded down. They don't even know you're in the zip code. Yeah, you might even be glassing them. Sometimes those tracks tell you where they're at and where they're going. You'll glass them. They're laying around all day long before they go to killing at night. And so anyway, if you do need to pick up a gun, let's just dive into that. You'd call Kurt at Red Rock Precision at 801-425-6574. Like I say, I've used their gun at length, even killed my desert sheep this year with it.

And so they do make a couple of different models, and you can choose your caliber and work with them as well as scope choice. Very, very knowledgeable guys and making quality product right there with the custom long-range rifle. All right. Let's jump into a Cholla patch in Arizona. All right. Here we go. So we did cover Elk and Antelope in Arizona. Those applications are due February 12th. And so we cover it in the January magazine. Most everybody are getting their magazines right now or already got them. And, of course, you can go online and get our e-mag version and be able to check it out if you're still waiting or if you just barely joined and you're waiting in the mail for your mail from us here at Epic Outdoors. There's quite a few changes every year.

There's different things that happen, like they'll swap out early rifle season, early rifle rut seasons with the muzzleloader rut seasons in different units. They added an early season. There's just a lot of different things that happen each state which create opportunity for you and I and everybody else. Yeah. Maybe we're just throwing out that 3C is one of those, Jason, that they do this with one unit every year. I don't really – well, I know how it started, but we won't get into that. But they rotate this, a unit that's before even the archery hunts every year. It's been to, I think, 7 West, 9 Haditz, and now it's 3A, 3C's turn. And the early rifle hunts before even the archery hunt. And they're going to have – it's a little early for primo rut dates, but at least it's first. It's really good. It's good. There's only going to be 25 tags on that, 3A, 3C. And it starts September 13th.

The normal early rifle rut hunts or muzzleloader rut hunts start September 27th. And so that will take place prior to the archery hunt. And that's going to be a bummer for the archery season. You do have 25 guys. They're going to go in there, and they're going to smoke maybe 5 of the top 10 or 15 bulls that live in the unit. It's just the way it's going to go. You know, they've got first dibs. They're not quite broken yet, usually. They're just starting to rut, pre-rut, like Adam's talking about. They're getting into the rut. And so it's just going to be an awesome season. Not the best unit in the state per se, but one of the top 5 or 6 units. Yeah, it is. You know, the other units are – I guess you'd call them somewhat constant. And Jason alluded, you know, the Unit 1s and 27s have flip-flopping muzzles and rifles, it seems like.

But this day and age, I mean, Arizona's a state you can use magnified scopes and muzzleloaders for all intents. We get a lot of questions on, hey, if I go early muzzleloaders, are my odds better? No. They're really not. They're still – you've still got essentially a rifle in your hands, and it's very, very tough. Be prepared to have 20-plus points to have a chance of those at maximum – usually 22 or 3 even – have a chance of the maximum point tag. Really, Arizona and our trail go together. And I think the most notable thing we're talking about, Jason, in Arizona is last year this time, we had a lot of red flags going off with the moisture or lack thereof in Arizona this time last year. And where things were headed, and a lot of people waited towards the end of the application period, and it didn't get better.

And it was a really dry winter and spring last year, and it was reflected in the lack of giant bulls that Arizona produced last year. It was really tough, and that's exactly right. Contrast that to this year, maybe that's probably – Well, yeah, this year there's just been an incredible amount of snowfall. In fact, we just got back from northern New Mexico near the Arizona border. It's just covered up in snow and good weather for antler growth. And so, anyway, everybody's excited to hunt and see what comes of Arizona elk deer, every species pretty much. Everything loves moisture. And so, anyway – It's looking like it could be going down that road of a rebound year for sure this year for Arizona elk. There'd be – you know, February 12th's not the complete picture that we're going to have. It could shut off after that, but it's completely different at this point last year in Arizona.

That's right. And so, the archery dates are September 13th to the 26th on normal units with the exception of 383CB on September 20th. Great opportunities there. Adam and I and John and Chris. Chris, you've even hunted muzzle over the unit, too. I have. Of course, late season muzzle. Yeah. And how did that go, Chris? It was a little rough. It was one of those years that was kind of dry, dry, and it was unseasonably warm. A lot of the guys were telling me this is not normal, and the bulls that are normally here are not here. So, it just – it was a tough hunt. Yeah. Tough hunt. And that's what happens in Arizona. The good thing is it doesn't take a lot of points to hunt those late seasons. You can take six to nine points, and you can generally draw a late season with your loyalty and hunter-ed point. You know, then you're talking four to six years, you know, to get back up to that point.

You know, it was a tough hunt. That being said, I would do it again. It was hard. We didn't see bulls. But every year is different down there. You know, the moisture change can change – can make all the difference in the world. Yeah, that's right. I had a lot of complaints on your hunt, too, not just from you. Of course, we heard the howling and gnashing of teeth from you. But there was a lot of people that said the same thing. It was dry and the elk leave. And Adam and I both hunted elk in Arizona. I've hunted unit one, early rifle, the archery, killed .350, .360 bulls. Adam killed a great bull over .350 there in .27. We've spent a lot of time pre-scouted, you know, some of these other units in 10 and all kinds of places. Yeah, if you hunt with a bow, that's where we highly encourage everybody to apply for those archery hunts. You can have – I mean, the odds aren't great.

They're very popular. Arizona is a bucket list destination for a lot of trophy elk hunters. But they have a lot of units, too, in the mid-tiers and the 4s and 5s and 6 units that don't take quite as many points as those top-tier. But they can produce a big bull. They can produce .350-plus, even though the bulk of their bulls are .300 to .330. So if you're an archery elk hunter and you're going to swallow and commit the $160 buying a non-refundable hunting license, pay $15 to apply for that and deer and sheep and whatever else, we really feel it's going to probably be a really good year, like I said, a rebound year perhaps in Arizona. And everybody should be applying for units. Don't be applying for points only. You can draw. If there's one non-resident tag available, it goes on a random draw.

If there's two, one will go to a guide with the most points that apply, and one will go on a random draw. And so that's why we've segregated all that within the magazine. You can see what the odds were for a non-resident with max points and what that point level was, residents as well as the random drawing odds also. So you need to be applying. Guys can draw the Arizona Strip for deer. Guys can draw some of these premium rifle early season elk tags, and it's the same price whether you apply for points only or for a unit. It costs you the same. If you're a rifle hunter, we've kind of hammered home the archery thing. If you're a rifle hunter, it's a different story because they have very few tags. The odds are very, very tough on the early stuff, very few tags. And so if you want to be realistically trying to draw tags, you probably are going to be looking at the late rifle.

Or, you know, since Arizona does look at your first two applications or first two choices before going to the next, you might put down a Hail Mary early rifle as your first but then be following it up with a second choice, you know, rifle hunt, you know, and one of the units that feel like it meets your criteria. Those, like I alluded earlier, they start, I believe it's the 27th or 8th, Jason, next year of November. 29th. Night. Day, I think, after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving shifts later. If you want to have Thanksgiving, Arizona, like I'm trying to get away with, perhaps, honey. We'll talk about that later. All right. One thing I think, Adam, and you brought up a great point on these late season hunts, there's a lot of units you can draw with four, six, seven points. With a hunter-ed point, a loyalty point, which you get after five consecutive years of applying,

it doesn't take that long and you can hunt every five years on some of these. That's part of the reason I may be looking at taking my kids down. I mean, let's face it, kids that got started later in the points chase, you know, if you're going to wait around to hunt early rifles, hunts, the kids aren't going to get a goal on very many hunts in their life. And so that's what I'm looking at for maybe my kids if it works into the schedule. They give 300 to 400, maybe 500-plus tags in some units in November. There's a lot of tags. These are not, hey, I'm by myself on a mountain hunting 330 bulls everywhere. It's brown, it's down type hunt. Some hunts are just average five- and six-point bull hunts. These are the opportunity hunts for Arizona. Even though they have no over-the-counter tags, you can't buy general season tags, for the most part.

There's a few weird units they don't want elk, and you can buy tags and go hunt the strip if you want. As we move forward, we do want to let you know that we apply, guys. We have a licensed app service, and we customize your applications. Do not be afraid to apply in any particular unit in the state of Arizona. If you need an outfitter, we have guys in every unit. So make sure you be applying. Some people will want an outfitter, some don't. If you've got a once-in-lifetime type tag, it's nice to have that local knowledge from the get-go instead of finishing your hunt saying, I wish I had another shot because I know how to hunt it now. So particularly if you draw something elite, like we said, in a moisture year and a good tag, Arizona is second to none in giant bulls. So if you draw something, it's something, even though you maybe do self-guided most of the time,

if you pull something that maybe you shouldn't have, lucky, you might want to consider that in a great moisture year. Well, A, they should call us first. At least we've got an epic member experience list for do-it-yourself hunters to be able to send you a list of other members that have been there, done that in your unit. That's right. Adam and I both hunted antelope there in Arizona. I've drawn a 19A way back in the day, way back in the day, and dealt with a lot of private land issues. Of course, Adam hunted unit 10. They do have plenty of opportunities to draw antelope. Adam was a random draw tag. Mine was a random draw tag. You never know when you're going to get them. The odds are about as bad as sheep for drawing an Arizona antelope tag. They really are. They're just the add-on for $15. Maybe worse. Add it on for $15 if you have an interest.

Antelope, that drought last year, they kind of took it on the chin the last couple years. They've been, their numbers are down. You're seeing some tag cuts in some units and things like that. It's fawn survival been really low. Populations hurt. Not just, we're not talking horn growth. We're talking animal numbers. No, I'm talking numbers of animals. Yeah. We know some units, they actually flew their surveys and then had to go refly because they're like, we got to find some antelope. Yeah. Not just hair and scat. You know what I mean? That's right. That's right. Anyway, it was a little bit rough, but again, got good moisture this year. We're looking forward to it. That pretty well covers antelope. We covered it, again, unit by unit, dates, tag numbers, drawing odds in four different columns, I mean, for residents and non-residents and random draws. And then our take on the units as well.

And then, of course, you can call us. That's part of the membership. You can call and visit with us. And we want you to draw tags. It is good business for us if you draw tags and you draw the right tags. If you draw the wrong tags, we're going to lose you as a customer. So we do our best to portray accurately the potential of these units. Of course, hunting is hunting. You can pull a giant out of anywhere. And so some guys will say, well, I didn't talk about this. And I know of a giant. And that happens. In my backyard, I've got those too. But as a general rule, we're giving you a very accurate perception of these units where Adam and I, John and Chris, Jeff as well, we make a living at doing this. We are fully engaged. This is our full-time jobs. And we're doing it in large part because it's our passion. Of course, it's our job, but it's our passion.

And so anyway, feel free to give us a call or go on epicoutdoors.com and check us out. If you join, you'll have immediate access to the e-mag. All right. All right. Well, let's kind of wrap on Arizona. Let's jump into Wyoming. Wyoming is one of those states that has some stratified application deadlines. And in this specific issue, we cover the sheep, moose, and goat, and bison, which have an application deadline of February 28th. And then the elk, which actually has the earliest application deadline for big game. We're not talking about, you know, some turkeys and stuff around the West, like Utah and whatever. But the first big game deadline is January 31st. Yeah. And they have a quick turnaround. By February 21st, you know the results of Wyoming elk. So a lot of people use Wyoming elk is, boom, throw it out there, see if I can get something quick.

The only other state you're going to have to apply at the same time and not know the results of is the Arizona that we just talked about. But stratified application deadlines for non-residents, again, the 31st of January. And then deer and antelope as well as resident deer elk and antelope aren't due until May 31st. We'll cover those in a later issue in the May issue of the magazine. But as far as what's new, they've had a few changes to some of their draw system and things like that. Probably one of the big changes, the bonus point fee went up last year for moose and sheep to $150. That's getting up there. You've got an application fee on top of that with about $14. This year, they're also going to start dinging you 2.5% on your credit card when you apply for the sheep, moose, goat, bison. And if you do that, you're over $10,000.

Well, on top of the 2.5% that's non-refundable on top of the $150 mandatory non-refundable point fee. For sheep and moose. Yes, it is. So it is becoming increasingly, especially if you do not have, let's say, 16, 17 plus points and have a glimmer of hope of pulling a maximum point moose tag or a sheep tag at some point in your life. It's becoming a little harder to justify spending the money. Not a little, a lot, frankly. It's a legitimate question on whether you should do it to get the point. Yeah. And basically, the way you and I look at it, Adam, we're looking at the random drawing odds and saying, would I pay $200, $250, $300, whatever it's going to be by the time you add the 2.5%. Would I pay that amount of money for the 1 in 346 drawing odds? That's right. The 1 in 407 drawing odds. You know, moose and sheep are $2,200 roughly on sheep. You couple that, 23, I think it is.

So you couple that with $150 point fee, the app fee, you're over $220, non-refundable putting for sheep. You also have to front that tag fee when you apply. So you have to say, is that $220-ish worth me applying for the random odds that I look in the magazine? And we used to look at Oregon that way, too, because they didn't have points for sheep or whatever. And then you and I draw two sheep tags. But, you know, this is $220 plus for one species. One species. We used to be out $200. Buying a hunting license. A hunting license plus your minimal for all species and gain points for deer. You know what I mean? And so now it's even becoming more of a question when these non-refundable dollars are tougher and tougher to come by. It's just, it's tough. Everything's getting more and more expensive, including Colorado. It's not stopping. So you've got to think about it.

I would say the moose, there are some odd units that do produce some good bulls here and there that are a little bit easier to draw. And sometimes we hand-select a few of our license app clients that tell us, I want to draw no matter what. I'm willing to take a chance that I'll kill a big bull. Yeah. And if you're willing to do that, you probably should. Because if you're down in that 10 to 15 point range, you're going to have to go out on a limb for one of those units. The problem with some of those units, like the 40s and some of the 30s, they only give one non-resident tag a year. And so it goes in the preference point draw. And if you guess right, boom, you might get it. If you guess wrong and a guy played with more points than you, you were basically in the draw for zero chance to draw that tag.

And so you're running the risk if you're trying to do that versus putting in for the one of five or six units that give a random moose tag and actually have a legitimate chance at a one in 100 to 150 random draw. That's right. It's a tough call. It really is. Moose is one of those things that pretty much west wide, their numbers have declined. They're starting to come back up in some of the states like Utah and even Wyoming. But the quotas have been down so far that they're just a log jam on the point chase. They were 100% right. And they were born to be wolf poop. Let's be honest. Okay? I mean, they don't put up much of a fight. But let's just say on the sheep moose and other species, 75% of their tags go to people with the most points in a preference draw. 25% go on a random. And that's what Adam's talking about. Sometimes there are no random tags. The first three.

Yeah, the first three tags for sheep and moose in a unit are going to go in the maximum preference point draw. So as you look at our tables, you'll see the non-resident random draws. And if it says no tag or if you see it online and it says no tag, that means there was no tag available in the random draw. And if you applied with less points than what it really took to draw last year, you basically had no chance to draw. You gave them two grand and non-refundable apps and points fees for no chance to draw. So keep that in mind. And we cover that at length again in our magazine as well as online. This is a brief summary. I'm thinking that Wyoming super tag thing is looking more and more. Yes. Honestly, like my chances of drawing are so slim. You might save your money, your 200, 250 bucks that you would have spent on a sheep app and put in for the sheep hunt.

Chris, tell us about that program, I guess. We usually, every year we have one or two of the winners that are members of ours that we publish stories of. 100%. So we actually have, I think, Jason Petros. He won the sheep tag last year. And we've got a story in the January issue right now. He won the super tag. That's right. That's awesome. Yeah, we've had several of them in the last couple issues that feature Wyoming of these super tag winners. That's $10 a ticket. And you can buy a trifecta ticket for $30. And that's good for, you can choose three different species, which is awesome. I can't even imagine winning that. But you can put in for any species that they offer in the super tag drawing. And if you draw the tag, you're going hunting. And you don't have to lose any of your points or any of that. So it's a pretty awesome opportunity. Yeah, go on wgfd.wyo.gov slash epicoutdoors.

Always helps us out a little bit if you do that slash epicoutdoors. We're partners with the Wyoming Game and Fish, you could say, so to speak. And anyway, they know we've got a healthy following of guys that are serious hunters. And they're targeting serious hunters with this. Of course, we've had a lot of members drawn, as Adam alluded to. Deadline to apply is July 1st, if we didn't mention that. We mention it now because applications are on our mind for Wyoming. So while you're in there applying, it's easy just to buy the extra entries to the super tag. That's right. Let's jump into Mountain Goat. I know there was a lot of changes, Adam. Adam's got some of these hunts he's really got his eye on. They're basically trying to wipe goats out in a couple of units, several units. And so Adam, well, 4A and 5A, I know he's been talking about them. We even, well, it's not even funny anymore. No.

No, it's not. I don't know where you're going with that. Just trying to get my goat, pun intended. All right. Here we go. Tell us about it. But anyway, you know, one thing in contrast to the sheep and the moose draw where points or it seems like the creep's getting out of control. If there is a bright spot when it comes to goat, and we'll talk about bison in a minute, is they don't have a point system for them. There's just simply not enough tags. So they never have started one. That and bison. Yeah. It's a straight random draw. Whoever gets it, gets it. You still do have to front the tag fees. You know, over $2,000 for a goat and $4,400 for a bull bison. Don't tell mama. It's not cheap. But it does keep the applicants at base, so to speak, if you really, really do need a mountain goat. This year, the most notable changes are the Unit 4 and 5 goat areas in Wyoming.

For all intents and purposes, we're encouraging non-resists not to apply there unless you have real specific insider information. The problem with these is their intention was they wanted to issue a quota, much like the Montana Unlimited sheep tags. They wanted to issue, buy a goat tag, go kill them if you can in these areas. We don't want expanding goats to move into these areas and have a detrimental effect on our core bighorn sheep populations. That's really what they wanted to do. But there were some statutes and things like that in place that didn't allow them to do that. So they had to go through the draw system, namely the 75-25% split between resident and non-resident tags. They couldn't just do that. So here we go. But I'm telling you to avoid them because you're going to have to hire an outfitter, too, when you get them, and you may not see a goat.

Why do you have to hire an outfitter? All right. Because most of these units are heavy wilderness. That's right. And they've got the wilderness rule, which is not fair. But they have it, and it's been contested, and they've won. So here we go. You've got to hire an outfitter in the wilderness areas no matter what species you're hunting. So just like Adam said, you don't want to be paying $2,177 to go puff up some white hair and not be, or whatever, or even have the, what do you say, 1%, 2%, who knows what the. Yeah. They, they, the biologists I spoke to, they talked about very sporadic goat populations. And that's the part of the reason is they wanted to turn everybody loose with tags. Hey, go. Because then they will tell them what they're seeing. And, hey, if they're killing them, well, there's more than we thought there. But they're going to draw very low tag numbers.

The once-in-lifetime provision does not apply to these four and five. But the problem with these is you're going to have to hire a guide. You maybe pay six or eight grand, a couple grand to draw the tag. That's a eight to ten grand. There's a lot of guides that might turn you down on those hunts. They might not want them. There's eight to ten grand you're paying. Why don't you just take that money and go book your hunt in Alaska right now? Go buy some tickets here at Epic Outdoors. But anyway, for a resident, $157, yeah, go kill one. It's not going to, like Adam says, there's no once-in-lifetime provision there. $157 if you're local. Go kill a goat or try or whatever. It just doesn't make sense. And we generally cover these states in our magazine from a non-resident perspective. But the units that we do cover, which is the large majority of them,

we do run through the resident drawing odds and do have somewhat of a resident perspective. But generally speaking, from a non-resident perspective, do not apply. Yeah, if you're a resident or you're on the once-in-lifetime provision because you've killed a goat up there already, yeah, go for it. You know, go have fun. That's what they're intended to do. We hope that that maybe is what this turns into. So as an opportunity goat hunt, if you want to buy a tag, go do it. So let's jump into elk. We have a ton of questions on elk. And elk is very similar to Colorado for mule deer where we just get hammered with questions because there's a lot of people with points. There's a lot of options. Points of every point tier nearly can, you know, have options to draw. And so quite an exciting opportunity there. I even drew my kid with six points.

And kind of funny, I put him in for the special, even though we could have the reduced price youth license. You can't. With the special, it cost me upwards of $1,300, $1,280-something, $1,283 or whatever it is. And anyway, just a force that we would draw. Just a force that we'd draw up there in the Bighorns. And we had a great hunt. You know, all these kids are in school and can only hunt for so long. But we saw plenty of bulls, and he killed a real nice bull. So anyway, lots of opportunities. Well, there are. And if you're an archery hunter, specific archery hunter, they don't draw a lot of archery-specific tags in Wyoming. It's kind of different. But most states give set archery, rifle, and in some cases muzzleloader tags as well, and that's very heavy. You know, Wyoming gives 10 or 15, you know, dedicated type 9 archery tags that they draw.

If you want to archery hunt elk only, and you're in one of those units, that's generally the way you're going to find better drawing odds. They have other units where they don't draw specific archery tags or the type 9 tags. You just draw a type 1 or type 2 tag, and you get to go hunt unit X or Y. If you draw that tag and it doesn't have a type 9 season there, they've pretty much told you, if it doesn't have a type 9 season already in the hunt application booklet, you will be able to buy an archery stamp and go hunt that archery hunt. And if you're unsuccessful, then get to hunt the rifle portion. That's an appealing thing for a lot of guys that have time or, you know, it's maybe not, it doesn't always work perfectly if you're going on an outfitted hunt because you're going to have to choose.

Am I going to book the archery portion in September or I'm going to hunt the November season with a rifle? But it does give you a lot of latitude there, yeah. And if you're an outfitted, you may have to book one and come back and book the other. But if you're on your own, self-guided, and you're in a unit, you can do that. It gives you a lot of season dates. Generally, the archery hunts are the whole month of September, and then the rifle hunts are in October, November. Yeah, there's a lot. Like we said, there's a lot of opportunity. 2017 was an unbelievable year for Wyoming elk. There was big bulls in every unit. It feels like everything died, which they didn't. Had the early snow. They had the early snow at the end of September. The outfitters were calling their clients, come early, come early, let's go. We got bulls coming out of the park.

And anyway, it was just a, it was kind of a frenzy. Everybody got excited. On top of the increased license fee, we did see a dip in the drawing odds, generally speaking, across the state. I don't know that we're going to see, you know, it does. We do have point creep in Wyoming. We do. But I don't know that it's going to be as drastic as it was. No, because you alluded to that weather in 2017, and then this last year, 2018. Brutal. It was hot and dry, and the exact opposite. People that were running on the hills of 2017, burning points. It's time to do it. You had elk fees that went up and all that. Everybody's wanting to use points. Done with their points. And it was a tough, tough year in most units. I mean, it was, there were still some units that maybe aren't as weather dependent as others.

Some of the central and eastern Wyoming units that don't depend on, you know, snow and timber movement of elk, and even elk coming out of Yellowstone Park. But those that do depend on that, it was a much different year this last year. Very similar to Utah deer. We have Utah deer. It's an unbelievable year in 2017. 2018 comes, and it's the worst. Everybody's ever seen it. In fact, everybody's saying Game and Fish sucks and mismanaging. Yeah, the year before, they said it was off the charts. Incredible. Never had general, never remembered general better. And the next year, you've ruined our deer hunts. Yeah. Somehow. And now, I don't like it either. We went out and didn't see a lot of big deer, but you know what? It was the weather. It was, it was. They don't all die. Back in the day, there was a guy that worked for the Game and Fish that said, we said, how can we do it for our deer?

And he goes, pray for rain. I was so mad. My dad was mad, and everybody's mad. And honestly, there's a little truth to it. There is. It is. I mean, we hunt Colorado every year, not to digress, but the weather will make your hunt more than the dates on a calendar in a state like Colorado. A lot of opportunities there in Wyoming. Adam and I consult every day. In fact, within every hour of every day, we take out calls in Wyoming. And we've got a lot of outfitters that'll guide you, whether it be wilderness, non-wilderness, private ground. You want to go self-guided. There's plenty of opportunities there as well. So anyway, don't hesitate to be applying or at least gaining points in the summer. For sure. There's a point-only application period. Let's talk about that, Adam. When you go to apply, it's a little bit different on getting points now.

Yeah, the sheep and goat, like we talked about earlier, it's a mandatory point fee that's going to be deducted from your refund. It's not really that way on the elk. They've actually reduced the check boxes. The first applications we did this year used to comply with the preference point option or without the preference point option, save the money. And if you drew and you paid the preference point option, that even send you the 50 bucks back because you didn't need the point. They're not doing that now. I wish they would just charge it to you or have an opt-out box, but now you're going to apply for your elk. And then if you want your point, you apply for your point in the summer in July. And you're going to have to remember that. When you apply this year, remember, if you're unsuccessful in the draw, you need to go back in the summer and get yourself a point.

So anyway, you'll be basically applying twice to do that. Yeah. One thing worth bearing out on, and it does happen on the antelope and deer, but on the elk specifically, you'll see four non-resident columns of drawing odds. And it, you know, it's the only state that does something like this. They allocate their non-resident tags. 60% of their elk tags go to a regular pool. 40% go to what they call a special pool. There's nothing different once you draw the tags. The only thing difference is they charge you more for the special price license and a standard fee for the regular license. Within the regular fee and the special fee, they then break it down, which, like Jason alluded earlier, 75% to the highest point holders, 25% randomly. So there's a regular and special column for both the random draw and the preference points. That's why you'll see four columns of drawing odds.

The only thing difference in special and regular is how much they charge you for the fee. In theory, and on the units with a lot of tag numbers, almost every time paying the more money, you're going to have better drawings. You could buy your odds down, which is what I talked about, what I did with Colton, 17 years old at the time. I bought his odds down. With six, I jumped in, and it took 22% with seven in 2018. He would not have drawn. You paid about $500 more, but he's moving on in life. He's leaving high school. You're like, this is one of those years I'm going to have to do it, or it's going to be two or three or four more years later before you can do it. Money well spent. Yeah. So that's why you see those. Analyze those drawing odds carefully in the magazine or on our Epic Hunt Planner online. If you see, hey, it made no sense to do the regular draw.

The special was worse drawing odds. Just realize a lot of other people see that, and it'll flip-flop year after year. So it's not just as easy as, well, who would pay more money on this unit? Well, maybe next year it flip-flops because everybody sees that. You might have to get a little psychology involved. I mean, it's kind of trying to outguess what everybody else is going to do. A lot of units will flip-flop either year back and forth. But, again, if you're in a unit like Unit 7 with 1,500 total tags, well, not to non-resident, but a lot of tags, you rarely see it go back and forth. There's a number of tags there, and it'll be almost always consistently better in the special price. We have big tag numbers, and it can absorb the people switching back and forth. That's right. But when you talk about units with three to four non-resident tags, it can dramatically change.

And one thing you need to mention, too, like Jason mentioned on the sheep and goat, is there's a lot of these elk units, because of low tag numbers, they don't even issue a random tag. They don't even issue a random tag. And we put in there no tag. Don't be applying there unless you have the points to draw. Keep in mind, when we put in there our top column, top line within the column, is the drawing odds of 2018. When you look at that, it says 100% with 7. That's going into the draw, into 2018 draw with 7. Not saying you have 7 this year. Last year, you would have had 6, and you have 0% chance to draw. So keep that in mind, at least 0 meaning in the preference draw. Obviously, some people would have a random draw if there's a random tag, and you could still draw with 0.1 point, whatever.

So I'm not saying you truly did have 0% draw, but you would have had in the preference draw no chance if you had had 6 and it required 7. So keep that in mind. A lot of people ask that. They think they get an extra point when they apply. They don't. You're going in with the points you have right now. And when you're analyzing last year's drawing odds, that's how you went into that draw. So you really have to subtract one off the total that you have right now and plug you into those drawing odds and see what would have happened. I want to just jump into unit by unit, and we just crush it, you know, unit 40. And Adam gives us his opinion and vice versa. But that's just not what we do. We might, maybe someday, John, Chris, we go to an epic members-only podcast where we can just talk freely and really crush things from our perspective.

Because coming from our mouths and your mouths is a little bit different than trying to put stuff on paper. But anyway, brief, that's just a brief overview. Adam, do you see anything else that we missed that we need to just kind of call out real quick? No, and I think the biggest thing on elk is just there is the pure spectrum of elk hunts. There's self-guided public land. There's public land with grizzlies, without wilderness. You know, you've got the grizzly bears to deal with. We used to highlight that. It's a different state. The wilderness law and the grizzlies really affect how people apply in Wyoming. So, you know, find something that fits what you're looking at. It may not match what you're looking for in terms of trophy criteria or self-guided options. It's just the way Wyoming is. There's a lot of options, though. And call us if you have any questions on it.

Adam and I are fans of doing about everything. But we're not fans of hunting with grizzlies. I'm not saying we wouldn't do it. But there's plenty of options to not hunt next to a grizzly. I don't want to be that guy that shoots one in the butt and severs his femoral artery and he dies out in camp. You've got $25,000 in fines and you lose your hunting privileges for doing it. Yeah, and nobody wants a grizzly in camp. So, anyway, we've talked about that a bit. And, of course, we had John Alderson on a podcast. If you guys haven't heard that podcast, that's a classic where he shimmies up a tree. I mean. Oh, it is. I don't remember the number of it. That was an elk hunt up in 63, 64. Of course, all the 60s units and 50s units there and others. You're in grizzly country. They got some great elk numbers and some great elk hunting.

But another reason, if you're inexperienced hunting in grizzly country, which about everybody is inexperienced unless you live in Wyoming, Montana, or parts of maybe Idaho, that's where you really might look at some of these sheep and elk guides up there that got their dogs, got their camps. They know what they're doing. They're bear stuff. But, you know, it's still not without risk. I mean, we all read in the papers this last year some of the terrible news. Some of the hunters and guides get mauled and killed on that. And that's not fun. And it's on the hills of what we thought was going to be one of the first grizzly hunts in the lower 48 in a lot of years. And, of course, that got shut down through the 10th Circus Court of Appeals. So, yeah, if you hunt the bighorns like the upper 30s, lower 40s units, you're not going to have too much trouble, if any at all.

Same thing with the southern part of Wyoming. You're going to have no problems with grizzlies. And so, anyway, generally speaking, guys can get around it and not have too much issues. Go with an outfitter, of course, their season and well adapt to being able to handle it and know the things that they need to be doing to steer away from them. But we do want to thank Kent's Optics. We appreciate them. The Harrells are great guys. They sell optics at great prices. Needed a Christmas present for my daughter. Her biggest Christmas item list was a tripod. It's a glass outfit. You're raising her right. I mean, she's 11 years old asking for a tripod. What do you think I bought her? A tripod. You didn't get her a cabbage patch. No, I didn't. And she would look at it and probably throw it on the ground. So, anyway, she's awesome. Where's Camel to school?

I called up Kent's and said, hey, this is what I got. Send me the best thing you got. And they sent it to me. Super good guys. They're dealing everything. Not just optics. They're dealing in everything. If there's something you need equipment-wise, even trail cams. I mean, they're dealers for trail cams. Just give them a try before you call anybody else. The Harrells, they're serious hunters like you are. They might even visit with you about units. They're killing big stuff up there. Northern Utah, southern Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada. They've got the lock-in up there and super good guys. Of course, you can visit them in our booth at the Expo. We split a booth with them because they bring incredible sheds and stuff we can't keep our eyes off. Just amazing sheds. They are based in Utah, but they do have an online store that's awesome.

You can go on there and find whatever you need, order online, and they'll ship to you. So, kentsoptics.com is where you can find them. Or if you want to call them, you can also call them and talk to them. A lot of times they'll be able to recommend if you're looking for something but you don't know exactly what you want, you can talk to them and they can help you out. Their number is 435-257-7014. They've got that small town feel. These guys are friends of ours. I've been in their warehouse and it's a grocery store slash warehouse. But they're one of the largest dealers here in Utah and Utah guys buy a lot of gear. Also, before we close, I'd like to give a shout out and thanks to Kenta Track Boots. They've been supportive of us from the start here at Epic Outdoors. Jim Wynnjim has been a friend of ours for many, many years. We appreciate him being a partner of ours.

And if you're interested in getting some new boots earlier than summer or two weeks right before your hunt next year, it might be a good time. I know Jim and his crew at Kenta Track are out at a bunch of the shows, SCI, Sheep Show, Western Hunting Conservation Expo. It'd be a great time to get down, try on some of the boots in person, and, you know, talk to them about the feel and things like that. Jim and his crew are great hunters themselves, avid sheep hunters. So they've been there, done that, and used their stuff. They're not just selling products they haven't really used and, you know, through a lot of trial and error. So check them out at KentaTrek.com, K-E-N-E-T-R-E-K.com. Great online catalog with all their gear and things like that as well. Or check them out at one of the shows coming up if you're going to be at one of them

and tell them the guys at Epic Outdoors told them to stop by, told you to stop by. And maybe one last mention on Call for Photos and Stories. It's the time of year we're putting together the magazines for each state, so we'd love to see your kill photos, your success, kind of share in that, share with our members for the cover. If you make a cover, you're going to win a pair of 18x56 Kiobab HT binoculars from Vortex, and they're an awesome, awesome glass. So email those in, photos at epicoutdoors.com. You can also submit online if you'd like. Tune in next week for that license application episode. You can hear personally from Jason, Adam, everybody here, what we look for when we're applying in each state. Yeah, we'll be covering our application strategies, and so anyway, we're getting geared up for that. But until then, we're going back to writing the magazine.

Maybe we'll go out to sushi. No?

All right. Appreciate you guys listening. Go to epicoutdoors.com. If you haven't joined up, if you'd like to visit with us, give us a holler, 435-263-0777. So that's one of theiffsiffsiffs that you've got to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do