EP 113: A Banner Year in the Making–with Jay Scott

That is the biggest Nelson Eye Desert Bighorn ever shot in the state of Arizona. Antler growth for deer and elk is all secondary to body maintenance and body condition. Anything to do with Western Big Game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson here with the Epic Outdoors podcast. Coming at you from Cedar City, this will be an interesting podcast. Jay Scott, good friend of ours. He also has a podcast and he hosted this one. Wanted to kind of visit with us and crank through a few things. Talk about Utah as well as the sheep there I killed there in Arizona and whatnot. So anyway, it's kind of a fun episode. He led the discussion and I hope you guys enjoy it. So anyway, from our podcast, we are sponsored by Under Armour. We appreciate them and all the support they give us. Red Rock Precision is a great partner of ours. They produce great custom rifles. I smoked my desert sheep with it this year. It was awesome. Long range rifles, super lightweight, wide variety of calibers, scopes, different things.

Very customized to what you want. Super guys there. Give them a call. It's 801-425-6574. Another great partner of ours is Outdoor Edge. They produce great knives. You might check them out. OutdoorEdge.com or call them at 1-800-447-3343. We do have a custom Epic knife that you can get by purchasing tickets on our website for this last membership drive that we're doing here at Epic Outdoors. You got to get in by February 28th and you can get a custom Outdoor Edge knife with a $200 or $500 ticket package. But anyway, appreciate Outdoor Edge, the quality products that they're producing. Anyway, with that, let's get started. Guys, how you doing? Good. How you doing, Jay? Good, Jay. I'm doing pretty good. I got to see you both at the Western Hunting Expo there in Salt Lake City and your booth, as always, was just a madhouse.

But I was super pumped to go by there and see Jason's big ram that he shot in Arizona. And what's amazing about that ram, and I'm going to ask you guys some questions about it, but what's amazing about that ram is really no photos that I've seen have been able to do that ram justice. But when I actually got to put my hands on it and realized that the bases are 17-1, usually I can go up to a ram and put my fingers around it in a circular motion and they'll touch. And shoot, I was two-inch gap from touching on Jason's big ram. Congratulations to both of you. I know, Jason, you shot it, but obviously Adam was right there with you, and you guys do a lot of hunts together. So congratulations. Oh, we appreciate that, Jay. It is awesome. Basically, I know you're just telling us we're terrible at taking pictures, and that's what I took away from that.

But he doesn't look that great in photos and video. In fact, he didn't look that great in real life, really. Everybody just assumes he looks awesome. And as you know, you need a trained eye for these things, and he's got a shape a lot like our Utah sheep. And, of course, Adam's knocked a lot of those down with his clients and whatnot. So he's better used to looking at them. Neither of us figured he was that good a sheep. But anyway, he got super fortunate. So I sure appreciate that. I mean, it just goes to show on sheep that, you know, mass is everything. I think, Jason, you told me his horns are, I think, 34 and a half, you said. But he's got, you know, 115 inches of mass or so and just carries it throughout the whole horn. Just amazing. Amazing, and it's a perfect example of how mass is in sheep is, you know, 60% of score.

But you take a ram that's, you know, if you say a ram's 34, 34 and a half long, no way you could get him at 184 or whatever. He ended up scoring 185. Gross. But it's just crazy mass. Yeah, he's good. He did. He officialed 184 and like five-eighths and netted 183 and two-eighths and 115 and eighth of that is mass. And so anyway, yeah, just kind of crazy mass is king. And, of course, being a mule deer guy, that's kind of my favorite thing is mass anyway on a mule deer. So it just goes hand in hand. Even when we were on the gun and he's looking at us, he's like, what do you think? And, of course, I think, yeah, it was windy. It was kind of hard to hear. And I said, well, that's him. Kill him. And he didn't hear me say that. And so there was a little bit of an exchange there for probably 60 seconds that I was wondering, is Carter really thinking of not shooting this sheep?

And what I was thinking is I had my earplugs in for, you know, because, I mean, our guns have brakes on them anymore and they freaking blow your eardrums out. But I'm like, why isn't Bronson talking to me? You know, I got my wingman here and he's silent. And I looked at him and I thought I said, dude, what do you think? And it was silent. And I took that to say, I don't know, good luck to you. You know what I mean? You're on your own on this one. Yeah, but I knew it was him. He has a real dark ring on his left side. And you saw that where he kind of wants to, you know, here in a year or two, maybe he'd have sloughed that side off. But he's real dark. You know, it looked like a ring from a distance. And so we knew it was the ram. Like, we knew it was ram, you know. And he just wasn't one of those beautiful, you know, sheep from southern Arizona or anything like that.

Yeah, real twisty or something like that. Fister, twister guy, you know. Yeah. It wasn't that. But it was pretty awesome. So, Adam, you're, I mean, Jason is a self-proclaimed mule deer nut. You are kind of a self-proclaimed sheep nut. Your thoughts, you know, when you guys were evaluating a few of the rams and when you saw this one, don't you think it's hard to kind of plug numbers in at the numbers that he came in at? In other words, when it's so crazy, one-sided, just crazy mass or even crazy length, do you find that when you're trying to evaluate sheep in particular that it's hard to throw a baseline number and go, well, geez, he's, you know, he's seven, eight inches bigger than that mass baseline that we're using? No, absolutely. You know, there was, we've killed a handful, maybe only four. So maybe four rams that I've killed up here in Utah with clients that have had bases over 16,

which that's pretty rare in Utah. There's a couple of units in Utah that we've done that on. And that's kind of like where I put my ceiling. You know, I'm not used to hunting, you know, even though I've been on one hunt down in unit 22, 24B in Arizona, where I know you spent time, Jay, where 16 plus is the norm on the top end rams. I'm not, that's usually the absolute ceiling where I even, my mind even goes on a sheep, desert sheep. And so when, I think it was the day before, I'd seen Jason's video of the ram. He has a very unique shape. He goes up high off the head and drops way far back and low. And I kind of call that like the half a heart, picture a heart from the side. It goes up high and then drops down. It's not a circle. And those rams, I've never been unpleasantly surprised. I've always been like, okay, those sheep are always a little bit better than you think

because they're always a little bit longer. And the tendency sometimes if you have a heavy ram is for that, that mass with that big open curl to be hidden a little bit just because it's got such a big open curl. You see a real tight 50 ram sometimes and a lot of people can get excited and they look beautiful, but they sometimes can get overexcited about what, how big they think a ram like that is with a tight curl that fists around and all that. This ram, of course, didn't look anything like that. But anyway, judging from his video, it was quite a ways away, had a bunch of heat waves, but we knew, I knew that was the shape he was. So when I got a better look at that ram the day before the hunt, I got a lot better look. And especially with the flat light in the evening, I saw enough to know from all angles, which this is the sheep you really had to see from a lot of different angles,

to just know from behind, from head on, how heavy was. I remember Tex and Jason said, this thing is heavy, heavy, heavy. His exact text was heavy as shiz. Yeah. I said, this thing is super, super magnum heavy. And really the only thing Jason was hung up on, you know, it's not like we went down there hunting a number. Whenever you get a sheep tag, you want to maximize it wherever it is. And that's a different max, whether you're in Colorado or you're a California bighorn in Nevada or you got an Arizona desert bighorn. The ceiling or the max is kind of different for where you're at. But you want to max it out. But Jason's really only hang up was, you know, the look, the traditional big look, you know, of what a lot of Arizona desert sheep can have. And I remember talking that night and just saying, hey, you know, he's the biggest thing here. Pretty sure of that. Well, we had seen 90 sheep.

Yeah. A lot around. I figure there's 150 alive and that's just on projections, not what, you know, they actually count. And so we did feel like we had a pretty good handle on what was there. And he stood out. I mean, we had a couple other sheep. There's one in a different spot that we never did get a real good look at. But we had a, he was kind of the one we kept going back to. Adam and I came, you know, kind of scoured that area as much as you could in about three days. And we did cover it pretty dang good and worked our guts out and kind of kept coming back to him, you know, and I'd showed, like Adam said, I'd showed him the video, but it's different when you look at him yourself. And Jay, I showed you a little bit of video of him and you, I mean, same thing I'm sure you thought in your mind is you can't, seeing him on the table and seeing him in the footage is two different things.

Oh, absolutely. Something to note that's, I think, pretty darn cool about that sheep, not only how big he is, but, you know, if you're diving into the numbers and you're being particular and which I am at times just to be historically accurate, that is the biggest Nelson eye desert bighorn ever shot in the state of Arizona. Prior to that, Claude Warren, 2013-14, darn I helped him from Maine and he killed one that was, I think, 185 and three-eighths gross. But he had some chips and I think he only netted like 181 and a half or something. And so your ram. And I think it's pretty cool because, you know, in Boone and Crockett, they don't distinguish between or differentiate between Mexicana and Nelson eye. And so, you know, it's one of those things I always wish there would be a different classification where Nelson and I, Nelson and I would stand alone because they're just, you know, even

your Nevada sheep. I just think comparing some of the Mexicana rams to the Nelson eye is a little bit of, I think, given a little bit of injustice to the Nelson eye. But congratulations again. While we're on that subject, you guys mentioned something that I get a lot. A guy's asking about Dara and I hunting together. You guys have hunted together a long time. In a particular case like this hunt or, say, any other hunt, is it standard protocol that you guys would go and always be going in different directions? Meaning prior to the hunt, you guys are, the way Dara and I are, we're never together until it's time. Are you guys the same? Are you constantly spread out looking? Because I get a lot of questions of guys saying, you know, they're hunting partner and they're hunting together and Dara and I are very rarely ever together until it's actually time to kill something.

I'm just curious your thoughts on that. That was the case here. I think we went down there, that was about five days early. Jason got there actually the night before I did and then I was driving down the next day. But yeah, that was the full intention. It was just to scour the unit as much as we can and inventory. You're inventorying. It was a unit where there's only one other tag holder. So it's not like we're crawling with four, five, six, eight other people on a sheep hunt, which can be the case in Nevada or even 10 or 25 sheep hunters. So yeah, that's absolutely right. And even when we're hunting deer together, which we actually did this year, of course, Jason ended that hunt pretty quick on his own. But yeah, we're going separate ways. It's just you double your efforts. This day and age, we've all got phone scopes and all that so that we can compare that.

That's what dark's for back at the trailer and things like that. Well, on this particular hunt, Jay, like we had a lot going on this year. And to hunt, to look into the summer versus when these hunts don't start until December 1, things can change and move and all of these kind of things. And so we actually just kind of, that was the plan, was to hit it pretty close to when the season started. And so we'd go from scouting right into hunting. And so we had a lot of work to do in about, like Adam said, three, four, five days. In that video, I videoed him like November 28th. And really, that was like the first scouting day of being able to really glass them up. And so anyway, and I know you're a BTX fan, but did glass him up at four miles with the BTXs. And then, of course, had to move in to get video. But yeah, that's, we hit it hard. We had to hit it hard.

And how do you scour a unit that's giant? I mean, you've got to spread out. Adam and I were a little bit together one day when we hit that south end. And even at that, you know, I'd jump on the bike and take off in Adam's glass. And then we just, we split up as much as we can. And, you know, Adam and I have hunted quite a bit together, really. I mean, he was with me when I killed that, you know, 270-inch deer up there in Arizona. And he actually ran by Adam. But we had split up. There was three of us total. And we were, you know, roughly 10 miles each apart, you know, to scour it. And so it's a lot of fun to, you know, be in the truck together and to, you know, sit next to each other in glass. And at times we'll do that, you know, if it's big, big country that you need to be, you know, sitting together in glass. And, but, man, you know, you've got to cover country.

It's all about covering country and covering the numbers. Yeah, for sure. Talk a little bit about, I think another crucial part of covering the, you know, covering the country is how important is it to have a hunting partner that you can rely on? Meaning I know there's situations and times where people have had other guys out. They're like, I see, I saw a giant, it's a monster, you know, and they're not reliable. Talk about, so listeners out there can get some value from trying to choose a hunting partner that, you know, if they see something big. If Dar tells me he sees a giant, I'm going to stay there for as long as it takes to see it. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I think that's critical. And it's something that comes with time too. You know, you don't, usually you don't just marry up and, you know, understand each other.

Even if you're having a guy explain to you where he saw an animal, I mean, you know, it's like we all talk a little bit differently. We all explain things differently. And so, you know, it's just, it's just a matter of time and, and spending a little bit of time together out in the field and whatnot. And so, yeah, I think it's critical. But I think too, nowadays with phone scope and things like that, I mean, if you didn't video it, it didn't happen, you know? And so, you know, I mean, it's really easy. Most, most nearly, I'd say 80% of the time you can come back with video and, and whatnot. And so I think it's, it's critical. It's just, but it's something that's hard to train. It's not like you can say, hey, you know, this is what I want out of my partner. You know, you basically, but you got to have the same drive and focus and, or not, or lack thereof.

I mean, there's a lot of guys that just like to enjoy the hunt and not to stress too much about, and, and, and maybe it's more of a vacation and whatnot. And as long as you find a like-minded hunting partner, you know, then that works. Would you guys describe your hunting style, especially with each other? And, you know, on most hunts, would you describe it as pretty intense? Um, maybe. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you'd say that. I mean, we, we've hunted a lot. We don't maybe hunt as, as much together on all throughout the year as most people would probably think. Part of that is we're, we're pretty aggressive in trying to get a good full hunting schedule for both of ourselves through the draws. Kids and clients. And yeah, me, clients, and Jason, occasionally a deer client.

So, but on the tags and the hunts that, that matter, and I don't, I know all of them matter, but you know, like, like a desert sheep hunt, I wouldn't miss it for anything. And same when, you know, I drew a big deer or elk tag here in Utah and when I drew an Oregon sheep tag and Jason drew his desert sheep, there's some we're just not going to miss. But yeah, I mean, I guess intense. I don't, I don't know if that's the right word and I don't know what the right word is, but we were very serious about making the most of it, especially in a situation like when we know this is a tag that literally Jason's never going to hunt desert sheep in Arizona again, unless he wins the raffle tag or something. You know what I mean? It's it. We want to, we want to overachieve. We're just kind of maybe, that's kind of how we built. We, we call it, we say it all the time.

We want to win the Superbowl and that's kind of the pinnacle in that world. And again, the Superbowl is different wherever you're at. Sometimes, you know, that's a, you know, 195 mule deer in a, in a general season unit in Utah. You know what I mean? It's not a 270 buck on a late, late hunt north of the Colorado River. But yeah, I guess you'd say that, but, but it really just more comes down to a, this is what we just, we just love to do it. And I know that sounds very cliche, but we, we love the challenge of finding the best of something in a unit. That's a challenge that I think we both thrive on. And so it's very easy, even though Jason found a bunch of sheep the first day he got down there, his ram was included in that bunch. A lot of people might've just sat on those for four days and it ended up, we came back hunting there and killing that ram.

But we went a lot of different places and there were some afternoons and evenings. I don't know if we even saw sheep, but we're just, we're just driven. There might be something else here. Let's make sure and make sure when we come December 1st, we know we're doing something we're pretty confident about. That's, I think we talk, we've talked about it in our own podcast. You know, at times is, is we don't just accept the best thing you find it. And, you know, we, we kind of put them in our back pocket, so to speak. And of course, Jay, I mean, there was one other hunter on this hunt. So it's really easy to just, you know, kind of hold those right there. Unless something crazy happens, most likely they'll be there. Or we can relocate them with, you know, within a few days for, I would think, and if not a week for sure, you know. And so it's one of those things we just, we had them.

We knew it. And we just, we spread out and just started crushing the rest of the unit. And it was a numbers game. We kept track of the numbers, what we're seeing, half horn rams, whatever. And, and taking video. And Adam would have it and I would have it. And of course, you're, you drive each other. And you, I'm sure you find that with DARS. There's, I mean, he's not going to allow you to come back and, you know, show him all the video and him not have any video. I mean, he's going to freaking work hard. And that's the way, Adam, we're going to work hard, you know. You rely on each other. And these are tags you want to make the most of. And so you're going to go out. You're going to do the best you can. And you, everybody wants to find the shooter. That's just kind of, it's just part of it. And there's a lot that rides on these. We're talking 20 years of points, a loyalty and a hunter ed.

You got 22 points involved. And you're just going to do everything you can to make it happen. And, yeah. And so, anyway, you invite guys, you know, like Adam and some of these other guys here in our office here at Epic Outdoors. And good friends. There's a couple good friends and brother-in-law and whatnot. You invite guys that feel the same, that would do anything for you. I mean, they'd go 48 hours without eating if they had to. I mean, these guys would do anything, you know, to make sure that the hunt was a success. And that's, we try to surround ourselves with people like that, you know. For sure. I want to shift gears here for a second and talk about Epic Outdoors. Before we dive into Epic Outdoors, please, both of you, kind of give a background on yourselves leading up to the formation of Epic Outdoors.

So that, you know, maybe people that don't listen to your podcast, which if they don't, they're making a mistake. You guys have an awesome podcast. But for those maybe that don't know as much about you guys, each of you take a second to talk a little bit about your background, kind of leading up to the creation of Epic Outdoors. Go ahead, Chase. How long is this podcast going to be, Jude? We haven't even got into what we're going to be talking about. And that's Utah, our home state, and maybe a few other states that we get excited about. But basically, you know, I was born into an environment where my dad was a game warden, and that's all we did. All we did was figure out how to hunt out of state because he had to be in the field checking people's licenses during the seasons. And he loved to hunt. So how are you going to hunt? Well, you're going to find these weird, obscure seasons.

And so, you know, in other states and whatnot, in states nearby that were within driving distance. And so I was born into that. Basically, you know, we had a family business where we built wildlife calls, diaphragms, all kinds of rattling calls, electronic trapping lures, butt grunt calls, things like that. And so it was just something that I was born into. And as I got older, I did graduate from high school, obviously went to college, went into finance. And I guess that's what it took to make me understand that I didn't want to do finance, you know. And so ended up right when I graduated. My dad started another business with the Hunt and Full magazine. And so, you know, he brought it. Basically, I worked full time at Hunt and Full. And we just kind of cranked that out for the next 17 years or so. And so that just kind of started a baseline. Went wild there.

Oh, and in the meantime, Jay, as you can imagine, coming out of college, I mean, you're broke. Let's just face it. You're broke. You're newlywed. Trying to have a family and whatnot. How am I going to be able to put my hands on animals like these, you know, on a very, very modest salary, trying to raise a family and be able to kill big stuff that, you know, like the members are and whatnot, and be able to get out there and experience it. And so I started guiding. And I guided some of the better tags that I could get my hands on. I loved the desert. And I guided in areas that I knew I would be able to hunt myself, you know, if the guiding were to end. And I would actually be able to afford tags on my own and then have enough points to draw them. And so as I did that, you know that Rush Young and some of these different guys and clients that I had,

I mean, he ended up, you know, I guided him to a 434-inch bull here in Utah back in 2003. Same year, he killed a 424 and broken off 10 inches off. But as a bull, I had sheds too. So he killed two monumental bulls in the same year and then guided different governor tags and whatnot in Nevada. But I never really spent a lot of time on the Arizona Strip, and I loved mule deer. And the reason why I did that is so I would be learning places that I would be able to hunt myself. Either I could draw tags on a somewhat of a regular basis, by landowner tags or whatever. And so I did that, and it just kind of helped me get a grasp on it, and I learned a lot from it. I had a lot of, you know, gas money and a business credit card, you know, that was my guiding account and whatnot. And so anyway, I could spend a lot of time in the hills and whatnot.

With that being said, did I read on your website that you've killed 16 or 17 bucks over 200? Yeah, John made me at them up the other day, and I don't like to talk about, I really don't like talking about that much. But yeah, I've killed, I killed 19 now. I mean, that's a, that's a figure for a little while. But, but I did, you know, I killed a few of those in Mexico. Never would be a high fence or anything. So anyway, low fence trenches that were well managed and things like that. That's a phenomenal accomplishment though. I mean, 19 deer over 200 is incredible. I appreciate that, but a lot of it is just, you know, multiple bucks in Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and whatnot. And so in Idaho, but a lot of that is just applying, Jay, and that's what we do for a living. You know, we talk about the Western states, the drawing odds, kill percentages, best units. Research that nonstop.

We're out in the field nonstop. Of course, we deal with a lot of clients and, and, and whatnot. And so we kind of really have a heartbeat and a feel of what's good out there in the units and what's coming on and whatnot. And then we just spend a lot of time. And I got a great wife and she allows me to, to do that and live my dream and whatnot. So anyway, there's a, we could go in on the stories and maybe down the road, we do a few more podcasts on those and whatnot. But, um, real fortunate, uh, just really, that's where I basically have made my living is in the hunting industry. And, uh, while doing that, we brought on Adam Bronson cause he was a well-established in the industry as well. And so I'll let him take over. Like Jason, I had a dad that that's how I got into hunting. That was, uh, I don't know that he knew probably what he was going to create with my brother and I.

Um, you know, we turned out probably hunting a lot more than my dad ever did, but when you're kids and you just see your dad leave and you go hunting and you're too little to go along, that's just all you can wait for is the time you can go. And I just remember those days growing up in southeastern Utah and, you know, over time, as I got, you know, older and went to college, I got a bachelor's and then a master's degree in wildlife management, had an interest in managing wildlife hunting, you know, all things out outdoors. And so after I finished my master's degree, I'd guided a little bit through college years, um, in Utah, as well as a little bit in Colorado, just as a means to help, you know, you know, obviously make a little extra money, but do, do it in the field that you really, really are drawn to.

But I did get hired by the Utah division of wildlife resources as a, as a big game biologist in Southern Utah and spent about five years doing that managing, um, after I did my master's thesis on desert bighorn sheep down on the Kaperowicz unit. That just happened to be the same area, the Canaan and Garfield County areas that I became the wildlife biologist. Just, just all the stars aligned perfectly. Loved that job, loved a lot about it. There was obviously, um, um, some unique parts of, of my job there that gained me some, um, insight, I guess, to, to what I do now for a living. But all the time, like Jason alluded is as I could afford and you could add, start applying for more states, you know, I've been doing this for 20 plus years in the Western states and would add another state or two until you get pretty much to where I'm doing all the ones that I, I thought I should.

And allowed me to, yeah, start picking up some, some good tags, but always had an angle and want to try to hunt. You know, I had to hunt or work a little bit, check stations, CWD, uh, stations and stuff during some of our Utah hunts. So a little bit, but probably to a lesser extent, like Jason and his dad would look to other states because I could go there after my Utah general was over and I didn't have to work roadblocks and things like that anymore. But anyway, just allowed me to hunt, hunt more places than just Utah. And I guess to some extent that's, that's what led Jason and his dad to approach me ultimately about coming to work for him, about being a hunting consultant, researching and writing about Western big game opportunities. And from the perspective of biologists, I guess they, that, that's what I guess initially drew them to me.

And so, yeah, then I worked there from 2006 through about 2012 and, uh, you know, at that point, uh, you know, had a great, you know, consultant, a lot of, a lot of folks just like Jason, a lot of different hunts, applying them on their hunts, uh, taking care of their applications and things like that. And, and, you know, when the writing for me got on the wall just a little bit about, you know, that business was looking like it was going to be sold and whatnot, I decided to, to leave and, and pursue some other things. Part, part of that, uh, even while I worked at, at, at, uh, hunting full, I started guiding clients mainly for sheep and then big mule deer. That's the two, two things that I really enjoy hunting the most. You know, I'd guide hunters on maybe the Henry mountains and then sheep hunters. Obviously, uh, you don't get a hunt.

Most people don't get to hunt sheep enough in their life, or at least I, I didn't think I ever would to, to, to just satisfy that, that want to go hunt sheep and go to the places where sheep live. And so I started guiding sheep hunters there in about 2007 or eight. And, uh, that's become a big part of my annual plans every year. It's turned into something that's frankly a little bit bigger than I anticipated, but it's sure hard to turn them down. It's sure a lot of fun, but you know, over the last five or six years, now Jason and I, and, uh, some of our other crew, John Peterson, Chris Peterson, Jeff, John, and others here put together, uh, our business here, Epic Outdoors, which is a hunting publication geared just to the Western United States, geared to applying in the West, getting tags, knowing how, where, and why. Um, there's a lot, the changes throughout the Western draw process.

And geez, it seems like every year there's some monumental changes these last few years that really come into play on whether, whether you should apply at all, or how you should apply in some of the Western states. And we break it down very thoroughly and try to give readers the research, um, that they need to help make informed decisions. And they can call Jason and I and the others to be able to make those informed decisions. So that, as well as our license application service and those, you know, that's for people that either too busy in life or whatever, and they want to hire somebody to take care of their license applications based on the criteria that they give us. That's what we do every day. That's all we've done for now. I don't know how many years it's been for me, but a lot longer, uh, for Jason, but it's just really what we do.

You know, the guiding supplementary and do it, doing it on the side. Jason's actually doing less and less of that. I'm trying to do less and less of that. It's hard to cut that because once you, you know, leave one job and turn to that as your full-time job, it's hard to shut that back off when you got another full-time job like Epic Outdoors has turned into. So very blessed to be doing what we do for a living. But I think too, Jay, you know, to add on to what Adam's talking about is, I mean, it's allowing him, he's putting his hands on, I mean, next year he'll probably crest a hundred sheep, you know, that he's been guiding and whatnot. And it's just, it's really blessed our lives in many different aspects. We've been able to do a lot of things. We experienced a lot of units. You know, Adam, while he might be super into sheep, he's killed multiple deer over 200 inches as well,

350 plus bulls. You know, he's got three of the four sheep. All he needs is his desert. And basically he's going to, you know, he could have that at any point in time if he was willing to accept a somewhat lesser unit, so to speak, here in Utah. And I got many points built up across the West, you know, and we've killed moose and all kinds of different critters, bison and different things. And so while we have the things that we really like and we really do, and there's nothing better than a 35-inch pipe mass, freaking three or four eye guards on each side, you know, 240-inch monster, we're, you know, obviously applying for all different species and doing our best to, you know, experience everything we can here in the West. Yeah, for sure. I've been admiring you guys and the passion that you put into your work for a long, long time. Okay, so let's get down to it.

If you're going to be an Epic Outdoors subscriber or member, whatever you call it, you're going to get a monthly magazine, as well as I'm seeing here on your website, that you can, if you sign up right now, you're automatically entered into Win a Doll Sheep Hunt, plus there's seven other hunts. Tell me and the listeners a little bit about what it takes to become an Epic Outdoors member. Yeah, our basic service is $100 a year, and that gets you nine issues of the magazine, and that is monthly from December through June. And those are the months that you, frankly, we need to go monthly because that's when the applications start becoming due. We have to have the 2019 current year regulations in our hands or before our eyes to finish writing each state issue. We don't go based on what was going on the year before. We make sure we have the new changes, new units, new dates, new anything,

so that we keep our readers and subscribers up to date on that. And in addition to getting that and the breakdown, which, you know, you can, you know, see through through them in the pages of how we do it with drawing, drawing, kill statistics and all the how, where's and why's, you have the ability with that membership, annual membership, to call and consult with us. You know, bounce ideas off us. How should I use my points for Wyoming elk or Colorado deer or however, whether you're in a position in a state that gives a portion of their tags in the maximum point pool or whether you're just hoping to get lucky. You know, we feel that's what we do all day long is field calls like that to help build personal application strategies for people or give our two cents on how we would use X number of points in a certain state. So that's some of the main features there.

Like I said, we've talked about the license application service, and that's a totally separate service that we offer. A big bulk of and the majority of our members just get the magazine and use the consulting service with Jason and I and the guys to be able to, you know, you go through their application season. But for another subset of people, whether they're busy or whether they maybe don't have the time to do the additional research and pick units for themselves, they can hire us and our license application service team to make sure that we take care of all their hunting applications for all the different states and species that they want us to do. And we get that in time, lean on time, accurately, and in units that reflect their personal goals and weapon preferences and size criteria and all of those things. So those are a couple of the different features.

Like you alluded right now, we do have a promotional running, and it does end February 28th where we do give a doll sheep hunt away to anybody that joins Epic Outdoors. That drawing ends on February 28th, and we'll draw that within just a day or two after that. And in addition to that, you know, we get a lot of requests from guys that want to go on awesome hunts, but maybe they're not in a position to do that. So maybe Jason can jump in and talk a little bit about some of those hunts. Yeah, we do offer six more hunts that you can get in. Either you refer a friend, you can get a free ticket in there, or you can purchase tickets. Anyway, and so we are giving that away. It's a very aggressive drive, so to speak. We've got some of the best hunts on there, whether it be stone sheep, brown bear, mule deer, elk, antelope, lion.

I mean, we've got some of the very best outfitters in the industry that we're working with. And so, anyway, you can get going on that and go to epicoutdoors.com. See everything we do there, Jay, or your listeners, as well as, you know, call us anytime, 435-263-0777. We also have online, we have a hunt planner. We have all kinds of different interactive drawing-ons and maps. And it's just, there's a lot there. I don't really want to make this podcast about everything about that, but we do need to explain a few things, and so appreciate letting us have time to do that. But, anyway, that's about the gist of it, but let's talk about something fun. Let's talk about all this weather and the antler growth that's going to happen. Yeah, you know, it's exciting. I talked to some guys in Arizona today, one in Hebrew. I talked to Daniel Franco. He said they're calling for 24 inches tonight. Come on.

They just got 10 inches on, 8 to 10 inches on Sunday. You know, Flagstaff, I saw some maps. I've talked to someone in Kingman, said, you know, they're expecting 4 to 6, kind of in a little bit higher elevation, even snow right there in town. You know, across the West, it just seems like what a difference between last year where, you know, just mega dry to, you know, even this may be, you know, what, 150% of normal. It feels like just mega moisture. Curious, you guys' thoughts. Let's shift our thoughts here to Utah because the draw deadline's coming up here March 7th. You know, coming off such a dry year last year, what's your anticipation with the moisture levels, you know, as far as the antler growth and what have you, you know, in Utah itself, in your home state? Jay, it's just going to be off the charts, honestly. It's going to, we're expecting great things.

Yeah, I mean, people like to criticize the DWR a little bit and, you know, if they're giving too many tags and this, that, and the other. And it's kind of interesting. I mean, 2017, you know, they couldn't do anything wrong. We had a phenomenal year here in Utah, even on our general, which is not supposed to be managed for trophies, you know, general deer, so to speak. And then all of a sudden we're killing giants, even on our general. In fact, some of the best bucks did come off the general. So, you know, and then we go into 2018 and DWR is the worst people in the world and never knew how to manage a single animal. Yeah, tag numbers didn't change one bit on some units. You know, the Poncegont and Henry Mountains and units like that, and even across southeastern Nevada and the Strip were collectively just terrible.

You know, it was not, and that's what really, you know, indicates that this is a climate. This is a winter moisture, spring moisture related issue because everywhere was bad at once. And I'm a, personally, I'm a fan of no tags. I agree. Let's not give out any tags on Australia's giants. But, you know, that's not realistic. And so, you know, just like Adam said, it's a climate thing. I mean, I'm not saying they're perfect at managing. I'm not saying that. But, man, I went water skiing instead of hunting Nevada. I mean, it was brutal. It was brutal in Arizona. You know that. I mean, it was brutal even in Colorado. We ended up doing good overall, but we worked our freaking guts out. New Mexico, I ate my elk tag, you know, because of all the, you know, so dry. And so, man, I mean, you were excited about Utah.

Yeah, I get it, and we're going to talk about Utah, but we're just freaking excited every day. Yeah. How much guys do you think, you know, you've got holdover bulls, you've got, you know, bulls that, you know, or even bucks that would have been shot, but there was a drought year, so they get another year of age on them. But the question I have for you, and Adam, you may be the best to answer this, but I'm sure, Jason, you have some input. But I've heard stuff like on a drought year, and then if there's a bounce back year that their body goes through some sort of, I don't know what it would be called, change, and actually they can just pour it on after a drought year. I would think it would be two years after a drought year. But talk a little bit about, you know, is there anything within the biology of deer or elk that, you know,

come off of a drought year, add another year of age, and all of a sudden add great moisture, and they could just blow up? I think a lot of it is what you just touched on, and that is, well, first off, antler growth for deer and elk is all secondary to body maintenance and body condition. It's all a secondary feature. When the body gets into great shape and is in good shape coming out of winter and a lot of green, early green up and things like that, and gets back to a more, you know, optimal physical condition, like we all know that deer, to a much greater extent, get a lot more worn down during the winter than elk do, especially in our states like Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, where, you know, southern Utah especially, we don't winter kill deer that often, unlike, you know, the northern states of Wyoming and parts of Colorado even and Idaho, Montana.

So if we're just talking about that, a deer coming out of winter that goes into the winter doing well and also, you know, winters, you know, doesn't have to really, really grind it out just to survive a winter, that's setting himself up for good things. But also then, like we've talked about and going hand in hand with this moisture coming out of winter and spring, when green up and really good green up and sustained green up happens, they can get their body into condition a lot quicker to where they don't have to go all the way through the summer just trying to gain the ground back that they lost for the last 6 or 12 months. And so when they have to do that, antler is, again, secondary, and so that's going to suffer. But for this year, I mean, I wouldn't say, I mean, we had a lot of rain going into this last fall too,

which I think is definitely worth noting because even though antler growing for these deer and elk are done by August, you know, early September for the most part, it rained like crazy in southern Utah and parts of Nevada and even parts of Arizona going into the fall. So I think that's going to lead these animals, giving that head start that I talked about. And then as long as, you know, like I said, it's very hard to winter kill deer, but as long as we can have a normal, you know, thaw, green up and all that, I don't see how these animals are not going to have what they need. And the other thing that you touched on is they have one more year of age, so their body condition is in good shape. And they're a year older, more in that prime slot, if you will, that five- to eight-year-old age slot for deer, that's just, that's when they're primed to make a leap.

And if you have all those things line up, and last year was an off year, and their body maintenance is really taken care of, watch out. You can see a big jump in that year. Like Adam was talking about, Jane, you'll remember this, but we even had rain on my desert sheep hunt there at the first part of December. And it's just crazy, the weather, like Adam's talking about with that leap of age. You know, if you take, you know, 2017, if you have a 200-incher, and he hits the drought, legitimately could be in the 170s, maybe 180. And then, let's say on a good unit, you know, guys might pass that. And then all of a sudden you can jump back. That's how you get those leaps from 170 to 220. Well, really, he's a 200-inch deer in the making. He was in 2017. With good weather, he'd maybe been 205, 210 in 2018. And so, while he made a huge leap, even a 50-inch leap, 170s to 220s,

really it's not that much of a leap in one year. It's really not that. He did gain a year of age because people maybe have passed him where they wouldn't have otherwise passed him up. Yeah, it makes total sense. Guys, I want to take a quick break here and thank the sponsors of the podcast. That's KUIU.com. That's K-U-I-U.com. That's KUIU Ultralight Hunting Gear. That's the gear that I wear on all my hunts. I want to thank them for their sponsorship. I also want to thank Phonescope.com. Use the J. Scott 19 promo code. You're going to get a 10% discount. Did you guys take, both of you take Swig's a monster while I was giving my spiel? Jason.

You drank yours too? I actually did a pink monster for you, Jay, today. Adam's got a white one. I went with pink just for this afternoon. We had a white one this morning. Nice. If you guys ever wonder what's in that stuff, just take a nail and put it in there and come back the next day and then shake the nail out and see what it looks like and it'll give you an indication of what your insides look like. I thought you were going to tell me put the nail in the can and open it up the next day and it's going to be dissolved in there. I wouldn't say that. It very well could be. Good thing we get rid of it every day, you know? That's right. No, it's not good to drink these, but we have been here since 3 this morning. You know, we write this thing and then you can't write in the middle of the day when the phones are ringing. You've got to answer the phone.

So, anyway, we're doing the best we can. Hopefully hunting season, scouting season comes soon because our bodies need it. Yeah, for sure. Guys, we do have Utah coming up. I believe March 7th is the deadline. You know, specifically I want to ask you guys some questions. I'm going to put each one of you on the spot. From an elk standpoint, if you, and your answers may be different, but if you had to pick your top three elk units in that, where you think the three biggest bulls in Utah would come out of, which, you know, what three units, in your opinion, when it's all said and done, if you guys had a $5 bet, which three units do you think the biggest bulls, the three biggest bulls will come out of? I would say. That's really putting us on the spot here. I know that we'd agree on two of them, at least I believe we would, and that's the beaver and the plateau boulder.

That's just been proven, especially in recent times. You know, collectively, Utah's increased the tag numbers in Utah over the last six or eight years, and as a result, we aren't killing as many 380 to 400-inch-plus bulls as we were 10, 12 years ago. That's just a fact. Having said that, we've got a lot of great elk hunting. The fact that we hunt elk in the rut in Utah on our limited entry units with the muzzleloader and rifle in the peak of the rut just limits the amount of tags that you can give if you want to maintain a certain age structure. But those are the two, I mean, I'm very fond of San Juan. It's probably been one of the most famed units in Utah for a lot of years. Last year was a very, very tough year, the worst, frankly, I maybe have ever seen in my life on that unit.

Even though they did kill a couple of big bulls, there's no question the number of 350 to 380 bulls were way, way down. I don't think that that's, I think a lot of that was drought-related. However, I don't think it's as good as it once was either, and I think those top two that I said would be my picks. Yeah, no question. Those are, they are the best, and that boulder's nasty to hunt and thick and just incredible genetics and mass. And those bulls that, you know, you can see them crazy front ends and end in broomsticks, you know. They just, I mean, some of those, some of those brow tines, Jay, and you've seen them, are as big as most bulls' main beams. I mean, it just feels that way. I know they're not necessarily, but they're pretty incredible. And I know you hunted the beaver and whatnot. Phenomenal.

It is, you know, but at the same time, just because you have that tag, those are two of the toughest units in our state to hunt. Doesn't really just entitle you to a giant. And however it did, they do harbor, you know, some of the best bulls in our state. I think some of the timber, yeah, some of the timber, it's got a refuge built into itself. It's very vast, very thick in parts. Of course, the beaver's been opened up by some recent burns, but the beaver's more of a product, in my opinion, than just low, low tags. No tags. You've got less than 10 archery tags, six or seven. You've got three or four muzzleloader tags and like 10 rifle tags. And our archery dates are terrible, Jay, and you know that. I know. And the muzzleloader season in Utah is by far their best season. It just is. The rifle hunts, they do smoke a few. You'll see a couple of giants on the archery. It happens.

That muzzleloader season's been dang good for the rut. And then as far as a couple of secondaries, like there was a 420-incher killed on Southwest Desert last year. A lot of people don't know about him. He came out of Nevada. He was trail cammed in Nevada. Come to rut in Utah, and he got smoked. And so that's always, we've killed a big, big bull there years and years ago. It's not necessarily managed as well as I think it should be. However, with a year like this, I mean, we're looking at snow, Jay. We've got snow today. Snow the last few days. We're talking the end of February. It's been some of our coldest temperatures. It's just set up to produce another couple of bulls like that. And then we've got, of course, Dutton and Panguitch Lake. If you look at those, you'll notice the trend in tags. The tag numbers, overall tag numbers have been coming down, been very conservatively managed.

Panguitch has got a new burn on there. Watch out. Things like that that we're super excited about that are maybe slightly under the radar, you know? And so, anyway. Guys, I do have to ask you what the heck is up with the spike tags? Because it just, I just beat my head against the wall thinking how, from a biological standpoint, thinking of shooting one-year-old bulls is a good idea. Now, that's my opinion. That's not the Epic Outdoors opinion. It's pretty much our opinion. What's yours? You know, growing up, and Jason was like this, you know, like the LaSalle Mountains where Jason and I actually both started hunting, that was an any bull unit, as was the Plateau Boulder was an any bull unit. The Mount Dutton was an any bull unit. Back when we were young kids, and even not so young a kid, you know, in our 20s, they were literally any bull.

The boulder was unlimited tags, go hunt it every year. The mindset changed in Utah with a lot of other units in the state, like San Juan and others as transplants and elk started spreading throughout the state, that, all right, we've got a booming elk resource. You know, that mentality of limited tags, hunt every day in September, has just been in Utah from the start. But for the people that needed to have something replace some of those old general season hunts, this is what was thrown out on the table, and it's frankly what's stuck. There are some limited, or some general season any bull units, most of them in Utah, like Zion, Nine Mile, or the northern Utah units have a lot of private land, where you naturally assume that because the landowners don't tolerate it, you're going to crush the elk. But the public land units down south, the spike-only hunting is what was the bone, I guess.

Throw the bone to the people that just want to hunt elk every year. And there's no question that that's gone on. I mean, you don't recruit the number of bulls that you do in a normal herd, like in Arizona. Well, and I think, Jay, like there in Arizona, you have those late seasons with unbelievable numbers of tags. And they're not so vulnerable at that point in time, but at the same time, it allows Arizona to generate some revenue and allow some people some opportunity. Same thing with New Mexico. You know, they have five-day seasons. They don't let them hunt in the middle of the rut with a rifle in most cases. And there's some cases where they're allowing that very, very limited number in just a few cases. And so anyway, here we go in Utah. You know, this is their answer to provide an opportunity. Let's bounce over to mule deer real fast.

Obviously, the Henrys get all kinds of attention and the Poncegont has gone through its cycle. But everything I'm hearing, the Poncegont has just really, really bounced back and had an incredible year, I believe in 17. But then obviously last year in 18 was just horrific as far as antler growth. But 17 was ridiculous. Is there a chance that the Poncegont will surpass the Henrys, whether it be this year or in the future years? Just curious if, you know, you believe the Poncegont come back with a vengeance and could actually be, you know, if I were going to give both of you a tag, is there ever a point where you'd say, give me a Poncegont tag over Henrys? Yeah, I think you're about there to some extent. There's a few reasons that I think allow the Poncegont to be what it is. It does have a lot more deer. It has actually better genetics.

It's got the Poncegont and Kaibab are the best genetics in the world. They're second to none. And so the Henrys was a general season unit forever, you know, growing up in our younger years. I didn't grow up hunting it as a general unit. Jason, I don't think, did either. But it was just... Henrys was too far from anywhere. Yeah, it was out in the middle of nowhere. It's a drier mountain range and it couldn't sustain unlimited general season hunting. And so they closed it down. And they actually closed the Poncegont down. They closed the book cliffs down. That's how we got all our limited entry units is they were all units that were prone to heavy overharvest. And that's how they were created. Imagine closing a unit this day and age, Jay. Yeah. Would it ever happen? I mean, we had zero hunting. San Juan, zero hunting. Elk Ridge. Yeah. You look at Oak Creek. You look at...

I mean, lots of these units have gone through weird changes. Oak Creek probably isn't the best example, but it went from a general to a limited entry. But book cliffs, you look at Henrys, Poncegont, San Juan, Elk Ridge. They were all... Carve them off the general, shut them down for five or six years. And when they opened, they were incredible. And have been under the limited entry strategy ever since. So back to the Henrys. It just doesn't... I mean, it's a phenomenal place. It personally fits my hunting style better than the Poncegont. I'm a... I love to glass. I love to, you know, glass with big eyes or 15s and hunt a specific deer under spot and stock. That's what I like to do. Whether it's with a bow, muzzleloader, or the rifle. I just like that. The Poncegont is not as good for that. It's more of a plateau, thick vegetation. I'm not, you know, this day and age, you know, like...

I'm not one that likes to... Or does bait and things like that that you can do in Utah legally. It just doesn't fit my style. I don't like to do it. And the glassing is not as good there collectively. There's some places on it, but it just doesn't fit it. So there's reasons, I think, that Poncegont, that it's harder to always kill the biggest deer on them. That's why sometimes they just show up on the rifle hunt and people smoke them and they don't really know. I mean, they're known, but sometimes deer just show up at a certain place at a certain time of year and they get smoked. The Henry's just feels like the cream can get skimmed every year almost. And Jay, these deer on the Henry's, I mean, people have learned how to hunt them. They hunt them with teams, you know. There's very high stakes when you have... I'm not just talking about conservation tags or landowner tags.

I'm talking about draw hunters. When you have to spend 20 plus years to get a tag, generally you're going to have a team with you or you're going to hire somebody that's good at killing them or a team of hunters that are good at killing them. And so there's been so much pressure that when these bucks are hitting four and a half or five and a half years old, you know, they're getting smoked on a normal weather pattern. Now on a drought year, I kind of enjoy it because, you know, they might get passed over. And now you're going to see the Henry's do well this year. You are. There's a little bit older age class there now because people, you know, went without last year and whatnot. And same thing with the Ponsagon. I would say it's fair to say in 2017, Ponsagon produced more big deer than the Henry's and was our number one unit.

And so, you know, while you can manage for them, but if you can glass them and kill them and they are and they're given a number of tags, they're doing it. And we've also had this management tag in place, you know, where guys, it was set up to kill these old three bys, you know, three by eight or whatever, 35 inches that maybe the trophy hunters, 32, 30, whatever the trophy hunters might look over because they were three point on one side. And well, it's been in place long enough that now they're shooting young three by fours or whatever, three by fives or whatever they can to make that happen. And that's taking a toll. We're seeing that take a little bit of a toll. Well, that's been about 30 tags of those a year on the Henry's. They split them up on different weapon types now. But I firmly believe in anybody, any person that spends a lot of time on the Henry's will

flat out tell you there's not as many bucks as there used to be. So it's, it's a unit that doesn't produce, uh, and, and respond with a prolific deer recruitment because it's in a drier, uh, part of the world and part of Utah. So it can't just, just grow one number, unlimited numbers of deer. The Poncegont can flat out crank out deer, just sheer numbers. Um, so the Henry's can't respond as fast. And so it's got a lower population base. You're more effective in killing the older deer. When they get to that age, they're a higher percentage of them are getting killed. And then you add these deer that are probably getting shot before they're really a true management hunt. I just really think that 30 extra bucks a year on that is, is long overdue to shut that down until you maybe need that and then add it back.

Bring it back here and there, you know, to kind of keep, keep those kind of bucks in check. But you know, one, one unit, Jay, that, uh, has been doing really good as the Oak Creek's here in Utah. And I'm not saying it's going to be good forever. I'm not, I'm not saying anything like that, but it's a tough one to hunt. You're not going to use bait as much. You're not going to trail camera it as much. You're not, it's harder. You're going to have to use boot leather to figure it out. And so it's just one of those by nature, you know, has some older deer in it right now. It's got a great burn. It provides great feed. And, uh, you know, last year it was our number one producer. It was. Guys, I want to take a quick second here and I'm going to put you on the spot and you don't know this is coming, but it's going to be fun to kind of put you on the spot and kind

of have a little bit of fun with it. Um, I've, I've got a handful of questions here that I'm going to ask you, and this will give a chance for the listeners to kind of, um, you know, we've been talking and you guys obviously are passionate about everything you do, but this is a little bit of a fun twist here. Which one of you is more apt to needle one or the other? Is there one of you that has an ornery streak that is, uh, would, would definitely be saying that it's a jokester and, and playing pranks on the other one. I think it's pretty even, uh, there's been, there's been a couple of times we, we joke a lot. And, uh, this time of year, I guess it's maybe just helps us get through some of our long days, but we're, I think we're pretty even when that, I don't think we each, well, we've both, we've had our moments, I guess, and gotten frustrated and upset at each other as

anybody would do to work together. Those times are very, very rare. We're usually very lighthearted and, uh, whatnot. So I got to say like we're, you know, literally it's, it's 3am to maybe six or seven at night. And so you do, and, and Adam's eye and I's office are right next to each other. Windows are open. In fact, we've got a very open fluid office here. So, so everybody's learning from each other and whatnot. And we, our, our jobs mirror each other. And so when I'm gone, he takes the slack when he's gone, you know, I take the slack. And so, um, we just rely on each other pretty heavily. Um, besides, you know, Jeff here in the office and whatnot, we do keep it light Jay. Like we laugh a lot, but I'm not, some of it's because we're freaking tired.

Here's another question. Have either one of you been known to shoot your bow inside the office? No, no, no, no, no, no, we don't, no, we don't, man. And maybe there's some guys that are kind of into that and it just kind of keeps them loose and going and maybe, uh, consistent, but no, we don't, we don't do that. Okay. Which one of you is more apt to get hot under the collar in, in a situation? Let's, let's call it a situation, just an exterior situation, not a business situation, but which one of you is more apt to be calm, cool and collected. And which one of you is more apt to, to get a little hot. Well, I, I feel like I get, I get frustrated, but I think we're both good at holding it in until we let it loose. I can tell when Adam, when it's about to blow. Yeah. And when he does blow, he doesn't blow, but he will, he's got a crushing, serious, crushing, calmly crush you.

And even say not a screamer or anything like that. Whereas sometimes I might come uncorked a little bit. I don't know. Go ahead, Bronson. Yeah. I mean, I, once again, I think it takes quite a bit for us to get to that point. I wouldn't say either one of us would be a, you know, a hot tempered individual by nature. Uh, we don't, uh, won't walk around with, you know, a temper on our sleeve, so to speak. But yeah, when we do get pushed for whatever reason, it's usually nothing in the office. It's usually something different, whether it be a, you know, something what, even outside of work related, I think we're both probably somewhat similar than that. But when we, you know, our wives might be, we did have to do a podcast with our wives and, uh, they might be the best ones to answer that question at some point. That was the best podcast of all time.

I have to say that having the two wives on there was, that was an unbelievable. If anybody has not listened to that podcast, uh, I highly recommend it. I laughed. I actually, my wife, I made her listen to it and she just laughed. I'm like, see, you're not the only woman out there that deals with, you know, Neanderthals. Oh, yeah. You know, it was 10 years ago. It wouldn't have been so funny. And right when we were in the heat of battle, but we've all grown up a little bit. Now we can laugh and joke a little bit and they are our biggest fans. They, they support us. Lucky wives. That's for sure. Lucky dudes. Guys, it's been, it's been awesome. Uh, spending an hour here with you guys, uh, highly recommend my listeners out there. If you don't listen to the Epic Outdoors podcast, do so. Uh, guys want to give you guys a chance to just any concluding thoughts, uh, any, anything

else that you feel like we left out, um, go ahead and, um, spill that out now. And, uh, it's always great, uh, chatting with both of you. Well, I don't necessarily want to pump our business anymore, Jay, necessarily. I think, uh, and I appreciate you having us on. Uh, we think highly of, of your podcast. And of course you have a lot of great guests on as well. I just, uh, but I think overall is developing a strategy is key to hunting the West is short term, midterm, longterm strategies. We help guys do that every day. That's what we do. That's all we do. Uh, it's our, it's our entire life, our hobby, job, our love, everything about it. And so anyway, anybody that wants to feel free to give us a holler. We'd love to visit with you. And I think like years like this, um, these are the years you wish you had lots of points.

I mean, these are the kind of years, this is going to be a 2011 or a 2016. Um, it's going to be unbelievable. It can't be bad. Although I get it. We can turn off dry and everything. We're dang near March. Things are 200 plus percent in some places, some of these key places. Um, of course the guys in Wyoming are nervous. Everybody's nervous and we're all watching what's going on up there. But, um, you know, things are just looking great when, when there's water, everything's happy. And, uh, I think we're going to see great things, deer, elk, you know, antelope, just animals in general. It just, uh, everything's going to be awesome. We're going to be super busy and, uh, our schedules are going to be full. So I echo that Jay, a couple of things I might add in addition to developing and sticking to an application strategy is, is to realize wherever you are on that spectrum, whether

you're a new, new guy to the application game or whether you're somebody that's been doing it for 20 years, go, go hunting, use your points. Um, Jason and I both talked a little bit about that in, uh, in our Epic Outdoors magazine and in our columns the last couple of months that we feel that far too many people are hoarding points for almost the sole reason of just hoarding points. And they're so scared to use them somewhere and put them on the line and get out there, whether it be, they think they're going to fail or they got to have everything perfectly right from moisture to moon phase to, you know, season dates and everything perfect. And we all know there's a lot of variables in hunting. There's a lot, but there's a lot also, um, to be said that you can, that you can learn. And there's a lot of things that you can actually make out of sometimes nothing by just being

out in the field. Stuff just falls in your lap. It can't fall in your lap when you're sitting at home wishing you to burn points. So, uh, use your points, have a strategy, but also go hunting. That's what we're doing it for. This isn't a portfolio like a retirement portfolio that we get to spend later when we're older. When we're older, it's too late to use these points. Don't be scared to fail. I think that's the biggest thing is, uh, just don't be scared to fail. Nobody, if you eat tags, there's nobody out there that's ate more tags than I have. There's nobody out there. And it's not a competition. And contrary to what you might see or believe after looking at social media, hunting is not really a competition. It's about achieving your goals that you want and yeah, go down swinging, hunt your guts out.

Uh, we eat a lot of tags, you know, not as many on the once in a lifetime spectrum, like desert sheep and things like that, but mule deer tags, uh, especially, uh, things like that, that you have to take opportunity hunts, whether it be in Idaho or Utah general or wild card places in New Mexico that don't have points. You got to just every once in a while, Jason's killed some of his better deer on stuff where you would, nobody would think you'd kill the deer that he has just because he's out there. And so that's what we're talking about, uh, to everybody's vacation time away from home, all that is different. So I'm not trying to tell you to hunt 30 or 45 days a year. That's what you should do. And everybody do it. We all have, uh, responsibilities, jobs, wives, families, things like that. But to the extent that you can go hunting, don't hoard your points, use them.

I think even dry years like last year, you know, we ground out some crazy hunts and we ate a lot of tags and it got old and there at the end, um, Adam and I both hunted Colorado, uh, to actually a hunt together. They're both had tags, had a great time. And I got there middle of the hunt. We had never been there before. I did have a buddy that kind of outlined that some, you know, the more popular winter range type spots and whatnot to go check out. And, um, and so I did. And that day I smoked a 200 inch, you know, 206 buck and, and I didn't necessarily, I was nervous to let the hunt in so quick because I just knew it was going to get better. Generally that happens. And, and then, uh, we grounded out for Adam to the last minute of the last day and we just didn't find another great buck. But I guess my point of it is, is like Adam said, you just never know when it's going to happen.

I didn't pre-scout that deer. I didn't, I killed him the first day I was in the unit that I've never spent time in before. And, and so you got to be in the field to allow that to happen. And the rest of the tags, we've worked our guts out. Some of the tags we put 20 plus days in and, and went ahead and ate them. And so anyway, you just never know what's going to happen, but you got to be in the field and, uh, it's not a big deal. You gotta, you gotta learn how to just take that chance and the leap of faith. There's a lot of guys that are scared to go to other States they're not familiar with and, and don't be, we can help you with that. Guys. Awesome job. Uh, like I said, I always admire the work you guys put in and the passion you put in. Uh, God bless you both. Uh, to my listeners out there, if you want to reach out, if you've got questions, comments,

you can reach me at jscoutoutdoors at gmail.com. You can also direct message me on Instagram, uh, at jscoutoutdoors, uh, epic outdoors guys, uh, Jason and Adam. Thanks and, uh, keep up the great work. Okay. Appreciate it, Jay. Thanks a lot for having us on. Thanks Jay. Appreciate you. Thanks. Thank you.