EP 121: Applying for Wyoming, Idaho, Iowa, Washington.

It's not good management to just give unlimited over-the-counter tags. On the barometer of trophy deer states and your expectations, it should be lower than those other states, but having said that, go more often. 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. Southern Utah, rainy Southern Utah. It's raining good. Spring and summer is never going to come. Anyway, Chris is making this podcast today. We've been locked in a dungeon for about the last two weeks straight. Pretty much since December. Cranking out two magazines in the last 10 days, 14 days. But it feels good. The Day of Liberation is here. Which is today. Got them done. At the printer with the second one. But what are we going to talk about today? Talk about Under Armour. Let's thank them for a sec. Anyway, we appreciate Under Armour for all that they do for us and sponsoring this podcast and about everything we do with them. So they're an awesome partner of ours. We appreciate them. They believe in us. They believed in us from the beginning.

Much like many of our sponsors that are in the publication. Speaking about the publication, this is coming up on one of the last monthlies. We do monthly December through June. Like Adam said, the June issue is headed to the printer. And then after that, we're bi-monthly because we're in the field. We're going to be scouting heavy. Adam and I are going to be putting out trail cameras heavy. He's got a lot on the docket and a lot on our agenda to get things going. But that's what we're here for. So we plan, plan, plan, apply, apply, apply, and then hopefully got tags to do something about. That's right. That's right. We're apply, apply, apply. Adam, I think I heard you ordering another rifle today. Well, yeah. It's just about done, actually. If it's that time of year, you think you want to upgrade and get a custom rifle, give the guys at Red Rock Precision a call. I've got a gun.

My brother and I both have them. And I'm actually having the sheep rifle built because I end up having a lot of clients every year that we end up using our guns on, which is totally fine. Love doing that. But a lot of times I end up wanting to have a little bit lighter setup there where shooting, you know, 800 to 1,000 yards isn't as important because we rarely do that on a sheep hunt, if ever. And unless a ram's got a bullet in it or something like that, and you're going to, you know, try to put it down. But go to redrockprecision.com. Great outfit. We've known them for years. They've been with us since the inception here at Epic Outdoors. They've got a variety of options from carbon light, ultralight sheep rifles to regular mountain rifles, different scope setups, all the different calibers, and they take you to the course, shoot your gun there on site.

So great setup, redrockprecision.com. If you're looking for a new long-range or western hunting big-game rifle. This particular podcast, we're going to talk about the May issue of the Epic Outdoors, Western Hunting Magazine. Of course, guys have had it online for many days now. That comes out online about 10 days before you get it in the mail. Once you get it in the mail, of course, it's kind of nice to be able to turn the pages and try to figure out your schedules. And so, anyway, the May issue did cover Wyoming, deer and antelope. They have a different application deadline for deer and antelope. And so, even though you could have applied several months ago, we cover it. Some people do. It's interesting how many people apply back in January. People are asking us, hey, what about this unit? And we're like, we're waiting for the winter kill to figure out what's going on up there.

But overall, not too much, except for extreme southwestern Wyoming, from, let's say, Cammerer to Evanston south in that corner. That's where it seems to be the most severe in terms of winter. Snow, most of the region G&H stuff, realizing a lot of those deer drift that far south. But most of the stuff from Labarge to Big Piney north have had a normal winter. Yeah, it's cold. Yeah, it's been snowy. But those deer are, they're born and bred for that. Nothing out of the ordinary. We don't expect too much. So, green light. I don't think there's many places. I think even some of the region K deer might probably suffer more than the region G, just because that's right where you're talking. That's right. Right in there. Yep, northern Utah. Northern Utah got hit. Idaho Falls and some of that country in Idaho. And then, of course, little parts of Wyoming there on the southern border.

So, anyway, we're pretty excited. We do cover Idaho deer, elk, and antelope, Iowa, Washington sheep, goat, and moose. We're going to be talking about that in this podcast. Try to not make it super boring. Man, we hate these podcasts, but they are informative. And we just got done writing them, so we're right in the middle of kind of having it on the top of our minds. We're applying ourselves, applying lots and lots of hunters. And so, anyway, it's just that time of year. I think what you mean, maybe, if I can put words in your mouth. Wow. About. Really, it's just a one-liner. No. Come on. No. You just said we hate these podcasts. We love them, but when we have a podcast like this where we're actually going through the magazine, we've actually been grinding and literally been looking at nothing but this for the last two weeks as we were massaging, plugging them, playing on this.

You're over there researching. You're over there researching. You find something exciting about antelope. That's you. I have to fully engage. Stop what I'm doing with sheep. Fully engage on some obscure antelope in the middle of Wyoming or some other crazy place. And vice versa. So, I'm in the middle of some coos deer or something or other in Arizona, and I get Adam to fully engage on something I'm super excited about that's 100% draw for the last 14 years. And offers a chance at killing a monster. So, anyway, we are excited about some of these things where we get researching them, and pretty soon we're plugging them, playing. And, anyway, we do want to thank Tim Albrecht. You'll find him on the cover of this May magazine. It's a freaking monster coming from, no less, Wyoming. And we say it. You know, Wyoming's not one of the premier mule deer states, however, with the genetics

and just flat sheer numbers of deer and escapement, high elevation, some of that nasty wilderness country, you're going to get some of these bucks that make it through. This buck was in our booth at the Expo up there in Salt Lake this year. That's right. And when you say Wyoming is not known for as many giant mule deer, it's not that it's not capable. It's as capable as any western state. It just feels that Wyoming, the way they manage their deer is mainly for an opportunity standpoint. And a lot of the limited quota deer units that they actually have, have had to have been carved out of their general season units because they get crushed and overhunted when they're general season. And so, they have to pull them out and have them just be a limited quota hunt. It's not that it's not capable. And some awesome deer can come from there.

But ironically, they come from, the highest percentage come from regions G and H, for instance, in the general season areas where residents can buy tags over the counter. Walmart and non-residents, I'm not going to say they're easy to draw, but they're not that difficult comparatively to what you might label as a better trophy unit in some other state. Yeah, six years. Yeah. It is getting a little bit crazy. We're talking about G and H, but G especially. It's just, you know, it's taking six points, five to six points depending on the special and regular. As we jump into that, the special and regular license fee, it does put you in a separate drawing. 40% of the tags are allocated in the special fee, guys that are willing to pay $677. And then the regular would have the remaining 60% balance at $389. Same thing, same principle with antelope.

So study the tables, you know, sometimes it's very clear that it's repeatedly better to pay the special price license. What normally we see on that is where the tag quotas are high enough, generally the special will always be a little bit easier to draw. But when you get low tag quotas, it's very volatile on, let's say, five or 10 people switching every year back and forth with max points. It can totally sway the odds. So there's no absolutes to that, but on general season tags, you almost will always see the special be a little bit better odds. It does. Because the quotas are higher. They can absorb any crossover year to year. Limited entry, you get 50 tags or something. It's just a crapshoot flip a coin. And if it's up to, if you guess right, you might have better odds. If not, you won't. One also thing to keep in mind, and this comes into play on some of the deer, as it did on

elk earlier on. And some units don't have high enough tag quotas to give tags in random, in the random draw. You know, unit 130 comes to mind. Well, a lot of these states will issue random draw tags before the preference tags, let's call them. And this is not one of those cases. Yeah. They'll go into preference first. That's right. And so there's not very many deer. 130, you know, maybe 101. But when it says no tag, maybe 105 occasionally as well, because they're going to propose cut tags there this year. And one, you know, maybe 119. If you see no tag, it means that they do the preference point draw first. They give some tags in the special and regular in the preference point draw. And there's no tags for the random. Like Jason said, Arizona, other states, Utah, where the first tag issued is a random draw tag. That's not the case there. So be aware of that. Apply.

Don't just swing for the fence, think you got a chance, because you might just be loaning them $400 to $700 for no reason with no chance to draw. So, yeah, we definitely apply in Wyoming, deer and antelope both. You just never know what's going to come available. You know, there's things that I'm looking at that, you know, take a lot less points than the points that I have. But it also allows me to jump in with my kids and point average. And they go to the decimal point. And they issue tags based on the highest number of points. Point. 2.3 would take preference over guys with 2.1 points, for example. So, anyway, you just never know who's going to be jumping in your group. Get all the points you can. It gives you opportunities down the road. And Wyoming deer, elk and antelope especially, we're huge advocates of gaining points. However, we're kind of hard on the state.

We feel like they're underachieving as far as quality. Not that we're just talking about trophy. We're talking about having a good number of mature bucks within a population. Antelope, they seem to be doing good. So, I guess, you know, I kind of there for a minute just lump them together. But we're really passionate about mule deer. And we have a problem when a state knows, knowingly knows, that it's not good management to just give unlimited over-the-counter tags. It's not good management. I did have a resident light me up. And we had a good, healthy discussion. And it was a good discussion. And basically, you know, he was somewhat offended saying, well, if it's not so good, why does it take you non-resident six points to come up here and hunt our state in Region G, for example? And I said, well, yeah, because there are a few bucks that escape. And people do like the high country.

And it is one of those experiences. And it is a chance. There is a chance because of the terrain that there might be an older buck or two. But is it properly managed? And what would be your answer? Yeah, they don't even know how many people hunt those areas. So if you don't know how many people are hunting it, how can you know whether that's too many or not enough or whatever? And let's say we have a monumental die-off, okay? 2016, 17, whatever. And you continue the next year giving over-the-counter tags. Is that proper management? Well, they did that. And then they cut the non-resident quota by a couple hundred each when they were selling, you know, thousands of resident tags. So, yeah. What do you say? Yeah, what do you say? What do you say? So that's our point. That's our point. The residents will not allow for what we would consider proper management.

It's not that we're just after the giantest things in the world. However, it wouldn't be nice to go back to the days of Popeye and some of these giants that are known to have roamed Wyoming. And that could happen easily with a few years of limited tag quotas. But the residents want to hunt. I get it. You know, we don't like non-residents tell us how to run our state. We're not going to tell you how to run your state. We do write this magazine from a non-resident perspective. Is it worth your money to apply? And so we, you know, we have it. We feel like we're vested financially. We're giving Wyoming $30 a point for antelope, $40 a point for deer, $50 a point for elk. And so you feel like you're vested. We're funding the state. So we do have an opinion. But it's from a non-resident perspective. And our magazine is published from a non-resident perspective.

From a deer perspective, I think, and what we just talked about factored in, you need to be prepared in Wyoming to not have, even if you have maximum points, that doesn't mean what it does in Utah or Arizona or Nevada with 20-plus points or, you know, Colorado with 20-plus points. You're not, you don't have something guaranteed on the shelf that you're going to go hunt a 190, 200-inch deer when you draw that, burn your points. You don't. And so. Case in point, you had a tag. Yeah. A couple years ago, only because I could see that there was nothing rising to the top. And my Septembers are very busy with what I normally have going hunting-wise, maybe guiding sheep-wise. And so I just wasn't able to go. I should have been hunting G as often as I could or H. I've been to H before, but I wasn't.

And so I just, I put in for that late hunt 128 in the rut only because I could do the hunt if I drew it, not because I thought that's the best place for me to kill a giant buck. I ended up killing a really nice buck, but probably not any different as if I'd have really sunk my teeth into G or H for seven to 10 days. Oh, you might have killed a better deer. That's right. So the point is, Wyoming, on the barometer of trophy deer states and your expectations, it should be lower than those other states. But having said that, go more often. It's a state we believe in going a little bit more often and hunting either a general season area. If you have a bunch of points, it makes sense to maybe use them on a limited quota hunt once, but then go back often. That's how you're going to bring home a 180 to 200-inch deer a few times in your life.

You're not going to save a limited quota hunt points unless you're getting real lucky. I mean, there's a few limited quota hunts in the state that you can get lucky and kill a big deer. But by general, you're going to do as good on the general hunts, namely in western Wyoming, as anywhere else. I think especially when we're talking about some of these things, Adam, we have outfitters that we book hunts for. So if you guys are out there looking to go, you know, give us a holler. That's what Jeff does here in the office full time. Of course, Adam and I, we've done it for 15 plus years. But, you know, there are a few big deer on private land pieces that are within a general, meaning over the counter for residents or a real easy draw for non-residents that, you know, where they offer very few hunters the opportunity to come hunt there for a fee and guide them.

And maybe they're more known as an elk ranch or whatever in, you know, like, you know, Area 7 for elk or whatever. There are some big deer scattered throughout the state. It's not like we do talk about G&H heavily. Come on, let's face it. It's unbelievable. It would rewrite the record books. If it was managed correctly, it would challenge any state out there. So I guess that's where the passion comes from. It's just hard to see it not totally reach its potential. And once in a while, we see a glimmer of hope. When you have a good span of years with light winters, man, you see something exciting. All of a sudden, they have a good year, and there's two or three, 200, 220, 30-inch deer taken. And then you'll go 10 more years, and it'll be, you know, it'll suffer quality-wise, especially after these tough winters.

We break down what we feel about the best 15 or so limited draw hunts for deer in our magazine. And rather than go line by line through those one at a time, it really just, I can't overemphasize, it really depends on how many points you have. If you've got max or one under, it probably makes sense to look at some of those hunts that are requiring max points to look at. But if you don't, you need to be realistic on how few people are getting drawn off the top of those units every year. And when I say those, I mean the 130s, the 128s, the 101s, some of those units like that. They're just not, you're not going to make headway very fast. It's maybe somewhat like Colorado elk on the top end units. You're just not going to catch these units if you're a few points behind. Well, you've got too many applicants that are gaining a point each year.

And they keep, the more points people get, the more antsy they get, and they're just grinding on you. And at some point, we even find ourselves consoling. We're like, man, let me just be honest with you. This is where you're truly sitting. And so like this year, for example, I mean, I'm considering, not putting it on the books, but I'm considering going in and doing it with my kids or something and saying, hey, you know, I'll be able to boost them a little bit and bring them up to what they need on a couple of these opportunities. And then we'll go out there and, hey, if we kill a monster, it'll be awesome. But overall, it's going to give you an opportunity to be able to hunt with your kids. And so gain points. Gain all the points you can. Don't think about it. It's pretty cheap in the big scheme of things. I mean, none of this stuff's cheap, but this is cheap. Yeah.

And don't be afraid in Wyoming. The point hoarders for deer, if you're a couple of points off or beyond on deer, there's really not bad options. For you to burn something that you got 10 points on that takes six or seven, don't look at that as wasting five or six points. It's not. View that as you're going hunting and you're going to be able to go back faster. The more points you gain sometimes in Wyoming, people get, they even feel like more like they should wait. And that's really not the case to have to wait for only the best, unless you're maybe with max or one or two under. So you can't fail on Wyoming deer. Fit it in your schedule. It's nice to have a May 31st application deadline. It's after Utah. It's after Nevada comes out. If you decide not to apply for all species in Wyoming, points only is from July through October. And keep in mind, even if you do apply new this year.

You've got to go reapply. For the deer, elk, and antelope, even if you did apply for a unit earlier on for elk and you do apply now for antelope and deer, you still have to go in July through September and buy your points for those. That's new for 2019. Don't forget. You'll have to apply twice. Most people, and they're going to lose a point this year, but most people will think I applied. I'm done. They pulled out the fee from my refund. I'm happy. No big deal. Going back to their normal daily routine. And not thinking another thing about Wyoming, and they did change that up. So they'll probably send out copious amounts of emails and inundate us with reminding us to apply. But anyway, just a word to the wise. Sheep and moose are the only two exceptions to that. They're taking that $150 for you. And they're going to keep it. Yep. Not even an option.

They're going to keep it, which is another. Anyway, that's a whole other rant for a whole other podcast. Let's move on to Jason. One thing. Antelope in Wyoming. I thought that's where you were wanting to go. But anyway. I'm headed there. Okay. I was going to say, we've hunted antelope a lot in Wyoming, actually. Adam, you have. I have. It's been awesome. It is. A couple times. There are good opportunities for antelope in Wyoming. You just never know when it's going to happen. Of course, we've teased on other podcasts with John and some of these other guys who spent some time up there hunting antelope and some of the different crazy experiences they've had with Kurt's father. But anyway. It's awesome. We've killed some great bucks. It's easy hunting. I mean, what a great opportunity for guys that want to go out there. There's a lot of public land in many of the units.

Some of them aren't so public. But even if you find a section or two, well, Jeff proved it. It's pretty darn good. Yeah. There's not a lot of secrets to antelope hunting. You got a truck. You got a cooler. Drinks. Shovel. Shovel if you get stuck or if you need it for a hundred. You need to cape an animal. Yeah. That's a whole nother podcast, Carter. But yeah. Don't be afraid for that. I mean, they're built for low pressure, two to three day weekend type hunts with your kids or with your group of buddies. Whatever your point level is in antelope, whether you're sitting at the top with 13 points and needing to only look at the red desert units, that's fine. If you've got six or eight, somewhere in between, you've got a lot of options. As you start to get down to zero, one or two, naturally have a lot fewer options that you can command or force to draw with one or zero or two points.

But there are some, and there's always the 25% of the tags that go in in the random draw, especially on antelope where there's some tags in the random draw. So study the tables. Use it as an add-on. There's more antelope than people in Wyoming, and you really can't go wrong as long as you know that you're in an area that has enough public land to be on. We do cover, like Adam said, we do cover the better units, and there's been an unbelievable number of big old antelope taken up there. It's 85 to even 90 plus inch goats, and so pretty impressive. Another opportunity, you could get in on the super tags. You can apply online, wgfd.yo, wyo.gov, backslash epic outdoors. And you can get on there, 10 species, 11 chances to win. They've got the super tag options that you can go on there. You can get tickets for $10 a piece, trifecta for $30 a piece. Anyway, just another opportunity.

That one, the deadline to apply is July 1st. If you get past, oh, about June 15th. Yeah. Past June 15th. If you don't have a hunt that you've drawn, then you can jump in on there and grab something. Well, and every year, it feels like we have two or three of our Epic Outdoors members that win those. And we have stories in our magazine every year of people that win them the year before. That's right. So, there's real people at the end of those, you know, long shot statistics. So, might as well be you. But, anyway. I do want to thank a few people, though. Travis Osmond killed his first 200-incher out of Wyoming there, his home state on General Tag. And what an awesome little dropper. Great story. Of course, high guard split. Yeah, just awesome. So, anyway. Thanks again. Of course, if you guys, anybody out there that wants to submit their photos and stories, be happy to have them.

Chris, where do they send them? C-H-R-I-S at epicoutdoors.com. John is the traditional spell, J-O-H-N, at epicoutdoors.com. Let's talk about Idaho. Let's do it. Are we moving on? Let's do it. So, the deadline for moose, sheep, and goat was April 30th. So, if you applied for one of those three, ignore what we're about to talk about. And that's Idaho deer, elk, and antelope. Why would we ignore that? Because if you choose one of those, we'll call them the big three, sheep, moose, or goat to apply for, you can apply for deer, elk, and antelope. There's a couple of exceptions to that, which is you can apply for some of the unlimiteds and either sex deer. But for all intents and purposes, that's the case. You can't apply for the best. We'll just call it the very best. And actually, probably 95% of the deer tags you can't apply for because there's not very many, either sex or unlimiteds.

There's not very many, but you'll see them in there. If you did do that and you want to go deer hunting in Idaho, of course you could do an over-the-counter general. Yes. Or you could do the unlimited, which is, in essence, an over-the-counter general. That's right. What does it take to apply in Idaho? Well, you're going to have to buy a non-refundable hunting license, $154.75. Then you can go on there and you'll be able to apply with minimal fee after that, whereas the big three, you've got to front the fees. Yeah, it's over $20, $200 a pop for those three, but they'll charge you that and, what, a $10 stamp for that depredation thing. And then it's the application fee, which I think is like $14.75, one for deer, one for elk, one for antelope. That's right. They automatically load that depredation fee when you go in and purchase your hunting license.

When you go on to purchase your hunting license, you're going to go in there. You need to purchase it first. Check out. Save it. Save the number. And then you'll go back in to apply and you'll use that hunting license number. Right after you actually buy the hunting license and check out and it has a thing to print it. Print it, a hard copy. They do email. If you provide a good email, they email it to you, too. But there's lots of warnings that they're not printing you the licenses anymore. They're like, here, print it or whatever. And then right as you get done with that, it says there's a controlled hunt button. And you can click that and then it takes you to the controlled hunt stream. So you don't have to go log back in anymore. No, you don't have to go log back in. But when you go in and you load your hunt choices, then they're going to say, well, we need to validate you as a person.

Plug in your hunting license number. It pulls you up. You attach it. It should know that you have one because you bought it like three minutes ago. But come on. But it doesn't. I'm just telling you that. Anybody from Idaho that's listening, come on. That's a good one. Come on. Well, we can digress to Arizona because that's the whole other issue down there. I know. But let's do a one-time checkout. How about that? And at least you can do that up here in Idaho when you do these three. You can do the elk, deer, and antelope together. You don't have to check them out one or two. My point is to apply for deer, elk, and antelope along with the hunting license. Come on. So what we're finding is the Cabela's kind of ironic. Cabela's credit card. You go in and pay for your hunting license. Then you go back in to pay for something else like a sheep or a goat or moose.

Fraud alerts. Fraud alerts. Big fraud alert. Might have happened to some of you guys. It wouldn't go through. And I guess it's the way the fraud are built. You have a smaller charge for $160 or $70, and then you try to crush it for $2,200, and it has lots of red lines. A lot of Amex cards. Yeah, they're thinking somebody's in Vegas giving them grief. So anyway, whatever. All right. Let's move on. Let's move on. Who cares about this? What are we going to apply for by March? Sorry, March. No, not March. June 5th. June 5th. All right. That's the key application date, June 5th. So get your stuff in by then. Of course, they're going to let you start applying May 1st. Kind of cool. You should have your magazines. Of course, again, it's online for anybody that's interested. Let's move on. No point system. No point system. Yeah, no point system.

One thing we do love about Idaho, we love that there's no point system. We love New Mexico for that. We like variety. We like variety in the States to where there's some predictability and there's some that's just... Man. Apply and I got this good of odds than anybody. One year, Adam, we can apply for sheep. If they had points, we would be locked in for sheep forever because you'd feel guilty. Yeah. Applying for sheep and getting some points and then digressing, diverting, whatever, and starting to apply for deer. And you'd be back and forth. But now, right now, when deer are struggling in Idaho because of the 2016-2017 winter kill, I don't feel so bad applying for sheep. You know? But then, if deer are strong and exciting, elk are strong and exciting, then you're back into elk and deer for a minute. And so, it just depends on the year and our schedule.

But anyway, that's kind of how we do it there in Idaho. A couple changes. Go ahead. What are we going to say? We used to be advocates of Idaho starting a point system years ago. They were running in the red nonstop. And we felt like, hey, well, you're making us buy this $155 license for freaking no reason. We're not getting nothing for it. We don't even step foot in your state. There's no point system, no nothing. So, what am I getting? You're just charging me. Well, no, we kind of like it. These point systems are maturing in other states, and it's becoming harder and harder to get attacked. I like the diversity. I like the differences. Another thing you might keep in mind, if you've got kids, Idaho a couple years ago changed their minimum age to 10. So, it's a state you might consider applying your kids. And they have a reduced price hunting license fee.

It's called the Junior Mentored Hunting License. Like $31.75. So, it's $120 cheaper than the adult license. The application fees per species are the same. But it's pretty affordable. You know, you can, for whatever, $50, $60, depending on if you do deer and elk and whatnot, you can apply them up there. Again, no point system. And we also appreciate the fact, Adam, you and I both have kids that smoke things up there. If you buy them the mentored priced deer or elk tag, you're not having to front the full non-resident fee. And so, how awesome is that? They're at least taking care of our kids. Of course, they're getting them to be excited about Idaho. And then, for forevermore, they'll fleece them when they become 18-plus for the full license fee. And I get that. And it's good business and whatnot.

But they have had a couple of harder winters in the last three years that have really, in some places, reduced some of their deer numbers, as well as some of their mature buck numbers, their bigger deer. Having said that, Idaho's got a really wide range of archery, a few muzzleloader, and some great rifle deer hunting opportunities. They really do. So, if you forego the sheep, you've got some great options for deer. Depends, really just depends. A lot of people ask us, hey, what should I apply for deer? It really just depends. If you're an archery guy. Where are you going to start? Yeah. It's such a broad. You've got October rifle hunts. You've got November rut hunts that are terrible drawing odds. What window of time works best for you? You've got unlimiteds that are unlimited if you apply for first choice. That's right. Now, keep in mind, only your first choice counts.

And so, it's really important. Again, awesome. Awesome feature. It really makes people really apply for what they want to apply for. But there's even new things, like a new muzzleloader season in 74, November 16th to the 30th, for 20 lucky guys. I mean, there's just, man, who knows? There's just so much out there. There's hunts, rut hunts, with five total tags. I mean, just crazy stuff out there. Bit of everything. Yeah. Stuff that's just a notch above general season in terms of a limited number of tags, but a lot of people have failed. Two, almost total exclusivity with, like you said, five or ten tags in the rut. And go until November 30th with a rifle. 15th to the 30th or 1st to the 30th or things like that. And a lot of those, Adam, and we know because we've hunted them, a lot of those are, you're just hunting general units with special dates.

And so, you know, it goes from being everybody can hunt them over the counter to, well, you can hunt these special units at the end. And we'll give five guys the opportunity to, you know, smoke a buck on the winter range that's easy access. Maybe he had walked 20 miles to the winter range. So what we often tell folks is if you're scheduled by June 5th, I mean, I wouldn't wait until the very last day, but you know what I mean. By the 1st of June, if it's looking open, like you've got some openings. At least wait for the Utah drivers. Yeah. Utah, Nevada, you know, don't think there's an outside chance now with Colorado being late. You might know that. But if you don't have much, go a little bit more on the aggressive side of things, much like what we encourage people to do in New Mexico since there's not a point system. Go more, by aggressive, I mean go for something that's easier to draw.

Maybe October dates, maybe a little bit higher tag numbers. But if you're like, hey, I've got a lot going on and I've only got a gap in November, and then swing for the fence. Go for a late rut hunt. Or if you've got time, some of the archery hunts, you know, maybe look at some of those. Talk about that. We've got unit 44 jumping to 50 tags during the archery. Unbelievable. Drawing odds are going to be off the charts for great, great potential. I've never seen a five times tag number increase. And so on one of the best units in the state. Kind of crazy. That's right. Unique. They don't have a lot of archery only hunts. I want to make clear that. They don't. But they've got some good ones. Jumping to elk. Similarly, they've got a bit of everything. They've got a few elite. When I say a few, probably a few more than a few.

But they've got a handful of what we'd call elite, you know, what we'd call trophy units. 54 probably being, no question, being the number one. The one thing about that is they've doubled the tags on all seasons. Now that's doubled from 10 to 20. And while that doesn't seem like a monumental change, it's, we're talking about unit that has been as solid for 370 plus bulls as any other unit in the West. It's been right up there. You could rival it with Utah and Nevada, Arizona. Maybe one of the best. Truly one of the best opportunities in the West. Yeah. And so when you double the tag numbers, you've got good hunters. They've got great season dates. You also change the rifle to October 15th opener. That's going to kill some bulls. There's no question about it. And so we've just, you know, sad to see it. Nothing stays the same. Nothing stays the same.

But having said that, guys should jump in on that rifle. The first couple years that that's available and, you know, open to those 20 guys, they're going to kill some great bulls. And then the quality is going to moderate a little bit. And much like the deer, they've got such a wide range of options. They've got archery stuff the end of August. They've got rifle stuff August 1st in some units where they've got depredating elk and pivots and cornfields and things like that. 52, 45 new for this year. Units like that, you've got rifle hunts starting at things off. And then they finish off in those same units in December with rifle hunts. So you've got from August to December, pick your window and gap in your schedule. And there, I promise, is something for elk hunting that you can fit in. And really solid bulls outside of 54 and maybe a couple. I don't know if it's putting some pressure.

Yeah. No question. Outside of 54 and a couple others, I think the sweet spot, Jason, 310 to 340 bulls is probably an expectation for a lot of the units there. There's a few that have an expectation of 350 plus, but not as many as other states. Well, we've spent time. We've been lucky. Spent some time in, you know, unit 40, 42. We've seen a lot of the bulls on those late seasons. I guess I just want to just say it's unbelievable those late seasons, Adam, like 42, 46, 47. Some of that stuff where we've seen it. We've seen the herds of elk down their November, December hunts. It's unbelievable. And so, anyway, great opportunities. Don't be scared of them, I guess is my point. I mean, hunting late season up there, end of October there in 45. Unbelievable, the herds of elk that you see. And so, anyway, it wouldn't scare me a bit to go those December 1st seasons in some of those units.

The August 1st, I mean, I'm usually wanting to scout deer or something like that. But if a guy's open August 1st, why not go smoke one velvet? I guess I can think of one reason. It might take 14 gallons of formaldehyde to preserve the velvet. Well, it's unique, and, you know, sometimes some of those elk that have been in a summer rut, if you will, just raiding fields, raiding fields, I think legally they probably can't hunt them until August. And as soon as that opens up, they want to break that addiction for these elk and corn and ralfalfa fields and start putting pressure on them. And they've done that in 52, and it has taken the edge. There's not as many bulls standing around ready to be shot in early August as there was. It's kind of funny. The landowners whine and complain about some of the depredation.

Then when the hunts come around, they don't want hunters on the field, you know, or don't want them in my property. So, anyway, whatever. Can't please everybody. We all try to get along a little bit. So, anyway, as far as antelope. I think we can move on. Not one of the best antelope states by far. Not even probably in the top two-thirds here in the West. But if you're applying for deer and elk, might as well throw your lot in for antelope. Yeah, their odds are pretty tough, really, because they don't have, you know, we just got done talking about Wyoming, where the sky's the limit in options. And Idaho has a finite resource. You know, I don't know exactly, but you might put it on par with, or maybe Utah, or not even on par with Utah in terms of numbers. So, it's an easy add-on for $15. And they've got solid hunts if you've got time to work one of those in. Well, and you know what?

You could give these tags to your kids. You can't do it for sheep, goat, and moose anymore. But you could transfer it to a child or grandchild. And so, if you drew one of those tags, hey, you know, and it's not something that, you know, you feel like suits you perfectly. Who cares? Give it to one of your kids. I mean, go up there and smoke something. Got the mentor. Yeah, that's right. The mentor program's in place there. You can give a deer, elk, or antelope tag, like I said, up until they're 18 years old. As you can see in the publication, we continue to have great stories, even from Idaho. It wasn't one of the best years last year. It was a tough year, quite frankly. But there were still some pretty significant mule deer. You'll find them throughout the pages of the magazine, along with, like Kent Gutch is a 200-inch or what a stud. Big old point mass. Just an amazing animal.

A good friend of mine, Ben, he smoked an amazing animal second year in a row. He just, man, there's some good hunting up there. Even the over-the-counter, great opportunities for guys. I went up there and spent some time last year. Seen plenty of nice four-point bucks. Even stuff that, you know, glassed them up, four-plus miles with the BTXs. I probably should have run and gone and get on them. But, you know, it didn't look like there was big old hangers out both sides. So I just kept glassing. But, anyway, there's great opportunities. And awesome to go up there and continue to learn. You feel like you learn something every time you go up. I know, Adam, you spent time with your kids up there. In fact, you shot an antelope. My daughter shot her antelope last year. Yeah. So it was one of those afterthoughts.

You know, I applied them last year for deer and elk and added antelope just, I guess, because. And went up there. She killed the first antelope. Had a great time. Just a quick two-day trip like most antelope punts can be. And it was fun. Saw a giant. Saw a big one. Speaking of it, saw a dead. Sorry we dissed on it a little bit. Yeah. It was fine. It was good. But, yeah, just an opportunity hunt. We obviously live in Utah. So we're a little closer to Idaho. We can run up there in seven, eight hours. And you're hunting. And, you know, which is, you know, not that bad. Well, and you drew one of the muzzleloader deer tags a few years back. I mean, dude. Got lucky there. You've drawn some good tags. Like I said, our kids have drawn some good deer tags. Your kid drew youth. Yeah. He drew a youth tag a couple years ago. Actually, that was 2017. 17. So, yeah, we've been to Idaho a lot.

Both of us every year for probably the last handful. It feels like we've been up there. Pretty awesome state. We appreciate you, Idaho. Hope you can make the budgets continue to work without an issue to point system. Keep on plugging. That's what we're going to do, too. We're going to keep funding you. All right. Let's jump into Washington. All right. Washington has a deadline of May 22nd. That's the deadline for their applications. We only cover the sheep, goat, and moose in this issue. Why? Why? Why is that? Well, at $110, that feels cheap compared to what they charge nonresidents to apply for deer and elk. And the reason for that is a special permit application for sheep, moose, and goat is $110 per species. They are well-established. They're well-established 25-plus years into a point system that is squared. What do you mean by that?

I think it's just so many applicants if you look at drawing odds. It's terrible. Terrible drawing odds. Not including squaring the points. That's right. And they square them. So it's hard to tell you that this is a no-brainer. But having said that, every year we have members that draw with less than 10. I know. You know, we do it. Every year it happens. It's like us poo-pooing freaking Oregon and both of us crank out a sheep out of their I-don't-know-what-you-say. That's right. Apply, apply, apply. I guess. It's just one of those things, though, if you have limited funds, you talked about it in the Washington Write-Up with the raffle section. That's right. You can consider the raffle tags, maybe get bang for the buck. The only issue is they don't accept phone or wire over the Internet sales. So you need a connection there or be able to be close to Washington to go buy one at a vendor.

Pay somebody off. There's something to do there. The reason we don't cover the deer and the elk is when you go apply for the controlled and quality hunts, for those you have to first then add a general season tag. For those species, for deer and for elk. And for most non-residents, and I emphasize most, they're not going to be going there to hunt a general season for deer and elk. And so the controlled unapplication fee is very cheap for deer and elk. But you've got to buy a general season deer and elk tag as a prerequisite to do that. A little bit like Montana does it. And that's non-refundable. So unless you live in Oregon or maybe the parts of Idaho or somewhere close or you have a connection you're going to go back to anyway, it's cost prohibitive. You're talking about, you know, hundreds of dollars for such a slim chance. So we don't cover that in the magazine.

We just cover the sheep, moose, and goat. So like we said, they're in a point system, squared. You get four choices on your application, all of which get looked at before they go to the next applicant. And one thing to keep in mind is all residents and non-residents are in the hat in Washington. But in the same pool. No quotas. No set-aside quotas. We're actually kind of a fan of these set-aside quotas. Which, you know, I guess in Idaho we could revert back a little bit as they didn't have set-aside quotas like for the sheep, goat, moose, and things like that. And so when they don't have set-aside quotas, it's hard to know where we're going to pull our tags from. Same thing here. You know, they don't have set-aside quotas. That's kind of nice in a way, I guess. You kind of, yeah, you know. Everybody's in the hat together. Everybody's in the hat together. But I don't know. Yep.

Kind of nice to have set-aside quotas in many instances. Yep. So the drawing odds we reflect there just simply apply to how many people put in there, resident and non-resident, divided by the number of tags. That's simply what it is. If you're going in with no points and you've got, you know, say, an average point level of 10, I mean, you can kind of do the math. You're looking at one in 10,000 in some of these places. Very uphill drawing odds. Great stories. Appreciate everybody that submitted the stories. You can go on our, not to totally leave Washington, you can go in there. We've put in, you know, the best units, all units, all units, and also listed the best units within those and kind of bolded them this year. We've kind of added that thanks to a member's suggestion. It's hard to rank units.

We try to get away from ranking units number one, two, three, four, and five in large part because you never know where the most biggest wazoo animal is going to come from. But we do have a feel for what are the better units within the state, the top fifth, sixth, whatever, the very top, top. And so we do list that, bold that, and in general terms put it in there for you. So guys that want to plug and play, jump in on that. I have at it. So let's talk about one of our favorite states, Iowa. Did you say our or your? When? I haven't hunted Iowa. Me neither. Okay. We need to. Okay. Well, we've had four points, I think, both of us for probably six or eight years. You ate one. Now I'm back at three or four. That's right. I've had four for probably eight or ten years.

I just, the hard thing for us is making time in November because we're going to want to go hunt them in the rut when they're rutting with our bows, is making time, putting aside a couple deer hunts in early November, whether it be Colorado, Nevada, Idaho some years, or whatever else we may draw. So shoving that to the side and making time to go do it, and that's what we haven't made time to do. Well, and I'm holding my points. I'm going to continue to get points just so when Lee and Tiff call, I've got them and I'm ready to go whenever they tell me I show up. You know what I mean? Huh? Yeah. Might be waiting a while. I know. I know. I get it. As we move forward, we do condone Iowa. We work with Outfitters with Iowa. If you needed somewhere to go, we're happy to help you. Zones 4 and 5 have generally been the best producers. We do list Ben and Crockett data within that.

And a large part is it's, you know, management and the quality are largely a result of particular ranches and farms and whatnot. And it's broke up into thousands of landowners and whatnot. So it's hard to really get a feel, and it's hard to manage when you've got landowners able to manage however they want to manage. Yeah, it is. It's much like Kansas. People ask us, where's the best zone? Really, you could go to any zone in Iowa and potentially kill a monster deer if that property and the adjoining properties around it are all kind of somewhat managed similarly. Or you just simply kill a fluke buck, which, you know, happens from time to time as well. But the biggest thing to keep in mind in Iowa is you're going to have to work out the logistics of where you're going to hunt before you draw a tag. It's the amount of private land is extremely high.

But it's worth covering because most of us Westerners, as we call ourselves, those are some of the first, Kansas and Iowa are some of the first states we get to hunt. I guess what we'd call the more elite trophy type whitetail deer. We, of course, can hunt in Wyoming and Montana and Idaho and, you know, Oregon, Washington, you know, the Dakotas, places like that, Colorado. But we cover these because, you know, look at the market entries. You've got a little bit of demand. It takes up just a few pages. We've got some demand in there from the members. We try to satisfy that demand. However, what we really, truly try to do is be the best source of information in the Western U.S. And so that's what we try to do. That's our forte. We're not going to deviate from that. I just don't see us jumping into New Hampshire, Vermont. I've never had anybody call and ask for those.

And so, anyway, we're going to, you know, we do cover Iowa. We do cover Kansas. But a lot of it is just out of courtesy for our membership. And so, anyway, you can kind of go on there. It's got a June 2nd deadline to apply. Points only is about $60, a little over $60. So if you are just interested in accruing some points, get a point. You know, your rifle, firearms hunts, shotgun muzzleloader might emphasize that. Most of the firearm hunts are shotgun muzzleloader hunts, not centerfire. So you've got to be prepared for that, which isn't a big problem this day and age using scope muzzleloaders and all that. But zero to one points for a lot of those zones. But then archery, like Jason alluded, three to four points guarantee about anywhere in the state. And some take less than that. So don't want to make it seem like you have to get three or four. But some of those you do have to get.

Some you can get zero or two. But $60-something bucks, build a point, gives you an option down the road if you want to hunt a big white-tail at some point. Awesome. Well, we do want to talk a little bit about we've been yakking, and we yak a lot in the office. But we do want to talk about timing. It's been on our minds about timing, about booking hunts and whatnot. As you come into the end of the magazine, you come up with Jeff's hunting opportunities. He's listed some of the hunts there. And it's not just about, you know, booking hunts. Like here I've got $15,000, $10,000, $5,000, $3,000, and I want to book a hunt. It's timing. There's some times when you just get a better deal on a truck. There's some times when it just makes sense to buy a house or to buy property to build a house because of the economy or whatever.

And then there's sometimes when you force it, I'm going to go no matter what, and you book it, and you don't have a great hunt because the timing was bad. Maybe they just had a die off. Maybe they've had something happen with the ranch or whatever. And so timing is everything. We've had some great hunts come available, and guys didn't necessarily take advantage of them. They were nervous. They had the money. They knew they wanted to spend the money, but it's hard to really make it happen and write the check. And then that hunt becomes not available. It becomes sold. And so there's just a few things like that, and I think much like our Epic member hunt giveaway, now is the time to hunt Nevada. Now is the time to hunt elk in New Mexico. We've got some great sheep hunts available, even hunts that you can't otherwise buy because we were there at the right time. That's right.

Well, we see with this, which by way of announcement, Jason, yeah, this has kicked off. This is our, I guess we'll call it our summer. This is a big issue. But it's our summer membership drive hunt giveaway. Keeping in mind, this is just going to go from right now till June 14th. This is very short. There's a few of these hunts that are for the fall of 2019. The stone sheep hunt, the Nevada mule deer hunts, which there's two of them, and the New Mexico archery elk hunt. We realize we can't push those. We can't sell tickets forever. We're fine with that. Put them out there. Everybody, let's talk about how you can get in for these because, like Jason said, these are not bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. We bought many of these a year in advance. Dude, we paid for some of the Nevada landowner tags. We bought, as you know, we buy them in October, November. These are hunts.

If you went out to buy a 231 mule deer tag, I challenge you to do it. I don't know that you could do it, even if you have the money to do it. And so a lot of it goes back to the timing. We wanted the best of the best within the publication. We wanted to be hunts that you feel like, man, I want this opportunity. And so this is how you're going to be able to get one, basically, for your charge. Yeah. And if you had, you know, $50, $100, $200, this is the time of year, like all of us this last week, we just got loaded with refunds in New Mexico, possibly going to be coming our way here in Wyoming here in the next week or two. I hope not. I hope they keep our money. But there's a good chance we're going to be getting a bunch of refunds there as well.

It's just another way that we obviously are a business here and growing a membership base in our few years in existence is still important to us. We have to be able to do that. But at the same time, we love giving away hunts like this to our members. We view it as a way to, I mean, these are draws, but they're draws for a lot of people that you can, whether it's $50, $100, $200, most everybody can play with what they have and dream for something that, like you said, besides the airfare and the minimal tag fees, the hunt's paid for. You know, these are like the cheapest hunt. Here's like $13,000 or $14,000. I mean, the rest of them are, you know, collectively north of $20,000. So I think, like you said, you need to be getting your name in the hat by June 14th. A couple ways you can do it. You can refer a member, and that's what we want. We want you to tell your friends about us.

A lot of you guys are listening to the podcast, and you're not necessarily a member. See what you're missing out on. $100 a membership per year, nothing compared to what we're all spending almost daily in the truck gas tank when we go on a hunt. Yeah, and I would dare say that of that $100 membership that you end up paying for the year, that some piece of information that you will get in that span of one year, whether it be in print, whether it be in podcast listening to us, or in visiting with us over the phone, you're going to save just a couple of tips. You're going to save more than that, you know, whether it be dropping a state that you're wasting your money on, or whether it be, you know, doubling down on something, two-for-one license in certain places, or different things like that. I contend you will get your money's worth out of that.

And as an incentive right now, yeah, you get a hunt or a ticket in the draw for our hunt giveaway if you join right now. Let's just real quick run through them, Jason. Let them know. Okay, so what we've got, we've got up a stone sheep hunt in British Columbia, full curl stone outfitters, August 16th to the 29th. That's for this year, 2019. We've got an Alaska doll sheep hunt with Jonah's Alaskan Outfitters, August 18th to the 27th, 2020. I think we booked the last two spots he had in 2020. We did. We bought the last two because we knew, you know, when they're gone, they're gone. And that gives you a little bit of time to prepare if you do win it in mid-June this year after we do the drawing. And he got a little bit over a year, but that's still secured great dates for you in 2020. Alaska brown bear, we've got May 10th to the 25th with Alaska Trophy Adventures.

You know, that particular area has every other year they have a spring hunt. So we picked up a spring hunt in 2020. The next year it's available. Just because it's the best opportunity, if you can hunt spring or fall, that spring hunt's the best opportunity to kill a great bear. And he's doing awesome. We've got a Nevada 242 mule deer hunt. And we've purchased the landowner tag, and we paid a ground before. The tag alone was $17,500. You can hunt any season you want. You get to choose which season you get to hunt with this outfitter, Deep Creek Outfitters, Travis Levitt, really good friend of ours. We booked and paid that. That's already been paid, too. So you get a guided hunt and landowner tag out of that deal. So great opportunity. When you're done, if you didn't happen to kill a buck with Travis, you can stay as long as you want until the season closes. Archery, muzzle, or rifle.

And so, anyway, then we've also, with GT Nunn, good friend of ours, we've dealt with him for years and years of Frontier Outfitting. New Mexico archery elk hunt, September 1st to the 14th or the 15th to the 24th. They have two different seasons. You've got to choose one of them, and he'll take you down there. Of course, our cover bull from the February issue was on there, scratching the door of 400 in a drought year last year. That's right. So, yeah, the ways to join our service is give us a call, either 435-263-0777, or join online at epicoutdoors.com. And there'll be a, you know, very simple way to join. We obviously need your mailing address for the magazine, your email, perhaps. And then you can select, be sure you select which hunt you want to be entered for. Again, it's only from now until June 14th. This is not something we run for two, three, four, five, six months.

This is something we just came out with here. And May 1st is right upon us here. Very short six-week turnaround here. So, get on there. Either enter by joining our service or referring somebody. Might emphasize if you refer somebody, Jason, they'll get a name in the hat, and you'll get a name in the hat. And so, you got two tickets in play there. Or if you just want to purchase tickets, you can do that, again, all online or over the phone with us. And you can buy it. You can buy it for your buddy. So, you can call in and buy it for him. And we can discuss that when you call in. We do have different ticket packages. If you wanted to purchase, you know, one ticket, $25, $5 for $100, $10 for $200, and $30 for $500. If you do purchase a $500 ticket package, you get in for a bonus tag. This is a Unit 231 deer tag in Nevada. Again, good for all three seasons.

We challenge you to go out there and find one right now. It's unbelievable. The moisture is off the charts. It's going to be an incredible year in Nevada. That's why we've thrown two of them in there. Mule deer is similar to stone sheep or Rocky Mountain Bighorn or doll or brown bear. Very tough to find an awesome hunt for big old bucks. That's right. We know what we want this year. We know what we would want more of. So, we threw two Nevada deer tags in there. The draw is not coming out until May 23rd. It doesn't matter. You can kill 10 deer a year in Nevada if you want. You can draw a tag. You can draw a tag, buy a tag, draw a tag. Buy five tags. Buy five tags. It doesn't matter. Nevada is a unique state. They don't have a quota of one antler deer like a lot of other states do. Yeah. Anyway, if Adam and I could legally draw our own, we would have been applying.

We apply some of the state raffles here and there where it makes sense. This totally makes sense. This is one of those opportunities. Short application window. It's one of those opportunities that makes sense. Get your buddy in. And here's an incentive for you to do it. You get your names in the hat for tickets. Well, one thing we want to just maybe one quick shout out, Jason, is May is a big month for draw results, too. Keep that in mind. And one last plug for our service is if you draw a tag and you want some help with it, whether that's guided and you need an outfitter, give us a call. We've worked with these outfitters for decades, most of them, in the states. We know who's producing now and who's still producing. We can give you the best individual for your unit. If you're more of a do-it-yourself or self-guided type individual, give us a call.

We have the Epic Member Experience Database as another resource for our members. This might be the way that you get your more than $100 out of our services. If you draw a great tag this year and you call and let us know which unit, we'll send you a list of other Epic Outdoors members that have had that same tag in the past, their emails or their phone numbers. You can converse with them, talk with them about their hunts, where they camped, where they hunted, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Some of that information might be worth over $100 right there, let alone. So keep that in mind. It's a big state for draw results. Plus, we just love to get calls from people that say they drew something awesome. So let us know.