EP 122: State Draw Systems and Trad Bows with Harold Fahrenbrook

I've always hunted with a recurve. Tell us how you really feel about these state draws. Like right now, if you're going to be playing for other species for nine bucks, get an out point for non-resident. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson coming at you from Southern Utah with the Epic Outdoors podcast. We try to do these every week. Sometimes we do a couple of weeks this time of year. And sometimes when we're out in the field, we barely squeak in one a week. Maybe once every week and a half. I don't know if Chris stays honest about it. But anyway, we appreciate you tuning in. We talk about a little bit of everything with Western big game hunting. So anyway, before we get started, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. They sponsor about everything we do and we appreciate them. What a great partner they are. I also want to give a shout out to MOA Rifles. They're a partner of ours here at Epic Outdoors. If it's a new long-range rifle, something in your plans, give them a call.

MOA Rifles, 541-526-1820. Or visit them online, MOARifles.com. Their new Ascent rifle is a true 1,000-yard mountain rifle under 6 pounds. And talk to them about that or any other rifle needs that you might have. We've got a special guest coming on. It'll be Harold Farenbrook. We had him on the Hunter Next Door article that Roger Smithson does for us. We appreciate Roger and his diligence with that. He has some great guests and kind of gives you an insight to their lives in a few pages there within the Epic Outdoors magazine. Anyway, Harold's a longtime resident there in Colorado and has a lot to offer. He's been there, done that, so to speak. He's killed almost everything in the North American 29 and is hunting almost exclusively. I don't know for sure. We'll find out with a recurve. So, anyway, he's drawn a lot of Western big game tags. Let's get him on the line. Hey, is this Harold?

Yes. Hey, it's Jason Carter and Adam Bronson with Epic Outdoors. How you doing? I'm doing good. You? I'm doing good. Let's start from the beginning. Just give us a little brief summary and history of who you are, how you got to where you're at, and where you're at. Okay. Well, starting as far as an outdoorsman, it started at a young age. I was a trapper at a very young age, just a kid. You know, had muskrat traps, few mink traps, few beaver traps, that kind of stuff like that. I was 9, 10 years old. And, um, um, eventually, uh, after going to a couple of rendezvous, um, selling my muskrats, which were, you know, nothing compared to, man, these rendezvous were big. The guys were showing up with two, 300 coyote pelts and wagons full of just, you know, animals that I could just no way figure out how to trap and whatnot, because coyotes were so smart.

And, um, don't want to get off on the trapping thing too much, but as far as my experience in the outdoors, um, it had a lot to do with it because when I was like 13 years old, I saw my dad, there was this old man that always showed up. And just had all these furs and he fleshed them. I mean, he had them, you could tell it was, he took real pride in what he did. And I was always at awe with this guy. And, um, one day I saw my dad over there talking to him and I never got to talk to him. And my dad comes back over, he goes, well, as long as it's all right with your mom, you're going to spend Christmas break trapping with this old man. So next thing I know, I'm spending Christmas break and along with an extra two weeks trapping with this old man up on the Western Slope in Colorado. And he showed me everything.

So I guess what I'm getting at is, you know, I leapfrogged from knowing nothing other than setting a conger bear trap in front of a muskrat hole. Muskrats to, yeah, living off the land. Anything. And this guy here had, you know, 50 years experience with all the do's and don'ts and what he'd learned. And, and I, all of a sudden, of course I was, you know, at that age, kids, I think all kids at that age are a sponge. People just take time to feed them. And it, um, I, I, I captured all that. And, um, and the following year I, I was off to do my own thing and my dad got a letter and I got a letter and he, he passed away that very following year. But he willed everything to me. All his traps. Come on. His furthest trailer, um, everything. He had no family.

Um, so I, I, the ranch that he kept this stuff on and did a lot of trapping and ended up on the Western Slope allowed me to continue his legacy. And, and so I really got into just, just living out of a backpack, being in the woods. And, um, and it really ingrained me before I even had a driver's license. And, uh, of course hunting follows, you know, very close pursuit right into that. Uh, and everything, um, as regards to the outdoors. So that's, that's kind of, other than my own family being hunting family, uh, they're all, uh, the rifle hunters and my wife and daughter are both rifle hunters. And I've always been a bow guy. Um, but it just, um, it just, uh, put down the foundation of just, uh, enjoying the outdoors and anything it had to offer. Uh, and it started from trapping. Mm-hmm. Well, that's a cool introduction.

That's not, not typical there to be immersed like that as a young, young man and something like that. And then have somebody pass away and, you know, more or less felt like, I guess you're going to keep up what he taught you more or less. And then expound it to deer, elk, everything like that. So did you start hunting big game, you know, right then as well? I mean, you're 12, 14 year old, you're after as soon as you could legally hunt your dad and filling tags and was you bow hunting from the start pretty much? Or did your rifle hunt for a few years till you got archery hunting? I started off rifle 14 years old at that time in Colorado. That was the legal age for youth. Uh, now it's 12. Yeah. But at that time, so I'm, I'm, I'm going bonkers, you know, I can legally go shoot a, I can legally go shoot a coyote with my .243. I just couldn't go shoot a deer.

But I finally got to go, but my first season was deer and elk and 14 years old. And I was up there scouting my dad. And this goes back to something else in regards to when we, I'd go up with my dad, my grandpa, and we'd go up there and look at this, this pre-scout and figure out where we're going to camp and that kind of stuff. Once we found animals and we had everything all set up. Um, and that was just so cool to me. And they'd leave me up there. And I, there was a drainage that we always drove by that could look up from I-70, um, kind of in the Vail area. And I was like, God, that looks good back in there. Well, I was always hounding, hounding my dad to just drop me off and let me go see what it was like. And he probably called my bluff and let me do it. And some people, I guess, that read the article thought that was kind of like child abuse because it was a young age, 14 years old.

Yeah, but you've been living out of your backpack before, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, nobody knows how of a focused or anal kid I was in regards to that kind of environment. And, and most kids maybe wouldn't be. And, and I know why some people kind of took it the way they did, but it, it, you just have to know me. And you know, it wasn't, it wasn't, I mean, you hear the word hounding my dad day in and day out to try to let me, let me go up there. It wasn't child abuse. I mean, I'm wanting it. So he did drop me off, went up there and looked in this drainage and, you know, backpacked into it and got there and there was nothing there. Hardly any sign went to the next drainage. You couldn't see from the highway, still no sign. Got in about the fourth drainage and they all looked, modeled each other as far as looking awesome. Like why are there animals here? Got it.

Then all of a sudden I got into the mother load. I mean, there was everything there. And, um, later on I learned, you know, I worked with a biologist in Colorado. I was keeping track of their big horn sheep and, uh, in the unit and several units. His groceries taste different. Yeah. That drainage has the same plant life, same everything. But the one you finally found the animals in the mineral content and the soils and everything that's in that area for whatever reasons, no different than you find gold. One drainage, you don't find one another. The plant life has a different taste and different nutrient value to it. So therefore the animals desire it more. So they'll walk by two or three awesome looking ranges to get to the one mother load. But man, if a hunter is lucky enough to stumble onto one of those, I mean, that's the, you, you found your jackpot.

And, and that kind of, kind of just fed into everything. So I just, for that first rifle season opening day, I shot my bull and my buck and I'm like, and I still was up there with my dad. And everybody has to stay the whole rest of the week. And I was helping them. And that was all fun. And I still got to stay in the woods, but I got to appreciate those animals two, three weeks before season. And I couldn't wait for my dad to take me back up the following week to keep an eye on them and know what I was going to do. And, and that was all great, but it was just anticlimactic for me at the end with just being able to harvest them that quick. I mean, the fun part was scouting, seeing those animals, educate myself about those animals, knowing whose initials I pasted to them and, and who I wanted to shoot. And that was all great, but I, I wanted to hunt more.

And, uh, that was what brought me into the archery deal. And I still got to spend as much time scouting and admiring them and figuring out their habits and what they were doing. But once season started, I was still doing a whole lot of that and not so much shooting until I got in a, in a, you know, particular, you know, gotten range and those kinds of things. And, um, and that's what really just ingrained into my body. I just, I just didn't want it to be over so quick. I mean, God, if I could shoot a great big buck or a bull with my bull opening day, I'm on cloud nine. But what a lot of people don't realize I had five, six weeks into that animal, you know, cause I was been watching him. I've been scouting him. I've been seeing everything that he does. So I, I mean, I might say opening day, but it really wasn't.

I mean, I already had a thousand dollars worth of fuel into it and how many miles on my, on my boots and my backpack. And so, uh, Well, a thousand dollars of fuel back in 1970 something. That's a, that's a lot of gas. That's a lot of gas. So, uh, one thing you did blow by real quick, and I want to go back to it just for a quick second, is basically when you were talking about the soil and the vegetation and, you know, the animals desire it more. And that's why you find them where you find them. At the end of the day, a takeaway from that is, is there's certain areas that are good forever. Um, so to speak now, now game management, animal quantities, things like that, populations, whatnot change and fluctuate a little bit. But my takeaway from what you were saying is, and you can, and I want you to expound upon it in your theory on it, is, you know, you, there's nothing, nothing, nothing.

And then in particular draw, there's a ton. And you went in on the soil content. And is that your, you know, theory as far as where the animals will be? And is it consistent? Do you find it be consistently good? Is that, that particular canyon consistently good year after year? Yeah, it was. And I, I totally validated that through plenty of other stuff doing, working with the Colorado Division of Wildlife and, um, and doing the stuff with the sheep and, you know, mineral lakes for sheep. There's not everybody familiar with that. And there's certain places they go on the hill because of that. And they've walked miles and miles to do that. Um, and it's like, so there, obviously there was no mineral lakes on the way. Otherwise they wouldn't waste their time to walk so far to come get here. So it's the same way in these changes that I'm talking about. And they'll always be good.

Um, the difference being, and you touched on it already is, uh, game management and, and the stuff that I found old school is, you know, seven minute topple maps. Man, I, I, I sit there and look at it. I'll topple maps of where I wanted to go and look at that. Like, man, here's the intermittent stream. It probably doesn't run year round, but this looks like a boggy area. According to this green and white map that I have. And I'd, I'd go in there and hike in there, go try to find it. And whether I ever found the exact spots that I'm looking at on the map, um, I don't know. I'd like to think I did because I learned how to do minutes and everything and try to figure out where I needed to be. But now today with today's technology, um, with, um, you know, Google earth and hunt onyx and those kinds of things, people can, there's no, there's no, you can see it before you get there.

And you kind of just know the whole stuff. So now these little areas, the old cliche of getting a half mile, a mile off the road and you got the road to yourself. Those are over. I'm seeing as many people, I mean, I'm seeing people where I've never, ever in my life seen people before, where I've always had it to myself and animals get used. They, they're not used to that pressure or there's places people go. I go, the animals are used to pressure. I try to use that pressure to my advantage, but the animals that aren't used to pressure, like these little honey holes that I found. And then all of a sudden they get the pressure, uh, they don't like it. And then they don't revisit it. And, um, it's, uh, it changed the dynamics. Like those spots are always be good. Those groceries are always be good to them.

A lot of animals turn nocturnal and still get in there and do it, but they're not going to, they're not going to, um, they're not going to be hassled by the pressure. They just, they, they seem to learn and adapt very quick. Um, is my experience. Gotcha. Yeah. We could definitely agree with that in many cases. Yes. So jumping forward a little bit, tell us how you started bow hunting, what animals you've taken with your bow. And I know you, you've favored a large extent, traditional archery and how that, maybe that's been from the start. But, uh, what do you find unique to bow hunting that, uh, that does it for you, so to speak? And why specifically then to the recurve? Well, I've always hunted with a recurve. I've won a, I, when I was real young, I used to shoot a few rendezvous. I won a couple of compound bows.

And, and I remember firing, um, um, I think it was PFC, uh, what I first compound bow that I ever shot. And I won in a rendezvous up in Duna Vista, Colorado. And, and you could shoot it. I mean, it wasn't, it was, it was back when they made compound bows. You could pull back to your face and, and shoot instinctively or whatever. Now everything's with it overdrawn. You get, you use releases and stuff. So I could shoot it like I would shoot my normal recurve. The only difference was, was holy cow. I mean, I just told myself, man, I get used to this in a hurry because there was no arc in my arrow. It was slapping the target. Didn't get to see the arrow all the way from the boat or the target. I mean, it was a whole different experience. And it was like, this is nice, but it was heavy.

And, and, and talking to other friends of mine, a hundred with compounds that the, you know, cables coming off the limbs. I'm not sure they've got that thing down to a science now than they did back in the eighties. I had that happen. But there was a lot of mechanical problems. I go, man, I don't, I don't, I don't want to deal with this. Not that I use my recurve as a walking stick, but it's pretty plain Jane. There's really nothing going to happen to it. And, and I, and I was good at it. I, I, I never, probably the majority of animals I've shot, probably 80, 90% of them been inside of 20 yards. And, and I, I won't claim to be a good target shooter, but I've always been able to be a good, you know, game shooter. And, and I'm always stump shooting, hitting pine cones, an old rotten stump, always kind of playing make-believe as an adult, if you can imagine, in the woods.

Because I think a lot of mistakes my fellow hunters and friends that were doing is, God, they practice all year long. And then come hunting season, they never shoot their bow again until an animal steps in front of them. Yeah. And I stay consistently while I'm hunting. And you can with the recurve, a lot easier because of the feet per second. And you'll, you'll ruin arrows or not find them with a compound where I can go put a judo point on mine and pull them out of the dirt and shoot another pine cone. And I can stay dialed in while season's going on. So it was just a funner bow for me to shoot. And the way I hunted, I, I, all these people look at my photo album and say, I didn't notice you were using a recurve. I'm like, you know what? I don't consider it that way. I consider for the way I hunt and I like to get close. It's the best tool I can have.

I mean, I'm, I'm shooting inside of 20 yards and I'm shooting. I like hunting big stuff to where I got a window through the scrub oak, two inch window. It helps me focus between there and the kill zone. And I'm good at that kind of scenario. And I, I love getting close. He's getting close. I, there might've been one buck I was going after. He's bedded down. It's perfect time. I know he's not going to get up for a while. He's not, you know, everything's perfect. And by the time it takes me another 45 minutes to get over there, another bug, another bug joins him. Then another bug joins him. And it was, I got to see a lot more because I took so much longer to get over there, which is another thing that brought me from rifle to, to, to archery is this. I ended up seeing more gain because I wasn't pulling the trigger so quick. And it, and I had, don't get me wrong.

I'm a hundred percent forward. My wife hunts rifle. My daughter hunts rifle. I'm not, I'm not. Just for me personally, I, I enjoyed the bow hunting. So as far as the recurve is being a tool and people thinking it's a little more stuff, a little more, you know, challenging. It is. Everybody's, nobody can argue that, but it's not the reason why I do it. I don't want nobody pat me on the back as I'm using traditional equipment. It's my choice. If I thought I had better chances of doing things for the way I kind of hunt with a compound bow, believe me, I'm going to shoot a compound bow. But for the style that I'm hunting, it's not. It fits you. The recurve, the traditional. You said it's under 20 yard shots, I guess.

I mean, even when you're out practicing, are you still just under 20 or give us the, you know, kind of how you sight, you know, what you're using for a sight or how are you doing it and how far you're truly effective at, you know, accuracy wise. I'm going to say, you don't want me shooting at you inside of 30 yards. Okay. I do practice, you know, just flinking around. I go stump shooting all the time and, and, and I can, you know, I can, I can hit you at 40, 50 yards. I don't know where I'm going to hit you. Maybe I'm not as confident at those ranges. So I don't shoot those ranges. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I've, I've let, I've let, you know, some animals walk because I couldn't get close enough. They just weren't in an environment or in a, in a kind of situation where there was enough structure between me and the animal that could get any closer than 40, 50 yards.

And so they walked, they lived to see another day. And is it truly instinctive? Is it just instinctive? You're just a hundred percent. A hundred percent instinctive. Yeah. I don't. So do you believe in practicing every day, every other day, like at home on paper? I know we got to practice on paper. I agree with you a hundred percent. We're, when we're in the hills, we've got a, you know, kind of a, an arrow that you just use for that. And it's, and usually it's just a dull broadhead that, you know, you're sinking into a soft dirt or whatever. And we do that all, all the time. I totally agree with you, but what are you doing in the off season? You've got to be practicing on paper or are you just truly going out with a judo tip and out in the hills behind the house? Yeah. I, no, I practice all the time.

I live just in the foothills, uh, just in Colorado, living just outside of gold, a little town called coal Creek. And, uh, I've got seven acres here and I'm able, I got some targets set up to where I can, you know, every day I, you know, get up in the morning, shoot, you know, 40, 50 arrows. But you can shoot 40, 50 arrows in, in 15, 20 minutes. And, um, and then I'll do it again, um, a couple of times a day. If I can do it a couple of times a day, uh, that's pretty normal. And, um, and so you stay, I stay dialed in all the time. And what I love in this canyon to get some hellacious winds up here and, and weather. And that's what I love to go out there and still stay dialed in because, you know, I love hunting and real bad wind because animals shut down. They can't really distinct movement because everything's movement. They can't hear stuff.

So they, they like to stay, you know, kind of to themselves and not be vulnerable. And as a bow hunter, when I got wind covering my sound and I got everything in the woods shaking along with me trying to get over there close to an animal, I love that opportunity. So I practice in that, in the most stringent winds I can find because it's, it's incredible what that air will do. Yeah. It looks like it's going to like hit that target broadside, but the broadhead still goes in where I was aiming. It might go in at an angle because of whichever way the wind's blowing. But, you know, you practice that, you get used to it and you get comfortable with it. And obviously you don't want the wind to your back because the animals are going to smell you. Shooting directly into the wind doesn't affect the air a whole lot, but there's always a crosswind.

And, um, so I like to shoot in every condition I can, whether it's snowing, it's amazing what just moisture and that kind of humidity in the air can do sometimes to an arrow shooting through snow or when it's raining. And, um, not that I practice, I know what to do if it's snowing. It's not like I practice, I know what to do when it's raining. I just practice. And it, which means I'm just comfortable. It becomes an extension of your arm. Well, you know, um, I know you've taken, you know, as, as of went back when we had, uh, had you on the Hunter Next Door and Roger Smithson interviewed you, you'd taken 20 of the North American 29. Pretty, pretty impressive. A lot of it, most of it on public land. You've probably taken a few more since then, but what has been your most memorable hunt?

Tell us about, you know, uh, maybe, I mean, brown bear or, or grizzly or bison or what is it that, you know, that you remember the most? It's kind of, uh, it's, you know, when, uh, Roger was interviewing me and ended up being my buffalo hunt that, cause I drew a, uh, this, ever since I was a little kid, when I look at cowboy and Indian movies and stuff like that. I mean, I just, when I think of bison, I think of buffalo, I think of archery. I think of, you know, that, that kind of, I don't know why it stings in my head. Probably, you know, probably 90% of the buffalo that were shot were shot with Henry's and stuff like that and black powder guns. But when it comes to, I, I, just in my mind, it was like, what more of a trophy could I get to compliment what I do with a bow than a buffalo? Yeah.

The ultimate primitive experience, you know, did you use a, did you use a flint broadhead or did you use steel? How real did we keep taking it? I use steel. I know. I don't wear leather underwear and that kind of stuff. All right. On the back of a horse. No, but. Yeah. Well, tell us about that. Keep going. That's, uh, those tags are rare, but fill us in on that experience in Arizona. Well, what, what was, it's a real close second to my, to the brown bear experience I had too, but, and big horn sheep and everything. But I guess, yeah, we'll worry if that size on the buffalo is how it started out. It's kind of a funny story is I bought, I bought four, well, five raffle tickets, but you got, you got, if you spend a hundred dollars, you got a fifth one for free. So I went ahead and did the Arizona deal and I had four for desert sheep and I had one for buffalo.

That was my extra one for spending a hundred dollars. Wow. So a couple, you know, you know, two or three months later, I get this phone call and the guy introduced himself and he left a message. Hey, I'm so-and-so from the desert sheep foundation. And apparently you've bought some lottery tickets and, uh, you need to give me a call back ASAP. So in my mind, I got a year to hunt a desert sheep. You're like, this is, this is awesome. I got a sheep tag, sheep association, did the drawing. I remember buying those. That's what I put them in for. And then he called him and he told you. Well, when I called him, he said, Hey, you're sitting down. I'm like, I can't sit down. I got a piece of wood in my teeth. So, cause I was quenching so hard. What do I got going on here? He goes, well, you got your buffalo tag. Jeez. I felt deflated.

Well, that's a love, hate deal because you're probably going to get a divorce after 14 months of trying. I mean, those hunts are not easy. In Arizona, especially. Especially. No, and the whole thing is I thought I had a desert sheep tag and I ended up with a buffalo, which still was great. But it was a little bit of a downer at the time. And then it started sinking in. And so I bought one lottery ticket and I got pulled out of the hat. So it was for all you guys out there that buy these things and you're telling yourself or your wife telling you, why do you waste your money putting in these? Well, a lot of the draws are better than putting in for the unit itself. And they're not fixed. I mean, a guy like me can win and anybody can win it. And what was unique about it is I had a year to do it. And this was like the governor's tag is how it's treated. And it included the tag.

So it saved me $5,000. That's right. I know. For a five-bar, free. Free ticket. For all intents and purposes, it was your free ticket because you bought four for $100 and got a fifth for free. So free. We'll just call it that. Sounds better.

The price tag on that buffalo tag is unbelievable. Definitely. Yeah. And the bad part about it is I guide in Alaska. And I head up there at the end of July to Alaska. And I'm up there August and September guiding for a doll sheep and grizzly bear. And so I got this tag. And I'm like, well, I got a year to do it. So I'm going to go ahead and guide in Alaska. And when I come back, I'll go back there and figure things out. Well, the instrumental time to get buffalo is when they're doing their rut. And they're doing their rut in July and August. Yeah. Plus it's hot. They come out of the park and get water, you know. Yeah. And Arizona used to have, well, I'm sure you guys have all the science on this. They used to have a spring and a fall hunt. And they had like 30 plus tags on each hunt. But the buffalo had no idea where the boundary was of the Kayabab or the Grand Canyon National Park.

They were 20 miles out of the park. There was no line because they just never got hunted except for a month in the spring and a month in the fall. So next thing you know, however they come up with the science, they found out that the buffalo wasn't native to Grand Canyon National Park. They only proved they'd been there 900 years instead of 1,000. Therefore, they didn't want them there no more. Yeah. Yeah. So now they told the DOW to get really aggressive because they wanted that herd from, I think at that time it was right around 900. They wanted it down to 350. So they got really aggressive and it backfired on them because now they're hunting them year round. And so they never gave the buffalo a break. And now... Pretty soon. They're going to find, they're like elk or even worse, they're going to find the place of least resistance. They're really good at that. Yeah. Yeah.

They totally, even though they totally built buffalo, they were trying to herd them out of the park. They were trying to get them out of there with cow dogs and wranglers and stuff. And boy, they'd hit that line, slam on the brakes and turn around and circle behind them. And I've heard on drought years because the water catchments and different things outside of the park, you know, we can't do anything in the park per se, that those buffalo would come out on dry years. You know, they had to come out in water and that would help the hunters at times. I don't know. I haven't done it. I haven't experienced that myself. And it was lucky that I had a year. So because I went six times, 77 days. I shot my buffalo on the 77th day. 77th day. Are you still married? Are you married? Yeah. I think we get along better the more I'm gone. All right. Well, you can take Arizona for the healthier marriage.

Yeah, there you go. So a free tag and a healthier marriage. That's right. But, no, I got a great wife that supports me with this and knew how important it was to me. And I hunted them in the snow. I went up there with a snow machine, bought a snowmobile, 80 plus inches of snow pack up there. Driving around there, I saw one buffalo out of the park in the winter. I got a picture of him. And you guys have a picture in the Epic Outdoors last year, October issue. That's the picture that was in there. One buffalo out of the park in the winter. And then I saw one buffalo out of the park, which is the one I killed. So I saw two buffalo in 77 days out of the park. Wow. And the only thing that saved my rear end is there was a two-week lull. The Division of Wildlife screwed up and didn't have a season.

So everybody's last day, all the hunters' last day of their season, the following day was the opening day for the next season. They were all two-week seasons for a whole year. So they skipped two weeks. There was a two-week lull where the only people that could legally be out there hunting buffalo was me and the guy who bought the governor tag. The governor tag and you. And so with that little bit of a break, those buffalo started sticking their nose across and it wasn't getting shot. They kicked their whole head across that line. So they found foot out there. They started coming out of the park. Well, this one did anyways. And through the help of a guy up there named Russ Jacoby, who's an outfitter for the buffalo, and probably the reason why 99% of the buffalo that I harvested is because of him, he ended up kind of adopting me. We kind of scratched each other's back. I helped him.

And he let me hunt those things. He couldn't keep me from doing it anyways, but I'm not somebody that's going to step on somebody's toes. And I found this camera that put the SD card in my camera and saw that this buffalo was coming out of the park, but not during the daytime. And I'm like, shoot, I've got to find this thing. And, you know, I just have to pray that he comes out, you know, when I can shoot him. So I'm looking at it. I go back to this thing. I'm there at 530 in the morning and nothing in the camera. And I'm looking at the trails on which one he might be using. And then I hear a branch break. I look up and I see a hump of a buffalo. In a whole year's time, this camera's been here. This is the first time it would have gotten a daylight picture of a buffalo. And I'm standing right here in his way.

So I'm waiting for him and I'm watching him come down and he stops right where I was on my hands and knees, kind of figuring out if that was the trail he was using to go in and out of the park. And he smells me. And I believe in the personality out of a buffalo in the park, we can walk up, take pictures of them, try to feed them. They turn inside themselves outside the park if they smell a human. Thus, again, the whole park boundary and hunting them year-round. So they know that human smell is bad when they're on the wrong side of the line. So he gets there and he reacts just like that. He turns inside himself, takes off, woofing and puffing. Well, he wanted that salt so bad, he turned back around and went back in a different way and got the salt. And he's 20 yards from me, facing me, nothing to shoot at, for like 15, 20 minutes, licking, licking, licking, licking, licking.

And by that time, I was able to get past the jitters that I had when it was first all happening, the adrenaline that was going through my body. And then finally I'd calm down, like now, okay, now the thermals are starting to change. I kind of feel some different textures against my skin when the wind's starting to blow. And I'm like, oh, crap. I'm going to have a millionth of a second when he smells me. He'll be broadside for a second when he whirls a turn. And that's going to be my opportunity. Well, I was locked, arrow knocked, everything ready, and it did exactly that. And when he caught my wind, he whirled the turn, and then he caught my movement. And I stepped out behind that tree, and he stopped. And the arrow was already on its way, and it just center-punched him perfectly. I mean, I know I got the heart. And the arrow blew completely through him.

I didn't know if it was illusion or if I shot too low because he had such a mane. Like, did I get old hair? I wasn't picturing my arrow blowing all the way through him. That buffalo, yeah. Wow. And, but I did, like the story says in the magazine, I did pull my old 70-pound recurve, polymer recurve that I used for 30 years, blew the dust off of it because after a bad accident, I couldn't pull it back no more. But I healed up enough to where I could shoot it again. And I was using my 70-pound bow versus my 58-pound. And it blew completely through him. I had my arrows, you know, I think I was shooting like 1,200-grain arrows. So it had a lot of weight behind him. And blew through him. He ran about another 20, 30, 20 yards and stopped. And I blew another one through him at just above the heart.

And then he went another 30 yards and kind of acted like he was drunk and got dizzy and fell over dead. Oh, my God. In my eyesight. It never went 60 yards. He found my first arrow until he died. Unbelievable. That's an awesome story. That's crazy. That is. That's 77 days, your first opportunity. I mean, we'll just call it that for what it is. And you made it count. And now you've got 2,000 pounds and a pile of meat there. And you're by yourself. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, and that's the way I was looking at it. I mean, in Arizona, once you have an animal harvested, you can't cut down no standing trees and things like that. You can kind of work your way through the forest with a vehicle. Well, the closest I could get mine was where I was parked, you know, probably three-quarters of a mile away.

I wasn't going to – I mean, I got an extended cab and an eight-foot bed, so I need a football field to turn around on those things. So it is four-wheel drive, but, you know, I was like, I mean, this is what my backpack's for. And I got a hold of Russ, who said, hey, if you kill a buffalo, make sure you get a hold of me. And so I radioed him, and he said, hey, I'm on my way. And he wanted to take pictures of me and stuff with the buffalo, and he'd done a lot to be the reason why I was, you know, able to get it. And so he shows up, and he's flagging all the way there. I'm like, what the heck's he doing? He goes, I can get my truck all the way here. I go, there's no way. Well, he did. He got his flatbed all the way to the buffalo.

So I'd like to say I lost 10 pounds packing this thing out, and I had, you know, this many miles going back and forth, back and forth to the truck to make it as glamorous as possible. So, but I can't. You probably gained 10 pounds on pistachios on all them trips in 77 days. Yeah, yeah. Good point. So he saved me that task, though, that I helped him with a couple of his other clients pack out, you know, pack out buffalo. So I did have buffalo on my back on a couple other occasions. But mine, I didn't have to. No, I got the luxury of being able to winch it up on top of a flatbed and drive it out of there. Well, you've obviously done a lot, of course. You know, you've harvested a lot of different critters, you know. So just kind of wanted to dive into maybe a little bit of your application strategy, what other tags maybe you've drawn outside of your home state there in Colorado,

and how many states you try to hunt each year and manage that, and just kind of, I don't know where you want to go with it, but we just kind of wanted to dive into that. Well, strategy, I have no strategy. I'm pretty much buying general tags. I have a ton of preference points. I had 26 elk points for Colorado, and I burnt them two years ago on a unit that only took six points. But a client that I had in Alaska for doll sheep, he owned just one heck of a ranch in Colorado. And he has a lot of big bulls on it. And so I had the tags to be able to do it. I had to leave Alaska early to do it. Was it a ranching, like a ranching for wildlife that you, you know, that are available to residents to apply for, or what was it? No, it's not. No residents are able to do it. It's just his private property. Okay. Okay. And, but he said he couldn't, I mean, he sells like the landowner tags for 12 grand.

And he goes, I ain't going to give you one of my landowner tags, but if you have enough points to draw the unit, I'll let you help my ranch. Oh, how'd that go? Obviously, I could have drawn it four or five times over again. I had enough. So it was good that I had the points because when the opportunity presented itself, I was able to jump on it. That's a lot of points for a resident. So, so how did it turn out? Well, it didn't turn, I mean, it turned out awesome in the regards to, man, it's going to, well, probably not awesome in this respect. Like, I'm used to hunting public land and, and, and general units to boot. And it was, I don't know that I could ever do it again after being on this private property. It was just, I'm running away from bulls that would be hurt bulls anywhere else I went. I didn't run into a single bull that was definitely bugle smart. I've been pressured.

And it was awesome. I never had so many encounters in my life with three 20, three 30 plus bulls day in and day out. It was like an elk orchestra. They never quit. They were 24 seven, never not bugling. And, um, uh, I, I messed up on a, a really nice bull. I'm guessing it'd be in that three 75 class. And, um, uh, just messed up. I mean, I didn't, I turned down some bulls. I would never turn down in my life. I've already got a three 50 plus bull on the wall and I had opportunities at those. The reason why I dumped 26 points to the shoot, something bigger than I shot already was my only opportunity to do so. So I, I, I still not kicking myself in the butt, but I had a really giant class bull that I, I mean, been kind of keep an eye on him. I recognize his bugle, knew his bugle, knew the satellite bulls that were chasing him around.

Um, and so I knew I was always in his hip pocket, ready to, you know, to be in, to take my opportunity, but it presented itself. And, and one day I just, it was about one o'clock and I'm then running all day long trying to catch up with this bull. And he was always running from these satellite bulls. And finally, I'm like taking a break. Everything's kind of quieted down a little bit. You tell an elk are bugling out of their beds. I'm like, well, that don't sound like a bad idea. And, uh, so I'm sitting down eating a sandwich and I bugle and I get a bugle back across the canyon. Um, I go, got it. And I didn't recognize it as being the one that I was after. And then next time he bugles, he's still bugling from the same spot. I go, well, he's in his bed, but I'll keep him occupied until I get down with my sandwich here anyway.

So I bugle back and then I didn't hear nothing for like five minutes. Now all of a sudden he's on the same hillside that I'm on. And I recognize the bugle and it's him. And he's like 80 yards away and he's coming. And, and came in quiet all the way down until he got right in my hip pocket. And so there was a fallen down, uh, pine tree that was with the roots sticking up. And I was down there in the shade of where the branches were still there eating my sandwich. And that's how this debris, there was no way I could get narrow through it. And so I wanted to get down to that root pattern before he came up, but I didn't get there in time. Yeah. And so there he is 20 yards away and he's looking from where I was bugling from and he's, that everything's perfect except for I'm tangled up in this damn fallen tree.

And the only thing keeping the trunk from the ground is because of the branches holding it up. And so I kind of got in there close and I'm pulling back my string to shoot. And there's this little tiny branches fall on my string all the way up to my face. Yeah. And it was so distracting. I'm like, and I let down the string once and pulled back again. I just couldn't get that, that I couldn't get out of the way. So I was able to move over a little bit and drop a little lower. So now that limb is in front of my, that limb, tree limb is in front of the limb of my bow. And I, but what I wasn't concentrating on was all the debris for my lower limb. And so I let go of the string there, went out there about 10 feet. And because my lower limb hit the dirt in front of me and therefore I didn't get the bull. So, but I chased him all the way until the final hour, the final second.

And a good friend of mine, Jonah, the guy that I worked for, he was also hunting the ranch as well. Both of us, he traded a dull sheep hunt to hunt the ranch. And I got mine for a gratuity for guiding the guy. So Jonah already had his bull and he, so he's doing a lot of bugling for me. And final day, final hour, we called in a bull. And it was probably one of the smallest ones that I could have shot. He was like a 318 is what he ended up scoring. But I didn't want to come home empty-handed. And it's all on video. They took great video of it. It all turned out really, really well. But it looks a lot bigger video, bigger bull than it is in the video because he got everything. He's just a younger bull and didn't, you know, wasn't the bull I was after, but it was a great hunt. Yeah. Well, that's another reason. I guess you just have points. In your case, you had 26.

But, I mean, points, situations change. Never know when you're going to need them. Yeah. In certain states, we're not that high from a non-resident perspective on folks applying in Colorado because of the logjam of elk applicants at the top tier units that everybody might think they want to go to. But, you know, like right now, if you're going to be applying for other species for nine bucks, get an elk point for a non-resident. And even if you don't know where you're going to use it someday. But it's kind of like what you said, the system's a little bit flawed in the fact that, you know, this preference point system's been in place so long. And there's really, you know, this hybrid doesn't do much for non-residents, you know, because we meet our quota, generally speaking, in the main draw.

So, you know, it doesn't do a lot for us having, I mean, you can't live long enough to get some of these upper, you know, top-end units. So, you gain points for the exact reason you did. And you just never know when those opportunities come along and you'll end up on a private ranch somewhere that, or whatever, some kind of unit, you know, something gives. And you find an opportunity and you're prepared because you have a few points, you know. Or even just, you know, when I got, not to interrupt you there, but just, you know, you meet new people all the time. My best friends are guys I've met in the field. I mean, it was kind of a joke at my wedding. You know, we probably have 10 tables out there and I had a lot of guests.

And after about the fourth, fifth table that I've introduced my wife to, she goes, let me guess, you guys met when you were elk hunting or met when you guys were deer hunting. And you just keep that bond. So, as you meet people and as you're scratching somebody's back and they're scratching yours and they know a really good spot. And, you know, the hunting ethic in this world has really gone downhill. And, you know, there's a cochet, you know, somebody takes me to their hunting spot in those national forests and anybody's land. And I appreciate that. But if somebody's taking me to their spot, I'm grateful. I'm not going to be somebody that's going to go back the following year and tell all my buddies about it. Therefore, the guy who told me about it now has to find another place to hunt because I've lost friendships over it.

But when I'm getting back with the points, when you meet people in the field and they come to be your friends and you end up having beers with them and you end up, you know, having dinner with them and just being friends and scouting with them. And they have a real hunting spot. But it takes four or five points to draw. And if you don't do what you just suggested, like, you know, it only costs $9. Do it. Put it for the point. You don't have no idea where you're going to go. Don't want to know anything about the state. But just have them because you might meet that special, you know, guy in the field or just sitting at a table being invited to a party. And, you know, you've got a common bond, sees a, you know, an archery, you know, sticker on your truck or something like that. Like, hey, you bow hunt or whatever.

And you could, you know, that you could have an opportunity if you got enough points or an invitation. The guy says, hey, man, you ought to put in with me. This is a really good spot. I do good here all the time. And if you don't have that bank of points, then you don't get to capitalize on those kind of invitations. And so it's always just, you only live once. So it's not so much the money or the preference point. It's the year off your life. So you need to keep them. You need to keep them going. All right. Well, as we start winding up here, we've got several other questions we want to ask you just with some things that you use from gear to favorite species and things like that. So let's start off. If you had to pick your favorite species to hunt, what would that be? Sheep. Okay. When's the last time you hunted sheep? Last year. Was it? Whereabouts? Alaska.

Is that guiding or for yourself? Well, I hunt every year guiding. I've been guiding in Alaska for 34 years. But the gentleman, the guy I worked for, let me hunt last year for myself. And because I'm a non-resident, I've got to have a guide. So even though I've been doing it for 34 years, we had a young kid that was a licensed guide. He hadn't done a whole lot of his sheep. He's done mostly with brown bear. And so he's kind of getting his feet wet with me. And to make it legal, which it was legal. He was my guide. Yeah. I got to hunt myself. Awesome. I didn't capitalize, but I was into sheep. Like there was, you know, just into a particular ram that we've had our eyes on for years. And he was a dandy. And I just, I never got it to happen. Gotcha. Just, I was snake bit. Like I've never been a snake bit in my life, but I would do it again any day of the week.

I get to live sheep hunting through clients. I mean, I have like four sheep clients a year. And that's, you know, Alaska. I also guide for sheep in the lower 48. If somebody needs some help in some states I'm familiar with, or units that I'm familiar with, let's put it that way. And I've, so I get to live, I get to have that adrenaline rush through other people. And, and it's really rewarding with the backpack hunts and stuff. You usually break out, you usually got the true hunter, the guy that's been, and Jonah does a phenomenal job, you know, picking his clients. And he's good enough that he can. He's booked out three years and never had to do a show in his life. And we're 100% on sheep. Not with archery, but a rifle we are. And so it just, the quality of people that I've met were guys like, hey, for my birthday and for Christmas, don't give me no gifts, man.

Just stuff the envelope with whatever money you want to spend on me. Because I'm saving up to go sheep hunting. And when you get those kind of personalities, there's nothing you won't do for them. Because they're just like me. And that's awesome. The only way I've been able to afford to go sheep hunting and kill my dog sheep in Alaska was because I just worked it off in labor. I guided multiple clients so that I could hunt myself for free. You know, guided for change in labor. It's the only way I could afford to do it. What states do you apply for? What other states do you apply for? I put it for New Mexico, then Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada. Okay. For every species they offer. Montana, I'm probably not going to put it for Montana no more. It's just, just looking at, I mean, I got it on the ground floor.

I got max points as a non-resident could have for like the big horn sheep and stuff. You're going to give it up. You know the number is better than me. I mean, it's less than a percent of a percent of a percent. But you're the guy that won a state raffle. You know, that's, you're right. I need to buy a lottery ticket, too. Don't give up. Let's tell us how you really feel about these state draws. Let's just flesh it out real quick. How do you really feel? Well, you know, I've gone to like Mule Deer Foundation meetings, Elk Foundation meetings, and shows in all these different states. I was just at your Utah Western Expo, you know, just when I met you. So, yeah, I circulate around, and the subject comes up. And I really feel like Nevada probably has about the best system out there.

And then Arizona is a close second. It's, they've, when I go to those places, I go to those meetings and go to those dinners, and you start talking about, you know, drawing tags and things like that. And at least the people that I've talked to, it's not, it's not the subject matter. It's always, it's always a good thing. It's always like, nobody's complaining. But, and Colorado's got to be the worst. Yeah. We don't model any state. We don't talk to our neighbors. We don't do anything in regards to trying to figure out a way to make it more accessible for a brand new hunter or a youth hunter. Because, you know, we all know there's a third of the state that could never live long enough to draw. Yeah. But, like, Nevada, if you're there, you're Arizona, you at least got one chance. If my daughter puts in with one point, she has a chance. I might have 20 points.

I got 20 chances, but she has a chance. So every day when that draw time comes out and you're starting to get rumor that, hey, people are getting hits on their credit card, man, she can run to the computer and she can see if she drew. Yeah. Although that's not the case in Colorado. And that's, I think, very unfortunate. You know, one thing I do like about Colorado is, like, especially for deer, you can tell when you can get drawn. You know, I was applying to my brother-in-law's and father-in-law and whatnot, and they're going to get a tag. I know they're going to get a tag, you know, and so that's kind of nice. I mean, you know, having said that, you've got to deal with some of the other, you know, the system isn't the same necessarily for sheep, goat, and moose and whatnot. And I agree. You can do it.

You can plan your vacation like, hey, this is how many points it took this year and that kind of stuff. And I 100% agree with that. But they could kind of accomplish both by just rewarding like Arizona does. You took the best, like, if you just rewarded the people, your longevity, your customers with 20, 30 points, you put them in a max pool. Have 25% of your tags go to the max pool. And if they don't draw in the max, then give them a second chance for drawing in the general. And that way, they're kind of rewarded for being such a longevity-type customer. And at the same time, they can kind of tell when they're going to draw. And the rest of the people also could have a chance to draw them from day one. So you can scratch everybody's back at the same time.

If you would just kind of take the best, I think you can take the best of Nevada, how they square their points, and take the best out of Arizona in regards to the reward. Some of your max point holes, even though they dropped it down from 30% to 15%, which pissed a lot of people off. They had to do something. A little bit of neat about it is they did something. Colorado knows they did do something, too, but they're digging their heels in, and they're not going to do anything about it. So the average hunting age of a Colorado resident is 51 years old. So we're kind of enjoying states that don't have a point system. Like, it's kind of nice, you know, like the mixture, the mixture of it all, you know, the randomness in some states and planning in others. I forgot to mention Idaho, and that's how they are. I know there's a little bit of rumors that they might start trying to do it.

I'm kind of like, I hope they don't, you know. Or if they do, I hope I get on the ground floor, but along with another 100,000 people on the ground floor. The states have enjoyed the additional revenue by selling those hunting licenses without a hunter stepping foot into their state, you know, and you've got to get something for that. What are you going to get? Well, not only are you in the draw, but you get a point, and there's a subconscious value with a point. But having said that with so many applicants in the draw and the way things have gone, I mean, initially, it's nice to reward the guys who've applied for 20, 30 years with points, and so they have a better chance at drawing the sheep tags. We understand that. We get it. And having, you know, and that's good in theory when it started out, but nowadays, we've still got guys dying of old age that haven't had a sheep tag.

And in Nevada, I mean, they can get two sheep tags. I know guys that have had two desert sheep tags, and there's guys that are dying without having one. So there's a lot of change that needs to happen here and there. It needs to be once in a lifetime in their particular situation, you know. But telling them that and having them change and doing that, you get a lot of people that are whining because they've had, you know, three family members get two sheep tags, and they, you know, that's going to ruin their chance for getting two in their home state. So I don't know. Yeah. I don't know the answer. I don't either. I mean, like I say, I try to, and I do. I'm very cordial. And when we go to things, you've got to be. You don't want to have people turn their back to you. You want people to give you some time to give you some suggestions.

And I think an awesome thing they could do is average points. The Colorado is the only state, if you put in a group application, to go to the person with the least amount of preference points rather than averaging. So, you know, you get opportunities with a little kid that now is old enough to hunt. His dad has 20 points. His grandpa has 30 points. He has none because he's a brand-new hunter. Man, if you average that 20 and that 30 and all three people are involved, well, now grandpa is in a max point holder anymore. He's down to zero. Dad's down to zero. He don't have 20 anymore. Well, in your state. He's like a hunting unit that takes 18 preference points. So you get it solid into his blood system, an awesome hunt. And three generations of family got the hunt together. Well, as it is right now, there's no way grandpa is going to put in with his granddaughter. No.

Because it's bringing down to zero. Your state's one of the very few, I think the only one, where they don't average. They don't average the points. And you mentioned that. That's one thing I'm really pushing hard. It's like it's a win-win. The Colorado, the state people that I'm talking to at the DOW, it's like, well, our problem is that people are banking. They're making this stuff ridiculous. I'm like, well, then give them some opportunity to burn them. Like, say, if they have a friend, their neighbor, they'll want to take hunt with them. But they're waiting for him to build up points to draw. Well, they're building up more and more. So now they're even qualified even for a better unit by the time the neighbor finally gets the points to draw the unit they originally were talking about five years ago. So I go, yes, you're never getting anywhere.

But if you allow it now all of a sudden the neighbor to pull the other neighbor with him and average the points, both of them are happy. Both of them are doing it. They're doing it voluntarily. And they're going to go able to hunt. Now you've taken those people that had a lot of points back down to zero, then reflux it in for somebody else and somebody else. And you do four or five years of averaging points where people can start hunting with their friends, hunting with their families, and start averaging. Then we wouldn't have this 20, 30-year or once-in-a-lifetime hunting. And initially, in theory, you're right. But then what happens is everybody's going to apply grandma and mom who doesn't hunt because you're going to point average with them. I mean, and that's what's happening in these other states. I've done that with them.

I'm like, hey, you just have a special note in there and a disclaimer in there. Colorado, if you return your license, you keep your preference points as long as they keep your money. Well, just say, hey, no. You put it on a group of applications, that's null and void. If one person wants their money back. You get a one-time burn, a one-time average type thing, so to speak. Everybody has to burn them. Everybody. So you could easily fix that side note. So that's kind of what I'm doing. And I'm trying to do it. I'm doing it for everybody. I'm doing it for, because here I am. You know, I'm a non-resident in six other states if I ever draw. And I hunt Montana. They've taken away the preference points for the outfitters. They put them back into the public draw. They realize what it was doing to the state. And now there's more available for me.

So selfishly, I'm still putting it for points, but I'm still hunting general, and it's a great hunt. And they're doing things in Wyoming and things like that. They're, you know, you can still go hunting. So I would never discredit a non-resident, because I am a non-resident. In fact, I do more hunting outside my state than I do in my state, because I can't draw a tag. So I want people to put in. And then, so this whole thing with the averaging the points and stuff like that, I'm doing for everybody. To get everybody a fair shake and to utilize a hunt with people you'd really like to hunt with. Well, in closing here, what goals do you still have that you haven't done as far as in the hunting world? What's on your list still? Is the 29 a goal of yours, or does that just kind of happen because you've hunted in a lot of different places?

Or what do you have for a goal here before we wrap things up? 29 is not a, I mean, it's just kind of worked out that way. I mean, I would, I mean, I've been saving my money a whole life, and then things come up, a daughter going to college, things like that. I really want a stone sheep hunt. And that would be a climax of mine to figure out a way to get that done. So I buy my weekly lottery ticket, and hopefully, you know, someday that will come true. But if there's something I still look forward to would be the Grand Slam. And I know I got, I mean, I got max points in Arizona. I'm good friends with Randy Ulmer. He's, I mean, we're in the max point poll. I got 29. He's got, well, he's got 20. He's one point from it. So eventually, I think, doing the math, I've almost got to get a tag before, you know, I dive all day. Just put it that way. So we'll just see.

So I think I can get the desert sheep tag. I'm sitting there with 33 in Nevada, desert sheep points. So I think I can do that just regular. The stone sheep one, that's going to take coin, that's going to take, which is something I don't have a lot of. So I'm, so to answer your question, it would be a stone sheep hunt and a Grand Slam. That's the 29, awesome. But to get a Grand Slam with my recurved traditional equipment the way that I would have to do it, I think, would be a dream come true. Well, if you can believe it, we've been on here for an hour and five minutes. It's blown by. It's crazy what happens when you're passionate about big game hunting. And we start to visit. We could dive into each one of these subjects. We've talked about, you know, 15 different subjects for an hour apiece, you know. Right, right.

Anyway, we just want to thank you for coming on the Epic Outdoors podcast, just visiting. You know, there's a lot of little takeaways here and there. You know, we've talked about a little of everything from, you know, a lot of hunting stories clear down to point systems and applications and whatnot, which is really where these hunting stories originate from. So, you know, we appreciate your theory on it. Yeah. You know, we do appreciate it. The insight. I still go back to the 77 days on your bison hunt. I don't know that I've heard from somebody. I know there's people that have hunted stone sheep or Hockey Mountain Bacorn in places multiple years. I've had to go back two, three, four times. But I still don't think they've approached 77 days that I've heard. So that's a story worth telling, all right, to stick to it in a tough situation. Yeah. That's commendable.

So thanks for being on with us today. I appreciate that. All right. Thanks a lot. And we'll have you back on maybe one of these days. Okay. Take care, gentlemen. All right. Talk to you later. All right. We want to throw a little shout out to Outdoor Edge Knives. They're a great partner of ours here at Epic Outdoors. We appreciate them. You know, they've got a lot of products out there. But the one we use often, all the time, every door pouch in my truck, everything in my packs, my kids' packs, Adam's packs, everybody, is the Razor Light Knife. And so anyway, it's a replaceable razor knife with replaceable blades. They're big blades. They're not going to break on you. Anyway, they're awesome. Jeff got me using them on one of my hunts. And we're like, hey, we need these guys as a partner. So anyway, feel free to give them a hauler at 1-800-447-3343 or go to OutdoorEdge.com. Check them out.

Great products. Hey, it's going to be that time of year where scouting will be here before you know it. And if you need to pick up a new digiscoping setup, give the guys a call or visit the website at PhoneScope. They've got a great setup for no matter what you have, your scope, your vinyl setup, whatever. Check it out at PhoneScope.com. P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P-E. Get your setup. Get all the quirks worked out so you know how to use it if it's a different setup than you're used to. But great products. So anyways, you're getting ready for scouting season. Go check them out at PhoneScope.com.