EP 124: Hunting Q&A with the Epic Outdoors Crew

October could make a novice hunter a non-hunter. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. You know, they're mule deer. They stay within that mile or two area, unless they're just totally blown out. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey, everybody. Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Jeff John, Chris Peterson here in the office, coming at you from southern Utah. Rainy southern Utah. Cloudy out there, boys. Yeah, it's cold. I think we need a little more rain. We've been inundated with rain and snow. But we need a little more, right? Yeah, I don't know about that. We might be hitting our limit. I don't know. I'm not going to complain. We're always beggars, it feels like. But, man, there's no shortage. Sometime the sun's got to come out because I think you've got to have soil, moisture, and sunlight to grow stuff. Right, yeah, that's true. There's a couple components, not just water. That's right. It felt like we're in a different country lately. Driving around, it's all misty and raining every day. It's crazy. Southeast Alaska or somewhere, it feels like.

They say it hasn't been like this on the Arizona Strip for 20, 30-plus years, if not, you know, in all this country. I don't know, probably here in Cedar City. I know my in-laws, Jeff and I's in-laws, actually, down there in Nevada, Moapa Valley, got flooded out and great, you know. Heavy thundershowers. Yeah, I felt bad. Anybody that built in a wash, you're washed away. Huh? You built in the wrong spot. Yeah, geez. But anyway, today we've got a question and answer podcast. We've got some awesome questions. We've got some not-so-awesome questions. We're going to cover a little bit. Jason gets those.

We're directing those to Mr. Carter. That's why we've got Jeff here. Round us out a little bit. Chris is going to answer a couple. He's not sure which ones, but we're going to encourage him to answer a couple of these. All right. So anyway, we do want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. Actually, I've been buying some gear and getting ready to go, doing a bear hunt up in Alaska, getting geared up for that. And then, of course, everybody's getting ready to do some scouting, set up some trail cameras. Of course, we've got some of those coming as well. But anyway, a lot coming at you. So we appreciate Under Armour. They've got a lot of good products. Go to UA.com. I just type in Ridge Reaper or something like that, and pretty soon everything comes up. They do have a hunting section under gender, women hunting, men hunting, whatever, kids. Anyway, and plug them, play your way.

Just awesome gear. All right. Here we go. Let's get started. Bronson, let's let you start off with the first question right here. Chris has put these on here. In no certain order. So we're going to have a little fun with it. But I'll start with this first one. This one's from Danny Ryan. In an attempt to sell my friends on the membership, many of them have asked how this was different than Huntin' Fool. A lot of them, I guess, were members there, his friends. I explained numerous things, but I think the listeners would love to hear and chat from you guys about what sets Epic apart. Without spending too much time on that, I'll dummy this down just a little bit. It's hopefully very well known where we came from, and that is from there. Jason, obviously, longer than myself, and nearly 20 years there. Mine, you know, eight or nine. And I guess to keep it very simple,

when the ownership there was looking to sell that, to keep it very simple, we were not able to come to terms, I guess. That's the best way to put it. And buy that on terms that we were satisfied with. That's maybe one of the simplest ways to put it. The writing was on the wall that that was going to be moved down the road and be sold. And we had a lot of life left, I guess that's the best way to put it. We were all in our 30s, had a lot of career left. This is the career that we wanted to be in. We wanted to be in for the long haul. This is our job now. It's our full-time job. This is it. We're not spread thin, doing something as a hobby here. And so we moved on and started our own thing. Yeah, Epic Outdoors name is new. We're not new in this industry. And I think that's probably what leads us to separation is the longevity and experience that we have, I believe sets us apart.

Yeah, so I think a lot of it is just the fact that I don't necessarily know what they're doing anymore. Obviously, that's not our business. From our perspective here, I can tell you what we do. We live for the place. This is our last gig, so to speak. This is our final resting place as far as our careers. And we love it here. We answer the phone. We treat you guys and the information that we disseminate as if we were going to use that ourselves. We care about what we say and what we do and the consulting that we do and the guys that we apply and all of that. So it's very personal to us. You know, like Adam said, as far as knowledge base and years in the industry and what we've done, I think that kind of speaks for itself. You do a little bit of research, but just call in and visit. We're not here to convince anybody of anything. We're going to continue down the road we're going down

and treating our members as well as we can and, you know, enjoying consulting them as best we can with current information and practicing what we preach. We do what we say. Speaking of information on that, and I can say this as a guy who was never involved with that business over there. I mean, I was very familiar with it because, of course, you're my brother-in-law. I watched everything go and progress and all that over there. And then, you know, and then kind of watching everything from then till now. And then coming into this business, and I watched the way you guys go about this business. And I'm telling you, in the magazine, as you're flipping through those pages of the magazine, you guys study that stuff like it wears me. It wears me out. Literally wears you out. It wears me out going through it all. And, you know, every odd is written down, calculated by you guys.

And double-checked by you, Jeff. And double-checked by me. And you guys are meticulous in everything that you do. And the information that you guys grab, and I wish, you know, it would be funny if somebody saw a window into the Epic Outdoors offices when you guys are going back and forth about this unit and this guy did this. I mean, it's quite, it's entertaining at times to sit back and watch you guys banter back and forth. And the whole world shuts out. And you're talking about some obscure random coups unit in Arizona or something. You know what I mean? And you guys are truly excited about this stuff. Like, not everybody has that. And you have to have that to make your business what this is. Yeah. And I, maybe to add to that slightly, and it just, maybe to reaffirm what you just said, is we own it. We drive the ship. We're also the one researching, writing, and consulting.

Start to finish everything. And also goes back to that longevity thing. There's other avenues to get drawing odds, whether they be in paper format, whether they be on a state website, whether they be digitally somewhere, whatever, or kill statistics or things like that. But when you want to have five different pieces of information in columns and in paper form, like we put in our magazine, and then you really want to glean it down and interpret that somehow as to what's best for your situation. I think we're very experienced in how to value points, what you're trying to get out of them, and the data on there. We've done it longer than anybody. And maybe we'll just leave it at that. Longevity and just something looking the same on paper or on a computer screen, and oh, I can get that same information for you here and there. There may be some parts of it that you can,

but how you incorporate all that and develop a personal strategy and apply it to a unit X in this state, a unit Y, and species T in this state is what we're here. It's what we live to do. It's all we're consumed about doing. Well, I think too is the buck stops here, so to speak. So when we give out information and we consult, we also hear back from them when their hunts are over. And so we take it personal. If somebody's going to line us out and say, I used 10 points here. You told me this. This is what I experienced. I have a problem right now. You know, I've invested a lot of time, money, energy, my wife, my family revolve. You know, I mean, my whole scheduling was around, in and around my hunting schedule. Well, we take that. We hear those things that falls on our shoulders, and so we take it personal on, you know, on your success and the way we consult and whatnot.

And so I can't emphasize that enough. It'd be one thing if you can just print something out and then go about your daily routine and not sweat it too much and whatever happens happens and hunting is hunting. And hunting is hunting, and weather is weather. It is. But we are, we take it very personal, and so when guys draw, we have lists of people. We know who drew what. We check back with them. Hey, how'd you do? What did you see? You know, and we're just very involved, very involved. Now, do we call every single person that drew a tag back? No, we don't, and I'm not trying to say that, but there's a lot of things. But if you need information, you know how to go get it. We know how to go get it, and we're not afraid to ask guys how they did, and whatnot. And so, anyway, I think part of it is just living for it. This is how we've made our living. Getting tags is how we make a living.

It's very important to us. And quality tags, quality experiences, if we didn't, let's face it, if we didn't kill anything, would we even be here? And so, yeah, while trophy hunting isn't everything in the world, you know, nobody's going to pay 100 bucks to listen to guys that don't kill anything. And so, you know, we've got to do it. We've got to practice what we preach. We have to do it. We have to be in the field. We also have to be the guys writing it. You can't just pay somebody to write about stuff that they don't really know about and oversee that. So, it's tough, and it does have its constraints. You know, you can only have so many clients when you're dealing with it all. And I know what that guys are thinking. Adam just said it. They're researching. They're dealing with the client. They're doing this. They're doing this. At some point, they're stretched too thin.

We are not going to be stretched too thin. We don't need every dime out there. We just want to have a happy little business and make a living hunting and doing our thing and doing what we're good at. And this is the only thing we know. We've done it for 20 plus years. This is all we know. Adam, do you know anything else? No. I mean, what else is there? You know, I was a biologist, but that was way in a former life. You know what I mean? We've talked about that several other times. And that obviously set me up. But I mean, I was a wildlife biologist because I love to hunt. And that's what got me into that career. So really, that's the programming. That's where the brain's hardwired. We're hunters first. And yeah, we want to be in the hunting industry. And we've, you know, started over, if you want to say that, in the term epic outdoors. And some people might say, hmm, who's that?

Haven't heard of them. Whatever. Well, hopefully this sheds a little bit of light on that. And if you don't, you know, give us a call. We can talk with you more one-on-one about it. But hopefully, that scratches the surface a little bit about that without sounding like we're braggadocious, beating our chest, better than everybody, da, da, da, da, da, da, It's just, we're simply going to stick to what it is we do and what we feel that we're best qualified to do. And that's exactly what we produce. I think part of the difference, too, is we're strictly Western big game. It's the only thing we care about. We don't care about the East. We don't care about New Zealand. Africa. Africa. All of those other things is we're Western big game. Canada, Alaska, Mexico. Well, now, you know, some guys might look at that as a fault, and that's okay. And I don't want to do Maine.

I don't want to do New Hampshire. I don't want to do Vermont. We don't have any interest in that. We're going to stick to what we know. And so anyway, that's the direction. Not an official mission statement per se, but that's the direction. One thing, he goes on to say, one thing I love is the personalities and the customer service. Love what you guys do. Thanks again. And so anyway, there's quite a person, quite a bit of personality that comes out at times, some of which gets squashed a little bit when we start talking about Democratic versus Republican and whatnot, but we'll leave it at that. How about that? Okay? We're trying to be friends with everyone. So anyway, do we cover it? Yeah. What's next? What's the next one? Fire away, somebody. What is your trail camera slash scouting process entail for locating a target buck? How often do you check cameras?

Do you spend any time during the day glassing or looking for a buck? Thank you. Love the podcast. Quincy. Yeah. So scouting process definitely involves cameras in large part. There's some country that doesn't necessarily involve cameras. You know, if it's really high country, whatever, if I had a Wyoming region, gee, I probably wouldn't be cameraing up there, but I may in the low country, down low, a camera or something like that. And so it just totally depends on the state. There's a lot of states. We draw tags in all across the West. And at times we did run cameras down there for elk on some of my elk tags in New Mexico and things like that. There's been a lot of hunts. We don't run any cameras. Adam, you had that 27 elk tag. Did you run any cameras on that? No. It's in the rut too. I mean, I could have. If I was closer, you know, out of state hunts are tough.

We have done that on occasion as well, but a lot of those bulls will move during the rut just like our elk in Utah do. And if you're hunting elk in Utah, the end of August when it opens up, you got a chance to hunt your pre-scotted trail camera bull then. By the time, three weeks from then, that bull could be 10, 20 miles away. Who knows? So it's also different in this specific case, I guess, about a deer. It also is going to have to do with what season you're actually going to be hunting them. If you're finding them in what, September, August, you know, July, August, September, but your hunt's not till late October. There's a question like that coming up here a little bit. Your deer could totally move. There's deer in Nevada that'll move 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 miles to migrate. So really, you really got to, how much you put into trail cameras is going to depend on

when you're going to be able to hunt to what season. Well, we've hunted Colorado a ton. You hunted 128 in Wyoming. We've talked about that in the past. I've hunted Idaho. I don't remember running a camera in those states. Well, it depends on the water and a lot of different factors. There's a hundred different factors in the area. Yeah. And migrating and rutting. and so anyway, it just totally depends on the season. How am I going to locate a target buck? I mean, it might be two days prior on a third season in Colorado where we're spending all our time, you know, in the early season hunt scouting. I'm going to, we're going to scout behind our house, Nevada, somewhere within three hour drive, four hour drive, maybe four to four to four and a half at times. But anyway, so yeah, we'll scout at times just depends. And then of course, glass and glass. They're a big,

they're a big part of an area where it's very arid. Obviously other, other hunts of ours are, we don't use trocrammers at all. And, and just because the practicality, too much water, you know, deer elk don't, don't come to the same place all the time, you know, because it's just distributed water, too much water, things like that. So, but when you do get something, yeah, I'd say every couple of weeks, it's mainly how long we can stand before we got to go back and see what's on the card. It's like how often we check them is like, how long can you put it off before? I got to go see what's back on there. It's becomes a little bit of an addiction and it helps pass the summer, but you don't want to go too often. Sometimes you draw attention. Sometimes you're blowing deer out, getting in and out. So there's a few things like that. You want to be sensitive to as well.

I'm always on the checking side. I, you know, some of my cameras, I'm trying to check them once a week, some of them, but a lot of it is because I'm dealing with so many birds in some of this country. I have 5,000 camera pics of birds flying in because there's no water except for this guzzler. Right there. Right. And so they just fly in, fly in, fly in, and you're just dealing with that. And I have it on a high setting where they're taking three shot bursts every six seconds. Cause when that, when he comes in once a, once a week, you know, I want to get him on all the angles. Cause they'll, a lot of times they're watering for two minutes or less. Like I've got them on video mode and it's two minutes, usually two, two to three minutes depends on the country, if they feel comfortable or whatever. But usually where I'm at, the lions are concentrating on water. Cause that's where the game is.

The, the, the coyotes, everything's water equals game and game equals death and life. And so anyway, they're just nervous. And even at night. And so anyway, but I'm checking them off and re re, you know, making sure they didn't get bumped by a cow or something like that, you know, and got a moo cow knocking stuff down. And so I look at it like anything, the more you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it. So yeah, you can check them too, too often. There is that component. And then there's the component of, you know, if I don't check them often enough, I've just, my camera was upside down for two weeks. I rubbed on it or something like that. You've got sheep. We've gone up to those old sheep. Cause there's a, ours was always set. Right. They get the other guys. Wasn't the head button. They get cranking heads. They're fighting around the waters and stuff like that.

And your cameras face down in the dirt. Cause there's not trees to lag bowl them into in places like that. So you, you, you bear hug them to rocks and, and, and, you know, put them in little cubbies the best you can, but it's not a perfect world. The long, you know, there's a risk, there's a risk for leaving something too long. And all of a sudden you just lost a month. And because after five days, something got plowed, plowed it to the dirt. That's right. And then off. And then the more you check them too, um, you know, like, let's say you left them out for three weeks and didn't check it and it got ripped off on week two and a half. You lost everything. You know what I mean? So if you check them often, you're grabbing that data. It's not the cat. The data is worth more than the camera, you know? And so you grab that data and you clean it and you clean it and you clean it.

And then it gets ripped off on, you know, well you lost a week's worth of data. You knew there was one buck there and you better put a camera back there. Another camera to check him because when you, when he gets caught, you're loading him on social media. This guy's going to deal with some things, you know? There's a lot of critters that like, I mean, bears love to mess with cameras. They mess with stuff. Elk love to mess with cameras. Cattle, wild horses. I mean, it's just, it depends on where you're at. Sometimes you're dealing on a private price of property. You can go back whenever you feel like it. You know, you don't have the issues, but public land, you got a lot of issues. You got people, you got cattle, you got wild horses, a lot of things that can go wrong. You know, wind sometimes you get, you know,

find out you got too much grass and it's just taking pictures of blowing grass out there, filling up your card in six days. Oh, I had one. I remember I carried him by hand. I put up that camera and a cow elk came in and just licked it and licked it and licked it. It's all hot. I've had sheep do that too. And all the pictures for the whole thing are blurred, fogged up. Yeah, you get saliva. And then the camera gets knocked out of position. Yep. So, so do you spend time during the day glassing? Absolutely. We glass, you know, it, it, but everything, it all depends. Some of, some of this country is so flat and thick, thick trees and stuff. You know, a lot of times it's just a matter of how many cameras you can service that day versus glassing. There's a lot of other stuff. We're glassing a ton. And of course, using phone scope, you know,

with Cheston Davis and the phone scope and trying to get them on a camera, our phones, but camera versus trail cam picks. Cause what I've learned, and I don't know, I know you guys feel the same way when you feel like you've got a pretty good deer on camera, you need to freaking look at him because what they looks like 195 inch on the camera might be 215. Yes. I mean, it's unbelievable. The difference. And so you get a typical, I mean, you don't know how big that typical is unless you see them on the phone. And I've learned this the hard way. I've got a camera at, well, the silver state, uh, the silver buckle winner for the typical in Nevada last year. I mean, I never even hunted the deer, had him for three or four years. Didn't realize he nets freaking 194 and change or whatever nets on a drought year. We got him on good years and we didn't even look at him. But anyway, lessons learned.

We learn lessons every year. It's getting a little old, but, um, what else do we got here? Love the podcast. Um, how often you check the can we did all that? Yeah. All that. I think we covered it. Well, we're glassing. Um, I think part of this, I think part of the equation, um, and we'll talk about covering the numbers later, but sometimes you do about everything you can do. You glass, you're going to see a certain number of deer. Maybe they're watering on streams and you're not being able to get them on trail cameras. Um, but the more you can cover the better that they, they allow baiting here in Utah. Okay. So people can bait with apples and different things. We don't necessarily do that. Part of the reason I, I, I'm, I want to hunt some of the biggest animals in the unit. What's the chances my little bait pile is going to have the biggest buck in the unit versus out glassing.

So we'll run cameras on the water sources and whatnot and spread the cameras out, but then we're glassing heavy because we want to hunt the best buck. What's what? I just don't feel like I've got that good a chance of having one of the best bucks. However, some of the best bucks in Utah killed every year on apples. Absolutely. So, you know, I'm not going to say they don't work. they, it's cocaine to them. It works. And baiting is something that you, I mean, you really got to watch. Okay. In Utah, it's legal. Nevada is not. I mean, you have to be, make sure before you even think about doing anything like that, you check with your local, with your state's regs, make sure, make sure it's legal before you do any baiting or anything like that. It, you know, that's a big deal. Say it's legal in Oregon. It's a little bit surprising, but not in Colorado, not in Arizona.

Let's move on to this next question too. It kind of has to do with scouting. The question says, had a lot of deer found scouting and attempt to target. I catch them on camera, found them on the summer range, and I've struggled to find them when the hunts roll around. I'd like to know what tricks you guys have that help, but keep track of them and know where they disappear to. I've set cameras in an area they think they're going to, but haven't had any luck. How do you find the, what food they're eating at a certain time of year, others, uh, versus others? I guess the biggest thing you have to identify, you know, and I don't know from this question, you find them. I don't know how long a period of time we're talking about from the scouting finding to the actual, when the hunt rolls around. If you're at the end of October, you might have no chance. Cause maybe the deer in that area move,

start drifting somewhere else. And it doesn't always need to be snow related. It's just timing. That's why you're not finding them. He's not there. Yeah. But if in general, like, I mean, you look at some units, like you look at the Henry's compared to the Poncegont by the rifle hunt, the Poncegont is a completely different unit by the Henry's. The only thing that really changes is the bucks are dead from the archery and muzzleloader hunt, but the one, but the one, you might not, you might not be able to find him because he's in somebody's basement. That's right. But, but over the experience there, they're very, you know, they're mule deer. They stay within that mile or two area. And if they're, unless they're just totally blown out, but usually they'll come, they come back, generally. So usually in a situation like that, they're there. If you're in a unit that deer are triggered,

you know, you know, and you can, every state's a little bit different. Some deer trigger and move, they start moving and drifting different for different reasons.

That's the first thing you got to nail down. Otherwise, just don't give up. If you find a big deer, hunt him as close, switch your weapon preference. If you have to, to hunt him as close to the period of time that you always can find him. If you're not an archer and you always find these during the summer, maybe you ought to start picking up a bow because I mean, we do that. We, we, we hunt with whatever weapon we can get a tag to kill the bucks. We can have control killing. We've talked about, oftentimes we go to Colorado later in the year because we're busy in Utah or Nevada or other, other States earlier. in Colorado is the one we get another deer hunting, but we go late because we don't rely on scouting and we can do that. But when you, if you find a deer early, I'm early, I'm with whatever weapon. If you're not a bow hunter, this stuff's pretty forgiving this day and age,

pick it up or a muzzle load or whatever you can to hunt them closer to the period of time you find them. A hundred percent. And I think that is great advice. A hundred percent. Uh, you know, um, we have our favorites too, but we hunt with all weapons because you never know when you need to pick up a bow or a muzzle or rifle or open sight. We're taking the scope off. We've got Nevada muzzles. We've got Idaho, Oregon muzzle loaders, you know, that we pick up when we do theirs. They're more traditional. Open ignition, you know, with restrictions, you know, and so just adapt. And, and in that situation, maybe it's a unique situation. You can't hunt them early for any, I don't know, but that's. Or you don't want to. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to hunt elk in September. Okay. You're giving up the, the potential of killing that deer. You just are. Oh, you, or you go October 5th in Nevada,

go as close to the summertime as you can before they totally move, change, whatever. That's right. Same thing with finding sheds. We find, if we're finding a big set of deer sheds, I want to hunt as late as possible. If I'm going to hunt that deer, where are those sheds were found or though that elk, where those sheds were found guys are finding sheds here in Utah, late season, and they're coming from different units and wintering in a different unit. So, so we're just, you got to, once we've learned that and some of these late season elk hunts in Nevada, late in Arizona, late in Utah, they actually, the shed hunters, I mean, and people say it's a waste of time to shed on this. No, no, not really. You're learning stuff. You're learning stuff. And, and you're being able to kill stuff. We killed Joshua because of a set of sheds. Yeah. All the time. Late season bulls in Utah,

oftentimes pick a set of sheds get picked up somewhere next year. That's a target. uh, that bull's dead and doesn't know, doesn't know. Hasn't even grown a set of antlers for the next year. He's dead. But, and I think the other thing is don't get burned out at the wrong time. You know, it's so easy. You can go over to Colorado on that third season hunt and you can crush it. And you only got five days and you show up their opening day. You might've made a mistake. You might've been better off hunting the last five days. A hundred percent. Instead of the first happens all the time. We tell him and Adam and I and Jeff use, well, we talked to a lot of guys that do that and they go right off the bat. And the time we've rolled, I've even rolled it. Adam, we rolled into last year, last Tuesday, Wednesday, midweek. I don't remember when it was. And we had guys that are ready to go home.

By the time we even got there. We're just getting started. Roll up our shirt sleeves. There we go, boys. And he's like, they're like, it sucked. Well, yeah, it has sucked because it gets better the later you go. And so anyway, there's just some things and you got to be real with yourself. There's a, we all want to say, especially, I'm good at hunting the whole season. I'm, my wife's good with it. I'm good with it. I'm going to charge through it. And day five, we're all going, that works until your kid falls off the bar stool. It's going to be nice to be home for me.

I'm tired of being a single parent. You better get your butt home. And pretty soon you're like, yeah, I'm tired of being out here. I'm sitting in Alaska. I'll come home if you cook me dinner. All right. I'll see you tomorrow night. I'm sitting in Alaska and I get this text on my in reach. And it's, oh yeah, Jason's at my house because my daughter fell off the bar stool or fell off the counter. I forgot about that. Yeah. Well, she went, stuff happened. Knocked her out for a minute. And yeah. Anyway, yeah, driving 105, down to your house. I mean, it was, that was scary actually. It was scary being up there. I just barely killed my caribou. And I'm like, what the. Anyway, but yeah. So, yeah. Keep track of them. Yeah. Keep, keep track of them. I mean, you're going to have to glass your guts out. But again, I think what you guys touched on something. I can't remember which one of you said it.

There's guys scouting right now. Okay. That's fine. Go up, set up cameras. Cause maybe you're running a lot of them and you need to basically get them set up and whatnot. But what are you going to tell you? You're going to see a multiple eye guard and four inches, Shank. I've seen bucks already. Yeah. I've got a buck out to his ears right now. So I guess I am that guy, right? I'm that guy scouting right now, but I'm not really scouting right now, but I'm just saying, what I'm saying is, is you can get burned out. We know guys that start right now. And by July one, they are freaking done. Their wife's done. Their kids are done and they're done. They're tired. You know what I mean? And, and so just be careful. We're bridling ourselves. We're, we're counseling each other. We do. We self-govern all the time. Adam, it snowed. Oh yeah. In the Nevada desert country. What are you thinking?

I'm not going down there. I'm not going to do it, but you want to, yeah, you want to, because the calendar is trying to tell you, you should be out somewhere. So we're going to, and Instagram saying you should be because everybody else is, or at least the appearance of doing it. Then you find out they're posting pictures from 14 years ago. All right. So you don't want to be behind, right? You want to be, I mean, charging forward, but just chill. If you pay, you've paced yourself, you're going to win the race. It's just the way it is. Uh, and you'll be able to last the whole season. They were also talking about, uh, not finding a buck that you scouted. And I would say, if you're hunting close to the time you scouted, the buck's probably still there. It is. Don't, don't assume he's not. Don't give up, be persistent. One of the,

one of the things that I always go back on is I remember we were hunting out in Nevada one time with Jason and he had a specific buck that he had found and had seen multiple times. And we got there in the season and the buck was nowhere to be found, nowhere to be found, nowhere to be found. We sat there in the same one mile area for seven days. And finally the buck shows up and it was right where we were glassing the entire time. Yeah. We just, we moved a little bit and kept just moving around, getting different angles, but it took seven days in the same spot to find that buck. I've had hunters after six, they say I'm done, but we're talking 230 inch type deer, deer of most people's lifetimes. All right. And you don't, every hunter is a little bit different. Every client's different. Some people,

that's the mental grind to stick to something like that is way harder than anything else that you're going to go through. So if it's a deer or an elk worth something, stick it out. It doesn't mean it's always going to pan out, but if it's the biggest something you know about in the unit and you know, there's a good chance it's not been killed. There's always a potential that, I mean, let's face it if you're out in public land, but if you're one of the first seasons of the year and it's just going tough, he's there somewhere. Just got to assume that. So you have proof otherwise. And there's a few outfitters out there that'd let you hunt a ghost, you know, Hey, we're going to smoke this buck. We know Jason's after it. We're not going to say anything. And he's going to say, Eric for another 11 days. How about that? You know, I mean that happens, but,

but generally speaking that there's alive, he's happy. He's just not where you're looking or he's bedded at daylight. And then there's a lot of, a lot of times, Chris, we've gone in, Adam, we've gone in, you see every buck on trail camera, but the buck you're looking for day after day, every buck. And then, and then he's coming in at night and you get him on camera again. You're like, I just wish he wouldn't show up. Cause if he wouldn't show up, I'd give up and I'd probably go kill something. You know what I mean? The other thing I think you touched on Adam is, is maybe it's the biggest buck you know about in the unit, 230 inch, for example, or whatever. Or it's the biggest buck. What are the chances you're going to find a bigger buck? You've scouted all summer. That's, that was the, I guess we'll call it argument. We had the hunter is like you, we're not seeing deer. And I'm like,

we're hunting a deer. We're not hunting deer. Yeah. We're hunting. Oh, you're hunting as very special animal. When you have something like that, we're not, I don't, my job's not to show you a bunch of deer, does, fawns, bucks, frolic, and we're hunting a giant deer, a giant deer. Yeah. That's, that's what the unit's capable of. And in the end, you know, decided, no, I'm done and, and walked away. And, uh, mid hunt, three days left of the hunt, decided I'm not, I'm not, I'm not sitting on that knob or series of knobs that we're moving around to for another day. Like you guys alluded. But in your, in your defense, you've got a lot of hunters that prep you and you prepped him before. Hey, this is how this is going to go down. And they're all about it. When you're, when you get in the middle of it, when you're sitting in the office, got big old puffy armchairs and a little Coke on the desk.

Oh yeah. I can do anything. I'll hunt a giant. Let's just do it. I'll hunt him for seven days, you know. And then when you're in the field, he's like, I'd like to see a buck. And you know, 175 inch three by four with four eye guards would be awesome right now, you know, or whatever. So. There's a lot of truth to that. Anyway, that's the, yeah, it is. And so you've got to, you got to stick to the program, stick to the plan and be real with yourself. What are you really capable of? You capable of sending it out for seven days or you're not prep your outfitter or yourself or your friends or whatever and do what you're truly capable of. If you, if you're not capable of it, it's no big deal. You got to move, move, move, move. And you'll end up killing one. But some guys like you, Adam, in that particular case, are, you know, thinking this is the way it's going to go down.

And three days into it, you're trying to change plans. So where are we at? What question, Jeffrey? Oh, we down to the, how about this one? This may be more for us and magazine content. And that we publish or, or license app guys says, how do you manage applying so many people without affecting draw odds in particular units? And, uh, you know, one thing, and it goes back to a little bit of how we talked about in introductory wise, when it comes to our license application, guys, we've done this a long, long time. So we have a long series of questions with each individual trying to really define what their satisfaction, what they're going to be happy with, you know, trophy size weapon weapon, whether they're guided, self-guided physical limitations or not. There's a broad series of questions there that really diversify the applications a whole lot more than you think. Um,

there are people obviously that just say, I'm busy this year, best unit only. And yeah, they're going to get put in for the elite stuff. The elite stuff's always terrible drawing odds. Anyway, it doesn't matter if we apply our guys there or not one guy, any of our guys there or not, they're going to be terrible. There's some strips. There's some strips. It doesn't matter if we apply one person there in our license app or tell one person to apply there this year, it's going to have terrible odds. It doesn't matter. There's places like that. It's the, maybe the mid, the mid tier stuff, um, that, that yeah, stuff can go come, come on, come, something could get hot, something could cool off, but we really pride ourselves in Jason and I picking units specifically for every one of our license app guys. We, we do that. We've been, we, we love to do it. Jason use the term plug and play.

I don't know where it came from, but we love to individualize and spread people out. We love that. You know, in state, some States you can really do that. When you start talking about California for deer, how far can you spread guys out in quality deer hunting? I totally get that. And so I agree with you. What we're trying to do, we love, we want to get guys, we draw the majority of the sheep tags in Idaho. We want to get guys. And again, the second year in a row, we've drawn the majority of the tags in Idaho. Why do we do, how do we do that? Well, if we applied everybody for the same unit, we'd draw one. Yeah. You know what I mean? But we want everybody and people are capable. There's got one guy is super physical, loves that, needs 160 inch Ram. You know, the next guy wants the number one Ram in the state. No matter what, we're going to do the best we can for him.

Might not be unit 11 Idaho. Self-guided guys. Might be 37. It might be something, you know, and so we're with the knowledge that we get now. And again, we're, we, we feel like we're on the very cutting edge of, of units and the quality to expect and whatnot. And, and we're creative. We're creative. And sometimes even, um, apply people based on expectations, meaning we think this unit's about to happen. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Case in point. I mean, last year you drew a desert sheep tag in a unit that we, there was no long track record on in Arizona. There wasn't, but we felt, we felt this thing's got some, it's a newer unit. It's had a one tag forever. And we, five and six year olds going 170. Yeah. There's got some blood pumping in that unit. There's some good genetics. So stuff like that and translating that to deer and elk. Um, everybody has such broad differences.

There is a big category that just says, I want 180 to 200 inch deer. And that's all I'm happy with. Okay. But then there's layers within there. The self guided, the guided, the physical, the non-physical. I want to see high numbers of deer or I can hunt low numbers of deer as long as there's a couple of old bucks there. There's a lot of different layers. So, uh, we really pride ourselves on, we liked, our job is not just to get the manual application, get them done and then forget about it. Their harness to get them drawn. It'd be easier if we did that. Just plug them in. It would be easier. But, but our job, yes, is to get guys tags. The second part of our job is to get guys tags. They want, that's right. If we get them tags, they don't want, we're losing clientele. It's better to not draw them than get them. They don't want. That's right. You know, I think part of this too is we've,

and it talks about the longevity. We're talking 20 plus years in the industry. We're confident in, in areas. We weren't confident in 20 years ago, 10 years ago, like Idaho, 42, 40, all of these places that we go, whether, you know, Adams in Wyoming and some of these places we're going to be heading into Wyoming and Colorado and all these places. We feel comfort when we're applying guys. It's because we kind of have seen it ourselves in large part. I think the other thing that you, that you get a, you get a, well, and just one more piece of this. You get a guy, there's license app consultants that are from New York or whatever. Does he, is he going to have the confidence of applying? It's really safe to do 44 in Colorado for deer. How can you argue? That's not the best, right? But sometimes we're doing, we do, you know, something that we're privy to information. We're privy to,

because we live it and we've seen it ourselves. And so that plays into the units we're choosing for our hunters. A lot more firsthand perspective. That's another. And the other thing is, is I think, and it ties back into a lot of other things, but for our license, I can't imagine somebody having a license application service that doesn't also do the unit research that we do. Right? So you think about how many units, I mean, you guys are learning about the units for the research for the magazine. Well, when we go to start applying guys, it's not like we even have to, we don't, we just off the top of our head, we pick stuff. We don't, we don't have to say, Hmm, what do we, what do we do for this guy? They subscribe to Epic Outdoors. Yeah. We can't put everything on paper of how we truly feel. It's a, it's a great research tool, but guys that are calling in are getting how we really feel.

You know, guys that listen to a podcast are getting how we really feel. Yeah. If you don't live it for yourself, it's just different. And so. And is it worth burning these two extra points on this hunt? Or is it worth, you know, so many different little things, you know, there's just a ton of, a ton of variables. And, and, and so anyway, which goes into the entire application strategy, not just units, the entire strategy. Why am I building points here? Well, I don't know. Maybe you want to take your daughter someday and you can, she, you can point booster. You know what I mean? You guys can ply together and, and you'll be able to get her a tag right off the bat. I don't know. I get it. Wyoming's not the best for deer right now, but there's a hundred other reasons, including maybe the fact there'll be something that comes up. Anyway, there is a, let's move on.

There is one comment in there that somebody said something about a hundred numbers down. And I don't know if maybe they're pulling that from a previous podcast. I'm not 100% sure, but, but I think the biggest concern that we have a lot of times is, is tag numbers are down. There's a lot of people who are generationally quitting, no longer hunting because of collectively. If you look at Utah, historically 200 and something thousand tags, Colorado or whatever, a hundred, a couple hundred thousand hunter numbers are down. And I know that yeah, that's right there. And a lot of States are talking about it, Jason. We have some of these state fish and game directors, assistant directors and things like that on with us. And a big deal that they're looking at is recruitment and retention of hunters because yeah, you might have people in their thirties to seventies,

but they're not got the people to replace them. And there's a, you know, there's a, there's an attrition that goes through the hunting ranks, so to speak. And, and like you said, when Utah bit the bullet, 1992, three, whenever it was, went to draw 97,000 tags, whatever a lot. There's people that still haven't hunted since that day for deer in Utah. And yeah, you'd just have to maybe label them as a little bit more of the casual, but the hunter numbers as a collective hole are down. Individually, there's places you go to hunt general season in Idaho or Colorado for elk. And you're like, what do you mean? Hunter numbers are down. You can take isolated places like that and say, Oh, there's more hunters now than there's ever been on the planet. Yeah. Just compare it to the population growth. And you'll find that the percentage of people hunting is less than it's ever been.

That's probably what we've made the comment in regards to is that. And I don't even remember when we made it necessarily. But, but having said that, yeah, I, I agree. Yeah. Trailheads are going to be full of, full of vehicles. It also feels like it's, it is harder to get tags now. And with that, you've got kids. It's expensive. It's harder to take your kids out hunting when it's hard to get tags. So I feel like the youth recruitment is a little bit less too. And it's complicated. These, these states think that they have an easy system. Adam, how do you feel about Arizona's application system? I mean, we love Arizona hunting in Arizona. Applying there is probably the most unfriendly system that there is. It doesn't, the, their system doesn't recognize many times your hunting license that you have on file or it imports one. An old one.

That is old and going to expire before the application deadline. Doesn't warn you of that. Like it did prior years, but their new system doesn't warn you of that. You've got to go buy your hunting license at a separate spot. And then go save the number, then come back and apply for your draws. And doesn't, it doesn't smart, not smart enough to know your hunting license number. So you've got to plug it in there. And even though it's got your old number. Then you've got to check out, you know, you updated your address when you bought your license, but now you go and apply. You've got to update your address again. Cause those systems, the license purchase and the draw database don't talk. And then you've got to enter your social security number on every species. You've got to check out, check out the, you know, every species and check out. So it's a lot easier for people to just say,

I'm done with that. It's a pain in the butt. So take note. Some of these States have really gotten good. They, they, they make it a point to try to improve, make it easy, streamlined, all that. But the more complicated it is. And if you forget your password in Colorado, you know what I mean? I mean it, and you can reset it. You use an email you use 14 years ago. And so, and it is so complicated. And I think, you know, back in the day, you got this little piece of paper. Now it's a spreadsheet. We used to go look at proportions for us and our families. We used to go look at draw results by driving down to the game and fish and look on the window. Yeah. That's true. I remember that. I remember that. I remember that. Bubble jet printer. And, and, and, and, you know, so anyway, things have changed so much and it is so difficult. The States think it's easy because they deal with it.

This is their job. They deal with it. Well, it's not easy. This guy's going once a year and, and, and applying. And by, by the way, there's three application periods and there's two booklets to look at. And there's this booklet that is good for two years, except for there is an updated second edition. Yeah. And you should probably look at that one because we had an emergency closure. And now it's changed all the hunt codes. I don't know. It's just, it, I mean, you know what I mean? And it's just, so anyway, you think you made it easy. You didn't. But I will tell you this, there are States and they're running, they're running them like businesses more. A, there are a lot of States that do treat us like clients. They, they care, um, because it's making sure they have money for vehicles. They have running their agency. That's right. And number two,

they're doing queries to figure out how many new youth licenses they've sold, how many new youth applicants we have. The percentage wise, what kind of growth is that they're treating it like a business where it used to be like game and fish was against hunters. Well, and one, one perception that might make it seem like there's so many hunters out there is all this. We just got done talking about by the time you go through all of what we're talking about and get tags in a certain state. You're a pretty vetted hunter. You've got, you're vested. You've gone through the steps, jumped through hoops and you got something. It feels like hunters anymore. There's a lot less, I would say casual hunters. And so maybe that's to address this guy's issue is anymore. The guys that are sticking with it and the guys that are applying, they're putting a lot more into it. They got their gear,

they got their truck, they got their optics, they got side by side time. They're dedicating it there. And it's, it's like not the weekend warrior for a day and a half and I'm home and I'm done. And then you got them out to yourself. Well, you're losing with the, with the loss of general tags, so to speak, let's call them over the counter tags with the scarcity of over the counter tags. And we're going to see them all go away. People are vesting. Then, then you're losing general season hunters. You got the serious guys that you're talking about, but with the general season tags going away, you're going to, you're going to, you are going to lose some of that. Whatever. I don't know where that really, you know, what, what that matters per se to your personal hunting for 2019. The general feel is, is that, I don't know how, I don't know how best to explain them. Wolves in Colorado.

I feel like I, I think about this and this is all he says. Wolves in Colorado? Question mark. Well, absolutely do not bring wolves into Colorado. However, that states demographics in the last 10 years, they're coming. I would be scared to death. This is the way I look at it. This is the way. It's like kids in social media or kids in cell phones. Wait as long as you can to let them have social media or cell phone. You know what I mean? Wait as long as you can. Fight them as hard as you can fight them to keep the, the main, you know, numbers of wolves out. There's, there's been, you know, wolves tracked down through Colorado, come out of Wyoming and you're going to, yeah. Wolves in Colorado? Question mark. Yeah. You've had a few. It's perfect habitat, but do not. Yeah. There's games. They're going to eat. They're going to be fat and happy, but don't, don't let them in.

Sportsman do everything you can in Colorado. Yeah. Or, or the next state we're not talking about right now that they're not really entrenched. You know, the Utah's, the other neighboring states. Fight them tooth and nail. If you care, fight them tooth and nail. It's just the way it is. They, wolves eat and they eat a lot and they like to kill and they kill a lot. All right. Jason, what infatuated you with mule deer and Adam? What is it that infatuated you with sheep? Mule deer, I don't know necessarily what it was other than, you know, when you'd see a picture of those giants, every one of them were different. And a 240 inch here from way back seemed to be 45 inches wide, 14 eye guards and five masks. I mean, there was just something about it that just, man, your jaw dropped. And, and so, and I guess part of it was these old timers telling me, you ain't going to kill a buck like that.

This is the nineties. This is the two thousands. They don't make, those days are gone. The old days are gone. And I'm like, somewhere there's deer dying of old age. And with the deer dying of old age, if they have the right genetics, they're going to look like that buck from way back. and so I guess I'm more of a challenge. Came a crusade. Yeah. It just was a challenge. And ended up knocking a couple down. After years and years, one, the first 200 inch, I said, this year come heck or high water, I'm freaking killing a 200 inch. And, and, and I had no money. It's broken broke. But I did have time. And, and I spent way more time than I probably should have, but I spent a ton of time and made it happen and killed a 203. Barely got over that 200 number. And then, and then I went five years, you know, before doing it, doing it again. And I, and I just, you do realize how hard it is. And I,

but I think it was the challenge and, of, of, and, and, and putting your hands on something special, just putting your hands on it. Like it's so addicting that feeling. And, and, and I guess that's kind of, kind of what drives me, you know, a little bit. It's, it's, of course we eat them, you know, but a package of meat doesn't do it for me. I'm not going to go spend 14, you know, months out in the field on a specific deer following for three years to get a package of meat. But it's just putting your hands on something special. And, and then, and then the time, the more time you spend, the more you respect them. And the more you love them, so to speak. So much respect. The more you learn how to hunt them because you're a way different mule deer hunter now seasons, call it whatever, but refined than you were 20 years ago when you really were starting or, you know, 25, whatever that was.

So tell us about sheep a little bit. you've, you've done it all. There's nothing you haven't done sheep wise, but a couple of things probably, I think growing up in Southern Utah, you know, and having a lot of red rock desert country with desert sheep. My dad took me down there. It was just kind of where we went in the winter time. You got to get out of the mountain, you know, get down to the desert and we'd see sheep and things like that. And then as I, as I started down a career path of wildlife biology, I, this is probably where it started as well. I, I landed a graduate research project at Utah State University, um, studying, um, wildlife watering sources and desert big horn sheep in the grand staircase, Escalante National Monument. That was when you get accepted to grad school to get a master's degree, you know, a major professor, you know, picture gets you on board, but it,

I could have gotten assigned a coyote project. I could have got a coyote project or a mountain lion study. And you take what's there where the funding is at the time. Mine happened to be that. And that, that couple of years that I really immersed myself on the compare what's plateau really, I think set that hook, got me in, you know, really interested in them. I was also a little bit older, you know, young to mid twenties at the time. So it wasn't just a, you know, 12 or 14 year old kid and down with my dad, Oh, there's some sheep. And then you're onto the next thing, playing football with your friends or whatever. It was a period of my life. I'm picking a, picking a career. And then just, just the stars aligned again, as I finished my graduate project at Utah state, the biologist that was over that area, Canaan, Garfield counties retired. And I applied for the job and I got it.

And so I was then the biologist over the area. I did all my graduate study work and it started from there. And what really, you know, sheep are those things. Let's face it. You, you, you want to hunt them, but how do you, how do you force yourself to hunt desert sheep? There's not a way to do it unless you got a lot of money. There's no way to force yourself to hunt it. Yeah. You I've, I'd been applying at the time, just like I did in Arizona, Nevada was the first three that I started applying for, but you can't force it. You can't force rock hunting Rocky mountain sheep. So I like, all right. After I left the state, you know, I couldn't guide or do anything. You know, I could go on any hunts with family or things like that, but I just said, you know, I want to hunt sheep. I want to do it. And, and I don't want to wait for my one or two draw tags in my life. I want to hunt them.

So I got licensed as a guiding outfitter. And, uh, you know, I guess 2006 and seven and haven't looked back since. And it's grown into a, a fun, I guess you call it a side business. It's still all intertwined with Epic outdoors. It's hunting, but it, it's a big part of my, my life and my brother and my dad and, and Wayne and some of the other guides. We love to guide sheep punts because of the animal, but also where you get to go hunt them. Every sheep hunt can be a little bit different. Like you've said, Jason, we've hunted them, you know, and Canada and Alaska now, and, you know, Oregon and, uh, where else? I mean, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, I mean, all over the place, Wyoming. So it's just that you just can't, you can't force yourself to hunt them. We can go hunt mule deer two to three places a year if we want. And that's my, that's a great passion too. And it goes back to big mule deer,

the hardest thing to kill. And it is that crusade, but for sheep, it's just doing something that's kind of intangible. And the only way I'm going to do it is to take hunters. Well, and I think part of it too, though, is you've been so vested in them and, and, and being the biologist and transplants and all of these things that you, again, you, you learn to love them. And, and learn, the more you learn about them, the more you can't get enough. It's not like, okay, I've been there, done that. Are you going to ever quit hunting sheep? No. Am I going to ever quit hunting mule deer? No. But again, we're infatuated with those. We, we're killing elk. We're killing other stuff anytime we can. You know, so you're killing big deer. I'm killing sheep when I can. I've got to slam. And so it's not like we're killed two deserts. I mean, it's not like we're slowing down on these other species,

but there are things we all like something. We all really specialize in something. Jeff, I don't know about you. You're killing everything, but I. Preferences always change. Like, I remember when I first, when Utah first came out with the whole, you know, they were really getting their draw thing, point thing going, everything like that. So I lived up in Northern Utah. Well, I kind of did what everybody in Northern Utah did. I spent a lot of time on the cash unit. So what do you put in for when you come to Once in a Lifetime? You go moose. Well, then me and my dad, we're over on a, 20 miles in on a horseback hunt. Colorado. In Colorado. And we come around the corner and here's these two big rams. Well, we're, you know, we got a bull bugling down in the, you know, down in the trees. And we come around this corner, here's these two rams. And we're like, whoa, that's the coolest thing.

That's the coolest thing I've ever seen. And then next thing you know, we come home the next year. We're like, we're, we're applying for Rocky Mountain sheep. And now you look back and that was forever ago. Now I've killed a Rocky here in Utah. My brother's killed a Rocky. And your dad's got a group this year. All three of you. My dad's got a Rocky Tech. The biggest bottleneck of the sheep world. And you guys are smoking three in a family. I don't think that's fair. And it may not have changed. It's kind of like the thing you can't have. It goes back to what I said. You saw me like, I just can't force myself, but I'm going to try somehow. And, there's kind of a will, there's a way, but, but hunting sheep and Jeff, you were, you were on several hunts that helped me out last year, you know, guiding and things like that. And of course we were all on Jason.

It's just a sheep are a special thing. Mule deer, extra special. you talked about back when you first started guiding in Utah and you were writing down all of the different rams you've been a part of. And I was like number one on your list or two, one behind, right behind your dad or something. But anyway, and look how many rams and hunts you've been a part of since then. And it's, I would call that an addiction, you know? Yeah. Well, it's, it's fun. Mine was one of the first, mine was one of the first and you knew that Escalante region. Yeah. You don't go out there with, with it was, without having, being with somebody that knows it, you're going to die, you know? And so anyway, but how cool is that? Yeah. It didn't start off saying, but it's just, it grows. And the more you do something, you know, that you're hopefully get a little bit refined and good at the more you want to do it.

And so now, yeah, it turns into 10 or more hunters a year and, uh, we'll have another big year of the show. Well, and I think with our personalities, if I lived in Kansas, I mean, big white tails, you'd be, yes, that's a lot. Yeah. That's like, hands on enough of them. They've got 12 inch eye guards. Some of them got 14 eye guards aside. Yeah. And you get people from Montana and they're driven by elk and they should be, they, their mule deer is, they hunt them hard and they're, and they're, they've got giants on generals or easy to draw. So a part of it is, you know, we, we grew up in Utah. We cut our teeth hunting mule deer elk were a novelty. They got really neat for me and you. We both started applying for them because they, we didn't have them and we both killed a bull, but that's a one and done thing. And then the sheep thing, again, you started putting in for them early on too,

because you're from Southern Utah, Moab, Monticell and myself. So we, we, it's partly where you get, what do you get exposed to early on? And like you said, you got exposed early enough to those big Rockies in Colorado, switched your whole application strategy in Utah and you and your dad and brother have now all drawn. So that's pretty awesome. It is awesome. You guys ready to give something away? Yeah, let's do it. All right, we got, we got some pyro putty that we're going to give away along with lighters. So, um, we've got the lighter plus a couple of cans of the pyro putty. I went out this weekend and I tried it out. It's pretty, pretty awesome stuff. It was in the middle of a rainstorm, windy. I got it to light up and I built a fire within five minutes. Come on. Yeah, it was pretty impressive. Something you're going to want in your pack. Anyway,

we're going to give away some of the pyro putty and how to win that. Go to our website, go to the podcast, enter in the code pyro, P-Y-R-O, and you'll be entered to win. Uh, you've got four days from the release of this podcast and yeah, you'll be entered to win. So, all right. So what are we, how many are we giving away? So with the pyro putty, we're going to give two, uh, we're going to have, uh, Cheston send out two of them. It's going to be two cans of the putty with one of the lighters. The lighters are really cool. They're not like a typical lighter. You're not worried about the wind blowing them out. It's like an arc lighter. Like, uh, they call it a little, an arc lighter. So basically it's got a couple of electric prods zapping in the middle. It works great. They're pretty cool. And they're fun to play with. Looks like an electric shocker that women would carry in their purse.

It does. It almost looks like a mini taser. But you plug them into a USB port, recharge them. They're, I mean, they're really cool. So, and we're, we're giving away two of those this week. So there will be two winners. So they're a hundred percent waterproof. They say a quarter size ball burns like 15 minutes, a super lightweight, easy. Go to www.pyroputty.com. P-Y-R-O-P-U-T-T-Y.com. Check it out. Good stuff. It's in our packs. It is. We're going bear hunting here this week. And it'll be in my pack. Well, let's, let's talk about the question that everyone's thinking. According to this fellow. Yeah. We kind of know who it is. I think we know who this is. Right. Do we? When are you going to try pack llamas on a hunt? This is the person that just, I, last night, I think on my Instagram story, they were in a llama trailer, picking up llamas in California, moving them. Cause I don't know.

Well, I think they have a breeding season. I don't know. It's a weird, they're a weird animal. Don't count on this. This is, here's the deal. When I see a 36 inch eight by eight with triple eye guards on the back of a llama, I probably look into one.

Deal. When have you seen a 230 inch on the back of a llama? Okay. And I'm sure by mentioning this, we're going to get some pictures. Jason at epic outdoors.com. I want to see pictures of big bucks on the back of llamas. And I don't want them. Photoshop. Jason. I hope, I hope that white vinyl fence will hold them on because you're going to have one in your backyard. Could you imagine? Yeah. Spitting on every neighbor. I'm just spit on everything. If they don't like you, that's what I'm told you. And I've seen it happen. But I mean, but they will eat or eat anything. And they're very, let's call them self-contained, so to speak. I mean, they're, they're very low maintenance, you know, from what I understand. And you probably learn to love the ugly little things. But I'm not, I just don't see that happening here at the Epic office. Maybe Chris, Chris, you going to do, get into the llamas?

No, no. One of the things for me. Lama breeding. No. One of the things, maybe my brother John would do that. He would. He might. He would. One of the things for me is, is being efficient and doing, doing what you want to do in the most efficient way you know how. Right. So if I'm going to go out and hunt and I want to kill a deer, I'm not going to take on this whole side project of becoming a llama farmer to kill a deer. I'm just going to go do it the best way I can. I already have horses. That's something I do. And I know I'll use them. Because you're not having to learn how to be a horseman. Exactly. If I'm talking to somebody who has never been around horses and they want to kill a big deer, I'm not going to tell them to go use horses. I'm going to tell them. Well, first off, you need to go get your horse. Exactly.

You're getting into a whole other side thing that you're getting distractions. So just for me personally, I'm not going to go try to learn how to be a llama farmer. I'm sure there's a lot of things that go into how to raise a llama, how to care for a llama, how to be around them, what to do, what not to do, how to pack them, how to tie them together, all of this stuff. The nice thing is they'd probably be better bear bait. Like if you're in grizzly country, at least you can run and leave your llama standing there to a tree. And he's probably going to smoke that llama. You know what I mean? I mean, no, I think a grizzled look at him. Oh, really? At least that's food. At least on my horse, I can get on and try to ride away. What do you think, Bronson? You can ever use a llama in this? I don't see it happening. No. Well, they're probably great animals and people that have them, you know,

it's probably great for pets. Yeah. Keep doing it. Do it, do it, do it. But there again, you know, stick to what you know. We have now answered the question everybody was asking. So what else do I mean? This next one's pretty good. He's got more questions. No. This next one. For someone new to public land mule deer hunting and living out of state, what's the best season or hunt for a beginner to fine tune gear and skills? Late, early season, late season. And then he threw out a couple of states like Colorado, Wyoming, Montana. Montana. I still believe early, earlier seasons, you usually see more game. I mean, unless you're talking the rut and rut, rut hunts are harder to get unless you're looking at Montana. You don't really need to be as skilled to hunt in the rut. I'm not saying it doesn't take skill, but the rut takes care of a lot of things. We've talked about it ourselves.

It takes care of the lack of time to scout or things like that. But if you hunt earlier in the year, you usually can observe deer a lot longer during the mornings and the evenings. They're out longer in the mornings and the evenings. You can watch behavior, patterns, groupings, how they bed, watch how they shift with the sun. A lot of things. You got hunting them in October. Sometimes you don't even see your buck for five days because they're in the thick trees and they bed, they bed down in the daylight. October could make a novice hunter a non-hunter. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. And so don't pick the hardest time to kill a big mule deer and start with that. And he says early, late. You know what? If you go late, Ray Charles is going to see deer. Yeah. If you go really late. But once again, how many tags? You know what I mean? You're going to see deer.

You are going to see deer. How many tags are you going to get though hunting in mid-November? That's true. You get Montana. You get a Montana general. Outside of that, you got to draw a tag. You got to draw everything you get. You don't hunt that often in late season run hunts. You go to Idaho over the counter deer, you're going to have a rude awakening. There's good hunters that don't see deer in a week. Yeah, that's right. You know what I mean? All the e-scouting in the world is going to help you in Idaho at times. I think you've got a great point. Early season allows you to scout. You do. Things are out frolicking around. I mean, they're feeding a lot. They're getting ready for winter. I mean, they're just out and about. But late season, if you're lucky enough to hunt Colorado in November, four deer, the third season, third rifle season, I mean, you're going to see deer then too.

You're going to have to deal with people, but you're going to see deer. So there's, there's pluses and minuses to both timeframes. October for deer specifically, very hard. And if you're looking for that opportunity, like if you say, okay, I want to make the most and you live in a relative distance of say, say Idaho, that's a great place because on that general tag, you can hunt your archery. You can hunt and then come and hunt your rifle. You can get a lot of time and knowledge in by doing that. So if you have, if you have, but I just don't want people to go there and feel like, yes, I'm a failure because I didn't see any deer. And Jason, Adam, you know, Jeff, whoever would have seen deer. We might not have. We might not. I mean, it's a, it's a, but some of these hunts are butt kickers. And so I think there's how many tags we eat. Well, they don't. We don't talk about it. We talk,

I like to fail in silence. Don't you? Yeah. We don't talk about, well, I just got my butt kicked for seven days. Do you want to hear about it? Let me tell you about it. Let me tell you about it. Let me tell you about the gas. Food got sick. Ice melt in the cooler pretty soon. Well, it just is what it is. They did talk about tripods. We had a question about tripods. This guy has a current old Manfrotto 390, sturdy, smooth, a bit heavy, packable vortex. He doesn't like it. you know, anyway, and has some different combos. What do we use? You know, right now I'm using an MT 190, the CX Pro 4 Bogan with a 700 RC2 head on it. So anyway, but there's a number of, we've got numbers of combinations. We've got stuff all from, from get sewed, a Manfrotto tripods, outdoorsman tripods. We've got a bit of a new outdoorsman. It's a good trip. Yeah, we do. I mean, different applications. You know,

a lot of times if I'm in a unit that I want to jump out and have a scope that's right there, I throw my 15s on it. It's already in the back of my truck. It's already put together. I stand up with my 15s. I do it. But then my, if I see a deer, I don't want to have to put all crap together. I just grab my pack and I have one in it. And I know that's spoiled to have more than one tripod, but I have truck tripods. I have semi-heavy packable tripods and I have ultra light stuff when I go backpacking. So anyway. Okay. I agree a hundred percent. So not one size fits all. They're different applications. I love our little Gitzos for backpacking. Yes. I mean, they're, they're older model, but we don't, we don't use them enough. So they're probably lasting longer. I'm not using them. Anytime we're not backpacking, we're not using them. No, but you know,

we've been doing this for an hour and 15 minutes. So I've, but I've got one question. I've got one question for Adam. I don't know where this is going. Is this going to be about antelope? That's all I want to know. Well, this is about guiding food handlers permits and mountain houses. Do you put on rubber gloves when you make, if I'm your client and you're making me a mountain house, I want to know full on gloved up. No, the correct answer to that is I wash and rinse. With a mask, a breathable mask and the hairnet. I want to know. I don't need a hairnet. So I got that covered. That's a good point. Yeah. So I don't have to, that's not on my gear list. I don't have a hairnet. About when you get a beard, do you put a beard net on? Yeah. I've seen you in the middle of hunting season. Beard net. So in full, full bore, you probably need a beard net. We're talking about boiling water here, guys.

That's what we're talking about. So, and I, and I have that conversation periodically with some of my special use permit coordinators that preparing meals on backpack sheep hunts is really an overuse of terms. Yeah. Preparing meals. Yeah. It's boiling water. It's opening up. And, and anything that was on my hands, even though I try to wash them off is boiled and killed in the boiling water. And your client has his own can of Kipper snacks. He's going to open his own can of Kipper snacks. Pre-packaged foods, freeze dried foods, boil water. There you go. I've got the answers. All right. Perfect. So, okay. I've just, I've always wondered about that and I know it's a question everybody's been wanting to know. No, it's not. Anyway, there's, there's a couple, there's a couple I think we can end on that are very, very simple. One of them is this question here.

Can you turn back a general season deer tag in Utah or just limited entry in once in a lifetime? Not sure to where to look. That, that's a very good question. We've, we know this from personal experience. Yeah. Limited entry in once in a lifetime. In Utah, you can turn them back and get all your points back plus one for the year. If you do that 30 days before the hunt starts on the limited entry in once in a lifetime, you can also get your permit feedback on general season. We've done that with some of our family members and things like that. You can turn them back. You do get a point and you do get a point as if you didn't draw. However, you don't get your money back on the general season. So they don't, they don't have a big reissue process like they do on limited entry tags. And you can do that up and forth, up before the day before the hunt. I mean, we've done that ourselves.

So sure have. And we're finding more and more, just like everything. Why am I gaining points for general? You know what? They're becoming valuable. Some of these big deer being killed on general. We don't have teams of hunters and guides and outfitters hit in general as much as we do the Henry mountains. Well, and so you're getting a little bit of escapement. And you get some of these States like Wyoming, people are at a loss of where to use their points. All right. So why should I get another one if I can draw a G with six points? Well, do you want to go alone or do you want to have 12 and boost a buddy with zero and go with a buddy? You're both committed, share your trip, all that. Or you have, you know, you know, tags get slashed and all of a sudden the points required go up. You just never know what's in the future. If they're cheap enough, just get them. Well, Jeff,

do you have any burning questions for Adam? I don't have any burning questions. How about Chris? We got some questions for Chris. Yeah. That's for, I don't have any questions for Chris that won't get him in trouble. Chris, are you married yet? Not yet. Okay. Well, let us know when you're here. Okay. You got our address. Send us an invite. Should we, should we do another question and answer podcast? We're going to have to. We, we did, we appreciate those that, and we, I know we, we, if we were just mission account, we could have probably blow through these, but hopefully they're a little bit entertaining. Hopefully they're a little bit thoroughly, more thoroughly discussed than if we just went through and literally did a 60 second answer. We do have a lot more questions. We're going to have to do at least a part two, maybe part three, whatever. Hopefully these are give you, you know,

a lot of these a little bit more hunting tips, tactics, gear related type stuff. As we get into the summer, we can do that. We are planning some cool guests for the summer to get us all fired up, I guess, in terms of making gear prep and, you know, hunting strategy, tactics, things like that. It's also a time of year we'll find out draw results. So let us know if you get something good. Yeah. Tomorrow. Bring it. Can't wait. Nevada's draw results are coming. We're excited. Make sure you call us if you draw Nevada. Just, just let us know. So we know, we can say we know some people that drew. It's odds are tough. We love Nevada. The odds are tough, but we like to hear from people that beat them. So we get all excited about drawn tags. And part of that is because it's hard to come by a good tag.

So one of the things we've got going right now that we'd like to talk about is the Wyoming super tag. It's a way to get into another drawing and the potential to draw the tag of a lifetime, including Rocky Mountain sheep and other things that you otherwise are going to have to wait a long, long time and potentially never. Get those tickets at wgfd.yo.gov backslash epic outdoors. And those super tag tickets are $10 each. And you can also get a trifecta ticket for $30. And the trifecta allows you to put in for any three species that are available in that super tag drawing. This year, Wyoming has added a bonus raffle where you are eligible to win $12,500 worth of hunting gear. And Adam will tell us how you can get in for that raffle. Looks like for every five super tag raffle tickets of any species or combination, or every two super tag trifecta tickets,

you get an entry into that gear stuff. Also for the month of May, Wyoming has added the million dollar super tag celebration raffle. Every time a hunter purchases a super tag or a super tag trifecta ticket during the month of May, their name will be entered into a raffle to win a custom Gunworks rifle. Right on. Do it. Apply. Get your name in everywhere you can. That's the only way you can draw tags if your name's in the hat. You know, Adam talked about some of these questions, and I thought we could just crank through all this. Not a big deal. But we get going on a tangent, and we also want to make sure we fully answer the questions, and then it jogs other questions. Pretty soon, we're talking about something that just doesn't even matter, not even question related. But, having said that, we'll do another one soon. I want to talk about MOA rifles. Super good guys there. You know,

kind of got affiliated with MOA to a degree with Calvin Halliday, who's a guide there at Sheet Mountain Outfitters, guiding in Oregon and Idaho. Super good guys. Bob Beck, he's become a good friend. And, you know, we've even bought tags and helped Bob find hunts for some of his clients and whatnot. That's the one thing I like about the guys at MOA. They're serious, hardcore hunters. They're buying legit tags. They're drawing legit tags. They're practicing what they preach, and they care about it, and they realize how much this gear means. You know, they've got a new Ascent rifle. It's under six pounds. It's a true thousand yard, half minute MOA type gun. And so, anyway, you can get a hold of those guys at 541-526-1820. Just awesome. Super good guys. MOARifles.com. They also sell a lot of other gear. Definitely worth looking into. We don't, we don't,

we don't affiliate ourselves with people that aren't making good gear. So, anyway, we, they have our stamp of approval. We'll be up there June 6th and 7th. At least part of the Epic Outdoors crew shooting long range with these guys. I know Adam's ordered a gun. It'll be there. We're going to see how good it shoots. And, so, anyway, pretty exciting stuff. Good people. Give it a shot. One last, maybe thing to bring up. We're pushing the end of May here pretty quick. Draw results. They're running out. This has been a big month in terms of results coming out. Another way to win something. We kicked off our membership drive. It ends June 14th. It's only like a six week long drive. It's not long. Part of the reason for that, some of the hunts we have, and I'm going to rattle them off. We've got a stone sheep hunt August, 2019. That's this August. We've got a mule deer hunt,

242 fully guided Nevada. That's this year, this fall, 2019. We've got an archery elk this September of 2019. Then we've got a brown bear hunt next May of 2020 and a doll sheep hunt in next August of 2020. Some of these, we had to give them away quick. We can't run this for three or four months and give it away, you know, into July, first of August, a month before the hunt. People got to plan and prepare. If you're left without, if you're not a member of our service, by joining our service, you'll get a ticket into one of these hunts only until June 14th. It's the only way that you can get a ticket in there by joining. After that, we'll have to see what we do next year. You can also purchase tickets online. Tickets are as cheap as $25, $100 packages, $200 packages, or $500 packages, whatever you're interested in.

These are hunts we personally picked based on bucket list trophy type quality hunts. These are not, these are not bottom of the barrel. We, we got them well in advance. We secured them. We paid them in full. They're, they're excellent hunts. Somebody on the 15th, 16th of June, whenever we get that drawing done is going to have some epic hunts. And so check us out, epicoutdoors.com and the membership drive link on the website. Make sure you get your name in. You can't, you can't draw unless your name's in there. I, I would venture to bet that it's easier to draw one of these deer tags and hunts than it is in the state draw. Oh yeah. For 242, 231. Yeah. Non-resident. We're talking. Non-resident. It's unbelievable. The drawing odds. We're, people are going every which way. It's summertime. It's a short drive. I don't know. We'll see if we do this again. It's, it's, it's, it's awesome.

It's awesome. But I'm just telling you, somebody's going to get a hunt and they're, they're world-class and the odds are unbelievable. So anyway, if you do want to, if you do want to purchase tickets, you can call 435-263-0777. You can also get your friend in. You'll get a, you'll get a ticket in the drive as well as the new member. We'll get a ticket in there too for the hunt of his choice. So anyway, give us a holler. 435-263-0777. Epicoutdoors.com. Again, we do everything Western big game. That's who we are. Western big game. So if you want to join, go to epicoutdoors.com. You'll start getting a monthly publication. Be able to call in. We can visit about your personal application strategy or whatnot. Even if we don't do your applications, that's a separate service. So happy to help you. Until then, it's time to get some trail cameras out in the hills. It's time to see what Nevada,

has got, has put my name on some tags. I'm not sure about which tags they are yet, but we're going to find out tomorrow morning. That's right. There you go. So give us a look. Good luck. All right.