EP 126: The Scouting Season Begins

Be aggressive. The more you put into your hunt, the more you're going to get out of it. Where deer migrate, they move lower. In that case, you just need to know the concentration areas, the deer wintering areas, the direction deer are moving in the unit. Anything to do with Western big game. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Chris Peterson coming at you from the middle We're coming out of nowhere here in southern, northern Utah, southern Idaho. We're trekking up through here. Chris is making us work, trying to multitask. We're wanting to drink pop and eat sunflower seeds, and we're supposed to talk. Now we've got to talk. Now we've got to talk hunting. Geez. As we get started, we want to thank Under Armour. We appreciate them. They're sponsoring our podcast, all that they're doing.

Ordered some Under Armour gear last night. Got a big old jacket coming. Yeah. A couple little things, a couple jackets, getting prepared, cranking. So, anyway, you can go online, UA.com. I just type in Baron in the search, and up comes all the hunting gear. But you can go under men, sports, hunting, and kind of crank through it, women, sports, hunting, whatever. Of course, they've got accessories, gloves, hats, all kinds of stuff, sunglasses. They've got a lot of lifestyle type products as well, Whether it be shirts, and pants, and golfing, and what not. So, anyway, it's awesome. We appreciate them. They're a great partner of ours, been with us from the beginning, and so thank you for all that. Like I say, don't be afraid to go on there and check out some of their latest, greatest products. They're going to be really rolling out heavy June, July, the end of this month, July, August.

I mean, it just comes out in force. And so, anyway, scouting is starting to begin. Again, we got our applications coming due June 14 for our hunt giveaway. That's right. That's one of the, I guess, something dream big on. A couple of those hunts are for this fall. That's why we had to give it away on such a quick turnaround. That's only about a six-week membership drive giveaway that we're doing. June 14 is the giveaway for that. A few of those hunts, the mule deer in 242 Nevada, the elk, New Mexico, Stone sheep are all this fall, actually the 231 tag as well. Four of the six are all this August, September-ish, you know what I mean? So, we got to give them away. And we also got a doll sheep and a brown bear for 2020. But anyway, give us a call or jump online at epicoutdoors.com if you're interested

and purchase some tickets or just joining our service or referring somebody that joins our service By June 14th, we'll get you entered. Everything comes down to the next couple weeks, and then we're done. You know, we talk about being done. We're not really done, but, you know, the busy office season's coming to a close, which means application season's coming to close. I, for one, am grateful. I'm tired of the application season. I'm ready to start scouting and hunting and helping some of you guys out there that are looking to do things And start your scouting process as well. So, anyway, like we talked about, we got the Arizona deadline coming, and then we've got, of course, our membership drive. And then after that, it's just a matter of helping. So, what I kind of thought, maybe we'd talk about a little bit, Adam, and tell me what you think.

But I was thinking about, like, let's say I've had a lot of questions about, and you have to, is let's say you drew an elk tag or a deer tag in a unit you've never hunted before. Start to finish, what's the process of going about that tag? Now that everybody's starting to get their tags, and it's on their minds, oh, now what? Now what? Well, one of the things you've got to have in your mind to start with is, if you're going to go guided or outfitted, don't mess around. Get on the horn with this, or call an outfitter and get booked. Every year we talk to people that it's two, three, four weeks after the results are out, and they're just thinking about what they're going to do. Then when they get around to thinking, yeah, I'm going to go guide, and they start calling somebody, what happens?

They're booked. The guys in these better units are booked up. So, you got to kind of have your mentality set early on. And if you're going to go guide, don't mess around. Get a good one booked. Now, if you're under the assumption, you know, most of us, Jason, we do our deer, elk hunts, all of our lower 48 stuff. Pretty much all on our own, with a few exceptions, I guess. So, yeah, we'll talk about our guys right now. You draw a tag. First, you got to get some base maps of the area, you know, found and located. You can get those either off of our website, epicoutdoors.com. Get the base maps there. You can also use the hunt planner feature on our website. It's another digital way to, you know, put some layers on and off, look about, you know, different habitat coverages, you know, land ownership, things like that, just to really start boiling it down.

But then you're going to probably want to talk to some people that hunted there before, right? Yeah, 100%. So, we have that member draw feature where you call in and say, Hey, I drew this tag, send me a list of all the other members that have drawn in the past. Mindy's sending those out every single day. So, she's on it. They're not sitting on her desk for a week or two weeks. I mean, that way you can get going right away. You get a little extra time after work or whatever. Give these guys a holler. These guys, they're in the database because they also asked for this.

And they, in turn, and you, in turn, would agree to help other guys in the future. And a lot of these tags, and we've had these questions before, you know, people are sensitive and don't want to give out info, and it's hunting, and hunters are hunters, and they're tight with info. And while that may be true in their backyard and some of the things they can do every year, most of these tags are a little tougher than that to draw, maybe out of state especially. And you're talking to guys that may never hunt it again, or maybe they hunt it two or three times in their life. It's not predictably always something you're going to get over and over and over. Usually, like Adam said, get your maps, call us, get the list. Get your maps coming.

Recommend at the very least, get the 1 to 100,000 type maps, the basic BLM type map if you went down to the BLM or ordered a BLM map online, a regular BLM map. That's 1 to 100,000. It gives you a broad overview. You can get a unit specific. You'd order up the unit, you click on the unit, And that whole unit comes on one map. That's so nice. The nice feature about doing them on our website is you don't have to get two or three or four of the BLM ones and seam them together, run into that. You got one map with your boundaries centered on it. You know, then you may end up wanting to talk to a game and fish manager, biologist or something like that. You know, realizing that, you know, some of your, some of the other members that you've talked to that hunted there They probably have a little bit more of a similar mindset about you.

Yeah, similar mindset of you. Not all biologists are created equal. Most. Yeah. Give you a 100,000 foot view, huh? Yeah, they talk to a lot of people, and some of them, you can tell when you get them on the phone, you're not getting a lot out of them, but you need to have a series of questions. What I've generally found, and this is coming from, I guess, having been experienced as a I'm a wildlife biologist and getting hundreds and hundreds of these types of calls back when I was a biologist for Utah Division of Wildlife, is you tend to probably give people a little bit more that have helped themselves. If they just simply call and say, hey, where's the best place to shoot a .380 bull on the Mount Dutton unit? I mean, where do you even start with that type of question?

A, there's not really one answer to that anyway. But if you start talking about access, you start talking about where do the majority of the hunters hunt, Where do the majority of the hunters not hunt that might still be a good place to find a bull? You know, questions are things like that. They're a little bit leading to show that you have a little bit different take on it. I mean, you'll probably glean something from it, even if you have a... I mean, we talked to dozens and dozens and dozens of biologists over the year, Jason, as we write the magazine, you know, as we're researching and all that. And, you know, so we know what hunters are going to get When they call these same people, and they're not all created equal. Some are golden, they're hunters themselves, they're avid, they love to just hear spew information.

That's more rare, I will probably say, than somebody that's just a little bit more standard answer, like you said, the 100,000 foot view. Don't neglect that, but I think you're probably going to get more from either talking to us at the office or our members than you are going to get biologists, by and large. By and large, don't ignore them, but just don't think you're going to get the hidden gem of your unit always from bio. Well, and I think that you're 100% right, and I think too, hunters are the same way. The more you've kind of helped yourself, you get the maps prior. Don't call them up without having a map in front of you. You know, if you're engaging with them, you know, the members are the same way, and pretty soon they start to get excited about their hunt, they're reliving their hunt a little bit, and they start getting excited for you, and pretty soon, you know,

One thing's leading to another, and it's just like a host of whatever, a radio talk show or a podcast or whatever. If you're good at asking questions, your questions and the quality of questions and the direction of those questions, you're going to get the better answer back out of them. Now, if you're just asking very simple, maybe you're not asking... Where's the 190, 200-inch deer? I mean...

Yeah, I don't know, you know, but what have you tried this, and how about this access, and it looks like this is a little less roaded, and, you know, this is what I'm showing is winter ranges and summer ranges. Of course, you can see all that on Colorado's website, especially. You can kind of tell where these animals are wintering and whatnot, and they give that out to the public. And so, you know, anyway, you can kind of, one thing leads to another, and pretty soon you've got real quality information, whereas, like, what you're talking about with the biologists. And the biologists, you were an exception, Adam. Like, you were a biologist, but you were a hunter first, really, at heart. And I think that's rare. It's rare. Your information coming out to a client or a hunter, you know, would have been different than maybe the average biologist.

So, a lot of these biologists we talked to, I mean, well, yeah, I did an aerial survey. Well, how did, you know, and they're not even looking at size. They got categories of, you know, a class three ram, class two, class fours, whatever, you know, and they don't really, you know, anyway. There's just leaves a lot to be desired. And so, these hunters coming from a hunter's perspective, you know, is going to be a critical piece of information. And not all hunters are created equally. You're gonna find guys, weekend warriors, that are gonna go out and... So, it was the worst hunt they ever had. You know, they didn't see many deer, too many people. And then you talk to another guy. It's all about perspective. You know, what you put into it. Isn't always what you get out of it, but to a large extent, it is. The more somebody puts into it,

researches and effort they put in Colorado, specifically, we're talking back to that, seems like we feel more Colorado calls on mule deer than any other state. And it's mainly because there's so many options, but you can talk to people in the same unit, Jason, hunt the same unit the same year, and have 100% opposite perspectives. One would never go back, too many people, hated the elk hunters there, other guys, you know, grind it out, know how to hunt in and around people, use a GPS or an Onyx type system to navigate private land if needed, and they grind out a couple of great bucks, and you know, that's what it takes. People are going to kill you off in Colorado. You go hunt Colorado, second, third season, and that's just... Colorado has standardized season structure, so, you know, second and third is the same dates for elk and deer both,

and over-the-counter for elk, second and third. So, you end up just dealing with a lot of people. There's just a lot of recreator, user, you know, people out in the field. So, anyway, you kind of got to get used to that. Of course, we've gotten used to it over the years. But yeah, there's a lot to it. And so, you know, we've had also guys, you know, hit us up and, hey, about Google Earth. And of course, you know, everybody's calling that an e-scouting. You know, I e-scouted it, you know. And basically, you just plug and play it at home on your computer, which is fine and good. But it's sure a long ways from being awesome. I think I like to use, personally, I like to use Google Earth to, you know,

You know, when I'm looking at my maps, and if I did my research as far as my homework with hunters, fellow hunters, biologists, whatever, taxidermists, whatever assets you can come up with, then, you know, and you get a few basic areas, then go on and check out Google Earth. Check it out. You can see the end of trails and four-wheeler trails or other access that may or may not be on some of these maps. It allows you to visualize not just canyons and topography with contour lines and whatnot that you get from your paper maps, but visualize burns and the openness of an area and a ridge and a glassing knob. It's like, yeah, if I get here, I can see looking straight north into there. I'm going to be able to see that really good. It allows you to identify places that you want to go to try to glass.

Or is this area, you know, too thick to glass at all? Is it too treed? You know, am I going to get what I want out of it? If based on the type of hunt or species you're actually hunting there. So, actually a great tool. A lot of people play a lot more time on it, I would dare say, Jason, than you or I. But what it does is it does shortcut you a little bit when you go to your unit. You know, you generally, you glean the areas out of it that you don't want to go to, and the ones that you think you do want to go to. So, you're not just sitting there for the first time saying, well, let's drive the whole perimeter of our unit, see what it even looks like. Well, I think 100%, and I've got the Google Earth, you know, app on my phone. And so, even in the field, it's when I use it probably the most.

Of course, we all take a laptop and different things, you know, back at camp, whether we're dealing with trail camera cards or Google Earth or even work, you know, at times, returning emails and stuff. We can get onto our phone, Google Earth, or whatever, and you can say, like, I want to go to that, but where's the nearest road? And the end of that road, we'll GPS it. Maybe even the turn-off, the little two-tracker, you can't see a faded two-tracker. Here's the start of it. Plug that into your GPS. Go to that point, go to the end of the road, and then climb to this point, and we GPS the top of the knob. And you can do all that in the dark. And so, man, you just never know. You need to be able to use it. You need to be familiar with it, in fact, And be able to really be able to grab on to the opportunities that that would afford you.

And so, be able to use that. Don't, you know, learn it as you go. When you're at home, learn how to use Google Earth. You're going to need it. And it may help you kill that deer or elk or whatever. And so, you know, it's a tool. Need to be able to know how to use it. Do we live by it? No, not even close. We'll go and check out some country, and then we're seeing it. We're going around that entire unit. We're accessing as much as we can of it, and visually, it's how we're figuring out where to hunt. We're not e-scouting and saying, I checked this out in July, and by heck, this is where I'm going to be sitting in mid-October. That's not even close to the way we utilize Google Earth or, quote, e-scouting. That's right. Yep, it just allows you to shortcut it a little bit.

A little bit. There's no substitution for getting on the unit yourself with your own boots, but we realize, even ourselves, there's units even living in Utah, surrounded, I guess, by all the other states that we generally hunt. We don't always make it to our unit before opening day in every single tag on every single state. To the extent possible or to the magnitude of the tag that we have, we try to make that a priority. But we realized we're talking to people all across, you know, the United States, and it's different. The further you live from the West, the harder it makes it to come out and actually set boots on the ground. So, some of the things that we're talking about are just to try to help give you as much of a head start when you actually do get there.

If that's two days before the hunt, or the night before the hunt, or, yeah, a week before the hunt, it gives you some head start. Because it's just a different world, I guess, we live in. It's a lot more at your disposal, a lot more you need to use, and we take advantage of it. If you usually take it for granted and show up, which we occasionally do on a Colorado third or fourth season deer hunt, because in years like that, that's usually when we're like, alright, I can fit something in late. And you can get away with it in a unit like that where deer migrate, they move lower. In that case, you just need to know the concentration areas, the deer wintering areas, the direction deer moving in the unit prior to your season.

And you can probably go wing it once you get there a little bit more. Earlier in the year, deer, elk, you know, obviously sheep or goat or things like that, totally different story. One thing I want to talk about just a little bit, Adam, as we were talking, we were yakking as we were coming up here and stuff, is we were teasing about, you know, maybe helping a guy, you know, on the unit I drew for sheep in Arizona or whatever, and some of the units that you've been affiliated with here in Utah.

But, you know, every year is different. Last year, you know, in 2017, Sheep Unit X in Utah, you know, they were all concentrated on water. It was dry in the fall. It was dry in my dear country. They were pounding trail cameras. They were pounding guzzlers and springs. Remember the Nevada sheep last year? Unbelievable. I mean, in some of these last couple years, they've had sheep pounding water in November. In 17. And then in 18, remember, 18, we had wet everywhere.

Spread everything out, and we were teasing about my sheep unit. There's 30 or 40 sheep running together, and it seems easy. Yeah, no big deal. We could go in there and help a guy go kill a giant. You could go back the next year and they're just scattered because it's dry and hot or whatever. Be the toughest hunt of your life. Yeah, you don't know. There's a lot of truth to that. And the feed, and there's so much that goes into it. Water, feed. We had a lot of burrows. I mean, who knows? If there's more water, it spreads them out, which in turn displaces the sheep because they don't want to be around them. There's just a ton of different factors and variables, and so, my point, I guess, is talking to biologists, talking to hunters. Man, that was the worst hunt of my life, and it got me thinking when you said that.

One guy says it's the worst hunt of his life. The next guy, you might have called from 2012, had the best hunt of his life. Environmental conditions could be a lot of it. And maybe there was two feet of snow in Colorado on the second season. It was awesome. It was the best hunt of this guy's life, and the next guy's like, you couldn't pay me to go back. It's not going to pay me to go back. In fact, I'm feeling like suing the state of Colorado for lost wages and expenses because I went and participated in a hunt that they shouldn't have offered to tag in. I might as well have been hunting camels. Yeah, you know. And so, anyway, you know, yeah, anyway. So, that's my point about some of this stuff is you got to, it is hunting, and I hate that. I hate hunting is hunting. You never know what's going to happen, because outfitters and hunters like to say that.

And I always feel like you've got to control the variables where you can, and if you can do that, you know, everything else is hunting. The weather is the weather. We can't control that. But I can control what kind of food we eat. I can control how much I scout. I can control my maps. I can control my overall preparedness. Yeah, hunting all day long instead of just going and, you know, hitting a couple hours in the morning. You can control the things you can control. What about this client that we had that drew Nevada deer, mid-220s? I meet him over there in Panaca, totally help him out, crush the maps. I find out he doesn't even go out and hunt that night. Every other night, it feels like he's back hanging at the motel, eating dinner early, not even going out. And then he feels like it was a total, unbelievably crappy hunt. Waste of his points.

We drew the list of his points. Then, we drew him a tag over there in Colorado for elk. We give him... You just killed a... On a unit 360 bull the year before, myself, it's not like it's just somebody... I mean... But it is weather dependent. We prepped all that, right? But also, were you going to use 10 to 14 points for elk in Colorado? There's only a set number... That's right. There's no sense of even looking at the top four or five units. Just ignore them all. 100%. So, then he goes and has a crappy hunt there, which he deems as crappy. I remember you didn't hunt the evenings over here in Nevada half the time. I'm wondering when you got up and when you went to bed and how this Colorado hunt really went down. Plus, he had friends over there in Grand Junction, so it wasn't just our information.

Then, we draw him a tag in New Mexico, arguably one of the top, definitely top 10, probably top 7 units in the state. Goes down there, sees a 340, sees a 340 opening day. But from then on, just hated his hunt, started whining to me on the phone. I just got done killing a .380 bull in a crappy unit, and took all my trail cameras down, and he says, you know, it sucked, and this and that. And I said, well, what do you mean? You did everything you could do. Yeah, I did everything I could do. Well, you told me that in Nevada. And I was so frustrated, and I kind of spelled it out for him, and then said, well, how many trail cameras did you run? Well, I didn't run any. Well, you know, how much pre-scouting did you do? Well, you know, I was there a day before, and, you know, I just thought this would be different, and I thought it would be better,

and this and that, and he was just really disgusted in us, and at least I took it as that. And so, yeah. Well, and we don't want to seem like we're that critical of an individual, an effort, and, you know, that we're the beat in our chest that do it like us, and you'll be perfect. But control the variables you can control. That's what we're emphasizing, is not everybody does that. Take information you get with a little bit of a grain of salt, realizing that perspectives of everybody are different. Perspectives are so different. Anyway, some things are big to others, big to some people, that are even a non-factor to me. I mean, some people want to know they got great restaurants in the unit they're putting in in Colorado so they can have a good meal every night. We don't even think of that stuff. I mean, we'll just, whatever. But to some people...

We do need to have a place to sleep. Like, you need to know if you're going to take your well tent, you know. Of course, you don't need to worry about that this year. I will. I'm going to try to find a hidden gem somewhere, somehow. You will. But anyway, I think, but yeah, that's kind of, it goes in, you know, there's just so much that goes into the end result of the hunt and tag that you've drawn. And so, you know, I think part of it too is It's like, so you got your maps, you Google Earth the crap out of it, you talk to everybody you can talk to. I think some of the key factors too is like, when you look at a unit, you know, you get to decide which part of the unit you're going to hunt. And if it's early season, you're probably going to be up high. If it's late season, there's guys, I watched a YouTube episode

of a guy that freaking started up at 10,000 feet and there's snow on the ground, there's no deer tracks. Pretty soon he's about getting the truck stuck and not seeing any deer, and And they go ahead and decide to go where the deer go, where all the other hunters are probably hunting anyway, because that's where the deer are. They migrate. And so, I think that's part of it, too, is you can come up here to Idaho. Of course, what a beautiful state this is. Treated us well. For the few years that we've been hunting in the last five years, we've done fairly well up here. But, you know, I think part of it is knowing what part of the unit you're going to hunt. I mean, Adam, we can go hunt deer right here, right? I mean, there's not a freaking knob above five feet for miles.

And maybe next to this hayfield out here, there's a giant deer. I don't know. There probably is, but only the locals would know that most likely. But, you know, it's not the first place I'd go. I mean, we can see, we can look at that mountain right there and just say, well, geez, it looks like there's an old chaining over there and a burn, and then there's some mosaic, meaning they can come out and feed and then go back into bed and do some live trees. What about water in there? Pretty soon, it's just kind of a natural on some places to look. Don't try to outsmart the deer. A lot of guys, and that's just my point, a lot of guys, I'm gonna go high, nobody goes high third season in Colorado. Okay, go high, but part of the reason they go high, or the deer, the hunters don't go high, is because there's no deer there.

Yeah, just be prepared to adapt when you get there, because you might get an 80 degree plus It's weather in October, and stuff's tough to grind out. What about November when you were 10,000 feet? Oh yeah, I've killed bucks in fourth season over 10,000 feet. A couple bucks, not just like one. I mean, we killed a couple. And it's just, you know, you don't want to have to do that. It's going to be a grind. But that can be the way it is. So, keep in mind, I guess that could have been classified as an alpine deer hunt. Oh, you guys. I got crushed on an email. The guy's like, hey, you know, you guys didn't give much for the Alpine question on our question-and-answer podcast. You know, it's kind of funny. Beaver's out your back door. You don't even know what you're talking about as far as that goes. And I'm like, well, I've killed a couple nice ones there. One's 220, one's 250.

But hey, and that was in the beaver unit. But yeah, you're right. You know, we haven't done everything, and that's okay. We don't profess to. We like doing what we like to do. I want to hunt the biggest animals in a unit. And if that's not in the Alpine country, I'm not going up there. But you're right. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. What we've been doing has been working for us, and we're happy to help everybody doing podcasts, consulting over the phone at Epic Outdoors, whatever we can do to help guys be successful. We love it. We get to continue to learn. We have a lot of serious hardcore hunters in our membership that we learn from as well. That's right. It's great to hear from so many of them because the last few weeks we've heard from a lot. It seems like Nevada was off the charts this year. Unbelievable.

I mean, we said that about a couple other states, though. New Mexico was off the charts, it felt like, with the amount of tags we drew in our license app and our membership. But a lot of people in Nevada with some pretty special tags, both, you know, sheep, deer, elk, antelope, I mean, everything. I mean, it wasn't good to me either, but that doesn't really that matter. A lot of, I mean, it matters, but, I mean, I'm over it. Yeah, your life matters too. Yeah. I can't have too much. You can't have them all in one. Your wife's happy today. You haven't told her you haven't drawn yet. Oh yeah, she knows. Oh really? She knew the morning the emails were all there. Remember, I told them I'm going to be up in the middle of the night checking email. I mean, what about Colorado today? Oh no, I haven't told her that. Yeah, she'll be happy.

Just come, she'll know. The schedule will be written sometime in July when it, well, formalizes. One way or another, it'll be full. Yeah, it's pretty full now, but there's a few gaps, I'm gonna fill them up. So, Chris, what have we missed on the scouting or anything that you're thinking about? What are you thinking about back there? So, the thing that I was thinking about is everybody's different, everybody's situation's different, everybody's skill set's different, and I think what you're talking about a minute ago is take what you have and make the most of it. Everybody doesn't have to be exactly like Jason Carter or the Alpine doesn't have to be my thing, but if it is If you're doing something, go make the most of it. So, find out what your strengths are. Go find out what you're good at. Hunt where you can be most successful.

That's kind of what my perspective on it is. Take those principles that Jason's talking about and apply them to your life, but in your own way. And I think you're going to be more successful that way, being able to hunt your own way, in your own area, and just doing what you enjoy. You mean, you're trying to say, you do you. That's what I'm trying to say, basically. You do you. Don't worry about me. You do you. Yeah, I mean, yeah, take the things that you learn from somebody else, but don't think you have to be exactly like them to be successful. Well, you'll get a tag eventually down the road where that type of advice or that type of information is going to mirror up more closely to. You draw a 241 or any southeastern Nevada deer tag, and information there and tactics and ways to hunt and scout are going to be completely different than Colorado third season or Wyoming region GRH.

So, just realize, yeah, when we're yakking or you're reading stuff, put it in the memory bank. Nowhere do you find it. Make some notes, whatever. Pull it out when you get a tag of comparable status, stature, season dates, terrain, all that. Yeah, I like that, Chris. You talking about some of that stuff, too. You don't have to do what you do you, right? Okay, so, Chris, you have the same tag as 13 other people in our office and families, right? Yeah. And you're already doing something totally different, planning on doing something totally different than the rest of us. Yep. You're going to be doing horses and back in the middle of nowhere where you can get as far away from the rest of the office as you can, and their kids, and their grandkids, and their relatives and in-laws and outlaws, you know what I mean? And smart.

Yeah, and my thinking behind that is, I'm going to do what works for me. So, I have a background in horses, and that's something I feel like it's going to be an advantage to me to maybe get into a little bit different country than everybody else. And so, I'm taking what I have and making it work. Just don't dump a rag five in there 12 miles in and then have to ruin your deer hunt. So, just remember... You've got to get an over-the-counter tag. Speaking of, maybe I should get an over-the-counter tag, just in case. You should. Provide for you and your 1,400 kids. Maybe. I just said maybe, but just dump a rag five 12 miles back and your deer hunt's over for a few days. Yeah. Instagram warrior. Instagram the shiz out of it. I will say, I have seen a couple, three 30 plus bulls in Colorado on deer hunts. I know. And you're like, I wish I would have bought an over-the-counter tag.

So, you're going to have some weed-free, certified weed-free hay, make sure you... Pellets. It probably depends on where I end up going. But... Anyway... And I guess you could, you don't have to, I think you're going hunting with somebody else, Chris, so you could just talk, well, it depends on if you want to shoot the elk or not, but... But you also gotta, do you want to pay the, what's an elk tag, six something? It's fairly pricey. Yeah, so, that was the case I was in last year's. I actually did, I drew an elk tag on the unit I was going deer hunting in. And at the end of the day, I decided just to turn it back because the $600 wasn't worth it to me. Yeah. And that's probably the case this year. I already have an elk tag, and I don't think I'm gonna wanna... I forgot you drew that.

Yeah, I don't think I want to deal with a Colorado elk when I've got another elk tag that's... the elk is my sole focus. Yeah, yeah. You're a household of one. You don't need two elk a year to eat. No, no. Yeah. That's kind of where we're going? That's pretty much where I'm at. Plus, the whole pack out, if I'm packing out a deer... Oh, yeah. I don't want to deal with an elk. We're going to a lot of different units this year, and every year, all the guys at Epic Outdoors are going to new units and researching and learning. And learning new units and using maps and using Google Earth and visiting with people is not new. It's something we've been doing for years and years and years and perfected. We've walked into units we've never even touched before and killed very respectable animals, if not some of our best animals.

And so, anyway, we'll be hitting Wyoming deer and all kinds of different stuff that's brand new for us, Just kind of being what we feel like are the epic guinea pigs and stuff we might hear is good or could potentially have, you know, good animals in it. And so, all the time, I think part of this equation is being willing to risk your points. It's taking a little risk here and there. Like, you have to know everything. You don't have to hunt specific named animals to go ahead and feel good about utilizing your points or trying something a little bit out of the box for you. Jump in and do it. Don't be scared. Don't be shy. We're willing to help you get started. Just be aggressive. The more you put into your hunt, whether it be on the phone and out in the hills, the more you're going to get out of it.

If you come heck or high water, I'm going to freaking do the best I can do, and you give it all you got, you're going to walk away with a whole different experience. If, well, you know, I drew this, and I hope it's good, and I pray the weather's good, and if it's not, it's because of the weather I didn't succeed, you know, type mentality, that you're probably going to walk away with a less than great experience. And so, you know, treat it as if it's your last tag. I mean, just hit it with everything you got, especially if it is all you got this year. A lot of guys, you know, one, two, or three tags pretty much takes up their vacation time or the time their wives are willing to let them go, and so make the absolute most of it. That's right, November 15th, 20th, whatever, when it's all over and done, it happens sooner

than you thought, and then it's hard to, you know, we don't get redoes on these tags very often, so. Well, it's a good story. Well, we're headed to Oregon. Do you have any stories up there? Oh, Blackie. Oh, let's talk about Blackie. You remember that one pretty good. I don't know. You want to go read your journal, or can you get that one? No, it's just, I don't I don't know if that's worth telling, but I don't know, I guess we are going to Oregon. Both of us have been up here hunting sheep before, once in what, 2004, and the other one in 2008. Yes, four or five years apart. Got lucky, Jason and I both drew sheep tags. I'm sure we've said that about 1,500 times, either in the magazine or on the podcast. Grateful for it. Those draw results will be coming out here around June 20th, along with like Montana sheep, moose, and goat, and things like that. Washington.

Washington sheep, moose, and goat. Wyoming deer, deer, elk, and antelope for residents. Deer and antelope for non-residents. So, anyway, but yeah, it was a desert country, but remember how cold it got the first of September? Oh, when we were sleeping under the double four-wheeler rack in the bed of your truck. Freezing. Froze our guts. Anybody who's ever slept in the bed of a truck with no air mattress, so to speak, you freeze, man. Yeah, well... You freeze on warm days. It was August. We went up there August 27th or something, and it's usually 100 degrees still, right? Yeah. And it wasn't, remember, it got a cold front first, one of the year, it blew through, and we had a little light chintzy. I don't remember what we had for bags, but it wasn't enough. No. And we froze it, I spent five days up there, licked over 50 or 60 rams on my unit, and opening day decided to be on the best one,

Which was nicknamed by the locals, Blackie, we're pretty sure, we don't know, but we just said it was. We said it was Blackie. There was a local that kept talking about Blackie, and we realized this is a unit that, it just genetically, age class, I mean, it just doesn't have giants. And so we're thinking, what is Blackie? I mean, it's another 156 or 8 inch ram, like, what are you, right? I mean, which one could be Blackie? How many sheep did we see? A lot. Yeah, 50 or 60 rams, I can't remember, but that was just the rams. So, we had seen a lot, I don't know what percentage that had to be pushing, what, 80% or more of the rams. We probably fell on the unit or 90, who knows, a lot of them. But it was a great time, great hunt, ended well opening day and came home. Smoked.

Probably the last time, I'm trying to think, I think I did go on a family vacation up in the, you know, northwest Oregon coast once with my wife and kids. Well, I spent some time. But I don't know that I, Jason did, yeah. Well, I've spent a little time in... Jason had some blacktails, he had a little... Oh, come on. He had a little, I thought that's where you were going. I was teeing it up, I thought that's where you were... You were going to bring that up. That's actually the hunt I was referring to when I said the word long. I thought you were going there, I mean, Jason had a little blacktail fetish for a minute.

Before we talk about this, let me tell you, I want to just, a little something that I remember about your hunt. I learned something huge on your hunt. So, we went in, we pre-scouted these sheep, and I glassed up these sheep, and we got into them. Of course, we're spread out. Before it starts, we are spread out trying to video as many rams as we can. And so, we're covering different stuff and whatnot and talking to each other on the cell phones and whatnot, just crushing the place. And I got up on these group of sheep, and one of them looked like a good ram, right? And so, we belly crawled to where we can see these rams, and they're bedded just sitting there basking in the sun. And all of a sudden, they just all are alert, looking the other direction. And I'm like, what is going on? Like, what are they looking at? We're going to blow these rams.

We don't even know, but they're not looking at us. There's probably a coyote or something. And all of a sudden, I see this little glint of sunlight. And it's like bouncing off of a wrist watch over there. And I put up the scope, and I look, and there's dudes belly-crawled on the other side of these sheep, and the dude's wrist watch, they caught the sunlight glistening off his wrist watch, and they had him pegged. Forevermore, I'll never forget that, forevermore when I'm archery hunting, I never wear a watch. I take off my wedding ring, put it in my bino harness. Because I realized, like, all those are the littlest things. Those guys have no idea why those rams caught them. They think, well, geez, I went, must have swirled. Somebody made a noise. George, a freaking guy. I knew I shouldn't have brought him. He was freaking broke a branch with his knees, you know.

No, it was a simple wristwatch. Simple wristwatch. His long-sleeved shirt didn't cover the wristwatch. And, anyway, I watched that, watched them. Of course, they blew out, and we all stood up, they stood up, we stood up, and we all walked in different directions. And I was disgusted, but I learned a huge lesson. All right. Chris, do you want to, why don't you talk about this black-tailed one, because I'm ready to throw up in my mouth just anticipating, reminiscing about this stupid plot. Which trip? Well, we went twice, which is so dumb. So, we went up. I wasted an Applegate tag. They are a subspecies of mule deer, and we know that's where your heart is fondly, you know, thinks of, as the mule deer. So, they're the little brother. They're a 120 to 30 inch mule deer.

And they're the little brothers that nobody appreciates, and you have a soft spot in your heart for things like that. So, take it away. Chris, save this. It seemed promising at first. I will say that. We got up there. Well, okay, let me preface it with this, and then I want you to tell the story, because I don't like it. Okay. But, what happens is, I had an Applegate muzzle tag, and I ate it. I had enough points, no big deal, could get it, and then I realized, why do I want this tag? I mean, I've got other deer hunts going on, things that I'm way more excited about. So, I ate the tag, and in Oregon, even if you don't buy the tag, you lose all your points. And so, you know, there's no turning back, there's no getting your points back, there's no refunds, there's no nothing. And so anyway, got it, wasn't as excited about it, ate it.

Well then, what happens is they have the rifle tag, and the rifle tag is in October, but it'll extend late. It'll rotate with the calendar where things fall on the days of a calendar, and once in a while, it'll kick back a week, and it'll be a week later. A friend of ours who's an outfitter says, dude, this is the year to come. Hunt up here. It's over-the-counter rifle. This is the year because they'll start to rut. And when they start to rut, you got a rifle in your hands, and it's over-the-counter, and it's awesome. I know it. I got big bucks. And by the way, look at this deer, this deer, this deer, this deer. And I'm thinking, let's Let's do this. Huh, Chris? Let's do this. Kind of like one of those days in the office when somehow, somehow, out of nowhere, antelope become the front burner topic. And then before you know it, 10 to 15 minutes go by, and you're

almost, we're getting drawn in like a black hole, you're almost planning an antelope hunt. Or a couple of them. And planning your whole fall around one or two back-to-back antelope hunts in two neighboring It's almost like you got drawn in like this is what I'm hearing. Yeah, yes. Okay. That kind of thing, I thought I need to go up and experience it. It's a species I haven't hunted, and this is the year to do it. It makes sense. We have units like that in Nevada, Utah, when all of a sudden the calendar shifts and you're like, or the rut for elk or whatever, your calendar shifts. Something makes more sense. Yeah. Adam, Colorado, the muzzle dates for deer and elk in September. Something shifts, like all of a sudden it kicks, that muzzle date kicks late for elk, they're gonna be running, but yeah, and the weather and it's cooler, all of a sudden this is the year to use it, right?

Our third season kicks late for rifle deer in Colorado. This is the year to use it. This was the year to go to Oregon. It was gonna be the most epic year ever. Did you hear what you just said? Okay. This was the year to go to Oregon. This is going to be the most The best epic year ever. Should all of those words ever be used in the same sense again? This is a story of one of the 50 or 60 tags that I've eaten in my life. Go ahead, Chris, take it away. So, we get up there, and I'll admit, it was some of the most beautiful country I've ever been in. It was a beautiful country. Okay, there's a plus. I'll give them that. I think we have some good photos on our Epic Outdoors website, if I'm not mistaken. I look like I'm 15. I've aged 100 years in the last 10, but hey, I've been a little stress in my life. Low-lying fog, just beautiful scenery. Oh, it's pretty. Beautiful sunsets.

Is there any trees? Lots of trees. Long story. Rainforest, as far as I'm concerned. Long story short, we glassed, and we glassed, and we glassed, and we glassed. We glassed up a bear. How many days do you think that was? Big bear. How long are we talking? Was it like seven days? Yeah. We came back. Came home. Came home and went back. I don't know if we saw a buck. Maybe in the headlights we saw a couple. But it was one of those things with this guy, we didn't even realize it, and he just... Oh. You're tap dancing. There was a hundred different things going on. Let's leave it off the air for now. But at the end of the day, nothing. Convinced to go back. Went back. It's more of the same. An unbelievable experience. An unbelievable experience that only happens to me, Bronson. It only happens to me. Yeah, you've had a couple of those, but you go on a lot of roll the dice. You know, you do.

I've rolled some dice. We both hunted at the Navajo reservation for deer a couple of times on... I ran trail cams out on the nav. Oh, so have I. And I got goats of all colors. Oh, all shapes, sizes, colors, and hair lengths. It was unbelievable. Dogs, I mean, it was unbelievable. Dog, coyote hybrid, coy dogs, or whatever they're called, you got hybrids running everywhere. You don't know if you shoot them or if they're a pet. I don't know. Mexican wolves, I don't know. There's a little everything. But those are other examples of we've tried some crap. We've tried everything. We've used their tags for other purposes. They're made out of paper, but we've used them for other things. Instead of cutting your socks off, or cutting your sleeves off, I mean... Yeah, that's right.

That's kind of where I was going, but that's kind of like in Oregon, and we're chalk it up to experience. I mean, you know what it looks like? You got some beautiful photos out of the trip. Well, dude, we went through some stuff there in California to get up there. I mean, we went through some big redwood type forest. Remember that, Chris? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was some gorgeous country to get in there, and... Mount Shasta. Yeah, we did see that. That's right. Anyway. Alright, so Chris, we're heading to Oregon, and those are the two. Jace has been there more than I have back in the day, hunting deer and elk, and guiding some clients on some bigger tags. I hunted the Winaha archery elk. My dad had a tag, and I remember, so Winaha is super, super thick. And the black bear, they have bears everywhere. And everybody was skinning out a bear, it seemed like.

And we went in there, and it was one of the first times that they came out with the GPS's. And was it a Magellan? Like the old Magellan? Huge square with this great big rock-up antenna. And we relied on that for our well-being, our life. And we got lost. And this thing wouldn't link up to the satellites. It's so thick. Oh, so thick. The canopy was unbelievable. And you're seeing these great big satellites blinking on the screen. I mean, this is back in the day, the very first GPS. And you know, you're not breadcrumbing your way out through the middle of that crap. And we were bugling, calling elk, and dealing with elk, and then it gets dark, and we're like, no problem. We got this fancy-dancy GPS. It cost us $1,400, state of the art. And you're still not sure if the government's I'm still not sure if the government's really letting all your stuff through, because remember

when they finally let their grip off of that technology, it's like, you know. Yes, so I remember my dad saying, well, what happens is, the way people walk in circles at night, and the way they do that is, one, they have a longer stride on one side than the other, and so you just end up walking in a circle on and on. I'm thinking, hey, I don't know if that's true. I mean, I don't know why people walk in circles, but it does happen, right? And we walked in circles for hours. Finally found a little bit of an opening, linked up, got a basic bearing, and we ended up in the flat that we had parked in like four hours later, sopping wet, raining. Middle of the morning. Remember, it's Oregon. Dude, one of the worst experiences of my life. But, there was elk everywhere. It was awesome to experience that. I experienced the when I went to Juniper.

They have that muzzle or deer hunt. That was the worst experience also. I saw a 150-inch deer max. A few nice sheds. I got a few nice sheds out of there, but I mean, dude. Hunted the steens. That's some deer country right there. I'd hunt the steens. Now, knowing what, you know, I mean, that was back when I was a kid. Now, I feel like, you know, a guy could go in there and do some damage with what we've learned and how to hunt and whatnot. You could kill a big old deer in the Steens. But, anyway, that's enough of that. Let's go shoot long range up here with MOA. We do appreciate our sponsors. We got Bob Beck with MOA rifles. What's it called? Extreme what? Extreme Outer Limits. Extreme Outer Limits with Bob Beck up here. We're gonna go up and meet up with him.

We're gonna have a YouTube episode on this. Yeah, a handful of members of Epic Outdoors, I believe, that booked the other spots, right? We're gonna be meeting some of them. I'm not, we don't, I know we have their names in our file somewhere, but be good to just, it's almost like a hunting camp scenario. They get a great lodge there. Obviously go through a lot of basic information about shooting long-range techniques, things like that, but then you get out there in the hills and on the course and actually do it. So, hopefully we don't choke. Hopefully we don't make complete fools of ourselves. Yeah, so it'll be fun to get up there and, you know, use a new rifle, use a new setup, I guess, so to speak, and, you know, have some fun. Yeah, these guys. Use new people and learn a little bit more about the business and things like that.

Going out here on the Sheep Mountain Outfitters Lodge, you know, where they kill a lot of these big old rams and, I don't know, a lot of big deer and stuff too, don't they? That's right. Yep, and we'll probably, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, but we're gonna year-long to document this. We'll probably put us out on the YouTube channel here in the coming weeks, right? Yeah, we definitely will. That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna film it. So, anyway, it's that time of year. Everybody's looking at what they've got, tag-wise, and we're trying to figure out muzzleloader restrictions. I'm gonna be breaking out my muzzleloader here shortly. Drew a tag in the favorite state of Nevada, So, we'll see what comes of that. I've got to start shooting. Archery, muzzle, rifle. Going to put some hurt on some things this year. So, anyway, we're excited.

There's a lot of snow up there, boys, to the north. We're coming through here, headed toward Twin Falls, and we're going to go over to Baker City, Oregon. Looking up there towards Mackie or some of that country up there. I don't know how far I'm seeing right now, but there's plenty of white in them there hills. There is. A lot of snow. I appreciate you guys listening. Go to EpicOutdoors.com. If you haven't joined up, if you'd like to visit with us, give us a holler, 435-263-0777.