EP 128: Our First 200 Inch Bucks

And I can see in lines, and I'm like, this is a no-brainer, a shooter. I looked down right below me about 250 yards, and there's the buck. We think you should get out and hunt any way you can. Anything to do with Western big game. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Jeffrey John, and Chris Peterson Welcome back, everyone here, coming at you with some more hunting stories. Anyway, last week we talked about a few hunting stories, kind of got just things just getting going, and we were talking a little bit about maybe some more of our firsts. So, anyway, before we get started, we'd like to thank Under Armour for sponsoring these podcasts. We appreciate them and all their support here at Epic Outdoors, and a lot coming down the pipe with them.

Got a lot of new products, so does a lot of other advertisers here at Epic Outdoors and We're all good supporters. QU's got a new backpack and a bunch of different things coming out. We'll be having them on the podcast as well. And anyway, so a lot of good stuff going on this time of year, which is basically the end of June, first part of July. Of course, we've got 4th of July. Jen is like, hey, what are we doing for the 4th of July? I said, well... And Jason, instantly, I know what's going through your brain. Here's an option. It's an option. So, they have this little park, RV park. We could pull our camp trailer over there. You did not. In Caliente. You did not say this. You did not. Yeah, and then we could run cameras, and then we would be able to eat together as a family once in a while back at camp. Jason?

If you've listened to all these- Fourth of July. It's the Fourth of July, Jeff. I know you speak Spanish. Jason doesn't, but I know he probably knows this one. What does Caliente mean? Hot. Hot. And you're going the 4th of July in the most, the funnest place to go camp. I think it would be very hot if we went with my lovely bride in the middle of nowhere and ran camp. Huh? Yeah. If you've been listening to this podcast long enough, you know, Jason... He'll try to get away with that. He's got a fairly one-track mind. Well, and... I'm not saying she was against it, but I'm not saying she was for it. I think it's still in limbo, so I'm going to bring it up again. But anyway...

I'm not going to talk with that. Most people say the lake, somewhere cool. No, you're going to the armpit of hell. I know. I know. And it is. No offense to people in Cali. I'm just saying the southern Nevada. It could be worse. It could be Austin or Eureka, Nevada. Okay? Could be worse. You're pissing off half of Nevada. Is there any fishing over there? Can you even... Are there fishing Nevada at all? Dude, good fishing. Good fishing. Nevada has good fishing. Lake Mead, yeah. Okay. That's the one place to fish. I'm just teasing. What about Pyramid Lake? All these little refuges have big fish in them. In Lincoln County? Yeah, plus or minus. Alright, alright, alright. So, let's talk about, I don't know, just kind of on a roll. Adam, let's talk about your... Let's talk about... I've got one for you. We talked about a couple of our first bucks the other day when we had the podcast.

And we got talking about maybe, well, why don't we talk about some of the other firsts? You know, whether it's the first sheep, first elk, first 200-inchers. Carter, why don't you tell us about that? First 200-inch mule. First 200-inch. Let's have it. 1999. So... Pre-millennials. Yeah. This is back when Chris was still in high school. Yeah, I was still in high school. Still in high school. And I was newly wed. I was barely in high school. Didn't even have one kid on the ground yet. As we were going, I was trying to kill big deer, but I didn't know big deer per se, but I was spending a lot of energy. Just out of college, probably back here in southern Utah. Is that right? You left the cash unit. Lived in Minersville. Left the cash. You left the cash at Utah State, left the cash behind, and we're looking for a buck somewhere else.

Yes, and I was like, you know, I want to go to Nevada, kind of where at that time the state record typical had been taken from, and genetics, and this and that. I had no knowledge. Well, of course, you're throwing five choices down, so you can't really say that's the one tag you're going to get. You're going to get one of them, and that's what you ended up getting. I don't even remember what choice it was. But I mean, again, don't know anything about Nevada, per se, back then. So, I go over there, scout, I mean, it was hilarious. I mean, we saw these bulls, big bulls, and all this, and I was just like, holy crap, this is heaven. You know what I mean? There's game everywhere and whatnot, and I didn't know anything about migration. I didn't know anything. They're very, very green. But I spent a lot of time, and I thought, this year, I want to kill a 200-inch,

I wanted one, but there's a difference between wanting one and making it happen. You can't make them happen, but you can sure wear yourself out trying. I was going to wear myself out trying that particular year. So, all in. So, it was working my guts out. It was covering the unit from one end to the other. This is when I started to hunt the desert stuff. Lower densities, less people, but deer die of old age. That whole mentality was just developing. I cleared down on the southern end, went along, ended up finding this deer. Now, my dad and I both have tags, okay? So, he drew and I drew. And I ended up finding this deer, and I was like, I think this is a 200-incher. He had little cheaters everywhere, just little cheaters. He's like a 7x9 or whatever. Big, tall, boxy frame. Tall, boxy frame. Good-looking deer. Good frame with some... Yeah, 31-inch outside, cheater to cheater.

Anyway, opening morning comes, we get up on a knob, and I glass him. And I'm like, boom, there he is. And he goes into this big old drone, we can't see him anymore. And so, okay, so we're sitting there, and we're like, okay, all we have to do, he's here. All we have to do is go around this basin or whatever, pop up, glass him up or whatever, and we get to kill him. And so, I'm going through these motions in my mind, this is going to happen, I think he's 200, not that that's the end-all be-all, But it's a big deer. Okay? Okay. And so, we get done. It's starting to get hot in the middle of the day. First part of October. Brutal hot. And I turned to my dad, and I'm like, hey, how are we going to kill him? He says, well, what we do as a family, back in the day, is the guy that spots him, you get to choose. Like, are you going to go around the left side, front side? How are you going to do it?

What's your approach? What's your tactic? What's your approach? And then I'll choose an approach and go in the other way. And then whoever gets him, gets him. And I was like, okay. Ah, okay. No pressure to make this decision right here. Well, I want to do what's kosher, right? And keeping in mind right now, you don't know where the deer is. Yeah, I don't know where the deer is. He's in this basin and a sea of trees. It's not. It seems slightly competitive. It seems odd. Well, but it's also, it's not a, you don't know the right That's the right answer, really. I don't know the right answer. Because you don't know right where the deer's at. It went over ridge, and now you've got to re-find the deer. But like you could say, I'm going to go this way, and you get hiking 400 yards up there, and you hear a gunshot, and the deer's feeding right to your dad. I mean,

you really don't know what to guess, really. That's legitimately where we're at. Okay, so I said, okay, I'm going to go around this side, which is basically the east side, and come in at him from this angle. And Gar's like, okay, sounds good. I'll go around this And I'm thinking, okay, sounds good. Okay, fast forward, hike my guts out, get around the backside. We're both gonna pop up at the same time. That was the goal. We had time on our watch. We're gonna pop up and let the fire begin. Okay? Instead of just, you know, glass him calmly, work together, kill him. It's a, we're gonna, you know. So, we're slightly, from our last podcast that we did last week on our first Bucks, that was total cluster jobs. We've refined it a little bit, but we're not yet to where we are in present day. We're still, we've got good guns, we've got good intentions. Slightly cluster-ish, but 10 years later.

15 years later. That's right. Okay. Okay. So, we pop up, I glass, I'm glassing my guts out, I'm glassing Garth, glassing for the deer, and I can't see the deer. He's starting to lay down. He's taking a dead rest. Kaboom! And I'm like, you're crapping me. And you're looking straight into the sun, or what? He just killed a deer that I found that was my lifelong dream, okay? Which I'm happy for him, right? That sounds good. Great. Good job. The deer comes bounding out. Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. And I'm like, when's it kosher to shoot, right?

Like, is it... You know what I mean? He shot first. Well, judging from the 14 or 15-year experience with 20 piles of brass, 20 on both sides of you, just go for it. Just let her rest. I got down and I hammered him. I mean hammered him. And I'm like, wow, holy crap, this did not just happen. And I walk and I hike over there, got all my stuff, and I'm admiring him. And I'm like, wow, this is awesome, you know. And it takes my dad quite a while to get over there. I'm like, I wonder what he's doing. I mean, he's, you know, it takes him a little bit to get over there. And he, and then I see he's following the track of the buck, you know. I mean, because there's no deer in this area. There, this is the only deer here. And so, anyway, he's following the track, and he gets up to me and he goes, well, I didn't find any blood, so I guess he's yours.

And then I'm like, damn straight! Yeah, yeah! And you're lucky you said that because your tag was punched and notched and signed and dropped after the antlers. I know, I'm just like, I'm so excited. Well, looking back on it, here's the, looking back on it, I chose a route where I get to view the sunny side of trees. This buck is not going to bed in the sun. No. So, notice, if you and a buddy are doing this, you're better off doing paper, rock, scissors, and just lose it. Or just lose it that way. Or maybe if you know your partner's inexperience, send him around that site. Tell him it'd be good for him to go around the east side while you go around on the shady side. So, anyway, this buck was obviously bedded in the shade. I'm looking at the sunny bases of trees wondering why I can't find it. So, I've learned a lot since then. And anyway, awesome experience, you know, all of that.

And sometimes, the early bird doesn't get the worm. You learn that. So, very similar to this, Adam, you had your first 200-inch also got shot at by somebody or people besides yourself. Yeah. So, this was early 2000s. I forget the exact year, but it was right when Colorado was ripening. They had gone to unit by unit, tag draws, 2002, 2003-ish. That's my guess, right there. And me and a bunch of buddies, we'd actually picked up, we'd been applying for tag, didn't have a lot of points built up, so we picked up leftover tags back then in the day. You know, there's a lot of tags you could pick up leftovers back in the day. This day and age, not so many. I mean, a lot of tag quotas have been cut, or there's just way more people interested in Colorado now, and so the second choice, third choice, fourth choice, clean up a lot of tags.

These were true leftovers of August. We all bought them, me and a bunch of buddies. We went over there. It was a great snow year. It snowed like crazy, cold as snots. Our first experience there, and the deer all crushed down into the high country. You know, we're seeing them in... Of course, you see a lot of deer in hay fields and stuff in Colorado in good units, and we're just like, this is going to be incredible. So, one of my buddies shot a really good buck. I believe it was opening day, or... I don't remember what day we hunted there, if we went opening day or not. Killed a great buck, so he was spotter for the next five or six days, right? We had three more tags. But, like, yeah, right. You know, he's the guy on dispatch and working the faces. So, I'd hiked up. We'd seen this deer come off this mountain into a private field the night before.

But everything behind it, like a lot of times in Colorado, they're coming back off of public land. So, the next day, I had this big game plan to, you know, hike. You had, you know, there's no straight shot to it. We had to hike way back around and hike way down the ridge in the dark. We get down there, and sure as crap, the buck leaves the private and it's coming right to me. And, you know, and I'm letting it get there. But the problem is, if you found an oak brush in Colorado... It's over your head. Yeah. And so, the buck's coming, and it's not that far of a shot. It's probably two to three hundred yards. So, not a...it's a chip shot, except for when it's a 200-inch, 33-inch buck, and you've got to shoot I got shooting sticks. I don't take offhand shots at 50 yards. I got shooting sticks, but you're in six-foot-high oak brush. You can't sit down and shoot in that. You can't do it.

So, I'm literally not just offhand, I'm offhand almost tippy-toes. Yes, I'm making excuses for about what's about to happen. I think I shot two or three times. I don't remember, But I know the first shot didn't even react. Let's call it a volley. The buck didn't even react. He's glued on me. I shoot. He doesn't even flinch.

I'll do that again, I guess. Boom, and he takes off. And at that time, you know, I don't know if he's hit, what, but he takes off. He's right on the crest ridge. Before I could even shoot again, he's over the ridge. Okay? And so, I'm starting to gather my crap up. I'm getting down there. All of a sudden, I hear volleys of gunshots right where the deer are, and I'm like, oh, crap. There's people over the ridge. They just killed my buck. He's dead. Is he even my buck? Did I hit him that time? Geez. Well, I don't know. I'm freaking out. And, you know, guys are calling me on my radio, and I'm like, not talking to them because I'm just, yeah, I'm frantic.

And right then, I look up there, here comes the buck running back over the ridge. He runs almost to the same little jar where he stops, and he stops. I pull up and hammer him flat. I mean, he drops in his track. And now, I'm like, okay, I got him, but are these guys going to be tracking him over my side? Are they tracking blood? Are they tracking blood? Do I have blood going this way? Is the blood coming back, and there's a little bit of snow? And what's legal? First bullet? Last bullet? I hear last bullet is legal. I think it's the last bullet, and you're the animal. So, I make my way down to the deer, and I'm crapping. I call Gary, and he's like, did you get him? Did you get him? I'm like, he's toast. That time, I freaking crushed him. He's dead. So, I walk down there, and I'm praying the whole time that these guys don't come over the ridge. And you're not taking your orange off yet,

because they might be coming. Oh, yeah. I'm not taking pictures. I mean, there's no quick I had an orange suit with orange shoes and everything.

Don't shoot me. I had legal amounts of orange on, a vest and a hat. That was legal. And they never came, nothing. There was two holes in my buck. Okay? Come on. One of them, right, you've seen this, right perfect behind the shoulder. The other one, right through the antler. That's right. I remember that. I forgot about that. So, I don't know. I still to this day, I don't know if my second shot hit it through that antler. Because he was uphill, and I was shooting down, and I would have went high over his shoulder, and I would have went right through his main beam. Or, whether those guys did it. But it's 100% fresh. So, either I shot there in my second shot, or those guys, the other one was center punched right behind them. Pretty cool. Yeah. Pretty cool. And he's mounted that way, and they never came over the hill. Never came. And so, I feel 100% confident that's my deer.

But it was not without a lot of... Stress. Oh, yeah. It's stressful. Let's just say. Colorado, and if you've hunted places like, you know, 35 or, you know, some of these units, 18, some of these units that have a ton of tags where we've been to before, you can see how easy that can happen. I mean, there's people everywhere on every ridge. You're lucky when- I can't get rid of them. Yeah. There's squirrel hunters. I mean, there's everything. Everything that could be in the field. We had a gal, Chris, remember this? Oh, yeah. What? Well, you're going to have to help me with this story. And so, we're in there, and we're all set up, and we're actually videoing for Ridge Reaper. You'd glass the buck already? I don't remember. You'd glass the buck. We'd glassed him, bedded him, and stalked him.

Yeah, and the buck's bedded. And we're sitting there waiting for him to get up, and we can't shoot him, but we see his antlers in the trees. Oh, this is another good story. He's like, this is good. Probably 500 yards away. Yeah. But bedded. Yeah, and pretty soon, here comes this nature lover tree-hugging gal, bless her heart, with bells. Like a great big cowbell. So that you know she's a hiker and don't shoot me?

It's a joke between me and the buck trying to save his life. Bull. Yeah, dead serious. Chris, we made it. I got it on film. I filmed it. We filmed it. You think she saw the deer and knew what you were there for? Oh, she knew. He totally knew. I think she knew that we were set up on a deer. I don't know that- We had Hunter Orange, John. Yeah, I don't know that they could see the deer. She sees us, and she's just gonna take a bell so A, we don't shoot her. B, the buck runs away, or whatever. She's saving the lives. What'd the buck do? Just hunk her? Oh, dude. He jumped up. No, he jumped up and he went over the hill a couple hundred yards, an hour, A few hours later, we're in position, and we piled right in. Okay? Did you drive to follow her Subaru off the mountain, see where she drove, and go give her a back strap? Or what did you do?

We ended up staying on the mountain for the rest of the afternoon, because we had to kill the buck. Oh, yeah. It turned into a lot longer deal than it should have. Anyway, yeah, I was just like... That reminds me of another situation. I had my brother Aaron with me this time. I had a tag in the unit, he didn't, and I was walking, he was way up in these cliffs looking at this big cedar broken stuff below me, and I was going to hike out to a vantage point below him and just sit in glass, you know, but I would be in the middle of it all. It looked like a great deer here. It was Brent first time to the unit, 61. It was in 61. Okay, there we go. So, first time there. What's your second 200-nature? I think it might have been. Yeah, I don't remember. All right. Anyway, yeah. Yeah, I think it was. So, three or so years later, after the other buck, that's about when it was.

So, I'd walked up through, and I stopped to catch my breath, and you're in a sea of trees, so you're just trying to find your way through. Where's somewhere high enough that you can actually glass? I turned back and looked, and there's some deer. I look over there, like six, eight hundred yards over there, and there's some deer, and I can see a freaking big buck staring in the middle of these does, like a big buck. I'm calling Aaron, I'm like, I got a buck over here, and I'm repping my scope out and I can see in lines, and I'm like, this is a no-brainer, shooter. And Aaron's like, you better do something quick. And I'm like, what? He's like, there's a guy walking between you and the buck. He says, that's what the deer's watching. I can see the deer's looking at something. And this deer, pretty soon I can see the guy ahead of me, like 300 yards, and he's walking right towards me.

And this buck is just locked on him. But it's right behind him. If he turns and looks up, he's 300 yards from the deer. This is a 207 deer. Okay? It's your second 200-inch. And I'm watching, so he's walking to me the whole time. And I'm not on a trail. I'm in trees. I'm in broken trees. And he's walking, walking, walking. And I'm watching the deer, because if he blows, I want to see which way he's going. But I also don't want to get seen by this guy. And the deer is, and I don't want the deer to see me, because now the guy's walking close enough to me. The deer's looking right at the guy, which is right in my line of sight, too. So, I don't want him to see me. He walks up to me. Pretty soon he sees me, and he waves, and he walks over, and I'm crapping. So, you do the whole, hey, my scope's looking over here. What do you think I'm looking at?

And by the way, here's my silence. Get out of here. Yeah. And I'm acting like I got a little food laid out, and I'm acting like, ah, just taking a break. I'm kind of, you know, taking a breather. And I'm like, he's like, hey, what's going on? I'm like, oh, not much. I'm, you know, I'm just gonna glass it. This is this little draw down here. I'm whispering. The deer is locked on us. Keep in mind, this is a pretty long-range gun. I couldn't shoot. I'm probably 600 yards away. I have a 3 to 9 or whatever on my thing, and I got a drop chart taped to my stock, right? You're getting a hold over. Yes. 400, 450. And he's like, all right, now, if I go up this way, am I going to be in your way? And I said, no. No, please go. He happened to point the way he was going the whole time. I'm like, just keep going.

I'm gonna stay down here, I'll be out of your way the whole night. If you get to my truck, my keys are in the gas cap, turn on the AC, whatever, just chill out. Do you want a Gatorade? You want some food? What do you want? He said, alright, so he takes off, and so once he gets 50 yards out of my sight in the trees... You're packing stuff and moving. Well, no, I can't, because remember, the deer is locked. He's not still staring at you. He's just locked. And so now, I have to watch this deer until the guy's far enough away that the deer hopefully goes back to normal. It felt like 30 minutes, and it might have been a good time. I'm in a bend, because the guy's just still hunting through the trees. Pretty soon, you know, the tail twitches like they do, turns his head, and he starts feeding, and I'm like, freaking game on.

And so, I gather my crap, cut the distance roughly in half, get up there, pile drive the buck, and Aaron comes off the mountain, gets to him at dark. It was pitch black. Never saw the guy ever again. We took care of the deer, Phil dressed the deer that night, broke camp the next day, went down there, took better pitchers in the mud. It was the third season, and you had to have the AC on on the way home. That's what I remember. It was hot. I remember driving home telling you, I think I called you that night, saying, I freaking killed a good deer. He's got a bunch of inlines. He's not a big frame, but he's got a white-tailed look. Big white-tailed looking frame. And by the way, my AC's on high, pure cold. I have never been more thankful I'm heading home for a hunt successful, because this was like

And you never went back. Opening day. Usually a guy wants to go back. Aaron went two years later, We went back, and he ended up not killing a deer. I found a big deer that trip. Did you have a tag? No, remember, I found like a 215 opening night, and he couldn't get to me fast enough. So, it wasn't, you've never had a tag there again? No. No, I haven't. It takes nine or ten years to point, but just the joys of public land hunting. I mean, that's what we're talking about. In Colorado, it's like, that's just what it, that 190 I've got, that 190 typical, it was the same thing. The one off our YouTube episode, where you were like, I don't know what it is. I think he's 184.

You thought he was what, 184? No, 189. He was 189. I ripped him off the wall. He's 195 inch, or what it was. What was it? Yeah, you did. 197, 6, 5, I don't know. It was something like that. But anyway, so... Time to tape him again. We can't remember. We came across the ridge, and we see a nice... We see that buck, and he's with like six does. Weren't you hunting... Working down this. Wasn't your... So, I'm just going from memory, but wasn't it like you're dealing with sections... There's only like... Checkerboarded sections of private and public. Literally 500 acres of... Yeah, you're dealing with... The cabinets, basically. 500 acres of BLM right there in the middle, right? Okay. And we actually saw the buck. We rolled into the unit after opening day, I think.

But anyway, we rolled in the middle of the night because, of course, we had to finish our work day, take off, get there at 3 in the morning. No onyx maps, nothing telling you we're public and private. I don't know. This is a long time ago. Well, we had BLM maps, but yeah, no actual pinpoints. So anyway, buck's coming down a ridge. I take off, and I'm going down the ridge because he's going through the cedars. We can't really see him. He's with these does, but he's kind of patty-caking around, so we know that he's killable. And my dad sits on the ridge, watching. Sure enough, here comes his truck. Pulls up, stops, parks right by him, gets out, starts enjoying his breakfast, sitting next to my dad. And so I'm like... Your dad's ready to kill the deer. Like, I'm heading down, and he's watching. We're on the phone, because we got cell phone service right there.

We're hitting each other back and forth, and I'm like, I'm like, uh, you got somebody there next to need some code words here or something, because you got to keep me in it. I'm like, is the buck down there? He's like, yeah, things are going just fine, just like they were. Just as planned. I haven't heard this story. And the other guy's sitting there with binos and starts glassing. And I can tell there's a little stress in my dad's voice. He's being pretty cool, because I'm listening to the conversation he's having with the guy. You could hear the other guy. I could hear the other guy. And I'm just like, okay, okay, okay, I'm just about to the point where I can come over. He's like, yeah, something needs to happen there.

I get down in the box, heading right around this point where I know they can't see him. I come over there, and luckily, the guy right then picks up and is like, well, I'm gonna go glass over here or whatever. Walks over the hill. Buck walks out. Kapow! I pound him right there. And I mean, the whole time, I mean, talk about one of those situations where you're like, you know, you got people everywhere. It's Colorado. You end up with people everywhere. It takes nothing. You lose a buck over a ridge in most of these places.

Bullets are flying. You're hearing a big deer die. You know what I mean? You don't want to have antlers on your head during second or third season in Colorado. No, you will. You'll get shot. Chris, tell us about yours, buddy. Which one? The broomstick buck. Freaking floater beams. Yeah, it was a pretty cool deer. But anyway, we were down there in Colorado, and I'd never been to the area before. First time ever. This is your first year. That buck. First year. Right. I remember. And we're down there, and it was pretty warm, and it was late third season. They hadn't started rutting or anything. And we're just grinding, grinding, grinding every day, and we're seeing a lot of small deer, which is typical down there. A lot of nice little four points. One day, we just start glassing, glassing, glassing, and we got to where we had glassed everything out, basically.

And I thought, well, I'm just gonna take a little extra time. And I pulled out my spotting scope, and I thought, I'm just gonna pick this thing apart instead of... Hand holding it. Instead of... Yeah, and instead of leaving, I'm gonna put it on the spotting scope, and I'm gonna pick this hillside apart. And so, that's why I started doing that. And I had two buddies with me, and they were kinda getting antsy, ready to leave. I just sat there and I glassed this hillside looking through all these thick junipers. I'm sitting there, and pretty soon I see a buck walk through my field of view. What? What's going on here? That was a big deer. Yeah, and I see this deer, and I'm like, that is a big deer. I lost him for a minute, and by the time I found him again, they were right on the top of this ridge. And this is a long ways away. They're probably half a mile away at least. And as I see the buck

crest the ridge, I can see... I knew instantly that's a 30-inch wide buck giant. And I ran over and I told my buddies, I'm like, I got a shooter up here and I got to hike in for it. And it had gone over the hill, so all I could do is hike up around and hope that I could find the buck again. It went So, we're going to get up into this basin. Anyway, we get up, and I decide to, I'm going to crest around this other ridge that wraps around kind of where they went. And I could maintain elevation and see below me, and I start wrapping around, and I'm walking along, and my buddy's kind of falling back a little bit because he stopped to glass. And so, I was probably 20 feet ahead of him at this point, and I'm just creeping along. I looked down right below me about 250 yards, and there's the buck. And he's staring at me. Dude, he's a giant.

There was actually probably six or seven bucks there. I ended up just dropping down, put the gun on my pack. I was seated. I was sitting down on my butt, but I put the gun on the pack, and then just shot from there. The funny part about that story is I ended up driving that 200-inch home in the front seat of a Ford Taurus. What? Those are back in the car days. Is that what you had then? Yeah, I had a Ford Taurus. Did your buddy have a truck? They said, hey, he's back. If he's yours, he's going home in your car, not my truck. Yeah, well, I drove out there by myself. But it's funny, back then I used to hunt in my car all the time, and I loved it because I could go anywhere, and nobody suspected I was hunting. It was just, I'd go park, I had to hike more. The word anywhere is not true. You'd be surprised.

My family, when I was young, we went through some hard times, because we, you know, my dad was an entrepreneur, and went through a couple of businesses, and there was a time I was hunting with him in a 1983 Chevy Cavalier station wagon. And we slept in the back, because the seat's laid out. That's awesome. Anyway, so we did over-the-counter elk tags and things like that in the back of our station wagon. So, yeah, no stranger to doing that. No pride here. Going to hunt no matter what it takes. That's right. What kind of vehicle you have. So, awesome stories. I feel like we're leaving a million of them out, but you can't talk about everything in one podcast. It was like the best day of my life when I finally bought one of Jason's old trail cam trucks, and it was a Toyota Tundra. And I felt like this is the best thing on earth, and we're all...

And you had barely met Jason. How many miles did it have on there? 150,000. And it's kind of a running joke amongst those of us that know Jason well, that you don't want to buy a used truck from Jason. But, be honest, I give you a heck of a deal. Anybody that buys myself, I give you such a good deal, you can't be mad at me. And why is that? Because it's not worth anything more than that. That's right. That's exactly right. That's where I was going. Because I gave you such a good deal, because I can't live with myself if I charge you a dollar more. But, that being said, I've sold the vehicles to people and then give them another 500 back. Yeah, just a rebate. There's a rebate you didn't know about. That being said, I did go through like three sets of ball joints, but I was able to...

It was one of your best trucks you've ever had. Yeah, I drove it to 290,000 miles, and finally one day, I'm just like, the ball joints needed to be replaced again. This would be the fourth set. Ball joint breaks. Brakes were gone. Rotors were gone. You told me, you said, I don't know how I stopped in the dealership parking lot. And I don't know how it really even got there running. I mean, it was... And they gave you, Chris, almost what you paid me. So, I paid $5,000 for it, and I go into the dealership, and I'm like... I wasn't really planning on buying a truck that day. It was the year 2000 Tundra. Yeah, it was 2000. So, the V8, but the small body. Yeah, and this was in 2014. So, I pulled into this dealership, and I was just being curious, because I'm like, this truck's on its last legs. This was in 2014. Yeah. Wow, that's not that long ago. Yeah, so I pull into the dealership,

and I'm just kind of looking around, and I just decided, well, I'm gonna ask them what they'll give me for this truck, and I'm thinking, oh, 1500 bucks or something. They said, well, we'll give you four grand for it. I'm like, done. I bought it. I don't care if you charge me an extra eight for the new one. I got four out of the old one. I bought a brand We took a new truck that day and drove away with a new truck, and they probably started digging in that one after. You said done. That was probably the day before Carfax was really up and going. Yeah. I've got a vehicle, that 2013 Dodge Power Wagon, and it was one of my most favorite trucks, but I had that forever warranty. There's a max care warranty on Dodge vehicles with gas motors that you can buy in aftermarket, $3,000.

And they're so mad at you for telling this. Bumper to bumper for the life of you, as long as you have it, with a $100 deductible. And I'll bet you, I will bet you, I had over $20,000 in repairs. Front, front. Keeping in mind, this is a brand new truck. This wasn't used. He had to buy it brand new. But when you buy it brand new, how much can you do to put $20,000 into it, Jeff? It's brand new. Well, no. It had lockers, and so it has... Oh, oh. And when you replace differentials. I'm just saying. Transfer cases. Most of the time, a brand new truck is four or five years before you have to do one thing to it. I know. One thing. I know. So. But it was... I hear what you're saying. That truck ran hard, though. You were filming Ridge Repurgers. That is my point. That is my point. Only Jason can take a brand new truck off the lot. Off the lot. And within two years, have 20 grand to put into it.

It's all covered under warranty. It was probably three years. Okay, three years. And a truck that's built for off-road. I mean, it was built to do this exact purpose. I will tell you, I loved that truck. I loved it. However, by the end of it, I wouldn't spend two weeks and it would be in the shop for a month. You know what I mean? At some point, the warranty didn't matter. Yeah, at some point, the warranty didn't matter. It was like, are you going to have a truck to drive or not? You know what I mean? And so, anyway, I often wonder, what does the Carfax look on? I'll like that. Can I just randomly look at that number? It's a long, Jeff. And you know what, that warranty, it covered shocks. I re-shocked it twice. I mean, it shocks, ball joints, tie rods, everything, just like you bought a new vehicle for the first $36,000.

That was the first, you know, you didn't have any issues until we were coming home from your Idaho deer. That was rough. Yeah. No, I know. That's a classic. So, I'm coming home from the Idaho deer, I drew 42 late. And we had to do some- Killed the giant eye guard butt. Okay, yeah. And we had to drive fairly aggressively to get to him, okay? And so, all is well. All is well. We killed him, came home. I'm 15 miles outside of home. How far is it up there? We're almost to the exit. Yeah, almost. How far is it? I'm pulling my camp trailer. It's negative 10 degrees or whatever up there. It was negative 7.

It was cold. The trailer froze solid. We're coming home, and all of a sudden, I mean, my front end's locking up. Locking up, and I'm like, what is going on? I pull it over, and there's differential fluid just all scattered across the trailer. The white part of the trailer loaded with fluid, and the only place it's coming from is the front diff. I'm coming from the front diff? Really? That's random. How does that happen? So, oh, great. This is a warranty item. Get my money out of this extra warranty. I take it in. They're like, Sorry, sir, that's not covered under warranty. I'm like, what are you talking about? Well, we took off the front cover of the diff, and somehow, a significant stick went up through the seam in the metal between the front cover and the diff body, and ruined the gasket, and came up through the gasket, and all the way home, you were leaking front diff fluid. What

What are the chances of that? They showed me, they showed me the cover. Sure enough, something came up through that scene. That was like a weird first thing. Who's ever had that happen? So, yeah. That was probably an insurance claim or something else. Shipped that down the road. Well, I mean, then they're a locker front end, which is now X amount, $8,000. They found a used one. They didn't want to replace it with new parts and all that. Ever since then, things just never did. It never was quite right. Still, the image in my brain, I mean, it's almost like, because I was sitting in the backseat, I don't remember, was it, Chris, you probably were in the front seat. I don't remember. Who was with Dusty? Somebody was with Dusty. I was in that truck, though. We were cruising around, and there's snow, like, there's significant snow in some places.

And you're sitting in the backseat, so it's like tunnel vision, it's dark, the lights are in the front, and we're just plowing through these cool roads. There's some cool roads out there, I mean. Cool little two-trackers. Cool little two-trackers, but hauling... They're moguls. I mean, they were... Haul and tail through here. It felt like I was on a ride at an amusement park. Well, and there was just enough snow that it kind of... Cushioned. Yeah, yeah. ...smoothed out some of the bumps, and we were just rolling. Oh, just hauling. It was pretty fun. It was way fun. We had no choice. We had fun time on that. We had no choice. But it was cold. That was a cold hunt. I mean, that... Boy, that was cold out there in that desert. Yeah, it was. Where are we at? I don't know. We've talked a little bit about gear here today. Let's have a little gear discussion.

We've talked about some of our guns, some of our older guns, some of our .308s, stock 270s. Let's talk about some of our new guns. That's right. If you're in the market and definitely needing an upgrade in your weapon of choice, give the guys at Red Rock Precision a call. Kurt Pilcher and his crew there, 801-425-6574. Make great rifles. We've all got one of the rifles that we've used from time to time, or multiples, in my case, and a couple of our cases. And so, make great guns. Customize your scope combination to it, caliber to it. Shoot with them at the range. Visit them at redrockprecision.com, or like I said, call Curt and his crew at 801-425-6574. Great, well-built guns, very, very accurate, and make those three to five or three to six hundred yard shots seem routine. That's what a gun capable of shooting longer than that does for the more hunting range shots, in my opinion.

So, anyway, give them a call. People say it's unethical to take long range shots, okay? I think it's unethical not to have a gun like this that is capable of it. Because it makes, like Adam said, it makes five and six hundred yard shots feel like chip shots. Literally, they're chip shots. They're nothing. They can be made 100% of the time unless there's crazy wind. 100%. That's true. Unless, of course, we get into buck fever, right? And that's always fun when we get some buck fever. Yeah. But, anyway, you haven't ever had buck fever. Oh, we've all had that. Oh, yeah. I still get it. Absolutely. Like you said earlier on the last podcast, I think it usually hits me right when it's done. You get excited, but it used to happen more when I was younger, the controlling. I had a situation like you talked about, hunting bears.

You know, back in, I was 15, 16, something like, sitting in a tree stand, you walk into the bear bait, your dad kicks the bait, you know, because the bear's got to hear you drive up, walk down to the bait, da-da-da, tend it. You climb in the tree, your dad leaves, and you're in the tree by herself. And the bear's like, they just loaded. They left. And, dude, the thing was there within 20 minutes. This big bear we had, you know, knew he was coming in before trail cameras, but we just knew from... Well, dude, we used to cook alarm clocks... With the fishing line to your battery. With fishing line to the battery, and it had hands on it. Yes, that's what I... And so you knew when the bear come in. Yes, we would have an old clock taped to the back of a tree. It wasn't digital, but it had our hands. Our hands, yes.

A AA battery with heavy fishing line wrapped around the battery, the back of the battery cover off, It's tied to the stick, so when it jerked the stick, it pulled the fishing line out and stopped the timer. You knew right when the bear came. You would go in and say, okay, my bait has been molested. Let me look at it. He came in at six last night. That's how you do it. Because your battery was jerked, and it stopped the time right there, just like your clock on the wall. I mean, we're talking human trail camera and that are clock. That's the same era. You did it, too. It's funny. I don't tell people that story, but that came. That's how we used to bait bears. Well, I'm not much older than we talked about when you couldn't pull the bow back on your buck at 14 or 15. This bear's big. It's a big chocolate. And it's also a bear. It's like the first experience you've been real close to a bear.

With a big predator. Big predator. And so, you're on ease. It's significant. And it's you. No one's there to talk you through it. There's nobody there, just like Jason or me on my first archery buck. There's no one there to talk, toss down, you got this thing, stay calm. There's none of that crap. And I eased out to try to pull back, and I couldn't pull my boat back. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I couldn't do it. I couldn't get it. And we had, you know, we didn't have good tree stands then, right? They weren't these nice ones you chain to, and they're nice and big. It was a homemade jobber, you know, with some lumber. Some lumber and stuff up there, you know. With a tiny little waist strap that would choke you out. Yep, and I leaned out, if you had a waist strap.

I leaned out, and the two-by-four creaked. I tried two or three times to pull the bull back. This thing's chomping this bait, and I couldn't get it. So, finally, I lean up, trying to almost stand, like I'm gonna stand up, flex my legs to get a little bit more behind, and it creaks. And that bear's head whips, and it's staring at me like, you know, 20 feet in the tree. And he's just burning holes, and I'm crapping. Because I'm like, I'm dead. I'm dead. You know, you're just thinking. For all intents and purposes, this is a brown bear from Alaska looking at me. You're a kid. You're an inexperienced kid, and your dad's off. You can picture, I mean, bears like to sit in stands. They're interested. They go up. They probably sat in your lumbered stand.

Yeah, probably. So, anyway, and pretty soon, he comes over, and he walks around my tree. He's staring up at me the whole time. Walks around. I'm in a giant Ponderosa. I'm like, I'm done. There's nobody to call. This is, you know, this is... I think I'm gonna just hang my bow up on this little... This is late, this is 89 or 90, 90, right in there. I mean, there's no cell phones. We don't have... You're just there. Your dad's a big up at dark, right? Yeah. You're in a tree stand. He's right... He's 400 yards away from sleeping in the truck, because, you know, what is he gonna do? Not room for two of you up there. Circles it twice, and leaves.

I never saw it again. But... I love it. Those are just things you learn from, and those are things that the buck fever, bear fever, whatever. You know, the bow couldn't have been more than 50, low 50s. You'd pull it back. Oh, never... 15 times that day. Just like Jason, I'm sure. You never have a problem pulling back your 48 to 52-pound bow, whatever it was, man. Compound. That's the one thing I think about, you know, just teeing off of this, is some guys like to have the heaviest Heaviest bow that you can get pulled back. If it's 75, 80, 85, 90 pounds, whatever, that's what they want. I like to be able to hold it. I've killed several of my bucks almost two minutes into holding a draw. You know what I mean? And so, to be able to hold it, so I'll have often a 65 to 70 pound bow that you can just hold for a long time.

You know what I mean? And that sometimes will kill. That makes a difference between killing and not. Well, that's going to reduce the shaking. You're not going to start shaking as early, and it's going to save your shot. Well, and let's face it, you're never, when you're at your house, you're standing up, you're pulling back. When you're hunting, you're crouched, your legs are half asleep because you're trying to stay hidden, and now you rise to pull. It's always, you're in a fatigued or a contorted, twisted position, so you never got all your muscles working right. Almost never, so keep that in mind. Tip of the day by Jason Carter. Tip of the day. All right. Crank your bow down. Well, we want to throw a little shout out out to Outdoor Edge Knives. Super good knife system. They've got the replaceable blades that are big, long, sturdy replaceable blades,

as well as have a great backbone to the blades so you just don't break them. I've never broke one. And so, anyway, awesome knives. We appreciate them and their partnership with us. Go to Outdoor Edge, knives, OutdoorEdge.com, 1-800-447-3343. We're huge fans of that Razor Light, the Razor Light knife. So, anyway, good guys right here out of Colorado. Make a lot of other products from saws, yeah, saws to everything else. If you need something for your pack that way, load it up. Yeah, camp kitchen items, forks, knives, spoons, different things like that. They do a few of those things, too. I love the Jeff Johns stories. We need a few more of those. When you think of them, write them down, and we'll run in the office. I mean, there's some...it's price. It's fun hearing about them for the first time.

We were...we come from the era of, you know, walk as far as you can, bump a buck, and try to kill a man. We did a lot of that. Or ride. We rode horses a lot when I was a kid. A lot, a lot. Deer drives. Deer drives, you name it, we did it all. Yeah. My dad was not a sitter, did not like sitting at all. He still doesn't. He likes to get out and travel. It always works out for him. He's good at that. I'm not so good at that. I've killed very few that way, but he always kills something. You have to be careful, because you leave a gun in his hand. We've talked about it, joked about a sheep tag. He's just going to kill something. I'm a little worried he's just going to kill something. So, you know, because he has an amazing ability of just killing stuff like crazy. Well, he's from the older school generation, let's face it, where, you know, meat was a lot of why you hunted there.

It wasn't always trophies. You know, a lot of our dads, you didn't start hunting trophies. Nobody's, you know, we didn't start that way, but it really wasn't that way in the 50s, 60s, 70s. It just wasn't that way. If it's a good buck, it's dying. It was the law of averages. My dad and relatives used to, you know, hang out in an old boxcar playing cards, and they would have a bet on the big buck of the day. And so, you know, the big buck of the day. Yeah, it was throw lead in the air as much as you can. The law of averages. Good stuff could happen. And things were measured by width. That's just what it was. And so, usually a 30-inch buck every day won the contest. I mean, could you imagine living in that era? It'd be unbelievable. So, lead pipes falling out of carcasses. I got a buddy, and he's one of my favorite people to hunt with.

He's probably 60, but we always joke with him. We'd be glassing a buck, and we're like, it looks pretty good. And he's the one with the tag, and he's like, has he got good hams? That's a first. Oh, he's got a kick out of him. If it had three points, he just wanted I'm gonna kill it right now. I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me see a saw, hammies. Okay, yeah, that one's good. Left one right, oh yeah. Oh, he's round and plump, hammering. I think it's just, I think it's back then it goes back to what we're talking about with meat and food, and you're killing a deer. I don't care what you want, say what you want, whatever, you're providing for the family, you're killing this deer. I mean, it was legit.

Oh, yeah. Back then, you know, money, money, things have changed nowadays. How fortunate are we to be able to do all these things and be able to not have to really 100% hunt for food? And we, although we do it, we eat everything we're killing, or, and it gets consumed, no question about it. But it's a little bit different. Yeah. Yes. Back in the day, you pretty much hunted your home state. We hunted. One hunt a year. You did. Maybe two. You did. Maybe the general elk and the general deer. That was about it. You had your week of year, and that was kind of where the kids took off school. And anyway, things have just changed so much, so much. And you know, I would say, maybe not everybody's in the same situation that we are, or you are, or whatever. You know, not everybody's hunting multiple states. But the option is out there, and you can fairly easily figure out how to do it.

Once again, it comes back to our magazine. That's what the value in our magazine is. I think we've taught a lot of people to do that. I think we've taught a lot of people how to do that. And there is, you know, the shoot more, eat more movement is definitely here. Like, a lot of people don't mind going on cow elk counts. They don't mind killing that. And I think it's great because, once again, we're instilling in people the value in hunting. And I think that's something that we, you know, we need to have that. We gotta have that. You know, those cow tags are issued for a reason. Those cow elk tags. Those doe tags are issued for a reason. Now, I've never shot a cow. I've never shot a doe. That doesn't mean I think there's anything wrong with it. I think go out and hunt.

We tease about dropping bombs on moms a little bit. And it seems like in a day that it feels like we're always trying to bolster populations that shooting moms isn't the proper thing to do necessarily. But it is a management tool, and people are out doing it, we endorse it, all that, no big deal. We just tease a little bit and have a good time with it. Yeah, don't assume that we're anti any of that. We think you should get out and hunt any way you can. If that's the way you can do it, man, go do it and do it as often as you possibly can. Yeah, but we've had guys that have joined our licensed app service and tell us, we only hunt for meat. I'm not a trophy hunter. You guys know who I'm talking about. There's a couple of them. And now they're kind of like, well, you drew me this tag, and I'm like, yeah, do you remember? Let me read a few notes to you.

You didn't own a gun. You don't own a gun. You didn't own a gun two years ago. We drew him an elk and a deer tag. I talked to him yesterday. And this year, he's got another tag, and he's like, so tell me about this one. And I said, well, you want to hunt near your son's hometown there in Oregon? We got you that tag. Yeah, but it doesn't look, I'm just a little bit, I'm like, no, remember, you're just a meat hunter. And you get to stay at your son's house every night. I know. That's right. I talked to him yesterday, and you know, the first year we applied him, we drew him an elk and deer tag.

He's a great guy in Idaho. Oh, yeah. And he killed them both. And he is flabbergasted that he has not drawn another Idaho deer in Elk Tag. He doesn't understand it. And now he's like, he's like, can I buy an over-the-counter tag up there and go number? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we can make it happen. It'll be fun. Yeah, but I've known guys that go up there on the over-the-counter since that winter of 1617 and not see a buck. It's a buck. It's a different hunt, I still think. Anyway, worth it though. Worth it though. There's guys that are doing it. You work hard, you can do it. Anyway, just to throw a little fun out there. A little history about us, you know. Maybe our first wolves will come out in the next podcast. Ooh, good idea. A little stories like that. I'm so jealous of you guys about those wolves. I don't want to talk about my first moose, really.

Maybe Jeff's first caribou, we can go over that story again. Alright, guys. Well, we sure appreciate everybody's listening. Go ahead. When John gets back from his vacation, we need to talk about his, I think it was his first antelope in Wyoming. In Wyoming. And the shovel. Is there a shovel? No. I'm going to leave the shovels out of that one. All right, you're right. Probably true. Just saying there's more than one way to cape. Man, when you get to the expo or something in person sometime, and we can make sure there's no recording devices on, there's a good story about that. You don't have to have an outdoor edge knife to cape an antelope. Just saying. You don't have to have one. But you should. If you want clean lines, spend the money buying an outdoor edge knife. All right, guys. Have fun. Be safe.