EP 131: Finding Backcountry with Jason Carter

If there's a $2.50 10 miles in, I'm going to beat you at 10 miles in. Holy crap, that is the biggest deer that I've ever seen in my life. Coming up with big deer in places that maybe aren't supposed to have big deer. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey guys, this is Chris Peterson with the Epic Outdoors podcast. This week we've got something just a little bit different. But Jason Carter from here at Epic Outdoors went on the Finding Backcountry podcast. And we felt like there was a lot of valuable information there that our listeners would also enjoy. So we're going to share that with you today here on the Epic Outdoors podcast. You're going to hear from Jason as usual, but in just a little bit different format. So before we get started, we wanted to thank Under Armour. We appreciate all they do for us. They sponsor all of our podcasts. So we want to thank them. And with that, we're going to head on over to the Finding Backcountry podcast. Welcome back to the Finding Backcountry podcast. Really excited about this one.

This is a guest that I've, man, I just, this is one I've had on my radar. And finally enough people commented and requested Jason to come on that he agreed against his will to come on the Finding Backcountry podcast. Mostly probably because your hesitation, be honest, was that you don't backcountry hunt typically, right?

No, it's not. I mean, I've done plenty of backcountry hunting, but it's, it's not that. It's just people hear enough of me. We have our own podcast, you know? So it's just like, you know, at some point, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. It is. People hear enough, you know? Well, you probably think that, but man, my opinion, like nowadays with how much content we actually ingest and how many, how many more people, you know, if it was like a magazine articles 30 years ago, then it's like, man, how, you know, I can only write so many magazine articles because there's only three magazines and everyone's going to read them, you know? But nowadays with, with the internet and podcasts and Instagram and the whole deal, man, like you just, you just can't put out, I would dare say you cannot put out enough content. You know, you just, people just love to keep hearing it and hearing it, especially from

guys like you that get it done. But, um, so if you didn't catch that, got Jason Carter on, uh, Epic Outdoors. Uh, you know, you guys have been, you know, you guys are a real force in the industry. I'm just a guy that interviews guys who are real forces in the industry and know what they're doing. So, um, you know, it's a pleasure for me to have an excuse to sit down and chat with guys like you. We've, we've kind of known each other, you know, just, we kind of lived in the same town there and just, you know, but never, never really sat down and just, just talked to hunting, uh, for a very long time. So this is, this is one I'm super excited about. Um, mostly because so, so speaking of, you know, back country hunting and the whole, the, the whole podcast theme here, Jason, it's, uh, it's, it's become interesting to me because,

and I'm sure you've seen this, um, you know, back country hunting, let's say 10, 15, whatever years ago, um, you know, meant you were putting all your stuff in your back and you were going in, you know, let's say between five and 10 plus miles or whatever, and camp and whatever. I firmly believe, you know, that that's not the, as much, as much as people probably put that in their mind, that's not the name of the podcast. The podcast is finding back country. And what I mean by that is I think I'm fascinated lately. Um, and I think you're a perfect guide to, to, uh, talk about this. You know, we've started seeing just in, in my, you know, 12, 13, 15 years of doing this or whatever it's been. Um, we used to get away from guys. That's why we went 10 plus miles deep is, is the guys were gone. There was no one, no one back there.

And the, and the, the couple that were, you'd tip your cap to them and there was plenty of room for everyone to play. Well, then all of a sudden, um, last year in Nevada, we, we get overrun. We're 11 miles deep and we're overrun by guys because guess what? Everyone's on the, everyone's on the machines and everyone's on the computers and they're, you know, they're running their on X chip and they're putting up the, pulling up the roadless, uh, purple overlay. And they, they just automatically are pinpointing, uh, those spots. It's become more popular in general. And then everyone has access to see where those spots are. And so I've become fascinated lately, not by the, you know, because I think in the past there was guys that were going and I'm getting somewhere. I'm going to let you talk eventually. I promise. But I'm good. I'm going to learn something here. No, you're not.

Um, I think that in the past there was guys who road hunted, so to speak, and they, you know, they didn't get more than, you know, one Ridge or a few hundred yards from, from a road. And that was cool. We grew up kind of in that world. I did. I mean, and then there was guys that were, that were back country hunting going 10 miles. Well, I become fascinated lately with that. You know, let's say there's an area with 10 miles of roadless country. Um, I'm fascinated lately with that two to three mile range, for example, because I, I think that it's getting overlooked and I'm, I have a, I have a very strong intuition that you're the guy that's probably hitting that, you know, you're probably living in that two to three mile range. Um, am I wrong? No, that's right. I mean, that's, you're a hundred percent right. But some of it is, you know, sky's overlooking stuff next to roads too.

So, I mean, it's just wherever there's giant deer or elk or whatever, that's what I'm doing. Generally, you know, two to three miles. That makes sense. You know, um, you can day hike that not too bad and, and yet still be versatile and, and cover other stuff. Usually I've got three or four bucks we're hunting or, or whatever. Or I may target one that, you know, if he's, if he's, you know, far and away above, you know, bigger than another deer or something like that, that we have our number two buck, then, you know, we'll target one and then we'll go in. But, you know, I used to guide governor tags and even governor tags. We were, we were backpacking in, um, you know, I had a good client, Russ Young, and we backpacked in and we're sleeping in tents. And I mean, I don't, there's not many governor deer tag holders that'll do that, but, you know, and, and that's what it took.

Back then that, that was the best feed. That was the best deer, the best, you know, deer like to eat. And if you, if you, you know, target the, uh, food rich environment, you're going to, you know, generally do better. Well, now there's a lot of burns over there where we hunt and whatnot. So it spread the deer out back then there wasn't. So we targeted areas and, you know, scouted areas that were aggressive because that's where the feed was. So I guess it's just wherever the feed is. That's the feed and the, and the quality of deer. Um, you're not seeing, you know, a ton of, you know, 400 inch bulls coming out of the middle of the wilderness somewhere other than like, you know, Wyoming on some of those late hunts and things like that. There's some weather exceptional animals doing that. But as you know, it's not like, um, you know, the West Elks wilderness in Colorado is going

to get you the biggest bull. Some of these, you know, 201 or some of these easier access areas are going to get you a better, a better bull. So anyway, it just depends on where the animals are and, and we can do it all. Generally we're backpacking for, um, sheep or other things like that. Not so much mule deer, but a lot of it is just wherever the deer are at, where the feed is that I'm, I mean, if, if there's a two 50 buck, 10 miles in, I'm going to be to 10 miles in. I might even come borrow some llamas. You know what I'm saying? I mean, and so anyway, well, I don't know if I'd go that far, but I, you kind of get what I'm saying. Yeah. After your little shenanigans there with the llama, uh, dog, dodging the llamas, I think you kind of, you're obligated to pack some llamas this year. Are you not? Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Hey, you know, if there's, if it's, if it's the only way to kill a giant,

and I'm doing it, so it's definitely not the only way, but it's, it's the comfortable way. I'll put it that way. When you're talking, when you're going 10 miles deep and you can roll into camp, uh, with very little on your back and then whip out, uh, Bratwurst and Mountain Dews and steaks now, now my, and monsters and Cokes. Now I'm talking your language. Now we're talking. Yeah. If it's llamas equal monster, I'm in whatever you want. I just worry. The problem I have with, uh, pack stock or anything, whatever we're talking about is just, just the logistics and dealing with, um, more variables. Just, I've got to deal with this animal. Now you, you can say they eat anything, drink anything and all that's great. And, and, and probably true, but some of this country that I'm hunting is pretty unforgiving that, and you know, you're doing good just to get yourself in there and, and not, not

have animals on the brain and dealing with animals. But, but having said that, it's because I've never had them. I don't know what I'm missing. You know what I'm saying? No. And that's, you know, the whole reason behind the whole back country logistics and the llamas was just what you said. Um, we had grown up with horses, you know, and there's sometimes there's certain hunts, you know, elk hunts or whatever, extreme back country deer hunts, um, with multiple tags where, you know, let's face it, you just kind of have to, especially those early season hunt sometimes, like you just have to have animals to get, you know, meat out or whatever. And you could do that with them. There's a lot of people, a lot of meats lost. Right. People are, you know, and of course they're not going to talk about it, but you know,

you bite off a, you know, you're back in even four miles or something with elk in August. You, you're just, you, you know, these guys are asking to lose meat unless they've got a, an army of buddies and, and, and guys are doing that too. And we're doing that when needed, but like I say, we haven't lost any meat ever, but yeah, there's, there's people that do, and it's a, it's an unfortunate part of early season hunting, you know? Yeah. And that was, I mean, the llamas for us, it, it wouldn't work unless, um, we, they didn't, we didn't have to give them a lot of our attention and that, man, that's just a sweet spot with them is, you know, especially if there's a lot of feed and those, you know, those higher alpine type hunts, like a book cliffs or whatever, we could stake them out in the same spot for until we moved them for water, you know, and the, and, and along

the lines of water, um, what we found is we were having to go to water anyway, um, as often as they needed water. And so it didn't become a burden like horses, you know, they got to, they got to drink every day. So anyway, sure. Cool. No, it's cool. I just like giving you some grateful. It's all good. Yeah. It's all good. Um, so jumping back into kind of what you started with there, um, I want to, I want to kind of get into the, the why of, you know, like you said, um, hunting where the, where the bucks are. And I think, um, I think the one that I want to talk about for just a second is, um, you know, the, the caliber of bucks that you're actually hunting and how that changes, you know, why you have to hunt a certain spot or a certain buck, um, you know, and, and kind of getting into that, that's, um, you know, that kind of trophy, um, you know, you know, just, just,

just kind of that, that whole, that whole deal about, um, you know, because, because honestly, I mean, I think 30 years ago, everyone, everyone would have agreed that they were a trophy hunter, you know, everyone, everyone, like it was kind of the way everyone was like, man, of course I want to kill the biggest buck. And now you're almost seeing, um, you're almost seeing the opposite where it's like, it's, it's becoming cool to, to, to literally say that you're not after a big buck and you're just, you know, the whole, you know, and, and, and just kind of your perception on that being a guy that, that is, that is after big bucks specifically. Yeah. Yeah. You get, it's easy to, it's easy for trophy hunters to be criticized. And so, you know, that they're only about the trophy and this, that, and the other. And, you know, it's like, it's like the whole meat eater movement.

Like, you know, I've been, I've been eating deer and elk since 1975, you know what I'm saying? And so it's not a new thing to post pictures of me just doesn't do a lot for me. It's not who I am because it's not new for me. Now, some of these guys are coming up to the ranks, you know, maybe it's, maybe it's exciting and it's cool and whatnot. But for me, we were, we were raised on deer and elk. We, we cut it up on the kitchen table, did all of our own butchering. Cause you know, my family couldn't afford to have it butchered or had beef fat put in it and all, you know, all the little luxuries that you do to make, to make it taste good and be awesome and whatnot. And we just, uh, you know, so it wasn't, it's not a new thing. We've eaten everything we've killed, you know, and, and, and if we, if we have abundance, we'll give some away. We have good friends that like it as well and whatnot.

And so, I mean, dude, in college I was coming back and robbing the freezer, mom and dad's freezer and, and just living on, living on that kind of stuff. And so it wasn't a huge deal. And then, then as far as the trophies, like, um, I've always, I've always been about big animals and I'm not even scared to say it. I don't care. I don't, people can, you know, try to browbeat guys into not being trophy hunters. Who doesn't like walking up on something special, like something that you don't see very often. And, and back in the day, you know, there was some of these old timers that I looked up to were like, you know, it's just not the old days anymore. And they were going to quit and they're slowing down and they're disgusted the way hunting, hunting was going. And keep in mind, 1990s, they were disgusted.

You and I were getting, you know, or I was, I don't know where you're at, but I mean, I'm just getting rolling in the 1990s and, and was killing stuff in the, in the late eighties, but not effective. I wasn't on top of my game. I was, I was still in my, in, uh, my infancy, so to speak in the hunting world. And so, you know, as we're getting rolling, um, I wanted to see, I wanted to put my hands on something from way back. You know what I mean? We're talking the fifties, sixties, everything you used to hear about. I mean, you know, you go look at like Ryan Hatfield's book in Idaho, Idaho's greatest bucks and what a great job he's done. But like, you look at those bucks and like, I want to put my hands on one of those deer. I don't want to, you know, and it's, and when you do, when you do put your hands on one, it's, it's, you're awestruck. It's something you can't even imagine.

Maybe it has that much mass or high guards or width or whatever. And there's such a, uh, almost a reverence and a respect for an animal, a, that had the genetics, B that lived to that, be that age that had the right conditions. And, and especially in desert environments, I'm seeing, you know, deer might throw a set antlers like that twice in his life and have a few down years and now he's old and, you know, you know what I'm saying? And so it's just, uh, it's, it's one of those things that, you know, it's just not that 30 inches is the goal or 200 inches is the goal. That's what we use as a measuring aspect as far as being able to talk about it, like talk about it on a podcast. I could say he's a freaking monster and you're going to say, well, what does that mean? Yeah. You know, what was that? 210, 210, 215 triple eye guards, you know, uh, 24 inches of mass on each side.

I mean, what does that mean? And so we use that, we use those measuring, uh, techniques and things to describe what we're talking about because we're all excited about it. We're all interested in it. I'm interested in every big deer that gets killed. I want to know every deer and, and, and every unit. And now, and of course I don't know all that and very rarely are people going to tell you, disclose the unit, but I still want to know all that. And I want to learn everything I can and what's coming on and what's hot and whatnot. And so when you use going back to the measuring side, when you use those as reference material, um, people just assume that's what you're, that's what you're aspiring to do. And it's not necessarily, you know, but a two 50 buck, you already have in your mind what that looks like. Like I can tell you two 50, you know what that looks like.

And by the way, I'd like to put my hands on every two 50 that's ever killed. You know what I mean? Because it's something special, odd, out of the ordinary and very, very nearly unobtainable. And so it's a challenge. I took that on as a challenge in the nineties is I want to shoot bucks from way back, but bucks nowadays that are, that lived way back that, um, cause there are deer that are dying of old age. There are deer that have the right genetics and whatnot. And even though it's, you know, 2019, there's still deer dying of old age that people don't know about. And so just, yes, there might be less of them. Yes, it might be tougher. Yes, there might be more competition, but I still want to put my hands on those deer. Sure. And, and Jason, here's, here's, here's the part that, that, um, I'll, I'll take it one step

further that I don't think, um, is, is as comfortable to talk about is like, um, having been someone that's definitely not chasing bucks that are on your level, you know, that 200 plus, I'll say, um, even someone that's just recently, I, you know, I'd say within the last, you know, I don't know, there's not a specific day, but just kind of a slow transition over the last, you know, whatever, five years or whatever, doing this for a while. And, and, and you, there, there comes a decision point where you just, I think you, you say, well, I'm ready to kill bigger deer or I'm not. Um, and, and, and specifically where I was going with that is what you find when you, when you do try to kill bigger deer. And, and again, being completely honest as someone who's not killed, what I would consider as a big, a big deer, you know,

170 class bucks, um, you find out just how hard it is and, and how few of them there actually are. And so, you know, just being completely honest, what's, what I think's happened is I, I almost guarantee that everyone eventually, um, at some point, if they've done this very long, they tell themselves, yeah, you know what? I do want to kill a big buck this year. And then guess what happens? They don't, and they can't, and they can't figure it out. And eventually something's got to give, you're either going to, you're either going to eat tags. You're either going to admit that you're not good enough to do it, or, um, you're going to make up some story about how it's not about that anymore. It's about, you know, the experience and it is, it is about the experience and that's why it works. But I, I'm just, I'm just fascinated with the hunting world

because people, yeah, people don't want to, they want to normal, normalize what they're, what they're comfortable with. Right. And, and, and it's an, it's a natural thing, you know? And so, and we all want, they all want to, we all want to kill the best that we can and whatnot. But, you know, the difference is, is how much time can you spend doing it? Like how much effort can you put into it? And, and, um, everybody's lot in life is different. You know, you, you've got a certain lot in life. You're now in Wyoming. You're, you, maybe you didn't know you were going to be there five years ago, but things happen in life and opportunities arise and you may or may not capitalize on those. And your wife may have an opinion and, and this is better for your kids. And there's a hundred different things in life that happened to us. And if it just so happens that, you know,

a guy that wants to kill big deer happens to make a living guiding or happens to be able to spend more time in the Hills than say a dentist or, uh, you know, uh, a guy working for the city or whatever, then, you know, that's their lot in life. And so you take what you get, what you're given or what you, you know, it's America, we can do whatever we want. Right. And so you got to decide what's important to you and jump on it and then make the best of it. And, and if it means you're going to spend less time than say myself or somebody else, you know, or you, you know, say there's guys, it is what it is. It is what it is. You get, we all have choices. And so I think you just, it's a matter of, of saying, this is very important to me. I've married a great gal that'll let me do it. I've got a little bit of extra, you know, change by working a second job or whatever.

And I'm going to allocate those resources to finding a giant deer, to finding a big elk. Maybe I'm going to save for a sheep hunt five years down the road by, and by saving for a sheep hunt means I'm going on the Utah general and that's my hunt for the year. I'm not, I'm going to skip out on Colorado there. We all have just different lots in life. It's all relative. And so, and so it is what it is. And so to run somebody else down and I don't see a ton of it, of course, you know, but to run somebody else down for, you know, wanting to kill something big and putting the time and effort into it. Maybe you buy a landowner tag, she can't draw enough tags or whatever, because you're, because you're not able to do those things. It isn't necessarily right either. You know we all just, we all have choices and we all choose what's important to us and, and, and whatnot. And so

anyway, am I jealous when somebody else kills a big deer? I mean, I want to kill it. I want to kill every big deer. I want to kill them all. I love them all. They're, they're like, every one of them's unique. You have to have that mentality, you know, to, I think to be at that level, you just naturally, you know, you're, you have some form of happiness, but then you, you know, if you're being honest, like, well, I want to kill that deer, but well, I, I love it, man. I love the, just the, you know, the philosophy of the whole thing and just talking and, and I get so many, so many different guys. Yeah. And I'm not scared to talk about like who we are or like the fact that I'm a trophy hunter. Yep. And I get, am I a meat eater? Am I a meat eater? Of course. But you know, that kind of is a given. So, and I'm not, you know, cutting up meat and doing this and that and showing packages of

meat. Just doesn't do a lot for me. If you notice on my Instagram, I post less than I ever have. I, it's, I struggle with it. And then the, now the day and age of, you know, you, you post a picture and 14 people are telling you where they're at and where they've seen you. And I mean, people are sending me trail cam pics of myself all the freaking time. And, and, uh, and I'm, and I have pictures of them too, but it, you know, it is what it is. Well, you know, we're all out there, right. And, uh, you know, at least some fashion or another. And so anyway, um, so, so speaking, speaking of trail cam pics, um, and, and, and we did have the, the, um, you know, the second half or the second two thirds of this podcast, I'd like to roll through a bunch of these listener, um, questions. And this is just, it's, it's, it's my absolute favorite way to, um, produce, uh, podcast content because,

um, well, first and foremost, I think it's the most valuable for the simple reason that, you know, it's what people actually want to hear. Um, you know, and then it just, it just gives a lot of different perspectives and a lot of different questions that, you know, I, I probably wouldn't think of if I was just interviewing you. So, um, you, you brought up trail cameras and I know that you're super big on, on running cameras. And, and again, let, let me just one more thing here. Let me just preface all this by reminding people that this is going to be a trophy hunting minded answer, you know, because of, of the relativity of the guests. And so, um, you know, we're, we're not going to be given tactics on just how to kill a two point. Um, you know, and so just, just keeping that in mind, um, trail cam tactics for, uh, for areas with a lot of water. And I'm actually super

interested in this, having moved to Wyoming, um, kind of what's your, what's your take or is there a, uh, you know, uh, go, no go on a unit that has a ton of water for cameras? Yeah, that's tough. So, you know, you know, some guys like here in Utah, we can bait, right? And so some guys will throw out buck jam or stump lick or whatever, and they'll get pictures of that deer hitting those streams or whatever. Um, and so you can do that if you live in a state, I don't know where Peter lives, but if you live in a state like that, you can do that kind of thing to get, to draw more deer. But a lot of times what I do, they like, a lot of times these deer like to water in a certain spot on the stream or a certain spot on the spring or whatever. And you can tell that by the trails. And so when you walk in, you know, and horses, you know, where there's horses, they tell

you also, but you know, you know, where the trails are coming in. And I've been doing that, uh, this year quite a bit, especially with all this water is, um, you know, if you're just got solid thick brush, you can tell deer aren't coming in through the thick brush. You can tell, they're going to come in on trails. Well, well-worn trails where they can also have some open area and they don't feel like they're going to get a surprise by a lion or coyote or bobcat or whatever. I mean, deer, deer live every day, every minute of their life scared, everything wants to eat them. And so, you know, they're, they're, they're going to approach water cautiously because they know that's a pinch point. Lions hunt water, dude. I mean, there's a lot of times, especially in the summer, they're hunting water. I've, I get lions over and over and over and they know it's just like

Indians, us, lions, everything has hunted water over, over the course of time. Um, because that's where there's a lot of game and where you can eat. And so anyway, uh, as far as coming in on trails, you can get them coming in on trails and different things, shoot down the water as much as you can. Um, and sometimes it just takes more cameras than one or two. You, you might have five on a, on a stream. And so it eats up resources fast. I mean, you know, you're talking at 125 bucks on a good deal, you know, per camera plus batteries, cards and everything. And, and just dealing with it, the servicing of them and whatnot. And if you do that five times, that's a lot of cameras for a lot of guys, you know? And so anyway, um, so you've got to be careful on, you know, what part of the water you're going to, you're going to camera, if you're going to camera water, if you're not going

to camera water, then, then obviously there's just trails. There's, there's places bucks like to be. And, and you can tell that by all the sign, um, all the trails, the glassing, all of these kinds of things. But, um, you know, if there's a lot of water, um, it's really hard. Let's be honest. It's either you, you, you bait them with food, like here in Utah, these guys are doing a lot of that or Oregon, you can bait. So they're doing a lot of that, or you figure out another way to trail camera or use a lot of cameras on the water that's there. Yeah. I mean, but you've got to be smart at how you're setting them up and where you're setting them up. You have to read sign. When I walk up to water and you know, a lot of these guys are doing it. There's a lot of great hunters out there and you'll see them case in the water. They're walking up and down and they're figuring out, okay,

here's track, here's track, here's track. And you kind of get a feel for how that water's being utilized. Yeah. There's a lot of parts of the water that'll never be drank from, you know, because they don't feel comfortable or whatever their mom didn't do it. I mean, it's a whole train learn thing. And then I go to the heads of the Springs, you know, the head of the spring has water on drought years. And so these animals get used to going to the heads and the head is cleaner. And so you just, you know, the head is a great place to start. And then after that, you've just got to, if you're going to be camera and water, if you're going to be camera and water and you're dealing with streams, now you've got a read sign and, and careful placement and fast trigger speeds. Like some guys will still do a minute long and, you know, one, two picks every minute or every

minute and a half or whatever, that's not going to cut it. The air will drink in two minutes and they're gone. It's two minutes. They're almost every time. And because at least the deer that I'm dealing with, cause they know they're vulnerable. So they, they come in, get the job done and leave. Well, by then your camera's just getting warmed up. And so, you know, it's an every six second, three second, three second, three second, three shot burst, six second, three shot burst. Uh, you know, uh, and so when they come in, you get them and they leave. And, uh, and so a lot of your settings on your cameras makes a difference on what you're going to get pictures of placement is going to dictate, you know, what you're going to get pictures of. And, uh, and then just reading, reading it as a whole, you up in Wyoming, you have a whole different

holder. You're dealing with a whole different animal. Maybe, maybe you're not using cameras. Yeah. Maybe cameras don't work near as well as they work in say the Arizona strip. Well, and this year, you know, unfortunately I've got a whole year to think about it cause I didn't draw a freaking tag, but, um, I, I just, I've kind of been paralyzed thinking about, let's see, how am I going to go about this? You know, we were talking before we hit record. Um, you know, I, I grew up kind of in that same country that you're hunting. And so I get it, you know, I, I understand. I know how to find pictures of bucks when you're in the desert up here. I'm just completely paralyzed. I'm like, okay, do I even run cameras? Is it worth, you know, the hikes in to the places where I hunt are typically further than where you would run cameras in the desert?

You know, we could make a, uh, you know, a trail camera. And so a trail camera run on a, on a side-by-side or whatever, at some point it just has to be, man, would my time be better spent? And would I cover more country? Um, just taking a weekend to just sit up on a couple points in glass, you know, for miles and miles. Yeah, some guys, yeah, that's right. Some guys are spending time running cameras. Guys like you might be loading llamas and that's just, it is what it is. And that's just, it's just one other thing in the tool bag. Um, there's places I hunt deer. There's places I hunt deer. I've never run a single camera in Colorado. Okay. Ever. And so it's not like the end all be all it's what I like to do it in the summer. It's hot when there's limited water and, and I've learned how to hunt the desert. And so, you know, that's kind of my thing

for the summer scouting. It usually makes good for an archery hunt. Once the seasons start rolling, maybe we're doing other things, hunting elk in September, um, you know, deer in October, start going to Colorado and other places, Wyoming, whatnot. I mean, those are places we're not scouting. And so I usually have different seasons and different programs for the different seasons. Okay. I'm in the scouting phase for summer, use cameras, heavily glass, heavily and, and run country. But if I lived up there, you know, if I still like the desert, there's a lot of deer out in the desert. There's big deer out in the desert and people are naturally assuming you're going to run to G and H, which is fine. Go, go do that. Um, there's giant deer. Nobody can refute that. The genetics are amazing. If they managed, it'd be off the charts, maybe number one in the country,

but, but where it's over the counter for residents, it's going to be a while before that happens and may never happen, but you get to, you get to choose. If you're not a high country hunter, don't go up there, right? You don't go hunt region W go hunt down by bags and some of this other country that has limited water. If you love to run cameras on limited water, go find it. It's, it's out there and that's, and I, and there's, um, region K and the bottom portions, the desert portion of region G pound it. There's big deer out there, even in the summer. And so you just got to figure out what works for you. And it's just another thing, the tool bag, the BTX is we're also BTX, another thing, the tool bag, your 15s, another thing in the tool bag, um, time, you know, I mean, there's just a number of things and you use whatever, uh, works for

wherever you're hunting. And so, you know, at times it may not make sense, you know, let's say, you know, like, like this guy, you know, if he's got lakes and freaking streams and everything going crazy, high country, Colorado, for example, where there's just, especially a year like this. Yeah. Then you're, yeah, you're just, you know, it may not work. Yeah. So, so anyway, along those lines, there's, there's a similar question. I think that kind of takes us into step two there from, uh, at TK underscore with Witherspoon. Um, so how, how do you target a buck, you know, in, in thick cover with a lot of water, for instance, and let's say we're not, you know, cameras are not a viable option. Um, you know, and, and, and again, this, there's a lot of variables there, what season, what weapon, um, you know, how thick is the cover we talking or

whatever, but let's say, um, man, let's say just like, yeah, I, I, you, you don't win along a lot of times there. Um, it's, it's tough to, to target a buck that's on thick cover with plenty of water. You got, if, if he, if you don't have places to glass, let's say it's just a flat, thick sea of trees, you have loads of water and, and you don't bait like guys here in Utah do. Um, how are you going to kill them? Yeah. You know? And so, but generally speaking, every buck has a weakness. There's something in his pattern that is a weak spot that leaves him vulnerable. And they generally don't like to be in a thick sea of trees. They, they'll bed in a thick sea of trees, but generally they'd like, you know, where it's a little more open, the feed's better. There's more sunlight and they end up, uh, feeding in little openings or a small chaining or a small

postage stamp type burn has good feed or something. There's something that gives in that bucks pattern. And so you've got to figure it out. You, you make a six miles, you know, circle, Google earth the crap out of it, uh, hike it, you know, bust him out in the summer. It doesn't matter. He's going to be fine. He'll be back in 24 hours. He'll be back into his normal routine. So, you know, grid it and figure out what you're dealing with. And then I look around as you're walking through and you're like, man, here's some bitter brush. Here's some tracks. He's obviously feeding here. Look around. Is there, is there a high knob within four miles? If there's not, you might be screwed. You might be still hunting. You know what I mean? If you've got to stick on him and you've got to expect, you're not going to be successful. And, and I've hunted bucks that are,

uh, near impossible, but there are, I've found with almost every one of them, there is a weak spot. By the time you learn that you're hoping you're still have season left to be able to kill him. But, but you just got to figure it out. It's food, water, and, uh, shelter. And so what's he doing? You know, every day he's thinking about food, water, and shelter. So where's he vulnerable? Where's he traveling? And then are you tracking him? Maybe you're, maybe you're just flat tracking. Maybe you wait till it rains. So, you know, it's fresh track. And then maybe just tracking him teaches you something about him, you know? Yeah. That was my next question, you know, and, and maybe, you know, uh, these Northern half of the, of the West is not, um, you know, if you're in, uh, thick vegetation in Idaho, that's tough. It's tough to track a buck and that type of stuff because,

you know, especially years like this, there's grass everywhere. There's, you know, whatever, but let's say thick country in the Southern half, you know, and I'm thinking like thick PJ stuff, um, you know, down in the Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona type stuff where some of those bucks hang out, then tracking becomes a very lost art that I think is super valuable. Um, Oh dude. And it's addicting. It's addicting. There's something about hunting a single deer and, and, and you track that deer and you get, you get to learn about him and pretty soon you're watching where he's feeding. And, and you can tell, you know, when they're going from tree to tree to tree and zigzagging, you can tell he's not feeding. He's just walking to figure out where to bed. And then you're starting to get a feel like, okay, he's going to be bedded here within the next hundred yards. And am I going

to see him before he sees me? Am I going to blow him out? He's usually walking his back trail. Where's the wind coming from? By the way, not only is where the wind coming from, but where is he in comparison to me right now? Cause he might be my left, my right or straight ahead. And so you're, you know, all of that comes into and, and things you're kind of getting teed up and, and it's, it's a, it's addicting, like it's flat addicting. And I think that's part of the trophy hunting thing too, is we're not hunting. If you're, if you're just shooting bucks, let's say forkies or whatever, you're not hunting a single one. You're not hunting one forky. You're not hunting one single forky or one two by three. And that's the only two by three that'll do. And that you got your sets on. So sites set on for this year. So you're never hunting a single buck. It's never you against

him. You're never learning that forky's pattern. You're never learning what that forky does. He's not teaching you anything, but he, but you hunt a big deer and, uh, and you single a deer out and you tracking or you glass for him or you're running cameras or whatever you're doing, depending on the country you're in, I don't care what state you're in, you're learning about that deer and he's going to teach you something. And, and the more you learn, the more you want to learn. And the more you can't believe how far he's traveling and the more you can't believe his habits, the way he's bedded. And obviously he's had a, you know, I, uh, deer have taught me so much. I've been attacked by a lion. I had a deer walk around a boulder 10 times looking up at the boulder, like 10 yards above him. And he's obviously a lion jumped from on top of a rock on top of him. And he has scars down the

side of his Cape. You know, I killed him and he's got scars, like scratching scars. Well, it's so freaking cool. I'll never forget that. That's part that's hunting to me. Like that's hunting. Yeah. He's 200 inches. Love that. I wish he's 250. How about that? I mean, the bigger, the better. Having said that hunting one specific animal is the addicting part for me targeting and, and, and ended up harvesting him is such a feat and an accomplishment because it's not easy. None of them are easy. Uh, I've had a couple of easy ones, a couple of gifts, but generally speaking, they take you through it and you, and along the way you're learning so much. And so anyway, how to explain that? Why, why? I don't know. Some, some guys won't have time for that. They don't want to do with that. They just want to go

shoot one and go about their way and do all the other 15 aspects of their life that are important to them. And those are good things too. Yeah. You know, just do whatever. Yeah. Um, you, you mentioned, uh, earlier a buck, you know, if you do blow him out, he's going to be back in 24 hours, which I, I firmly believe, I think a buck's really got to get pushed hard, uh, early season to change his pattern. So one of the questions that we had from, uh, from Ty underscore Barry underscore was specifically that, you know, he talked about having a buck disappear on him, uh, before a hunt, you know, he'd watched it July and part of August or something. And then all of a sudden, um, a buck disappears. How do you react, uh, when that happens to you? Yeah, it's hard. It's hard because nobody likes hunting a ghost. So if somehow he died,

you know, that's no fun and time is hard on us all and whatnot. And so, but having said that, I mean, I don't know it, every, every location is different. Disappearing means what, uh, I had a buck disappear on me. Um, and I only got, I only got like two trail camera pics of him and he was freaking giant. And I'm like, you know, I, I don't get it. I don't know why I can't figure it out. I think I know of all the water and, you know, and then my, um, we're out hunting and, and I glass up one of his sheds and I match it to the trail camera. And I'm like, you're crapping me. He's freaking alive. And what, I mean, how, how, how have I missed him? Uh, I mean, there, then, then this flood of emotions comes over again. Now, you know, there's so much more to that puzzle than what you thought. And then I, you know, I ended up finding another water and boom,

he's pounding it. And I got a lion work in this area. And so a lion comes in on one water, they moved to a different water. He comes in on that water. It becomes a ghost town. They moved to a different one. And so there was just so much more happening than I realized that I knew. And, and, and then I gave him credit for, I just assumed he was dead. I thought, dude, he died. He's, he come in and he's gone and he shouldn't be gone. And none of the other deer are gone. Everything else is still there. And, but yet there was just more to him than I realized. And he was traveling seven miles in the velvet, seven miles bucks. That's a long ways for a buck in the velvet to travel without being pushed on his own. And, and he was sharing water sources. So, you know, things like that, you know, things like that happen, uh, never killed that deer. And some

deers with some deer without a pattern are very tough, if not impossible to kill. And rarely does one not have a pattern, but once in a while, these big deer will not have a pattern that you can iron down. I mean, there's a buck that'll come into water. I'll go out and I'll glass every deer with him. Um, and, and, and it's happened, it's happened on Buster, which, which we showed, you know, Ridge Reaper PV. Um, he, I glassed every buck by him. I had other bucks at 30 yards, other 200 inch deer at 30 yards. But I mean, when you got a 36 inch, 230 or 40 inch deer, I mean, he was my, Ooh, you know, and I spent 20 days solid during the season on him and didn't kill him. And, and he never came back. Nobody has his sheds. There's more to his story. Maybe he's laying out there, maybe, you know, getting sun bleached or in his antlers too, or whatever. But, um, you know, anyway, disappearing

is a tough one. There's more to the story. Um, I've got guys that hit me up on the site on Instagram and send photos of their deer and whatnot. Of course, I'm super respectful and I'd never hunt somebody else's deer. I've got too much going on as it is, but, um, you know, there's, there's, this is a common thing. People have deer disappear on them all the time in Utah. It could be somebody's running apples 200 yards away. You know what I mean? I mean, things, you, we got competition. We're competing against each other and, and I don't do that. And I don't hunt Utah a ton anyway, but there's, who knows why he could be dead. B he could be, you know, could have been a lion or you're just missing. Um, something adjusted his pattern, something significant, whatever, some predation issue or, or whatever. And so I, I stick after it, but I'm always

have that number two buck in my mind. And maybe I'm, you know, spending the mornings on him and evenings on a number two buck or, or if I have a buddy, I'll have my buddy spot, spot for number two, get him bedded if he can while I'm hunting number one buck. And then maybe I go run the stock on number two buck in the middle of the day. Cause that's generally when you're stocking like archery, for example. So anyway, I, I think as you're talking there, I'm like, I kind of picture an actual stock, right. And I've talked about this before where, um, you know, we will bet a buck down. And especially if you don't have a spotter to stay on the Ridge and, uh, and keep tabs, you know, keep, keep an eye on him for you. It's really easy. In my experience to get over there, the terrain's different. The mountain bends a little differently

than you thought there's more, there's less vegetation or whatever. And how many times, um, do you stock into where you just know that that's where he was, but he's gone. And so you, you get in there and you're like, you convince yourself that this is where he should be. And he's gone. And then you let your guard down, or you decide to give up and take three more steps, or you become noisy. You do something that you just know he's definitely gone. And then guess what? He's not. And he blows up out of his, his bed and you're standing there like an idiot. That's the most frustrating thing in our trick and go through because you spend hours. Basically each stock takes hours. You know, you're contemplating it. You're visiting with it about your buddy. You go through 14 scenarios though. You're watching the wind, everything becomes right. So you make your move.

And it's just, you get in there and then for you to stand up and get sloppy or, or, or in your mind, you know, you, you hear a stick break, you, you break a little twig. He doesn't hear it, but you think he hears it because you heard it and it felt louder than ever because you're on it. And, and so you start quickening up your pace. It's a natural thing. You're just like, okay. He's thinking he, you can almost picture him looking at you getting ready to stand up and you think you've got to make it happen. And in your mind, you start clicking up your pace, you get sloppy and you blow him out. And it, and he never did hear you. And that's, it happened. It happens 30 times before you actually get a grip. And you've got to tell yourself, you coach yourself through the stock, chill out, make sure you go to the very end of the stock before you give up hope and treat it as

if you're going to kill this deer and it'll take an extra 20 minutes or 30 minutes. But by doing that extra due diligence, you're going to end up seeing that deer 60% of the time, 70% of the time he's not blown out and you're going to end up coming up on him. You're going to end up coming up on him and, and shocked that he's still there and hopefully he stands up or whatever, or you wait him out or however, however the situation plays out play. Sometimes you have to sit there for three hours before he gets up. Right. And he doesn't know you there and, and you end up harvesting him, but I've blown out. I've blown out so many deer. It's disgusting. And it's just for that reason right there. So would you, would you agree that that principle would apply to like, you know, when we're talking about a buck disappearing early season on you that more often than not, um, a he's, he's probably

still there. Um, and then, and then another principle of the, of this whole conversation is, you know, if he's really a buck that you're after, um, you have to be willing to, to hunt a ghost, you know, you kind of have to be willing to go down that road and eat tags. Cause I'm sure, you know, I've heard you talk about eating, eating tags and eating tags. And, you know, if you didn't have another buck that was even close to him, then what, you know, what else are you going to go after? But, uh, yeah, that's your, that's your plan for that state. That's your plan. You know, if you don't have a second buck that's, and you've scouted, let's say you scouted three months on and off, right? Not, not solid three months, but let's just say you took every weekend or, or three day weekends or four day weekends, whatever you can do. And you're out scouting and

you come up with this deer and there's no other deer that you'd be happy with. And you're going to have enough meat for the winter. Like you've got other hunts coming up. Um, that's your plan. What's the chances of you going and finding a deer that's going to exceed him or meet your expectations after you've already spent the best scouting, the best scoutings in the summer, after you spent the best scouting months, and this is what you come up with. One percent. So, so, okay. You need, you need a, you need a secondary, uh, hunting. Sometimes you flat get tired of hunting this particular spot. So it's nice to break it up. So you need to break it up and you, and you should break it up a little bit, but don't lose focus. I mean, you know, all of a sudden that deer will pop up and you're like, where have you been really? You know, I

thought I was wasting 10 days and here you are. And, and it just becomes that, that chase becomes a two year, three year quest. Hopefully you're successful. A lot of times these guys are watching these deer basically not return the next, you know, die of old age, something happened in the winter, whatever. And, and those are the deer you talk about forever. They taught you a ton. You weren't successful. You named them, but at the same time they left a kind of a legacy. And, and that's just part of trophy hunting. It's just part of, part of it. You're not going to be successful every time. And in this day and age, it's hard, you know, the 21st century, it's hard to say I wasn't successful in anything in life. You know, I, I didn't get that job. I didn't do well on these tests or, or I can't believe I wasn't picked for this or I earned that and I didn't get it. Some things just

aren't fair, right? You put all the time in the world in this buck. You have how many hours and days put in on this deer? Nobody deserves him more than you do. And Joe Blow goes in and smokes him. First time you ever saw him run across the road and smokes him, you know, and, and no, does Joe Blow earning? Well, no, but he is in the field and he's entitled to good luck and good fortune too. And sometimes these things happen and it, and it is what it is. It's a, you, if you're, if you're a trophy hunter and I would say, you know, I get off on another tangent, I guess, but if you're a trophy hunter, you're going to have highs and lows. But what I was going to say is, you know, if you're, most of us are trophy hunters, very rarely do you come across somebody that says, you know, I just, I'd shoot that forky over that three point. Yeah. Well, you know,

that guy's a trophy hunter. He's waiting for a three point. Some of my kids are waiting for a four point. I mean, they're trophy hunting. Now it's a different, I'm taking it to a different level. You might be taking it to a different level, but you know, and a lot of guys listening are taking it to a different level, but it's still a level of trophy hunting. If all we wanted was meat, I don't know why I'm going back to this. All we wanted is meat. It's not that hard to get meat. You'd spend a few days in the field and call it a day. There's so much more to it. To me, there's so much more to it. Hunting a specific animal. You're learning about that animal. I can't, I can't learn enough. Yeah. How many, along those lines, how many bucks, big bucks, you know, 200 plus have you taken that you've seen or known about for multiple years

rather than just one year? Oh, I don't know. I'd have to, I'd have to, I'd have to look at that. And it wouldn't take long to figure it out. Cause I mean, each one of these deer leave an impression, but like this last year in Colorado, I shot that 206 deer. I mean, I videoed him for 20 minutes at 200 yards or 150 yards before I shot him. But, and, and I've got the, you know, it's crazy. I get it, but, um, and it goes back to hard to judge and I can, you know, there's a question about judging, but, um, you know, they're hard to judge up close for me anyway. At the, at the end of the day, I ended up shooting him, but it's a deer I didn't know about. I have any affection toward him. Didn't name him, uh, nothing. Right. I mean, good fortune. I, I, I glassed him up and shot him. And so there's, there's that that happens and that's probably, maybe we just quantify that as 25% of the time or,

or 30% of the time, you know, and then other ones are calculated, uh, worked for type trophies or that you know about even Mexico. I've shot a couple of them in Mexico and those are bucks we knew about, maybe even tried to kill. We killed him on a less than great year, but still a 200 inch plus. I killed one of the dairies 207, but he was two twenties, you know, on a great year. We couldn't kill him. I mean, we just couldn't kill him. It just, one of those thick tree, see him, don't see him, see him, don't see him long range, not an ethical shot, never did kill him. And then finally he was hitting water on a consistent basis, like 933 every morning, the deer was standing on water consistent and shot him at 933 one morning. You know what I mean? And so he, his pattern broke. He, it was maybe a little warmer that year. He's getting old, whatever. And so anyway, um, we had

our, got our chance and did it, but, and, and I was ostracized by Marvin, my good buddy. He's since passed away, but he was, he'd love to give me a hard time. We're sitting on water. So every day we would choose what we wanted to do. One day it was my turn to choose. The next day it was his turn to choose. I said, I want to sit the water. I want to sit the water. We're going to sit 500 yards back and watch the water. And he goes, well, are you just going to like ring a bell, a dinner bell? The deer is going to walk in. I said, I don't know, man, it's been happening the last three days. He's been watering. We have him on camera. So we sat the water and he freaking walked into water. And I mean, Marvin's just dying because you're in the rut in Mexico, in the rut, sitting water with a rifle, but that's what that pattern was. That's what that deer's pattern was at the moment.

And it would break as soon as something gave a little bit of rut, more rut, a little more water, rain, whatever his pattern would break. And so you shoot them when they have that pattern. And anyway, well, and I think, I think a lot of us, myself included, we, um, we get married, we become, uh, um, romantic about killing, uh, deer or killing anything, you know, multiple different ways. Where, where we want to kill them and how we want to kill them. And that's fine. If that's, what's most important to you. Um, if it's not, I've learned with a few bucks and just how we've ended up killing them, you know, and this goes back to the whole, you know, finding back country and it doesn't have to be 10 miles deep. Trust me. Uh, the biggest buck that Jason and I have killed, not you, Jason, my brother, Jason, you know, is that big two 20 plus. And he, he was literally died

in a road, a two track, um, you know, just out in the middle of the, of the trees or whatever. And so, um, I think that we, we become romanticized about how and where and when, and what I'm hearing you say, uh, over and over the theme is it doesn't matter. I'll track them. I'll sit water with a rifle during the rut in Mexico, you know, or whatever. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's a good, um, you know, you're a well-rounded hunter and you're not too prideful or you're not too hooked on one, one way to kill them. Um, that's maybe sexier, right. Um, you know, to whatever, to, to spot and stalk them or have them lip curl in a doe or whatever, you're just going to kill them. Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and we all have the ways we'd love for it to go down and, and the perfect kill with the perfect deer and the perfect situation. And I've hunted him for three years.

And by the way, the year I killed him was his big year, you know, perfect age and watered here and whatever, right. You will have that perfect scenario that we'd love to, for it to happen, but it's just, it's just not reality. You're going to have to do stuff you don't like. You know, there's a lot of things that I'm out there doing. I don't like it. I don't like it, but, but the, but the end result and the learning of this particular deer and whatever is worth it. And every step you take, you know, you're tracking them for four miles or you're doing this, or you're doing that. And you're getting on Google Earth and finding other high knobs and thinking outside the box and we disappeared. So how did he disappear? Well, maybe there's a little chaining over there. Maybe he's actually walking further than you give him

credit for it. Well, and so I don't like those things. I'd rather be hunting him every day. I'd rather be seeing him, videoing him, loving life. Instead, you got to go through these slumps and maybe hunting country. You don't like to hunt. I mean, I didn't love the desert. I didn't love, I don't love hundred and 112 degrees the other day. I don't love that. You know what I mean? I love the desert. Yeah, that's your home. Right. And, and, but I mean, I don't love that when it's 70 and I'm on my deck in a green backyard. I kind of love that. It's awesome. You know, it's moist and I like a great normal environment that's happy when you're out there grinding with, with, uh, you know, reptiles and bugs. And you know, what I love about it though, what I love about it is I used, you know, used to be by myself and, and I love the solitude and I love finding deer that nobody else knows

that I, when I hunt him, it's me against him, not me against him and Joe and Jane and 14 other people. And so, you know, I loved that and coming up with big deer in places that maybe aren't supposed to have big deer. I love that. I love that, you know, and proving that it can be done anywhere. And by the way, it can be done anywhere. We're finding big deer in all kinds of places. And, and we get pushed out of some of our favorite units. The drawing odds are going through the roof. Tags are, are too expensive. If we moved to area X, area X, you'll find a big deer in area X. It's pretty, you do have places that have feed. You do have places that have better management. You know, all, some of these factors do come into play. However, there is a deer dying of old age in a burn with great feed in the 150 units that are in Nevada or in the, you know, 140s places that are so easy to draw that

are nothing, but they don't have the population base of people to, to ruin it. Let's call it, to pound it with trail cameras, to, to go out and spend the time that, that it takes to kill them. Those are units that are a long ways from nowhere. And so we might end up going over there, right? Yeah. Well, and it's, these other places are getting hard, you know, and, and, and along those lines, I mean, part of the reason is, you know, we talked about the, the, uh, what we were talking earlier about just the amount of information that's out there, you know, I mean, you, I'm subscribed to Epic, I'm subscribed to GoHunt, I'm subscribed to, you know, and it's just like, holy cow, man. Like it, yeah, it's, it's, it's, I mean, I have guys hit me up. Yeah. I'm podcasted up. I'm ready to go. And, and it's true. You can listen to podcasts and you can learn, you can learn

enough to be lethal. Yeah. It's taken this learning curve down. Onyx has taken this learning curve to nothing. I mean, we had paper maps, figuring out unit boundaries on Colorado and looking at fence posts and saying, okay, there's the private fence. This is where we're sitting. And, and, and, and all the stress that goes along with hunting private land boundaries or whatever, because it's inevitable over there. There's private everywhere. So you had to learn how to use maps. You have to learn how to use a map no more. You don't, you don't have to really look at contour lines. We have Google earth. You don't have to understand valleys and Hills and, and, and rugged and not rugged. And you, you know what I mean? Like this changed everything Springs. I mean, guzzlers are on these Onyx, like, come on, you know what I mean? And so what used to be, what used to be taken 10 years

or 15 years? I've learned this unit. It I've been here for 15 years. I feel like I know it as good or better than anybody is, is these kids or I call them kids, my age, I have Onyx loaded on their phone and they're effective. They're pretty effective. You got winter ranges for Colorado on Onyx. Well, that's where I'm going to be on, you know, second, third and fourth season. So I've already eliminated half the unit because half the units other, other country. And I didn't even have to drive around it. And so it's just killing the game. It's all of this killing the game. But Jason, I, I, I don't, I don't know if it is man, like, because I think the guys like you are always going to stay one step ahead of it. You know, um, you're, you're, you're, you're smart enough to, um, to see, you know, where the trends are. It's almost, I was talking to on Cody Rich's

podcast and, um, you know, it's like, well, where do you look to hunt or something? I said, I was like, well, the first thing that I do now after my last four or five years of experience is I'll almost pull up the roadless area and, and start by X-ing that out. Right. I'm just not at least, at least the, the middle portion of that, where it's the deepest, because, you know, we just learned that, that is just not where to go to get away from people. I'm not, I'm not going 11 miles. I wasn't going 12 miles for my health. I was going there originally because there was nobody, there was nobody there. And because of that, the same thing, what I was doing in the desert. Yep. Exactly. And so now doing something that people aren't willing to do. Yeah. The guys who get it done will continue to get it done. They'll just, you know, they'll just be one step ahead. And like you said, they'll say,

okay, well, if this one's getting overrun, then I'm going to go hunt this unit because there's, there's, because there's more people in this area, because it's broadcast on 15 different, you know, application deals or whatever. Now I'm going to go to, to XYZ unit that isn't as sexy or whatever. And so then I'm going to eliminate people that way and then have more bucks myself or whatever. I, I just. And you'll find game in unit XYZ. Yeah. And that's, what's interesting about all of this. And that's my point is sometimes we, we hone in on, I mean, the Henry's in the Ponce got, how many times can we talk about it? Right. But some of the biggest deer taken on general Utah general. And, and, and I get it. It's taken a hundred thousand general hunters to come up with one big deer. And it happens to be the biggest day in the state.

I get it. Numbers wise, percentage wise, the Henry's in the Ponce got a lot of perform anything here in Utah. Uh, maybe Oak Creek's. Okay. So I get it. Those are obviously the top three always will be, maybe won't produce the best buck in the state. Maybe it comes off Pine Valley, Zion, something, whatever. But, um, having said that, if you work hard enough, unit XYZ is going to produce. And when XYZ shot out unit D is going to produce. And it's just a matter of where you spend your time, effort, energy. And, um, there are units that are traditionally better than everything else. The strip is traditionally better than everything else. Yeah. And so, you know, but having said that, you know, there's a giant, giant buck killed in, in unit nine and a giant buck killed in unit 10 and one of the, the giant out of the Kofas. And,

you know, there's, there's people are making it happen in other areas. And, and, and the days of the days of only hunting, you know, your home state or one unit or, you know, a couple of units is over. If you're very serious about this, you know, you're, I mean, I think I applied this year for, if you just, the only thing you aspire to do is hunt the top three units, uh, yeah, yeah. I, this year, I think I applied for eight, at least seven, maybe eight different Western States, all of them, you know, that have any significance. And that's just the, the price to, to, uh, you know, to play at that level. You just, you just have to do it. But, um, man, real, real quick, I'm just curious on your, on, you brought up field judging and, and, uh, I I'm just curious. So, so let's say that you, you haven't, you know, it's, it's a lot easier obviously to take a look at a buck on trail

cameras or whatever. Let's say that, you know, when you're, when you're breaking down that, yeah, it's, it's, sometimes it's not, that's true. Yeah. Angles and perception and those cameras aren't, you know, super great, but, um, well, you got angles and you got angles, you got cameras, low cameras, high, you got, you know, a fisheye effect where they're walking up right close to it, looking at it. And, and so it's tough. Here's what I've learned about that. And it's, I've learned it the hard way. I, I've lost, I have not even hunted some of the best bucks because I misjudged them. And, and I've, I've made a lot of mistakes. Um, but what I've learned is you take your top five bucks and you go look at them. You have to look at them and you have to look at them after they're finished. And it meaning August 15th, generally August 20th, you're getting a good feel.

I killed Bruce, uh, August 20 something. I can't remember the day and he was still balling on top, but, but look at them as, as, as finished as you, as you dare, you know, as close to the season as you can. The season's really already going in Nevada by August 15th, but those bucks are still growing a lot of them, but you got to look at them. He's heavy. If deer looks heavy at night and he's the heaviest buck you have on camera and you have 300 bucks on camera, he's probably really heavy. You know what I mean? And so, and so you need to look at him because heavy is going to take away the look of the time length and everything. And when you see him in person, you're like, holy crap, he's bigger than I thought, or man, he's just kind of interesting, but not what I thought he was. Perspective too. Um, you know, I've told this story before maybe, but, um, your buddies with,

uh, with T-bone, uh, deep, deep creek guys. And, uh, and they're, they're hunting a buck that a buck that you're familiar with two or three years ago, Dan Troy killed, um, big two 30 buck. Okay. So my brother and I were out one morning and we're, we're going to go just put in some time, keeping an eye on this buck that they'd found. And I, you know, they, they'd been thrown out numbers and that, you know, two 20 plus. And I'm thinking, okay, man, like, holy cow. I've never, I, I, at that point, I'd never seen a buck that big on the hoof. And so we, we get out there to the glassing point. We, we pick him up where, right where we thought he would be. And Jason says, dude, that's him. And so I take a look and I'm looking through a spotting scope from quite a ways away, you know, maybe just maybe a mile or whatever, but I'm looking at this deer. And my initial thought was no way, no way is

that buck in my mind. I bracketed him as like a one 90. And I was like, that's a big buck, but there's is this Dan's buck? Yeah. Dan's buck too. He's, he's not, he was your, uh, for your hunt. Yeah. Two 30 something. Yeah. Huge, huge buck. And I looked at that deer and I was like one 90, 200 inch. Well, he was by himself. And if you look at that buck, he doesn't have, um, even though, like you said, 36 inches wide, he doesn't have, and everyone's thinking, well, freaking 36 inches wide. How do you miss that dude? But I'm telling you, like, I think he had a bigger body or whatever. And then his forks, his forks are not overly deep. He's really long, but his forks, his actual forks are not that deep. You know, we're not talking 14 inch deep forks. And I looked at him and I thought, no way, 200 inch buck, maybe not two 30. Well then, then about,

you know, 30 seconds later, 170 inch four point stepped out right next to him. And then I went, holy crap. That is the biggest deer that I've ever seen in my life. You know, that perspective, you know, of, of seeing him next to it. No, that particular deer, there was another deer running with that deer that was awesome looking and had inlines and just, Ooh, just looked, had the look of what you were, of what that deer scored. And even the governor tag was down there, um, looking to kill that buck that was running with it. And they said they passed the 36 incher because, you know, he just didn't look that big. And I, and I told him, I was like, you made a mistake. I like that deer is a freaking giant. And it's nice to know there's someone else out there that looked at him and thought the same thing too. No. Yeah. It's calm. I mean, when you think two 30,

you're, you're wanting cheaters stacked on cheaters and it just, they just, sometimes they, they have a 31 inch inside spread and 28 inch beams. And you know what I mean? I mean, and, and mass and eye guards and pretty soon they just, they add up. And so, and that goes back into like you were saying, we had weak forks. Well, okay. There's, there's a couple, there's a couple parts of a fork. Is the main beam short? Well, no, the main beams are freaking long. Okay. Well, that's half of the front fork. Yeah. Okay. So now we're talking about a G4. How's the G4? And then same thing with the back fork. Well, yeah, his forks weren't deep. He didn't have tanners in the back, you know, his G2s were probably G3s. Okay. Well, his G2s are 19, 18. That's giant. Okay. 19 to 21. That's the Holy grail. So let's say he's got them and he has a 10 inch G3. Okay. I wish they were a little

longer, but maybe he has four inch eye guards. That's three inches. People don't look at the guards. So whether they have them or they don't, people aren't looking at them. And so there's eight inches you gained right there. And so scoring is very unique. If people always say he has weak fronts, yeah, he has a weak G4. The other side's not too bad. And by the way, his beams are stud. Yeah. And so you start to realize maybe he doesn't have weak forks. Maybe he has one weak time. Maybe he has two weak times. Um, and same thing with elk, you know, he's giant and he dies on his fifth on his back end, his back end sucks. Okay. Well, he kind of looks like he has a long beam to me. He just has five inch fifths. He's not sexy looking. If he had 15 inch fifths, we'd be crapping. Yeah. But that's one time his first four or 20. It just, there's so much more that goes into,

you know, and we're all looking for the look and if, and that's what we want out of a bull or a buck, then, then hunt the look, you know, that's, that's great. I hunt the look a lot. I freaking want mass. I want amazing eye guards. 14 eye guards would be better than 13. You know what I mean? And so I love all that stuff, but, but at the, you know, at the same time when, when field judging for score and whatnot, there's so much that goes into it. You could have a, uh, 24 inch, 23 inch wide, you know, 195 inch or, and, and he looks two Oh five because he's got so much bone. He has to make up for the loss of inside spread. You know, usually when they're narrow, they don't have as much shank. So you have smaller beams than they look, you know, you're judging them at 26 and they're 23s because he has no shank because he's narrow. And so there's just, there's just some things,

you know, narrow bucks are be prepared to have a little bit of ground shrinkage. You know what I mean? And, and in generally speaking, now there's some unbelievable narrow studs. I get it. I love them so much bone compact into a small place. It's just amazing, but it's hard to judge that. And they better, they better have deep forks, you know, if they're super narrow, they better be tall with, uh, with deep forks. If you're going to break that 200 inch mark. Well, you better have some eye guards telling you eye guards, you gotta have, if you have two and a half inch eye guards at the bare minimum, you don't have, if you have inch eye guards or nothing, you gotta make up eight inches worth of eye guards somewhere. Yeah. And, and so he better be amazing in multiple places. And so just, uh, having said that it's, it's all, now we're talking about field judging. Now you're

getting into the gross part of trophy hunting and, and we're breaking a buck down and deciding whether to kill him or not over inches of antler. And so I get it. I get it. Now we're back into the hole. You shouldn't be a trophy hunter, but we all like something special. And, and, uh, you know, guys, it's a viable question. Everybody's wondering how to score. Everybody's looking to field judge. It's tough. You got to put your hands on bucks. You saw at two miles and bucks you killed and go, wow. Okay. This is where I made my mistake. And so one, uh, one, one pro tip real quick that I didn't, I didn't necessarily think of this. Um, I, I, uh, Phil Valeo that teaches our courses up here at gun works kind of brought this up, um, that I don't think a lot of guys think about, you know, nowadays we all have not all of us, but a lot of us, if we're rifle hunting, let me preface this by saying,

if we're rifle hunting and we have a long range type scope, um, if you can get that buck to, to look at you directly or, or even not, you, you could use this, I guess, for, for height and, and a lot of other things too. But, um, you know, let's say that you've got, um, an MOA scope and, um, you've got that bucket, you know, whatever, 500 yards. Um, well, if, if you know, a minute of angle, you know, a minute of angle is in a scope is, is one inch at a hundred yards. So it's five inches at 500 yards. And so if you've got that reticle, most of them at least have windage marks going left and right. Sure. Right. And so you can, yeah, you could, you could, if you can get that buck to look at you and be squared up, um, you can bracket him, you know, you got to know your scope first, first focal plane, second focal plane or whatever. Um,

and so you got to understand what you have, but you can use that, um, MOA as a bracket to get a really, really good, um, idea, especially if you're zoomed in on full power and you can really, uh, get a dead rest, um, you know, on a bipod or something. I think you could use that and say, man, that, that buck, he, he is, you know, that's definitely 30 inches. Cause he's, you know, he's outside of those, uh, you know, or whatever, just, just another. Yeah. Yeah. You could, you, you'd have to be pretty savvy because, cause you have different yardages and you have to be on it and whatnot. And I'm usually not looking through my life rifle scope unless he's going down. So, you know, I just, I don't know. Judging is one of those things you could, you could do that. If you're just looking at width fine, you got

beam wrap, you've got curvature of everything. Sometimes the G2, G3 is curving at the top. Sometimes they break G3 breaks off the two, three G3 or the G2 lower or higher or whatever. And so, and, and the overall appearance of the deer, I've got bucks that lay out that are, that are a big box and you've got some that just come straight out of their head and you, there's just a, it's just, there's nothing to substitute for putting your hands on sheds. Uh, you know, especially if you videoed that buck and then you pick up a shed or just time, just time and, and looking through publications and you're okay, this, here's that you get some reference material and there's bucks. There's a lot of bucks that, um, we've glassed and didn't think a lot of, and then you pick up their shed and you're like, okay. And, and it's just like

some of these bulls, these guys are killing and it helps you mentally. It helps you mentally with your, you know, especially guy as a guide, there's a lot of pressure. Uh, nowadays, you know, guys are paying money. They're not paying money to go, go on a meat hunt. Generally speaking, or they're booking a cow elk hunt or something like that, or just, you know, a nice, you know, Colorado elk hunt or something like that. I can get, I get that. But generally speaking, a lot of these guys are booking, uh, to harvest a good animal and harvest the best they can. And they rely on their guys to judge them. And the guides are stressed and sweating it. And the more money that's on the line, the more they sweat it. Well, it's nice to have picked up sheds and say, I know for a fact, he doesn't look at, I'm just telling you, this is what his

sheds went slightly better than his sheds. And you have some reference material. I've been in that spot. You kill him and you, and you were right. There's no, that's nice to have that confirming, you know, in the back of your head, knowing what his sheds went, knowing what, whatever, but, um, it's just a matter of time. There's no, you know, when I was young, younger, I'm still young. How about that? But when I was younger, I couldn't get enough of the sheds, measuring sheds, you know, looking at video clips and like Ryan hatches stuff or whoever, anybody that's having video and dead dead heads, the same thing, looking at it and go, that's what he looked like on the hoof. That's what he looks like dead. This is what they're saying. He goes, by the way, this is his score sheet. Wow. 27 inch beams. I'd have never guessed that he's got this. I'd

have never guessed that, but it just helps you. And, and, uh, but you know, that's a year round process learning how to judge animals because it's dealing with sheds and dead heads and everything. You know what I mean? It's being completely immersed in the whole deal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jason, I appreciate it, man. This is, like I said, this has been one I've been looking forward to a long time. Uh, man, there's, there's twice as many questions that, you know, we just, we just don't, we've, you know, we've got jobs and you've got to get, get, uh, out checking your truck. Well, there's more than that. Yeah. I mean, I'm in the office and just juggling everything in the office. We gotta go look for sheep tomorrow and, um, just a lot going on. It's a fun time of year. It's stressful. It's fun. Real quick. Even just what state, what, how many, how many tags

does a guy like you shoot for? How many do you have this year? Well, that's a, that's a problem. You know, as you get older, you want to do them all and you, and you can't, and it just, it's hard to tell yourself no, but I'm telling you when I was younger and I had one or two tags a year, I was killing big deer because I made them, I gave the time that each or one of them deserved. Now I'm hunting more tags and given less time and it's costuming quality. And, and, but how did, how can you, it's so hard to go back to that to, because I want to do this. And by the way, it's a wet year. I want to have 15 tags over there. I want to go in Utah and Arizona and Colorado and Idaho guys are sending me pictures in Idaho. And like, uh, and I'm buying, buying, buying a raffle tickets for the Epic hunt giveaway, trying to pick up a two 30.

Dude, if I could play our own, if I could play our own raffle, I would. I know no other year, Jason, no other year, but this year I probably dropped a thousand dollars on raffle tickets for tags in the Southern half of the United States just to try to pick up another. Everybody's happy when there's water. Be honest, be honest with me though. Okay. I've had this on my mind. How fricking stressed is everyone this year? Because we have blown this out of, probably out of proportion because we've all hyped it up so much. And again, this is social media. Every buck has to be two 50 this year, Jason, every single one. Well, this, this podcast in and of itself is, is I'm responsible in my own nest, so to speak, is creating more stress on me. It's teaching people more and it's, uh, it just is what it is. But I, but I enjoy it. I like,

I like seeing success on everybody, but you know what, Kobe, you know what Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and Michael Jordan all did during the, uh, you know, the, the most crucial moments is they're, they're the guy, they hit the game winner. And so whether I, if, if anyone's going to get it done, it'll be you. So, well, well, yeah, I don't know, man, you have more faith in me than I do. I feel like, I feel like there's a, there's a lot of competition out there on top of that is I'm spread so thin that, you know, I'm actually thinking stop and not, not hunting half of them. I'll probably do. So I'll probably do, you know, five deer hunts. Um, but I want to do eight, you know what I mean? So I'll probably do five, but I'm going to spread out through November from now till November. And, and I really, I really should do two and make them count. Yeah. You

know what I mean? Yeah. That's, that's where I'm at with deer tags, just not by choice, but just by default, I drew two deer tags. So that's optimal. Yeah. Yeah. And this year it wasn't looking good, but like this last week, it's retarded. Yeah. This is going to be this, this, this year will rival 16 easy in my, in my view. And you're, you're, so you're, you're literally seeing it. I mean, in the field, it's your, we're kind of, we're confirmed. Well, it's disgusting. Yeah. Jason and I, we spent, you know, one weekend bonsai trip into a unit that we hunt and, uh, same, same deal. I mean, it was like, we already saw in July, keep in mind it was July. It was early July. We already saw bigger deer than any of the deer that we had seen killed full grown last year and the whole entire unit. It was nuts, man. So yeah, a lot of pressure. There was so much water. I was nervous

because it's spreading them out. And again, these guys talking about thick trees, that's what they're doing. They, they, they, the pine nuts are going to be crazy. And the deer, I mean, it's the rifle hunts are going to be hard. There's just, there's just a number of factors, but you know, water equals big antler, but also spreads them out and changes up things. They don't necessarily have to have such a strict pattern and doesn't make drought makes them vulnerable, dude. We, we hunted drought years 2002. I mean, you could park a truck on a water and you're going to kill the biggest deer. They have to come in that's come in it's, you know, and so, you know, what years make big antlers, but it also makes them less vulnerable and a little bit tougher and increase our expectations. Clients guides hate it. We think about being a guide right now. And if you don't kill a 200

inch or you, you suck on the best moisture. Yeah. It's still tough to kill a 200 inch or so. I'm killing for the guides a little bit and, and we've all, we've all done this. And of course, you know, even listen to this podcast, people are out checking truck cameras, listening, going to be listening to this podcast or, or hunting or scouting or whatever. And, um, you know, it amps us all up and our expectations start to grow. Got to make the most of it. You never know. This is the best year in 25 years, moisture wise in a lot of States. So we got to make good on it. And so, you know, we got to, I'm going to fight with, fight with our wives that much more because we want to leave more, drink more monsters and spend more time about it. Yeah, man. This is stressful. Last year I was enjoyable. Yeah. Zero expectations.

You know what I mean? Learned how to water ski. I mean, you know, right. Well, I'm going to make a post today and it won't be directed at you obviously, but for all of us out there who are going to come up short, I'm going to try to come up with a couple, two or three, uh, excuses that you can have in the back pocket. Um, for when you don't, when you don't kill a 290 inch deer this year. So that's another thing, you know, I think people sometimes are hunting for social media and they're hunting for their friends. I mean, you know, I, and that's another reason I don't, I don't like to say everything that I've got going cause I fail a lot. I don't, and I like to fail in peace. Do you ever like to fail in front of everybody? No, you know, you like to fail in peace. So like, if I go out there and I'm hunting two bucks and this and that,

and I fail, like I just soon just be by myself and just be like, you know what? I worked my guts out. I did everything I could. I learned a lot. I made a few critical mistakes. And if I had to do it over again, I'd do this and this and call it a day and move on. And it's not the end of the world. Uh, what shouldn't define yourself based off of what you kill. Now, having said that the hunting world's brutal, they're judging me on what I kill. They, and I'm going to die being judged on what I kill. And, and that's just part of it. And people don't want to be affiliated with a service that doesn't have their guys killing stuff. I mean, they're paying us money. They want to listen and, and they think there's validity if you kill stuff. And if you don't, you don't know what you're talking about. So there's a little invisible pressure. Although I don't answer to anybody's per

se, I do answer to our members. And so, you know, there's a little bit of pressure, but I'm going to do hunts. I know right now I'm not going to be successful. I'm going to waste a lot of gas money. I know right now they're tough hunts, but, but the one out of 20 years, I'm going to put my hands on a two 50 buck and say, all those years were worth it because I know I'm hunting where there's something unbelievable that I am had the good fortune to put my hands around and I might be 65 years old before that happens again. But when it happens once you thirst for it and you want to keep it going and do everything you can and your power to make it happen again. Cause it's so special. Such a amazing animal that reaches that potential and, and yeah, we're going to eat them. They taste good too. So bigger, the bigger, the bigger trophies have more meat anyway. So

yeah, that's another thing that's funny. You kill a fork, you kill a, you kill a forky, you know, basically 70 pounds of meat. Oh dude. Like if you're a true meat hunter, you're going for body size. I mean, let's be honest. So anyway, well, I want to, uh, just last thing here. I want to give you credit. I always try to, to give my guests credit for things that stand out. And obviously with you, um, just, you know, being a guy that kills, um, massive deer. And I, again, not being a guy who's actually done it, um, but who's been around people who do it and tried, I know how hard that is. So I want to give you credit for that. And then, um, you know, you, you mentioned, um, people don't want to be associated with a membership service, whatever that doesn't kill huge deer. I don't necessarily agree with that. Um, you know, I've, I want to give you guys credit for just,

um, bringing value to the community. Um, you know, if I'm being completely honest, I, I had, um, I had kind of taken advantage of your podcast for a year or two or whatever it was. Um, and, and hadn't, uh, hadn't, wasn't a member, you know, and, and to be honest, that's why I finally, I did, I ponied up this year. I was just like, you know what? Um, these guys bring a lot of value for, for nothing. And so, um, had nothing to do with the fact that you guys kill huge deer. It's, it's more just your experience and your willingness to share. And so, um, want to give you credit for that Epic. You guys, you guys have always been, uh, been awesome. And, uh, yeah, I've got a fricking odd tag now that I drew that, uh, came out of left field down in New Mexico. And, uh, I'm hoping that I'm hoping you have at least one guy that's hunted that, that can

point me on the right mountain side. Yeah. That won't be a problem. No problem. Well, cool. All right. Thanks for coming on Jason. Have a good one and a good luck this year, buddy. Okay. Thanks man.