EP 133: Hunting Season Is Here!

As we're topping out on the ridge, we had three rams right in front of us, you know, like 150 yards. And just, you know, ton of inside spread, big old G-force, big old beam thing, just a great frame. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson here with the Epic Outdoors podcast. Been a while since we've been on the air. Kind of felt good, actually, but now we're back in the studio, and this feels good, too. So, anyway, I know Chris has missed us, right, Chris? Of course. And, anyway, Adam's been out hunting. We're going to jump into that, killing sheep, and got to kill more sheep. And I've been scouting mule deer, of course. So, anyway, kind of exciting times here in the office. We're not here very often now. It's kind of fun, but at the same time stressful. Come back to a desk full of work. Don't want anybody to be offended out there, any members of Epic Outdoors. We do get back to you. It's just a little tough this time of year. So, hunts are on. Yeah. I mean, here it comes.

Fast and Furious, pretty much one after another. It's kind of crazy. You know, we've been watching Nevada Bucks get tipped over for the last four or five days. That's getting old. Tired of seeing dead Nevada Bucks. Yeah, because I don't got a tag anymore. You know, I think I did earlier. I think I announced that. But I had, you know, pulled some tags and had some things change in my schedule that I elected to punt and move on down the road and do put more into what I had than spread out too thin and not do anything as good as I maybe wanted to do it. So, anyway. That happens. I did the same thing. Get a landowner tag. Get excited. You don't have anything going on. Pretty soon you've got landowner tags going and then you draw a few tags and different things happen. Your schedule changes. And so then we adjust and change and sell tags and whatnot.

So, anyway, before we get really cranking, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. They sponsor everything we do here at Epic Outdoors. We also like to thank our other sponsors that work with us there in the magazine portion as well as some on the podcast, namely Phone Scope as well as MOA Rifles. That's what good guys they are. Both companies are awesome. We work with the best of the best. And, anyway, Phone Scope's kind of on my mind because we're proving what we're seeing. Yeah. It's time of year. You phone scoped some sheep. Sheep and caribou and bears. I don't know. Had a good trip. So, it's, I don't know. The days of holding something up to your spotting scope are over. If you're doing that, upgrade it. Come on. Get yourself a phone scope. No matter what phone you got, no matter what optic you got, they got something to hook you up. And it's that time of year.

And it's actually a pretty cool way. I got some really cool live footage of my Ram the day before I killed him. Skyline bedded on a ridge. It's freaking awesome. And I have it forever now. Even though I was a mile away or more, 60 power plus your phone stretched the whole way. I was maxed out. We'll be YouTubing this stuff, right? It was good. Did you take some other good video camp and different things? Yeah, a little bit of that stuff. I did not get the kill. It happened really, really fast. But, you know, it was either kill him or try to get stuff set up to kill him. And I had about 11 rams beating down on us at, you know, 250 or something like that. Did you use Sheila to smoke this ram? Oh, yeah. A little Sheila barked once. Down he went. MOA rifle. The new ascent rifle smoked ram, huh? Yeah, 6.5 PRC. You know, it was kind of a chip shot.

But, hey, I'd rather those than one you're crossing your fingers on and Kentucky windage. I wonder why they call it Kentucky windage. Huh? For you guys in Kentucky, anybody in Kentucky, email Chris at epicoutdoors.com. Why Kentucky windage? If you know where that term came from, maybe you guys perfected something we Westerners still don't know about. Remember those old guns where they had the sights that were expandable? Quickly down under stuff. Yeah, all of this kind of stuff. There's something to do with that probably. Probably. Yeah. Anyway, we appreciate these guys, MOA and PhoneScope. MOA rifles. You can go to MOARifles.com, 541-526-1820. Tell them we sent you. Maybe they'll give you something free. Who knows? And Cheston at PhoneScope, good friend of ours, of course, changing digiscoping. He changed the world there when he came out with that.

And, of course, Cheston's great at marketing and let the world know. And he's been very successful and good guy as well. Good company. Father-son team there. So, anyway, as we get started, Adam, you're headed north. I'm going to do the same hunt you just did. I'm going to do it next year. And I'm booked, so I'm committed. How was it? It was great. You know, we had a brainchild, you and I, I guess we'll call it that, to go do a hunt like this together. Because, you know, frankly, you don't get to do hunts like this together. And so we had a plan to book back-to-back hunts, like a first and second hunt. Go together and hunt for 20 days. Go together and hunt for 22 days. I don't know what we thought our wives were going to say to that plan. Well, that's a miserable concept anyway. 20-something days plus days on the front and back to get there. Oh, yeah. You're the better part of a month.

Okay. But our idea for that was, you know, go with an outfitter. Maybe it's slightly smaller to where they take one hunter at a time and then another hunter to where you probably are both going to kill a ram in 10 or 15 days. But rather than try to, we're not looking for some, hey, let's kill two rams in 10 days on a two-on-one. That's not, it's a lot of money to, and an expectation to try to get out of a stone sheep hunt. So that was our brainchild, but that was our initial plan for this year to go to do that. But due to some, you know, environmental factors last year, some big wildfires in northern BC, some of the hunters got bumped from their hunts last year that had to get canceled to this year. And it didn't allow two hunts to be back-to-back. So somehow you nominated me to go first. I don't know really how. Well, I was thinking I've already wrapped up in these deer tags.

I think that was part of it. You know what I mean? And a wet year deer tags, and I've just got like, I can't change my focus. I'm like, we were going to go, were we going this year anyway? I can't remember. It was going to be this year. And then when it was an option of, you know, the guys who were going to come back, who were booked, go during the fires, and they couldn't go, then it changed the dynamics of the bookings. Long story short, I went this year. Jason's planned to go next year. And it was a great trip. It was a grinder. I definitely haven't been on a more, I don't know, physical sheep hunt. We grinded it, and it wasn't all just the miles, which was right around 80. We gained and lost and gained and lost so much elevation. I mean, it was, it were grinding miles. It really was. My guide was awesome. He's six or eight years younger than me, and. Proved it. Yeah, he's an animal.

He was great. Miles is awesome. But it was, we earned it. It was a lot of stuff below timberline. And if you've been below timberline in BC, which is around 4,500 feet, 45 to five, depending, but 45 to 4,800. It's thick. I mean, it's a jungle. I mean, it, it, you've got poplars, you got spruce fir, and mosquitoes are bad. And we had a lot of ground to cover in that amount, in that country to get to some of the mountains he wanted to hunt. And it was, it was a grind. And then even when you're in sheep country, when it's all backpack, you and your guide, everything's on your back. It's a, you earn it. You're sore. It doesn't matter if you prepare. I was pretty well prepared. I was definitely by three or four days into the hunt. I think my legs were even better just because, you know, we went a couple of days early and you get five or six days where it's every day.

You get in shape as you go. You do. Yep, you do. But we saw, we saw 15 rams in that first five or six days, a couple of which were legal. I don't normally, I don't normally tell people pass legal sheep on a stone sheep hunt. I mean, there's a lot riding on these hunts from a commitment, time, financial, everything standpoint. But it was just kind of a situational thing. They were, they were rams. One, one was probably not eight years old. I'm very confident he was not. He was definitely long and very slender. A young ram that made legal that I think is really going to be a good ram in a couple more years. But it was mainly where we were. It was, it was a, we're in an untouched spot. What are we maybe going to find? And that was a second or third day. It's like, if you do that, you're done. You're done looking for what might be there.

And also now you're committed to three days out probably because you, now you're really heavy with the sheep and cape and horns and all that. And it's a grinder getting out. You're heavy already and you're going to be even heavier. So I just, it wasn't the kind of ram that, hey, end that, end the, end the hunt no matter where you're at. And we'll eat this thing on the way out for five days. It wasn't one of those rad. So we ended up after, you know, on the sixth day, we, we decided we'd hunted this, this spot out really well. We'd seen those 15 total rams, two of which were legal and elected to move out. And that was a big moving day. We got picked up and flown to a different location where we resumed our hunt, went in on a new, new mountain range that, you know, has more sheep definitely on it. And, uh, got a new camp set up and things like that.

And the first day out hunting the next day after we got moved, um, we were committed out on a big plateau hunting it out and glassed a bunch of 11 rams over on a, on a, the next, next mountain, you know, a couple miles away. Too, too, too far to get to that day, uh, based on the fact that elevation we had to lose and get there. But we basically hunted the plateau out. When we got off the plateau, we cut the distance in half and I got some really good, that's the night I got really good look, phone scope footage, really good sun on them. And, you know, that was a day, that was day eight of, of a 12 day. Yeah. Of 11 hunting days, you know, 12th day, you're basically right now on the 12th day. You're not, not really hunting on day 12th. It was the 12th was a day you're, you're leaving to go out and, you know, you want to shoot one. And he was long. He's pretty.

He's kind of a wide set ram, clearly legal. Anyway, the next day we hatched a plan to get up on the backside of the mountain with them. And, uh, we got into position, um, got, as we're topping out on the ridge, we had three rams right in front of us, you know, like 150 yards that we had to just lay down and get pinned. And they were feeding and they fed all the ridge. We gave them probably an hour and a half because we knew that's probably our group. So you don't want to just walk over the ridge and have a bunch of sheep stirring at you and blow. Cause you know, it's day nine now, right? You got that day and two more. Kind of a big deal. You blow these ones out. These are big boy decisions. Yeah, this is. I got 40 to 50 K in this hunt. Okay. And I'm at day nine. Day nine. And I've got a problem. This is clearly a ram. This is my ram. He's dark and he's long. He's pretty.

And I'm like, yeah, this ram, you just, you don't want to start over on day 10 and 11 trying to make something happen somewhere. So we were very conservative that day. And by the time we crept up and got up over the ridge, it was an hour and a half to two hours later as we worked our way up to where the sheep went over. And there are no more to be found. It's one of those cresting hills that everything slopes away from you. When you see them, they're going to be 60 yards. Yeah. And if you see them and have to lay down, there's no cover. I mean, there's nothing over six inches tall. And so we elected to stay on the, on the edge of the ridge where it fell off into a sharp canyon and just basically poke our heads out every once in a while, hoping they'd pop up on, on the ridge that you could see 600 yards one way, 500 the next, but you could only see a hundred yards off the ridgetop.

And so about, you know, six hours into that wait, three rams here, they can feed them up. We're like, here they come. But it was only three. Um, we're like, is that the only three that was here? Is that the three from this morning? And how many did you see that morning? Three is all we saw, but they were going over the ridge. We just assumed we caught the tail end. So now we're like, was it only three? Did they break up in the night? And then behind us, there's 10 back here with a legal ram, you know, on the next mountain over. Like, did they, I'm like, they, surely they didn't move mountains overnight. They were so content. You just got to go with your gut. And long story short, we've sat there for eight and a half hours and it's eight 30 at night and it's, it's time to do something. And so far are they? Yeah.

Well, well, they were, they, they fed up and then they went back over the crest and I'm like, so kind of like they flirted with all coming into position. And, but then they went right back off the crest away from us. And so now it's like the big, could have shot one if you'd have been ready. Yeah. They weren't, Lee wasn't, they were not the legal rams. Yeah. Yeah. They were 500 yards. I mean, you could have, if, if the ram came up. So now am I going to waste eight and a half hours? Like, yeah. Do we, do we, do we tiptoe out with more like a bullet in the chamber, bipod extended drop and shoot when you see a ram? That's how it's going to go down or what? So we elected to inch. And as we're inching, we're inching, we're just, man, we're not getting a good vibe. I'm like, the wind's not doing the right thing. Cause it's now it's getting late.

So it's now it's starting to draw your back and go downhill when the morning at day, it's all right in her face. Yeah. So we actually made the decision as he crept a couple hundred yards and hadn't seen them. We're like, I'm like, let's back out. There's a little bench right out here to our right. Let's walk off. It looks like it drops off more. Cause any place you can get to that drops off more steep and let you see two or 300 yards is better than seeing 50 to 75 yards at a time. So we got over there just as I was cresting, I saw horns right in front of me and I said, get out there right here. And I crept out there and it's two use like it's 75 yards. And we'd seen those two use come over a ridge over here, walk right into those three rams and fart around. But they obviously had gone on and done their thing. And I says, let's get out of here. I says, they're here.

They're obviously we could see down below them. They're, they're not, they're not right here. So we snuck back, got up to the ridgeline and we're walking it down where we'd been sitting for eight and a half hours. We crest that knob and they're right, right, right in front of us. Like they were 200, they'd come up in that hour, hour and a half while we were down doing our little, you know, roly poly thing. They'd come up right where we were sitting all day, right where we anticipated. And so we dropped, I got, was getting my gun out. There's a ram that pops out 150 yards. He's got us pegged and it's like, Oh crap. I was not a shooter. No, he wasn't. And there was one clear ram that we wanted. It's a ram that I took. And I'm on him and he's broadside, but you're looking right into the setting sun that had just gone down, but you just got bad light. You're looking right into it.

And, uh, you know, you're trying to make sure I'm talking to my guide, whispering he's counting rain. Cause you know, you don't want to shoot a big, long seven year old. You really don't want to do that. And he's like, well, I can, I can, I can see eight for sure. He says, maybe you ought to have a look. And I'm thinking if I look and they bust, I'm going to be mad. Cause I should just kill this thing. But I peeked over at the scope and I, you could ring, I could ring him to eight and he still had some below it. And I said, all right, I'm killing him. Get down there. He beds down, beds down facing us. Jeez. All right. And another ram comes and beds down. Just shoot him right in the throat. I was just about to. Another ram goes three feet in front of him and beds down. Come on. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And it's, you know, it's nine 30 ish.

You know, I don't remember, but it's, it's very dusky. It obviously stays light a lot later up there. And I'm like, what am I going to do? And every once in a while that ram would move his head and expose the, the neck and chest of my ram. How accurate is this guy? Yes. That's what thoughts are going through my mind. If like, if this thing doesn't stand up, what am I going to do? And you would, you would hit him. Oh yeah. I mean, you wouldn't make a mistake. You've never made a mistake with that gun at the range. I'm laying on my pack and I even have my rear rest under it. I'm rock, but I'm, you're just, it's a tight window. You're missing a ram by four or five inches to hit the ram you want. Yeah. You know, it's, it's still risky. Oh yeah. And the ram that I would have hit was not legal. You know? So if you make a mistake, you got a problem on your hands.

So, well, just then that ram was 150 yards. I'm on him and I'm just waiting. And I'm like, if anything gets up, let me know. I had to get up every once in a while just to rest my neck. Right then out of the corner of my eye, I see this ram bust and trot down to the others. And I'm like, okay. I said, get ready. And right then I get my scope and I could see around my shot, start looking around and boom, he springs to his feet. The other one stands to his feet right in front of him. And the little one takes two steps. Boom. And I dumped him. As soon as he cleared, I hammered him and dropped him. It was just, it was intense. It was intense. Yeah. That's awesome. It was intense. And luckily when they stood up, the little one took a couple of steps out of the way and he was broadside, you know, right there. He's awesome. So anyway, 38 and a half long. Just a really dark, pretty ram.

Tax therapist said he hadn't seen one darker. Yeah. It's a dark ram for August, the first August hunt. A lot of these rams, as they get older, they get darker. And also as they get later into August and September, especially those of you that maybe hunt stone sheep in September, the hair just lengthens and they get darker. So, um, it, we earned it. It was a great hunt. Very blessed. And, uh, you know, just love hunting sheep and, you know, made it home last night. So I was gone a while. Appreciate you guys holding down the fort. I was, and any of you that were trying to get ahold of me, I've been trying to do my best to get back at emails and everything else. Texts. Yeah. Everything else. But, uh, it's, uh, kind of coming fast and fruition. Well, you missed, you missed some Nevada bucks hitting the dirt. Yeah. So there was some good bucks. Yeah. Today.

Justin Moore, he dropped in the office and, uh, he killed a 205 inch or so, um, I think a five by six stud buck. It's his first 200 inch, uh, you know, first archery hunt actually. Went and he drew the tag and then went to the pro shop. Yeah. Went to the pro shop and he goes, I got an archery tag. I need a bow. And the guy's like, really? You're going to, this is your first real experience with archery. And he goes, yeah, and I'm going to kill a giant. And so anyway, he ends up killing a giant. Yeah. And a lot of time into it. Scouting. And obviously knew the buck was targeted on it and, uh, had a bunch of good help from Silver State Outfitters. Those guys are good guys and, and they're all, you know, he guides for them as well. And so it's just nice to see one of the team, you know, one of the guides get one once in a while.

I mean, they've, he's put his fair share of clients on big deer and, and so has the Silver State Outfitters. So anyway, ended up having a great hunt, dropped in the office, showed us the buck. Of course, he had a set of replicas from the big deer they killed last year. They killed a 213 with a client. And then, you know, of course his deer and just awesome. You know, he, he's from, he's from my in-laws country down there in Nevada. Valley of fire. Same, uh, same little community. And so everybody knows everybody. And, uh, anyway, congratulations to Justin Moore. What a great, what a great job. Uh, ended up smoking that deer, kind of glassed him. The deer's going to the blind. He makes it into the blind within seconds. The deer drinks and he kills the deer. So, I mean, you know, one of those things. It's real thick country.

Bow hunting always feels like it rides on a, such a narrow window of everything. You have to go right. You have to go just right. That old, uh, Tyson Nelson, he's a good friend of ours as well. He ended up drawing a tag down there in the 240s. Smoked a giant 224-incher, 218 frame. And just, you know, ton of inside spread. Big old G4s, big old beam thing. Just a great frame. Um, anyway, congratulations to him as well. He's freaking first deer of the year. He smoked. I mean, I don't know if it's the first deer. It's the first deer that hit social media. Of a big deer, yeah. You know what I mean? And, uh, anyway, that was a big deer. The first big deer of the year. Nevada, that's what's kind of fun about Nevada. It opens August 10th. And you're always, gets everybody excited. The first big deer of the year, except for, you know, like a governor tagging Arizona and they killed a giant.

I mean, those are 365-day seasons. So, sometimes you'll see something a little earlier. Some bulls and bucks down there. Carry over from last year. Yeah. Yeah. But the normal seasons, August 10th is, you know, I mean, you got California, it's got a little bit earlier seasons. But generally speaking, Nevada bucks are what you see first. So, anyway, congratulations to Tyson as well. Him and Taylor Price, his brother, uh, got the job done. And I think there was a couple other guys there too. And, and just did a great, great job. Smoked a giant. And, uh, of course he's not new to that. He's killed multiple 200 inches. So, done a great job. Probably a time to, you know, like we talked about a minute ago, Utah's ready to kick off. Colorado will be kicking off a week after that. Arizona archery deer hunts, at least, will be kicking off here this weekend or next.

And depending on where you're at, but I think a lot of them this weekend, right? Yeah. This weekend, a lot cranks off. And then, of course, you got these elk hunts. Yeah. Archery elk here in Utah. Everything just, it's, I mean, it's here and it's coming hard. And then September, that feels like all the other states of, uh, you know, Wyoming and some of the others open up. Of course, August 25th, that's next week. We got Nevada elk. I mean, it's coming fast. And so, might be a time that we just throw out. If, uh, you're a member of our service or you want to consider doing a story, a story for us, uh, can email us your photos at photos, P-H-O-T-O-S, photos at epicoutdoors.com. Obviously, you know, give us just a, if, if you want to just get it in our system, that's the simplest way. You don't have to have your story written and all that before you send us that.

Or if you're not interested in doing a story and just want us to consider it for our state section and whatnot, send us your pictures. Yeah. We'd love to see them. Putting stuff on the ground. Yeah. We love it. So anyway, yeah. Hit us with any of that. And then, uh, of course we've got our member experience. Some guys are still hitting us. We're helping guys like today was loaded. Just guys that are needing a little help on getting started and a few tags that we've had experience. We've got guys in the field right now calling. I'm, I'm here on my unit. Can I get a member experience now? By the way, you're lucky we're in the office. I mean, it's just, it's that time of year. So anyway, be patient with us. Um, but anyway, we're, we're excited. Uh, of course we've got our own, uh, Utah archery deer. Got all the guys here in the office with tags.

You're going to be looking for sheep out of them and hopefully I'll come and help you guys. If we need to seal the deal on something, you're out there grinding and I'll be archery deer hunting. And then, uh, Arizona archery deer, like you said, and then also a New Mexico elk. I'm kind of, I've got an archery tag, got lucky and got an archery tag in New Mexico. Be cranking on that. And, uh, of course you've got a, you're an elk. Mine's a rifle later on, early October. So that kind of spaces some of my hunts out really well. That was the window that fit me best this year. And, uh, yeah, hopefully we both bring home a couple of wapiti from the land of enchantment. I don't know what the land is, but it's definitely going to be a grinder. They did have a lot of moisture, you know, and that's the one thing about kind of our country in Utah and Arizona and Nevada.

Everybody's so excited about all this rain and we are too. We call it Chia Pet Year, right? And it's true. We've never seen more 190 to 200 inch type deer. It's really tough. But the very top end deer are proven just to be as tough as they always are. Yeah. You start talking 220 plus that are rare. Rare. Even Poncegont. Of course, the Henry's is off the charts looking good. The Henry's looks good. But yeah. But you know, not 220 to 30 deer. They just don't make them. They're just so rare. Even in great years. Even in great units. There are not very many deer that can even have the ability to do that. Yeah. Let alone 200. Yeah. Let alone 190. Some deer got old deer as old as dirt in some of these units. Well, in some of this stuff, there was too much water. Like there's water everywhere. It's scattered them. Their feed is everywhere. You know, projections for pine nuts are off the charts.

Who knows? I mean, we got things we've never dealt with before in heavy, wet years like we haven't seen in 25 years. Who knows? We haven't hunted and stuff like this since we were, what, 15 to 18 years old. I mean, it's just been that wet. Yeah. So anyway, super exciting. Like Adam said, hit us up. You know, let us know what you're killing. Let us know what tags you've got and stuff. We'd love it. We're keeping track of things. I mean, guys, I'm writing stuff down nonstop. I use the magazine as my own little notebook, and I'm keeping track of who drew what. And of course, hit them up after the season, see how you guys did. So we're hoping for good things. We're hoping we kill a few, too, you know? And so anyway, Adam's on the board, started the epic team off with a stone sheep and nothing like it. And of course, Adam, you even got your own desert sheep tag. I mean, dude. Yeah.

I've got a good year. At some point. That's part of the reason I had to consolidate some, you know, you buy a landowner tag or something like that early, so you know you got something. And then, you know, fortunately, things work out in the draw the way you're kind of hoping they are, and they do. And then you just kind of believe yourself of being spread too thin. And that's basically what it is. You know, there's another year for that. I'm not going to have more than one or maybe two desert sheep tags in my life if I'm really lucky. You know, other one being a non-resident tag somewhere. This one being more of a force draw resident tag that I knew I would get at some point. But yeah, that's later on. And yeah, I got some client sheep to start hunting here in the next couple of weeks. I'll put a few more rams down and start guiding a little bit. Chris, how about you?

I know you've been out working it, huh? Yeah. I've been looking for deer. It's been fun. You and your brother. I've been pretty happy this year. It's a good year. It's way better than last year. Oh, yeah. Last year was terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of good, just nice four points that I'm seeing, which... Yeah. Last year was a great water skiing year. Yeah. Last year was tough. Just tough, just tough out in the hills. Yeah. All right, fellas. Well, is there anything else we should touch on? I don't know. That you can think about. We'll try to get on and do these a little bit as we get back in the office. Maybe it's only going to be one of us. If I'm in and catch up something or if it's Jason's in, we'll try to do this. We know the continuity of a podcast isn't there throughout the fall. We realize that everybody's driving somewhere and there are good things to listen to or they're

sitting and glassing on a ridge, download it beforehand. We appreciate your support and feedback that we get from. We'll do the best we can as we're in the middle of our own hunting season. This is kind of what we work and plan for all year long. Like you said earlier, be a little bit patient with us. If you need something urgent and it's really urgent, leave a message to one of the gals and we'll try to get back to you or answer it remotely and have one of them get back to you if it's a serious question you need just to get an info on. Drop an email to info at epicoutdoors.com. The gals will forward it to us. If we can, we can reply in the field. We'll do it. It's just a busy time of year. Also, feel free to support our advertisers. They support us and let us bring you a lot of these kind of things, the magazine, podcasts, and different things.

Speaking of which, I ordered a new backpack, Bronson. I'll cue you today. I ordered up a cue you backpack. I've got a couple of hunts coming up that are going to be grinders. And I know they came out with a new pack system. You gave it a test up here on this sheep hunt. Yeah, the new pro suspension system I used. You know, I had one of their 7,200 packs. I didn't when they came out with this. You know, obviously, they're not going to just naturally. You wouldn't just come out with something if it's not improved or at least you feel it's improved. But I was, I didn't know what more they could really improve on. I'd use their other one for about five years. In fact, I used it on another sheep hunt in 2014. It was probably the first time. But yeah, the suspension, both waist and shoulder strap, it was very comfortable. I mean, for... And handled the weight. Handled the heavy weight.

I mean, it's just, it rode a little bit better on me. Absolutely did. There's a lot of adjustment in it. But the way they've got the lumbar set and the ability to move that and change that, just get it just right. Very pleased. Very happy with that. I had the 7800, which is obviously not a pack that, I don't even use that pack a lot through the rest of my year this year. I won't. Right. But on a backpack hunt, you need all the room you're going to get because you're fairly full going in. You're really full coming out. But you could be really full if you get a sheep and you have your full camp on your back too. You felt like if it was over 100 pounds, it would handle it. Yeah, you could do it. I mean, your legs are going to take it on the chin pretty hard. Yeah. But that's just, that's the nature of it. But, you know, great pack. They, you know, I sent a message when I got back to them.

I didn't think it really could be improved upon, but it is. It is better. I liked it a lot. And so I encourage you to use their new suspension system. If you were looking for a pack, try it out. They got a variety of bags on there, you know. For size-wise. 7800 size-wise. That's right. You can go all the way down to, you know, 1800-ish up to the 50, you know, 34s. It's awesome because once you get a pack set for your back and for you that fits you, you don't ever want to change that. So it's easy to throw on a different bag. Yeah. A 5,000, a 7,000 or whatever. Based on the type of 100 going on. I don't like going much under 5 just with all our optics. I know. I mean, we had loaded with optics. Yeah. BTX is 15. And if you're guiding somebody, even if you only have, you know, 2,000 or 3,000 cubic inches worth of crap in your pack, you kill something. You can cinch it down.

You have immediately. Yeah. Cinch it down. You have immediately enough. You kill a sheep. They're not giant animals. You get enough to get it out. There's none of this. I'm going to leave it overnight and bring my big pack in tomorrow and freight me. You don't do that. You don't want to do that. So anyway. Yeah. I called them up, ordered it, had it next day aired. Can't wait to use it. And then same thing. They've got a vinyl harness system. I tried to buy it. It's not going to be available to the public until end of August. He wouldn't even put me on a waiting list. So anyway. But that, I've heard, is new and improved and amazing. And so we'll see. It's a lot of good gear coming out out there. And of course, hopefully we knock down a few good animals. We've been scouting a lot. We've got some animals that are ready. Seasons that just aren't quite open for the particular game. So yeah.

We're ready to lay some stuff down. So anyway. Good luck to y'all. Again, we appreciate Under Armour. We appreciate all these, the different people that are sponsoring us, especially PhoneScope and MOA on this particular podcast. That's right. Also, you want to talk about, if you're still looking for an elk hunt of some kind, you want to talk about an opportunity we've got for some folks, Jason, if they're still looking for a guided elk hunting opportunity? Contact the Hickorya. We did a podcast with the Hickorya. They're super good guys down there. These are guaranteed tags. They're available first come, first serve. They've got some openings. January 1st to the 5th. What else is going on besides Mexico? If you don't want to go to Mexico, go to New Mexico. And hunt the Hickorya for January 1st to the 5th, 2020. They're at $7,000, $7,050.

And then you've got a fairly modest guide fee that you would pay there. You know, you're looking at lots of bulls with the potential of 320 to 330 class bulls. Contact them, Hickoryahunt.com, J-I-C-A-R-I-L-L-A, hunt.com or 575-759-3255. That's a good value, in my opinion, for the size of bulls you have a chance. You're going to hunt low 300 class with up to maybe a 330 plus, you know, type potential. For a late season rifle hunt, that's pretty good. We've also had a lot of talk to Jeff here in our office, and we've been out scouting a bit. And of course, Adam, you've been hunting. But he's had a lot of good deer openings, just good, solid deer openings, which you can, you know, are hard to find. So anybody that's out there that's looking to go on, you know, a good mule deer hunt, give us a holler. We do have some openings. Jeff's pretty good at emailing those out to our membership.

It's another membership benefit here at Epic Outdoors. If you want to become a member, you can join 435-263-0777 or epicoutdoors.com. You can also email Jeff, hit him up. Again, he's in the field as well. Be patient with him, but he'll load you with the info. And we'll go from there. We're still all luck. Yeah, it's about ready to blow up here in terms of hunts going all across the West. And we hope everybody's safe, travel safe, hunt safe, and take great pictures. All right, let's go. Let's go. Let's go.