EP 134: Meet the Newest Member of the Epic Outdoors Staff

I bet it's 15 plus miles straight straight line to where that buck was going. If you could hit rewind when you found a deer like that. You're in the field and been there done that but then you also have to have office skills. Anything to do with western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Jeff John, Chris Peterson and a new guest with us today. Wyatt Bowles. I'm not going to call him a guest. No, he's not a guest. A new participant. He was a guest. He's now one of us.

That's right. Wyatt Bowles. How are you doing, Wyatt? Doing good, doing good. Just getting back from a few hunts and in here podcasting with you guys. What do you guys think of his radio voice? Does he have a good radio voice? Pretty good. It sounds about like his phone voice. What does that mean? What's a phone voice versus a radio voice? It's the same. Isn't that the same thing? I was going to say, yeah, I don't know. It's your voice. In other words, it's your voice. I think it needs to be worked on a little bit. Does it? Yeah, it does. A little deeper. There you go. There you go. I tell you what, me and Chris did that one podcast together and I listened to myself and I'm like, man, I sound like bad. I'm like, man, I sound like bad. And then Chris talks and I'm like, that's what a radio voice is supposed to sound like. Like Chris's radio voice. That's Chris.

That's what I don't know about. Powered by under- I don't know about that because I listen to mine and I'm like, hey, he sounds stupid. Yeah, yeah. You're right. I did sound stupid. No, that was me. No, I didn't. We all think we eat yourself. Yeah. You know, you're always your own biggest critic. That's right. So Wyatt will think you'll sound dumb and we think he's awesome. Yeah. He's fine. So anyway, Wyatt Bowles, we did end up hiring Wyatt here at Epic Outdoors. So today we'd basically like to, you know, visit with Wyatt, talk about his background like we do a lot of our podcast guests that many of you may not know. Wyatt's been in the hunting industry pretty much one way, shape or form most of his whole life. So we just want to- It's actually how we got to know him is out in the field. Yeah. Yeah. That's where it all started. That's where it all started.

Some brief introductions on the mountain. That's right. Very organic. So we just want to introduce that so that you members can understand who he is, what his role here is going to be at Epic Outdoors, but also have, you know, have the confidence to know when you call and talk to him about, you know, a hunt or a certain specific aspect of Epic Outdoors and what we do here. You'll have the confidence to know that he's been there, done that a lot around the West. So anyway. He has. And I want, of course, to add on to that just a little bit. We don't take hiring somebody here lightly. A, you got to be a good dude. You got to be humble, but you got to kill some stuff. And you got to be, you know, you're in the field and you've been there, done that. But then you also have to have, you know, office skills, be able to spell, read, write, things like that.

And so there's, you know, it's kind of all those things are important. Why? It's got a little bit of everything. And it seems like, and we're about to find out, a perfect fit here at Epic Outdoors. Anyway, Adam and I and Jeff and John and Chris and everybody here, like I say, it's kind of like family here at the office. We get along like family, fight like family, things like that too. But to bring somebody in to our office in our personal space is taken lightly. You don't want to disrupt the machine. Yeah. You don't want to pour sugar in the gas tank. Yeah. Things like that. Yeah. You know, a monster in the gas tank thinking it's stable or something, which it could double as stable. It could do a lot of stuff. Yeah. Seafoam, things like that. That's right. Well, let's start with talking. Wyatt, let's let you tell us a little bit about, we all know, but we're going to ask

you, so everybody's listening, where are you from? You know, what's your background as far as how you got into hunting and things like that? So I actually grew up here in a central Utah town, Nephi, smaller, smaller community. Common name. Yeah. I wonder how it got its name. Yeah. I wonder that too all the time, huh? Jeez. But, so anyways, my dad, big, big hunter, a good friend, Mike Sperry also was really involved in helping me get into hunting, I guess. So spent every, you know, waking hour all through high school, everything like that in the outdoors, looking glass and picking up sheds, trapping, whatever I could do to just keep me. Did you even graduate from high school? I did graduate from high school there, Juab High School. The wasps. The wasps. Stingers. Yeah. Did you ever sting anybody? No. No. Never stung anybody. No. It was a good place to grow up.

Did you ever get sprayed by a skunk?

That's a story for another podcast. Yeah, and a story for another time.

All right. All right. But good place to grow up. Yeah. Central Utah. You're not quite up in the epicenter of the people as far as northern Utah goes, just south of all that. But a little bit below that. And then, you know, like I said, we had a good family friend and we tagged along on about every hunt we could go on and kind of learned a little bit of the state that way. And eventually, after high school, got into the guiding industry a little bit. Yep. So you, did you go to SUU, Southern Utah University initially? Started at Snow College, moved down here to Cedar City. Really liked Cedar City. Attended SUU and guided and went to college at the same time. Seems like you all but graduated. Yeah. I can't remember. All but. Yeah. Just. Like one class. One class. Yeah. Like who does that? We should have had that as a prerequisite. Yeah. You know. We probably should be.

Finish your class, you'll get real wages. There you go. You know what I mean? Yeah. Throw some incentive out there. You're useless until you take that class. Yeah. Right? Might still have to go back. Chris, do you do something like that? Yeah. Do you know? I had to do that. What's with these millennials? What is the class? No, I graduated. The question. But I had to graduate before I got paid. So here's the question. Oh, yeah. Back at HF? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that. That's how we got free work out of you. What is the. He was on a five-year internship. What's the one class? Is it like. Well, it's probably communications or something. Do you know what it is? I have communications. It is math. Is it? Ooh. I have to start over in math because of an expiration date on some credits from like snow or something else. From snow college.

We should have John look into this. This is a big deal. We need him to have his, you know, his bachelor's. 32 years old. 32 years old. You are? You're 32? And another single guy. Chris? Wyatt? Now Chris doesn't get all the brunt of our jokes. And we don't write. This is so fun. We get to pick on two single guys here at the office. About their dating life. Mildly single. So now we don't just have one guy getting all the interesting. It's hard to get much out of him when it comes to that. You can hear about a big deer. I mean, you can hear about a lot of stuff like that. But, you know, he's a little quiet about the single stuff. He is. But be honest. If you were single, would you be quiet around this crew? Absolutely. I'd keep my mouth shut. I'd have it under lock and key. I would not say a word. No, I don't even know any eligible women. Like, I don't.

Now, I'm just telling you to find a wife. To find a wife. And, of course, my wife and your wife are sisters, Jen. Yes. And I do take exception to the fact that you pit me and Jenna with Angie going, well, Jenna has it way worse than you do. Oh, well, it works out great. You think about it. Like, this has been my whole life. Like, okay, when Jason Carter is your brother-in-law and he's gone for three months a year, like three, four months a year solid, when I leave for a week to go hunting, I'm like, that could be worse. Yeah, it could be worse. Your sister has it worse. And she seems to be happy. Yes. She smiles. She smiles every day. Yeah, what's wrong with you? I mean, it's a week. Come on. Oh, geez. Yeah, it's been a blessing as far as being able to whip that out of the bag. And she's always, you know, she always has a good comeback because she is a wolfly,

which we know they're, you know, one day we got to have the whole hyena pack on here. We should have the hyenas on a podcast. It would be fun. Okay, if we do that, let's do it. Dude, I get to moderate that because Jason will be biased on the mic, but I'm going to have Jason and I'm going to have the room in half. And it's going to be good. But anyway, we're digressing. We're going to have to have the separation of bars before we digress. Because it'll end up scrapping. All right, so back to YY. Who are you and where'd you come from? Okay, we went to Juab. Now we went to college, didn't graduate. Now where are we at? Got into the guiding industry shortly out of high school. We went to work with Doyle Moss with Mossback Outfitters. Kind of started out with kind of smaller odds and end hunts there with him and worked our way up. Spotting. Yeah, spotting.

Like they have what we call spotters here in you. You've got spotters and guides. Yep. Right. And so you were spotting a little bit or they were just filling you out, hey, let's send this kid over here to BFE. Let's see what he does. Somewhere nobody wants to go. Yeah, exactly. But then they could say they covered it. Exactly. In a full-size truck on a road that's meant for a four-wheeler. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know what the problem is, YY. Been a lot of those. Oh, it washed out 14 years ago? Oh, sorry. It's good to know. We won't take our nice vehicles there. Sorry. Your ball joints are ruined? Wow. Sorry. Tough stuff, huh? And they didn't even have canvas cutter. Yeah, no. So you had to have your own little sleep bag, probably a mummy bag, and, you know, on the ribbed bed of the truck, couldn't afford a foam mattress. I mean, you know, we've all been. Exactly. We all started somewhere.

Throw the cot out to the side of the truck and just sleep. Yeah. So what did you, starting off as, what did you, throughout, I guess, high school and early college, what did you gravitate to as likened to hunter guide the most? What species? It's just always been mule deer. I mean, I kind of, one memory that really pops out back in high school, I was actually glassing with a good friend, and we turned up a buck that was a, it was a pretty famous buck around Nephi for a while. You guys might have heard about it, the golf course buck, 220 plus type buck. You turned him up at the ninth? Yeah, turned him up at the ninth green. Yeah, he went there at the golf course, but nobody knew where he came from. No one knew where he summered. No one knew anything about him. And you found him. Except he showed up there.

And we ended up glassing him up in the summertime in the velvet, and that's just how far. You know, it's hard, it's really hard to glass, you know, from a golf buggy. Because they don't have the windows, you know. Yeah, you can't go out. No window mount. Yeah, I bet it's 15 plus miles straight line to where that buck was going. Was he straight up in the rugged, nasty? Yeah, up in some higher country. It wasn't really as nasty as you would imagine. It should have been a place where a lot of people would have picked him up. But it was just a tight little canyon. Wow. Spent his summers in there. So did you hunt him that year? I never ended up hunting him. A guy by the name of Todd Robison there had an EFI killed him. I remember he killed that deer. Yeah. That year he was 226 inches. Jeez. 226 inches, I believe. Yeah, I remember that.

He was kind of, he'd gravitated down towards town, hadn't he? Yeah. Before the rifle hunt. Started moving down towards the rifle hunt. That was before phone scope or, you know, I mean, I remember we were taking little Hi-8 video cameras and, you know, holding them up next to the, did you get any footage? Exactly what I had was an old Hi-8 video camera. Went in there, tried to film him. I didn't realize the optical and digital zoom kind of, kind of difference. Yeah. Got zoomed in pretty tight. So I have a bunch of pixelated footage of, of that deer. Well, that's cool. Well, we have, we have archives of that kind of stuff. Yeah. Oh, geez. Well, and that's easy to get, you know, the deer like that. And now we talk about a deer like that and I don't know how many years ago that's been, but those deer, those deer are rare. We know that.

And, and we have a few deer like that, that if you could hit rewind, when you found a deer like that, you just thought, ah, this is another big deer and I'll hunt another one next year. And that just doesn't happen, you know? So anyway, so deer was kind of the thing that elevated most, but you've done, yeah, for the last, I don't know, how, 15 years, roughly, 14, 14, 15 years. Yeah. Yeah. Mostly, mostly just deer and elk. I mean, I've done a little bit of the sheep stuff, but not, not a lot. How about antelope? Not a lot of antelope stuff either. Just never, never. I like those things. Caught that bug. Well, Jason. Well, they're easy to catch. They chase your truck. Just teasing. Sean killed one this year. It was an awesome hunt. But anyway, but I know you've been on quite a variety, most everything Utah has to offer. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'll be a buffalo, a moose, a mountain goat.

A little bit of everything. Goats. Yeah. You drew your own goat tag. Yeah. I was fortunate enough to draw a goat tag here in Utah after about 16 or 17 years of applying. Jeez. Went up there, had a good hunt with my dad and some really good friends of mine. And we drew the Willard Peak tag, same tag Jason had a few years ago. Yeah. Awesome. What, so basically you're guiding, you're kind of in the industry a little bit, and then you took some clients. You've obviously been in other states, like Doyle's, you know, he's known to be in other states, governor tags, whatever, landowner tags, different things. You've been doing all of those with them, with the crew there, spotting and different things like that, guiding a few guys, having guys in your truck, which I know you love, having clients in your truck, like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

We tease him a little because he really likes, it's nice to be a spotter because you don't have the pressure, but you're in on it all. So anyway. You're not fully babysitting. And I don't mean to say babysitting, but you're not fully, like, have to be engaged. It just is. Guidance is stressful. So, and game animals never do what you want them to do. So then you end up moving on a little bit, but you kind of keep working with Doyle. Yeah. Yeah. So as I was going to college there, kind of teamed up with Doyle, we started a smaller little application service. So I was kind of running out of my basement. It kind of started to take off a little bit, as busy as I wanted to be with going to college at the same time. It kind of morphed into a job I took with a worldwide trophy adventure. So your role there, you still guided on the side, maybe not as much, since you did have,

I guess, a full-time job. Tell us about, I mean, what your job was there. I mean, what you did, how you did interact with clients. Was it strictly just license application stuff? Maybe you did do some hunt bookings, too. Tell us about what you did for them. Yeah. A combination of both there. Started out in, you know, the license application. That was definitely kind of my more wheelhouse. That's what I'd started. That's what I'd learned, you know, studying the state droids, what there is to know, the units, everything like that, what's producing, what's hot, what's not, everything like that. So started out there and kind of eventually worked into a little bit of hunt booking. So, you know, my stronger suit's probably the hunt application service. But, yeah, I've done both. Well, and you've done enough and been around enough, too.

And in this industry, you get clients that, if you get some clients that are paying you, want to take care of all their licenses, some of these guys also have the means to book a hunt or two or three a year. And so those guys that you're treating well and handling their application stuff, it's a natural discussion to talk to them, okay, if the draws don't go my way, I need a big elk or I need a big mule deer. And so you're naturally helping them. And so it kind of does go hand in hand. And that's exactly how it does for us here at Epic Outdoors. There's, you know, the goal here is to get guys on hunts and get them on the hunts that they want to go. The draws one means for that, but there's other means for that as well. So you've had an opportunity, I guess, to do both, you know, both those kind of ends of, you know, a guaranteed tag situation as well as the draw stuff.

And how many years did you work for them? So I was there about four years. I just felt it was time to move on. And this is kind of how it went. I went back to guiding full time the last little bit before I got in contact. Like the last year. Yeah. Pretty much, wasn't it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you know what? I've been impressed, and I think you brought it up, and Bronson, you reiterated a little bit. But, you know, I've been impressed. I mean, you know, Wyatt's like the coffee shop. He's keeping track of everything. He knows. One of his nicknames, just one. Is coffee shop. Is Starbucks. Yeah. Yeah, Starbucks. One of them. And so. He's got a bunch of nicknames. Well, we got YY, Starbucks. Barbershop. Barbershop. Coffee shop. YY, Starbucks. So anyway. I've got a couple others that. But. This friend of his. He's got some of them. Come out later. Yeah.

But when he said, what's hot, what's not, is what jarred it with me and struck a chord. It is true. He's keeping track of what's hot, what's not. And that's what we're doing all the time is things are changing all the time. Colorado units. Whatever it is. Arizona. Nevada. Utah. Idaho. Wyoming. You're going to Wyoming this year. Yeah. I mean, you know, and that's another thing. I mean, there's guides that guide, but they never like really hunt for themselves. They're just, they're in that mode of taking clients. And you're one of those that you guide so you can hunt or you're glassing so you can hunt or whatever. And you've always got it in your mind. How am I going to kill one of those deer that I'm helping my client kill? And that's kind of been, I mean, it's been awesome to watch. And like Bronson says, I mean, it's, we're just keeping track and we're, you know, of course,

we talk about the units. We publish the units. We're constantly keeping track of everything. And that's something I think you do naturally. It's not like something you're paid to do. It's something you're just doing, you know. Seems like a lot of those units too, they're kind of a trend. You got to kind of be in front of the trend because you can't be behind it or you're going to have the unit shot out or you're going to have something, something detrimental is going to come through and it's going to change the draw odds. A lot of what we do here too is, yeah, we try to be somewhere before it's something. And I don't mean that to, we don't always get it right. We've ate a lot of tags. We've ate some tags. They're like, I'm not going back. Let's not talk about eating tags. Not even this year. No. But be somewhere when it's on the upward, just right when you feel the momentum going

and not, you know, hunting something 10 years after everybody else has hunted it and pounded it to death. So there's, in this day and age, it feels like with the way information travels, it's hard to hit something right. And it's hard to hit something right while you can draw it or be there before point creep and everything else blows it out of the water and all that. So anyway, yeah, that's partly where the coffee shop, Starbucks. Name comes as, yeah, Wyatt's just, he's very well connected in the hunting world in terms of, you know, when something dies, he hears about it pretty dang fast. You know, and that's, that's something you've been, you've been full time in the hunting industry for how long now? It's, it's 13, 14 years. 13, 14 years. I mean, I mean, if you're a cop, you're seven years away from retirement, right?

Like if you're in a public firefighter, you're seven years away from retirement. And in the hunting industry, if you had a family, they'd be starved to death. Yes.

You do this for the love. You do this for the love. Absolutely. I think it's, I think it's important to have that amount of time behind, under your belt in the hunting industry. You're, you know, the people, you know, the communication, you know, everything. And that, that brings a lot of value here to Epic Outdoors, you know, it does. And the spectrum of hunts that you've been on, why you've, you've been a part of a lot of, you know, regular draw tags, um, uh, governor or sportsman or raffle type tags where there's, you know, big stakes at play, so to speak, you know, you're after the biggest and best elk, you know, whether it be Utah, Nevada, I think those are mainly the states, maybe a little bit in the Northern Arizona, but he's also been a part of general season stuff. I mean, you kill the, you kill the freaking giant mule deer here a handful of years ago

that, you know, is a deer of a lifetime on general season tags. And it goes back to a bit what Jace was saying. And when you're in the middle of it all, you know, you can't always just go down and buy your statewide tag or something like that, but you, you have a drive to find something the best wherever you're at. And, and we, we picked up on that. Tell us a little bit about that deer since I brought it up. General season monster. General season monster. Yeah. That was just a very good year. It's one of those units that kind of trended out too. The units hasn't been producing that kind of deer, but we ended up taking two really good deer off that, that unit that year. Actually three really good deer off that unit that year. I'm actually come down to a buddy buying a ranch at the, at the time down there.

And I'd spent all summer setting the ranch up and everything for him, getting everything, you know, trail cameras, doing all the work to kind of help him turn it into a, you know, a mecca, a mule deer, an elk paradise, I guess. And it did become a pretty hot ranch for a while. And just shortly there before the hunt, we were getting some good deer on camera and he offered to give me a chance to hunt. And you hunted. And we, we hunted hard. Yeah. Was that in the rifle? That was on the rifle. General season rifle hunt. So we lived through the archery and muzzle where I think probably the ranch owners, some others hunted it and you got to clean up. So for anybody that's listening, Wyatt is not available for consulting purposes, biological, whatever for your particular ranch. He's full time here at Epic. Yeah. He's got a job, right? Yeah. It actually turned into a pretty, pretty long hunt.

I mean, they killed it the night of day, day seven. Wow. Yeah. The nine day hunt after the archery and muzzleloader had already gone by. So that was, you're almost to the bottom of the ninth on that. But yeah, what a deer. What did it end up going, Wyatt? It was 235 inches gross. Come on. Net it right around 231. Did it? Is it official in the book? Official in the book. So right around, what did it mean? It's 231 and three eights or something like that. Just over 231, I guess. And that non-typical general season buck. So Wyatt's an official Boone and Crockett scorer. Did you score that yourself and put it in the book? I didn't. Chris Lacey out of Reno, Nevada scored it for me there. I do think it's interesting Wyatt is an official Boone and Crockett scorer. He's scoring nonstop. So anybody, anybody out there that killed something big, you want it scored, stop by the Epic office.

Of course, we're going to want a story as well. Yeah. But Wyatt is an official Boone and Crockett scorer and getting a great reputation there as well. What drove you to get into that, Wyatt? Like, why didn't you decide that? But you're also. I want to do that. I want to score stuff. Like, what was the point? You're also Pope and Young as well. Yeah, Pope and Young and Long Hunter. Yep. So. Jeez. You kill it with a legal weapon. Not SEI. Really? No. No. Bummer. I could take the test, though. Really like SEI. All right.

Gross. Gross is gross. Snitzer for fish. All right. What were you saying, Jay? No. Like, what made you decide you wanted to. Because it takes a little bit of work to become a scorer, right? To become an official and all that stuff. It's not like you get paid a couple hundred bucks a measurement. It's just kind of for the love of the game. But, yeah. Why did you want to do that? It's probably like being a notary. It's a pain in the butt to become a scorer. Yeah. So, just after. You know, Colin always looked for different ways to kind of be involved in the hunting industry. I kind of keep my hand in it. Kind of see some of the better animals killed every year. And I was actually out of a B&C awards banquet out in Reno. It was actually they sent me out there to take the spider bull out there the year after we killed it to get the world record award or whatever.

And everyone else didn't show up. I guess no one else showed up besides me. So, I was out there all by myself and I got piling around with some of the B&C guys and actually got invited to come out there and become a, I guess, go to their school there in Montana and become an official measure. Wow. And I jumped at that chance. It was a four-day school out there. Kind of a thankless job, really, because you can't get paid to do it. Yeah. Right? You're not paid. Like, that's just a service. Just to. But to put your hands on. Yeah, that's what you're doing it for. It's a little bit like the guiding, other than guiding and spotting, you actually can get paid. This one's just still to be involved. And somebody brings you that 231 and 3-8s nets bucket, lays it on your table and says, tell me what this thing is. And you're like, all right, let's go.

Let's get some masking tape and pencil out and let's get to work. Yeah. So, the timeline is actually the youngest ever appointed B&C scorers. Come on. Yeah, it's kind of cool that way. Really cool. How old were you at the time? Do you remember? It was 2009. 10 years ago? 22 or 3 then, maybe? 22, I think. That's pretty young. 22 years old. What does that bring us? So, now you. The WTA years, you decided to move on. This is probably a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago. I'm going from memory. Decided just to go back to guiding more full time and have done that last couple of years and opened the door, I guess. You've remained living in Cedar City. So, I guess that's partly why when we get in, you know, we've known of you. We've known of you. But just from a proximity standpoint, you're already here. You knew Chris.

You were friends with Chris because you guys, you know, hang out in the same circles and things like that. That's how that introduction, I guess, probably was a little bit more familiarized. But anyway, just been guiding heavier for the last couple of years and why, I guess, I mean, your skill set, you know, we've gone over it kind of in a crash course. But it's been very apparent to us. You have the vernacular down, being able to talk and the understanding of the Western state draw process, how to talk somebody through it, how to make decisions for themselves on whether a state's good or bad for them to consider based on what their pieces of interest are, weapon preferences are, how much money they want to spend out of pocket. You know, you get lots of those types of questions. And so it seemed natural for us to invite you in, at least have a chat with you about it.

And, yeah, we're excited to have you on board as we've, you know, grown here a little bit at Epic Outdoors. We saw you and targeted you and wanted to at least have that invitation. I remember visiting. I think it was downtown or something. I can't remember exactly where it was. But it was like, hey, are you interested possibly? And you said, yeah. And I was blown away, told Adam. Adam's like, oh, we need to look closer. Glad we did. Everything's awesome. Wyatt's a super asset to our team here at Epic Outdoors. We don't take it lightly. He is dealing with clients on the phone direct. And so, you know, if you call in, want to visit with him for a minute, just chew the fat a little bit, call up, ask for Wyatt. I think you'll find he's a great asset, just great to visit with. And so, anyway, quite a breath of fresh air here in our office.

We appreciate his great attitude, work ethic, knowledge base, brings a little bit different angle. Then Adam and I. And so, just a great compliment to our team. I think overall, just to, I guess, probably to clarify what it is. I mean, you could probably ask Wyatt about any question. He's not the type of guy, if he doesn't know the answer, he'll find out somebody else here in the office to help you best with it. But a couple of his main roles are going to be with licensed application clients and those discussions there, as well as some of the hunt bookings. So, similarly to what he's been doing. He's got some other things that, you know, I guess behind the scenes. But as far as dealing with Epic Outdoors customers and clients, you know, draw strategy, you know, questions and things that you have like that. Even if you maybe, if you are a licensed application service, it's a natural.

But even if you aren't, but you have some questions about, hey, I want mule deer. What state should I be looking at? Those are good. Wyatt can help you with that. Absolutely. Because he's, even though you maybe do your own applications, you know, or you want archery elk or you think you want to do sheep, you know, he knows how to ask the questions in terms of, all right, how much do you think you want to spend a year? Is it $1,000 or $1,500? And we're talking about the non-refundable portion that we all have to pay to play the games. He's very knowledgeable about that. So don't hesitate to ask him, you know, those types of questions and things like that. Or if you're looking for a specific hunt or things like that, all of us consultants here at Epic Outdoors can help with recommendations of outfitted hunts or places if you're looking for a hunt.

I think that's a great point is while we each have maybe somewhat of a specialty, really, we all do everything. So even Jeff's consulting on applications. He has guys that like to visit with him. Adam and I obviously do that as well as, you know, offer hunts for sale and things like that where, you know, we consult on booking hunts too. Even though that may be Jeff's main responsibility, Wyatt, you're going to be licensed application and you're also dealing in hunts and consulting generally as well. So anyway, no question is, you know. Off limits. Off limits. Why, why, you're a good dude. Yeah. Proud to have you on board. And nobody's more relieved that you're working here than Chris because he's just over there quiet because all of this that we're directing is being directed at Chris. Chris is hugging the window going, I've got to edit this crap. Yeah.

Anything else, Wendy, haven't covered or what? What do you, I mean, I guess, what do you, this is your first full year kicking off here. What units are you hunting this year, Wawa? We want to get out of depth right now?

I don't hear you guys sharing. He's pretty smart. Yeah, he's listening. It's a deflection. Oh, yeah. No, I'm just excited for the opportunity to get back on the phones and chatting with hunters about hunts and opportunities and what there is out there for you and working with an awesome crew here at Epic Outdoors. Well, and it's right in the middle. We're here literally together today for the first time in maybe a couple of weeks. As the hunts are underway, we've all been participating, all of us in here, a little bit of guiding up to now. Kind of a grind. Some personal hunts till now and bring us back together. Wyatt, you've smoked big deer on the Ponce, big elk on San Juan, and got other things going here. Killed it up yesterday morning, right? Yeah, yesterday morning. You don't even smell like a rutting bull. Did you even got it? Oh, jeez. Did you make your client got it? Yeah.

Good grief. We know a few guys like that. No, I ended up getting a good crew of guys there with me, though, and got it out of there pretty quick. Got it off. On to the next and whatnot. Drove home, drove all nights, in the office today. That's another reason to hire single guys. There's no excuse for not being in the office. There's no kids, ball games. I mean, they can just work. But I don't know how he does it, though. He doesn't drink, let alone Monster, he doesn't drink Mountain Dew anymore. I know. He doesn't drink anything. That is a good question. He drinks water. So every time we go to the fridge, and of course we decide which case of Monster we're going to open. Which color of beverage. Right? Right? Why, why goes for the water. Makes me feel guilty all the time. I know. And he's younger than us. Like this, like.

That's the probably why we're drinking Monster, is to keep up with these little whippersnappers. The old Toby Keith song rings true. Not as good as we once was. So, but anyway, yeah. Wyatt, appreciate you being on board with us. I mean, I'm glad to have him here. He's not going anywhere. And trust him with some of your questions. As you get back from your own hunts, you start looking forward to next year. He's a great asset to our team. He's got some guys at him. They don't even want to talk to us. Oh, already. Yeah. That's right. They're like, is Y-Y there? And I'm like, no. This is Jason. Can I help you? Jason who? Jason Carter. No, I want Y-Y. I'm like, really? All right. We must have hired the right guy. That's right. We just need to give a shout out to a few of our sponsors here. The guys at Red Rock Precision make awesome long range hunting rifles.

They can customize it to some extent with the caliber scope combination you're looking for. Or if you want, or they're super knowledgeable on if you just have the direction to give them in terms of the application. If you're looking after more of a lighter weight sheep rifle or more of an all-around rifle, deer elk, you know, sheep, moose coat, everything. They can help steer that and give you the option to choose from. Give Kurt a call. 801-425-6574. Kurt Pilcher. Red Rock Precision Rifles built here in northern Utah. Awesome, awesome guns. And, yeah. You'll be blown away if you've not shot in something like this at how well you can actually become with the right gear and setup. So, anyway. After you get that buck, bull, sheep, whatever knocked down, here it comes out. You know, pull out the old Outdoor Edge knife.

You know, I've already had the opportunity to use it quite a bit this year. It's kind of fun. We've actually had people posting on Instagram and different things on social media of them cutting up their deer with their epic knives. It's been pretty cool. But Outdoor Edge is a good partner of ours. They make a great knife, a knife you can really get a hold of to use for in the field as well as once you're back at the trailer caping. Give Outdoor Edge a call at 1-800-447-3343 or look them up online. They're pretty easy to find. Yeah, you know, I used a knife on Monday. That knife on Monday. It was pretty amazing. Haven't broke a blade all the last two years. Nope. Using those knives. It's amazing. Not a single broken blade. Caped out of deer, everything. So, anyway. Awesome knives. We also want to throw a little shout out to St. James Boarding Properties.

Blaine St. James is the owner slash broker. Super good friend of ours. Also a great hunter. Knocked down some great animals. And so, anyway. He specializes in selling trophy hunting and fishing properties. He knows what he's looking for because he's a hunter himself. Very honest guy. One of what we consider our friends. Actually knew him for years prior to him even supporting Epic Outdoors in this way with his company. And so, anyway. We appreciate him on board. If you're looking to buy a ranch any size. Buy or sell. Buy or sell. Buy or sell. Buy or sell. That's right. Yeah. And it happens to do with anything to do with big game. Definitely well worth giving him a holler. Give him a holler. 970-596-6089. Or you can email him. Blaine at sjsportingproperties.com. Blaine at sjsportingproperties.com. Anything.

He's licensed in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. So, anyway. Great resource if you're looking to buy or sell ranches. Or just kind of bend his ear about some big deer. He's the guy to visit with. One of the things we believe in here at Epic Outdoors is working with companies that we truly do support. We use their products. So, we work with the best companies out there. Like Outdoor Edge, we use their knives. We love them. And we feel great about backing these companies because we love their products and we believe in them. So, one of those that, I mean, a few weeks ago I was out with Jason in New Mexico. I'm sitting there trying to build. What a grind that was. Yeah, it was terrible. We need to podcast on that. I podcast. Maybe. But I was, we came back to camp one night and we were going to cook some steaks. And so, I was going to build a fire.

I started building this fire and it rained a little bit. And got the fire going. Within five minutes it was out again. Well, yeah. Going is relative. I looked at it and I was like, hold on. Let me get in my pack. And so, Jason busts out the pyro putty. And I've used it before and so I know it works pretty well. But this time, I was shocked. I lit it and that fire just went up. I was shocked. Yeah, it was. I was like, we're going to owe our life to Cheston. I'm like, if we ever actually have to owe our life to Cheston, that'll suck. Because he'll abuse us. It was beyond my expectations. I knew it worked because I've done it before. But it just lit right up and we had a roaring fire within two minutes. And we cooked our steaks and had a great dinner. And so, this is another one of those products. It works. It's worth having. If you haven't seen it yet, go get some. Pyro putty.

You won't regret it. It's something you ought to have in your pack no matter what. It's awesome. It was a pack. I keep it in the door to my wife's car because, I mean, we'll be out fishing or something. Like, we'll go fishing. And she stays back and cooks there or whatever. She used to just start the fire right there, like, just at a campsite. She'd love it. And if my wife can start a fire, then that, obviously, it works because, I mean, she loves it. What do you say? It works great. She's not an outdoors woman? No. What do you get in that? She's not a campfire, you know, a lot of times outside. Extraordinaire. Extraordinaire. No, this is you just roll it up and start it, and it sits there and burns. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. It's not a flash in the pan stuff. It sits there and actually burns, so you can keep adding your tinder to it. Awesome product.

One of those things I wish we had 35 years ago. We about died 14 different times. We had cigarette lighters that you thought were better than matches, and then your hands were so cold you couldn't put enough pressure on the cigarette lighter to get a spark. And the kid locks. When they first came out with those kid locks on the Bix, you're like, really? I mean, those are adult locks. That's right. You know what I mean? And we used to have to, remember, buy them in single packets and not open them because the gas would all come in. What are we talking about? I don't know. All right, guys. Again, thanks, YY, for coming on board. We're happy to have you. You're, you know, indicated you're in it for the long haul, and we expect that you are. Glad that you are, too. I'm glad that you are. Yeah, we are. Good luck to everybody out there hunting.

This is going to hit the airwaves right in the middle of it. So maybe you're driving somewhere to your hunt or driving home. I hope you have a good, safe fall. Send us pictures and photos. Keep us in mind for stories and whatnot. Yeah, send them to photos at epicoutdoors.com. Photos at epicoutdoors.com. We take trophy room photos, stories. Anything and everything of interest goes there. You know, a lot of guys like to share their kills with us as well. Jason at epicoutdoors.com. I'd love to see your success. Same with Adam. Same thing, Adam at epicoutdoors.com. All right, guys. Over and out. We out. We out.