EP 145: Application Theory and Strategy

Talk about Western big game hunting strategy. How am I going to keep my kids involved in hunting? You want to hunt off, be willing to adapt, be willing to eat some tags. Nobody likes eating tags. They don't taste good, they don't feel good. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson here coming at you. Well, Southern Utah, Northern Utah, a little bit of both. We're doing a little intro to a seminar that we gave up there at the Western Hunting Expo. Yep, it was a fun show, awesome show, awesome to meet so many of our members, friends, fellow hunters, etc. It was an awesome show, bigger and better than ever. And we had a great time, had a good seminar there. We kind of talked more like philosophy of our application strategy and how that's changed over the last maybe 20 plus years. It's not the same. Things evolve. We went fast in this particular seminar. We had less than an hour. The Galveston, a little long-winded. But she's awesome. Christy Titus did a great job. But anyway, we were cranking along. It was dinner time. It's 5.30, Friday night.

And anyway, so we cranked it out. And it was aggressive. Went through a lot of, like Bronson's talking about, a lot of theory and philosophy on application strategies. This wasn't an ABC. So we blow through all that. We don't talk about necessarily point systems in all the states and things. But we did talk about some of the crazy thoughts and ideas we have behind getting tags and applying in all these different states. And so anyway, just more of a theory. Might help a few guys that have got some points to burn. And maybe think outside the box. So anyway, pretty awesome. Good time with guys up there. Good people. Great audience. Appreciate your support up there. And we'd like to give a little shout-out to our friends at Red Rock Precision. They were there at the Expo as well. Super good guys. I've got a gun from them. Of course, Bronson, you do too.

We've smashed a lot of big stuff with them. Never have missed, actually. So anyway, you can go to redrockprecision.com. Did you say that with a hot mic? That's on recording, Chris. Never have. Never. Even Ashley, my daughter, 30 Nozler. It's her favorite rifle. And we did a smash and grab with her just under 500 yards. Well, as long as it's true, keep saying it. Keep back it up.

Redrockprecision.com. 801-425-6574. That's 801-425-6574. I want to also give a shout-out to the folks over at Phone Scope. Been great supporters of ours over the years. Obviously a game changer as far as digiscoping for many years now. Phone Scope. P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P-E.com. Pretty much revolutionized the way we capture video and photos through our vinyls, through our spotters, whatever. Check them out. Got some great products on there. And it's not too soon. Got something to fit any phone. Pretty much any phone. Unless you're using some old flip phone. Probably not going to get something like that. No. But anyway, great products. So go check them out. Another one of our supporters here at Epic Outdoors, we have a knife that we made actually through them. This is Outdoor Edge, the Razor Lite Series. Epic Outdoors knife, rechangeable blade. Check them out at OutdoorEdge.com.

Make some great products in addition to the Epic Outdoors knife that we have. A lot of other great products on there. Another great supporter of ours here at Epic Outdoors. Go to EpicOutdoors.com for all your dreams and needs of the hunting environment. All right, guys. Let's get on to this. Let's get a little more serious. Put this seminar on. Tell us what you think. If you need some help, we're always here. 435-263-0777. Jason at EpicOutdoors.com. Adam at EpicOutdoors.com. We'll take care of you. Hey, everybody. Jason Carter here. Adam Bronson, Epic Outdoors. We appreciate you being here today.

Kind of like with our podcast, we're going to shoot from the hip. Actually, Adam and I haven't even discussed our presentation today. It doesn't mean we're not prepared. We're always prepared for Western Big Game hunting. It's all we do. It's all we live for. And we talk about it nonstop. Adam and I are in the office cranking, as a lot of you guys know, 3, 4 in the morning. And we stay there until 6 or 7 at night. And this time of year, all we're doing is statistics and in the office talking to hunters and getting prepared for the fall, which is what we're all doing. Kind of what we're here for today. Talk about Western Big Game hunting strategy. So just in the interest of time, because we realize everybody's got to go somewhere tonight. There's a banquet and things like that. We're going to keep it right at an hour. Not maybe talk about a lot of what we do at Epic Outdoors.

We're going to make the general assumption that a lot of you maybe know that. But if you don't, there's maybe time after that. Or we have a booth out here in the exhibit hall. You can come and talk about our magazine service or license application service and whatnot. Really what we want to talk about is a quick overview of hunting the West. And we're going to talk maybe about how hunting now in the 21st century, 2020 decade, I guess, is different. Drawing tags are tough. Sometimes you have to make more with less. We're ourselves talking about that as we draw tags. We're going to go through a lot of slides today to talk about a lot of the draw tags and opportunities we've had. But after you draw a tag and you're back in the pile, so to speak, it's a little more daunting to just say, I want what I had before when it's a 20-year wait.

Making more with less, whether that be general season tags or being willing to eat tags. Don't be afraid to go hunting. You might have heard a little bit about us talk about that theory. A lot of people are maybe the points almost hold you hostage at times. And people are afraid to use them, afraid to push their chips to the middle of the table and say, I'm going to hunt my guts out, you know, within reason. You pick the right year, pick the right season dates, things like that. But try to get the most out of what you got. But be willing to live with the results. There are no guarantees. Yeah, as Adam's talking about, I can't believe the number of people coming up to the booth and how many points you all have. Not just you guys. I mean everybody walking down that hallway. You'd be shocked. We're talking 15, 20 points plus one after another, after another, after another.

And I feel like part of that is what Adam's talking about is people are afraid to push their chips to the center. We've had guys come in. They've got 15 points applying themselves or 20 points applying themselves. And they hire us to do their applications. So we get to make those choices a little bit. And they, it's almost like when they hit send on, you know, as far as applying for themselves, they just don't have the confidence to hit send. But if we do it, maybe we ratify that choice. And I understand it. It's their little savings account. And here I am. I'm going to buy a house. But maybe I'm not sure if there's sinking problems. And maybe this part of the subdivision struggled and this didn't. And, you know, and so they don't do anything. And then the housing market keeps going up. And pretty soon they can't buy in. And that's with point creeps, the same similar situation.

We've got to be just using them. Having said that, nobody likes eating tags. They don't taste good. They don't feel good. We hate it. At the same time, that's part of the risk. It's part of the risk. It also makes a successful hunt that much greater. Arizona. Arizona's one of those states. We love Arizona. Having said that, tags are few and far between. They don't give us non-residents a lot of tags. And this is one of those prime examples of pushing my chips to the center. Had a maximum point. Here I'm going to be the one time. I might get a strip tag. I didn't go to the strip. I went to 12B. And a lot of you guys may know that. Did that. Didn't know that this deer was alive. But we knew another deer that was alive. Kid had found the sheds. He's a great hunter, great shed hunter. Knew that deer was alive. It was coming off the kayabab. Went for that. Couldn't find the deer.

Adam and I and the crew, Adam and I and another friend of ours, went out in the middle of the desert, drummed up this deer. This deer ran by Adam at like 50 yards or 75 yards, lip curl in a doe. We didn't even know what he was. I said, what is he adding? He's 32 inch, 215. I'm like, perfect. Let's kill him. And he turned out 270 inches. And I'm just saying that's just that was one of the successes of pushing the chips to the middle of the table. My only opportunity to have max points and not go and possibly go to the Arizona strip, the famous strip. And I didn't ever. I've never hunted the famous Arizona strip. But yet we made good on a tag. So there's those opportunities that come around that are maybe in non-traditional perfect areas. Having said that, it's an awesome area. We know that. But it was going out on a limb a little bit for me.

It is pushing them to the center and making good on that. You know, and if you're in a maximum point situation, it's a natural to say, all right, I'm going to hold to my stick to my guns. But Arizona deer, there's roughly 100 people left with maximum points, 23 points. And they're almost all lawn residents, if not all. And it's natural to say, I want what I want out of it. I see a head nodding back here because I know you got 23 points. So having said that, many people don't. Most people don't. We're talking 100 people in the world when we're talking about maximum point holders. So there's early season tags. There's coos deer tags in Arizona. You may have, everybody wants to hunt the strip in their life.

The reality of it, if you just say, that's what I want to hunt, and you don't have maximum points, you've got to be prepared to maybe never getting drawn for a deer tag in Arizona if you say, I'm going for the strip only. And if that's fine, if you have plenty of deer hunting opportunities in other places, it's fine to view Arizona that way. But there's other opportunities. There's, you know, there's coos deer. I had my son. He's only 13 years old. You know, it's hard to take kids sometimes on out-of-state hunts. I put them in for December. Coos deer hunt is an afterthought. You know, we went down the day after Christmas, got a great wife. My wife's here in the front. We sat there, me and my son. We opened presents Christmas morning, and we're just waiting for the nod like, hey, we can run out of the house. And we got that finally. About noon, we were gone.

Christmas Day, we drove down, and we had until the 31st. You've got the last five days. But had an awesome opportunity on there. You've got to just sometimes, you know, especially in the mule deer world in Arizona, there's some reservations down there that I've been able to draw tags on. But my boy just got lucky and drew a random tag. You know, it can happen. You know, the elk application period just ended here this last week. And Arizona's known for big, big bulls. And it's another one of those things which, you know, a handful of years ago, Arizona made a change. Non-residents can draw 10% of the total unit tag quota. And for many years, when they draw the maximum point draw first, which allows 20 total percent of the tags to go to maximum point holders, all of the non-resident quota would be met in that maximum point draw, leaving no random tags.

And the equity or fairness and all that was kept talked about and kept talked about. And so it was changed that hunter tag unit, non-residents can get 10. But no more than five of those can be issued in the maximum point field. The other five have to go randomly. What that did to strip hunters, what that did to early rifle or archery elk hunters wanting to draw the best units, was it doubled your rate of point creep. You know, now you're instead of taking six strip tags, 13 B tags a year, you're taking three. Or now instead of taking all 10 early archery tags out of unit 9 or 10, you're taking five. And so what we're saying is when changes, things like this happen, you've got to be able to adapt. And I had my heart set on unit 10. I really wanted to hunt 10. I'd gotten lucky and drawn a random antelope tag down there, and I wanted to hunt unit 10.

But I burned them on 27, pushed the chips to the table, killed a great bull, had a great time. And Jason, he'd burned his elk points maybe 15, 20 years ago on an early rifle. So he's back in the, you know, kind of the points chase. And, you know. Yeah, I've been able to draw two elk tags in Arizona. Did an early rifle in one, did an archery in one. And had great hunts, killed 350, 360-something, 355 bull with a bow. And anyway, I'm like 360-something on the first go-around. But what a great opportunity. And now I'm applying for late archery. And I laughed. When they came out at the late November archery hunt, I'm like, who does that? I mean, good grief. But these late archery hunts are before the late rifle in many cases. I get to hunt the first broken bulls, right? I get to hunt the bulls. Obviously, we're going to hunt broken bulls post-rut.

But at the same time, there's not that many tags. And there's an opportunity to go in there and draw with eight points or less, right? Five points. And so now I'm doing that. Now, I know I'm an idiot. And I'm going to have a tough hunt. I'm signing myself up for a tough hunt. The weather's amazing this year. We're expecting an off-the-charts antler growth year. What else am I going to do? I can wait. And I can possibly draw another archery tag. Or I can go now, point boost with a friend. He's got less points than I do. I help him out a little bit. Maybe we go hunt together. That's what we're going to do. So maybe another third tag coming my way. I don't know. We'll see how the draw plays out. But anyway, there's just, I guess, like Adam was saying, to do more with less. That was not a viable opportunity when it first came out in my mind.

You're not supposed to hunt elk with a bow in November. And now that's what I'm doing. So I guess our mindset's changing a little bit. We've also learned how to hunt elk late. We all, I mean, there's a lot of, things change. The optics change. We're aggressive. And we're also willing to put a little time in. People have a little time and money. And they're willing to just really sink their teeth into some of these, quote, once-in-lifetime tags. And making good on tags that are otherwise not great. But they're in great units on great moisture years. And so, anyway, just taking that leap of faith to try to get something good out of something that's not so great. Many of you know I killed a desert ram in Arizona. I had 22 points. So it was a random, it was a random tag. It was, I had 22 names in the hat plus that year's application. All fine and dandy. Still very tough, long drawing odds.

Non-resident tags are given 10%. We're talking nine tags. I get one of the nine. But I go in a unit that was first open to non-residents. If there's two tags or more, that's something that we can, as non-residents, can apply for. 16A, 18B opened up with two non-resident tags. Just so happens I lucked out. There wasn't a lot known about 16A, 18B. Still not a lot known about it. They were given one tag. A lot of the success rates, and Adam and I have talked about this in podcasts, success rates and size is predicated upon whoever happened to draw. And who knows how hard they hunted the unit. And so what you see on paper may not always be indicative of what the quality really is. However, this particular unit we did see on the checkouts, you know, 170 rams at six years old, five years old, 170. And so we're like, man, there could be something real special there.

Went there, grinded it out with Adam. We spent a lot of time in a matter of three or four days. Felt like we had classified what half of what the Arizona Game of Fish figured the population was. And settled on what we felt like was the best ram we had seen. Wasn't the genetics-wise, look-wise, didn't have the look. I wanted the fister-twister, just amazing, sexy ram. You know, just one of those, ugh. And that's not in that unit. However, he did have 17-inch bases, was 34 and 6-8s long, and went 183 net. So anyway, ended up with a great ram, but on a less-than-perfect tag. Nobody would have known that that unit might produce that or have that capability. Yeah, that's right. We've been a part of some other hunts down there on sheep hunts. But in the interest of time, you know, I mentioned this earlier. I drew a random antelope tag in Arizona.

I think it was probably 10 or 12 years, maybe 15 years into applying. Jason gave me a hard time one time at the office and just said, you're not spending the extra $7.50 at the time, $7.50, to apply for antelope. Now it's $15. I'm like, no, I'm just not that into him. But he guilted me into it. And six years later, I drew a random tag in one of the best antelope years down there and killed a giant antelope. And we still talk about it. Just an afterthought. You buy a license in Arizona. You're in 160 bucks now, $15 per species. Their antelope tags are literally about like sheep tags. Jason drew a sheep tag in a random draw. I drew one in 800 like antelope. And I drew an antelope tag. I would rather the sheep tag. But hey, I killed the big antelope. Probably the biggest I'll ever kill in my life. Stuff happens when you don't expect it. And apply and to some extent, forget about it.

So, you know, we probably get more calls. Not probably. We do get more calls probably from Colorado deer hunters wanting to burn points perhaps than any other thing we can sold about all year long. Part of it is the great genetics for mule deer in Colorado. Part of it is that since they went, you know, into the late 90s unit by unit draws in the early to mid 2000s, it was phenomenal fast. It got high buck doe ratios. They were probably under, not probably, they were under hunting what they had. Because remember, they were going from over-the-counter tags, you know, and, you know, just go buy them like you can the elk to, oh, let's try to set tag quotas and what we feel like we should have. A lot of them, they underestimated probably what they could have taken. And some elk or deer hunting got really, really good. So we, you know, we spent as much time as we can.

And once we started hunting that in like 2004 for me, Jason, probably around the same time when it started getting good, Colorado became something we tried to do as often as we can. And they have a landowner tag program. You know, you could draw tags a lot better back then, but it's become, it's become a situation now where points and the quality of the deer in Colorado, as they've increased tags collectively and, and the qualities generally come down, you have some hard winters, got CWD places in the state that the state's been real aggressive trying to increase harvest just to minimize the spread of that. Thread of wolves now coming into Colorado in the next few years. It's like a lot of pressure on mule deer, big, you know, big mule deer hunters. It's tough. So it's kind of changed now, 2020, our perception on Colorado mule deer hunting. Everybody should be doing Colorado.

Having said that 2019 was the worst season we'd seen in Colorado. We've had less submissions, less big deer. We ate tags. Not so fun. Kind of frustrating. We're watching season date changes. We're, we're, as you guys know, it's going to turn really late in 2021 and everybody's nervous that they're going to finish off what they, what's left, the bit of quality that's left. And, and we, it's hard on us. We, we, we love to kill deer in the rut. We freaking love it. We love seeing giants lip curling. Like, but that's not smart management to hunt deer in the rut. We're hunting a pre-rut, mid-rut, post-rut. But, um, there's just so many pressures with it and at some point it's catching up. Even with the mule deer factory that Colorado is. So, you know, we still going to do it? Absolutely. Going to do it every year if we can.

We've hunted, you know, 21, 22, uh, 44, Gunnison, Swatch, a lot of these different units. Adam's hunted 70, 71. I mean, we've just done a lot in Colorado and we love it. It's incredible. I'm just saying it's hard. There's no perfect answer in Colorado. You can kill great bucks on second choice tags. A lot of you have done it. We've done it. Um, and so use your points often. Don't hold and hold and hold and hold. I had, I, I bet you I've had 10 guys today with 13 to 17 points come to the booth and want to know what to do. And I don't have the right answer. Maybe you do something that you can almost get or be glad you got 67, had a great year. 67 third. Maybe you wait. If you get it, great. If you don't, 2021's now got late dates. Let's have a new plan. And so there's just a lot of things in Colorado. A lot of variables depends on your, you know, second season, 2021 might be a great season.

It ends November 7th. So those are things going through my mind. Um, worst case scenario, we do 2021 with your points. Um, but after that, no promises like Adam's talking about CWD. They're now given extra tags when they know it's not good for, uh, age class because of CWD, uh, as well as, um, season dates and different things. Wolves are coming up. Obviously we had a podcast on that. And so we're just, I hate to paint a grim picture, but we've seen what we've all seen what it can do. Mid 2000s. We're all waiting for mid 2000s, waiting for that snowstorm, waiting for this, waiting for this. Maybe the deer just aren't there. Maybe they're not there. We haven't had a good year for how many years? And we've had a couple of rough winters, 16, 17, things like that. And this year, Kremlin's got covered up, covered up all the sagebrush and we're looking for another storm by Monday.

I'm just saying there's just no right answer. Um, which is what we're trying to talk about, about making more with less. Maybe, maybe we go more often and, uh, and try to do something special over there. Adam and I came in one day and I told Adam, I said, I contend Utah general was better than the state of Colorado. We, we had a two 33 net on the floor in the office the other day, officially scored. We've had, I don't know how, four or five, two 15 pluses. There's just, and so all of a sudden you start going, wow, that does paint a pretty good picture of the quality in Colorado. And it's not that again, we're guests in their state. We're non-residents. We just have seen what it can do. And so it's just a little disheartening. Having said that, we're part of the problem. Yeah. We're telling people to hunt in the rut with a rifle because it's an amazing opportunity.

Well, and adapt, you know, it's, if you have 18 points, 20 points, they are holding you hostage. Now there's probably not something that that's worth that. Um, you can, you know, buy points only and wait for another five years and hope something changes, or you can push your chips to the table, go get the best time you can and take what may take it as it is. And, uh, be glad maybe at the end that you don't have those points around your neck anymore, sinking you, holding you hostage, you know, making you whole thoughts for all of your fall, um, revolving around it. I just don't know that Colorado in the near future, I don't foresee it getting tremendously better. I don't want to be, but, but the genetics are there. They can grow big deer. And our contention, if you go more often, even on moderate to average units, if you can

label them that way, you'll probably find success with the kind of deer you're looking for more often than once every 15 or 20 years. Um, elk, we're going to breeze right through that. It's a terrible, uh, bottleneck, especially for non-residents when it comes to the trophy elk units. They simply do not give enough trophy elk tags in Colorado being a preference point, um, situation, meaning no random draw hybrid draw that they have only really applies to residents. Non-residents aren't drawing that for deer and elk. So if you're a trophy elk hunter, don't consider it. Jason and I have each drawn one elk tag in our life in Colorado. Um, both, both in unit 40, somewhat close to the Utah, Colorado border. Um, you know, we don't base, base elk plans around it. We still build points. I can't tell you what I'm going to use my elk next elk points for.

I may, may not, I'm building them, but this is what it is. Jason, he's company and a buddy of his, Roger Smithson on a goat. Um, they made some changes to their, their sheet, moose and goat draw a couple of years ago. They allowed everybody to apply instead of sending a paper check in for over two grand and all that. It was like, apply $3 you're in and the whole world stampeded to those three species. And we were disheartened because you had to fill out a paper application and send them a check for the previous 20 years. And it kept things somewhat in check. Um, the next year they kind of went, went back the other way, made you start buying a hunting license, a hundred dollar point fee. I'm sure that stopped it. But, uh, those three species are great hunts in Colorado. I do think there's still a big surge of applicants ready to hit that applicant pool.

Cause you got to build three points, uh, preference points before you're in a draw on the fourth year for those species. Little hard to maybe tell you to say, start that today. That's a great idea at a hundred bucks a species. So we love Idaho. Idaho makes you choose sheep, goat, or moose. If you do one of those three, you can't do deer, elk, and antelope. Uh, Adam and I each year, some years I'm doing deer, elk, and antelope. Some years I do sheep. Um, good, great drawing hunts for sheep. Our members draw a lot of the sheep tags, uh, in the state of Idaho. I, I, I played the super tag. That's how I killed that big deer. Super tag allows you to hunt open seasons with that weapon. That was a unit 45 buck with a rifle just in the regular draw season. Um, I've, I've drawn a couple of super tags. I played that raffle pretty hard before it got way popular.

And, um, went up and I've hunted the chalice and some of these better units. And I just got to learn a lot about some of the different units in the state of Idaho. Um, Adam's kid drew a youth tag on actually a secondary draw. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Jason's kid too. We've taken our kids up there. It's a state where you can take kids now when they're, when they're 10. It's not a point state. So it's not really one you need to be on top of like Arizona, which allows you to put, uh, your kids in when they're 10 years old and build points for New Mexico doesn't have an age as long as they have hunter safety, they can apply there in Idaho. So, but you know, uh, first year my kid could hunt, uh, in, in Utah, I drew Utah tag. We took him to Idaho. He drew that Jason, I think probably was that Justin's first button. Justin's first button.

You know, Utah and a lot of the other states are 12 and everything else opens up at 12. But, um, it's a great state to be able to take your kids up and take them hunting. Daughter drew an antelope tag last year. Once again, uh, some years I apply solver sheep based on my schedule and, uh, how I'm feeling that year. Um, for kids, I generally play the deer, elk and antelope because they get three entries to draw something versus one sheep entry. Again, if you do sheep, Mr. Goat, that's kind of it. They got, they get good quality hunts for pretty much all species. Uh, Jason drew a Shire's moose tag. Uh, this is the same year he drew that tag in Arizona. We, we each put in for, yeah, for a deer tag. And we each put in for the Northern Panhandle at the time for the wolves had crushed them quite so bad. Uh, he drew a tag November 15th.

That deer probably started around the 20th and we're like, Oh geez, how fast can we go up there and kill a moose? How fast can I get the once in a lifetime over with? So we go on deer. And, and that's what, and that's what it boiled down to went up there. It was a 42 incher again, not a great bull, right? You saw it. Um, having said that they're not rutting. We just, we went up there, did it. It was good. Um, and so when you see the statistics, that's a 42 inch Shire's. You think, man, when you're looking at the season, pretty legit, not necessarily. So, you know, uh, but at the same time we did it, it was awesome. Uh, no problems, got down, killed a deer. That was even better. And so anyway, great, great opportunities in Idaho. One thing about Idaho, the first choice counts. That's it. And how awesome is that? It helps keep our drawing odds low. We like Idaho. There's no point system.

You do have to buy a hunting license to apply. Um, but we're a fan. We're a fan of it. Now, could their management be better? Could their deer be better? Have, have they been better? Can their elk, are their elk under, you know, siege, so to speak? Yeah. All those things, right? And we're all dealing with that in all the states. All the states are a little bit suppressed as far as quality. Having said that, we apply in Idaho. Um, there's some great opportunities. There's a ton of elk opportunities. There's velvet hunts. I talked to the guy today, killed a 400-inch bull on the, on the velvet hunt. Uh, in Idaho, and not, and not in Unit 54, right? Because there's no velvet hunt there. So I'm just saying, um, there's so many different opportunities. There's these late December hunts. Again, not a great time to hunt elk, so to speak. We've been out there.

I've hunted 42, and there's herds of hundreds of elk out there. It's pretty impressive. And so making more with less. There's so many opportunities. You take something off the side. Again, you're not burning any points. Why not hunt there as many times as you can? Go kill stuff. While you're, while you're saving your points in Arizona, saving your points in Colorado, whatever, smash and grab Idaho as many times as you can. Because you're giving up nothing. You're giving up the price of a tag. And so we get kind of aggressive in Idaho. Uh, it's not, not risking the farm. So go off to them. Yep. Obviously, when these, when the wolves came off the endangered species list, it was something that was on our radar right off. You know, who doesn't want to have that opportunity? We went up there. Jason went up there, uh, first and, and smashed one.

And we're like, holy cow, that can, you can actually kill one. There's no recipe to killing a wolf. You just go try. You go be out there where, you know, wolves are target the big, uh, herds. Well, not big. You go to the elk herds and you target them on the winter range. Um, obviously they're a little bit naive back in the time. You could maybe how them, get them a haul, uh, call. Mainly you're just glassing them up. You're getting in an area, you're cutting tracks, you're finding some wolf sign. You just got to get lucky. You know, we've been up there before. I mean, uh, Jason, I think you killed them the first time I went up there the first time and killed one. And then my brother who's sitting in the back, I think it took him like 18 days over two or three years. And now he's crushed a couple there and a couple, you know, he's killed four. He's killed a couple in Alaskans.

So it's, you just gotta, it's another opportunity to get out of the house in the winter to go, uh, go try to kill wolves. And, uh, we did a great podcast on that a couple of weeks ago too. Uh, they're definitely not as naive, not, they're not dumb. They're incredibly intelligent animal, but it's something to get a house in the winter. And one of my most valuable trophies for the rest of my life will be, be wolf. There's nothing like the feeling of killing a wolf. So if you want to do it, you should go. It's unbelievable, but what an incredible trophy. Does that mean we want them? No. We have a ton of respect for them. It was amazing to see the damage. Um, again, like Adam saying, you, you're glassing them and whatnot. Track sign. We were howling. Um, and the feed, you follow the feed. They like to kill stuff. So we just saw the big herds of elk.

And pretty soon you can tell when there's a wolf around because they're all staring in one direction and they're herded up like a school of fish. Um, so, and then we, we did a podcast with a guy who didn't like to shoot long range because people get wound up and miss and train them. And pretty soon they get harder and harder to kill. Uh, but we shot ours long range. We want to shoot them when we see them and, and, and have good rifles. And so, you know, I shot that first one at 722 yards and freaking awesome. The best thing ever. Adams was five, six, five 30 or something. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, off the wolf subject, but it's fun to kill them. Kansas will breeze through that really fast. Um, it's, it's a state, you know, a lot of the people that live in the West, you know, you can go to Montana, you can go to Idaho, you can go to Wyoming, um, Eastern Colorado,

but Kansas and Iowa are kind of some of the states that some of us think of maybe about hunting trophy, um, trophy white till deer. Um, they do have either species there. The mule deer tags are hard to get kind of a, you got to get a white till tag through the draw first. You're on the hook for 400 and some odd dollar white till tag. Then they'll throw you into random stamp for a mule deer to make an either species tag. Um, I've been out there only once killed a really good mule deer. You know, Jason's been there. He's killed a white tail. It's not something we base our fall around, but for, for us that live in the West, um, it's a state you should probably look at at some point hunting. If you don't have a closer, uh, opportunity to go hunt, uh, white tails in Wyoming, Montana, you know, Idaho. So, uh, speaking of Montana, this is a, uh, an old pitcher, 2003.

Uh, once a lifetime species, they drew a mountain goat up there, had a great time. Um, didn't know what we were doing, but it's one of those that you start applying for not knowing if there's ever an end in sight. You know, you just, you just forget kind of like sheep tags, goat tags aren't as hard, but they're just, just about as hard. Created a great tag, great memory, drew a tag. You probably shouldn't have drawn. Um, math tells you when you're one in 50 or a hundred odds or 200 odds that that's not enough years throughout your life to probably draw it, but somebody's going to. And, uh, if it's within your means and, uh, you can wrap your head around it. This is obviously early on in their point system. I had started at the ground floor. Now it's 20 years into a point system that's squared. It's probably a little harder to justify towing a first timer to start applying for moose,

uh, or goats or sheep. Um, we've been up there a couple of times, hunted elk. It's not a state. We, we build points for archery elk hunting to like Missouri breaks. We also apply for bighorn sheep, Jason and I. It's kind of the Holy grail dream. We've all seen Montana rams our whole life. It's never happened for us. It doesn't mean we're going to quit trying it's one of those we simply apply for and hope, but we don't. You know, when it happens, you react and make a plan. Archery elk, they have general season, uh, deer and elk tags that do have to be drawn as a, as a non-resident. Archery elk hunting there can be really, really good. A lot of times you need to have access to, or some of the private land or really work, uh, onyx maps, your GPS, uh, in the central or eastern part of the state.

We're going to make that a more of a priority in our lives because we can do it every three to five years. We're talking about archery elk tags in Arizona taking 15 to 20, Utah, 15 to 20. Some of these other states, Montana, three to five, three to six years. So keep that in mind. It's not as easy. You do have to work with an onyx or you do may have to hire an outfitter. You can hunt there often and hunt big bulls. There's a bottleneck. We're talking about sheep real quick, Montana, before we get into more fun stuff like deer. Um, but there is a bottleneck on Rockies and it used to be deserts. We couldn't get desert tags. How do you get desert tags? And now with Mexico and different, like different opportunities, the bottlenecks are rocky. Uh, and, and you got even guaranteed tags as a lot of us know in Canada and whatnot, you're dealing with 25% kill rates or 30% kill rates.

In many cases, I'm not saying there's not a few guys doing great. They are. Um, but, but it's hard to find a good Rocky tag. So like Adam's saying, it's again, we're not taking, we're not planning vacation and family trips to Montana to go scout a sheep unit because we know the chances are slim to none that we'll get drawn. Somebody does get the tags and we apply most everywhere. There's an opportunity to get a Rocky tag. We do have max points. Max, max Rocky points. Doesn't necessarily mean anything. Uh, gives me more names in the hat squared system. Can't give it up because the bottlenecks there. It's so tough to, but you can't even hardly buy your way in. Um, Nevada. This is a deer I killed this year with a muzzleloader tag. I drew, drew the tag. Place I'd never really hunted before. I've never drawn a tag there before, but it's kind of forcing us to look outside the box.

Am I ever going to draw a 240s tag? No, I'm going to have to buy my way in and buy a landowner tag. Not averse to doing that. I've done it many times. I'm a huge fan. The landowner tag system, you can hunt archery, muzzle, rifle. Uh, so if that's part of your plan, it's in your finances, do it. It's awesome. Um, that system may go away at some point and maybe they make you choose your season or whatever. It's pretty cool to be able to hunt archery, muzzle, rifle. A lot of enjoyment. August 10th, generally till November 5th or October 31st or whatever. Depending on the particular unit, you can hunt every single day. Pretty cool. Uh, this, this was a September. I didn't even hunt the first week. Had trail cameraed it really hard. You can't run cameras after August 1st. Knew the deer was in the area. Um, was, was helping a good friend of mine, uh, in a better unit and hunting bigger deer

and couldn't get the deer killed. He took a break. I went and spent a couple of days with, with good friends, located this deer right off the bat and, uh, open site muzzle or killed him. So anyway, just, uh, Nevada is such a, I mean, August 10th, what else is going on? I mean, it's, it's an awesome archery state. We love it for, for that reason. Uh, they don't give very many tags in the muzzle season. Most of them start September 10, go to October 4th, big, long seasons. You're kind of out there by yourself. It's hot and dry and miserable, but at the same time, there's great deer roaming around, especially on wet years like this. So anyway, we love Nevada. It just, the, the drawing odds are tougher and tougher and tougher. And so now it's forced us to look outside the box, miserable country, but we're finding there's big deer and lots of units.

And what's nice about, um, Nevada is you got Vegas and Reno, but really there's not a lot of population base in between. And so there's a lot of untapped country. It's giant. And what drew me to Nevada for years and years was being by myself. I got to go be with me and the deer by myself for long periods of time. And it's, it's so addicting. And so anyway, spent a lot of time in Nevada. Love it for many reasons. Squared point system, all five choices count right now. They're looking at changing that, but all five choices count. And so you get to scroll in a couple of the top few units and then kick in for what you might accept or be willing to accept, uh, you know, as your fourth and fifth choice. Great state for kids. It's cheap, super cheap hunting license fee to go ahead and start getting them points. Get your kids points. They need them. They have to have points. Get them points.

It's cheap. And what a great opportunity. This is my niece. She drew a tag, uh, in a resident only unit. Um, it was, it was, it was, it wasn't an awesome hunt. It was freaking hard. Um, they were, there wasn't a lot of sheep. It was kind of odd. There was a lot of moisture this year. Spread the sheep out. I don't know. It felt like we saw 50 caliber cases everywhere around guzzlers, uh, from helicopters and different things, doing maneuvers and having fun out there. Kids, young kids having fun. Um, kind of felt like maybe they had been displaced. I don't know. Right. We'll never know. But that was tough. Uh, that was a tough hunt. Just barely happened. We killed that ram in January, but what a great opportunity. And, uh, one of those places, a guy might draw a desert in his life. Yeah. You know, desert sheep, you know, they're just as hard as they ever were to draw a tag.

There's more places. If you've got some finances to go buy a tag to do that, you know, with, uh, Sonora, you know, and the other, uh, states in Mexico to do that. But, uh, Nevada gives more desert sheep tags to non-residents and all the other states combined. That doesn't mean they're easy to draw. A lot of people will make that claim of 28 to 30 non-resident desert sheep tags a year, which is true and that, that naturally should be a state that you consider applying if you need a desert sheep. A lot of people think that same way and the odds aren't great. One in six to 800,000 plus, um, they're not easy to draw just because they have a lot of sheep. They issue over 300 sheep tags a year, um, for, for desert sheep, roughly 10% going to non-residents. Um, we've been able to, you know, be on some fun hunts down there with, uh, people that are

those lucky ones, whether they're licensed application clients, some friends, Jason's family, things like that. It's, it's an awesome state should be, it's kind of like, uh, um, you know, the Arizona and Nevada are to desert sheep, what Montana are to Rocky mountain big hornets where, um, you know, they, they grow beautiful, uh, desert big horn sheep in Nevada, some awesome hunting opportunities. They're just some incredible Rams. Um, and, uh, it's another one of those states. If you're going to make the commitment to start applying in Nevada by the hunting license, you know, 10 to 15 bucks per species, you should be doing more than just, you know, deer. It's a great deer state. It's a lot to spend 175 or $85 to apply just for deer. And for 30 bucks more, you get an elk and a sheep point too. So, um, anyway, it's a great, you know, Jason's boy this year antelope.

They got some great antelope in, in Nevada. Uh, you know, beat some long odds, they grow some big bucks for antelope, not easy to draw an antelope tag in Nevada. But if again, you apply for antelope cause it's cheap to add on and forget about it. So moving on to New Mexico, um, probably without question, the number one species that most people think about as far as, you know, their sheep are awesome. And we think about big deserts and Rockies. There's just not a lot of them down there. And when it comes to elk, uh, that's probably what most people think about. Kind of like Idaho, no point system down there in New Mexico. You can apply accordingly every single year differently. Um, I usually apply, I, I, I normally favorite of an elk with a bow in the rut, mainly because that's fun, right? Some years my schedule in September with what I have personally lined up doesn't line up,

doesn't line up. So they got their rifle and muzzleloader hunts in October, November. It doesn't matter. I view every year differently in New Mexico. Some years are the same year to year, but I just wipe the slate clean. Look at my slot that fits best. I generally still apply for units that I can, I can go hunt three 50 plus bulls. You know, Jason's somewhat the same. Um, if we're going to, you know, invest the time to hunt elk, both of us probably enjoy it. Not probably do enjoy hunting mule deer more in maybe a two or three States. And if we get an elk tag, we want it to be a good one. That's just me personally. Um, other people are different. They want to hunt archery elk in three States and only hunt mule deer if they get one great tag. Uh, I view New Mexico more of a, of a three 50 plus bull hunt.

I apply that, but I apply totally different every year based on moisture, which last year was great. Um, Jason's drawn some awesome elk tags down there as well. Killed some awesome bulls. And we're, we're, we're wanting to go, go weird places. We both drawn some units and, and, and that weren't proven. I mean, I drew a unit last year. I never had a rifle tag ever. It's had some archery tags for the last 10 years or so, but they put 10 rifle tags for the first time ever, ever in there. And I made that my first choice cause it was an October hunt. October is better for me. I drew the only non-resident tag in my, in my pool. I shouldn't have drawn it. I shouldn't have drawn the tag. Odds are I shouldn't have drawn it, but somebody is going to get it. And you can just, uh, apply in New Mexico. Forget about it. Jason drew a great tag here.

He's drawn three or four killed some of his best bulls. So I think we'll get to those here in a minute. Here's a great archery bully killed. Uh, Chris, who's in the room somewhere filming over here, Chris has killed a couple, a couple elk too on some of the day. Some of these oddball units, they get three choices down there. All are valid. A lot of times we'll put something like I did last year, my first choice. Maybe that's the tag I'd really want, but then put something that's maybe less proven, but might have a big bull in it and put that as your second or third choice. Um, there's an awesome three 80 plus bull. Jason will come to another. So maybe tell them about your general approach when it comes to elk as well. I guess over the course of time that we all have, there's always been the favorites in Arizona. For example, you know, nine and 10, 23, one 27, whatever.

There's certain units all the time forever that are good. 44 in Colorado for deer, but there's so much more out there. And I think that's what we're our mindsets has changed the last five to 10 years because we're forced to because tags are premium and they're super tough to draw. So that's a unit 38 bull or, or a unit 23 that I kill. Like there's some weird stuff that still has great potential. The one thing we like about New Mexico is the bulls aren't named, you know, here in Utah, we got so much pressure guides, whatnot. We name them, we follow them, we pick up their sheds and, and in New Mexico, it's just not that way. There's bulls. People don't know about, and they're awesome. There's bucks. People don't know about there's Rams. People don't know about, and we love New Mexico. We love it for a number of reasons. No point system, three choices on the application.

Um, you can do, you can do things and not sweat it price of a tag and a little time and maybe a guide fee. And so there's just opportunities. What's funny. I ate a 16 D tag best unit in the state, arguably. 16 A, 16 D, 16 B. I've hunted 16 B and 16 D as in dog, and I ate them both. I haven't ate a 23 tag. I haven't ate a 38 tag and killed 380 bulls. Just interesting, right? But yet we could send our normal client base to those units, and they would think we send them to hell where there's no good elk. And so I think it's a mentality. There's not many good elk. I'm going to find the one that's here, and guess what? I'll probably hunt him by myself because there's not many tags. And that's what, that's kind of the case that's happened. The nuances, the little changes mean big animals at times. We have a few new changes in Utah. That's what we're keying in on. A few new seasons.

You're the first guys in there. The first four years. It's awesome. Now those deer that migrate or whatever are going to have been hunted. Cream's a little age off them. Things change a little. This bull, we just happened to be riding on the four-wheeler on a two-tracker, and the bull was breeding a cow on the road like October 13th. I mean, crazy. So you just never know what happens. I guess that's the kind of, New Mexico's a prime example of just taking advantage of little things, being willing to do different things. We put them in the magazine. We put the units in there. But we are realistic on, yeah, people expect a lot, I guess. And so it's hard not to send them to 16B, 16A, 16D, 15, 17, some of the traditionally best units. But at the same time, there's just great opportunities. This was a youth hunt.

I started applying, Sean, anybody that knows about podcasts and whatnot, my second oldest is sick for hunting. He's sick about it. He just lives for it. So anyway, I got him a youth tag, January 1, youth opportunity. What keyed into me was the youth success archery deer was like 40%, 45% kill. Like archery kids killing 45%. I'm like, my kid kill a deer. That kid's a killer. And that's his first archery buck. What an amazing experience. Had a 200-incher, 50 yards, and he can shoot 50, and he hit a branch, and it deflected the arrow, broke the arrow, went over, and we had fletchings, and he ended up with this deer. But at the same time, what a great opportunity. They have mobility impaired youth seasons that are incredible. The seasons are unbelievable. Rut elk hunts and different things. And so anyway, this is an auction tag. There was a good friend who went down there.

That's a unit 2C buck, BLM. Just proof that 280-inch deer can live on public land in BLM in crappy country. And what an amazing experience. Great opportunity. Tag I'll never have. I got to go along, be there for the kill. I had nothing really to do with it other than I had to hand feed his rifle and find it a couple of times. But I didn't know the deer prior to getting there. The other guys that found it are super good at what they do. I guess for the last bit of this conversation, we got 10 minutes. I was wondering if we shouldn't just talk about 5, 10, 15, 20-year plans. The other guys is there are so many times. Adam and I, all day long in the booth yesterday, today, tomorrow, are going to be talking about plans. Like how to get you guys, how to get everybody, how to get us. Every day, Adam and I come in.

We waste about an hour just spewing to each other about weird opportunities and this and that and this and that. Which is reflective in our podcast and in our writing. You can only write so much. The podcasts kind of give you a feel for our personalities as well as different opportunities that we're thinking about that day. You just never know what you're going to hear on the podcast. They're unscripted. But you want to hunt often. Utah, for example, Utah General. It's general deer. They don't manage for giants. But we can build points for Utah General. We can build points for limited entry. We can build points for dedicated hunter. Dedicated hunter for non-residents, a little expensive. Grandish. It's a little expensive, plus buying the hours. But that allows you to hunt, muzzle, archery, rifle, till you kill a deer. Two deer every three years.

Just little things that might get you out hunting while you're saving for a Henry's, Ponce, Oak Creek, San Juan. Short-term plan with a long-term plan embedded in there. You know, different things like that. And so there's just plenty to do while you're gaining points or saving points. I think one thing you also keep in mind, like I said, it's 2020. And with a lot of these states that have had well-established point systems for a long, long time, there's newer, younger generation of people coming up looking to apply. We've heard about the strip their whole life. They're finally maybe in a position to start applying for maybe more than one or two western states. And you can get discouraged really fast if you just look at drawing odds of the best in every state you can. And so it's a different world we live in. What's opened our eyes to that to a large extent is our kids.

You know, as I have teenage kids, Jason's got teenage kids of hunting age. You see the hunting in 2015 to 2020 as we're applying them now through a totally different, you know, and of course kids are much happier with just having an opportunity to kill a legal bull, whatever. But also just the whole concept of what, how am I going to keep my kids involved in hunting? How am I going to get them hooked on hunting? But also then take them hunting more often. You're going to have to be willing to settle for less than maybe you did 20 years ago when every state was starting a point system. And you're on the ground floor. And now you're at 20, 20 plus points. These guys, Jason and I keep talking about that come to us in the booth. They can command a lot more. But as you burn those points, now you're back in the newbie seat, right? You're like, what do I got now?

You're going to have to be willing to accept less, go hunt more opportunity hunts like Utah General, Idaho General, one to three point deer units in Colorado. More opportunity out hunts where there's an occasional chance of the giant. Granted, it's hard for me to just spew that and have every, some of you might be saying, well, I don't want just little stuff and all that, I want big stuff. Okay, then you better be prepared for the other end of the spectrum. And that is long waits. And this day and age, 2020, there's going to be long waits. If you only want 350 plus bulls and 190 plus deer, there's going to be long waits. So be willing to adapt. Be willing to eat some tags. Be willing to, you call it fail, but you've seen picture after picture for us over the last 20 years. You might say, these guys kill something every time they go. That is not true. It's not.

We don't show you all of our piles of tags that are in my drawer at the house that I wonder why I'm keeping them. But maybe my kids will believe me that I hunt, you know, or whoever. Grandkids will say, hey, look, I didn't know you hunted here. That's right. I don't tell you about the places. I get my butt kicked. But I learned something. I learned that either I don't want to go there or the unit next door while I was there was awesome. And I went there the next time. You learn something just by hunting. You learn something by going out there, and you're going to have to be willing to do more of that in the 2020 decade. You're going to have to make more with something that is maybe perceived as a lesser tag. I agree 100%. And like I was in 16B. I found mule deer with cheaters, inlines, mass. Chris? Impressive. Coos deer.

And so here I am on an elk hunt, but I'm learning something about deer, and that deer tag's pretty easy to get. And so pretty soon, one thing leads to another, and that knowledge expounds upon knowledge. Now, if I go tell the guy, Steve, hey, 16B, that's your ticket. You would go there and hate me forever. And so it's a mentality. It's just a mentality, and our mentality is changing. I love the Utah general thing. This is why. I don't do it justice, and I've killed giants. I killed a 250-inch deer with a bow on a Utah general, 220, his buddy running with him. I haven't killed a deer since. I haven't really put any time into it. Like, that's my problem. And if I treated Utah general like I treat a landowner tag that cost me 10 grand in Nevada, I would be killing giants in Utah.

And I think this more with less, I'm not saying go out and get crap tags and drive around and get ticked that you're not seeing big deer. I'm just saying let's take the crap tag, treat it like an Arizona strip, put everything you got into it, and you might find that we're a little more successful. The one thing I like about some of these weird places is they don't have teams of hunters. We don't have teams of guides because they're crappy places. Now, I go to the Ponce and my wife's got 22 points in Utah. It's on my brain at the moment. She wants to kill a giant. I want her to kill a giant. But do I want to go compete with everybody with the high dollar tags you're going to see going tonight? Do I want to compete with those people that have hired hands and they're good at what they do? Or do I want to go have a great hunt with my wife and still kill a giant? Well, I want to do that.

So we're going to do something weird. And these weird things are where nobody puts the value in it. Nobody's going to hire a guide on general. They're going to go out and be weekend warriors. And there's giants being taken, as we all know, on some of these things because there's not the teams of hunters that are paid to be there. And so there's some big deer. And it all comes full circle. There's some of these places in Colorado. I'm looking to go back to some of these units. I mean, have we even heard of anybody talking about 61? That was one of the only places that were big deer existed. 61, 21, and 44. Nobody's talking about those units. There's a couple of big deer surfacing. And there's just some of these mindsets. And we're always willing to be moldable. Changing our plan. Changing our system. And we're self-checking all the time. Self-checking all the time.

Man, this last year sucked. I killed one animal. Killed one animal. I ate Wyoming. I ate Arizona. I ate New Mexico. I ate Colorado. I ate Utah. I killed a Nevada buck. And that's great. Everybody, man, you had a great year. Oh, yeah. I killed an animal. I killed a special deer. I did. But there was so much time and energy and money and everything else so, quote, wasted. But I learned tons of stuff. I learned where I don't want to go. I learned how I would do it different. And just one of those things that you've got to self-check and be willing to step out on a limb. Try something. If you're unsuccessful, it's not the end of the world. If you're unsuccessful on a desert sheep or Rocky Mountain Bighorn, probably still not the end of the world, but definitely less fun than some of these elk and deer tags that come a little more often. And so treat it.

I just think we treat some of these opportunities that come around like it's an Arizona strip tag, like it's a desert sheep tag. You're going to find more success. The more we put into them. When I run cameras, I tell people all the time. I run cameras. I love cameras. It's like Christmas. Every time I go check them, I freaking love it. But at the same time, if I don't check them very often, they got kicked by a cow, I'm only going to get out of it what I put into it. If I check them regular, make sure the batteries are good, they didn't get kicked, maybe a bush was moving, ruined it, whatever. The more I put into it, the more I'm going to get out of it. The more you put into your hunts, the more you're going to get out of them. Maybe that is hiring somebody. Maybe time is a problem. Maybe you don't have extra time. Maybe you do hire somebody.

Maybe you treat it like it was one of those special tags. Or maybe you spend more time. And we're self-checking all the time. And hiring guides, it's not the end of the world. It's hard to find local knowledge. Special tags only come around once in a while. And by the time you get done, you're going to know, but you're not going to be able to go back. Maybe you don't ever draw again. And so that local knowledge is hard to find. But if you're not going to go guided, we like to hunt places we can go regular. So we can expound upon that, hunt specific animals, name them, because we love to name them, and hunt those animals and be able to be really effective. Year one, not so effective. Year two, a little better. Year three, I'm cooking with gas. It's a tag we don't get very often. Maybe I cook with gas by hiring somebody that knows the rounds. That's right. Be adaptive. That's the 2020 plan.

You're going to hear a lot more about it. We try to include it in our magazine. In the interest of time, we don't want to keep everybody here all night long. I know we've got a banquet here starting. But if you get our publication, Epic Outdoors, you read our monthly columns in there, or you listen to our podcast, we're going to hammer that home. Not that you should listen to what we do, but I guess just from an awareness standpoint and a big picture standpoint. Now, granted, we have some. We have some. I mean, I cashed in my desert points last year, and some of you may have max points Arizona deer. We're not talking to you about going and push your chips to the corner and just hunt the early kaibab and take what happens. We're not talking about that. But we're talking to the masses. Remember, there's only a hundred of you.

There's hundreds of thousands of others looking at opportunities in the West. Don't be afraid to go hunting. And I know that sounds stupid. What does that mean? But some people are afraid to not have their hopes and dreams come true on every single tag with the moon right, the dates right, you know, everything perfect. And then they want to point guard at 16 times and hold on to them to the last minute. And I'm going to do it again next year. And you're going through agony again the next year trying to do it. That's kind of what we're trying to say. But do the thing, do your due diligence, pick the right things to fit your criteria they want. But as age increases or opportunities change or point group accelerates, you've got to change your plan. Have a 5 and 10 and 20-year plan, but be willing to mold it every year. So we've sit and visited with many of you already.

We appreciate you coming here today. We know it's just an off-the-cuff round, but we don't maybe have a long session for Q&A. If you have some questions for us and you're not going to be there the next couple of days, maybe we'll take a couple here while everybody else is leaving. But we appreciate your time and coming here today. Thanks a lot. Thank you.