EP 171: Nevada Dream Tag with Jack Robb of NDOW

And you know what? They've got some absolute joy. If I've got 10 shots left, I'm going to turn that 10 into 40 by putting in every chance I get into that. You can't win if you don't have a name in the hat. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson coming at you from southern Utah. It's hot, Bronson. It's freaking summer. Summer's here. That's right. It's not cooling off anymore. We haven't had a drop of water hit us from the sky in how long? It feels like a while. And that fire on the kaibabs raging. Where's it at? 70,000. Come on. 70K. Wow. Yeah. Pretty big. Hot and windy here. But the feet still looks good, but it is hot and windy. 71,000 this morning, but it is 33% contained. That's a major upgrade from the 4% that we've been. 40 mile an hour winds, you'd be at 10% again. Yeah. I don't know. Crazy. But anyway, kind of exciting times here in the office. This is the draw tag time. We're super excited as we go into this. We do want to talk about some theory, but before we do, we want to thank Under Armour. Appreciate them.

Their support. Mid-July, they're coming out with their line of clothing here for the 2020 hunting season. Anyway, July, mid-July is coming out. We do have a few 40% off coupons. I think old John's got a few of those. We were registering, letting everybody register to get a few of those on our website, epicoutdoors.com. 40% off coupons. Kind of cool. Kind of fun. We do want to get started with the fact that there was a lot of winners. Bronson, yesterday we had our hunt giveaway. There was a lot of winners, and I don't want to call them losers, but people that played that didn't draw. And we, ourselves, play a lot of things out there and don't draw. This has been a tougher year for me. I've got a couple things I didn't expect. The things I didn't expect to draw, frankly, forget about when you apply, is what I kind of have.

And the stuff that I was on paper, either 100% or, let's call it 50% to 100%. I didn't get any of those. You're terrible at drawing the 50% to 100% draw odds, and you're really good at the one in 100s. I don't know how. Anyway, just the way it works. You know, we've, you know, you got, we talked about it even with the family. We drew three antelope tags. Three kids. They wanted a husband and wife. Three kids all applied for the same antelope unit in Wyoming. But they didn't want to apply together because they wanted to go. They wanted five names in the hat versus one name in the hat, which is how group applications work on a random draw. But if your group number is pulled, of course, you all get five tags, but they didn't really want five tags. That's a lot to, that's a lot of smash. So, like, apply us individually, and if we get one or two, that'd be awesome. Right. Right.

So, the husband and wife didn't draw, but all three kids drew separately, individually, with odds were like one in 10. And they drew three of the four non-resident random tags. Unbelievable. And it's crazy math. I'm not a statistician. I took statistics back in college. That's where it stays. Well, oh, yeah. I did just enough to pass the test. But, I mean, it's very easy. I'm sure there's people listening to this can figure it out. I'm not going back to my books, and they're obsolete. But actually, statistics probably isn't obsolete because it's kind of stays the same. Books are obsolete. But, anyway, my point is, is sometimes stuff just defies odds. And then there's obviously the people that get a call from one state, and they drew a sheep tag, and then two, three weeks later, they call you again. They drew another random tag in another sheep state.

Or, you know, elk tags, deer tags of epic, you know, magnitude. How does this happen? And it's just chance, and it's just luck. And it's that time of year we're starting to become, we're staring it all in the face with what we have is what we have from draw tags. We're almost through. There's some second draws to clean up leftover tags and things like that. But with Arizona being the last pending biggie, if you want to call it that state. Which, pending is kind of an exciting word. Pending charges will happen Friday morning. That's right. It will. And so, for sheep and deer, it's going to be over here real quick for the losers. And the winners are all happy. I don't like the word losers, because I feel like a loser about 95% of the time. We are. But I guess today we're going to talk about the principle of at least having your name in the hat, and good things can happen.

I don't know how to. Well, think about this. Okay. You talked about this family that applied for the Wyoming stuff. How about Josh Horrocks applying? Josh Horrocks has a 1-8 shot. There was one tag drawn in the random for this particular tag in Wyoming, and he's the guy. He's always the guy. Him and his wife are always those guys. They draw. It seems like all the time, Bronson, but they apply for absolutely everything. They apply for stuff you and I don't. And then they draw, and then we're jealous. In certain states. Like, they just, you know, give us carte blanche, almost apply as you would yourselves. And even then some additional. That's right. Just get my names in the water. I mean, think about it. He drew the hybrid antelope in Colorado. He drew a unit three hybrid tag. I mean, it's rare that a non-resident gets a hybrid tag. And I think his wife drew that this year. She did.

She did. How about you and your goat tag in Alaska? And I can be jealous and say you've got arguably the number one draw tag for mountain goats for trophy goats. In the world. Okay? But I didn't apply. How can I be jealous? I didn't even apply. Yeah, that's right. And that's what I think. A lot of people look at the results of people. And they're like, how did they do that? How did they do that? If you wanted to see. What goes into it. What I. And when I say what I spend, it's not that I spend wazoo amounts. But I, you know, I apply a lot over, you know, 25 years. You know, and so there's going to be some years I hit it. I hit stuff. Last year, New Mexico. Of course, we both drawn fairly decent in New Mexico and killed some 380 bulls on draw tags in a state that doesn't have a point system. But there's no predictability to that.

And just like the goat tag or you drawing a non-resident desert sheep tag in Arizona. All right? We both drew desert sheep in Utah by earning them. You know, with the max point, you know, 50-50 split. We earned our Utah tags. They didn't. We didn't get lucky. You know, we earned them. There's other things like your desert sheep in Arizona. My goat in Alaska this year. The randomness of a lot of states, New Mexico, things like that stuff just happens. But you can't get lucky if you don't have a name in the hat. Well, and sometimes you put lots of names in hats. And in one hat even. We know a few guys that are drawn regularly on some of these raffles. Yeah. And regularly. And now they're not going to disclose how much they're applying because it's kind of one of those things. The hunter's motto is not to tell, you know.

Just show what we draw but not to tell about how it went about getting the tag. Sometimes it's a lot. They're really playing them hard. And then they win one or two or draw one or two. And it increases. They get bolder and bolder and bolder. And that kind of snowballs. And they end up with a few tags. But they're also playing it pretty hard. You don't accidentally draw a few of those. You kind of accidentally draw one here and there. That's right. So anyway, we kind of bring this up because there's people out there looking for things. Of course, we've got landlord tags. That's a guaranteed way. I spend money. I get a tag. You can do that. We have some of those available. We also find things for people that are hunts or tags or things that are special requests. Call us. We'll work on that. There's plenty of guys that are looking for things.

We've got plenty of hunts that we help people book each day. We've got Devin in our office. Of course, you and I, as well as Wyatt, and we're working hard at booking hunts for people and booking tags. So anyway, we just got done with our particular membership drive. It was super exciting. One that's coming up, Bronson, is the Dream Tags in Nevada. Those are basically like a PIW tag. Yeah. It's a statewide tag per species for, what, Cali, Desert, Derell, Antelope. Yeah. Did I miss any? I don't think so. Maybe there's a lion or bear, but for the sake of this podcast, we won't talk about those. I mean, just, if, anyway. No paws and claws. Yeah. Well, anyway. But it's basically, it's not like the Silver State Tag, which allows you to hunt August 1 through the end of the year, anywhere, any weapon. These are statewide tags, but you have to use the method open at the time.

Archery during archery. Muzzle during muzzleloader. Rifle during rifle. But you can unit hop. You can go anywhere. So, not quite a true statewide tag, but they're pretty freaking awesome. They're a dream. They are, and they are actually deer. They're a dream. Okay. Okay. So, deer, antelope, deserts, Calis, elk, and black bear. Okay. There is black bear. Yep. Wow. All right. Well, let's mention it. We just did. And you know what? They've got some absolute giants. They do. Right on the California border. Tahoe dumpster divers, I think. Those ones they have problems with. Yeah. West Reno. Yeah. They've got a few. Well, they've got people living in forests. And when you have people in forests and black bears that weren't being hunted there for a long time, you're going to have a few issues. And then you're going to have a few giants. And that's what's going on over there.

So, but it's, yeah, this is what we're talking about. It's the, you know, we've been a good partner with Nevada, partner with wildlife for years. And both from a regular, I guess, draw standpoint and the way they manage their wildlife. But here's just another chance, the dream tags, the deadline, June 30th, coming up here next week. And we have members draw these silver state or dream tags every year, usually multiple. I think we know two of the silver state tags are, you know, members, elk and antelope. I know we talked to at least two of those back when they came out after the regular draw. And then, you know, here's another round. But yeah, I think one question with some of these statewide raffles that often comes up is, all right, what's this money go towards? And in most cases, every state's a little bit different, but the percentage split, sometimes

these states have nonprofit groups, you know, 501c3 groups like, you know, the Mulder Foundation, the Wild Sheet Foundation. They market their tags, whether they have an auction arm or a raffle arm, they'll have those. And obviously, there's a usually a nominal percentage that they get to keep for helping market those and run the, you know, run the raffles or whatever. But there's a big chunk of that that's earmarked to go back to certain projects. And so that's one thing I maybe will bring up with end out of day. So yeah, it's pretty fun. We're gonna we're gonna give them a call here, but a pretty awesome opportunity. Those of you that are following along, if you're sitting at your desk, you can go to nvdreamtag.org, nvdreamtag.org and learn all the facts and figures on there. They've got lots of different there's even reports on their Bronson.

There's a little everything kind of talks about where it goes and whatnot. And then you can buy unlimited tickets. And like you said, you get to choose your you got to hunt within the season within the unit. But you can hunt anywhere and everywhere that there's an open season until you kill. So kind of an awesome opportunity there. True dream. Like you said, let's give our buddy Jack Robbins, see if he's even working. Deputy director. Who knows? Deputy director. And sometimes we catch him sleeping in a seat. We caught him. Remember that day after the deadline? We caught him asleep. He said, well, he said, sorry, guys, I would have replied, but I fell asleep. I'm like, were you still clocked in? You know, he's you know, he's unsour. I just like giving Jack a hard time. He can take it. He's from Tona Boss, so he's got to take a lot. Well, extra naps. This track.

Hey, did we catch you sleeping in the chair? Are you doing all right? I'm doing all right. And you? Good. We're doing good. Doing good? Yeah. Jason and Adam here at Epic Outdoors. What's new? I'm just trying to get offices open in these COVID times. Today's our first day of the front office, so. Is it really? Yeah. We're starting to get back in business. They got you with a temperature reader down there. Are you taking everybody's temperature as they walk in the door? Give them a little grief at, you know, as they walk in noon and before they walk out? Or what are you doing? No, we're, we have a doorman that's actually taking phone numbers and trying to keep people in their cars. Start their transaction while people are sitting in their cars. And then just have them in the office for a limited time for their safety and our staff safety. So. We're going to get through it. Oh, yeah. Good.

Well, we're talking about today, Carter and I have been talking about on the podcast, just the theory, the principle of hard to draw tags. Or raffles or things like that. Having your name in the hat. You can't win if you don't have a name in the hat. And that brought us to the topic of your dream tags. And that deadline's rapidly approaching early next week on the 30th, I believe. And just wanted to call and, you know, visit with you a little bit about that. We've talked about what they are, how they, you know, the species that they are around Nevada. You can hunt any open unit during the respective weapon season, you know, that's open at the current time. For deer, elk, antelope, bull sheep, and I guess black bear. And tell us, I guess, a little bit about the origin of that program. And what some of the monies may be used to and things like that.

Well, you know, I, I, I've thought about this program a lot. Not only this program, Silver State Tag and PIW. And I'm 53 years old and I look how many more times I have. How many years do I have left to get to the top of that mountain? And, uh, if I say, okay, 63, I got 10 years left to go hunt hard. And if I only put in for the one, you know, the regular draw, I got 10 times. But I put in for all these, I got 40 chances to get back to the top of that mountain. I'm going to take that 40 chances at any time. Man, that's sobering. 10 times. That's sobering. Yeah. You're not that much older. Yeah. I think you got 20 and that gives us 28.

It's just the fact of life. And I was born with a bad back. And I tell my wife, I won't see her for Thanksgiving because there's a sheep hunter in Elkut going on. And we can pretend Thanksgiving any day of the year. So I don't know how many more times I'm going to make it. So the more opportunities I can take to get into that game, I'm going to take them. So like I said, there's four opportunities in Nevada between Silver State, PIW and Dream Tag. And I load them all up. I load them up for my boys and my wife. She even puts in for PIW and Dream Tag and Silver State Tag for Bighorn Sheep just to increase those chances. These are fantastic programs, all of them. And people go, oh, it's just a money grab by the Department of Wildlife. And these programs did not start at the Department of Wildlife.

They started by sportsmen, concerned sportsmen, looking at the funding model and how departments are hamstrung in their funding. And these programs, Silver State and Dream Tag, were brought in the same legislative session. Both passed. And they are vital to wildlife management in the state. The Silver State money goes into the Heritage account. And that money comes out for projects administered and projects approved through the Wildlife Commission. They'll be doing that this weekend. PIW goes into that same account. But Dream Tag was brought forward by Judy Caron and Diane Belding. They pushed that legislation with Debbie Smith. And it is a raffle. All these other ones we speak about, you only get one chance. It's a Dream Tag. You can buy multiple chances and get in.

I think it's important, too, to mention it's not non-resident-resident specific, per se. We're non-residents. We can apply PIW deer, but we don't get PIW sheep options and things like that, although we can do the Silver State. Yes, correct. So for these Dream Tags, it's anybody's game with no limit, non-resident-resident-wise. Anybody's game. I'm looking last year. Montana drew the Antelope. Nevada drew the Black Bear. Wisconsin drew the California Big Horn Sheep. Texas guy drew the Mule Deer. Nevada guy did draw the Desert. And I'm going to get back to him here in a minute. But a Wyoming guy drew the Elk Tag. So Nevada people do have their fair shot at it. But non-residents, it's equal, equal. Like I said, this money is administered by the Dream Tag Committee. And they've really taken the stance to help the department in wildfire restoration. We can't budget for wildfire restoration.

So this money's become vital to be able to get seed on the ground, do habitat improvement after wildfire goes through to help out wildlife. When we had the government shut down a couple years ago, it was during a critical time that we needed to get seed on the ground. And the government wasn't giving us their money to get that seed on the ground. And we went to the Dream Tag and said, hey, we really appreciate you already gave us, you know, $250,000 this year. But we're going to need another $250,000 to get this done. They just, with no questions asked, gave us the money. And we were able to do great things for wildlife. These are vital to wildlife programs and wildlife management. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without them. And, you know, they were built around giving sportsman opportunity.

But this money, when these were built, are built to support vital programs and do great things for wildlife. Well, like some people want to say, oh, it's just a money grab. Yeah, that's what it's for. It's to raise money that's outside the normal revenue streams with all the either state or federal stipulations that state game and fish agencies are mandated on how to spend certain funds. These are separate from that so that they either have a separate committee that approves the way that they're spent or through the Wildlife Commission, like you said. But money's earmarked to do, you know, habitat, water development, reseeding, all that. So, yeah, they are a moneymaker. But they're all earmarked. And for a very small – you look at the tens of thousands of tags that you're issued collectively throughout Nevada,

you're talking an extra, let's say, five for the silver state and five or six for the dream, roughly. I'm rounding, you know, whatever that is, six or seven. For a very minimal – It doesn't affect a quote. No population anywhere is getting affected by that. And it doesn't affect draw tags. The hundreds of thousands of dollars that it raises is incredible. Very effective and very beneficial for people that draw tags. It's very beneficial to all sportsmen. Yes, sir, right. And so, you know, and so for five bucks a piece – for five bucks a piece, you can go on there and you can be part of something. You can contribute to the programs, contribute to the fund, and you get to decide. Some years – Bronson, some years you and I play raffles harder than others, depending on our spendable income, depending on our draw tags. The refunds, I was just dropped a refund from Wyoming, by the way,

the deer and animal from my kids. Yeah. And so, you know, at times you look at it and say, okay, I don't have anything. Maybe I'll spend a little bit of money on, you know, a chance. A, it's a feel-good. I get to contribute to something that's a viable program that's, you know, giving back a little bit. On top of the fact, I might get something awesome. I might win. Well, it's a big carrot dangling out there. There's no question about it. Silver state, dream, it doesn't really matter. You get to hunt a lot of days. You know, that's – for you and I, it's a good thing. Our wives have other things in life. Yeah, they don't think it's so great. If we were to win one of those. But that doesn't matter right now. We're talking about the greater good of wildlife. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right.

One of the biggest benefits of the silver state tag and the dream tag is they don't use your bonus points, and they don't put you in a waiting period. They are total separate from that, and those laws don't apply to the waiting period. Yeah, no waiting periods. So, you know, some guys may have drawn antelope and can't draw again. Well, and Jack, correct me if I'm wrong as well. If you've already drawn a tag for, let's say, deer, elk, Nevada's one of the few states that if you draw this, you can have multiple tags, right, in the state. You don't have to be disqualified because you already drew a deer tag in the regular Nevada draw. That is correct. This stands on its own. They stand on their own. I just told you I was going to get back to the desert bighorn sheep hunter here a minute ago. The same guy that drew the Nevada dream tag last year went back-to-back.

He drew a desert bighorn sheep tag in the main draw this year. In the regular draw. So he gets to hunt twice. Yeah, one dream and then one that used his points this year. Yeah. Yes, he went back-to-back. We have another gentleman from your state that has won the dream tag Desert Bighorn Sheep and the Silver State Desert Bighorn Sheep. Same guy. Crazy. And the reason he did that, he's in the game. He's heading. Yeah, there's no odds that can mathematically calculate that. And people can say, hey, something's wrong. That guy did an unfair whatever. And the guys that are complaining are the guys that aren't playing. The guys that are complaining. You've got to be in the game. Yeah, you've got to be in the game. Well, cool. Is there anything else you want to throw in there about the dream tag? Obviously, we've got the deadline coming up. You know, it's just an exciting time of year.

Of course, we get to hear from all aspects of the hunting world. People that have got hunts planned. People that are drawing. People that are applying. It's just there's a lot of excitement in our office. And are we missing anything in regards to the dream tags here? People will look for Nevada dream tag. You can Google Nevada dream tag. But if you want to just get straight to it, it's NVDreamTag.org. Just NVDreamTag.org. Get you right in. You can buy unlimited tickets. You can buy for all six species. Pick what you want. Good luck. Yeah. And I've got the phone number on here. 775-333-5499. Is that right? 775-333-5499. NVDreamTag.org. NVDreamTag.org. Deadline June 30. Is that right? Yeah. June 30th. Right, Jack? Yes, it is. And the results will be out. Last year, I think we got them out about the 10th, 11th. Well, we don't get them out. Contractor.

A third party administers this for the DreamTag board. And the department has, this is hands off from the department. What's the, just real quick, what's the committee made up of? They got the DreamTag committee that decides how to allocate funds. Where do those people come from? You got representatives from different facets of the hunting community or outdoor community? Judy and Diane, they're the founders of this program. And they are still on the DreamTag committee. One is a legislative appointment. They're both legislative appointments. One from the Senate, one from the Assembly. Then there's the vice chairman of the Wildlife Commission's on the board every year. And then there's a governor appointee and then an appointee from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which Nevada Department of Wildlife is not part of the Conservation and Natural Resources Department.

But, so, the governor appointee is a former Wildlife Commission chairman, Bill Bradley. And then the DCNR appointee is a former Wildlife Commission chairman also, Chris McKenzie. So, you have a group of people that are really dedicated. I can't believe we get those commissioners to come back. They really served their time and they still believe in what they're doing and come back and take on another headache like the DreamTag and, you know, approve the projects, follow the projects through and make sure they're completed in a proper manner. So, non-endow people can apply for these monies. And they have and they do get it. Endow, we have to submit projects just like anybody else to this committee. And we have deadlines. We have progress reports and deadline reports we have to put together to make sure that this money is spent in a proper fashion. So, it's a very well-kept program.

And we appreciate the work that those volunteers do to make sure this money gets out in a reasonable manner. Well, that's great. It's very, I don't want to say it's totally unique, but it is somewhat in that Endow isn't the one giving the head nod. You're applying for funds just like other organizations or whatever within the state of Nevada. Now, naturally, you and your habitat staff and others are going to be the lead on many things like wildlife, wildfire restoration, guzzler, guzzler construction, maintenance, whatever else. But very interesting concept. So, yeah, time to play it. You're not going to win it if you're not in the game. That's what it comes down to. And like I said, if I've got 10 shots left, I'm going to turn that 10 into 40 by putting in every chance I get in Nevada. Okay. My goal is to have a few more years to apply than Jack's talking about.

He's talking about 10 years. That's not enough. But you know how much more it hurts to get up to mountain at 43 than at 33. And it's true, but even having said that, Bronson, we had a guy in camp. I had an 87-year-old desert sheep hunter last year. Okay. And it was, wow, he did pretty good. And the guy we helped there in Arizona was doing push-up, knuckle push-ups. How old is he? He was about 79. And he could whoop us all. He's like, hey. And, I mean, he dropped on the floor there in the camp trailer and did start doing knuckle push-ups. Did 20 knuckle push-ups. And I'm like. He's 80 years old. Okay. Let's go kill something. Let's go. Anyway, so. Those guys do exist, and they're my heroes, and I hope that's me. Well, we appreciate. I do everything I can. Well, we really appreciate your time, Perspective.

Good luck with all the transition to getting your offices back to, quote, normal and whatnot. And everybody who's listening to this, it's time, I guess. Get off your hands and get some tickets in. Get off your butt and apply. Tuesday, I think. It's on Tuesday. NVDreamTag.org. Go there. Apply for what might interest you. And it's unlimited chances. You can spend what you'd like to spend on there. So, five bucks a whack. And we have seen people load it up, load it up heavy, and it has benefited them. And we've seen people buy two tickets, and it benefited them also. There you go. All right. It's a raffle. Okay. Sounds good. Good luck. Hey, we appreciate you taking a few minutes. All right. Thank you. All right. Bye. Bye. Got it. Okay. So, what we want to do here, we're going to cold call a buddy of ours named Dwayne. We thought just a few random people. These are purely random.

They might hate us for calling them now. And he might not allow us to use his voice on our podcast. Who knows? I don't know what he's going to. He's a good guy. But this might be a little too much of a surprise. I don't know. Let's give him a call. Let's see if he'll give any insight to how he gets so lucky. Here we go.

How are we doing? How does it feel to be a winner? Well, you know, you're just jealous because I got that Idaho tag. What about Colorado? What about the last 14 years? I just thought that you were calling because you were jealous about me getting the prong horn.

That's the third best statement in the nation. Uncle. That may or may not be true. Hey, Dwayne. It's Adam and Jason here. We're doing a podcast. And we know we're calling Interrupting Your Life and Your Day. But we're on the topic today of long shot drawing odds. And you got to at least have a name in the hat. And you're one of those guys that popped into our minds as living proof of just having your name in the hat. And you led off perfectly with one of those experiences. And that was, I think you drew an antelope tag on one of the initial eight super tags in Idaho. And I told Carter, I said, yeah, Dwayne's got an antelope tag. You don't have this year, Carter. Yeah. And Bronson's teasing me saying, he's got something you don't have. And I said, what's that? And he goes, a third antelope tag. But the other thing you did, and we've been visiting with the Nevada Dream Tag draws coming up.

But something, I don't know if it's ever been done before. Colorado has a raffle tag program for some of their tags, well, all of their tags. But different groups administer them. But they have a state statute, maximum 25 tickets. You can buy one to 25, but you can't go over that. So you can't really flood it up. Flood it, right? And you have drawn two. You've drawn two in that one. I've drawn three now. I drew the antelope a few years ago. Okay. But deer twice, back to back, basically. And you can't mathematically even force the draw. You can't spend enough money to even do that. So Bronson and I are just talking about guys that are those guys. The lucky guys. On top of the fact you've made some of your luck, I totally get that. You're playing some of these and making sure your name's in the hat. But these are some of the things that are coming to mind.

And we just wanted to talk to a winner. We just want to talk to somebody that feels like a winner.

And, you know, I mean, the truth of the matter is I've been hearing this for, you know, I don't even know how many, 12, 15 years. Apply, apply, apply. And, you know, a raffle is another application in essence, you know. So, I mean, you know, certain raffles sell astronomical amount of tickets. You might not purchase a raffle ticket in that spot. But then others, you know, don't. Or vice versa. You know, like Wyoming seems to sell a lot of tickets. Well, if I'm going to put it out of sheep draw, I'd rather take $100 and put it in Montana versus Wyoming if they're selling roughly the same about. Just because you can hunt a 190 or 95 ram versus a 170 or 75. So, you know, if the raffle is going to sell, you know, $200,000 in tickets in Wyoming and Montana, instead of putting $100 in each state or $50 or $20 in each state, you maybe double up the one where it's obviously better.

The carrot's bigger if you were to get it. Yeah. Yeah. But you're playing a lot of, even some of these that are tough to draw, you're still playing some of these. A token amount. Yeah, I mean, in Arizona, I have a ticket in every one I'm interested in, you know. Yeah. You know, there's obviously certain raffles you're more interested in or certain you're less interested in. But, you know, I have a dream tag in each one of the dream tags. I don't know how many. Yeah.

You know, but you've got to have a ticket in everything. I mean, a lot of draws you don't end up winning that you think you're going to get. And then there's some that you just go, holy mackerel. There you go. We talked about that this morning, too. Whether it's, you don't really ever hold your breath on raffles too much. There's a few that you can stack and the odds in your favor. But when it comes to state draw tags, we let off this podcast today talking about me. I've had units this year that were 50 to 100%. I should get them. 100% on paper last year. Everybody with my points are higher. Got it. And I've applied and I didn't. I mean, I have antelope tags in Wyoming where there was four applicants with my point level. Three of them drew. And I didn't. I mean, so I had a 75% chance and then I draw 101 in 150 or whatever mountain goat tag in Alaska. So stuff, it just all evens out.

You got to just have your name in the hat. You got to have your name in the hat. And you're that guy. You're that guy. Well, yeah. I've had my name in the hat a lot of times. But I have definitely broken the mold. I mean, I've been very blessed with that. But if you don't draw another tag until the day you die, you came out ahead. Hey, don't say that. Don't jinx him. If you jinxed him here, he's going to hunt you down for the rest of your life. Hey, the world wants me to jinx him. I mean, we're all tired of it, Dwayne. Just saying. All right. No, we appreciate your time. We just wanted to talk to a winner. Somebody that's doing this, that believes in it. And it's not like you're just loading the draw. You may load the draw on some of them. But some of them, there's a maximum limit of tickets you can have in there. And anyway, you're good at drawing. You're good at having your name. Yeah.

And I mean, I've been saying that in Colorado. You know, when I first started six, seven, eight years ago, I said, hey, I'm going to do, you know, these raffles every year. Well, I can only buy 25 tickets, but I'm going to buy my 25 tickets because that's the only – I can't afford to go buy a GovTag. So, you know. Yeah. And then you draw it the first time. You think, well, it's just persistence. It's, okay, another 20 years. Hopefully, I draw it again today. I call you the second time you go. It's a whole better level of excitement. Something to do with your name. I don't know. I don't know. Good mojo going on. And just keep it going, Dwayne. Well, and we look forward to maybe we'll have you back at the end of the year. Yeah. And let you know, either see photos in the mag or whatnot. Visit with you about how your hunts went. So, pretty unique.

So, yeah, thanks for taking a few minutes with us today. And we appreciate your support here at Epic Outdoors and our membership drive as well. So, anyway. You just need to draw me one of these times. I know. Put on these other guys. I don't know. I don't know what to say. Sometimes you're not a winner.

All right, Dwayne. Thanks a lot. Well, you guys have a great day. Thanks. Okay, you too. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye. Bye. Well, so, it's that time of year. It's the end of June. About all there is to do is dream. Pun intended. There's a few raffles that are still out there. The Nevada dream. We talked a day or two ago about the Wyoming big game super raffle. They're just another pipe dream. But somebody's going to go home with every one of those tags that they're going to draw. And if you at least have a name in the hat, whatever your means can throw in there, good things can happen. We talked to some people today and every single year. And if you don't have enough on your schedule and you want to keep, you know, double down, I guess, throw some names in the hat, money goes to a good cause. And most all these instances we're talking about here, these last hurrahs, so to speak.

We know a lot of guys that just believe you should at least have one name in the hat. The minimum have a name in the hat. You cannot win if you don't have a name in the hat. Bronson, I can look at what you applied in Alaska for go. I didn't apply. I keep going back to that. Same thing with, you know, any of these draw tags, raffle tags, whatever. You can't win if you're not in there, you know. Well, just look at us. We both drew Oregon sheep tags. And if you were to say, should we have done that? Was it a smart move to apply for sheep and goat? You know, well, goat now. We couldn't even put in for goat back then. It was marginal whether we should have even done it. But we did it. And I'm not saying we should have drawn just because we did. And you laughed. I checked my Oregon results and you're like, what do you think you really drew? Goat? Well, I might have. I applied. Yeah, you did.

And you had a couple premium tags for deer elk in there too to where you could, those are like mini governor tags in one unit. So they're awesome. So I applied for it. And it said, not successful. Not drawn or whatever. Whatever their loser phrase says. But it doesn't matter. You move on. And anyway, you hit a few of these. You hit a couple of these. Some of these are honestly, some of these, if you were to hit, would, I don't want to sound like something would trump your family and your health and everything else. But from a hunting perspective only, they would change your life. A couple of these tags we're talking about. They do change your life. They would. You're talking about a statewide sheep tag somewhere, statewide mule deer tag. And the opportunity could literally be a life-changing hunt.

I mean, not just a, you know, the phrase that rolls off our tongue commonly, the once-a-lifetime hunt. These could literally change your hunting life. So anyway. Well, when you're grinding at work every day, it's nice to have something to look forward to that is of enjoyment. You know, pastime, whatever. Just, man, I'm looking forward to this hunt. I'm looking forward to that hunt or whatever. It just keeps you going when life is a grind in general. So anyway, we encourage everybody to get out there. Go to NVDreamTag.org. Apply. Get a ticket in there. And, or any of these other raffles that are coming up. Just have a name in the hat. We believe in having names in the hat. You can't draw if there's no name in there. Good luck. Let us know. Talk to you later.