EP 181: Alaska Mtn. Goat with The Epic Crew

I'm still married. I figured that marriage is just one project after another. This is the biggest goat I've ever seen. My life, guys, and I go, that's actually a pretty good goat. I guess Jason's the antelope guy. I'll be the moose guy. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Welcome, welcome. Hey, everybody. Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, White Balls. Chris, Chris is playing with the levels over there. How are we sounding, Chris? It's getting there. Wipe a little dust off the podcast machinery. He says I'm sounding great, but Wyatt hasn't said anything. Yeah, it's been a minute since we've been in this room, for sure.

We haven't been podcasting too much here and there. These guys did one when I was out in the field and just trying to do a little catch-up. Of course, it's just that time of year. It's just a tough time of year. We're out in the field a lot, and then when we come home, we're trying to get father of the year. Father of the year. Husband of the year. Husband of the year. Wyatt, that means something to you now. I mean, we're all trying. Are you still married? I'm still married. I figured that marriage is just one project after another. That's what I've learned. Really? What kind of projects are we talking about? What do you mean by that project? Have you done some painting job? What have you been doing? Painting, shelving, mowing the lawn. Come on. That kind of stuff. Grown-up stuff, I guess. Mowing the lawn doesn't count as projects. No. No, that's just a given.

You need to have some kids, Wyatt, because they mow lawns. You need to. You've got to raise them to the mowing lawn age. That's rough. I've got a good gift idea for Christmas for Wyatt. Some of those manuals for home improvements that Bob Vila made. There you go. Give them some of those. What about the Hanes manuals for fixing trucks and stuff? Because your trucks are now going to get a little age on them because you're not going to be able to afford to update them. Yeah. Just update them weekly like Carter and you don't have to worry about them. Okay. Or all you need is the Kelly Blue Book so you know when you sell it. Yeah. There's a couple of phone numbers I need. The Chevy dealer. And your in-laws. The Dodge dealer. Your in-laws. The Ford dealer. Your in-laws. My in-laws. And the tow truck. And I'm good. And John and Chris to sell them to. That's right. Hey, the best trucks.

I've got to provide them the best vehicles I've ever had. There's that quote. The best truck I've ever had. So anyway, pretty awesome. Bronson's. I've had a run of tough luck. But I've willingly hunted specific bucks that are not huntable. Not killable. Yeah. So, you know. Let's just call it what it is. Whatever. But anyway, it's been tough. Everybody out here. How many calls have we had today? Hot, dry. Hot, dry. Tell me where to go. What to do. So hot here in southern Utah. Yeah. Brutal. For late October. Moving into late October. It's kind of unprecedented. I said that about September. And it was unprecedented. We said that about August. Remember in the archery season? How about some units being closed in Colorado for October? Think about that. October due to wildfires. Unit 18. 28. Parts of 28. I mean, it's looking rough, huh? Yeah. Do you remember that ever, ever in history? No.

Not for this late in the year. Usually they're out. It's rough. It's, I mean, the good thing is the economy's being boosted a little because people are buying air filters for their vehicles. I guess so. The dust is unbelievable. Have you ever seen anything like it? I went out shooting. No. Last night. And it's just two inches of powder. I did too. I shot my gun in today at Ashley's. We've been working on Ashley. Getting a deer killed for her. And it might or might not have got bumped slightly. And so I had to make sure, do a little zero check. And the same thing, Chris. I laid down, so I laid down some coveralls. And then I laid down one of my own shirts in the backseat of the truck. I laid it down so the muzzle blast wouldn't blast me with dust. Fine dust. Yeah. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. All right. Well, anyway. Bronson, you freaking weathered the storm.

You tried to become an amphibious. Went up there and weathered the rain. Yeah, well, started last February when I drew a tag for mountain goat. I'd kill the mountain goat in Montana 17 years ago. And for me, mountain goats or mountain lions or maybe a big moose, like we talked about with Wyatt and Devin, kill a really big one, call it a day. Yeah. And I just killed a goat. He's like nine and a half, but not super heavy. You're talking the Montana one. Yeah. That was just, I was, I don't know, 29 or something back in the day. Seems like there was a few grizzlies on that trip. Yeah. Well, we saw some sign. But anyway, so I just hadn't been too aggressive applying for mountain goats anywhere. In fact, I waited my seven years and started put back in Montana. And that's the only state I've been putting in for just because, but the last few years,

I'm not even going to act like I earned this the hard way. Alaska doesn't have a point system for their species for, you know, but I'd applied for sheep off and on when I could when, you know, now they have a four year wait if you go kill a sheep so you can't apply then. But anyway, um, applied and drew Southeast Alaska has three, three zones, uh, that are literally as good as our anyway. And it partly because they have mild winters, you know, you got from sea level to 3000 feet and that's it. You're not going to have a brutal winter on these goats. And so they have a longer period of year where they could actually eat something that could grow horns instead of bark or whatever they live on in BC or other places. So that's part of it. I mean, I learned a lot while I was up there, but anyway, I drew a tag for, uh, Reville Island and it's a great, great go hunt.

I went up there and, and, uh, obviously you gotta have to go guide it. I don't have a family member that lives in Alaska. So I'll use the Primo expeditions crew and at Tribio and, uh, guides, uh, Hank, uh, Flato, which we had on the podcast last month. He also guides for Dan Montgomery for doll sheep in the Chugach, as well as another guy, Marvin McLeod, who lives there on the island. Let's kill the couple of giants. He's got the number six in the world. He killed a handful of years or 56 inch years. I mean, just goats that are stupid. It's just the weather too. Don't you think it's just a weather long growing season per se, which is very mild, more mild, maybe year round. Yeah. And they talk about on the island, they don't get real snow in town until January, even though, I mean, that's on the coast. That's at sea level. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, you're, you're got 3000 feet and it rains.

It's not like interior Alaska. It's just not. It's a little warmer. You know, we can't call it a banana belt, but, but from a goat perspective, yeah, they just don't get the brutal snow, 10, 15 feet. And that lasts till July and they can barely start getting out of it. It's not like that. And kind of like what we talk about with deserts in Utah, where it gets cold enough. There's a, there's a stop growing period. Whereas Arizona will wear Nevada. We're down there and there's lush green. Six inches of green grass in January, February, it rains, it gets warm. And they're, they're growing horn there in Utah or just trying to survive. That's right. The same, same principle. You get more time to grow. And granted, you're talking about a nine incher or a 10 or 11. Okay. 11. Now that's next level. And that's my point. But, but you're, you're talking. I agree.

Normally you would say, well, you know, what's the difference between an eight and seven eighths and nine and three quarters or something like that, or, or six eighths. But here you're talking 11 and what was yours? 11 and 11 and two eighths. Like that's. By 11 and one. That's significant. Both are over 11. Even a, even a mule deer guy can tell the difference. Well, we've seen, we joke around this a lot that we can get sidetracked around here talking about antelope. Caribou. Spikes. Jeff's gone. So we don't get too worked up about caribou. But for one season we did. Coos deer. Coos. Stuff that's not our backyard stuff. Yeah. Stuff that's not really your like passion or what we don't grow up hunting. You can get excited about anything. If it's big, anything, you know, big bears, you know, big black bears. Even I got on a brown bear kick for about two years. Okay. I'm done.

So I mean, anyway, so I drew the tag and I'm like, well, you know, I, you never expect to the odds are one in a hundred. I mean, they're, they're bad and you do have to play with an outfitter worse than that, which you can call us both for the Alaska sheep draw, the goat draw. If you need a recommendation of who to, who to contact about applying with. But anyway, the, the islands here have the word jungle and rainforest is the only thing you can describe. And if for any of you that been on Prince of Wales or Ravilla or some of those Southeast Alaska islands, and you're at sea level and you try to just start walking to, to Timberline from the ocean level, you're, you're in for a rude awakening. It's when you're not on a trail. It's, it's almost impossible. It's so thick. They get 150 to 200 is, I think 200 is the max inches of rain a year. Okay. Max on the scale, max on the scale. Yeah.

200. 200. Yeah. But their average is 160, 175. Well, we could use about 5% of that right now. Okay. Down here. Yeah. And I flew home. I flew and ended up routing through Las Vegas. So I leave there that morning, never, never. I was in my, you know, the, the temperatures were from 35 to 45. All day, every day, all night. No fluctuation. It did freeze. The last night must've got colder next. Our tent was just iced up. All the droplets of rain were all ice. It was probably 30, 29, 30, not bitter, but, but cold. You fly into Vegas, 97.

October. You probably took off your QU ranger. Oh, I was sweating. And then I'm driving home and I'm fighting with my wife, which on the AC, because I'm wanting it on, cranked, and she's like, you know. You guys have it like a he and she over there, like the dual zone controls. There is luckily, but, but I was just thinking about the contrast of the Mojave Desert. Yeah. And how many days they haven't had rain down there. 200. I mean, they probably get, this year has got to be single. There was one little storm that came through Cedar, but hasn't it been about 200 and something days? I think so. So I don't know if you're talking about four to seven inches. I don't know what they've had in Vegas. I don't know. Well. But, but let's just call it under 10. If you count January, it's been decent, but starting March, it hasn't been decent.

So you're talking about, you go from there, you land in six, seven hours, and you're in the most, the most. Crap hole USA. Yeah. The most stark contrasting climates. But anyway, we started out hunting some goats that were, I don't want to really call them fringe because anywhere there's cliffs and, and, and bluffs and all that is goat country. But there's, there's also a core of the unit that I drew that almost all of it looks like goat country. And then where we started, which they had seen a couple of big goats with an earlier hunter that got away from them. And now I know why they got away from them because they were using a bow and I had a rifle and I still, you couldn't win. I still didn't win. Well, you did. You ended up winning, but not on those two goats. That's right. That's right. Not on those goats. So I tapped, we tapped out. Yeah.

We, we, those, those goats you'd, you'd hike, you'd see them from a long ways. How low was he thinking? We think one of them was as big. I still think it maybe was a little bit bigger than the one I shot. I really do. But, um, the other one had the biggest body I've ever seen on a goat. Um, maybe the horns weren't as big. I don't know, but it was still a 10, 10 and a half inch goat, but the body was giant. The problem is they have these little musk egg clearings. You can't even call them flats. You can't even call anything. And the goats will come off just a rock bluff and walk 50 yards onto a little bench just to basically, I think, see, see around them. It's like an acre, you know, opening. And they're at 1,500. Otherwise they aren't looking around. They're in 1,500 feet elevation and you're at 3,000 looking down with nothing but timber from about,

you know, 2,500 for the last 1,000 feet. And you feel helpless. How do you get down there? And these, these forests are, they got the cedars, the hemlock. I mean, the trees are, they might as well be redwoods. When you're from Southern Utah, we don't even have trees here compared to what they got growing there. They go forever. I don't even know how high they can get, but it's unbelievable. And then you got the ferns and everything else. And so you're just, you're at the mercy. There's white animals in there somewhere. Yep. And the first day was a sunny day and we had this goat bedded at 550 straight away on a ridgetop. And I'm like, this is the biggest goat I've ever seen in my life, guys. And they're like, that's actually a pretty good goat. But do you want to look around? I says, I'm not one of those guys. If it's a shooter goat and it's the first day.

And I can get out of the rainforest? I'll shoot it. I don't, that's what I'm here for. We are here to shoot that. And that's all I, you know, I'm not, I don't need to have an experience necessarily. Right. I can come back with a vacation just to see this place. I'm coming for that. It looks giant. You tell me if I'm wrong. Well, we waited for two hours. The problem with this is if, is this, you're going to have one shot. And for a lot of you guys that may be hunting mountain goats and these goats, they're not only big horns, but they're big body here again, because they have a bigger growing season. Okay. So I took the 6.5, my MOA, little Sheila. We've talked about her many times. Okay. It's a great gun. I took it up there because it's a backpack hunt and you want a light gun, right? At this point on my hunt, I wish I had my 300 rum on this point, because I'm like, I

need to anchor one now. I don't, I don't want it because with the 6.5, you're going to put it behind the shoulder. You're not going to try to just get cute and high shoulder him because if it doesn't work, he's just, you're not going to get a follow-up shot because one step in the trees and it's enveloped. So I just decided, all right, if he feeds over the ridge, we'll regroup and we'll get over there. So he fed over the ridge and we set up on the other, we hiked an hour, set up on the other side of the ridge and never saw him the rest of the day and never saw that goat again. He just went in the timber and never came out. So the next goat we saw, 650 or something like that, was as close as we could get before you have to just plunge into a sea of trees and think you're going to find an opening down there, which turns out isn't possible. You're not going to happen.

We tried it the next night. That's how I know it's not possible. We decided to let him just be. We backed out the next day. We got in there like two, three in the afternoon and snuck down there 250 yards from that little spot, literally an acre, you know, of clearing that you're thinking, all right, comes out there, he's dead and wait till dark. And now it's dark and you're, you've lost all your elevation. You got to go up 1500 feet down a thousand, the other side in the pitch black. And so we just hiked out to, to a road, bushwhacking jungle. They had a cause eye trail cut and yeah, called, called Ed. He, he'd met us up there, went back to town, slept the next morning, had to drive the trailhead and hike all the way back in and get our tent. Cause this is day five or six and we played the game and it's not going our way.

And I'm like half the hunt's over and now the rain and snow is coming, you know? So it's like, it's later in the year. Oh, it's yeah. Mid-October. And I'd waited cause you know, I'd always said, I want to kill a bigger goat horn wise, but you want hair too. Obligations. You want hair. Yeah. That's half the trophy. You want hair. Or more. But you run that risk cause September, it was so hot, you know, 70 degrees every day and no sun. That was the other part of the problem. Those goats were in the timber to get out of the heat. I mean, they got video of goats laying out there panting like dogs. They showed me when I was up there cause it's so hot and they're just, you know, they're, they look like a dog out there, 70 something degrees mid September and they're pairing up. They didn't like it. So they had a hard hunt then. So you can't ever guess perfectly.

So we, we elected, we moved our camp out. We elected to get, get moved. We got, got, um, we moved into a different part of the unit, which was what I guess I would classify as all goat looking country. And we, there were goats everywhere that right from when we got there, there were goats all over the place, nannies and kids. It was like, obviously they first went the sometimes we do that here thinking you're going to kill a bigger deer, bigger elk, whatever sheep. Yeah. Now, and that's maybe what you felt like a little bit on the first go around. A bit of a, like they'd killed, they've killed 56 inches off this mountain, 56 and a half. Of where there's low densities? Where I went. Yeah. That exact spot. And, and is that the reason why like nobody's hunting? Partly, but they'd seen a couple of them too. And there's, there's probably hunters there, but it's just, they play that game.

You see, it's not like you just hunt a goat every day. Some days you wouldn't even see a billy. Yeah. Like it was not normal goat hunting. Yeah. So it'd be like a resident that could, that has a month and a half. It goes, goes from August 15th to December 31st. And you just play the weather. Oh, I've got four days of good weather. I'm going to kill a 56 inch or if I can judge it right. And I'm going to hunt this area. And you mentioned that. And that's, that's a big part. I, I, I've hunted goats once in my life. You, Wyatt, you killed one. Jason won. I mean, you don't, you don't, you don't, we don't hunt goats and we don't judge goats. We don't, somebody asked me if I'm still getting them points and I am, but I don't know why.

So in this instance, in a place like this, it definitely takes a trained eye to know what you're looking at. And I learned a lot there that I'll probably personally never have to use or get to use again. Cause I don't know that I'll ever hunt goats again. I don't know why I would necessarily. I mean, not that I didn't have a great time, but. So you went to the core area. Yeah. Goats everywhere. You find a great one. Been there in September and it was void. They, they, there's a pack of wolves right there. In fact, they howled them in. They called them right into their laps just for fun. Bow hunter. You were float planed into this new place, right? I got flown into this, this spot. And so, you know, you get flown late in the afternoon, you're just setting up a tent and you're just looking at goats. The weather's coming in.

So the next morning we can start hunting and we, we saw goats right out of the get go. I mean, by nine o'clock in the morning, I'd passed up five billies that were, you know. 48 to 50 inch or like Booner type goats. I mean, good goats, but, but not old and not what you're there for. And, uh, the rain started coming in, which that's just another thing. If you hunt Southeast Alaska, you need a lot of layers. You got to have a dry bag with extra base layers in there, whether it be long underwear, you know, merino type top, like Q, like I wore, you're going to need it. You just, and even when you wear rain gear all day long, you know, it's rolling down your cuffs. I mean, you're getting it on and off cause you're hiking. It's just, you get damp and wet and then you're sweating, you know, walking in rain gear. Isn't like walking in your other stuff. So you need something to change out of.

So you go through a lot of layers and you got to have great gear, but by noon or something, we're, we're now up at 3000 working ridge lines and we're running into billies at 50 to 75 yards. And that's all you can see. I come over this ridge and there's one better right there. And it looks like a freight train to me. You pull up your binoes at 75 yards and I don't know what I'm looking at, you know, and I get the gun off my pack and I'm down, I'm on the bipod. I'm just, it's kind of the first time probably in my life I've ever looked to someone else tell me, should I shoot this? I can't think of another time. You're like the clients you take for sheep. And you're saying, and you tell them, well, I can't, I don't want to make the decision for you cause I want you to be happy. Yeah, but I don't know what I'm looking at. And I don't know what I'm looking at.

And it's the, honestly, I probably think it's the first time that I can think of. Cause even on a doll sheep hunt, they're thin horns, but they're, they're still sheep. And I've seen enough pictures and you can judge 160 or seven inches, a big goat's 50. I mean, there's just the, the percentages are so small on what makes a 48 to 50 to 52 to 54. It's so small. So if I said, no, I think he's, you know, 50, 51, maybe, maybe 52. I don't know, but it's right there. And I'm like, all right, I'm not going to shoot him up. That's not, that's not the reaction I wanted. So let's go. And we decided if we just keep hiking these ridges, we're going to blow this whole mountain off in the fog. And when, if it clears in a day or two, we're going to have a ruined mountain. So we decided to actually start going back to camp and getting a little bit lower.

And as we started doing that, it broke up a little bit. And we looked and we saw, saw a nanny bedded on this ridge and, and the ridge was going straight away from us. And so we kind of looped around to get a perpendicular look at it. And Hank, one of my guides, he was about 200 yards. He went out there 200 yards ahead of us. He waves us down and get down there. And there's, there's two billies. So we start looking at them or getting the scope out. We pull up and there's three and, and they look like, that's a pretty big goat. And I look and I'm like, yeah, that reminds me of the very first goat we saw here. That looks big. And this is, this is the night of day seven of a 10 day hunt. And I mean, you never know when you're going to spend the next 24 to 48 hours in a tent up there either. You just don't know. You're, you're one rainstorm from, from that. And it's getting late in the day.

And just the nanny was on the ridge above them. And so there's no way to get on their ridge and get down to them and shoot them at 150 yards without blowing her out. So I just said, well, let's just see what they do. See if they feel they were 550 something yards. And I says, if they stay where they're at, it's might be tomorrow or we're going to have to just look what this wind does and fog. And maybe this is it. But they actually fed down the mountain to 475, 480 yards. But you don't care. The gun's capable. Yeah. You know, it does. And speaking of, you said something about Ashley's gun. I'd fallen one day hard. This, this mountains are, the mountains just ooze water up here. It's like big granite or whatever with a little bit of soil and then a lot of moss and slick over that. That's the mountains. And so I, they wear spikes. They call them cork boots.

It's basically looks like the old fashioned golf shoes where you had metal spikes, but it's on the bottom of mountain, mounting boots. And I, I don't know, either I didn't ask enough questions or Ed just thought, oh, Adam will be fine. He doesn't need them. But I wish I had a pair of those. I didn't have them. But I went down one, once really hard on my gun so much. I was pulling moss and stuff off of my, both elevation and windage turrets. It was just slammed in there and I'm pulling out vegetation out of my Zeiss V6. There was. You're thinking, I need to be within 30, 40 yards. They thought about, you know, but you're on a hunt and you're on your mountain and you're like, do you shoot ever? No. And we just never did. And I'm like, you just got to trust a gun until you don't trust the gun. And that means spot for me. And if I'm off, then I don't trust it. I don't trust it.

But you just got to trust it. You just got to trust it. So anyway, I got the pipe up laid out, getting dark, got my pack up underneath it. And, uh, you know, one of the guides is like, are you sure about this? Cause we can wait till tomorrow. And I'm like, this gun will freaking do it. I've done it. You know, talked about the shooting school. It'll do it as you just got to trust it. And boom, first shot. And they said, you hit him perfect. And I put another, and I said, same spot. And then he just kind of kept walking. And then he never stopped the third shot. And I put another right, right in his paunch. And it came out his neck up here. It was quartering away. He stopped and tipped over. And they're like, wow. They said, anyway, the first two were like two inches apart. Just perfect. It's fun to have gear perform like that.

And to have the, the six hour range finder in MOA, you know, 6.6 or something. MOA is what dial. It takes all the guesswork out of it. And you're up there dealing with sea level and moist air. Like just things that we don't even encounter down here. That the six hour takes into account. Yeah. If you had a regular yardage turret and all you just shot was an angle compensated yardage, you can have some factors. I'm not saying I would have missed entirely. But this just makes you, adds more precision. Tightens up all the variables. Yeah. So it was pretty neat. It was pretty cool. That's a MOA rifle, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. Yep. Their little Ascent Mountain rifle. And yeah, it was great. Great. So anyway, by the time we got there, I don't know if anybody, the Ravens there, Wyatt, I think you said this. The Ravens in Alaska, I don't know what they feed them up there. Beat you. Beat you.

Do we kill you? They are. They feel like they're two feet tall. They are giant. Did you notice that? Raven slash owl. Or eagles. I don't know if they breed with eagles out there. Come on. They're huge. And they have a vocabulary that I've never heard. Really? I heard somebody one day and I'm like, somebody's yelling up here. And they started like, my two guys. And they're like, what do you mean? I says, listen, someone's yelling. I say, that's a raven. I'm like, what? I've been around ravens my whole life and they don't make that noise. So I felled up there too. Did you? Yeah. I could hear all these different noises they're making. What is that? And they'll fly over and they'll land in the tree and it's like they're talking. They're literally talking. And one of the guys says, they actually will catch baby ravens and teach them how to talk like parrots.

I'm like, I think, don't they have to split their tongue or something? I don't know. Seriously. Seriously. Google that, Chris. It's true. Call Jack Hanna or whatever that goes on. Dave or Letterman. That thing I've figured out. But anyway, by the time we walked that 480 yards and it's steep, so it probably took us 10 minutes. We get there and it's getting dark. I come around the ridge and I see my goat laying there right where I left it, except its whole side of its face is bloody. And I'm like, did I shoot it in the freaking head the third time? And they're like, no, no, no, no. And they're getting quiet. I'm like, well, did he roll? It's on no rocks. It's on vegetation. I'm like, you know, you see them break their horn off sometimes. No, a raven had beat us there and pecked his eyeball out and ate the whole eye socket out. Oh, geez.

And I was scared to flip the other side because what if you have both of them gone and now you've got to take your kill pick? No eyes. I would have had to send a picture to John. Oh, John would have fixed it. And say, fix that before I could show it. John fixes our eyes. So yeah, he had beat me there, pecked out the eye. And apparently they're like, oh, it happens up here. I'm like, I've killed hundreds of animals in the Lord 48 and never had that happen. These things are on. These are like steroids. Steroid. Can you teach them to speak, Chris? It says ravens can talk. There's one at the zoo in Clovis, New Mexico that talks. There you go. Wow. There you go. Do you have to split the tongue with a piece of hands and pliers? You've got to Google it. You've got to Google it because it probably helps them learn Spanish or something. Animal cruelty people are going to be all over us.

I don't know. That's not far off. They make some word noises. But anyway, we had to. Here you go. It says, and no, this is fact and fiction. And no, you don't have to split his tongue. There you go. Somebody else asked it. Somebody else asked it. You never even heard that. I don't know. So anyway, long story. We'll kind of wrap this up because we want to get to Wyatt's moose hunt. He had another one here in Utah. Wyatt's the moose hunt. It was getting dark. And you know, I don't think I've ever seen a dark at night goat picture. But that just doesn't seem like it would be a good picture. So now you're in bear country, black bears. So you're just wondering, what do I do? Do we gut it? Do we do nothing? Am I going to come back? And it's going to have one little white tuft of hair. And it's a trophy. It's a trophy. It's 11 and two eighths. It's a Boone and Crockett Billy.

Hair is like six, eight inches. But so we put one of our tent covers, you know, that covers your pack covers. Wrap that around the body and cut a bunch of pine brows. And it's just heaped all the way over that thing just to keep the birds off, all that. If you gut it, they said, that's the worst thing. I thought, yeah, I agree. You don't want guts, you know. No. You know. Guts not. Went back next morning. We hiked back to camp. Was there daylight the next day? Pretty much. No problem. No problem. Uncovered it. Took the pictures. The sun kind of poked out. Looked good. And then packed it back to camp and started the journey out and had a couple days getting out because we couldn't get picked up because of weather. Ate some rib meat. Tenderloin. Yeah. No. No, we didn't do that. No. You can't start a fire probably, really. I mean, you're basically going to. You can't.

I joked about it the whole time. So you got cold. I'm like, why do you guys carry anything for fire up here? I had a can, a pyro putty. I took it up there. Would it work? And when we got, where did we get? During that trip. We got to the midway point. That night we hiked till dark. We still had seven or eight miles to go out and we weren't going to get there. So we tried to, we had all the brush up there and I took a whole can of the little cans and I let the whole, you're not supposed to do that because you're supposed to just a little pinch. We put the whole thing. I'm like, you're going to need to use all that. Yeah. And it burned until that went out and then the sticks went out. So however long that worked, like, and it had been raining for three, four days and they actually say that it's, you're better off breaking green branches and trying to burn that because

it doesn't absorb it as much as the dead, the dead stuff just soaks up. Yeah. It's like a sponge. And so, yeah, they'd break off live pine branches. Which would have sap instead of just water. It has the resins and stuff and it would pop and crackle and start. Dry stuff would just have water. Yeah. That makes sense. Jeez. So we're learning stuff left and right. It's a different stuff. Well, let's have a lesson on Shiraz. A lesson on Shiraz. Well, the hunt started out like I think most hunts across the West right now, hot and dry and just kind of, yeah, terrible, not moving. And we ended up hunting, shoot 10, 11 days. It was a Shiraz moose tag my dad had drawn here in Utah, drawn a random permit. It got pretty lucky. That's awesome. And fortunately, you just brushed up your moose hunting skills. Yeah. Which was what? Sit and wait. Yes, sit and wait. Sit and wait. Yeah.

So how'd we use that in Utah? Well, here in Utah, I could actually make something happen. I could bounce points and glass. That's why I like the lower for you. It's tough. Sitting and waiting stuff. I could try to at least change my luck here. So it worked out that way. Even if you used your raking skills. No, I didn't actually use my raking skills. You didn't even use any of your moose hunting skills? I tried my calling skills. Oh. Did you? Yeah, pretty close. Did you? Well, the problem is he's going to rake like Alaska and Yukon, and every Shiraz is going to run the other direction. Yeah. Because they don't rake much here. Huh? Yeah, I don't know. I've never heard of people raking them in here, but maybe. I know a lot of people cow call them in and do the calling. Does everybody know that we're saying Shiraz on purpose? You probably should say. We're just teasing. It's an inside joke.

All right, keep going. No, it was, like I said, pretty tough. And then, you know, once October kind of rolled around, they started thinking about rutting. We definitely started seeing more and more activity, more moose. What does that mean, Wyatt? One a day? Two a day? There was a point when I saw six bulls one day. Wow. So that's good. That's double, I guess not double what we saw in Alaska. We ended up seeing six total moose in Alaska. So in one day, I saw one of the 14 days in Alaska. But you saw no cows in Alaska. I saw zero cows in Alaska. It was all bulls. Crazy. Every moose we saw. Good thing they weren't rutting. If they'd have been rutting, you wouldn't have seen any bulls. Yeah. Because there was no cows. Yeah. Well, they were on the way to leave that area. Yeah, I think that's what they were doing, was going. Were they? Crossing the river to a running ground.

To find the cows, yeah. I need to listen to that podcast. That's how Howard explains you. I wasn't here, and I've got a lot of catching up to you. It's been a while since we've been in the office together, for sure. You need to listen up on what the starfish technique is. Yeah. What is that? What's that? Just listen to the podcast. Yeah, you're going to have to ask Archibald about the starfish technique. Just listen to the podcast. Well, there was one, I guess, Devin ate some candy. The last candy. You guys had a deal. You ate one little something a day. Yes, sir. Oreo. Yeah, we did have some Oreos. And somebody dove in and ate one without asking the other and about split your relationship. Yeah, Devin was sneaking Oreos. It didn't about split the relationship. The rations. He was stealing rations. But I saw it happening and just had to call him out just because. Well, 100%. Yeah.

Like, I can't believe you guys still talk to this day. Yeah. That's rough when you're in Alaska. Those are fighting words. Rations. All right. They were our celebration Oreos. You know, for once he killed the moose. And he celebrated on his own without celebrating with you or without permission. Without actually killing anything. I mean, it was. Okay. He just celebrated a day of life. Just celebrating we made it another day. Why? You're not going to let you tell me what I can and can't celebrate in my life. All right. Okay. No, it wasn't that bad. So we saw six bulls. Yeah. Nothing special. Started getting a little bit better. Then I had a good buddy give me a call. Give us a tip on a moose he had just seen in an area. Ended up getting in there. Getting my dad up there. Actually hunted up pretty hard that night. Didn't work out for us the next morning. Meaning you didn't even see it.

Yeah. We didn't see it. Didn't ever pick up the moose. And next morning we roll up there and get on the glassing point. And the moose is only 100 yards from where the kid had seen it the day before. Jeez. And I just don't know how we missed it. It must have just not fed up. Stood up. You must not have had a set of NL Pures. Yeah. It must have been just the EL ranges. And the glass isn't clear enough. Not all grass is created equal. Yeah. Exactly. So there we were. It's as big as a barn. But hey. We glassed it up there at gray light and let it get a little bit light on us. And he put three shots in it at 515 yards. Wow. And that was the end of our Shira song. You're back to packing moose. Yeah. Back to packing moose. The nightmares. You're walking that 515 yards like it's me and your dad. And your dad's, I don't know, 65, 70. I don't know. Yes. He's 65.

So you're just thinking, I'm going to carry the bulk of this out of here. Yeah. I'm thinking it's Tuesday. Which one of my buddies has a Tuesday off that would be able to come up here? Only be epic outdoors.

Adam's in Alaska. I don't know where I'm at. When I got over to it, I was relieved to see that it wasn't near as close to the size of those Alaska Yukon bulls. Oh, yeah. Body-wise. Yeah. And then it was okay. So we ended up getting most loads off, just me and him packing them off. And back to the truck. It was only 250 yards to get back to the side. Perfect. Downhill. How about that? Above the road or below? Above the road. Oh. So about a perfect Shira skill, I think. Oh, yeah. You learned something. You and I had that up there, and I don't know. Yeah, it was a downhill pack. But I felt like, dude, we were kind of in great shape. How old were we then? I don't know. 2008? Yeah, so 20. 12, is that 12 years? 32? 30? 34? Something. Okay. Plus or minus. Just say prime. From 21 to 34 is prime. I mean, I could lift some weight. And I'm just saying, that moose felt monumental. Right?

We had the bone-in quarters. Yeah. Because we weren't that far, we didn't want to bone it. We're like, and it stays cleaner when you just keep it in a quarter. Yeah. You know? So we just took it. Yeah. But it sucked. Yeah. It was wet and nasty, and it was November. It was a problem. And Wyatt's doing two or three of these and acting like it's no big deal. The good thing is, is we have now, anybody that's killed like three moose within a 10-day period or two-week period. He's an expert. He's an expert. So any calls we get, Wyatt, you're the guy for moose.

I guess Jason's the unwoke guy. I'll be the moose guy. I have not killed him. That's the difference. Let's touch on that before we end. I have not killed him. Before we end. People want to know. Dude. Have you? Dude. I'm not shooting 11-incher. Ask Chris. I'm not shooting 11-incher. We hunted him. And by the way, I've had calls, and people say, overall, the quality is down in those areas. Oh, way down. I'm just telling you. Jason Mack says there should use forest service on the road. Forest fires left and right. Road closures. Not only that. We can blame everything. But you were hunting deer. In your defense, you were hunting deer with an antelope kicker in two states. Okay. Just an antelope. And most people think that I'm hunting antelope with a mule deer kicker. But I'm not. I'm not an antelope guru. And I don't even want to be. And Chris, we hunted deer morning and night heavy.

Gave antelope an hour and a half each day midday. When you needed to go get a Pepsi. Well, yeah. And the Pepsi took precedence. But we did. How many 11-inchers did we see? We saw a lot of antelope. But just nothing. Okay. Now, here's another interesting video of one chasing the truck. Yes. It was literal. Oh, literal. Ask Chris. It was paralleling us. That's it. And going as hard as it could go. And trying to beat you to the one gap that they know. Well, there was a cattle guard coming up. And I just couldn't do it. I thought, what if? What if? I'm going to have to tag this thing. It's going to decapitate itself. You know. Jumping through that. And it wasn't. We were just teasing a little. It was sad. It was crazy. But having said all this. And this is my point about hot weather and all of these things. Weather.

Weather is huge. You don't even know how. The water. When people settled the west. The private land became. The springs became private. Yeah. That's where you could raise a family. Beef. Beef. Everything. Whatever. Right? So, out there. All the water was on private. And all the antelope needed water. And that's the way it was. And we called a guy. We called a guy. We called a guy about deer. And he's like, hey, you can book a deer hunt. Deer hunts are six grand for three days. Elk hunts are eight grand for three days. What about antelope? No. We didn't even go there. We didn't go there. And they own a lot of property. Yeah. A lot. But it was just like, you know. And we wouldn't. A. They just didn't want a guided hunt anyway. But in this particular area. So, anyway. Long story short. I'm not tagging an 11 inch. I'm not doing it. Or 12. Or 13.

So, look forward on a live video feed of one of the next upcoming podcasts. Carter is going to literally eat his antelope tags. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. Because I would be constipated. We could make tag soup, though. Tag soup. Let's do it. Oh, geez. Video that. So, anyway. Hot weather. Antelope around the private. A lot of road closures. Just a lot of. There was a lot of factors. And I did not put effort. Like I would have. I feel a little bad that we put pressure on you to burn your antelope points. When you probably didn't really want it. You're saving me money. I should pay you for putting pressure on me. To get rid of them. Yes. To be done with that. I don't have to be. Like the $3.18 that's non-refinable. I don't have to deal with that anymore. This is Colorado. I don't have to. Colorado antelope. No one left. Well. They take double digits to draw anything legitimate. And Wyoming.

The whole place is on fire. And tell me I'm wrong. How many booners did we feel like we saw when we were up there last year? It was solid. I mean, we saw it. At least a dozen probably. It was dumb. This year, not even. Chris. It was terrible. It's the worst antelope hunt I've ever been on in the western United States. From one year to the next. It was that bad. Well, they had a pretty decent winter right there. I don't know. Maybe they tipped away. I don't know. I don't know. Or the smoke and fire engines and whoever else. Well, it is. The fire is, I believe, still going. It's going to knock some people out up here. I mean, you know, out of luck. So, anyway, whatever. It doesn't matter. We're going to go back to what we know. Here's another one last thing we should wrap up on. Are we done with the moose story? We ended in heroes, right? Yeah. I'm a zero. You guys are heroes. Okay.

So, let's talk about one more thing, Bronson. We talked about it at lunch real quick. Part of the kill is obtaining the tag that other people want, too. You want it. They want it. And you drew it. And that's the kill. It's so exciting. It's now you have the tag. Do you want it? Do you want 20 of them? 10 of them? 5 of them? How many do you want? January 1st, you're like a starved refugee. And you need every, you want every tag you see. And the kill. You get the kill. Yeah. I got this tag. I figured it out. I beat the odds. I've got this wazoo tag. And we see 12 booters. I'm going back. I got the tag. But what? I have the tag. I don't want the tag anymore. Be careful. That's all I'm saying. If I had three deer tags, I guarantee you I'd have a big deer on the ground. Yeah. The downfall. I have eight of them. You stretch too thin. Right? You stretch too thin. Too many things going on.

Tell me I'm wrong. So it's a fine line. It's a fine line. You and elk. That's right. It's a fine line about, we say it all the time, though. Don't be afraid of getting too many tags. But there is a limit. There is a limit. Of getting too many tags. There is a limit. Most people we talked about, I don't want to draw too many tags. But they're all putting in for units with three 70 plus bulls, 190 plus deer. And you don't get too many tags if that's your strategy. Right. It's, you maybe get one of those a year if you're really lucky. But it's all these slant, I'm finding an angle here or a system here or, you know. Well, and it's worked. Point boosting somewhere else. I've killed a 380 bull on a weird units in New Mexico. There's been some times it works. Yeah. And you do feel like a hero. There's nothing like it.

Okay, most of the time, it's two solid weeks, the full entire season that you sat there that you didn't plan on. And now you've got to do it again 10 more times because of these tags. And now you're a week behind the hunt you're going to next because you spent too long on that one. And my best tag's coming up and I'm sick of this place. Okay, okay, so that's just my point. Chris, I mean, and I'm getting really, I'm picky. You guys are picky. You know what I mean? I mean, I'm watching 190-inch bucks or whatever and I've killed a few. So I'm like, you know what, I want to see what I could really get. Maybe we can hold out. And I hold out and I hold out and I go home with no deer, right? No deer meat. Yeah. Tell me I'm wrong. Chris is there. I feel bad even having Chris come and film. I'm just saying, film Wyatt. He's killing shiz everywhere. Moose dropping left and right.

Bronson's killing goats. Did you film yourself? Come on. Bits and pieces. Oh, good. Expect a great YouTube episode coming up, folks. Well, and I had two guys there with me. Obviously, just judge goats are great. They could pack and they do everything. But in the heat of it, it was time to kill the goat. And I said, spot for me. Well, they both spotted and one of them didn't phone scope it. So I don't have to kill shot on film. Well, anyway, lots of hunting left to do. We are freaking fired up. And we're learning a ton of stuff. It's a tough year. Good luck to everybody else that's coming up is early Kaibab rifle in Arizona. A few noteworthy things. We've got second rifle deer coming up in Colorado. Third, obviously, is after that. Fourth after that. Hopefully, the weather turns. It looks like it's going to turn this weekend. We're excited. I mean, there's good things happening.

It's just overall feels like a little bit of a tough year. But you've got to keep going forward. That's what we do. You keep after it. I want a little shout out to St. James Sporting Properties. Super good guy. Of course, many of you know we're good friends. Adam and I have known him for years and years. I think you too, Wyatt. Anyway, he specializes in selling and buying, purchasing, trophy hunting, and fishing properties. If you want to sell one, if you want to buy one, give him a call. He'll hook you up. So, anyway, Blaine St. James, 970-596-6089. You can email him, info at sjsportingproperties.com. Super good guy. And he's in the know. He's a trophy hunter. If you tell him you want big mule deer, wait for that kind of ranch to come up. So, good chance he'll find you one. If it's in your price range, who knows? We'll see. There are a lot of ranches out there.

And with this kind of crazy money going on, who knows? You never know what you're going to find. There's a lot of money out in the world right now. But if you need something, he knows about it. Cover it? I think we did. We covered this stuff. We gave a plug earlier to Pyro Putty. But why don't you shout out the rest of Cheston's company there. Talked a little bit about Pyro Putty. I used a lot of that up there in Alaska, too. Another cool tool that we use quite a bit here at the office. And it's always fun to get home after a weekend scouting trip or after a hunt and show each other the footage we took with our phone scope. Cheston has designed a system to lock on to your phone and you can film through your spotting scope. It was pretty cool. We always take it with us anywhere. Cheston, phone scope. You can reach out to him at www.phonescope.com. Or 800-790-4480.

One thing funny about phone scope, it can be used for video and game. Okay? But Devin videoed a dude pointing a gun at him and trying to bully him out of the canyon. Did you see it? Yes, I did see that video. And it was pretty cherry footage. Yes. It was disturbing. The guy's mental. Yeah. Laid down on a rock. No wrong, Johnny. And pointed at Devin. And then you can see him verbalizing the F word. Probably three or four or five times. A dozen times. Telling him to get out. Get out. Get out. And all he's doing is glassing on a ridge. He's not. Right. He's sitting there glassing. And he glasses the guy up and he's freaking out. And he lays down, prones out, and gun on him. Then he's got the gun in his lap and he's amped up. Anyway. All right. Appreciate y'all. We're going to try to podcast a little more often. But we just, we've been out a lot. It's a time of year. Time to hunt.

Hopefully y'all have some great hunts still to go. Send us your photos and stories. Photos at EpicOutdoors.com. We'd love to see them. All right, y'all. Keep killing. All right.