EP 183: Escape from a Frigid Alaskan River

I take a step forward and I just I go down you know you didn't just fall down like now you're float you're floating down the river and I just remember vividly thinking I am not going out this way I remember and it was it was a fight anything to do with western big game welcome to the epic outdoors podcast powered by under armor hey everybody jason carter adam bronson at the mic coming at you from southern you saw only freaking day in the last what how long I don't know since we did the last podcast like four hours since we're here the last week when was that week 10 days ago whatever anyway and we've done hunts since then bronson you smashed a buck yeah smashed and grabbed I followed your advice smashed it and went over and grabbed it yep and that's right took care of it myself packed up the truck myself and grabbed it one trip hole

a colorado body how was it it was not very good but lucky was only probably a half mile not that big a deal half mile up hills both ways no it wasn't it was just still you gotta stop and you have a hard time standing up with a whole deer in your pack cape head yeah I can just picture like did you even cut the hooves off I can just picture four hooves hanging on the top of your pack I've always looked at those I don't know I know I don't know why people pack out I see them on elk that's 10 pounds I know I know a lower foot I know I mean somebody's gonna weigh it for me and tell me I'm off it but it's at least five it's a waste of weight don't pack up somebody wham somebody wham tell me what you eat on those anyway I and I went down to an archery late archery elk in uh Arizona okay never hunt elk in November with a bow in thick country in thick thick country it was

actually pretty darn good I learned a ton coos deer kind of got coos deer on the brain I don't know but coos day coos deer avelina no wait that's it it was kind of funny because there was a guy sitting on water that had avelina and turkeys coming anyway it's just funny last year we gave Carter a hard time about antelope only because he was going to burn his points he does not love antelope but we rode it pretty hard now it's going to be we're going to tease him about having to burn javelina points in Arizona Chris and when we were there the roads were closed these guys these guys happened to make it okay and you had roads that were open to you yeah oh yeah we didn't they were all closed but from fire yeah we had not Colorado was a tight season tight season was nuts in north central Colorado with all the fires this year it was even till November it was closed that's right

I mean it was going into third season member and and uh around they had a snowstorm and they still had it closed unit 18 and Estes and all these other places anyway crazy lots of crazy stuff so anyway we've been who knows where this podcast is going to go all over the place and so this podcast might be a little bit of that because we get that way when we get back together we're trying to catch up on there's been so many seven to ten days in 45 so much happened people hit you on instagram or emails and texts and you're getting I'm getting updates you're getting updates Chris you're getting up everybody's just the information highway is crazy right now with what happened in the 2020 season a lot of which what happened is not so great yeah so anyway it's been pretty tough in general but but we're also thinking about next year's hunting schedule it's all I can think about it

five six eight hours a day Jana's like hey uh you know you need to rein it in a bit and when she says that and she's being very nice I got a great wife but she's like come on things have gone you know and I and I agree I can't live like this anymore I I don't know I've been home maybe five days in three or four months it's been rough I agree I've made three trips to Colorado I took my boy over there twice that was only was only supposed to go once because you know he got basketball and and then thanks to COVID the only good thing that's come from COVID is they postponed basketball practice for two weeks and canceled and you allowed you to hunt yeah so we could go back hunting well and that's what's funny these coaches they're ornery like if you miss a practice oh oh you don't even think about it you don't even so you give up hunting you give up hunting he's in the younger years of high

school you know freshman sophomore but it doesn't matter you that have kids and that age you realize it's not it's not you miss and it was tryouts so it was like you know brutal training you know they won't they run you to death anyway because they they want to weed out people too anyway so yeah so he wasn't able to go then COVID comes we turn they postpone everything and you're like you're you're almost home two monsters deep three monsters deep what was it I don't know huh too many and your wife's like I was turn around and you're like I can't I can't make it back no been up since four o'clock and it was it was like 10 o'clock at night now I'm I'm almost back to Utah and our government is proclamation to the world you know yeah what did he say basically said no go mask up mask up so I called my kids I was teasing them a little

and and don't anybody get too mad at me there's a lot of people serious about COVID out there but I was like hey Ashley you need to mask up and I really think you should go to bed wear mask and I mean she just I mean just busted out she didn't even take she didn't even she can't even take you so you know you're so far from serious Justin you need to mask up and I'm thinking when you go to bed tonight you put that mask on what do you think you know I mean they don't even know what to say so lots going on we're trying to plan for next year and there's 14,000 things going on we're going to my sheep and elk steer you got in-laws without tags in-laws not-laws got we got friends with cheap tags and a couple clients it's just the last two weeks of of smashing and grabbing and I don't think there's going to be a lot of smashing and grabbing this is going to be

grind ground and pound I don't know if that I grind grind it we got to come up with something anyway but I know this that I sometimes you know in our stage in life it's hard Adam when we were when we're younger let's call it mid-20s you know you're you're newlywed you got kids kids on the ground you're you know 1400 diapers every which way you're trying you know you're you've got a few tags and you're trying to make good on a few tags you get a little bit older you know it's hard for us to say no to the opportunities that come on the desk I mean we got opportunity after opportunity coming across the desk and you're like well and we're getting kids we're getting our kids and you know when then they're teenage years you only got them for so long before then they start going to college and they get married on their own so you're just trying you're trying to do stuff for you do

stuff with them and all of it's good it's just man it comes at a price oh and that's aging three times faster than you should and the hunting is supposed to be amazing and fun and enjoyable yeah and you come home and you know your wife's out they're just saying yeah he's gone all the time how would it be and you're like come with me for two weeks and I'll show you how it is yeah and better yet I'll pay you if you can last two weeks that's right hey your kidneys are not going to withstand how much monster you're gonna drink that's right monsters a must okay well it keeps you alive at times really all these the vitamins cannonball runs through the middle of the nights anyway speaking of driving let's give Aaron a call well okay so a there's a couple things I'd like to know from Aaron he was gonna help you on a hunt but he has no wheels many how was he gonna get there well he's

had he's had the family tahoe they're on several hunts this year because this has been long documented in march he sold his cherry truck pre-emissions 2006 duramax for a mint for a quarter of a million miles it's he got some guy from michigan whatever i don't know whatever so and then he and then it hit and all the factories have shut down all the used cars have gone up five to ten grand in value because it's what you can buy and he's just in his mind i think he's made it through the hunts and he's just but but not quite all through the hunts so what are the contingency plans a then b he went to alaska had a near-death experience i'd like to hear firsthand about that quick about the truck because i know he's sensitive about it but we're gonna ask him yeah what are you driving the malibu we just wanted to check in Aaron we just wanted to check in

next question okay so the next question is is you were going to go help adam i just want to know what you were planning on driving when you went and helped adam i had a uh rental making me feel guilty you know hey yeah come out be great to have another set of eyes and then i'm out there hunting and Aaron couldn't get there for a day or two and so i ended up killing i ended up killing a buck and immediately called you to say hey don't come out today and never asked you what you were gonna rent a car i think that i think that is a heck of a great brother it is i'm gonna say and i would have paid for it i i just i wasn't expecting well i didn't want to take the the uh side by side all the way out there because we didn't need it no you'd have to put some truck tires you know by the way people are putting truck tires on side by sides to get the

mileage out of them by the way so oh yeah anyway well um so any any prospects of getting a no a four by four in the near future no okay this is november have you had any good have you had any good options say a denali that's got everything but maybe the front bench seat i mean just tell us if you had any good options come across the desk august 28th august 28th i haven't even looked when i moved to plan b to take the to take the wife tahoe on the side by side ever on every hunt i haven't even looked back okay you've missed some great opportunities i tell you what i tell you what that tahoe is a good little hunt rig i'll pull some pictures chris put them on the show notes that thing gets around pretty good i've always liked those two door those little two-door blazers they're on a half ton chassis

you know with the no nobody thinks you're hunting in one of those so you're covered no you just smoke screen everyone on the mountain okay it's pretty good i i'm i'm rooting for you and by the way how about that guy on instagram totally loading us up with a great truck for you i mean that was awesome there was a good opportunity oh yeah yeah it was just like the night before opening of sheep season was the problem aaron was trying to do getting ready to do a smash and grab and just wasn't even in the cards really well there's about i can listen well you need to call a few other listeners too that haven't got a truck so okay okay yeah give us a list but the problem is new ones still aren't coming out and the used ones have everybody knows they're worth a mint so they're jacking them out five to

fifteen grand have you ever thought about buying or calling that guy that you sold your other truck to and buying it back and drive find a michigan and get it and drive it back yeah rust on it or something you know it's been good and we're good all right one other thing one other thing i wanted to we just kind of wanted to i don't know where you're at on the highway or what you're doing but tell us about your alaska experience i want to know like i heard it was crazy but i've never asked you in person like i want to know like how how it went down what saved your life what gear you would change things like that yeah so we'll tee it up a little bit you went up there with some buddies kind of yeah we went up there we kind of had that yeah self-guided diy drop camp we wanted a ridge hunt and i don't know how in depth you want to get on this but

you should have listened to our story first before devon and why it's successful hunt yeah but anyway we wanted a ridge hunt just for the flexibility to move and we're not really now this is something is this something you some of you have done before like it's not like no brand no yeah i've done a ridge hunt before up there well that was when we drew our moose tags there but this is an over-the-counter area in the ridge hunt basically you're getting dropped off on a ridge and you're a little higher not on the lake and you're a little higher so you might get some caribou up there too aaron wanted to hunt yes caribou okay and the other guys maybe hunt summering bulls early september before they've wanted caribou before they gone to right makes total sense so we're talking and we're talking like a september time frame early yes okay well

he wants us there september one because you're hunting pre-rutted bulls up high before they come down into the river bottom so anyway that's what we had in mind when we get up there and 10 minutes into the hang guy's hangar he throws us a curveball that says hey we're not going to the ridge i i got another spot opened up on a river and we're like well what's wrong with the ridge and it just windy the forecast showed wind it's hard to get in there and that meant four flights and a cub getting up there and anyway we were like well we trust you you know we're this isn't our cup of tea we're out of the our our element so you you tell us he says well i want to get you down on this river and we're like well we have no waders or we have no raft and they're like well you probably don't need one and i'm like we're three westerners did you guys have swimming lessons when you were in third

grade is that what his next question was no no he just said you won't need him because most of the game's gonna be on the other side and i'm like i know but i says we're westerners look at us we can't sit still just like why and devon's hunt like we're the opposite when westerners go up there on a moose hunt we're like the worst they're looking five miles away the three of us i think you guys oh yeah we're just like this you're telling me we can hunt a river bar and a bend three guys for you know 10 12 days that's not gonna work right and so he's like well and i found some waders over in the corner who's of these oh that's a hunter left those i'm like can we take them yeah you can take those we size eight we scrounged some waders up and um and then we we were off well when we're when we're when we're dropping in on this spot i'm you know i'm looking like there's a glass of knob oh

there's one over there i i find two good glass of knobs on the way in and one's on the other side of the river and one's over here and where our camp is and i'm like well we got to get to those two spots so anyway the waders one were hip waders and one were chest waders that we had the chest waders didn't really fit me they were pretty small boot anyway and uh the uh i don't know the thigh hip waders were they'd fit any of us so the plan was we just you know obviously we went over the protocol i mean the river wasn't that dangerous it didn't look that bad when we got there but we still it was an issue we're like hey make sure your pack's unbuckled unbuckle all your straps loosen everything have your gun tied on and i mean so was it enough of a concern we we addressed it and we should go together we got two sets three we should always go to yeah three of us three of you

so nobody ever crossed the river alone that was the yeah a lone guy can stay on the side where you're camped and he'll be all right yeah that was the plan and and then it you know and and it started out good and that was the other problem is september 1st is not the rut so you don't want to be down on the rutting ground september 1st so that kind of was a curveball too but we were going to make the most of it i mean we were going to hunt hard and we found we started seeing moose the first night we saw three moose the next day we saw moose um we saw a really good bull on the second day he was on the other side of the river and we were taking turns crossing like just how we work any western hunt like hey you go glass this knob you glass it and so you're not seeing the same thing every day everybody's

just changing up changing it up a little bit changing it up a little bit and there was always anyway so day five it it rained and the river rose like in 12 hours or 24 hours raised like 18 inches and so there was no crossing at camp but camp was the widest spot and you know and that's where he told us to hunt is like you guys just want to hunt this strip and i'm looking at that like it won't last six hours right here why and devin can relate but i brought a trail camera which i surprised devin trail camera on this spot that he says is good and as soon as it proves me wrong then i'll come down in here and huh well the trail camera had nothing on it the whole time we were there idea that's kind of a good idea well plus you're gonna kill something up there and you got wolves and grizzlies you got to get some pictures of them and anyway yeah so i put the trail camera down on the on the

crossing where they crossed that's right where we crossed and that was not an issue or until day five day five we get 18 inches and there was no way we're across like that's it we're not crossing right and and then after a day that we're like what if we go up river and cross the contribute there's a you know a smaller tributary before it braids out yeah a couple of a couple of smaller rivers let's just call it the darn yeah yeah okay let's cross those and then we can cross up above so bj and jake did that the one day and and it was it was fine um one one day jake broke the rule and he crossed one night he went after a bull and he came back alone and and he's like yeah he said i'm like well yeah you should have waited for so just dicey just like borderline but he made it and he's just like yeah

i don't know that's not good he he was wearing the chest waiter so anyway we start out this day i think it's a monday morning and and me and bj are gonna go up and cross the cross the small one and it's not small it's pretty good size too and then we're gonna and then i'm gonna cross the big one and then bj's gonna just go up on the hill above the the small and well anyway so it's like 6 30 in the morning we're just leaving camp and because we got a little ways to go and um we crossed the first one the little one and then bj walks over to the edge and he just points to where they he says what we did last night was we went here and then we went to that gravel bar and then went over and i'm like oh yeah it looks fine your confidence is up the water's gone down you're thinking no big deal so bj at that

point he turns and leads to go up to his blast and i proceed to cross the the main river and i didn't have any problems until i got about i was probably only 10 feet from the other side and i've got everything on loose i've got my trekking poles you know so you have four points of contact or always three as you're moving across and my uphill legs started taking on water in my in my hip waiter and and it was it just sucked one so basically now i have one leg and and two trekking poles and and i'm trying to decide to go back or go forward and i take a step forward and i just i go down jeez packs on but the waist your waist belt's unsnapped no these are just these are hips so they're just around my hip and one loop around your belt okay so they're single they're not like the full yeah single legs well i mean your pack like your backpack your backpack yeah like lightweight

ones yeah like lightweight just and and you have your boots on as well and so you just slide these over your boots and your you know everything so i so they fill up and then so i go down and i only go about i don't know 10 or 20 feet and it necks down tight and so it's just raging right in this pinch point so you mean you know you didn't just fall down like now you're floating you're floating down i am swimming it's it's i'm going and it's pushing me right before you cross though you had your you know like you're supposed to you undid your waist strap yes and your sternum breast strap and you had my shoulder shoulder straps are loose but but my gun was on my shoulder so you had your gun on your shoulder and right at the last minute though what did you do with your gun well i was going to get to that oh okay i just teed it up yeah no no i'll yeah this is a lesson

this is a lesson i mean this'll this is a rookie mistake and be a lesson that you should never do so the gun's on my shoulder everything's good well i fall down and i'm getting pushed i get it gets pretty narrow right there so the force is just pretty severe and it pushes me right into these j trees that they're you know the ones that come out and then go up like they're on the bank and they go up and i i just barrel i just go into some of those and my head's above water but i am literally stuck like i cannot move anything and i am like what in the world why can my pack not come off like what because the gun's gone at this point in my mind and and i'm like i cannot and finally i mean my trekking poles are stuck like under a log the force is just pushing everything luckily my head is above water wow and i can't move like i i might i mean like i might as well be in concrete and i i start

moving my left arm a little bit and a little bit and i come out because my trekking poles obviously have that go but they're hooked on your wrist straps um i just slide one hand out of that and i get one hand free and i start wrestling and and fighting and i and i i come i come free because i think it was my pack that was stuck on there and i i come free but i grab i grab hold of the tree with my with my free arm and i don't know it just all happened so fast and i'm just hanging on and i'm looking around like oh my heck what is the protocol like what i can't hold on for much longer i look down river and there's another tree about i don't know eight ten feet from me same thing it comes out but there's only one and at this point i think i'm free and i'm like well i cannot get this pack off and anyway i i decide to let go so i let go and i go down and to the next tree and as i get to

the next tree i reach up and at that point my head had gone under i i reached up with my two hands above my head and shoulder and locked them and locked them in place over the log when i did that my hand hits my barrel and it dawns on me i'm an idiot subconsciously when i cross the creek over there i'm like i don't want my i don't want to lose my gun on my shoulder if i fall i i looped it over my neck so now that is the thing that's holding everything on that's that's what is almost killing it's just it's got everything locked in it's around your neck up over your shoulder down through yeah like you do when you ride a motorbike when you ride your motorbike going up a hill you got to put your gun on that way stupid stupid mistake so i hit the barrel and i'm like oh my heck you idiot you got to get that off so i reach back and and now i'm holding on with my right hand trying to get

this gun off and again like say i've got two waiters full i've got a 40 pound pack that weighs at least 80 no and my gun i mean everything is soaking wet force in the water and the force of the water is like pulling like and and i just remember vividly thinking i am not going out this way i remember and it was it was a fight so i get the gun off and i i sling it towards the bank kind half in the water half on i didn't care i mean i don't care at this point i'm like and and i get my left this is the red rock precision you just threw through through basically yeah yeah just get i mean i'm just trying to get out of the river it's 6 30 in the morning it's free that's one thing that people have asked how cold was it i'm like i don't remember it i don't remember how cold well i mean obviously it was freezing but my when i get the gun loose yeah the adrenaline is pumping i grab

my pack on the my pack strap on the one side and boom comes right off like it's supposed to loose everything's loose well as that swings around it hits the current it almost it pulls it off my up my my right arm as well so i switch hands and now i'm holding on to the log with my left and my pack shoulder strap as as like what do i let go of my life with fire whatever's in there optics like everything everything on my pack survival your in reach your in reach whatever you fling it up on the bank you can't fling it it's 80 pounds there's no flinging so what happened is when i held on to that it pushed me it pushed me right against the bank so my back is against the bank i'm holding on to the tree with my left arm and my pack swung over and it hits the bank and at that point one of my feet and i don't know where i assume my waders are gone they've already

been washed off me and my i feel something on my foot and i grab and i push up and i have a little bit of i can feel the butt the bottom so at that point i'm like i've got it i've got to face the bank now so i look and right up my pack is about a four inch willow coming out and i'm like okay i'm just gonna spin and grab that so i let go of my left hand and as i come around i grab onto that with my hand and now i'm facing the bank so now my pack's in my lap i'm holding on to that tree and i've got a little bit of footing i'm like okay now i'm gonna get this so at that point i just shimmy up my pack i just kind of get it up on the bank and i'm i'm gonna get out and i i get out and it's a yard sale you're exhausted you have to be exhausted oh how many how long do you think from when you went in till that what do you think if you had to guess it's so hard like eight minutes

that felt like yeah or something it felt like it felt like over 10 but yeah it was probably i mean it's hard to say but one thing i do know how bad it was is two things that really preface how bad it was is how wet everything in my there was not a piece of gear in my pack including a swarovski spot and scope that didn't have water in it everything had water in it when i got it out i i reached for my puffies because i stripped down took everything off but not everything just started coming off and i got to get a fire going and everything in there was wet the other thing that made me realize two and a half hours later when i was on the bank of the river drying everything out and everything was good when bj like said had really good friends that anyway so i was sore and fatigued when that adrenaline came off in two and a half hours i was i was spent i felt like

you gave everything you had you gave everything and that was two and a half hours after wasn't the next day i was sore it just and that's what made it realize that it was it was it was as bad as it could be so i get out i'm stripped down to nothing but my skivvies i'm i grab my dick but i always have the lighter up there in my pocket i grab it of course it doesn't work and everything's wet so i just skipped skip protocol one two and three and went straight to the to the good stuff the pyro putty pyro putty and the lighter i crawled over what lighter was it what lighter was i didn't have a bick lighter in your pocket you know you always have a bick lighter in your pocket well i had the that i mean it wouldn't even spark it was so just the flints and then i had matches and a fire starter as well but i'm like you know you always have multiple ways to go up there but i just went

i went straight to the pyro putty grabbed it wadded up a ball under a tree and lit it i had a fire going within a minute how did you use their light their electric i opened the lighter their lighter the electronic the electronic yes and their lighter obviously was drenched and soaked within the lid and everything but it cracked i opened that i opened their wire and water ran out of the little capsule and i'm like oh boy and it's a light it's like it looks like a it looks like a shock like from a taser right like it's it's electric shock yeah okay charge it with a usb yes you charge it with usb and it freaking lit it it lit that pyro putty just and then i just branches that were dry and then i had a fire going and then that's how bj and jake found me i mean i had no way to get in touch how far down the river you're not talking like a oh 50 yards down the river we're talking you floated

down there 200 300 yards or whatever no no i got stuck within the first i was stuck quick but they were going the other way to go home they were going other directions yeah they were waiting like they were up on glass knobs and they saw smoke and they're like why the heck is there smoke right there why is he building a fire right there it's right where he crossed dude you could have been you could have been dead and nobody know it for hours no no no no they wouldn't i don't know if they go down the river you'd never be found okay i don't know here's another scenario because bj bj comes down when he finally gets to me i'm like bj can you go see if you find my gun my bonos and stuff he walks over and goes did you is that where you climbed out of the river and i says yeah i don't know yeah must have he goes i don't know how you got out right there it's a five foot

cup bank he says and by the way if you wouldn't have got out there we wouldn't have found you and i'm like are you kidding he goes no get over here and look at this so it was spooky scary stuff it was not not good well not only that just think okay think about if you would have let your backpack go and they're glassing for hours and you got out and you've got you got out and you got out you've got hypothermia start a fire so you're or if you don't have the pyro putty lighter which a lot of people don't have they have the power no i don't usually carry i carried it up there and i'm glad i'm glad i did dude yeah it was it was western it it was pretty intense it was crazy but yeah those guys saw my smoke and they burned off the hill and come down and of course you know jake couldn't cross because he didn't have waiters but bj came over and he grabbed all my gear and hauled it over and

then we you know went up river a little bit and crossed back over and anyway got on our campsite and laid everything out and i mean i've never seen what i mean put everything i had was wet i mean my phone everything got ruined and they were in you know what i thought were pretty good dry bags oh my god anything that didn't get what no everything was wet or did well no i had a roll top the roll top dry bags obviously they're better and i did have a guide jacket in there and i was able to put that that was nice because it was the only thing dry i had and i put that on as i was building the fire but my my toes got pretty numb in fact i'm barely getting i'm barely getting them back to normal right now come on right now we're talking about three weeks ago yeah they they've been numb and tingly for for

quite a while and i because i got out took my socks off and i was just kind of walking around in that moss and getting getting firewood and stuff and i just i i don't know i just it was probably just being in the waters like probably i don't know feels like it's 35 or 40 degree water up there it's all coming off glaciers and stuff were you happy to just sit and in camp and watch the river oh i just i was pretty effective as far as it was it was two weeks of i i had some bad dreams and i had some i had some bad you know aftermath but i'm i'm i'm good now although i was down on the river last week crossing and i do have a little river river panic yeah were you uh did you guys so how much longer did you stay you dried everything out you just continued hunting or did you call and say no no no we hunted we stayed and um we killed the moose the next day jake shot a moose the next day

and it was just starting to get good and when we had to leave as you know with those dates it was just kind of unfortunate we had those the date issues but no it's good i'm gonna go buy 14 of those lighters right now good christmas gifts oh for christmas gifts my kids like come on i i mean you're lucky i got one last year and i think i've let ty's had it well and i've had my boys had it like i got but we're not smokers and so you don't it's not like you're constantly checking the charge on it making sure it's charged most of the time he's farting around if it's acting like he's got a mini taser in his hand it's gonna light you up yeah and hey mom so when you need it it's probably going to be out of charge i don't want to do my chores so you check this out yeah grab one of them so yeah so the mistakes we broke our own rule not going two by two and then the whole the rifle over

i mean you just i don't just i thought the rifle was gone i thought it was gone i didn't even i'm like well i lost that and as i was fighting and then and then it come to be that's what about killed me you've and you found it though obviously yep yep he found it and it was i mean it just for as drenched as it was and in the water it it um it didn't have any rust issues i mean it it was i'd felt fine shooting it the next day well yeah usually they have a little like just a little surface rust i got a little on mine just a little surface rust not a little rim oil take it off or whatever well um i can't there's a couple of things a you should have died b you should have died c you should have died but you know when you got out you had your pack still that's amazing and then in your pack was an electronic lighter that's amazing yep and the pyro put in you got a fire started aren't

a fire started on your own all of which if none of that would have happened those guys wouldn't have come looking for you for another no and going back to the cold my hands i felt like they were swollen twice their size and i couldn't figure out why but it was just because they were cold like i could hardly use my hands and they felt just big i'm like what is wrong with my hands and they were just swollen and they weren't swollen they were just i think they were just so cold so yeah if you have i mean that pyro putting lighter again when you're hunting up north just keep them in your cargo pocket i mean that's where they should be because if you do lose your pack and lose everything you can always build a fire well before pyro putty was around i was up in region g and it was that same kind real wet and we started a fire with you know vaseline and cotton balls and but we

didn't have electronic lighter i mean you know that's just next level preparedness well anybody that's interested go to www.pyropudty.com p-y-r-o-p-u-t-t-y.com i would i didn't plan on this being an advertisement but i'm telling you it's it saved me it got me i was dry i mean it still took a while to get you know dried up did you have the summer version the winter version i had the winter did you did you yep okay yep all right the winter blend is that what it is yep the official well all right any uh so um is your wife gonna let you hunt continue to hunt i mean where are we at on some of the yeah that's what that was the when i was i don't know we were getting ready for sheep hunting and i got word and got word from his wife who told my mom and dad and they're calling me and i'm like how do i know i'm getting in reaches from jake because aaron's in reach doesn't work

yeah all my stuff's gone everything i lost my headlamp which is waterproof was dead i mean stuff that shouldn't be ruined was ruined but you're not supposed to put your gears or spin cycle of a washing machine okay probably not but what brand of headlamp should we avoid well it's it was a petzel i mean a good quality one i mean one of the first out there yep it's a good one i just i don't know did you did you send it back and work after you got it home or no warranty it does but i don't trust like it works a little bit but like it kind of has its own attitude right now like i don't know all right well but yeah so jake had to take over all the communication so yeah he was telling everyone kind of what was going on because yeah i i didn't have any holy cow it's scary stuff and it can happen easy i mean oh it can happen we've crossed rivers in idaho hunting wolves i mean you know

you have air jason the winter it's march and there's not you don't think it's bad until you go down in three or four feet of ice cold water that's right that's right well and that's the thing is we none of us thought it was bad like we're not gonna you're gonna get wet and get soaked but you're not gonna what because you know that i mean it was big river but not a giant one that you're like crazy but it also didn't take in count you're gonna get stuck in there and that like that's one thing we didn't really go through the scenario was like yeah you might you might you know fall down get your pack off swim over the edge or whatever but getting stuck in that was not something that we talked about so you never know you never know and we just took for granted like and it's all it's always our western mentality and everyone's this way i shouldn't call it western but

like we didn't have to go across the river there's plenty of places to hunt but it's like we got to push it and go further and we just couldn't sit and we got to get over there and the stuff were yeah and we're like we got to get over there well we didn't we didn't need to get over there that bad we should have just you know but well and confidence comes in numbers too you got a group of you you're all physically fit everybody's getting ready to crank i mean what what could stop well and you're there 10 days it's not like hey i'll just come back next weekend if i don't get one you know it's like hey we got to push it to the max and i think that's something we got to be a little cautious of when we come up go up north is with the from the from the states is you know you don't i don't know you can push it too hard and i definitely learned my lesson like we didn't just didn't just wait for

the river to come down and just don't where you can hunt that's the one thing about alaska and up north is time doesn't even exist though the guys that live there time is just today's not going to happen we're just going to sit and camp today yeah yeah and we're all so time sensitive in the lower 48 exactly yeah they didn't respond to my text in the last three minutes i get wound up i want to be on glassy knob 30 minutes before light yeah i want to be in position yeah yeah i mean yeah and like it was funny listening to why and devin's podcast and they're on there and we're not moose hunters like i say i'd been on one so they that already made me in the group leader that i was the expert and i mean we just have a hard time sitting it's funny to listen to successful moose hunters and man we just don't have it in us sit and watch that riverbank for days no no and we

because because we saw a lot of that you know more stuff than usual just because we were just glass and such wide open country but it doesn't do you any good really because you can't go after them and shoot them anyway so four miles out there you you shoot one then what you got to eat it you got to sit there and eat it that's right you can't hike it back so well yeah pretty crazy sharing that with us and okay sounds good well appreciate it have fun sheep hunting have a good weekend glad you're live buddy same here good good luck on the truck we rented a truck up there in alaska so i had one for 10 days that doesn't count how did it feel it was it was nice it was it was enjoyable it was nice all right just let us know when we need to get back in the search mode search mode on that just want to know what what you're conceding because i thought we had one found in cedar and

it was the non-bench seat option but that well you probably yeah it just has yeah just that bench seat in the front wants a leather seat belt a leather bench seat generally bench seats you want to find one it doesn't even have to be leather it doesn't have to be leather just six seat belts seat belts for a family of five yep that's correct it is yeah he's only got three kids and his wife i mean who's the same one is that for the hitchhiker just for a hitchhiker in case you ever need an extra seat belt you only got five of you in your family i know but in my last truck was was a captain's chair like like the others but all right you want what you want totally get that you want what you want okay well thanks a lot you there he is done with us he is done he mysteriously went into a canyon did he i don't know i don't know he might have just said screw it

i'm done talking to you guys that is a crazy story everybody bye he brings up that six seat belts and he's got five in his family what do you say i don't know well clients and gear i don't know i like a captain's chair the older i get i'm like i like a captain's chair i don't know all that stuff in the middle i had my last truck had a bench but i had the middle console folded down never came up yeah in fact my wife would take it once in a while bring a bunch of kids home and would flip that thing up and all my stuff would fall out yeah it's not because it's not it was organized when it was down it'd flip it up and it's like now it's been through a blender it's chaos oh i know right now i've got a blender inside mine right now anyway pyro putty.com p-y-r-o-p-u-t-t-y.com it's kind of crazy i didn't even i don't know i don't know what to say uh red rock still shot great

what do you say red rock red rock precision.com go buy a gun it'll last through i don't know about anything oh yeah fall in a river red rock precision.com check them out great guns but uh i don't know we just anyway i guess that was just impromptu we're late for lunch uh we need to go do that but what i guess we were talking about before we talked to aaron and that's a crazy story kind of changed everything but is planning 2021 it's time to plan 2021 adam i don't know we sold 10 12 13 landowner tags for nevada today for next year it's time time of year and as tough as it was in a lot of the lower southwestern states because of unprecedented dry weather i'm talking southern nevada southern utah northern arizona new mexico i don't know i'm not speaking for all new mexico but it was it was a grind these hunts wore on us don't lose hope there's next there's next year's coming

that's anybody that feels bad about oh here here's our point and maybe we should call clint because he's talked to 100 people that have hunted colorado and all of which it just feels like it's fairly moderated um but no question yeah but but anybody feels bad about eating a tag and you want to visit about it why give me a holler uh i i ate a few of them i'm not going to tell you how many on air but uh have no problems you know but you want you want what you want you want a good animal and and uh you blended a lot of species together in that tag soup yeah several yeah i did through at least three that i can think seven course meal so anyway having said that let's move on because next year's gonna be better right chris oh it better be and for me it means less hunt more on less hunt hunt each hunt more work on it harder don't fill a schedule we all we also say don't be

afraid of getting too many tags because but that applies to the people that think i'm only going to put in for two states because i don't want to draw too much well if your criteria is it all is about your criteria it you can put in for elite trophy states in some in some states and some easier to draw stuff with preference points set aside like colorado or wyoming where you might predictably draw but yeah you're not never going to draw a little six incredible quality tags in one year and i think what you're saying is is these are more random tag opportunities i right now i've got a full schedule with tags i know i'm going to get i'm going to get a general utah i'm going to get a colorado tag i'm going to get there's certain things i am going to get yep so up you're talking about strategy on top of what you know you're going to get better be better than what you think you're going to have

or or or far better yeah otherwise something's going to have to give don't get five tags or six of all the same magnitude if that makes sense it january 1st before the application season even begins because that's what i'm doing that's what i'm i'm falling into the trap you're burning points on on paper you're burning them by deciding how you're going to put in and then don't have any room for anything else to be added but and and when they do get sean sean draws an awesome milk tag and you have to go spend 12 days with oh plus plus a few on each end okay so let's call it let's call it two and a half weeks and it deserved all the attention it took that was after i was chock full yeah you know with with you know general utah some arizona archery um you know nevada colorado and wyoming i mean just tags that could have been nevada i mean and janna and then and janna had tags

ashley had tags and i want them to have tags and the kids the kids didn't start school on time this year so they were all crushing the bow hunt for two straight weeks this year day in and day out hey dad dad oh yeah and you don't want to tell them no because you're telling them oh this is never going to happen get up every morning better be ready that's right and it's true and and it was awesome got a learner's permit and i'm saying get out there and start scouting and janna's like yeah but you need to go with him because he's only got a learner's print and i'm like i'm not sure i care i don't know what to say i'm glad that my son is within a month he can have his official license within a month finally hey he's ready too oh yeah well he is it's just that finally you can turn them loose and yeah

then then the scouting yes and all of that just like when you just like when sean finally hit that it was like it lightened your load when he can go scout a little bit in the places you and him are going to go on he can do that in the summer now while you're doing some other stuff anyway anyway first world problems but problems to sort out but the big the big picture is it's time to start planning but i think we both with with our families where they are and our kids hunting we we have to be a little bit more strategic because we in january one our eyes are this big and we want everything and we're right in the magazine and i can get excited about like you're talking about javelina for example or say a barbary sheep adam i mean just stuff that i'm thinking you know i well wyatt walks in with a 35 inch and you want we all want one right and so then we're like well we need to go do

that and by the way what what potential 200 inch are you going to give up mule deer wise tag wise yeah well none of them okay just keep it on okay janice smashed a 28 inch in colorado's awesome heavy buck but that takes into account like ashley same thing takes into account which i want all those so your hunts that you had to pull back from i can hunt four days here then i got to take the girls to colorado so i don't do my hunt justice i don't do their hunt justice pretty soon i don't do anything justice anyway these are and and there's a lot of guys out there that are in the same boat that's why we're mentioning it we can use ourselves a lot of you are probably laughing yeah because you go through the same the same thought process every year all of you are shopping on an empty stomach yeah we are you never do that you go you go eat the biggest gnarliest cheeseburger in the world i

went and then go shop by the way i have a garage full of food still from our epic outdoors hunt giveaway from craig i was really hungry and i had eight people in mind for six seven days that's a lot of food and man i need to it's just still sitting in the garage in the heat what to say and so i don't know what to bring it here to the office but i don't won't get eaten until your sheep tomorrow so anyway lots of planning going on if you didn't hunt you need to hunt call us we can help you if you hunted too much well you know i don't know what to say change your life i don't know i janet don't let another year i mean we've said it we're not going to say it in print anymore but don't no don't let another one go by i'm not flying by and i'm i would rather have too much slightly too much though yeah then not enough i mean you need to be on that fine line of slightly too much because

you know you don't have enough and there's nothing worse no there is you're sitting home watching the colorado leftover list you know on stop wait being unproductive like clint lindstrom well you know okay okay how about how about wyatt okay okay so wyatt wyatt tried to get a little turn back tag and he hasn't he's been in the office a lot lately other than right now i think he's slightly sick with covid possibly let's give him a holler real quick let's just end the podcast with a call to a sick feller i don't huh yeah maybe he's got his results back and he didn't he he went on the moose he killed one but he wanted to hunt a little more than he did let's give him a holler i think he'll answer i don't know i might have to talk to carly i don't know if she's i think he'll answer hey are you alive i'm alive yeah barely barely yeah have you got covid give us the test you got your test

results back or not you guys got a podcast well we're just thinking about yeah i'll be back in the office and our the crew is not here so there's a member of the crew that we've heard sick and afflicted somewhere and we've heard we heard something we want to know we are you ready to announce anything yeah headaches any results do you have headaches headaches or fever i've had fevers yes what else like do you think it's just a sore throat and a cold common cold yeah probably just a man cold i'm probably really really okay is that what your wife told you a man cold that's what she told me yeah she's a nurse i grew up with a mom that was a nurse and it better you better had a bone sticking out or she wouldn't even really get that excited like she stapled and stitched this up on the kitchen table so i mean it was just my wife watched my mom give me shots i had allergy shots for a bunch

of time and so call it becky's like your mom will never give me a shot because she just calloused you know just routine she doesn't have to have any bedside manner with her kids you know she doesn't have to put on that hat but janna can have a very slight fever maybe and a possible just barely a headache and she had the full-on flu the rest of us you know guys are going to the emergency room so that part should get edited probably well we're just checking on you i i don't know you've been tested earlier when you and archibald went to alaska and that was a quick test i don't did you do a different one this time or what's the holdup yeah i had to get tested just here in town and it's gonna take two to four days they said oh my gosh so now we're in an office where you have been and have used i don't know what you've touched here i don't know his office borders mine i

did shut our window in case there's any live viruses on our window between us well we thought we would get an announcement here it's but i guess the bottom line we're just calling to check up on you that's really what we're calling for tell us i mean you're throwing up you got diarrhea where you're at see if i would have saw a carter's phone call i would have they just screened it this is my podcast what does that mean yeah this is serious but now i'm i'm on that list now did not trust list all right well we're gonna go no longer answer list here we're gonna go eat we're gonna go out in the community and enjoy enjoy the sun all right what are you gonna be doing me i'm just gonna be just lounging around the house uh carly stocked me up with some burritos and pizzas and things i can throw in the microwave to kind of keep me alive till she gets home

oh all right guy do you need uh announce it when you get your test results back let us know you don't stone you don't want us to be looking for an eastern plains turn back tag or some late season deal for you you think no no i i think i'm gonna take it easy for a minute not gonna do an over-the-counter bison in utah nothing no no not none of that all right guy standard archery not that either okay well how about over the counter you must be sick what was the other one over the counter arizona arizona coos over the counter archery huh we still got plenty of time maybe we should go do that one yeah all right okay well get better don't don't don't come back till you're 100 okay yeah thanks for checking in all right now i'm on the card or crap list he trusts me i feel i feel like i let the guy down he sounds like crap poor guy he did he's he just thought i don't know what

he thought i was gonna call him for i don't know anyway well we all get sick man i'm glad all right here we go anything else chris we're good let's wrap it up let's go good good wrap up we appreciate everybody out there we're cranking we got a december magazine that just hit the streets emac should be going live uh keep an eye out for your mailboxes the biggest thing is to keep an eye on it is for the alaska application alert which is due december 15th um if you're interested in that uh also want to give one last shout out to a piece of gear i've used it on several of my guns the last couple years made by rugged ridge outdoor gear their tripod lightweight 13 ouncer the gen 2 extreme bipod oh i love that thing it's uh light enough to just i took it on my goat hunt just it 13 ounces yeah you might say it's almost a pound and you're you're gonna but but i shot off that

thing you know over ridge shot off it with the you know rear pack on the you know just under 500 and i mean the confidence you get is just unbelievable so check them out at rugged ridge outdoor gear dot com or call them 541-526-1820 they also advertise in our magazine epic outdoors they have a rear shooting rest stabilization as well on the back um lightweight little four ounce so for one pound you can have a bipod and a rear rest support and uh it's it's they're awesome pieces of gear that go with me everywhere i go so what should we do now go let's go in everybody we appreciate you uh if you're looking to kind of go over your schedules or whatnot give us a holler that's what we do here at epic outdoors we're a hundred dollars yearly membership nine issues a year for the publication breaks down all the western states drawing on skill percentages best units and then also you can call

in and get personal consultation and we're here non-stop starting basically in december through july and we'll be cranking these publications out we're researching opportunities and drawing odds and and the new things in all the western states so we're just super excited to get into this application season yep got a few new twists that we're going to probably incorporate into the magazine this year and some of the research and things like that like what bronson can't tip that off okay all right tip it off yeah but we're also not going to be able to see any of you at the shows this year all the major sporting shows have been canceled for this winter which is going to kind of be a bummer not being able to see and talk there but we'll be here in the office it's what we do it's part of the membership

call and consult with us and develop a plan to draw tags and get you on the hunt you want to go on some of these tags so the the expo gives 200 tags on basically you know where you you in person validate right and and five dollars a piece they're going to still have those you just won't have the in-person validation and then also uh you know there's going to be a lot of these auction tags conservation tags landowner tags and whatnot on online auctions if you're super interested in any of those give us a holler we'll help you keep track of some of that stuff so a lot of change in the way life goes on and people do business um including us here at epic outdoors we also sell optics we're cranking out the optics if you're looking for uh christmas ideas you're looking to tell your wife about christmas ideas things like that have her give us a holler definitely uh the

best price is around and that's not a lie uh give us a holler we'll uh get you hooked up with the optics you need for december 25th and uh we can go from there how about that absolutely all right everybody okay take care be safe happy thanksgiving you you