EP 187: Trail Cam Ban in Arizona

A change that might be coming down the pipe is the trail cam, a change in running trail cameras there in Arizona. How many people put up trail cameras for general photography? So, I say ban them completely. Just get rid of them, make it easy. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson coming at you from southern Utah. Bronson, it's not really going to be a white Christmas out there. It feels a little bit like a dry Christmas. It's yellow and brown. Yeah, and we mixed a little bit of white here and there. Usually my white Chevy. You have any snow out at your place, Chris? None. Nothing. Not even any mud this year yet, really. No, it's been so dry. We've had two snowstorms all year that I can think of. Been about an inch. About an inch and a half. And they haven't even been enough to make mud. Dry snow. So dry snow. I watered my trees the other day. It's been cold, though. In December, you're watering your trees? Yeah, well, you know, they say it's good to water them like once a month, once every two months or whatever.

Like, they need a big, healthy drink in the winter. People forget to water their trees. Hey, hey, I have a green thumb. You've got a green thumb. Usually because I take a marker and color it. But I don't. You're a tree hugger. I'm not. No, I'm not. I'm terrible at growing anything, ask Jenna. Grow weeds. Grow weeds. But anyway, here we are. The eve of Christmas Eve. December, what, 23rd? Mm-hmm. Just making sure I'm on the right day. Wishing everybody a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a great 2021. Let's bring it on. Let's turn the calendar. Please. I've already turned the calendar. I'm so tired of 2020. Who isn't tired of 2020? Tell me who isn't tired of 2020. Huh? All right. So anyway, as we get started, we wanted to talk about some different things. Before we do, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast.

Of course, we work with a lot of great sponsors here at Epic Outdoors. We appreciate y'all. We just published a new publication, Epic Outdoors. It's actually on EMAG live on our website, and it has a lot of our sponsors in there. January 2021. It's hard to believe. We've got one of the big six, as we call them, Carter, done with the six state magazines of the year. Already. And we're one sixth of the way. To the next hunting season. That's right. As soon as the sixth magazine hits, we have freedom. Freedom. That's right. Which is usually about May 1st. But anyway, yeah. Check it out. EMAG version online right now. EpicOutdoors.com under your member login. And the print mag should be shown around the first of the year. Yeah, first part of the year. The printer has. New Year's and Christmas kind of always delays it slightly with printing and shipping and mail.

They're saying there's a little bit of a COVID environment at their print shop.

Anywhere people congregate. A little bit slower. Thrown to that. But anyway, it's coming. But the EMAG ought to, you know, give you a little bit to gnaw on over the Christmas holidays and New Year's. And start planning a little bit looking at the Wyoming moose, sheep, goat, bison, and elk, as well as Arizona elk and antelope. That's what kicking it all off. Pretty awesome. And we also kicked off our membership drive. Of course, we did it with the last issue. But this issue, we published it again. It's our Epic Hunt giveaway. You can get entries in there. Join a buddy. You get a free entry. So refer a friend. Or if you're a new member, you'll be able to get an entry in there. For Yukon Stone, Alaska Doll, Nevada Mule Deer, New Mexico Elk, Utah Lion, Barbary Sheep in Texas, Idaho Wolf, and of course, a $13,000 optics package.

For those that buy the $500 ticket package, you get one entry per $500 into the optics package. And that's coming from Epic Optics here in our own shop, Bronson. That's right. So pretty awesome. We've already set it aside. We've already set those pieces aside for the lucky winner come, you know, end of February. The membership drive runs through the end of February. So just a day or two after that, usually we're able to do the drawing. So early March, that'll happen. Somebody's going to win a bunch of great prizes in a year that, you know, everybody's hopeful to forget 2020. These are a good way to kick off something big. Get it on your calendar. A lot of these hunts are for 2021 or the winter months of 2021-22. Got some lions and Texas Barbary sheep, wolf hunting, some of those that kind of carry over to next winter. But got some sheep hunts for this year.

Mule deer and elk hunts for this year. They're just, they're first class. It's one thing we take it pretty seriously. We want hunts that we would want to go on ourselves. And we try to buy our hunts with that in mind when we do it through the outfitters that we know and trust. Partnered with the Acoma Reservation there in New Mexico for elk. It's pretty awesome. Great Krogh, Nevada mule deer. And so, anyway, pretty exciting. Even our friends over there in the Yukon. Yeah. Jarrett Dooling as well as Aaron DeRose and the guys at McMillan River in Alaska for the doll sheep. Pretty awesome. We're excited. All right. We wanted to jump into this podcast. You know, our last podcast was on change and how we hate to see change at times. Another little bit of change that might be coming down the pipe is the trail cam potential ban or season or whatever,

a change in running trail cameras there in Arizona. Of course, Nevada runs a season. You can't run them past July 31st. So, August 1st, it's illegal through December 31st to run cameras for the purpose of locating, hunting, the aid of, whatever. All of that kind of fun legally. So, anyway, I'll read it here. The proposed language. A person shall not use a trail camera or images from a trail camera for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife or locating wildlife for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife. If approved, trail cameras used for research, general photography, cattle operations, or any other reason other than the take of wildlife would remain legal. I don't know. Pretty tough. There needs to be some tightening of those. Well, let's just. Any other. General photography. How many people put up trail cameras for general photography? Well, okay.

Time lapse. Time lapse. I have some pretty cool general photography pictures when it goes from summer to winter and frozen water, coyotes frolicking out on the ice. I mean, there's some pretty cool stuff. I think I had some. Remember the spring? I showed you the ones from. I think I had them on one of my elk units in Southern Utah. Remember it had like five feet of snow in over two months? It went to nothing. It went from a giant pond. A giant pond, which looks like you could fish in it, to a dry meadow. That's right. Right. Those are general photography, I guess. Okay. And you could say that. You could have proof that, you know, that I like those kind of images and that's what I'm out there to do. The squirrels in the wintertime running across with a weasel chasing them. Yeah. Those things happen. Coyotes mousing out in front of you. Or whatever. What about research? So that's the thing.

We're a research publication. Can we run trail cameras anytime we want in the state of Arizona? I mean, so that's our point, right? What about cattle? Okay. Everybody now is a buddy of a buddy that has cows somewhere. And I'm helping them. How about the guy in Nevada running cameras after the season? You and I? We ran into him. We ran into him. Key that one. Okay. And he was first portrayed himself as he runs the cattle. I run the cattle here. Okay. How long have you been doing that? You don't even look like a cattleman. Well, actually, I'm friends with the guy that runs cattle. And my buddy here has an archery tag. Deer tag. Archery deer tag. And we're checking the cameras to make sure there wasn't any bad people shooting holes in the troughs. That's literally what they said. That's what it boiled down to. That's right. And we left. It took us 15 minutes to get there.

And once we got fleshed it out while he's wearing some camo, and then we're like. We drove away, and we almost turned around. He used restraint because we knew it was a total abuse of the trail cam law. Well, we're out there grinding. And we pulled everything. We pulled them off. We were pulling, and they were putting up. Yes. They were just putting up. Because they knew they'd be the only one for the next however long. The bow hunt started in 10, 12 days. August 10, and then they're going to go and check for vandalism on the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th. All the while, I'm going to possibly sit this water. I mean, come on. It wasn't right. It got old fast. We just see a few of these proposed language, if you will, in Arizona. There's ways people are going to try to weasel around. How's it going to hold up when somebody keeps doing it? But on top of it.

Don't know many cowboys that use trough cameras. I mean, I know I'm going to get a call from somebody who says, oh, I use that. I use Verizon Fusions to know when my cattle trap is set off and I've got 20 cows sitting inside of it. Okay. Name a rancher that's got the fusion app, that's got the command app from Stelcam. But what's going to happen? Or they can tell you which brand of SD card depends. You're going to have deer hunters go to these cowboys and tell them that that's what they need to use there to find out if their cattle still can water or if their float's running over or if it's gone dry. You need to run these fusions. I'll help you get them set up. Tell me I'm wrong. I'll run them for you. Tell me I'm wrong. In fact, you can borrow mine and I'll run them for you and I'll let you know if they're dry. Whip up a little contract and call me a vaquero.

Right? Doesn't that mean cowboy Chris? Yeah, but how do you say it? Say it correctly. Vaquero. Vaquero. I was close. I'm not a speaker. There you go. Chris can add that to it. It might have sounded like I said something else. But I want to state it loud and clear. We don't necessarily have a position on this. We love cameras. I freaking love running trail cameras. Yeah, we love it. But if you're going to make a new law, it better be as simple and easy to interpret and follow and enforce as possible. Okay. And if you have things like general research, general photography, and cattle operations are exempt, everything could be construed as general photography. That's right. I set this up to the West because the sunsets on the strip are immaculate and I want to get great sunset pictures. Oh, there's a 38-incher in there. Wow. I didn't mean to set it up for that. We will adapt.

We've had to do that in a lot of states. Case in point, you mentioned Nevada. You just adapt. You've got to do it. That's the new law. That's how we hunt. You play by the rules. You do it. Okay. And I love cameras as much or more than anybody. For me and the family, the kids, Ashley, Justin, Sean, they cannot wait to check what's on them. And so it's just part of a family outing. You're right. And it's like trapping. You never know what you're going to get. Can't wait to get to the camera and see about this new water hole I found or a break in the pipe or whatever. Totally addicting. Addicting. It is. It is. Absolutely. But since they went and made the rule, okay, I kind of like big bucks. If a few of them make it and now we have a better potential at a 240, 250, 260 freaking monster, I like that too. I'm all for it. I'm all for it. I love hunting a potential giant.

And it feels like as things get better, we get better, equipment gets better, whatever, the wildlife has less and less of a chance. And there are less old deer, six to nine years old. Or elk or whatever else. That's right. Yeah. And with less old deer is less big deer. And so anyway, at the end of the day, I can see, I like the positives of having more big deer live. Does it affect the populations? I don't believe it does. Trail cameras aren't taking bunches of more bucks. They're just taking a little bit better bucks. Specific deer and elk and whitetail or whatever it's in Arizona or Nevada. But the point I was trying to make is if this is going to go through and get enacted, it better have some very black and white, plain, no room for interpretation or weaseling out of,

or it's going to have a lot of abuse and then you're going to have to go to court and you're going to have to prove that I used any of that to hunt with and all that. That was just a, that was one of my general photography. What about this? Joe Joe cameras. Sometimes we run cameras for two or three years before we actually have a tag to kill whatever it is. You're legal on that. If you don't take that. 2021, I don't have an Arizona tag, but I have cameras up in Arizona. Yeah, or, yeah, exactly. And you're using that for knowledge and see how the drought does. And all right, yeah, we're going to hunt in two, three years. You finally draw and you maybe learn patterns. But the problem is what about somebody that goes out there that has a tag that year, this year, and he sees cameras set up on the water hole. He's going to take them.

He's going to put a point of 12 gauge at him and pull the trigger. And I wouldn't blame him. Yeah, you wouldn't. But it's not his property. No. But at the same time, it is mine. He feels like if I can't do it and somebody's cheating me and really. He feels like he's cheating, but he doesn't know the intent that maybe I'm just looking for pretty cattle. And he doesn't know. He doesn't know whose it is. He doesn't know that you have no intention of using the images or taking wildlife or hunting wildlife in Arizona that year. So you're not breaking that law. Yeah. But how are you going to enforce that? Yeah. And you could also have people running cameras that don't have the tags and all that. And then they somehow show pictures to their buddies and all that. And indirectly. That breaks the law. It breaks it by showing the images. But how do you enforce that?

He could show them on his phone over his screen and never text them to him, never show them. It's like, you need to hunt here. There's a buck here. I don't have a tag. Go have at it. Nevada's rule feels a little bit tighter. It does. You know, they can't. Cattlemen can use it. You can use it on private. I don't have the exact language. I should have it. Just for the intents of this whole conversation. But it's. The cattle thing does exist. And we've talked about how that. Everybody becomes the friend of a cattleman when they have a tag. But anyway. So again, we're not. We don't have a. We don't have a stance. I like running them. We've got outfitters that want to run them year round. Yeah. Yeah. There is some contention within hunters. Bronson. I've had 20 of them stolen in Arizona. Maybe 30. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like that. But there's. You're not supposed to steal.

That shall not steal. It doesn't mean we have to have 14 laws. You don't have to have a law on truck cameras to tighten up stealing. Right. Those are just stupid. Well, we're not going to run them because there was a few stolen. We're just going to allow anybody to run them. Well, that's kind of. That doesn't make sense. Yeah. You know what I mean? It doesn't make sense. No. That's not the reason for it. Outlawing guns because somebody got shot accidentally. I mean, it's. I mean, it's. So this proposed regulation verbiage and change. Let's talk about the timeline. This has been voted on. When I say this language that we just read has not been voted on by the commission, they approved the rule amendment to amend it. And now the Game and Fish or whoever, they're probably their AG attorney general designee has drafted some some regulation language for it.

And it's going to go out for public comment. Do we have the dates on that? It looks like the public comment is going to be January 1 through February 1. Of 2021. So you got a month to comment. Yeah. You can do it at email rulemaking. Rulemaking at azgfd.gov. So R-U-L-E-M-A-K-I-N-G at azgfd.gov. Seems like within another month of that, I'm scanning for the date. It looks like mid-March, I believe, 19th. March 19th is kind of when they're going to. They could vote on it. Yeah. They're going to hear it. March 19th. So again, we're non-residents to Arizona. I'm always just. And maybe it's just me, Bronson. I don't know how you feel. I actually don't because we haven't discussed it. But I feel I'm a non-resident of Arizona. I, you know, I want the residents to do what the residents feel like that's best. And of course, we all abide by the rule.

And that would include hunters and guides, outfitters in that state. Just like we would be naturally super passionate about something like this in Utah or something where we really probably do the bulk of our trail. Camerooning would be here, maybe Nevada. We live very close to Arizona, Nevada. So we do get some bleed over for sheep and deer both in all three of these states that we're running because we're within an hour of all three states where we live here. So it's, it's kind of natural to have a little more interest, but like a Colorado or a Wyoming trail camera a lot. We don't, we don't normally Montana. We don't, we normally go to some of those states. We've talked about a bunch of Colorado. We view that as a show up and hunt our deer state. We don't normally hunt the early seasons in Colorado where scouting is super important and trail cameras have ever even come into play.

We usually hunt second or third or fourth season. But, but we're a non-resident there anyway. Yeah. So we realized that our voice, you know, there, or in this case with Arizona, you know, is the residents should, I mean, just like our rack and wildlife board process in Utah. Yeah. There's non-residents that weigh in, but I mean, there, and there's sometimes a compelling reason on permit splits or whatever, but really. The residents should be able to, you know, overwhelmingly give their two cents to the board and get it weighed by, by resident input. In my opinion. That's right. I kind of feel the same way. And so anyway, if we don't have cameras, okay, we get to look forward to bigger animals. Think about like all the coos deer. They live in the thickest freaking country in the state. I mean, it's unbelievable down there.

There's a lot of coos deer found with trail cameras besides the strip. The strip comes to everybody's mind. Units nine and 10 for elk. I mean, places like that where there are a ton of cameras, maybe even a few somewhat argued, heated arguments about sitting water, a particular water blinds, whatever. But having said that, it's going to affect the entire state. Yeah, it sure will. And it's a, like you said, very diverse, you know, some of the desert sheep, some of that country you can't hike into in the summer months when they're really dependent on some of the water sources. Because you can't hike far enough repeatedly over and over and over when it's 110 or 20 degrees down there. It's going to, you know, so desert sheep, coos whitetail, elk, you know, mule deer, very, very big impact. Just like Nevada was. It's not. Some of these guys are working their guts out.

Like even like, say 27, they're, I mean, they're horsebacking cameras. I mean, there's guys that are really working hard. They're not fighting with 14 cameras on a water hole. And they're back in the middle of the wilderness, you know, getting really cool images of, you know, coos deer, mule deer, elk, whatever. And so, you know, it's going to affect those guys as well as, you know, the back. High traffic areas where we, the ones we hear about. High traffic areas. 20, 30 cameras on a spot. Yeah. So anyway, and the archery coos, they've got a lot of over the counter archery coos deer hunters that are out running cameras because deer are watering in December and January still, even in the rut. And it's warmer down there and it's going to affect everybody. And you know, what's crazy is as we morph and move on and, and change, you know, we're,

we come dependent on some of this, some of these items, you know? Well, and so, so much so, and you could, you could look at it in Utah to some extent or where any other state, once you start, once something becomes a new regulation or legal, like scopes with muzzle loaders or whatever else, it's like, don't ever try to take that away from me now. Oh, you lived without it your whole life till whatever, six years ago. And, and, and we're not saying we're advocating getting rid of scopes. I'm just saying, but when something changes. I'm not a fan of them. Well, it's just, it's just another one of those things that we, we've talked about it. You keep adding, adding, adding things. Well, you got 500, 500, excuse me, 500 yard muzzle loaders, scope muzzle loaders here in Utah. You just added another rifle season. Just saying. Yeah. That's what I mean.

So you, you make changes and additive changes add, and you add up everything that's changed. And then you add the technological improvements that have changed with archery equipment, muzzle and equipment, rifle equipment, optics, you know, camo that you can stay warm and dry and all day long. I mean, just the, the additive improvements. And then, you know, and then you start. And then you try to curtail one piece and there, and then people are like, yeah, but you got to curtail it all. What about these guys? What about those guys? I even have guys saying, Hey, well, diaphragm, diaphragms call in elk. And those should be outlawed because you're mimicking rutting sounds. And you're like, come on. You know what I mean? But it's, Hey, it's been said to me. Additive impacts, you know, are hard on certain, you know, segments of deer, you know, or elk or whatever we're talking about.

So, and then you get the guys on the other hand that then are complaining that there's no great deer to hunt, you know, in a certain area. A lot of our general season units in Utah come that way. You have a couple of great years and then a couple of tough ones. Well, they're opportunity hunts. They're opportunity hunts. But you'll have people rush the Capitol, storm troop the Capitol, trying to, you know, ask for change, make heads roll, whatever like that. But at the same time, not look at all the additive things that we have in our arsenal as hunters now to be able to be super effective when we hunt, you know, you know, bows, muzzle runners, rifles. Do you personally want to go in the field using equipment that is not quite as effective as the most effective equipment that you can afford just because or just to do it?

I mean, my point is, is we're our natural, the natural person in us, it wants to use the maximum by law. So like a scope muzzle order, even though I don't like the scope muzzle orders, my scope, my muzzle order will have a scope on it if I can legally use one. Yeah, case in point, you know, 50 years ago, a lot of people used open site 30-30s, all right? That's still legal to use. How many people use those? Nobody. They're all legal, but they've been left in the dust. But there's a lot of people that don't like long range rifles, but they're not using an open site 30-30 because they'd be the only guy out there. And nobody likes to go at a disadvantage. Yeah, that's kind of what we're saying. You usually, not everybody goes to the very extreme, but we're definitely on the top 20% of what's legal in terms of equipment and gear and all that. You want to be effective.

A, these are once in a lifetime tags. If you're allowed to use it, you're going to probably want to use it. They're once in a lifetime tags. You want to, there's so much that goes into it. How many people hunt with an open site muzzleloader in Utah now? I mean, it's still legal, but you can use scopes now. Well, I would say very, very few. But like that elk we published that I killed in 19, or in 2015 or whatever, muzzleloader elk. It was legal to use a scope, but I didn't, largely, it wasn't by choice. I just, I didn't have time to set up a scope on that rifle. It was the year that it changed. Yes. I don't remember exactly when it did. Maybe it was in the spring. Yeah. But. But I, but I didn't, but it, but, but I wish I would have had one on there because, you know, it'll be a little bit more effective. So anyway. You want to elaborate on that? No, I actually smoked. The bull died.

I actually smoked him, but, but no, I smoked him. But at the end of the day, you know how muzzleloaders just tick you off? Oh, you got to slap them about four times before they start dying. Okay. And, and I had one reload left. I mean, it was a, it was very stressful. High anxiety. Yeah. High anxiety. So, um, I don't know, kind of, kind of a, kind of an exciting topic. What part of it is. Okay. Back to politics. Hunters in large part, fairly large part. I don't know how, what the percentage would be are Republicans and Republicans don't like the government restricting us. We don't want more rules. That's a tendency that we don't. I don't want more game and fish rules. I don't even want to see the game and fish. Leave me alone. Right. It's like. Don't tell me what I can. It's like in certain places where, where road densities are not high at all. Like some of our desert units in Utah.

And then they'll come in arbitrary, just close one or make it administrative use only. All right. Administrative use only. It's not being overused. It's not being overused. They just put a sign administrative use only. That's right. It's been there for 50, 100 years. And it's not wilderness either. That's right. It's not wilderness either. And it's, it's not in a high traffic area. Now we all know there's certain areas that end logging areas. There's a road every freaking 300 yards. And yeah, you can trim some of those old logging or because otherwise it's just a maze of ATVs and all that, you know, some of the stuff up on Cedar mountain and all that. Right. Those make some sense. Thin out the density. That's right. And barricade some of them up. Again, we're for some of that. But so naturally, I don't like driving up and seeing something that's been open forever

and it hasn't, land management agency hasn't changed, land designation hasn't changed to wilderness or something. And I just see a road that's now closed. And it's, and it was, and it feels like, it feels like somebody in the office just decided that they didn't want it to be used by anybody else but them. It feels like that. I'm not saying that's the way it is. The feeling is like, well, if, if, if the road is not, it's still passable. It's not like you had a giant slough. They didn't close it. It's not like it's dangerous. Not like you, hey, you're going to get in trouble here. People have crashed and rolled their truck down the mountain. It's nothing for safety. And it tears up the environment to get them out. They usually get stuck. It's a two track, whatever. It's just a two track road. That's right. Going to where it's just wherever it goes. I think there are a few. Yeah. Yeah.

There are. You know them. I know. Anyway, so I don't, we don't like government overreach or whatever. Any reach. It just like, it probably starts from when your kids, when your parents try to tell you to do something, there's a slight resistance to sometimes that. When you become a teenager, a kid, we all got kids. There's a slight, nobody likes a dictator. And sometimes you view this as a dictatorship. It's not necessarily that way, but that is a natural tendency to not have to be told what to do. When I can and can't shut up. Just stuff like that. Just gets under my skin. Well, let's call a good buddy of ours, John Adams, there in Arizona. I want to, he's pretty fun to visit with. I don't know. And his opinions, whatever they may be, aren't necessarily our opinions, but he could, we'll bring out both sides out of this guy because we're going to, we're going to be the devil's advocate.

He doesn't know we're calling, so there's a good chance he will answer thinking, hey, Jason, Merry Christmas. He'll be like, dude. Okay, here we go.

He's been building the house.

Probably making gingerbread houses with his family. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Come on, guy.

What up, bro? What are you doing? Dude, if I FaceTimes you right now, you'd be like, you're freaking nuts. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I got Bronson on the line, too. What do you got? What do you got going? Dude, I'm on top of about 30 feet up off the ground right now. Oh, you're building a house. Holy cow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, what are you guys doing? Is the wind blowing, too? Oh, yeah, dude. So, you're white knuckled right now. You got any safety strap, harnesses, tree stand harnesses? Strap yourself to the truss real quick. Nothing. I ain't got nothing. Free whatever-ing. Hey, we wanted to get your take real quick so you're on the Epic Outdoors podcast. Just, we won't take much of your time, but don't fall off, okay? Okay. We're on the phone. So, real quick, we're talking about the trail camera deal. Proposed. And we have not talked about your stance, my stance, Adam's stance, anything.

We just kind of want to talk about it real quick and give us the pros and cons of having a season, having a band year round, all of those kind of things. Just start talking for a minute on what you think. Oh, jeez, man.

And by the way, Merry Christmas. Yeah, Merry Christmas to you as well.

Oh, just real quick. I don't know, man. My stance is no dates. They can't even, you know, they have too many rules to enforce right now as it is. So, the only guys that are going to be affected are the guys that actually follow the rules. Yeah. So, I say ban them completely. Just get rid of them. Make it easy. Just get rid of them. Yeah. I would like to see it go back to the old days. Give that five years on the Kaibab, five years on the Strip. Giants. Five years in Unit 9. Dude, it would go back to. Giants. Just, yeah. People say, oh, man, I saw a giant buck and he has kickers or whatever. I mean, now with trail cameras, if there's a kicker or a flyer or, you know, a split eye guard or whatever, I know that buck is. 195, 197, whatever. Shoot. His name's Joe. Yeah. Exactly. His name's Big John. I have no idea, you know. Yeah. How cool is this? How cool is this? Yeah. Yeah.

That would grind it out way out in the middle of nowhere, find a giant and have them to themselves the whole hunt, you know? Yeah. So, you're saying the enjoyment of the hunt could go up for guys that are willing to work hard. They're going to go out, find one. And they're not going to have the teams of guys crowding them because nobody else is only, only if you glassed him up, if you got lucky and glassed him up, you're, you know, what's the chances? Anybody else really glassed him up kind of thing? Yeah. I, I, I, it, it also kind of bums me out that, that somebody from wherever could go buy a hundred truck cameras and know exactly what I know in a unit that I live in. Yeah. You know what I mean? And they showed up for one day, dropped all their cameras and took off in their back, pushing a pencil for the rest of the six months. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

One thing that, one thing that we threw out, you know, this is, I guess, as opinionated as we've gotten, as we had a little discussion, Carter and I this morning, is the, some of the proposed language about, you know, if it's, if it's used for the purpose of general photography or research or cattle. So, and that to us is just too broadly interpreted and needs, if, if this is going to stick, you got to, just got to make it stick. Kind of like what you're saying is it's not enforceable. No, it's not. And I mean, look at the bulls that unit 10 have, you're not getting trail cam pictures of those bulls, you know, because of the Bokea shut down the trail cameras, you know, or unit nine, you know, every single bull that is in unit nine. And if they go to a different unit, you know exactly which way that bull migrated to go find cows or yeah.

If they, if they want dates let them have it March through April, they can run their cameras to get their pictures. There's no antlers. There's no antlers on their nose. March through April. You're, you're a hard A. What do you mean? Come on. No, yeah. March through April. Let them get their, uh, let them get their, uh, you know, butterfly pictures and you know, whatever. Yeah. Yep. They can, at least they'll know what day to bull shit. So that's what you're, that's what you're saying is that, Hey, if you want to do it just for scenery or what at research or whatever, wildlife photography, then, then get your pictures, you know, in February through May, whatever. Yep. Yeah. But, but if they're like the dates that I've seen, like June through July, August or whatever, all that helps is auction hunters. It helps auction deer hunters, auction elk hunters. And that's it.

Maybe, it doesn't help. Maybe a little on the early, maybe a little on the early archery deer. Don't you think? It would a little bit. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. The August openers. Yeah. At least. It helps a little like, like here and there just to know that something's in the area. But like, if you got to quit at the end of July and you're, you're deer, like you guys generally start, let's call it August 21, August 20, just depends on how the calendar falls. You've got at least, you know, you've got some time there where you don't really know what's going on. And so that's your point is with the auction hunts going 365 days and usually, usually you have leftover hunters. Yeah. Carryovers that have, that are willing to kill something at the end of July or first part of August. That's what you're saying. It's going to help. So. Yeah.

Well. I could go, I could go either way, but that's just, that's my two cents. I think I did a poll on, on Instagram, whatever. What did the poll say? A month ago. 75% people want to keep them. 25% they ban them. So. Yeah. Do you remember how many voters you had on that? I think there was like probably 2,500 people voted on it. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a, it was pretty good. Pretty much. Yeah. That's a lot. Pretty much. Yeah. There, there was quite a few people that said, keep them. Was it keep them with the season or was it just straight up keep it, keep it the way it is? You know, I didn't get that detailed, but people just said, keep them. There's only 25% that said ban them. And I, I, yeah. I mean, we just got another 70 in last week. Do you know what I mean? You got another 70 cameras? Yeah. We just ordered another 70 stealth cams last week. Might keep them in the box.

No, they're not going to start this till 2022. Yeah. And, and, and yeah, a few of my buddies were like, Hey, are you offering, uh, your trail cameras at discount right now? And just like, you know, I don't know. So even though you think to ban them, you're using them. And I think Adam and I brought that up too. That's my point. We have to. Why? Tell us why. I mean, I just want to go. But for, for clients, I mean, I, you know, our clients are going to get the best that, that they paid for, you know, like. And competing with other outfitting businesses. Exactly. And that's what Adam and I were talking about with, um, you know, the advances in equipment. You're not going to go with inferior equipment, even though you would wish that the, that they would force you to use inferior equipment. You're going to go with the best that you can afford. Exactly. Yep. So. All right. Yeah.

Those reds and blues coming for you. Do you need to go? No, no. No, I live right here by the snow bowl and it's like every hour somebody takes a digger on a snowboard or runs into a tree or something. Okay. Just checking. Yeah. It's pretty funny. How's the, how's the weather down there as far as, you know, uh, winter moisture had any snow a significant amount? It's dry, dry, dry, which is nice to build a house. I'm, I'm hoping to get your sucker dried in before, uh, before the moisture comes. So that's nice. It feels like you've been working on an in and around hunts for about 14 months. Yeah. Yeah. Don't remind him. It's been, it's been bad. It, it, it, it's at like without anything done for like three months. So I'm trying to make up some time now. At least you're handy enough to do it. I, I, I, I'm not that guy.

So you, Bronson, I, uh, I wouldn't let my kids sleep in a house that I built or my wife or kids. No, I don't. Cat. Whatever. Yeah. I'm not a cat fan. So cats can whatever you have it. Not my wife and kids. Well, we'll let you go. Just wanted to kind of get a residence take. And I know you're good at bringing out both sides. Of course you did that, that little poll and I just thought, well, we hit you up today. So. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Well, uh, yeah. Have a Merry Christmas. Both of you guys. And keep up good work. Stay safe down there. All right, boss. All right. See you guys. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye. Bye. There you go. Oh, there you go. That's. There's going to be a varying wide range of opinions. Uh, I guess before we put that to bed, like for now, Carter, probably come up again in a month or two or three. One day. If they do anything. Yeah.

But for now, I guess just say our two cents would be if something's going to be passed, you better have it simply as interpreted and enforceable as possible. That's right. The broader little clauses that you can say, unless, unless, unless it's going to be abused or loopholed to death and then you're not going to be able to enforce it. And like John said, and like anything, the honest people that have to put it away because that's how they have to do to run their business, protect their business, their livelihood as guides, outfitters, or just to, Hey, I don't want my animal stripped from me. You know, somebody, if I shoot an animal, I want to be able to shoot it under the legal guidelines of, you know, you mean not saying it with illegal take, illegal take. I want to be able to do that. You know, it's going to be there.

You know, if it's loosely interpreted and loosely enforced, you better not even do it. You better not even touch it. It doesn't do anybody any favors. So anyway. Yeah. And you can, uh, Hey, Hey, bat them year round. Put a season on them. Don't ban them, whatever it is. You know, I love running them, but at the same time, totally enjoy the ban in Nevada. Um, and you know, I've, we've seen Montana come and go with trail cams to bidding on the commission, allow it, don't allow it. I think it's legal to use them right now, but they've had it to where it wasn't legal. And so, you know, Arizona could have a little change in commission and change it up a couple of years down the road. If they make a change now, it's not set in stone forever. Anyway, if you want to make a comment again, go to, um, rulemaking at azgfd.gov starting January 1 through February 1st and, uh, make your voice heard.

All right. Another thing to bring up that John brought up is how dry it is there and how dry it is here still in Nevada. We, we gotta, we're continually, it's not even 2021 yet. It's almost, but we're already getting quite a few calls, people asking about it. Cause we've alluded to it on podcasts earlier and it's been a long dry spell, but it really has. I mean, Chris, you've talked about two snow storms here in Cedar city of like an inch and a half each time. I mean, I think I shoveled it just so that just to do it, to make sure the shovel worked. I wasn't sure if my liability policy at my house was up to date. So I want to make sure if anybody didn't slip on the ice and see me, I just got rid of it. I threw out some salt. Yeah, that's what I mean. So I tried and I can say I tried, but when you have to shovel an inch of snow, it's just

because you're bored and you want to shovel more snow, but you're excited to shovel one inch because you haven't done it. And the bad part about this isn't that we're just having a dry fall. It's coming on the heels of one of the driest summers I have ever seen. Over 200 days of no moisture in a lot of parts of the Southwest. From, from April till the end of the year in Utah. I mean, I don't, I don't know the unmeasurable mountain Nevada, Southern Nevada, Eastern and Southern Nevada, same Northern Arizona, the same. Even a lot of central and Southern Arizona that the monsoon year was just off. They've had a few weird little storms, but there wasn't really a monsoon season. And that's how we get a lot of our summer, our yearly moisture is from July through September. And it was non-existent. So we're going into the winter, very dry.

It's just needs to need to watch it there. This could come into, to how you, how aggressively or, or not you apply for certain tags in the West this year, certain tags for certain species. I'm going to make that not all, not all things are affected. Antelope and sheep are not really affected. So, and I think part of that too, is what the, the thing that keeps me going every day, because we live for hunting season is, um, we never really see too bad back to back years. Generally, it's not two absolute terrible years. I'm praying that continues that we have a little bit of, uh, reprieve. If it comes off wet in March, April, May, I contend we'll be fine. You know, it's, yeah, the, the, the water table will be lower, but the feed will be fine and it'll come out of it. You can, we've seen that you can artificially have a good antler year by well-timed moisture,

but you may not have stock tanks full and all that, but you can artificially grow some groceries and have a pretty decent year. And what I meant a minute ago that sheep and antelope don't matter sheep, you know, seven, eight, 10 year old rams that they've got their head gear that they're going to have. They're going to grow a quarter, half an inch, you know, antelope also are a different beast. We've, we've had Tony Grimm it on before. They likes dryers. They shed in November, December. They're just their sheath and they just grow differently. They, they don't, they don't rely on, you know, the green up in the spring and summer. That's what I meant by that. He's saying that they'll feed on hardier feed if it's drier because they won't have the that could maybe grow horn better. Yes. We're talking about antlers, deer and elk.

That's what we're really talking about when we're drought sensitive. It's, it's really dry. We'll keep you up to date on it, both in the magazine and on the podcast. And again, it's, it's Southern Utah, parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Large part of New Mexico. Large part of Nevada. I mean, we're talking about Utah and Nevada, the two dry states in the nation. So, I mean. But the dry season also affected, affected hunting conditions across the West. Just hunting conditions were brutal. Yep. And, and that could affect carryover of deer and elk, which is for people looking for a 2021 tag could be a good thing. But you've also got to be able to have deer and elk in the condition. Meaning more animals lived. More, more, less, less take of quality or top end animals, if you want to call them that. Like Nevada. Yeah. Yep.

And, and then you now hopefully superimpose another year of antler growth. If that's at all good or normal or above normal, could be a good year for 2021 permit holders. But that remains to be seen. You know, we've got to, we've got to get out of this funk we're in right now. We're in a, we're in a dry weather pattern. And it doesn't. We know that. We know that. For a fact. The other parts of it, we don't know what we don't know because we don't know yet. But we do know we'd like to get it out of the dry pattern. Right. We, we don't know. We don't know because it's not March yet. All right. That's right. All right. Well, anyway, anything else, Chris? Yeah. It could turn around. But I feel like that even the winter time, what's there right now has an effect on the antler growth. If it's, if it was dry all summer and they're, they're fighting to find winter feed right

now, I feel like they're not going to grow their body condition. Well, how many? Yeah. I mean, I, I killed a bunch of rams with hunters this year. And I, and I just got done talking about how horn growth doesn't matter on your seven to 10 year old rams. And largely it doesn't, but their body condition was terrible. Skin and bones. Skin and bones. They fought for everything they got. Okay. And even some of the deer we shot in some of the Nevada and parts of Utah were not an ounce of fat on them. And skinny. Skinny. And so that's what we're talking about, Chris. Yeah. Antler growth is secondary to body maintenance, you know? That's right. And if their body, if they have to get their body back on track after a lean summer and not great winter feed, and that has to get back on track, even if it does start, you know,

raining and all that, it can, it's going to help, but their body is going to get, come first. Yeah. So anyway. I just wish they were like us. Like if you eat a donut or two, you feel fat the next day. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, oh, it rained. I'm now fat. My antlers are going to grow amazing. I mean, that would be nice, right? It's just like we're done with the hunts, you know, early December, late November, early December. And you feel lean, mean. You've been hiking hills, glass of knobs, and you're like, this is awesome. Within three to four weeks of just eating whatever you want. And writing the magazine. Okay? That's gone. It's all gone. Everything you work for is gone. The soft. Sets in. Softness creeps right back. And whatever. The hard legs are going bye-bye. Oh, yeah. So it's unfortunate. It feels like the most exercise we're getting is walking into the post office.

And our fingers on our computer. How much calories can you burn? My fingers are in shape. Yours are too. Yeah, they're toned. They're toned. I would like, we should do the word, you know, words per minute test. Dude, I bet we could smoke some secretaries. I'm serious. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to do it. Even the special characters, because we're always. All the. I don't know. Ampersands. Logins. All the. All the change. Arizona's changing the login system. We're good at all those weird symbols now. There were symbols I didn't even know about. Yeah. Why are they doing that? But anyway. All right. Time to give a quick shout out to a couple more of our sponsors here. Oh, yeah. Before we go. One of them out to Red Rock Precision. Awesome. Custom long range. Rifles and custom ammunition. Great guys. We've all shot their rifles and have had for many years. A couple different ones.

In fact. Six, five, sevens, 28s. 30s. 30s. Give Kurt a call at Red Rock Precision. 801-425-6574. Or you can check them out on the redrockprecision.com. Redrockprecision.com website. They have a nice feature on their website. You can kind of build your own rifle. You know, build it from an action, from a caliber, from a stock, from an optic, all that standpoint. But at any time, you want to just get the personal touch to call and talk the ins and outs of putting together what rifle you have for your application. Give Kurt a call. 801-425-6574. I'm the kind of guy that would call him Bronson. I would, too. I mean, I just have to. Well, sometimes, again, back to you don't know what you don't know. I don't know what I want, Kurt. This is kind of what I'm thinking. And he would be like, okay, then you probably need this stock or that stock. I don't know. Yeah, that's right.

It's not my expertise. It's better to talk about. And we get people calling us here about that, too. And if you're after a well-rounded Western big-game rifle versus just specifically a lighter-weight sheep or a high-country deer backpacking gun, they're different caliber and different stock and different optic considerations you should have. So, yeah, give them a call. They're great, great guys of business. They're very knowledgeable. We're experts in our field, and they're experts in theirs, and I trust them. Again, another shout-out here to Stealth Cam. Stealth Cam, you better hope that Arizona doesn't make this rule. You might lose a little cash. Anyway, StealthCam.com. We sell Stealth Cams, too. You're welcome to call us, visit with us. But you can go look at all these new models. They've got a ton of new models out for this year. We're going to be placing a huge order.

Just a lot of new stuff on the horizon for 2021 Stealth Cam. They do have their fusions. We have a few in stock here. We're kind of a little bit lean on what's in stock because most of the big game seasons are coming to a close. So, anyway, if you need something, now would be the time to call us while we have them in stock. Or you can go look at all the new models and features on StealthCam.com, gsmoutdoors.com. We appreciate their partnership and really fortunate to be working with Stealth Cam. Great company. Last shout-out today we want to give is to Outdoor Edge. They've been a good partner of ours. Partnered us with our Epic Outdoor Series Razor Light Knife as well. They've got a big variety of other knives and tools on there at OutdoorEdge.com. Good partner of ours as well. Well-built knives.

Never broken a blade to this day on mine. Me neither. Never have. And that was probably our biggest gripe. The only. Probably. Of the old knives. Yeah, that's right. You break them, especially on boning and elk or other things like that. These ones have, you know, a lot of good support system on the top edge of the blade. Support system sounds like something you need when you're going through a tough time in your life. But that has a great. COVID. With COVID, you might need a support system. But it does have a support to the razor for the strength of the blade. You know, almost the full length of the blade so you don't break it. And they're just a thicker, beefier blade. But still, very sharp. You better be careful about them. They will slice and dice you. Full-size knife. I love that about them. Lock blade. They're a great knife. And, you know, we have some of those. We do.

We're giving away with some of our different ticket packages. Every $200 ticket purchase that you make, you get a free Outdoor Edge Epic Outdoors series knife. Epic Outdoors knife. Yeah, with three extra blades in it. So, anyway, last shout-outs for ourselves, Epic Outdoors. We are giving away some hunts. Get your name in the hat. Go to epicoutdoors.com or call us at 435-263-0777. We publish a monthly magazine December through June, bimonthly, remainder of the year, nine issues a year, heavily research-based magazine for Western big game hunting. You can check us out again, epicoutdoors.com. That's enough for me, Bronson. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas to everybody. And bring on 2021. Merry Christmas to everyone.