EP 199: Meet New Epic Consultant Josh Pollock.

42 inch, 250's buck. 12 on each side. He hunted the ponts with his brother, and then goes and watches dad smoke a 250 buck on a general unit. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Chris, Chris, is it the keyboard? I don't know what we'd do without you over there, Chris. For some reason, it's just a little security blanket when you're in the room. Oh, good. I'm glad. We would do nothing if we wouldn't have a podcast. Where's that little portable one that you set up for Adam and I on the road, and it was dummy-proof? It's like a Sony Walkman. It's in the back room, but it's actually not dummy-proof. It's a little bit... It takes a little bit of setup. Yeah, it seems like you set us up. Will you set that up, and let's put it where nobody can touch it in case you die in a car wreck? Yeah.

I think John could get us out in a pinch. I actually built a little how-to thing. Manual? Yeah. A playbook? A playbook, yeah. We need to know where that playbook is, Chris. This one is the playbook's right here. What if you get kicked by a horse? But the playbook for that little thing is... What if McKenzie kicks you? I gave it to John at one point. I folded it up and put it in the case of the recorder. Okay. Well, okay, so it's on record. We got this recorded. We know how to get ourselves out in a pinch. What podcast number is this, Chris? This is 199. Alright, okay, we're going to have a fun two-hundo. A two-hundo? Early next week, let's do a two-hundo with all the boys. We've got a special topic. Yeah, we do. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it's going to be pretty fun.

Yeah. Name that unit or something similar. What do you think? Yeah, something like that. Maybe some rapid fire. Oh, I like it. Would you rather? Would you rather? A or B? Unit X or unit? One. It's kind of like the eye doctor. Number one. Number two. Or we could do would you rather on species. Species? Would you rather? Okay, yeah. Let's bring it all to the table. Let's do would you rather. Unit X, unit Y. Species X, species Y. We'll bring some cowboy questions too, Chris. Okay. Okay. Be ready. Hereford or Angus. Who knows? Who knows where it's gonna go? All right. $199, Chris, let's just be thinking what we're going to give away to celebrate the eve of the two hundo. The two hundo. Okay. All right. We're going to give away something. Let's do it. Speaking of other giveaway, let's talk about the Under Armour code, Carter, on our website.

All right. Yeah. So, on our website, we've got some brand new UA codes, 40% off. You can go on to epicoutdoors.com, log in, and get yourself a code. It's right at the top of the screen on the homepage. Get 40% off Under Armour Gear. It's on the white banner right at the top. Can't miss it. Type in what, your name, email, whatever? Yeah, you just... So, what you do, you go in there, it says click here in yellow. You click on that, and it'll ask for email name, address, city, state, zip code. And then you click to get discount code, it'll spit you out of code. And then as you check out on UA.com, you're gonna use that code. Chris, is there any fine print that says they owe us their firstborn since we're giving them a 40% off code? Or is this just free for the taking? No. It's free for the taking. Enter in all your unit choices you've applied for this year in the western U.S.

Nothing like that. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. You just enter a trophy pick and tell us exactly where it gives you GPS coordinates. There's no catch, people. We're saying you can get a card, buy 40% off UA.com. So, there it is. Any expiration to that, Chris? There's while supplies last, but is there a date on there? Well, so this is, it's pretty awesome. You have up to $2,000 in total purchase, which is a lot. Holy crap. And you get 40% off of that, and then it's good until 7-1 of 21. Come on. So, that's the giveaway for the day. We'll have a different one early next week on the 2-hundo. The 2-hundo. Another one of our supporters here, Outdoor Edge has been a long-term sponsor of us here and partner here at Epic Outdoors.

Make great replaceable blade knives, super sharp. Better be careful with one in your hands, but they can really make quick work of anything you got to take care of in the field. Visit them at OutdoorEdge.com. They got all kinds of different tools, multi-tools, knife, knife combinations, things like that. Great partner of ours. Appreciate their support. All right, so anyway, we're kind of in a pretty good mood today. Bronson, we just finished up a MAG. Oh, yeah. April 2021 issue with Nevada. Montana Moose, Sheep, Goat, Bison, Antelope, and Kansas is at the printer. EMAG will be live probably by the time you hear this podcast. So, pretty excited about that. Of course, Nevada opens up. Montana's already open, but it's not due till May 1st or June 1st in the case of Antelope.

Nevada opens up Monday, the 22nd of March, but it's not due till, what, May 10th? Yeah. So, it's coming. Don't worry, you know. Well, I had to apply the first day. You don't get a twofer. But, let's just say you get excited and apply, because I'm that guy, right? Well, Nevada has a nice plug-and-play option. That's it. For free. You can make and adjust choices. I love adjusting those choices like 10 times before the deadline. I know. It's pretty fun. What if? Kind of like what we were talking about, the A or B, one or two. But anyway, kind of fun. So, anyway, anybody who's thinking about Nevada, we are going to have this EMAG up and live if you want to apply. You can obviously start on Monday, like Bronson said. We also have the guide draw coming out next week. Well, on Wednesday, right?

Yeah, they're going to run the draw on Monday and come out on Wednesday at the very latest, maybe even a little bit early. Nevada loves to have people waking up at midnight. Who knows, they might release it at midnight. Remember? Remember how they did that? The phone starts chiming. Yeah. Kind of fun. They made a big deal about it. The midnight madness. Yeah. Oh, they did. Yeah. And then you got other states like Arizona. Okay. Well, you know, I'm still looking for a card charge. You could use the word madness, but probably not anything involving midnight. It's just three weeks of madness. I was wondering how much the new programming team charged him to get him up and going. What do you think? I don't know how they got bailed out, or how the draw was run, or anything about that. Probably runs from some Biden programmers. Who knows? I don't know.

I don't know what's going on, but it was a cluster of epic proportions. Well, cards have been hit. You know, it'll be another week before the dust settles, and who knows. But it was a... My card hasn't been hit. My card has not been hit. Oh, nobody here. I'm just saying people. Disgruntled. I'm a disgruntled patron. So, is it done? Like, if you're gonna get hit, your cards hit. Probably. Usually Arizona crushes them in one day. They're pretty handy on it. Other than, there has been people's cards that declined. The alternates, it's usually five to seven days later. Yeah. And we've had friends get another little tiny wave several days later, which would be your alternates. I'm gonna be the cleanup crew. I'm gonna be on the cleanup crew, I'm pretty sure. But... All right. Well, so anyway, if you drew a tag,

You're gonna find out exactly what you drew here probably within a week, week and a half. Assuming that they load the portals. Assuming there are portals. And so, anyway... Or you can get through on the phone line. I mean... 602-942-3000. Hit option two. I don't even remember. It's pretty close though. But anyway, so yeah, we're pretty excited. If you drew, we want to hear about it. Give us a holler, especially if you're a member of Epic Outdoors. We can help you get started, Give you outfitters names and numbers or also a list of members who've drawn in the past. Of course, Bronson, you and I spent a lot of time in Arizona. If there's something we can help you with personally, absolutely happy to help. One thing we didn't bring up, just real quick, is maybe a new change for Nevada. Okay. The grandma law. Grandma law. Duh!

Well, basically, basically, you're not going to be able to use grandma's points to point boost you. You then turn her tag back in, get her another point, and have Grandma help boost you again. Every year. Year after year after year, which a lot of guys have been doing. And hey, if it's legal and the system allows it, don't blame them. Don't blame them. Game and Fish knew it was happening, but maybe not to the degree that it was, but they've kind of closed that loophole. Yeah, you can still point boost somebody, but when you draw now, their points are gone. You both have to turn your tag back in if you want your points back. Yeah. So, you're gonna go hunting on grandma's boosted points, but she's now back down to zero. Kind of cool, yeah. They've also, yeah, grandma, mom, whoever, friend, foe, whoever. And then, all that. Big change, really. It's a big change.

I mean, a lot of people have used it, and it's not, again, we're not, we're making light of it now. It's gone on. It's just now gone. So, it might affect some people. Well, it'll be good to spread out the tags a little bit to other people. There's guys, you know, killing big ol' bucks on a regular basis, and I don't blame them for it at all. But anyway, that'll adjust slightly. Still be able to use grandma's points like you said, but, you know, you'd have to both turn in to get your points back. They will continue to allow you to turn your, you know, your own tag back in, get your points back if you applied on a single app and just wanted to not go. Something came up, weather, whatever. So, you'll be able to do that. They also are initiating a first-come, first-serve option. Pretty cool.

Yeah, within the last 10 days, if somebody returns a tag within that period, and they don't have the time to go to the alternate list, it's just going to be on a first-come, first-serve deal. Resident, non-resident, and resident in the same hat, free for all. Basically, here's a tag. Whoever's first one to buy it, buy it. That's right, yeah, if you get within that, what, I think it's a 14-day window or whatever, plus, hey, there's no resident, non-resident limitations. There's a tag comes up, it's free for everybody, you lose your points and waiting periods, you'll incur a waiting period if applicable. What was the number of desert sheep tags last year? Nine. Like eight or nine desert sheep tags turned in so close to the deadline last year they didn't have time to reissue them. So, first come, first serve desert sheep tags.

I would have taken a rotary phone and started calling people up, but you'd have made nine calls and got rid of them. But, in this day and age, that's not proper. Yeah, well... Probably have to go through protocol, vet everybody out, make sure they're not a felon. It probably just was too much. Huh? Well, and if you didn't have time to scout, or didn't have time off work, or hire a guide, or whatever, there's lots of things that you get a desert sheep call a day before the hunt starts that you may decide to pass on it. It sounds stupid, but it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Wait till it happens to you, and see what you do with that phone call. Remember when I drew that Arizona sheep, and then when you actually have the tag, I'm not going to say it's buyer's remorse, but you realize it's my one and only, and I want

to make sure it's in the right unit, and now you get picky. And I was like, maybe I'll turn this back. And you were like, you're a dead gum fool. And we looked at the drawing odds in Nevada. You should never turn one of those tags back. Do not do it. All right. Well, enough of that. We got a kind of a special guest, Bronson. Yeah, we've had him before, a couple times, two or three, I don't know what it was, but wearing a different hat back in that day. Now he's even got our hat on. How about that? Yeah. Josh Pollock. Josh. Morning, Josh. Hey. How's it going? It's been quiet over there. I'm just taking it in. Waiting for me to give him the head nod. Yeah. So... It's time, boss. It's time. It's probably best that I didn't talk. Well, we appreciate you being here. We've announced it in this April issue of the magazine.

Josh Pollock is our newest member of the Epic Outdoors team, and glad to have him on board as a hunting consultant to help all of us here in all the different facets of our business. Doesn't matter what we do, all of us consultants pretty much do a bit of everything. So, we've had Josh on in the past when he worked for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources as a wildlife biologist and Southern Utah. Talked a lot about that, but yeah, he's decided to bite the bullet. I hope it's not a real bullet, Josh. I mean, I hope it's a wonderful experience and a great road. I mean, we want to echo what Adam says, super appreciative that you decided to take the job. We offered it to one guy, it was you. I was going to say, why did he say no? I was number two on the list. And anyway, just really appreciate you making that plunge. Of course, you got to travel a little bit,

and you're from in that Pengwich country up there in the mountains. Yeah, why would you want to leave that country? Pretty nice and quiet. I live there. I've been there, done that, in that valley. It's pretty nice. Gee, that's right, I forgot. Had a couple kids in that valley. Yeah, it's a good place. It is. It's a good place. But anyway, here we are. Josh is on board. If some of you maybe missed some of the earlier podcasts we did with Josh, let's maybe just tell us a little bit about, yeah, your background, where you're from, where your upbringing was and whatnot, and how you got to maybe where you are in life a little bit. But just by way of rewind. No problem. Yeah, if you flip through that magazine and you'll get it, you'll see me as a little fat-faced, chubby kid, 14-year-old. And then a much skinnier, younger man later on, I guess.

Anyway, yeah, I grew up in Panguich. Still a little fortunate to be back there now. I was away for several years of school and work and doing that kind of thing. But living back there now, and my wife works there. We have four kids. And just, I don't know, loving it. It's good to be back that way. And I am coming over this way. It's nice. I don't mind the drive. I get a little free scouting in the mornings, but I don't know. Listen to some podcasts. Seems like it's now with Daylight Savings, I get a little bit of sunlight at least. Before I was coming in the dark and going home in the dark, there wasn't much scouting. But, so yeah, I grew up there in southern Utah and just spent my whole life as much as I could out in the mountains, I was doing the things I loved, and went away, went to college, and decided that I needed

10 years of misery in my life, so I decided to work for Division of Wildlife. Geez, why was it so miserable, Josh? It seems like an awesome job. Oh, yeah. I mean, you get to fly around in a helicopter and look at elk and things like that. Catch bad guys. Yeah, we did that, did some of that. And it's just exciting to get phone calls and just get yelled at, no matter what you do. I mean, every big deer, small deer, not enough deer, too many deer, and landowners saying there's too many deer, hunters saying you're not doing your job. Ruining my family traditions because you're trying to manage for trophies. Just kidding. I mean, it was a great opportunity, and I enjoyed working for them. There's awesome people that work at that agency. That's the one thing that I get frustrated with. You hear a lot of hunters talking about,

you know, they're ruining everything. It's all for money. I think about my experience and time working there. Never was I told, hey, you guys got to sell more permits if you're going to keep your job. Or never did I see a pay increase if I increased permits. That's for dang sure. So, you know, there's some awesome people that work in the Utah Division of Wildlife and still good I had friends with several of those guys that work there, and none of them set out or wake up each morning saying, how can I ruin hunting today for the people of Utah or the non-residents that want to come here. None of them wake up to do that and intentionally do that. It's just such a balance, you know, because there's the science and then the social side of it, and a lot of it gets turned political, and there's a lot of decisions made off science,

And then, the final decision is made off of political issues. And so, and I don't think... It's got to be hard as a biologist to see that. I know what's happening. Then, Salt Lake makes a final decision based off politics or whatever. Or if somebody gets involved between there and Salt Lake, yeah, and you're, you know. Yeah. And, I mean, the other thing that hunters don't understand is you've got guys that literally, their livelihood is this chunk of alfalfa that they're trying to grow. And when you have a wild animal that nobody has control over, and it jumps a fence, it gets there and starts eating some of that. The state owns the wildlife, and it's eating my personal crop. Yeah. And so, you got a guy on your right hand saying, if that thing comes in the field, I'm going to kill it. And the guy on the left hand saying, there isn't any

of those, and we want 10 times more of those, so I can kill them. It's a hard balance. And so, that's why I say you're hearing it from both sides, and it was a good, well-rounded I learned a lot. I got to see some amazing country with a lot of the telemetry stuff that we were doing. You know, when you'd get a doe deer that dies out in the middle of nowhere that I've never been to in my life, and I have to go hike into it, go pick it up, it was great to just go learn new country, and learn new things about the unit and stuff like that. So, no, it wasn't 10 years of misery, but it just feels like you don't often get a lot of, hey, thanks for what you're doing. I have a good job. I mean, I was only there half of your duration. I lasted five years. So, before I tapped out. And then you get paid to hunt and kill. Yeah. Right? Everybody thinks we're paid to hunt and kill, Bronson.

I'm paid to sit at a desk. It's a brutal grind right now. Yeah, and I'm not saying picked on us, but it's, you know, not all shooting and killing. So, I guess that would be my only advice as to hunters, and it's natural. We're not very patient people. You know, we like to go out, and we like to have success, and we want to go out, and especially me, you know, I like to go out and see big things and kill big things. And so, that's all I want to manage for, but that's not what everybody, you know, everybody else has an opinion. A lot of guys just want to get a tag. So, you're trying to just manage all kinds of things and help everybody out. And in the end, we're all hunters, and we just need to, I don't know, be a little more patient and understanding and realize. You mean just love each other? Yeah. We just need to love each other? Yeah, exactly. We need to hug more. No, we don't.

I mean, we're going to start doing that. No, we don't. We're not huggers. I'm coming to each of you guys' office every morning for a hug. We're not huggers, though. Some people hug. We're not huggers. But no, it's just, I don't know. That's my only, I guess, thing there. We get pretty critical, and we're passionate, and people are passionate about it, because Because hunting is our life. As all of us, it's been our main hobby our entire lives. Yeah, we have some other hobbies, but I think about hunting every day. You know, 80% of my day revolves around hunting. I don't understand why you wouldn't. That's the only thing you are. Yeah, I don't know if there is anything else. So, that's why we're passionate people. But it was good. I got a lot of experience. I got to help hunters a lot. You know, talking to hunters on the phone, trying to help them have success, that was a joy of mine.

And also, you know, getting to talk to a hunter after you've talked to him on the phone, because they would call you back. It was a small number, but those guys that you'd call and maybe give some advice to, they'd call you back if they'd kill something, and it was always good to hear back from them. Definitely, it's just like the KSL comments, you stay away from those. You know, when you get the surveys back and ask a hunter what he's saying, you just stay away from those, I mean, for the most part, because you start getting into them, and that's a road you don't want to go down.

I remember reading one once. I mean, there were several of them. And I mean, you had everything from, Robert Redford was out here running elk off of my thing while I was trying to do this, to some guy was complaining because he drew this tag and had 30 trail cameras out, and he only had one 400-inch bull on camera and still killed a 390 bull. But he said he was unhappy with his hunt, you know? Wow. So, it's like, how do you... You can't keep everybody happy. And you try, but you just can't. But anyway, that's kind of a rabbit hole down there. Well, we've learned that you can't keep everybody happy. Right? No, absolutely. Yeah, and it's a thankless job. Like, there's a lot of other professions, maybe school teachers or things like that. They're just... Public service.

They're just... Yeah, it's a hard player. A coach, you know, even if you're a great coach, and you can't keep everybody happy. You can't play all the kids the same. I mean, you're just, you're gonna, you're 50-50. If you're 50-50, you're about as good as you're gonna do. Cop that pulls me over doing 60 and a 30. Very frustrating. Well, he's doing his job. It's pretty black and white. I know, but I'm still mad. What do you mean? I don't want a ticket. It's pretty black and white. Yeah. Well, you'd think so. You'd think so, but people could argue otherwise. That's not really up for debate. You're doubling his speed limit. Anyway. All right.

But yeah, so you spent 10 years, you know, half of it roughly as a game warden, the other half as a biologist, right? Yeah, I started off as a game warden. I'm still in, luckily, I was able to stay in southern Utah. You know, when you get hired as a game warden, you don't know where they're gonna put you. You showed up there with five guys, and there was these six or seven areas that they said that we want to fill, and they did let us kind of have a little say as to what we felt like we wanted, but they placed us, basically, you know. Some of the regions had some say, and I'd had a little experience. I'd worked, kind of did a little bit of some school and stuff with the southern region where I worked, so they knew me a little bit. And so, I was politicking to them to help keep me down here in the southern region and stuff.

Instead of going to Bullfrog. Bullfrog was always, I don't know if it still is, Bullfrog seems like it would be great to be on Lake Powell. Wait till you live in Bullfrog all year. Terrible. The winner in Bullfrog. Geez. I mean, nobody's on the lake. I mean, it used to be the lowest on the total. There's the most revolving. And you get the Henry's, though. You get the Henry's. The Henry's is your area. Yeah, the Henry's in the lake. So, really, two really awesome options. But like you said, six months out of the year, they're not that awesome. You're isolated. Try to raise a family in Bullfrog. Nobody's coming to visit you. And most of the time, if you were single, they had many game wars. They were, you know, out of college. They weren't married yet. Then you go to Bullfrog. Try to get married.

When you live in Bullfrog, try to have a wife and bring her to Bullfrog. Try to raise a family in Bullfrog. That's what, when I came out, so the officer that actually went to Bullfrog, he was a kid. He grew up in Texas. He was a single kid. He was my roommate at the police academy. And he went there. They sent him there, and he was all about it. He loved it, because it was free housing. They have a housing that's down there that's free, so all your stuff's free. So, anything he was making, he was just saving. After four or five years, I think he tapped out, and he moved to Utah Valley, didn't he? He got married fast. Yeah, he went to the meat market up there. I know the whole story he told me. He said, I gotta move on. I gotta get out of this bullfrog. I saved a little cash, now I'm out. Three days, he had a wife, and he didn't even know what I had. And then he was happy forever.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, he still is now. I talked to him. Yeah, he's all good. I don't know how we got talking about bullfrog. But anyway, you were in Paiute County. I got to go to Paiute County, yeah, Wild Wild West over there, and went there for five years. I got a, you know, So, fortunate to cover some of these awesome units that we have, deer, elk, antelope. I mean, some great opportunities there, and so it was good. Then moved 20 miles south, resolved to when you took the biology job. Yeah, yeah, I took a biologist job and went down and got even better country down there, better units, home units that I got to manage. That was pretty cool. You know, you grew up hunting these units and living in these units and being in them, and then now I got to manage the wildlife in them, and it was pretty cool.

So, those would be just for everybody, you know, Pengwich, Dutton, Poncegont, part of the Boulder, East Zion, that much of that, right? Yeah. Kaparowitz, shape units. Kaparowitz, all that, yep. It was big. It's probably one of the biggest biologist districts in the state. Oh, yeah. I loved it. And when it came to recommendation time, classification seasons were always just insane. You're just running from one thing to the next. You never had a minute. That's awesome. Kind of the core of the state, really.

And you had everything. We put mountain goats down there, so you had mountain goats, desert sheep. I mean, you had everything. We even had to go do a stinking cottontail jackrabbit count a couple mornings. They're animals, too. They still do those morning dove surveys down on the... No? No, we didn't do those. Oh, wow. I had to do that every year within like a one-week period, the same week every year, do morning dove surveys. Well, they're still using the computer modeling from your surveys, probably.

But it was like how many, you know, you had to hear him cooing and stuff up. You had to stop literally every like half mile or mile. I mean, I had the same route every year. No wonder you quit after five. Huh? No wonder it was so easy to bring you up. That was pretty easy. I just stopped the truck and got out and listened to how many doves I could hear cooing at daylight and then drive and send it in. But anyway. Oh yeah, we had to drive. It was like a 40 mile route and you couldn't go more than 25 miles an hour and you had to count every rabbit. They're animals too. They are. They are. Tell us, you mentioned some big stuff earlier, trophy, this and that. Just tell us, I mean, every time I look at this picture of, is it your dad that killed this 42 inch, two 50s buck? Yeah, general season. Something monster. Disgusting, freaking monster. Garfield County legend. Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about that. That was pretty exciting. It was funny. So, that was my first year of hunting. I was 14 that year. And my first year, I drew a Poncagant rifle tag. No way. Yeah. Very first year hunting, and I had no idea. I was working for a local taxidermist there in Pengwich, still helping out a little bit. Just like fleshing and stuff back down and whatever. Sweeping the floor and caping out European mount stuff. You had me practicing on that. We're gonna boil the skull, but you're gonna practice caping it, you know. So, I started doing that, but I'd see big giant bucks in there, and so needless to say, when I drew that Poncagon tag, I had a pretty skewed idea of what it was. What was gonna happen. And at that time, the Pontsagant wasn't what it is right now either, you know. So, and the hunt, that was actually when that hunt was early. So, it was that- Early October.

Early October, like around the 9th, which is not the time you want to be hunting the Pontsagant. They're moving. They're on the lock. It's about the worst time to be hunting. And so, it was trying to hunt the top, didn't really know. We didn't cover that low country very much. We just didn't know. And a lot of them were in the mid-country. And so, there's a lot of private through that stuff. So, it was tough. Anyway, I had a good It was a good hunt. My dad vowed he'd never go. My brother and I actually both had, we drew a joint, a dual application on there, and he vowed he'd never go hunting again. He was pretty angry at some of the bucks we were passing up and some of that stuff. But anyway, so there we went. We had this. We both end up shooting little dink bucks on the last day, but you know, you're 14, so you need to kill something. So, it was good for that. And anyway.

But then your dad got his hunt on the general. Two weeks later, yeah, we just have a general tag back when it was in the southern region, and it was funny. We grew up so different. In fact, my dad gets mad at us now. We try and run trail camera scout, do that kind of stuff, and he hates it. In fact, we just had a conversation about it the other day. He's retired now, and he's been watching a bunch of bulls, and he's had them nailed down, you know, because these kids are in school, and he's watching them every morning and night babysitting them, just waiting for them to drop. And anyway, he went up there, and he noticed a couple of them had dropped, and they'd moved away. So, he's like, I'm gonna go sneak in there now. There was some local high school kids there, and so he goes pulling down there, and they

literally came racing in right behind him. Well, Josh, there's people that make living on Shedhunting. Yeah, and he was just mad. I mean, he was like, and he said he got out to hike, and they came down there, got right with him, and he wasn't happy about it. Anyway, he was just like, I see, this is why I hate scouting. He's just the kind of guy that loves to just go out to go hunt a place. Stumble on and stumble on and jump. You're not going to be alone anymore. No. Just go stumble on, go jump up a buck, and it looks good running away and dumping. And he hunted like by himself last year. We were working, and he went and hunted some country that I thought, I would never even go there in my life. But he went back day after day, because he saw a track in there, and he was bound and determined he was going to find it. So, anyway, he never did, but... But he was by himself.

Yeah, he was by himself, and that's all that mattered. Nobody else wanted to go. Nobody else was in there. So, anyway, that was basically how we grew up hunting. It was just, We didn't scout or anything. We'd just go to these different places. Anyway, it was kind of a place that he hadn't hunted for years and hunted it growing up. And he said, we're gonna go over here. And we were actually riding in the truck that morning. I remember he telling me, I'm gonna go over here and I'm gonna shoot a big black face 40 inch buck. And I was like, are you kidding me? Because this was back, you know, even Utah general hunting was really, really pretty rough back then. Do you remember roughly the year? 94, 95, somewhere in there. So, we were running like nine bucks per hundred does on our general season units back then. It was pretty tough. I had some pretty bad winters right there.

Winner kill, 92-93. Yeah. So, we had some... It wasn't the greatest hunt. Anyway, we go down there, and he was telling me how he's going to go do this, and I'm thinking, yeah, right. We're going along anyway. A couple bucks come running out, and I'm like, dang, those are actually good bucks, you know? And he smokes the one, and my grandpa shoots the other one, and I'm like, dang, he was right. Like, we're not shooting two points this year. This is pretty awesome, I guess. And we get walking up there, and we were kind of walking across the side hill of it, and it was in some pretty thick manzanita. And I remember about halfway up, my grandpa was, he was pretty old. He was in his 70s, and so he was taking his time. We were just kind of poking along, and I got my binoculars up, little 10 by, or 8 by 32s, or whatever they were.

And I look over there, and I'm like, man, that looks like an antler, like sticking up above that manzanita. Like way high. Yeah, that's weird. I haven't seen that. My dad looks at it, and says, oh, he looks like he's got a cheater, you know. Come on! And we go walking over there, and my little brother was there. I think he's 12 years old range, you know. We obviously get over the deer's dead, and kind of laying behind a log in this manzanita. We get over there, and my brother and I both are like, oh my gosh, and grab its head and pull it up out. And I'm like, Dad, you killed a 30-incher. And then we get looking at it, and it's like, oh no, that's more than 30. And there's like points everywhere. It's a disgusting buck from way back. Yeah, points on each side. Jeez. Did your dad get excited? I mean, did he even have it? He knew it was good enough deer to shoot.

Yeah, and it's funny because a lot of it's extras. As they come off, they kind of line up and everything. So, really, from the side, it kind of looks like a four point. Just thought you were doing a smashing ground. And I remember after he'd shot it, it kind of turned and went over this log. And at that point, I was like, that looked weird. It was like a bunch of junk out here, way out past its side. I was like,

I was 14. I don't know. I thought I was 16. But anyway, that was pretty amazing. He didn't walk over to it. He was just like, he took his hat off, and he's like, oh my hell, oh my hell. He just walked up the hill. He's like, he knew? Oh yeah, at that point. Well, it's about, he's hunted 30 years or whatever at that point in his life. Give us the stats on him. Where'd he end up at? He was like 41 and three quarters wide. I mean, it's almost 42. He's got like 12 points on each side, and I think he ended up going like 248, something like that. Official? Yeah.

Did you book him? Is he in the book? Yeah, he's in there. I'm gonna check it out on the trophy search. Pretty awesome. He's in there. So, it was pretty cool. Love the tailgate and the back of the truck pics. You'll see him in the magazine, the April issue. It's pretty cool. I had to kind of through those things, because that was kind of, that was when I decided at that point, like, this is what I need to do in my life. There's something. There's something different. How are we gonna do that? He hunted the ponce with his brother for a week and a half, and then goes and watches dad smoke a 250 buck on a general unit the next week. Yeah. Pretty awesome.

It was awesome. That's what kind of gave me the bug, and I was, I guess, smitten then, and that was part of, you know, I struggled with working with the division, is that's what I wanted, all my units, that's what I wanted, everything. I wanted everything. Because the thing is, I want, it was such a unique experience that I want everybody to experience that. I mean, there's something about seeing your kemming, my daughter, I watched her a couple years ago shoot a spike deer, you know, and it's got velvet on it, milk on its lips. And just seeing her shaking and everything, I'm like, that's one level, and that's awesome. And there needs to be that. Yeah, for sure. But then there's that, where that's extremely next level. It's like, man, I wish everybody could have that same experience to walk up on, especially just an animal that's lived that long in this kind of area that it did.

And it was like, man, I wish everybody could have that. Well, and you keep trying to do, you want to duplicate that, and it may never happen for you. No, no. No, it may not. And so, you just take those, and those are those memories that, I guess, want me to do that. So, I had that drive as a biologist and that, to want to help to try and do that. And obviously, when you're trying to manage a general season, that's not what we manage them for, is bucks like that. So, anyway, yeah, that was a pretty main experience in my life when big buck hunting was something that I was done for. So, then Utah comes into some big bulls. How'd that treat you? I don't know. Okay. Hey, I just love hearing about it. Yeah.

You know. To save the full story there, I guess, it was on the tail end of, I guess you could call, Utah's glory days. I mean, we'll still see some years where they're killing good bulls. That's pretty weather dependent now on some of those units. But, yeah, it was kind of in the end of the heyday, and I felt like some of those units weren't doing quite as good, and I had like 12 points or something. I really wanted to kill a bull in the rut, but I thought, I'm never going to do it. I was still four or five years away from that, so I ended up taking that. I think it was about the second year Utah came out with their late hunts. We had known of some bulls that come down in some winter-age country and thought, you know, we could have a chance at a good bull and some of this stuff. It was only a five-day hunt.

My wife had just recently had a baby, our first baby, and she had had a few troubles. So, kind of during that hunt, I'd end up having to come clear back to Cedar to bring her to the doctor. Anyway, it was kind of a... Anyway, long story short, my dad ends up just going for a ride, took the dogs out for a ride, and was checking a water tank as he's driving by. Here's this bull, and he finds him there. And he didn't know what he was. You know, he's got extras off each of his fourths, and he saw that, and he's like, hey, this is a big bull. And we were thinking 380 range. And honestly, it sounds dumb now, but 380, there were a lot of 400 bulls hitting the ground back then. 380 felt like it rolled off your tongue a little bit in the mid-2000s. It's stupid.

Yeah, it was more like saying a 350 now or something, you know. And so, it was like, yeah, that's a great boat. We probably ought to try and hunt him, you know. I mean, anyway. What year was this? 7, 2007. Right at the end of the heyday. Yeah, I don't know how it done. 8 or 9. 8. Yeah. 8, and you smashed it. Well, we passed the 387, hoping for better, and then decided we shouldn't do that, and we'll kill it the next day. It was like, that was the same type premise, because we'd... It felt like the next year, Bronson, there wasn't another 380 alive. For some reason. It started to really taper. Anyway.

Yeah, anyway, we ended up, it was one of those things, I ended up having to, we got some crappy weather, you know, that was, it was actually hot a little bit, and then we got some fog and crappy weather, and trying to glass and find him again the next day was tough. Couldn't pick him up. We saw a couple bulls getting into the trees, but weren't sure. So, then I ended up having to bring my wife back over to Cedar, like I said. I hurried and got things taken care of then, and I raced back over the mountain, told my dad, hey, go up there and just start glassing, and I'll meet you up there. We literally had a few minutes left, a 30-minute something. We basically were going to make a game plan for the next day, and we were just talking about it, joking, saying, I said, if I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all. Literally, there he was. Stepped out.

Yeah, and he was right by that same tank. We actually cut his track. He'd been to that tank. It had just rained, and we'd actually cut his track crossing the road, and we didn't know it was his, but we're like, oh, there's a fresh bull track right there. And because we had minutes left, we were just heading back, and all of a sudden, we had an ad in to him. So, I got a shot on him. It was a little bit high. He went a good 150 yards, ran to the trees, and he stopped over there. And I thought he was raking a tree. He had his head down, and he was kind of raking his tree. He was choking on blood at that point. I didn't know that, so I tried to shoot him a couple more times, and my dad's just saying, don't hit him in the horns. Don't hit him in the horns. So, I was trying. Anyway, so it got dark on us because we waited. He went into the trees. We couldn't see him.

And it's basically went all the way back to 1994, 95. We'd get over there. Pollock fashion. Yeah, start following his track again, but this time it was opposite, honestly. I stayed back with some blood. We'd had to take some orange off marking some blood. It was dark, and my dad says, well, we were kind of talking about it. I said, let's don't go any farther. Let's just stop here. But we couldn't quite make it to that tree where he was at. If we would have went there, there was a pile of blood this big where he was spitting it all out. But we'd stopped just before that, and he said, let me just go right behind this tree where he last saw him. And so, I was standing there, and he went, and all of a sudden, the screaming started coming from behind the tree.

Yeah, and he starts counting, one, two, three, four, five, and he gets to eight on one side, seven on the other, and I'm just like, you've got to be kidding me. And then the party began. So, oh, it was fun. So, then again, like that brought all those memories back of, man, I wish everybody could walk up on a bull like this at some point in their life, because I was dang lucky, and I'll take luck anytime. Anytime it comes, and I was dang lucky, and I don't know. I think that's where all the research comes in, Bronson and I, and you, and everybody else that's constantly thinking about it, is we're researching nonstop, and part of the drive is to how we're going to duplicate that. Get in a position where that could even happen. And I know sometimes it is pure random luck, but there's still a whole lot that you've got to put in your favor to have that kind of thing happen.

You've got to be on a... I mean, you were willing in that situation because probably your point situation to put in for late rifle hunt versus the early ones in September, when everybody thinks that's when you would kill a 400 plus inch bull. Yeah. And they're bugling, they're vulnerable, blah, blah, blah. I'm announcing my presence, screaming to the whole world. Yeah. Not necessarily, you know. Yeah. You know, I go now and you kill a four... where do you end up going? Four, seven, three, seventeen. Four, seventeen, four, seventeen. You know. Enter in November, and while those bulls were more common then, and they're not now, that same principle exists now. There's units now you can go on and hunt 370 or 80 bulls in the November hunts, and, quote, steal a bull. I'm not saying Utah odds are easy, but you got to at least put yourself in a position on a unit. It was ripe.

You felt the twilight of the Utah elk trophy glory days kind of fading. You've got to be in the right position. You've got to be in the unit capable. Yeah, and sometimes if you just were waiting for another Utah tag come along, how long would you be waiting? You'd still be playing. And you know, I did. I actually, I thought, later I actually drew another tag. It was just a Poncegon archery tag, but I knew, I was like, there's not known for good bulls. I'm not going to ever hunt a bull in the rut unless I do something that's only going to take me a couple points. And I thought if I can get out of there with killing a six-point, 320 bull, I was able to get a bull with my bow during the rut and get that same experience that I wanted clear back in 2007 and have that. And, you know, we turned up a giant on that hunt when I had that tag, and it was a terrible, terrible thing in the end,

because I'd actually just killed the bull I did. And you talking about seeing a 400-inch bull screaming or whatever. This bull was, I mean, he was a 390-range bull. And he was in that area, but he wasn't screaming. He didn't have cows. I think he was coming in, picking off a single cow here and there, and he wasn't talking, doing that kind of thing. Because if I wouldn't have been there and witnessed it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed the story because literally I had just shot that bull I did. It was a 60-something yard shot. It was a little ways off, and I knew I felt good about the shot, but I couldn't quite tell. You know, as soon as I shot, he took off. I mean, it was a great shot. As I was sitting there, I could hear him up in the trees just breathing

I was like, holy cow, I guess I did get him, you know? So, I was just kind of waiting for him to die, and started cow calling a little bit, thinking we'll get him just to stay, if nothing else. Yeah, hold him up. Because he had like 15 cows with him. So, I was just kind of sitting there cow calling, and all of a sudden I hear a bugle coming right back from that direction. And I was like, no way, how did he get that out? He sounded like he was dying, you know? And so, here's some elk legs start coming back through the trees. And I started arranging a few openings, and he was coming right to me. And so, I had arranged some stop spots. I actually put an arrow in, thinking it was him maybe coming back, and I drew, and it was that giant bull. No way. Standing there, 50 yards, and I never wanted... No way. Yeah, yes. And you still don't know for 100% sure of your bull's dead?

No, I don't. I don't. I hadn't even been down to go check the arrow yet. The only thing that led me to believe that was I'd heard some kind of some wheezing, but it almost was like he was... Anyway, and there he was standing, and there was this 390 bull on a three-year-old, on a one-point unit to draw. What do you say? So, I don't know. I guess you gotta... What do you say? My only thing there is, I guess, that taught me a lesson, too, is maybe you don't need to wait for 20 years to hunt and bull, either. Like, you're not gonna kill unless you're out there. So, try and maybe, I don't know, take a chance. And I had the luxury. I thought, you know, I'm never gonna kill a bull that big ever again. So, it kind of puts me in a little better spot to say I can hunt some stuff that take a little more risk, I guess. I don't know.

I've, Bronson, I ate a Nevada elk tag. I drew an Ely elk tag. I mean, you know, hunting one specific bull, but I think how do you, if I were to wait for another Nevada elk tag to come along, you know. It may never happen. It never happened, and so I think that's why we're, you know, applying in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, I mean, anywhere we can to possibly come up with a tag and research and with vigor and, you know, extreme energy and trying to, you know, come up with the next Pollock Bull. You know what I mean?

I mean, you never know where they're gonna come from. So, I don't know. Anyway, so I did not shoot him. I was like, you know, he's here, I gotta check this other bull first. He walked over there and dead or it's not. He was dead, and it was kind of a bittersweet thing. Made the right choice. First bull I'd ever killed in my bow, so I was excited. But then just seeing that thing there was... Anybody ever kill that bull? Yeah, they killed him the next year. Where did he end up at? The next year, he was .380 range, but I don't think he was quite as big as he was that year that we found him. So, anyway.

Yeah, cool stuff, man. Pretty awesome. I don't know, so, anyway, yeah. And like the premise of being in the mountains is better than being at home, thinking about being in the mountains. Yeah. You know, in terms of letting stuff happen, we could, you know, apply that to Colorado. We've talked about that until we're blue in the face. Just being over there somewhere, a good thing can happen in Colorado, or in a lot of places, in Utah general, or I don't know. You gotta be in the hills. A lesser, quote, labeled lesser unit. Something good can happen. But I think in the off-season, you're constantly trying to educate yourself so you can make an educated guess on where the next big one will be. But also chasing the elite in every state, the realism of that really happening for most people that don't have the point.

It's not. You're gonna have to be creative on what tags you get, whether it be a combination of easier to get tags, general season tag, whatever, if you're gonna, you know, hunt and make something happen. So, can't all wait for 20 years to get great tags. It's just not gonna, you're not gonna hunt doing it that way. Okay, well, everybody, Josh Pollock, welcome aboard. We've had quite a bit of growth here, Bronson, at Epic Outdoors. We're just trying to stay We're way ahead of the demand and trying to make sure that we answer everybody's phone calls each and every day and that people are adequately serviced here at Epic Outdoors, and that's part of bringing you on, Josh. You're going to be a great addition.

I appreciate the opportunity. I don't know, it's pretty humbling, and it's something I've always thought about doing, and I don't know, I'm just very fortunate. So, I appreciate you guys reaching out to me, and I'm excited. It'll be good. Well, we expect you to be here 30 years. You got it? I'm here. So, anyway, and then we've also had some growth in our license application department as well. We brought a super good gal on that's extremely accurate and attention to detail and fits perfectly with the team. And so, we've got a little bit of growth there. And of course, Bronson, you and I have our hands on everything that goes on in that department, as well as all departments of the Epic Outdoors and what we've got going. Yeah, but it's all just about anticipating what we need now, but what we're going to continue to need.

You know, we need to be able to, we realize we're a customer service-based business. We do produce a magazine. We do produce, you know, a lot of detailed information in there to be able to help hunters make educated decisions about how, where, and what to apply for in the Western U.S. But we also have the personal touch to be able to call and consult and help strategize, or in the case of, like you said, licensed application service, if you're going to turn all your apps over to us, we've got the means to get that done efficiently, quickly, accurately, and all that. And we've also got, you know, Devin and Wyatt, who aren't in here with us today, other consultants along with us here in the room, to be able to answer questions, you know, find outfitted hunts, guided hunts, either before you draw a tag that you don't need points to draw, or after you draw a tag in a state.

You want to talk to a couple of key outfitters in the unit you draw. We can help you from start to finish. We only specialize in Western North America. That's our love, that's our passion, that's where we are. We're not broadening ourselves out over all the world and trying to do a little bit everywhere. Ever. Ever. We're here. This is where we belong. This is where we love. This is what we research and our passions at. So, just about anticipating the needs of our members and helping us service them. We're still $100 a year. We don't have any plans to change that. We want to always add value to our membership. We've done a lot to our online. You know, mapping research as well as odds and different things like that, and we're going to continue to add there. Adding consultants in other parts of our workforce here is just, again, value added to our membership. I like it.

Hey, you know, one thing I've been thinking about is the government decided to print a bunch more money, and people are getting stimulus checks, right? And it's stimulating them to buy optics. And we've had a lot of calls, Bronson. Yesterday alone, the day before. And some of these... Maybe it's to do with that, I don't know. Maybe it's just spring, and they're out shit hunting. Chris, did you get a check yet? I did. What are you gonna do with it? We sell optics, you know. Well, I... Cameras? He's getting married, remember. I paid bills with it, actually. Let's see. He's getting married. All right. Went straight to bills. Yeah. He has ring bills. What other kind of bills does maybe a potentially...

I didn't have ring bills. That was already been there, done that, and paid. Yeah, I knew that, but what else comes wrong with? Oh, you gotta pay for a venue. Oh, yeah. I told you he's getting married. That stimulus tech didn't even scratch the surface. Joe Biden barely paid for any visit. You gotta pay for food, you gotta pay for all kinds of stuff. Yeah. What's on the menu? What do we have to look forward to?

I don't know yet. I don't know yet. We're, McKenzie's like... June? Is this June? Can we put in an order? Can we put in an order? Not yet, but... Yeah, I'll have the ribeye. We're still looking at a few options. Marbled. Catering and whatnot. Well, if there's anything we can do to help you, let us know. Jason's willing to come work the Traeger. I'll do something. I'll do something. I'm not a good cook. You know this. But Jeff John, he is. We can bring Jeff down. He can work the Traeger. I'll supply a Traeger or something that looks like a Traeger.

Well, but anyway, your point is that if you have a little, if it's got a little extra and you're looking to maybe buy optics, we've done our best to have a great inventory, despite some of the difficulties that a lot of industries have, optics included, of having supply chain disruptions in terms of availability and back orders and things like that. You've seen it on the shelves, a lot of sporting goods stores and guns and ammo world, and there's other reasons that have caused those. But some of the same, you know, supply chain issues have been disrupted in terms of optics, manufacturers, but we've done our best to maintain. What we know is people want, need, and move. So, keep us in mind, whether it be spawning scope, you know, binos, rifles, scopes, tri-cars.

Yeah, we're just like you can't hardly buy a mountain bike out there. Some of these optics are four to six months back-ordered, back-locked. It's crazy. And we've been proactive, made huge orders in advance. Anyway, doing our best to keep everybody loaded in optics, because that's what kills stuff. All right, well, I don't know, Bronson. That's about all we had. We kind of went over the news of the West real quick up front, We talked about some of the states that are coming out, what's going on with Arizona, and a few things. And so, anyway, we're going to have a News of the West section of the podcast here and there, keep people posted. And we kind of did that in a roundabout fashion. But anyway, give another couple shout outs, I guess, to a couple of our podcast sponsors today. Red Rock Precision make awesome, accurate, custom backcountry or bench or whatever you're looking for rifles.

Many of us here in the office have some of their rifles, some of us, a couple of them. And Kurt and his crew there at Red Rock Precision know what they're doing. They can top it with whatever optic you're looking for and kind of customize it to what you're looking for. Whether you want a good all-around Western caliber or whether you're looking for something specific Like a lightweight mountain rifle or sheep or something lightweight, they can do it for you. So, visit them at redrockprecision.com. They've also got a custom gun builder feature on their website that can kind of get you started on there. But visit them at redrockprecision.com and get the ball rolling on something if you're looking for something for hopefully this next fall. Also, appreciate Hunt and FishConnection.com, a partner of ours here for a short time.

Super good guys as they got a lot of auctions going on right now. Kind of the way we're getting rid of a lot of our tags in this COVID environment. You can go on there and check out a lot of different tags, Sportsman for Fish and Wildlife, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Mule Deer Foundation, as well as a few private entities selling tags, hunts, and different things on hunt and fishconnection.com. So, anyway, you can watch some live auctions. There'll be stuff going on here in the next few days, next few weeks, next couple months. Great place to go, kind I get on there, fish around a little bit, and maybe there's a hunt on there for you. So, anyway, it's kind of the new age way of buying tags if you're in the market for that. A lot of these are tax deductible. So, anyway, go on there, huntandfishconnection.com spelled out, and it'll get you there.

Also, I want to throw a little shout out to Triple S Polaris here in Cedar City, Utah. Super good guys. Cranking out machines like it's their job. So, anyway, we got some Wazoo Epic Build machine that's coming up. We put a lot of different custom features on there. We appreciate those guys. They know what they're doing. They got a great business going. We know them personally. They'll take care of you. Give them a holler, 435-865-0100. Or you You can go to like triple s.com. I don't know what their website is exactly. SSSpolaris.com. Oh, there you go, Chris. One of the things that they specialize in is building a machine out for you for your specific needs. It's not just they open up a crate and that's your machine. No, they take their machine from Polaris and then they customize it and make it yours. And so, it's a really cool system they got going.

How cool is that? Awesome. Well, thanks, Chris. I appreciate that. If you're like anything out there, you may need to pre-order. You kind of want to get on a list. If you think you're going to need one in June, maybe call them now. And I think that's with everything, whether it's optics, whether it be, obviously, guns, ammo, anything in the hunting world. I mean, just don't put it off, because who knows if something gets better or worse come May, June, July, August, before you really, really need something. You know, archery, bows, a lot of bows are on back order right now. You know, so, it's just a, it's an issue. You know, side-by-sides, four-wheelers, things like that. You know, we've also, you know, trucks, doesn't matter. You can't have enough trucks, right? Well, you can, but, you know, I'm just saying, if you don't have one, good luck getting one.

That's what I think. It's crazy when you're treating hard goods like toilet paper and food storage. Yeah. Storing them. Stacking them and storing them. Huh? Yep. So, anyway, don't wait. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, you may be, it's gonna be the day before the bow hunt, and you're not gonna be able to find whatever you think you need to do to, you know. Broadheads. Yep. Whatever. Whatever. When you find something you want, buy it. We're not trying to add to the frenzy. I'm just saying, don't, you start, start looking now. Get on a waiting list. Get on a pre-order list. Get on a, you know, wherever. Whoever you deal with, whether it's us or somebody else, There's going to be a lot of people, I think, later this fall that are going to feel a pinch with some of this stuff. Anyway, don't wait.

All right, guys. Is that it? Yeah, I guess. Chris, you got anything else for us, boss? Nothing. No? Josh, any parting words? I'm boredom enough. All right, Bronson. I'm still thinking about Chris's menu. Well, I mean... I'm hungry. So, anyway. I don't know. I've got a few ideas, Chris. If you need any ideas, Adam and I can sure help you out, okay? All right. All right. Well, Bronson, close us out. Have a great weekend, everybody. Good luck in the drafts.