EP 200: The 200 Inch Mule Deer Episode

Magnum and I laid eyes on each other for the first time. He saw me make my move and I saw him. Some of the most incredible mass of any deer harvested in our lifetime. Never thought I'd see a deer like that in my life. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, and the entire freaking crew. How y'all doing? The world, yeah. Good. Good? The Epic Outdoors world here in the room. Yeah. Wyatt, Devin, Josh, Chris, and John, Adam, myself. Here we are. Why are we all here today? I don't know. You told us we're doing a podcast. This is a big one though, right? It's a round number. Round number. It's a round number. Nice round number. Round 200. Round 200. Oh, Chris. 200. 200. We're going to have a little bit of fun today. We're going to talk about some fun things with 200s in mind. 200 inch bucks. Huh? Why not? Can't talk about 200 inch antelope. No. And who wants to talk about antelope? 200 inch elk. What does that look like? Four point? I don't know what they look like. Somebody asked me. We met the 280 bull. Remember, we had to score one.

It was Jeff. You guys were asking me. A few 16s, maybe a 15 or two. Well, you had me score it off a pitcher, and then they scored. I'm like, holy crap, you're close up. Well, Jeff John's boy killed a bull, and we're like, what is that? And it was like 270 or 80. I don't know. 60. He's like, what is this? I don't know. It was good. But a 200 inch elk. 268? 200 inch ram. That would be impressive. I don't know if we're going to be able to talk about too many of those stories amongst ourselves. No. None. But 200 inch deer, y'all killed one. I want to know a little bit about it. We'll go around the horn here in a bit in that. But I guess first off, Chris, John, do you want to tee up a little bit of fun that we're going to have regarding this podcast, maybe? Being that it's a 200. Yeah, we're going to do a giant giveaway. Big prize. Big dollar value. Big dollar value.

Chris is going to take over. Okay. The prize that we're giving away for the 200th podcast is a pack wheel. And I don't know if any of you have ever used one, but they are pretty awesome. I took this one out, the one we have. I took it out and. You were packing John around the parking lot. I watched you guys. That was when we were testing it out. I could have. But I went, I put it up again. I had it all loaded down and I put it up against a ditch bank that was taller than my head. Like a big old washout. And I just hit the throttle and that thing went right up it. All loaded down. Pretty awesome. And then coming downhill, you got brakes. It's impressive. You can pretty much go anywhere. Did you ever wear out the battery? I did. I heard the battery life is unbelievable. I did not. Yeah, it is. I use it a ton and it didn't ever wear it out. No. The guy took it in G. Big.

Took an extra battery. Didn't even use the extra battery. Yeah. Used it in G on all those trails. Crazy. Yeah. It's just, it's an impressive machine. You could go in hunting somewhere by yourself and literally pack out in one trip by yourself with, with a deer. Pretty cool. Anyway. Don't need a llama. Yeah. Is that what I'm hearing? Don't need a llama. No, you do not need to be spit on anymore. Dude, I didn't even know spitting was a real thing. Like I've never been around llamas. I had to tell Carter to Google it. Dude, I did. And I hit, I hit videos, right? You hit Google spitting llamas. Hit video clips. They're all over. I mean, there's thousands. It's funny. It's funny stuff. Oh, it's, Bronson and I wasted 15 minutes. Sorry, John. But we did. We wasted 15 minutes and it was spit after spit after spit. I was like, that's legit. Some compilations? It was.

It was no, no, another reason never to use a llama. Why llamas are in zoos where kids can pet them? I'll never know. Why? Why people feed them? Why do you even have them? And they, if you scare them real bad, they just tip over. They pass out, right? Do they? I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. You'll have to Google that. What? I've not heard that. I thought that was just the goats. Yeah. Really? Those are goats. Oh, same difference. Fanny goats? I've heard of goats. You have? Fanny goats, yeah. If you, like, scare them? Whoa. You scare them, they just boop, tip over. Well, you can't do that with a pack will. So that's what we're saying. If you're back there in Region G and you've come across some goats, you can ruin a guy's hunt by spooking his goats. They're a few hundred pounds lighter than a llama. All right. At least now we know what goes on at lunch. Why?

Why were we at lunch? What these two are doing?

Working over the goats. Researching some goats. Not going to be doing that. All right. This is a tangent. But speaking of llama, I've had a llama steak and it's pretty good. What? You ate a llama? Yeah. That's like eating a dog or a cat. Is that in Bolivia? Yeah. Bolivia? I was going to say, in the U.S., that probably breaks. Did you have cat? Humane and I don't believe I had cat. Yeah. But there was something you ate that you didn't know. I had guinea pigs and oh, yeah, it was guinea pig. The first time I had guinea pig, they told me it was rabbit. And I'm like, no, it's not. I've had rabbit. That's not rabbit. It had a little paw on the end of the drumstick. There's a drumstick with a paw. And I'm like, this is a rabbit. They had little claws. Yeah. They're like, no, it's a rabbit. I promise. I'm like, I've seen a rabbit foot. That's not a rabbit foot. They're like, yeah, it's rabbit.

It's rabbit. Oh, my gosh. And then after I ate it, I'm like, that was not rabbit. No. After I ate it, they're like, well, it was fake rabbit. In Spanish terms or whatever? Yeah. Well, they just call it fake rabbit. And then, well, it's the poor man's rabbit, I guess. And so after I found out it's guinea pig and it was disgusting. That's like somebody feeding you a Barbary sheep and telling you that's a poor man's sheep.

Pretty much. Pretty much. Anyway. How do they taste, Bronson? I filled out a nice donation slate from eyes in New Mexico. Okay. Because I was told that was a good way to use something. Yeah. Yeah. They were probably right. Wyatt? Did you do the same thing? Texas. Yeah. Exotic animals. Okay. So what does that mean? What does that mean, Bronson? It means you don't have to take any of the meat. Oh. All right. So did you? No. No. Okay. All right. So back to pack wheel. All right. Way better than a spitter. If you've listened through all of that. All of that. We're not giving away live animals. Yeah. We're giving away, Chris. You deserve to hear how to enter to win the pack wheel. So you're going to go directly to our Instagram page at epic underscore hunts. And the post from Friday, March 26th is going to be a reel. So it'll be a video on our page. Go check that video out.

And in the comment section of that video, you're going to tag two friends. And just make sure you're following pack wheel. So at pack wheel. And then at epic underscore hunts. You don't want to follow you personally or me personally or my wife and kids. Adam's wife and kids. Three simple steps. So follow pack wheel. Follow epic underscore hunts. Tag two friends in the comments. This will not, the instructions will not be listed on Instagram. Only on the podcast. That's to incentivize listeners and our loyal faithful. That amount. Listeners to be able to know how it's working. Whoever listens. And how long are we going to, how long have they got to do that? What are you going to give it away? Next week maybe? We're going to give five days. From Friday. From Friday. Okay. So deadline on that hard cut off. March 31st at midnight. Actually, March 31st, 1159 PM. Yeah. Gotcha.

And how are we going to announce the winner? And we're going to announce the winner on, we'll do it on Instagram. Probably the next podcast maybe. And we'll also do it on the next podcast. Yeah. Just on the podcast. 201. Yeah. Let's do it on the, let's, let's draw it on the podcast. Live? Okay. We will draw the next winner. Live? On podcast 201. On the podcast. On podcast 201. Okay. We'll also let you know who won on, on Instagram after. All right. There you go. Let's make this worse listening for then. You going to stay up? Cut it off? I usually am up around then. Yeah. Oh. Not me. Not me. He must not be an old married guy like us, Bronson. Yeah. He's still a bachelor for a couple months. I think it's funny watching these guys get older though. Wyatt, when did you go to bed last night?

I was in bed by nine o'clock. Archie, when were you in bed? Nine o'clock. Paul. He just doesn't want to be here before Wyatt. He had me beat, I guess. I was a bachelor last night, so that's one thing I was looking forward to. Was what? An early bedtime. Most people, when they've got a night alone, they're like, gonna go do something. Shoot coyotes in Nevada. Do something. I've got a wife that works nights, so when she comes back, she wants to stay up. And that's hard on your relationship. Is that the biggest problem you guys have had? That's probably the biggest. You've got to save up your sleep. While she's gone. Exactly. Because you're going to show her, and you're going to stay up until 10. Play cards. That's exactly it. And have some meaningful discussions. All right. So, Chris, if they want to go see what the pack wheel's about and see what they're putting

in to win, where do they go to do that? So, you can just go to packwheel.com. And the one that we are giving away is the motorized e-pack wheel. So, it's the biggest, most expensive one they've got. And it will come with the saddle bags, the meat bags. And that unit is $1,895 without the bags. The bags are another $120. So, we're giving her in roughly $2,000-ish. Yeah. So, this is a $2,000 giveaway. Two hundo with $2,000 prizes. How's that? Don't ask for the cash. Right? Don't ask for the cash. Or you could donate it back. Right? Don't get cash. Got a $1099. I wonder if anybody's perfected the ability to ride those like a unicycle. Unicycle. I mean, I'm just saying. Well, watching Chris and John, they got pretty good right here. They were going up and over these little curves. I did see a post on their page where a kid was riding it. He's sitting on the other person.

Oh, it'd have to be a kid. Yeah. Man, you'd have to be talented. You know, he wasn't like super young. He's probably 21, 22, maybe. That's a kid. That's a young kid.

He just got his driver's license probably nowadays. Hey, these kids don't even get driver's licenses at 16. A lot of them. My kids did. Your kids did. A day. The morning of. Or Christmas Eve. But a lot of kids, it's like, I don't know. My parents take me everywhere. Don't need a driver's license for video games. All right. Where are we at? All right. Just so everybody knows, watch out. There are fake accounts. When we do giveaways, fake accounts get created in our name, and they say, this is a giveaway account. That is not us. Anyway, so if you see Epic.Hunts, EpicHunts, Epic whatever, that's not Epic underscore hunts, and they claim to have a giveaway page, that is not us. We will never ask you for any personal information. We won't ask you for your credit card to win. Shipping. Charge shipping. Look for a page with more than 30,000 followers. Exactly. Right. Yeah.

I mean, if they got three followers, probably a fake. So what they've been doing is they'll copy all of our most recent posts along with our page. Tell us you won something. Yeah. So it looks like us. Send them $5. Yeah. You won something. $10 shipping. Don't fall for that. That's not us. If you win, we're going to call you or message you directly from our Instagram account. Well, now we're talking about 200-inch deer. Yeah. Let's start talking around the horn. So let's call our friends real quick. Let's just follow our – Really? Let's call the Gillespie's for just a sec. Where are we going? Start to see if they answer. This is going to be a rapid fire, $200, smash and grab, talk around the campfire session. Is that kind of where we're going to go today? And we've kind of listed out, you know, guys we know that have killed some 200-inchers,

most of which don't know we're going to give them a holler today. We'll see what they have to say. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. Just kind of celebrate the 200-incher. Yeah, it's something to celebrate. So it feels like it's a unicorn. You know, like you were talking about, nowadays, a 200-incher nowadays is like – It feels like even from 10 years ago. It's – Crazy, isn't it? Like 10 times harder. Just feels that way. What do you guys think? Definitely. I don't know. Not easy? 200-incher is something to celebrate for sure. Even like on, I don't know, some of the Henry's tags and stuff. Any more, why you've spent a lot of time down there. It's different than even 10 years ago on places like that. Colorado's not producing them like it used to. Utah. And just there's more. Everybody wants to squeeze as much as they can out of every great tag.

So a little bit more competition or just, you know, aggressive hunters out there. Mule deer bring out the hard hunting in everybody because they're so hard to kill. So partly that, but partly just, yeah, getting a good tag or making the most of even an average tag. It's hard to put one on the ground. The guys are waiting 20-something years putting in for a place like the Ponceganta Henry, something like that, you know, thinking that that's what they're going to kill, and they don't. Man. Guys buy $40,000 tags and they don't kill one. The majority of them. Let's be honest. All right, well, let's just give these guys a call. They're good. These guys, before we talk, all these, some of these drew tags, some of them drew state raffle tags, some of them won tags. And we're missing a lot of guys. There's a lot of guys that have done well out there. And we're just, these are just a few of them.

We'd be here for five hours, Bronson. You know what I mean? Covering it all. So, anyway, let's call the Gillespie's there in Colorado. See what they have to say. Pretty good dudes. A lot of fun to talk with over there. They got a lot of experience. And it's about time to apply in Colorado for everybody that's out there.

What's going on? Nothing. What are you doing? Oh, just juggling business and being ready to answer you guys' calls. You guys don't work. You don't work. What's up, Carter? What's going on? Hey, we're having record-setting days over here in the gun industry. Oh, I bet. Yeah, no kidding. Got any ammo on the shelf? Uh, no. All right. Well, hey, so we got the entire Epic Outdoors crew here, and we're just all looking for what we're going to do there in Colorado. And we just want you guys to just tell us where we're going to find a two-hundo. Pretty easy. You know what I mean? Smash the ground.

I don't think that exists. You guys have made it look easy. You're constantly hunting big stuff. What's the secret? What's the secret? We, uh, well, for one, I can assure you the secret is don't do what we did last year. That's the first secret to killing big stuff. We both, uh, we both got a little trigger happy. Um, and, uh, then other than that, you know, I think, uh, I don't think there's a method to the madness here in Colorado. Like, uh, you know, I listened to you guys' Colorado breakdown episode a little while ago, and you guys hit the nail on the head. I guarantee you, uh, any unit in the state can produce a big one and the best units in the state might let you down. Yeah, for sure. And that is, that is pretty much, I think the, the future of Colorado. Crazy. So tell us a little bit about last year. What'd you do?

You know, I've made the mistake of, uh, putting 15s on a bucket of a hundred yards and he looked pretty big. What'd you guys do? Uh, the philosophy last year was killing tomorrow's trophies today.

No, not, not really. Um, I got a little, uh, trigger happy on a 31 inch wide deer. Um, and his width got him killed. And Garrett's situation was, we had known and heard of a big deer in this spot. We had spent the majority of our time, uh, hunting elk with our cousin. And so we hadn't really had much time to lock down any good deer. And second season, we were hunting elk with our cousin. And then third season, we rolled into the deer hunt. And my, my brother on the second or third day killed that 31 inch wide buck. And, um, then, uh, freaking last day of the season, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty good at eating tags. It doesn't bother me one bit. And, uh, so we had been hunting this, this, uh, he was a mid one nineties type typical. And last day of the season, um, we just happened to see a deer out in the middle of the flat.

Like I'm talking when you could barely see through your binos that morning. And we just decided it was him. And I got on the gun and I legitimately was on my gun for five minutes. This is noble. My brother, but Grant was counting down for me and shooting light was at six 23. And I'm not kidding. His phone clicked six 23. And I freaking dumped that deer. And we walked up, we walked up and he was not the 195 inch. Even at 50 or 60 yards walking up on him, he looked giant. And I looked at Garrett and I was like, dude, you just killed a fricking giant. And then we got up there and he just, Garrett just started laughing at the deer. I was like, Oh my. So, uh, he didn't get angry though. How big, how big was he? He's like, he'll, he would be lucky if he was 170 inches. Yeah. That's happened. Hey, he typically gets really angry though. Just laughed. Like that. Yeah.

Another animal that we killed that had some serious ground shrinkage. He got like really mad to the point. We almost got in a fist fight. But Hey, it's not out of being a trophy snob. That's what I try to tell everybody. I'm not like one of those guys who cares about it. Just, I just, it sincerely hurts me killing young deer. Like it hurts me. Yeah. Tell us about that giant, uh, what is it? Three or four years ago, Grant, you won a statewide Colorado raffle tag. Tell us about that. That was not a, that was not a ground shrinkage incident. So on, uh, on that same year. I lucked into a Colorado Rocky mountain 21 years old, had a Rocky tag. Wow. We were early on. We knew we obviously had, you know, three plus months to hunt deer. So early on, we were spending a lot of our time looking for sheep. The sheep hunt started four days after the deer hunt started, I believe.

Or, uh, yeah, four or five days after the deer hunt started. Um, but luckily we've got some really close buddies in the game and it's, it's hilarious to see like when you draw a tag like that, how many guys call you and they're like, Oh, we're going to look for you and we're going to do this and that. But you find out who your friends are, you know, with one of those tags and Garrett and I, well, we kind of obviously already knew. So Garrett, yeah. Garrett and I both. Um, I mean, you already had a feeling of who your friends were, but now we're going to prove it. I'm not, I'm not quite as bad as Garrett, but I don't think there's, there's what, there's one person that could show Garrett either a big deer or a big bull that he would actually go kill. And that's me. Uh, he would never just, just, just to not have somebody else's name on it.

He wouldn't let somebody else tell him where an animal was, but we, uh, one of our, one of our best, best friends and a dude that is, has killed a lot of big, big deer, Justin Hill. He, uh, he literally was turning down big money guys to look for deer for us. And he, he was always one of our, one of our best friends and new big deer. And we were, uh, just how he was and how he, how he talked with us. My brother and I were in, in my sheep unit looking for sheep and the unit I hunted sheep, there was some big deer too. So we were looking over deer and, uh, he had called me and he says, Bill, he's, can you hear me? And I said, yep. And he says, I just found your buck. And I said, okay. And he hangs up the phone. That's all he said. And then, you know, Garrett and I were at 12,000 feet. So we had plenty of service and he, he sent us a picture of the deer immediately.

I mean, it was giant deer and, and, uh, we called him back and he was stressed out more than you could believe. And on the way out of there, I ended up, I actually got pneumonia really bad. Garrett damn near had to carry me back to the truck and we were, we were seven or eight miles in there. And I finally hobbled my way back out and my brother dropped me off in town and I was in no way, shape or form to go look for deer. And so he dropped me off at the house. I went to the doctors and he grabbed some new gear and turned them burned and went up to where Justin was at. And then we, we pretty much traded off about three weeks of trying to keep eyes on the deer, but he was just in a position where you really could not have a good vantage to glass him. And there were some other guys that knew he was in there.

And, uh, I mean, so we just did everything we could to keep eyes on the deer and went in there opening morning and we all split up and my brother found him and ended up killing him. That was it. Wow. So tell us, give us the details. How big a deer was he? So he, uh, he, right when, when he shrank a little bit, you know, after he dried. Um, but he's, he's pretty conservatively two 30. And, uh, when we first put the tape on him, he was two 33 and, uh, and he's 34 inches wide. Um, his main frame is about 209, uh, his main typical frame. And then he's got two big in lines on the right and one big in line on the left. And we knew, I mean, we knew right away and it was just cool that, you know, we kind of stuck with our, stuck with our group. And there was, there was some other people telling us about, about deer.

Um, Mike Brownlee had done some, done some work with Justin and he had a big deer located and he liked my brother and I, and he called and he's like, Hey, come kill us. And I told him, I said, well, you know, we're going to spend a lot of time trying to hunt the deer that we had found and, and watched. And it just ended up working out really well. It's awesome. That's how it happens. Pretty good, man. It feels like things have changed. We talked a little bit about it. It just, even since you guys killed that deer, it just feels tougher and tougher, you know, to come up with significant giants and just kind of wondered your, get your take on what you guys have been seeing. Even, even that year. Uh, I mean, even that year between us and I mean, a lot of our, a lot of our good, good friends here in town and around here and a lot of guys that have killed a lot of big deer.

I mean, they were spending some time looking for us and, and we spent, that was our last year, um, that my brother and I were both in college. And, uh, you know, our boss, Aaron DeRose, when we got both of those tags, he pretty much told us, you know, don't worry about work. You can work if you have time, but just go find a big deer, find a big sheep. And, uh, we need a boss like that, Bronson. Yeah. Will you be my boss that went over here? How about we just do that? John? We got John. Somebody, somebody give me that leash. And he, you know, he was one of the guys to spending time looking for us in other places, but between all of us and everybody, I mean, we didn't find, we found one other deer, um, that my dad and I walked up on and we went over a ridge going to a vantage point and walked up on the deer. And he was no doubt the two 10 plus typical.

Um, and we, I mean, by far the biggest typical I've ever seen. And then we went back in, I mean, I set 10 trail cams in the area all around Justin and I and my brother and dad and a couple other people had spent a bunch of time looking for him again and just could never, could never lock him down. And then that's when we kind of ended up fanning out and splitting up and going into new spots. And I mean, Justin wasn't going to sleep until he found a big deer that I wanted to kill. That's just how he was. And it was super cool. Cause he, uh, he passed away in July of 2018. So, so that was kind of, uh, you know, it was, it was super, super cool. That was one of the last, you know, true giant deer that, that he was a part of. So obviously, and he was, he's, he was one of our best friends anyway. Um, I mean, you guys know how passionate I am about the hound hunting and Justin was the

one who got me into hound, you know, 10 years ago. So, I mean, he was one of our best friends and for that hunt to just go down the way it did was perfect. Pretty special, man. You guys have something forever memories forever with him. Um, that's pretty awesome. And he did, he was, he was a hardcore hunter and would known for finding many giants. When you guys mentioned trail cameras, I mean, here in the desert, we're running cameras on water and things. Um, you know, how are you guys running cameras in Colorado? You guys have a lot of water. How are you doing? Okay. Let me, let me tell you about my camera game, Carter. Um, so, so I have freaking, I have $5,000 worth of those things sitting at the house. Um, yeah, in college, I used to be very, very into the trail cam game. But, uh, since then, um, we really haven't, haven't consistently ran cameras.

I, I carry cameras with me all the time and I'm not kidding you. I have a dozen cameras out. I, I have a couple of cameras out. In fact, this, that reminds me, I, I have a couple of cameras out that no BS. I haven't checked in four years cause they're pretty deep. They're way too deep. I mean, I don't know why. They probably don't even make that model anymore. They probably don't even make no BS. I don't even know why they make that or why I ever thought it was a good idea to, to hang trail cameras. That's that much effort to get back into, but they're there. And actually I almost guarantee that, that big bull that I killed in 2018, I almost guarantee I got pictures of him on those, on one of those four cameras. I almost, I would put my, I would put a kidney on it. But I still haven't went back in to get them. Crazy. So at the end of the day, you're not going to give us any camera tricks.

We, we don't have any camera tricks. Find the nearest tree to where you think there's going to be a critter and put it there. Most people are just running them on trails for the most part, like you're saying, coming to and from meadows or whatever, feeding areas and stuff. So, yeah. Yeah. Well guys, it's fun to chat. We got to make the rounds with some other guys too, but we wanted to kick it off. I know you guys got some obligations, but we want to kick it off with a giant from Colorado. It's on everybody's brain right now. So you already told us that you don't think there's any secret sauce to do with Colorado deer right now. Just apply and be over there and be hunting somewhere. Either spend, spend time and effort or get completely lucky. I like the lucky side. I like the lucky part. You guys have done well too, just on draw tags. So anyway, congratulations. You guys have done awesome.

All species. So. Hey, thank you guys. All right, fellas. Take it easy. Go sell some guns. Good to hear from you. You bet. Hey, don't, don't, uh, don't kill too many giants. All right. Doing what you did last year is all right by me. Tomorrow's trophies today. I like it. All right, guys. I'll be able to do more of that. Have a good one. See you. All right. If there's any more of them, they would get the nickname like your in-laws of the hyenas because they kind of are like the hyenas. Oh, they're awesome. They are. Two twins for the listeners that don't know. Didn't you have a new name for the hyenas? You came back with it. The jackals. The jackals. Yeah. Like, cause they're just, hyenas are pretty big and burly. Oh, yeah. And, and, uh, cause I'm not, I'm not calling them wimpy. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not calling out. No. They're fit. Lightweights. What do they weigh? 35 pounds. So jackals.

And they have big, they have big families. They're older guys. They're running in there. They're stealing a tonk of meat. They're out. They're, you know. Yes. I mean, that's it. I mean, they're just. They're awesome guys out there. They're the best. Best in-laws I've ever had.

Anyway. Well, we got to make. Well, let's continue with Colorado. Yeah. For just a minute, Archie. I want to talk about your 200-incher from last year. My illegitimate 200-incher. Well, the 200-incher that you were, you know, texting us all about last year. Well, I killed this buck. Slick shank. Slick shank buck, as Adam would say. You know, we get over to it and I was with my dad. My dad, he wouldn't even know how to score a deer, elk, nothing. And I'm like, I wonder how wide he is, you know. And he's like, well, I got a tape in my truck. And I'm like, like a cloth tape? He's like, well, yeah. I'm like, wow, why would my dad have cloth tape? So, anyways, we get it. He's 29 wide, you know, 29 and a half, almost 30. Just what I thought. Yeah. Awesome. So, we get back to town and my friend starts pulling measurements and he's like. Well, prior to this, you had sent us a picture.

Oh, and it's a freaking legit. He looks freaking 210. I mean, if you told me any of that, I'd believe. Yeah, I would have believed you. He's a pretty buck. He's a big buck. Oh, point mass. Just disgusting. High guards definitely help when you're looking for a score, though. Okay. All right. Anyway, so they start pulling numbers. I'm like, no way. You know, and they ride it on a torn up Pepsi box and it comes out like 205 or something. I'm like, no way. You know, like I was just a job. And we're all believing you. Jason had texted me 27 times. He told me to pull over on the highway, score it. Well, I mean, I'm beside myself. And you've got to get to a mandatory. This hunt was going south until you killed. I mean, you were like, I'm disappointed. I had to work pretty hard to find deer. And, yeah, just kind of. Boom. One of them made it happen. Yeah, just like that.

And what did you find out? So what was the. What did you find out? So anyways, the same kid who scored the buck, he gets his tape and he starts pulling. He's like, dude, this isn't adding up. I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, there's something with your tape. It's like shriveled. Or I'm like, well, it's my dad's tape. And we get looking at it. It started at one. Not at zero. Not at zero. It's gotten shredded or something. And he had to cut the end off. Yeah, he probably bought it on sale somewhere or something, you know. Little kid clipped the end. It was at a yard sale. He's like, does that give a good tape? It was funny. So we were out there for a couple hours or two. You know, we went and ate. And I was thinking, that deer's like. Had a two hundo. Yeah. Well, and he looked it in the pictures. I still would believe it.

Dude, it's the biggest upper 80s buck I've ever held. It's big. Like in your hands. It's a pretty buck. I don't know what that thing weighs. But it's like. Heavy sucker. Yeah, he's got big, deep back forks. And just a cool buck. Shoot it every time you get a call. I'd shoot it again, yeah. Twice on opening day. So, yeah, it was kind of funny. Wyatt, do you have a Colorado story for us? Maybe out of 11 to 11? Yeah. No. Saw nothing like that.

We ground it out for a few days, though. Yeah. Yes, we did. Saw, what, 200 does and fawns and two points? Yeah, basically. We've got to have the theme of 200. Kind of a quick sum it up. But I didn't mean to end on a bad note, Wyatt. Sorry. It was a little bit tough. Not every hunt goes as planned, right? We're talking celebrating 200-inch deer right now. Let's celebrate one of your 200-inchers. Wyatt Thompson, we didn't kill 200-inch deer on. Yeah. But what happened to your 230-some-odd in your office? Net booker? You took it home. Why? Yeah, it had to hold down a place at the house. Oh, that's right. So we don't reserve a spot there. Because there was a spot and she hadn't gotten to it yet. Exactly. She was in her – she's a nurse and she works nights six on or something like that, right? Yes. So she was at the – she was gone for that six days. Kind of like the firefighter schedule.

When you're on, you're on. Well, Wyatt stuck. He was putting mining claims around the house. And that went in a strategically placed corner. Yeah. Holding down the spot for something else. Maybe in the future. Maybe it's going to stay there forever. I've seen it. It's in a good spot. Either way, you've got options. I know. Because she ain't putting anything here. Claiming the wall. Yeah, exactly. But I loved seeing it in there. Like, I just miss out not having it through our window to look through into your office every day. I drool at stuff like that. I get to look at it every night when I go home, though. Yeah, I guess. One of them is like the three minutes before you go to bed. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So. That's a nice buck. Who else are we going to call? We might have to put a time limit on the week. Should we call her – Well, let's just – Should we call her – Three to five minutes?

Good buddy. Kind of like at a rack meeting. Okay. Okay. Time's up. The Gillespie's are fun. They've got so many stories. In fact, we could do an entire podcast with those guys. There's two of them, though, so their time was doubled. So we'll give them that. Oh, okay. All right. So let's call our good buddy, Bronson. You've known him from way back. Josh, you have two. Gary Syrett. We'll see if he answers. We'll see if he answers, A. And then B. Talk about it. Ask him about it, too. Just see if he tries to sell us another AR. You never know. I don't know. Let's see what he says.

Hello. Hey, what are you doing today? What's up, man? Just trying to get taxes paid, man. Whoa. I've got a really good radio voice. Good deal. We got you on a hot mic. How's it going today, Gary? Good. How are you? Good. Well, we stopped you before you told us your social security number and your adjusted gross income right there.

What's your date of birth? We are here on a hot mic today. And it's our 200th podcast. And we're talking 200-inch deer. So we're calling friends and foes, maybe. I don't know. We might call a foe later on. We haven't called any foes. People that have smashed a few, Gary. And that'd be you, boss. Tell us a story. I don't know. You've got some in your collection, but tell us one. I don't know if it's your ponce archery buck or something else. Tell us the 200-inch. Give us some tips and tricks on how to kill a big one. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have any tricks you guys don't know already. Well, tell us a story about how you put one on the wall, then. Boy, you guys know how to catch somebody off guard. What do you do? What else you've got to do today? What do you do with taxes? How important can that put it to the side? It's not even close to April 15th. Yeah.

And even after that, they let you extend until September, October. October. It depends. I don't know. Sometime in there. Well, this was for my job, corporate taxes. So anyway, enough. I hate those. Anyway, back to what we're doing. We'll only take three to five minutes of your day. You're fine. You're fine. So anyway, what was the question again? Tell us a story about how you smashed a job. The 200-inch or something. Just something. Stuff we text about almost every day. You know, that's simple stuff. All right. You know what? I'll tell you about my archery buck because it's kind of interesting because both you guys were involved even way back then. I think that was, what, 10 years ago? Wow. I think maybe eight years ago. I drew that Ponson Archery tag. And I remember I'd scouted all summer looking for a buck. We'd found a couple, but I didn't know. And I didn't want to.

The buck's a little bit narrow, but I thought he'd break 200. But I remember texting Jason the night before the hunt, pictures of the buck, saying, hey, you guarantee me this thing's over 200. I don't remember that. Do you remember that? I don't remember that. No, I don't. But I'm sorry. But I'll bet you. I could probably look through our text log. But I'm sorry. But keep going. You finally said, yeah, yeah, I think he'll do it. But we actually had another buck that was a little bit bigger the first and second day. And then the third day we got down and caught him coming in to, back before the days of baiting, he wasn't even on an apple pile. I got him coming in to where he was feeding and got between him and stuck him at about 65 yards. And anyway, I went back the next day. But he ended up being 216. So you were right when you said he was over 200. A true rangeland buck. It can happen.

And it wasn't the inside spread that made him either. That's what's cool. He's straight bone. Yeah. No, I think his inside spread's like 20 inches. Jeez. 22 inches. Just like Poncegant bucks. Built narrow but boxy and inlines and heavy. And he's an awesome buck. You didn't use any llamas or goats or anything on that hunt? I didn't. It was a truck hunt. No, no anything else. I like truck hunts. I like it. Have you got any, you've been successful at finding big deer. You know you have. Just got anything out there for anybody that's listening that's helped you guys be successful? Just, you know, a lot of time. You know, I listen to all your podcasts and you guys tell everybody how to do it. And I know both of you guys spend just every chance to get you out there spring and winter, summer and fall. And that's what, you know, we do our best to, we're always looking for tracks or, you know,

water holes that might pan out or sheds. Or it seems like a lot of the areas that we've been lucky enough to kill some big deer, especially on the general units, we've actually found shed hunting or just backpacking doing other things. And, you know, come across areas where we found a track and went back later and found them. And luckily a few of them ended up being pretty big. But that's, I think, just spending a lot of time. I don't think there's any secrets other than just time. I've been in the right spots. Right on. Well, we appreciate it. We know we cut you off guard, but that was the point. We didn't want you to prepare a speech. We didn't want you to, you know, have bullet points and all that. Just give you your thoughts and tell us a quick story. And that's what we're doing today. We know you've got women and children that have killed giants too. So we could go on forever.

Yeah, it's, it's, we've been lucky. We've been like, Hey, I've, I've got good people that put me in good areas as well. I'm talking to them. Well, you live in a good part of the world too. So it's, it helps to live in good places and have good stuff out your back door. So we appreciate you taking our call today. Don't screen us next time and let us know where you're applying in Colorado. That's what we're looking forward to. You know what I mean? We want to know. All right. All right. All right. All right. Thanks, Gary. Thanks guys. We'll see you. All right.

Pretty good dude right there. Oh yeah. Brought up, you know, how much time it takes to find those kinds of animals. Back when I was guiding full time, it seemed like I get asked that question all the time. Like, how do you find all this? That's all it is. All these animals, you know, all these 200 inch deer. I mean, if you added up the days spent to the 200 inch deer I've seen in my life, it would make no sense. Yeah. Right. Yep. That's right. When you see the end result, it minimizes everything else. Especially on a general tag or something else. It's not a, I'm even on the Henry's to really kill the elite deer there or a pons. It just is time gleaning through a lot of nice deer to find the one or two percenters, you know. Even if you got a great tag, so. I agree with all that. How do we want to interject any more of our stuff in here? Oh yeah. Call him. Should we call old Landon Floyd?

He probably could get the strings in a tin can and run across the parking lot here. We're pretty close. That old fashioned Boy Scout phone call stuff. Those guys have done well. His dad killed a giant in Arizona. He killed a giant in Colorado. I don't know. The good guys. I think maybe we ought to just call him. I don't know if he'll answer. He for sure won't think he's on a podcast. No, he won't. Okay, here we go.

Hello. Hey, we got our truck stuck in a great big old mud hole. You got your equipment out of your mud hole so you can come get our truck out? Yeah, do you see that? Unbelievable. Oh, it took a good five hours.

Hey, well, we got you on the Epic Outdoors podcast, buddy. Live. And we're not talking equipment and diesels and anything like that. I hope you're kidding me. No. No. We're talking big deer, though, so that ought to change. Seems like somebody we know killed a 240-inch over there in Colorado. Yeah, that's been a few years ago. Well, we're doing our 200th podcast today, and we're talking 200-inch mule deer, so we're just randomly thinking of people been there, done that, and cool stories. And, yeah, you're a neighbor here of us, literally, business-wise, across the parking lot. I could throw a rock and hit you. So we just thought, hey, let's give you a call and tell us a brief story about that buck. He's a giant. He's like a legit monster. Yeah. You know, everybody gets lucky once in a while, huh?

How long has that been, if you remember? What year was that? That was 2013. We scouted around. We went three days before and seen quite a few deer, and we were more in the high country. They haven't quite rutted yet. And so, anyway, I think it was the second day of the hunt. We kind of went out towards the high desert-type country, and we went to see in 100 deer to probably 10 deer. Jeez. And the rut was kicking on, and we found some does, and we decided to just kind of camp on these does. And so, anyway, we seen him, I think the second day.

I seen him. He had seven does with him, and he was behind a tree. And I said, oh, he's got a weak G2 on him. This buck's weak. Yeah. And I got him dead to rights, and his head's in a tree, and he stands there for 30 seconds. And, yeah, I said, he's got a weak G2. Well, I didn't know it was a cheater off his. Inline or something. Yeah, off his. Or whatever it was. 14 cheaters. Inline off of an inline. You know? Yeah, he turned and walked over the hill, and I just about fell over. So, and we had, short story short, we turned him up three days later. Is that the last day, maybe? Or is it close to it? Pretty close. I think it was the second to the last day, if my memory is correct. But let me backtrack. The next day, I spotted seven does, and there was a buck. And I couldn't really make him out. So I literally sat on a rock from morning to night.

And every doe got up to feed, and I knew it was this deer. I had to be this deer. Well, right at daylight, this deer stood up, and it was like a 170 four point. Jeez. And I said, man, you know, kind of burned that whole day. And so, anyway, fast forward.

I seen him. We turned him up the third day. It was just about dark. I spotted him, I swear, a quarter mile away. And it was literally running to try to get enough time. And he was moving, pushing his nose. And got up on a hill. It just happened quick. I think it was 350 yards and shot him. And I still didn't know what I had. We thought he was probably 210, 215 from the look we got. Significant deer. Significant deer. Yeah. And, yeah, it was me and my buddy Heath. And we went up there. And when I pulled his head out of the sagebrush, I just about fell over. Jeez. And I got back to camp. And I'm taping him out. And I'm so excited. His frame was 220, 24? It was a four-point frame. Just his four-point frame. And I said, I'm doing something wrong. I knew it was big. And I just figured I was screwing up. Inside spread twice, whatever. Yeah, just going over it three or four times.

And I think I got him officialed at two, was it 248? Hmm. 248 and some change. Jeez. Did you put him in the book? Like you netted him and he's in the book? I didn't put him in the book. Nope. Why? I need to. But I just, yeah. Yeah, you've walked a lot of deer tracks in the sand and lots of other places in your life looking for one of those. But they sometimes just happen when they happen. Never know when they're going to happen. But just, you know, I'm always chasing ghost deer in the desert and sands. And it just happened to work out for me. Jeez. Crazy. Well, you guys have been good, good and lucky. Your dad smashed a giant too recently there in Arizona. Just an unbelievable giant. You killed a, was it 236 last year? Yeah. I mean. So, well, we appreciate you taking time and interrupting your schedule. We're just making the rounds and talking 200-inch deer of random people.

And we know you and we're going to give you a call. Never forget your buck. I appreciate it, guys. Never forget your buck over there. Yeah. Like I said, I wish I was a little more. I kind of got caught off guard a little bit. I know. That's perfect. That's the short, chopped up version of that. That's perfect. Do you have any advice for guys that are listening how to kill big deer? You've been on a few of them. You know, just stay with it. I had a wise man tell me once, he says, hunt big deer where they are, not what you think they are.

That always stuck with me. If you're in the biggest, darkest hole in the world, it doesn't mean there's a big deer there. That's right. Yep. You know, hunt deer where they are, not what you think they are. That's always stuck with me. I like it. I like it. All right, Landon. All right, guys. Okay, man. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks, man. Talk to you later. Bye. I've hunted a lot where I thought deer, big deer were. And I still hunt where I think deer are. Yeah. A lot of deep holes. Huh? A lot of deep holes. I've actually, I measured that buck. One of the most impressive deer. You did measure it? Yeah. It is a big deer. Oh, it's just big. Well, and I think what he. Just framey, just classic big deer. And I don't know, I don't know how many times he'd hunted Colorado prior to that, but when you kill a Colorado mountain deer and factor in, like you're talking to Wyatt's

Utah deer, the body and all that, and you see that in proportion, it will throw you off from a guy that's used to hunting desert deer. I agree with that. This guy's hunting desert deer, leaned out suckers. You feel like the bodies are twice what they are in Wales. I mean, and their neck, and the fourth season, their neck is that big, you know, giant basketball size. You know, I think it just sometimes absorbs that. There's a little bit into that whole proportion, but it's a freaking monster. Yeah. You know, I want to. Interject some words of wisdom. Well, no. No, I don't have any. I'm learning. I want to call a guy, that Brian Ingram that smashed that Magnum buck up there in Wyoming. Oh, yeah. Brian would be awesome. He's a client of ours. We've been friends forever from California. He lives for big deer. That's all he lives for. I mean, really. I mean, he lives for big deer.

He's drawn some elk tags, but he doesn't get excited about elk tags like he does big bucks.

Hello. What are you doing today? Oh, not a lot.

Hey, Jason Carter here with the Epic Outdoors podcast. I got the whole crew here. We just wanted to talk about big deer for about five minutes. Have you got five minutes? Sure. Good. How's it going, Brian? It's Adam. Good, Adam. Good. How are you, buddy? Doing well. We're doing our 200th podcast. And, of course, 200 is a nice round number that I guess mule deer hunters like, love, and mean something to. And we thought as part of that we'd call people that we know that love big mule deer and have killed some big mule deer. And you've killed many of them, but one of them is your magnum deer. And we thought maybe that'd be a good one to call. And maybe give us a bridge version of that story of that just impressive Wyoming deer. And, you know, that's a legend. It's a legend deer. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. It's a deer that gets appreciated.

I never let one day go by that I don't look at it or come and go on up, cursing, downstairs. Yeah. But, yeah, it's, I don't hardly know what to say, guys. It's, I still can't believe that it really happened. You know, from the time that Rob and I spotted it to the time we went and killed it, I think was close to three hours. Wow. And for that deer to be clear across the other hillside and for us to luck out and close in on it, I've always thought that was just pretty supreme luck. Yeah. And this is a deer, he had pre-scouted it, right? He had seen it early? Yep. He'd seen it earlier. And he called me one day. I was working out in the yard and I hadn't drawn any tags or anything. And he called me and offered me the hunt, said that he told me it's a deer that we might never lay eyes on again since it's been a bad place.

And, but, you know, the deer that I've been after my whole life was just exactly what he was explaining to me. So I told him, I said, just, yes, absolutely. I'll take it. He says, I have to, in honor of one other guy, I have to call him first. I said, okay, I'll be waiting. And so the phone rang back up. The other guy couldn't take the hunt. And the hunt was on. And when he said, you may never see the deer again, we may never see the deer one time, was sure enough the truth. Because it was in a bad, bad place way in the back country. Wow. And after, oh my gosh, how many days did, I went on the archery hunt and we didn't see him. And I went on the rifle hunt. And between all them days, I think it was like, oh, I'll just say nine or ten days. We sat from daylight till dark, glassing where we thought he might be living, and saw one little forked horn and a doe. And all of those days.

That's hard to keep going. It was, I mean, there was not even any other animals. So one elk and one moose. And it makes a day a long day. We drank a lot of coffee.

Well, and so then what? Finally you stepped out? Or did the weather change a little bit on you there? Or what break did you get? Yeah, what happened was, is I had had a horse wreck. And my hip was all jacked up. And so this one morning, Rob says, you know, Brian, he says, you might want to just think about just holing up. Maybe cutting some firewood. We got snow coming in. And I'll just go back up on the glassing point. Well, he went up. And sure enough, it had rained that night. We heard rain on the tent. And we was both thinking, you know how rain is. It just makes that hunting better. And so he told me, he says, if I happen to call you on the radio, and I say, sure, picked a fine day to quit drinking, that's just a password saying that I have found Magnum.

Gold words. I like it. Yeah. And so I was cutting, I was sawing firewood and heard the radio beep. And I went and picked it up. And he goes, sure, picked a fine day to quit drinking. And I'm telling you, from that, it was a whirlwind. I had all, I had our packs undone. And I pretty much knew that we was going to hike it on foot. And, well, I mean, if we, you know, he got there and we got the packs ready. And he's the funniest guy. He's a rough looking cat anyway. But he looked me right in the eye and he says, are you, gosh darn, able to say expletive, ready for this? Yeah. And I said, I had to laugh because, I mean, he had such a look on his face. It was like, I never seen that to nobody any more serious. And so I said, yeah. I said, are you? I said, now let's quit jacking around and let's go. And so we started hiking up the canyon and I just tried my daughters to keep up with him.

And we got to where we had to turn and go straight up the face of this rocky chute. And it was the strangest thing, guys. I can't explain it to this day because I had a broken hip at the time all of this was taking place. The top of my hip bone was broke off and I somehow got into the hunt and had forgotten about the pain. I forgot about everything. I was so excited about that we were actually finally going to make the stock after all them days. And we hiked up the hill. And Rob was stopping when he thought he had to and to give me a breather. And we got up to the top and broke out of the trees into the rocks. And it was just solid rock at that point. And we was trying to, we was kind of trying to make a plan how we was going to get across that rocky chute without being noticed. And he looked at me and he got a grin on his face. And he goes, have you been screwing me all this time?

And I laughed and I said, I said, no. And then I got serious and I said, hey, let's, let's talk about all that later, you know. Let's kill a deer. Yeah. And so we started to cross that chute. And I, I had my hand on his shoulder and every rock that he would press down, I'd put my foot on it so that it was already compressed. And finally we, the wind started to turn on us and we had to turn and come clear back across all those rocks that we had snuck across. And dropped down the hill, oh, about, I think it was about a hundred feet. We had another game trail. Then we went across again. And when we got across that one and, and he turned around and he mouthed to me two, like 200 yards. Because he, he remembered a snag that he had seen from the other side. And we were at the, we could see that snag. And so as we came in, we dropped our packs.

And he asked me, he says, do you think, he says, what do you think? Should we go in after him or, or just try to wait him out? I don't quite understand that because there wasn't much waiting out. But I said, let's, let's go get him. Let's go kill him. And so, uh, as we started getting closer and closer and closer, Rob started picking up his speed, which surprised me because it was hard to be quiet. But what he had done is he saw Magnum whipping his horns in the, uh, willows. And he knew that he was, he was breaking stuff and preoccupied. Oh yeah. Make a little noise. Gain some ground on him. Well, yeah, we gained ground on him and that's just what it took. And we stopped behind this one spruce tree and Rob peeked out around it and his eyeballs got as big as dinner plates. And he just pointed just like right there. And so I had to have him.

I told him he had to step forward for me to get out to where I could see. And me being left-handed worked well because I was able to reach out around that tree. And Magnum and I laid eyes on each other for the first time. And he saw me make my move and I saw him and he just whipped his head up and he jumped through the timber. And I lucked out. It was only like, I think, 50 or 60 feet. And, uh, I didn't think that I hit him because when I shot, he turned down the hill and then across the blows to the left through the blows. And I shot again. And I, it was just boom, boom. And then just sickening silence because he showed no sign of being hit. Uh, he had, uh, it didn't sound like he'd been hit or anything. And as it turned out, I took him through the lungs on that first shot, just perfect. And then broke his back on the second shot. Jeez.

But, uh, I was standing up there knowing that I had missed him with my gun hanging at my side. And I just went, I blew it. After all of this, I went, I blew it. I mean, I was so sick that I swore to God, guys, if there would have been a cliff there, I would have jumped off of it. I did not want to even live. And, uh, about that time, Rob, I saw him, he kind of got irritated with me and he goes, come on, come on down here. Let's look for blood. So as I was on my way down to Rob, he happened to already look down the hill about, oh, 50 feet. And so I wanted him, Magnum's antlers hanging up on a brush.

Then the party started. Oh, I went screaming down there. I dropped my 300 Weatherby that I just love that gun. And I just dropped it in the rocks and just let it go clang, clang, clang. I just dropped it for some reason. And I went running down to that deer and got on him. And I said, Rob, I'm touching this. I'm touching him. I'm actually touching him. And then I, then I remembered that I left my gun up at the rocks. The guy got kind of excited, you know? Big buck does that to a guy. Well, and that deer's got some of the most incredible mass of any deer harvested in our lifetime. Yeah. I've never seen anything like it. The point mass is beyond description. Yeah, isn't it funny? You know, it's always something that's always been odd to me was he's so, oh, just being medium horned coming out of his head. And then he blows up in mass. It's unbelievable.

But, boy, a deer never got appreciated more. I mean, Rob and I was there. And then we hollered for, oh, James. He was across the way. We hollered for him. He had just re-supplied us. And we all sat on that hillside. And then pretty soon it started raining on us. And we still sat on the hillside. And the storm passed. And it looked like it was going to be getting close to dark. So we decided finally we had to get the deer off the hill. Yeah. Just want to soak it in. And, you know, that's a deer that, you know, it's not a nice deer. It's a magnum. It's a magnum. It's a deer that just doesn't happen, you know, to you, let alone hundreds of hunters very often, you know. Yeah, kind of like the hunter I'm talking to was in his office once, if you'll recall. Yeah. You were here last summer. Yeah.

You got to pause when one of those moments happens and wondering when it's going to happen again like that. That's an amazing deer. And I don't think I've ever heard you tell me that full story like that. I appreciate you doing that for us today. It's awesome just because that takes you to the mountain for sure. Oh, yeah. You know, I wanted to – I didn't want to – it went to end. I didn't want to get back to camp. I didn't want to get off of the mountain. And so I told Rob, I said, I'm going to pack him. We had the horses, so we put the meat in the horses. And Rob said, okay. And we decided to walk the entire way back to camp. And the horses and everything was at camp, put away and everything before we showed up. But we just walked in the rain and talked. And I had it on the back of Rob's pack so I could stare at it the whole way. And we got in just before dark.

And I remember that I wanted to build a big fire. And I loved spending the evenings around them fires. And Rob and them was getting dried out and getting in the tent. So I built a big fire. And they stayed in the tent because it was raining so hard. And I just sat out there with a bank of a miniature across from the fire from me. And it poured down rain. And just stayed and took it until I couldn't take it anymore. And then I took it and took him inside and set him right in the middle of a bunch of sleepy hunters. And everybody turned their nightlights on, their headlights, and just sat there and looked at him. Yeah.

Things don't happen like that very often. Maybe once in your life if you're lucky, lucky. Yeah. We enjoyed him as a team, that's for sure. Well, we want to give a little shout out to Rob Wiley. Non-typical outfitters is the Rob you're talking about. And he's killed many big deer up there. So, you know, Brian, you've hunted deer your entire life. Is there anything like a big old mule deer in your book? And by book, there's nothing. Not one animal on earth fits the caliber of a mature mule deer. That's always been my favorite and always will be.

Well, pretty awesome. Hard to argue with that. We appreciate you spending some time with us here today telling us that story. It's a legendary buck.

You've got the right guy if you want to sit down and listen for a while.

I'll tell that story to anybody that wants to hear it. All right. Well, we'll let you go. We just wanted to talk to a legend about a legend. Oh, no. Pretty special. Pretty special deer. I appreciate you guys a lot. I thank you very much. And you made my day here because I'm kind of in one of those bored days. But I really appreciate you guys. I appreciated my visit out there with you. And I appreciate just what you've done for my family. You bet. Well, you're welcome out here anytime. Right on. Yeah. I found out the other day I didn't draw Nevada. Oh. The guy draw? Yeah. I'm the outfitter draw. So that one's up, down. Yeah. Well, there's a few more draws yet to come. So hopefully you're going to get lucky. Let us know if it happens. And yeah, thanks again, Brian. We'll be in touch. And holler if you need anything. Hey, thanks, guys. Great talking with you. You bet. Talk to you later.

Take care. All right. Bye.

Man. That's a good dude. Coming down to time. I mean, that's a common denominator so far. I mean, you can say time. And oh, yeah, of course it takes time. But man, when you see a don at 2.10 days. That takes some discipline. And stays sitting there for the one deer that you think he's there. And you just got to trust that he is. I've had a few deer like that that you just got to trust that they are. And when they step out, you're like, where the freak have you been? You're right where we've been looking. And I don't know if you've been here and I've been missing you. Or you got blown out by a lion for a week and finally came back. I don't know what it is. But anyway. You never know. And sometimes they just disappear. You never know what happens to them. I've got a couple of bucks that, you know, you hunt and hunt and hunt. And you lose them, don't see them again.

And they don't come back the next year or the next year. You just don't know. What were you going to say, Wes? I was just going to say, so both of you guys have brought up, you've got a couple of these bucks. So let's hear one of your stories. Carter. No. We don't have time for all Carters. But that's a. Come on. That's a 400 podcast. No. Tell us something, Carter. Tell us something we don't know. No. I don't want to talk about me. Have we talked about your first? My first 200-inch? Yeah. It's out there on the podcast somewhere. Okay. What about this? Episode 52 or something. It just made its way to the office. Yeah. That's the reason I brought it up. Yeah. It's in the office again. I haven't seen it for six, eight years. Well, it's got an eye on Wyatt. I mean, I positioned it so I can see it, but it's watching Wyatt. For you listeners out there, we don't move offices around here a lot.

But part of it when we brought Josh on board is we're like, well, maybe, you know, Devin, if you want to move or Jason, I guess someone wants to move, you know, probably maybe put Josh kind of in the center of all activities. So, you know, by osmosis, like we like to say, he learns a little bit from everybody here and stuff. Well, Jason ended up going in the back corner. Nobody else took that. Well, he's surrounded himself with deer in every direction so much that he's got one out in the hallway looking at him and he's got deer in Wyatt's office looking through Wyatt's window at him. Wyatt had some blank walls because he took his deer home. He's in an argument with his wife he won't tell us about. So he takes home, he stakes his claim out there. It's just funny. So I fill the void. Carter's got, wherever he looks, he's got a deer staring at him and it's one from Wyatt's office.

So you walk into Wyatt's office, you're like, well, nice buck, Wyatt. What's that? Oh, it's one of Carter's just staring at him into his window. And then he's got one in the hall looking. Well, it was a buck in Colton's room and he doesn't spend much time in there and so I took it off the wall. That's right. Ashley's is next. Jana's got the buck, she won't let go. I guess the moral of the story is when you have as many as Carter does, you got to rotate him around and give him love in different settings. I do like seeing a little difference of view here and there, but no, I'm not totally in the back corner. Bronson, you and I are like, I mean, we're six inches apart. I know, but I'm just saying you're different. We've got one six inch wall between us. For something that's been this way for three or four years, it's a big monumental change. And ten years prior to that. That's right.

I mean, back in the day. That's right. Well, we have, but I don't, I don't, we've talked about some of our deer over the years. I want to keep talking to other people about their deer. Talk about Pollock. Pollock had an encounter for a few years with a big deer. He finally put on the wall. Let's talk about that deer. It was a freaking monster. Kind of stares at, you know, me or Devin a little bit. Yeah. It's a cool bladed old sucker. Dude, it's a machete. It's got a G2, looks like a machete. Yeah. It's a big old heavy thing. I don't know. So that deer, that was one of the things, I don't know, I guess I'm, I'm excited to listen to this and hear all these stories because I've been able to take something in. I think if anybody listening to this, if you listen and take one thing from each of these stories you've heard, I think it can happen.

And that's something that I feel like with me, you know, this deer, I hunted this deer for three years. And we're talking, it's a general season unit. This thing lived 500 yards from a main road, a half mile from town. No llamas or goats. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, I hated where this deer lived and I hated this deer and I hated everything about it. Why? Because. Cedar trees. Are you an elk cutter at heart? I mean, where are we at? For three years, he kicked my butt. The only time I'd ever see him, I'd see him in the summer, I'd see him rutting and I'd see him on trail camera and I never see him during the hunt. And I literally spent, I was a dedicated hunter. So I'd spend all three of my hunts out there. You had the dedicated hunter tag and you were a dedicated hunter. Yeah, exactly. And the closest I'd ever gotten to him was one night. I missed him by 17 minutes.

I'd finally found this little saddle that he was going through. I put a camera in it and he would come by literally every four to seven days. And so I was like, I'm going to go sit there for the next seven days. And anyway, we had a little moisture and he got up early. And I mean, he was coming by to the minute. And I got in there thinking I had like an hour to spare. And I hurried and pulled the card, ran up to the little spot where I was sitting on. And he'd already came by 17 minutes. So that was the closest I ever got to him. And he was a big, giant 200-inch typical. And he kind of had a cheater he'd throw from one side to the other from year to year. And anyway, finally, 2018, it was kind of on that drought year. He kind of went downhill quite a bit. I mean, he's still 190s. But he has a big bladed two on one side that's kind of got some little points coming off of it.

And I just knew I didn't care. I still needed to kill that deer. He beat me enough. And I went in. In fact, I went in the day before. I hunted him in the archery hunt. Never even had a chance. Didn't even know where he was at. But the thing that was hard about it, too, was he would live. You'd see him in the summer and rutting all winter long. He'd be on the same hillside. So he didn't go anywhere. He didn't migrate. He didn't leave. Just thick cedars? Bump him out of there. Yeah, just pinyon juniper. He lived. Anyway, so yeah, I finally went in there the day before the muzzleloader hunt. I'd been seeing him enough. And I'd intentionally, I'd go in there, kind of scout him all morning long. And then I'd intentionally walk over the ridge and bump him just to see what he would do and where he would go.

I'm like, okay, he's either going to go this way or he's going to go this way or come this way. And so I went in the day before, sat down on this hill and stomped in a big place for me to sit in the dirt. And got there that morning and some guy was already there. Like, this was an hour before light. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So then I was mad again. I'm like, you've got to, because that was one of the things hard about this spot is other hunters. So anyway, I was so mad and I just went and stomped down the hill. I'm like, well, I know, like I said, from what I learned from him scouting, he goes this way or this way. I can still see him from right here. And, oh, it wasn't, I don't know, just before, it was just getting light enough to see. And all of a sudden heard a deer down in the bottom, just bounded. And I'd seen some other hunters. They were all walking around.

I'd seen him all over and getting mad again because they were screwing up my hunt. But I just thought, I'm just going to sit here and wait it out because these are where I've seen him the most. And sure enough, it was him. And he came. Right up to you? Right. Well, he was out. On the ridge or something? No, he was out in front of me. There was kind of a treatment area that they'd done. And he was right on that tree line running. And he stopped long enough that I got up on him. He was like 175 yards. And right as he went to turn to take off running again, I just got one shot on him. And luckily I hit him. Yeah, mazzolot. So that was the only time I ever saw that deer during the hunt in three years when I had a tag and a gun in my hand. And you had like whatever that is, 40 to 50 days of potential season. They could hunt or let you hunt all seasons. Yeah.

So that's why I thought, that's why that deer, I don't know, he didn't score 200 when I killed him. But it just meant a lot to me because I put so much time into trying to kill that stupid thing. And finally it happened. Old deer, you said, too. Yeah, he was like eight years old. Somebody have his sheds? Yeah, yeah. Darn it. Well, I've got one side. Well, I've got two years of him the same side. And the guy's got the set to it. The tough part was the second year we were hunting that buck, he was actually, we didn't even hunt him in a way. I mean, we hunted the area and we thought we'd kill him. But there was actually a 230 buck that was in there that we tried to hunt. That was pretty cool. That was one night I'll never forget was I went in there. It was the night before the muzzleloader hunt in 2016. And him and that 236 buck are feeding on the set. I mean, feet apart on this whole site.

Typical and non-typical. Yeah, it was pretty awesome. That was a site you never see, especially, like I said, on a general season unit. Anyway, so that's all I can say is it does, it takes time and persistence. It's more of a mental thing than anything. And I don't know. I don't have it a lot of times. It takes patience. You just have to sit it out and not see anything. Well, I don't know how long we want to make this, but I've got a few other guys. I love these stories. I can't get enough. Well, that one to Brian was awesome. I mean, he's a legend. He's hunted big deer. His parents, we've talked to him about 21, 61 in Colorado back in that. He's got a lot. He's been anywhere he's sniffed a place to hunt a big deer. He's probably tried to do it in the West. He lives in California. That story's recorded now.

That's one thing, like my grandpa and stuff, some of those, you wish you had some of those stories back. So that's awesome to hear those guys tell those kind of stories. He's been a client for a long time. He's one of those kind of guys that you can't get enough of. You can't learn enough from this guy. And we have all the respect in the world for him. Well, and his appreciation. You can tell. Oh, yeah. He appreciates it. I mean, he knows what he has. And, I mean, we'll show pictures, I'm sure, on Chris when he posts the pictures of this on our Instagram. That ought to be a deer that leads or is a part of the collage. Oh, yeah. Well, let's give a holler to this Ben Hepworth out there in Idaho. Let's go to the gym state. Is that what it is? I don't know. Is it? I think it is. I don't know what it is. Is it? I always thought it was the potato state. Let's call it.

I mean, I've been driving down the road and had onions coming out of freaking the spud state. It is. It's going to hurt somebody up there. I don't know. We haven't gone there, though. Whatever. He's killed some giants, been in on some giants. In fact, he was in on a 270-incher killed by a client of ours last year. He actually guided them. And he's killed giants on his own. So, younger guy. Younger than us, but older than who? Chris, maybe. I don't know. We'll save age. And, Chris, we've got a story we need out of YouTube. So, anyway, hold on. Let's give Ben a call and see what he has to say. I don't even know if he'll answer.

Hello? I just want to know how to kill Big Buck.

Hell, I don't know.

If I was going to say call anybody, I'd say call you.

Hey. Do you have a hotline for that? No, not a hotline. No, no. Hey, so we've got you on a podcast. I've got the crew in here, Bronson and the guys. And we just want to hear a Big Buck story. Oh, man. This is our 200th podcast, and we're talking to guys that smash 200 inchers. And your name comes to mind. Everybody here in the office knows who you are. We just wanted to just chat at you. We needed representation from the potato state. Are you guys the gym state, the potato state, or the onion state?

I don't know.

We're up there with all of those. I think the dairy's right in there, too. The milk state? Well, you've guided some giants. You've killed some giants, Ben. I don't know. You got any words of wisdom or maybe a quick story? Maybe that 220-inch giant you smashed or anything good?

You know, I don't really know. I always just chalk it up to luck. Luck's just as much time as you're out there. I guess you earn a little bit of it. Because, you know, it's, I don't know, just something you love to do. So you spend some time at it. And sometimes it just smiles at you.

Well, all right. There's more to it than that. I don't know if you can put words to it. I do believe luck plays a part in it. But you guys, you know, you and old Bill smashed an absolute giant last year. You know, broken 250s was 270 intact to mid, maybe mid-270s. It was. And it was something special to watch. And, you know, you just, I probably won't ever get to see another deer like that on the hoof of my life. And you just, you watch them and cherish them for that moment. And just hope that, you know, in a huge way, if you love the animal, you hate to see it go away. Yeah. For sure. And, you know, it's, it's, we've, you know, you, every once in a while we get to see something special. And I always just think that 200 to 220 is something really special around here. And that's, that's in another class of its own.

And this day and age with all the, all the wolf pack hunters, you know, I'm not, I'm not down in any way that anybody does it. But, you know, everybody has a ton of friends that want to join them on these hard to draw hunts. And, and buddies that want to see their friends get, get a lifetime dream. And I mean, it's really hard to get to watch something like that and be able to get a chance at it. And so you always just wonder where that, like you say, that luck comes in at somewhere. Um, you know, and as far as our general hunts here, you know, you can get lucky in them too. Like I shot a big buck up there and, you know, I never hunted the high country that much until then. And I was just glassing some big basins for bulls and, you know, caught him up underneath a rock cliff.

And, and now I go up there every year and I look in the exact same spot, hoping that someday I'll have the exact same luck.

And, and haven't found a rhyme to reason or that. But, uh, you know, I, I don't have as good eyes as a lot of the, some of the guys I guide with and, and stuff like that. And so for me, it's just something that I, I just go sit on the same spot and check it a few times. And, and, uh, I have to be a lot more persistent and, and stuff. Cause it, I don't know. It just seems like I always miss something. And why I say they, uh, either that or they hide good. Well, they do that for damn sure. Well, it's hard to miss a two 70 buck though, when he does stand up out of the sagebrush. So there's not a tree between you.

No, you, you don't believe it for three or four times, even though you've seen him, you don't, you don't ever believe that at all. And, uh, it takes, it takes a few times for that to come true. I think you told me when you found him, you said, Jason, I saw a buck. I've seen him bigger, never seen a bigger deer like this in my whole life. I think I saw a lifetime buck. And then you went silent for like two months. Why was that?

Well, I may have found him again and thought, what in the hell was I thinking running my mouth? I don't blame you. I don't blame you. I, uh, you know, I came off the hill that night and I, I told my wife, I said, I think I seen the biggest buck. I've ever seen in my life. And it was a gray light and I, I didn't know what I had seen. And, uh, and, but I knew what I had seen kind of, I knew the structure was just abnormal. And, and so, I mean, and then after, you know, about eight to 10 days of not finding him again, I, uh, I went out there and, you know, same thing, same scenario, right. At gray light, I spotted him again. And, and I just thought, what, you know, you know, and then I get back, you can't get any video in those situations or anything like that to go back. You're just going off of memory. And, and I don't have any of that. And second guessing yourself a little bit.

What did I really see? Was that a tree? Was that shadows? What, what, when then all of a sudden you finally find him again, you're like, okay, no, that's. Yeah.

And, you know, I, I didn't see him for another like seven days after that. And, uh, a really good buddy of mine that I guide with and we're just good friends. He went out with me one day and he spotted him in his bed about, oh, 10 o'clock in the morning. And we were able to get a really good look at him that day and sneak into him and, and take some video of him and stuff like that. And it was, you know, it was something that. Now it was, now it was undisputable. No, no, no, no. It was undisputable. You know, it didn't even matter. All the other was just leading up to it, I guess. And, and, uh, and I don't know. I, I just never thought I'd see a deer like that in my life. And that was, that was pretty crazy. That makes you feel very fortunate or at least me. It did so good. Um, I, I snuck one of our archery hunters into that deer and sat on him for a couple, two or three hours.

And, and he, uh, he, um, you know, the deer made the best move of his life that day. He stood up at, you know, I think it was like 30, right around 30 yards. He stood up and just came on a march and marched straight at us through some thick cover and bedded down at right at 10 or 11 yards away. I mean, he didn't give one opportunity or anything. My hunter was able to get drawn back without even catching us or anything. And, you know, that deer just laid down right there. And, uh, you know, obviously staring away from himself or staring away from the wind and, uh, and looking. And I mean, the only thing I can think, I don't think him nor I moved a muscle and that deer, all I can think that day is that deer team seeing two little round faces and, uh, in the bushes. And that was one day I wish I had face masks on. Yeah.

And, you know, he blew out without a shot and you just wonder, you know, most days I'm, I'm pretty competitive person. Most days I would have been pretty, pretty upset, pretty, pretty, uh, ready to go get him again. And I just thought, wow, snuck in on a true giant. Well, I think that guy that drew wasn't the, uh, you know, that drew back that you were talking about, wasn't the actual guy that killed it, but they're good friends. And I talked to that guy and I, and, um, and he kind of relayed that same story. Just an unbelievable story. He's within, what did you say? 11 yards. Yeah. And I mean, he, that deer literally had to take one step, you know, feed, feed on that bush. I mean, that deer had to do, he had to do just one small thing and he was clear as some brush and he just stopped right there and, and dropped to his bed. He didn't circle. He didn't paw.

He didn't, he didn't do anything. And, you know, like I say, we probably sat there for felt like an eternity, but it was probably, you know, one, one to, you know, two to four minutes, one to four minutes, something like that. I couldn't tell really, but you know, with that deer just staring directly in our direction, you know, and, uh, and all I, all I say, all I asked myself every day was like, why wouldn't that deer step around there and paw his bed out? Or why wouldn't that deer, you know, check to make sure that was a shady side of his bed or whatever? I don't know. I just thought, you know, that was pretty abnormal that he just dropped and in his tracks, you know, he just, and, uh, you know, but I, in a weird way, I just felt super successful that day. I was just like, well, it wasn't meant to be. And, and, uh, I got to watch a true giant walk in front of me. Yeah.

Snuck in his bedroom at 30 yards and 10 and all that. And it just as easy could have happened. Yeah. And that's the, that's the thing with the bow. You, I mean, it's not over until, until, uh, that arrow flies. Yeah. And like I say, you know, he, he, uh, you know, watched him a little bit here and there, uh, um, till the rifle season and our unit, our unit here in 45 is generally not somewhere where you want to pre-scout a rifle, but does they generally migrate or move by then? And he, uh, he went, uh, you know, he just stayed in that same area and, and was able to watch him until October 15th. Bill came and I was guiding an elk hunt and, you know, Bill spotted him that day. And I, I ended up getting my elk killed that, that very same day with that client. And I came back and, you know, Bill and I had been good friends and I've guided him for a long time.

And, you know, you know, Bill had no idea that I was coming back off the mountain that night. And, and I went up, Bill was on a spot that was a lot closer to that deer. And I was on a, I went and got on a really high knob a long ways away and started glassing and, and Bill didn't know I was there. So that was pretty exciting for him. And we both spotted the deer and we let him bed down and, and went in and, you know, he was able to sneak over there and we snuck out and he was in some flat stuff. You couldn't get no height above him in shooting range. So, I mean, in a lot of honesty, he was almost just as easy to kill with a bow as a rifle to a point. And it just happened that there was one spot in that desert that you could see his time from. And we was able to sit there until he got out of his bed.

And, and like I say, when that deer stood and he was broadside to Bill, I, I had a, a thought in my mind go through that I, I'm not going to get to watch this deer again in my life. And that, but that was, that was a little rough. Yeah. You know, there was, there was some of that and never had, never had that go through, you know, he kills some really good bucks and you're really excited. Not that we wasn't excited on that one, but he was just, I don't know. It was just something cool to watch. And, and every time you got to see him was pretty, pretty special. Yeah. And, and so, you know, it would have been real special with the bow too. Cause you know, it probably would have been right up there with the state record and, you know, but it, it all turned out, I guess how it's supposed to turn out in that regard. Yeah.

If that's one thing that I, if any advice that I can give someone is just that I, you know, you just have to stay persistent, you know? Yeah. And, and that's the only thing that, cause I've had my butt kicked. I've been out there and I've been the guy watching everybody shoot monsters around me and got my butt kicked and, and, uh, you know, it's one, it's one thing that doesn't always, you don't always win. There's not always a trophy at the end of it, you know, unless you look at the whole picture, uh, being able to be out there and do it. Well, it's pretty awesome. I think, uh, you're super humble guy. You've been in on, I, I, I mean, I, I don't want to embarrass you, but a grundle, a big 200 inch plus deer. You've killed a few yourself. This, you know, one comes to mind that 220 wide sucker out of a general unit.

And I think that's what you, you kind of breezed over it, but some of these general units up there are good, you know, at times and at least have great potential. Even if, uh, you know, you get your butt kicked most of the time. Yeah. You know, those are, I mean, it's, it's somewhere sometimes that, you know, you do overlook and you don't, you don't think about it. But, you know, if you just get a chance to get up there and, and enjoy it, you know, a little, you got to have a lot of luck in those situations for sure. It's something that you, I don't know. You, you just gotta go do it every day and, or as much as you can. And then maybe something will happen good out of that situation. Finally can't happen if you're not there trying. That's, that's, that's exactly right. So, you know, I, uh, I don't know. No, may never shoot another 200 inch deer in my life. Come on. Come on.

I'm going to give it, I'm going to give it a lot to try. How old are you, Bill? How old are you? Uh, 34. Okay. All right. My money's on. It'll happen again. So hopefully this year, and then we'll call you again next winter and talk about new buck. So a new buck. Yeah. New buck. I hope so too, but I don't want to be greedy. The forecast look okay for Idaho up there. You know, it is. We had a really, really mild winter and it seems like the deer were really spread out and had their own place to roam. And the grass is really green. We've had some, some late small snow storms mixed with some rain storms. And I mean, the, it looks really good as far as the mountains, they're bearing off. And, and, uh, the deer, the deer should be good. I seen some nice bucks on the winter range. I think it'll be a pretty good year to have a 45 tag next year.

And, and, you know, it's, uh, I, I seen some bucks on the winter range that were, that were really nice bucks. It had a lot of potential. I don't, you know, hopefully they come, they make it all, all the way back. Rather, they're from. I have a feeling you're not talking 170 nice. No, no. All right. But no 200s. All right. All right. Well, I appreciate your time. We'll let you run. We just, thanks for taking my call. I know I didn't prep you. So anyway, I'm glad you spent a few minutes with us. I appreciate it. So now I'm going to catch heck for my buddy for one of these podcasts. Yeah. You've been on one. Yeah. There you go. Thanks, man. All right. You guys have a great day. All right. Talk to you later. But. Okay. Let's have a Chris story. Chris. Yeah. Colorado. Seems like you kill a floating bean buck or something like that. So the story on that one, I, we knew nothing about the unit.

We'd heard that it could be good. Maybe ripe. Maybe. Yeah. And so we were all sitting there one morning and, you know, you get to that point where you feel like everything's played out and you're about ready to head back to camp. And so I just decided, you know what, one more, I'm going to give it one more look over. And my buddies were looking off in this direction and I decided to hike over another ridge and look at a different area. So I started just picking apart the pinion juniper and picked it apart with my binaw. I didn't see anything. I'm like, well, I don't know why, but I was just like, I'm going to, I'm going to look this over with my scope. So I put my spotting scope up and I just started looking at all the little trees. And prior to the BTX being invented, prior to the BTX being invented, but, but I started

just picking apart around the trees and just looking at detail, detail stuff. And I moved my scope and all of a sudden there's this deer standing in my scope and I was like, Oh, it looks like a good deer, but I couldn't tell exactly how good. So I'm like, I, I think it's a good deer, but anyway, so I keep watching and it moves around this tree and comes out and I looked at it and I'm like. The giant. That's a good deer. So I ran out and I don't know why. You by yourself or these guys right with you? No, they're up the hill and I ran up to them and I'm like, I got a shooter. I got a shooter. We ran up to try to get, to get in within shooting range and we see the deer cresting the top of the hill and it's a long ways away. Spooked or just on its own? Spooked. Yeah. Okay. They, they, they seen us. There was a big group of deer and I didn't know that there was like 12 bucks.

There's like 12 bucks and I didn't know that. Anyway, I got there just in time and set up my scope just in time to see this buck crest the hill. And it's the first time in my life I ever looked at a buck and with a tag in my hand and said, that buck is way over 30 inches. And so the only thing left to do was follow it. Right. It went over the hill and I'm like, well, let's get around there and see if we can find it. So we hike up and got up to where we'd last seen it. Just started hiking around slowly, looking down into the canyon below me. Nothing, nothing. And just kept moving, kept moving. And pretty soon I looked down and they were like 200 yards below me or right below me. A bunch of bucks, the bucks, the buck. And I saw that buck staring right at me. And so I dropped down and shot, hit him. He spawned, turned, I shot again.

And then he just went another 10, 15 yards and toppled over. You saw him go down. Yeah. Yep. And I knew he was a good deer because I'd seen him at the top of the hill. I knew he was just super wide. Cheaters floating beam wide. I mean, what do you, what do you, what do you lack? Yeah. And then I walk up to him and as we start getting close, like I realized this is a significant buck. He is a buck. Yeah. And he had a big old kicker off the one side, big floating beam. Like a broomstick, like, like rounded off from feeding. From feeding. It just rubbed flat. Anyway, he was like seven by nine. Low 200s. Mid two. Yeah. Low, low 200s. But he had a big drop time that was busted off. And probably from feeding. So we'd heard stories. It's funny. We were talking to some guy in town and he was talking about this buck and he's like, which you should never do. Yeah. Don't ever talk to people.

He told us that he had seen a 36 inch buck. And after talking to him, I'm like, it's probably the buck I killed because he was broken. But anyway, after I measured him out, he was 33 and a half.

Just, just an awesome buck. Oh, yeah. Speaking of Chris, Chris loves to talk to people in the field. What is that? Really? Well. More than complete offs. I mean, we've been sitting there and Chris has, Chris has been on my hunts and we sit there and like, awkwardly, a guy will come up and sit next to Chris and start talking. Chris will not leave the glass. Doesn't talk to him. Doesn't acknowledge he's there. I mean, you've got a knack for that. And the whole time I'm like, I feel bad for this guy. He's talking to Chris. It's not totally true. I don't, you can't just say on the mountain. I don't talk to people anywhere. That's right. It's not out of character. Let me qualify that. I don't talk to anybody. Pretty much ever. I love the story. Maybe that runs in the family. Do you talk to people, John? Not if they come up in glass next to me. John, you yell at them. You had them under you.

He doesn't like that. Hey, I'm going to shoot over your head. Didn't you say that to a guy? Yeah. Jack Quad came, saw us, and set up spotting like 30 feet in front of us. I'm like, if my gun's pointed in your direction, I'm going to shoot over your head. Haven't you found out since who these guys are? No. Not that one. That was a different situation. I mean, come up and set up in glass next to me. Go to the other side of the ridge or something. I love them. Anyway. I love these stories. Well, I'm going to need another monster, or we got to quit, or call two more people, three. What do you think? Well, let's just, if we got any more stories, let's get to them. John? I don't know. We'll replenish the monster supply. This is 200 episodes. Bring me a purple. Anybody else want something? You know what? Nestle Pure. Oh. Whoa. It's three. No. Did you say Nestle? It's three o'clock, Brock.

It's three o'clock. What does that mean in this guy's line? Well, A, he's probably at three hours and 50 minutes. He needs more. What are you taking? What are you taking? Mr. Mucinan. Sudafed. Sudafed. Sudafed. Sudafed behind the counter. That's the good stuff. Yeah. He's not getting in bed by eight o'clock tonight. They make meth with Sudafed. Yeah, they take your driver's license. That's why they put it behind the counter. Your driver's license. Sudafed. I'm serious. I need some of that, too. Whatever we've had going around in the office, it's been serious. Speaking of driver's licenses, Devin's got a story about when he was 16. When I was 16. Shot a buck. He comes running out. Straight across from me. Poof. Just hunches up. Turns. Goes into the trees. And this guy, he was with us, really. He was kind of a distant friend, cousin. He went up and over. Before you could get there.

And I had a junior mentor tag, and an elk came out. So, I mean, I'm just bell feeding, you know. Yeah. Brown, it's down. Yeah. Elk, deer. So antelope. Yeah, I heard a shot, and I go over there, and the guy's, he's like, he's dead, you know. And I was like, yeah, I hit him. You know, we followed the blood. He shot him when he was laying there with his head up in the chest. The deer was dying, you know. Last bullet. How old are you? 16. 16. And this deer was, he was like 190 as a three by four. What? Come on. Heavy sucker, yeah. Was that with the tape that had the zero or the one? It's a big deer, I'm telling you. Okay, okay. It's legit. And I was freaking out. Like, one of the biggest deer, like, at that point in my life, I'd walk up, and I'm like, I just shot this thing, you know. I gutted it. I have pictures behind it. So I went to look for blood for that bull.

Came back, and the guy's tag was on. Come on. Yeah. In your hunting party? Yeah. In your hunting party? Do you ever talk to him? Maybe that's what. Have you ever talked to him since? Never talked to him again, no. I left. I couldn't believe that about you. I was so sick, I left. Was your dad there? I couldn't believe that. No, not that day. He was gone, but. It happens, man. Big deer. That's probably why I become a lone wolf after that. Lone wolf McQuaid. Remember that show? No. No. Was that in the 70s or 60s? No, that's Chuck Norris, wasn't it? You're born. Yeah. You're born in the 70s with me. You act like I'm older than you. My dad worked for Game and Fish, we didn't have to. You're like 16 or 18 months younger than me, and you act like I'm a whole generation ahead. I don't know. I mean, freak. I guess if you put it that way, I thought we were years, but if it's only months, I do feel

that. Yeah, months. Sorry. We had that on VCR tape. Yeah. We watched that thing probably 70 times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is that where they bury him in like? Yeah, he buries him in his Dodge. Yeah. I mean, and he drives out of the ground. It's as classic. It's as much of a classic as Red Dawn is, Archibald.

And we're not talking the new version. We're talking the 1980s. Yeah. Right. All right. Well, anyway. Let's get this party started. Where else are we going? What else was on our list? Let's call our good friend Dusty. He doesn't know he's being called. He's killed multiple 200s. He's constantly in the office working us over for info. He's a good friend of ours. And, man, he's just got a neck. He's not going to talk too much. He won't. He won't. But anything you get out of him is a bonus. And making him squirm is great. Maybe he'll slip and we'll teach 10,000 people something. Making him squirm is worth it. Just like Siret. He's texted me three times since we called him. I don't even reply to these guys. I've got a lot of texts here. I'm not even replied. Yeah. But Dusty's one of those guys. He's got eyes like I've never seen.

So, you know, normally when I drive, I go from point A to point B. I don't look outside my windows. This guy's always looking and he's always seeing. That's the one thing, the takeaway I've learned from Dusty. You look. Like, you look around. And I don't. I'm going 60, 70 miles an hour faster than I should be. Point A to point B. And I get up and I glass. And I glass. And I glass. And I don't think, in my mind. Between A and B, there's no deer. Between A and B, there is no deer. We're shooting. And you don't see him unless you're glassing him. And he'll get up on a rock and he'll look around first. He looks around with his naked eye. And I mean, all the time. There's one. There's one. There's one. He's got incredible eyesight. But he's also thinking all the time. Whether you're driving. Glassing. Whatever. He's thinking. And then, like, we'll be hunting a specific deer in the past.

And he'll be like, you know, I got on Google Earth last night. And I'm thinking we should be on this knob right here. Or this knob right there. Like, he never quits thinking about it. And I've learned that from him. Like, I'm telling you, this guy, he's smart. And he's always thinking. And he's got a little bit of an edge from doing that. Was it Dusty that got hit by lightning on my Utah Elk cut? You want to bring that up? That's right. He has hit. I'd like to hear that story. So the lightning hit his four-wheeler rack. And he was putting the, you know, ramps up on the rack or something. Anyway. And it came out of his foot. Remember? His foot was on fire. And he was in the cabin. And called it a day. Like, well, he called it a week. I mean, he was done. You're tapped out. Oh. That happens. I can't believe you remember that. You want to go. I forgot.

And I just, when you said it, I was like, I think it was Dusty, the guy. He's got hit. Let's. All right. Let's see if he'll answer. Who knows?

Elk. You ever been hit by lightning?

Yeah. I've been hit by lightning. Well, we got you on the podcast. We just wanted a good lightning story. Nice. Nice. Yeah. You're better just to stay home.

Well, we're actually calling. We're having a 200th podcast today. And so 200 and 200 inch bucks are on our mind. That's really why we called you. But while we're dialing your number, yeah. John brought up the fact, I think it was on his elk hunt, that you got let up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It was a little uncomfortable a little bit. Yeah. We was out there having a good time. And we all split up and went our different ways. And a storm rolled in. And I was actually out on the ATV trying to get in a good location to do some spotting. And the storm set in and it started to rain real hard. So I jumped back on the ATV and headed back towards the truck. And I got back towards the truck and got the ramps out. And I was driving a little Toyota Tacoma at the time. And I had them ramps that the front wheels actually pull up on so that they'll fit in the back of these shore bed trucks.

So I loaded it, got it up on the front wheels up on the ramps and got out and was standing on the side of the truck and was getting the tie downs. And the tie down was kind of down in the bed. So I'd reach down in the bed. My arm was underneath the front tires of the four-wheeler, the ramp that the wheels was sitting on. And about that time, some lightning struck, I would say, I don't know, 100 yards away from me. And I seen a spark go from the ramp down to my bicep on my left arm there. And all at once, my feet started burning. I looked down at my feet and they felt like they was on fire, but there wasn't no smoke coming off them. So I finished loading up and I got the heck out of there, headed back to camp. And I thought, these guys are going to think I'm full of crap. But yeah, I got back and it was three or four days before I felt normal again. Just feet felt like they was on fire.

I told these guys, that's the day I learned you were a quitter.

That's right. That is right. For sure. That done me in. I figured I'd just stay home then. Well, I'd be right with you, Dusty. I don't like that stuff when it's that scary. It reminds me of a story. My dad's a surveyor. And growing up in the summers when he had summer jobs, he'd do private jobs. And out there holding the survey rod, I remember holding that up once in a thunderstorm was coming around and it started sparking. And he's out there 100 yards with his transit pointed. And I let it go and I'm like, I'm done. He's like, hold it up. I'm like, no, it's sparking. He's like, bull crap. He walked all the way over to me. I stuck the rod up. It's the old wooden ones that have a little metal on top.

Sparking in the air. And he's like, we're done today. It's been a good day. We put in a good, hard day. We're done. We're done. I'm out of here. Yeah. It's like, yeah. I've never seen. And it was a blue spark bouncing like an inch or two off the top of the rod just in the air. And you know, that's like you're begging for problems. So yeah, Dusty, I'm right there with you. I hear you. But transitioning from that to not quitting and killing big mule deer where you really can't quit or you're never going to kill one. What's your thoughts? We were calling people today that have some 200 inches under the belt in memory of podcast number 200. And maybe tell us a story about one of your personal favorite bucks or whether it's a favorite or just a cool story about one you either hunted or didn't kill or did kill. Yeah. Your first 200 was that muzzleder buck. Yeah. Wasn't it your first one? Yeah.

That was the first 200. Several people knew him as Stickers, the famous Stickers out there. Stickers is dead. Yeah. Stickers is dead. The guy that was hunting him come up, Stickers is dead. We didn't know his name. I think we had a name for him. I don't remember what. Yeah. Yeah. No big deal. But yeah, I had a Nevada tag out there and hunted the deer for several days. And there's other hunters in the area hunting him. And I actually think one of the archery hunters hit him high during bow season and unwounded him. And he had a couple other nice deer running with him and hunted him for a few days. And it was just me and my dad at the time and could never seem to catch up with him. We were in the right spot. It was the day before I actually killed him. I had him and it was a four by five with him. That was, I don't know, he was probably 32, 33 wide, a big deer.

I was laying down in this reseed type thing and my dad was spotting and I had the wide buck within 30 yards of me. But the buck I wanted was on the opposite side of him. So just holding out, waiting for the right opportunity. And they winded me and took off running down through the wide open area. And yeah, that night I actually come home and called Jason and asked him. I said, hey, you got time to go out with me in the morning? I could use some help. I've got pretty good tabs on this buck. I kind of know what he's doing. Been watching him a little while. If he can come out and spot. And we got out there early in the morning and Jason got up on the vantage point. And right at daylight, man, we had him found and got within, I don't know, 30, 40 yards of him. And couldn't see him for a minute. So yeah, I couldn't see him for a minute.

And finally he came out in the open and got, I don't know, 40, 50 yards shot at him right in the chest and got him. That was it. No, it was a great job, man. And it was an awesome deer. It was just awesome. Yeah. I didn't know somebody had hit him. I forgot that part of it. But he wasn't, you mentioned wounded. He wasn't wounded. I mean, they may have put one through, you know, the very top of his back or something. But I mean, that's what I mean by, yeah, he was living. And threaded by or whatever. Right. Yeah. I mean, you could see like a black dot on him or a little bit of dried blood. But I mean, you would never have guessed he was wounded or anything. I would have never known if the guy hadn't have told me. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Man, that was a good day. It was good. Nothing like putting your hands on deer like that. All right. Your dad was there and everything. Yeah.

It's just a good day. Good memories for sure. But then you've killed a number of other bucks since then that have been giants. I mean, what, what, any, any words of wisdom for guys that are listening out there? Watch what Jason Carter does and where he goes and you'll be good. Okay. Chris, cut that. Dusty, try again. No, I mean, it's, it's always good to have help. I mean, have spotters and help and have a, have a good group of guys to go hunt with and just have fun. And, and once in a while it works out for you and it makes it all worth it. So, but, um, learning from Jason, um, a lot of it's patience and stay with them. I mean, yeah, you get burned out after your stay with a deer for 10, 15 days, but, um, things can change in a, in a matter of seconds. So just, uh, stay persistent and stay with it. We hunted Buster for like 30 days. Yeah. Yeah. That sucked. Out that end. Is that?

It was terrible. Never seen him again. That's what hunting 200 inches is all about. Yeah. Yeah. I think about that almost on a daily basis. Like that's the one that got away that really, really sticks with me. So. Or heard from him again. Well, and I think that deer, I was telling, I was talking about you a little bit before we got you on the podcast. Sorry. Yeah. And, uh, how you're constantly thinking about places to go and on Buster specifically, um, we would go back to camp and you're just constantly on Google earth or whatever, you know, looking at the whole situation and you were like, I think we should hit this other knob. And we went up on that other knob and sure enough, Buster feeds out. And I think that's just, and that was, you know, cause you're out there, you're constantly never quit thinking.

That's what the one takeaway I think, you know, I've learned from you is just, you're constantly thinking about that deer and looking on Google earth and trying to figure him out. And that there's a little, there's one more piece of the story. Like Pollock here was talking about his deer and he learned about a saddle and you just, you're constantly looking for something you don't know about that deer that might make him vulnerable. Yeah. Yeah. And it seems, seems like just when you feel like you got them figured out, they throw a wrench in it and you start over from scratch. So. All right. Anything else you want to add? Nope. I'm, I think I'm good now. So you still, uh, what do you do when it starts raining? Got any. You don't go hunting. You stay, stay camp. Get rubber underneath you. Get in the truck.

I used to, I used to love to go hunting right, right after the fresh rain or something like that. I mean, being down the mountains, that's, that's what it was all about. Right after fresh rain, the animals are out feeding and stuff, but now I'm, I'm back eating a bowl of chili or something. Give it 10 minutes. Every time it rains, you come home and see Amber. Right. Exactly. She loves the rain.

Yes. Yep. For sure. All right. Well, we appreciate you, man. Thanks, Dusty. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you guys. You bet. See you, bye.

That's kind of a classic. Pickers is dead. Pickers is dead. Well, and it's not, your, your heart goes out because a lot of these guys are hunting these deer with landowner tags multiple years and they do. Or just draw hunters there. Draw hunters too. Yeah. Yeah. They were there. But the guides are watching deer and they know them and whatnot. And then you, you get lucky like that. And I mean, people just came out of the woodwork. I mean, we're sitting there over the deer and you know, here comes guys out of the woodwork. We've been trying to kill that deer. You guys did it. Congratulations. I mean, it was all good. It's just, of course they, they want to kill them just like when somebody kills your buck. You know what I mean? Love, hate deal. Yeah. Well, speaking of things like that, that brings up two stories of two of my 200 inchers.

One of them in Colorado, there's a couple of funny things about that one, but one of them bringing up close encounters with other hunters is I was with Gary, who we talked to earlier on the podcast. We were in Colorado. I think it was 2004. I've told this story many times, or at least of the buck. But as far as the stories, we'd actually just packed Gary's buck off the mountain. He spotted a buck. It was, you know, really nice four point, mid 180s probably, but it was one of those years that crushed it with snow and the deer were everywhere. But we just got there and started hunting. And the first night there, boom, Gary crushed us a really nice buck. So he's with me and we're, I think I'm driving or he, anyway, we're in the truck together and we're driving out and we glass up the buck, this big buck. And we're on a public road looking probably a quarter mile through private land onto the

mountain behind it. And it's over there rutting does and we're, I'm crapping. But this is getting dark and it's obviously you have, we have no idea how to get to where that is right now, but we're going to watch this deer. And this is a 33 inch, 200 plus deer, rutting does, November 1st or 2nd, third season. And Gary's like, he's done his tags punch that I'm like, Gary, we're going to kill a big one. Gary, you're going to thank you. Meaning I'm going to kill a big one and you're going to help me. Thank you, Gary. Yeah. You're my best friend. So the next day we did have a couple of other guys that, that were there hunting with us and there, we made a big elaborate plan back there, back at night. And the next day, you know, well before daylight hike, you know, drove a four-wheeler on the backside of the ridge, hike down the ridge and you're just going to where the deer was the night before.

Cause you know, it's, they're kind of starting to rut. You don't know how far they're going to move. Well, I'm inching down, inching down, inching down. And, uh, you know, thick Oak brush. Anybody that's hunted Colorado and Oak brush, you can't just see everything that's in the Oak brush. And so even somebody spotting from a distance is not going to just, Hey, hold up. You know, there's a big buck right below you. Well, I came eye to eye to this thing at like 150 yards in the Oak brush and he's staring at me and you can't sit down in Oak brush. Cause why? You can't see. So you, first thing you want to get, you want to, you can't see a, you want to get a rest. I mean, there's a deer you need to kill. I'm standing. And you've always been taught to have shooting sticks or whatever. Points of connection. Right. You know, elbows, whatever. And you're going to offhand it. Yeah, I did. Yeah.

So what, that's all I could do. So I put there. He doesn't even flinch. Come on. Again. Boom. Doesn't even flinch and just takes off running. But I heard something and I'm like, maybe I hit him. I don't know. So I, and I'm mad cause now he's taken off. He runs over the ridge. And as I'm running down to check. Well, you can't run through Oak brush. No. And so I'm working my way down there. You're snagging, snagging, snagging. I'm getting down there and I'm hearing gunshots over the ridge. And I'm losing it now. I'm in, I'm in maybe an Archibald situation, but I'm not with friends. Yeah. They're not friends. So these are, these are people I don't know. As far as you're concerned, they're enemies. Yeah. They're people I don't know. Literally. And I'm getting down to where I get. I get down. I get down to where it is. And I'm not seeing pretty soon. I look up and it's like a 200 yards.

This bucks running straight back at me, straight towards me. And I get on the gun and watch him, watch him run towards me. And I drill him at like 75 yards. Hauling right back towards me. Hauling on. And now I'm like, but I'm excited. I watched it happen. He's dead. But now you're expecting, you're going to be the bad guy. Somebody else has a bullet in. I'm waiting the whole time for this trailer, for a trailer, for a, I'm on the blood trail. And let's sort this stuff out. Oh, you tagged my buck. But that didn't happen? They never showed up? They never showed up? No. They never showed up? I get down to the buck. You might have been shooting it out, Bronson. I don't know. But no, they had to be. The deer was over the real hitch for a minute. And he came back over. And he did not want to go that way anymore. That's called a deer drive. But it wasn't organized. Not a hole in it?

One hole center punched in him. Come on. Except? One in the antler. Through the antler. Remember? I remember that buck. So either when he was staring at me, which I think when he was looking at me, that antler would have been right above his shoulder. Or a 30-30. Or someone over there. It's fresh. Oh, man. It is not a 30-30. They did a hole from the hip. But I mean, this is how stuff happens. It's not all clean and easy. And I scouted my buck. And opening day. And there he was. And I moved in. I got in position. And dialed my scope. And it was me. I spooked him. They spooked him. I smashed him. This is public. This is second choice. This is an August leftover tag in Colorado with elk and deer hunters by the hundreds everywhere. And sometimes stuff happens that way. And that deer got him back. It wasn't until I got back. And Russell Bokeley, who you know, he caped him out for me.

And there was a .22 slug right behind his ear right there. I remember that. And it was one of those flat, longer. I don't know if they're like suppressed .22. But they're longer than a normal .22. Flat and right there. Not even deformed. Somebody had obviously in the past tried to take him out with the .22. Wow. That's a bad luck, huh? Right there. But I'll take a picture of him for Chris. I'll take a picture of him on my wall and show that. You see that right through. I'm not going to fix that. I think it was probably me. Bronson missed a buck at 150 yards. That's a good one. That happened. Okay. Yeah. I love it. Another weird story, and we're on weird stories of other hunters, is remember my Henry's buck? Yeah. It wasn't until three months after or two months after or whatever. I don't know. Maybe not that long. But we're busy hunting.

I just remember I got it processed because we're in the middle of August. This is your .220 buck you killed with a bow. Yeah, you can't hang a deer that time of year, so I took it to the cooler. But remember a month or so later, he says, hey, your sausage or whatever's ready. But he says, did you know there's a broadhead in his shoulder? And I says, well, I shot him once and I finished him again. It might be mine. He goes, no, this is, you've got to see this. I carved the whole shoulder blade away and put it in with the meat. You're going to see it. And remember, there's a broadhead in his shoulder that had, you know, that big ridge on the front shoulder? It had cut through that and is buried now all by bone. And is now encased in bone. Yeah. And so we threw it in the beetles, and it's on my desk.

It's pretty, what some of these stories that I'm, I mean, I wouldn't have happened is if somebody wouldn't have poached the first buck or killed that buck the year before. Because remember, I went to the expo that year, and everybody's like, awesome buck, did he have a scar anywhere on his shoulder? And I'm like, a little more than that, I had a broadhead in his shoulder. And the guys, they talked to me at the expo. What? Was that a 100-grain trail car? That's mine. Anyway, so just sometimes, man. Funny how that works. And the buck in my office, my one and only 200-incher, he's been hit twice. He had some metal in him. Like a year, two years in a row or that year? The year I shot him and the year before. With a bow. You could see in the backstrap sinew when I was doing that. You could see the blade marks. Come on. One was a three-blade.

And you learned this way after you killed your deer, right? Yeah, I had no idea. It was a deer down on the, you know, wind range, you know, supposedly, you know, wind range general season hunt. Bunch of guys. 30 miles away or whatever, killed it or shot it in the bow. What I guess, what this just, we're talking about how hard it is to kill it. And by a razor's edge, all three of those deer almost weren't even a possibility for us. They're pretty hardy. Just because of something else could have taken them. Poacher, other hunter, whatever. Anyway. I have a story like that. Okay. Keep it. Let's go. Well, but I was the guy that put the broadhead in the buck but didn't get the buck. Yeah, that happens too. But maybe I'll get the broadhead back someday. I don't know. I don't know. All right.

Well, I don't want to talk about that story because that was a wonderful, amazing giant that I didn't get. All right. So, should we call somebody else? Bronson, I don't know. I'm on a monster now. As far as I'm concerned, we're starting at minute number one. You were talking about shooting a .30-30 a minute ago. Lever action. Whoa. I remember watching a 200-inch deer die with a .30-30. Oh, yeah. Lever action. Yeah. What story is this? You have Kip. Kip killed a .195 net, official net. That's right. A lever action, like .270 or something. Wasn't that? Yeah. Or we threw away. I don't know. What lever actions come in? It was like a Browning lever action. I don't remember. I don't remember the .30-30. No, it wasn't. It was like a new age. But it was a lever action. Well, he called us John Wayne gun. Yeah, he did. But it wasn't a .30-30. And he's a good guy.

But you ever feel like you're taking a knife to a gunfight? I mean, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, we're used to these long-range, custom wazooed out. Well, and he's an Easterner. And so he came out west in an open-sight lever action. Or not open-sight. It wasn't open-sight, but it felt like it. It felt like it. I looked at it. I looked at the gun. And I offered him some other gun options. But it was also one of those years, rare years, that Nevada goes until about November 5th on some of the late rifles. That one was like a 6th. And it crushed the snow like two or three days before. Yeah, down in the desert it got snowed. And it only happens like once a decade. Yeah, and it happened. And it happened. But we had actually pre-scouted. Jenna loves that word. Pre-scouted isn't a word. Scouting is pre-scouting. So why use pre-scouting? Because we like it.

I'm going to say it because I like it. Sounds good. We had pre-scouted that buck and videoed him. And it was one of those. It was a migration area. And those deer move into there. He had moved into there prior to the snowstorm. And we videoed him. Thought he was a big typical, but didn't really. Typicals are the hardest things to judge in the world. Well, especially depending on where you're hunting. We talked about some of these mountain deer that sometimes their bodies just absorb. Absorb their heads big. Their body's big. Their neck gets big and small. And their ears are 25 or 6 inchers. You know? Crazy. Yeah. So anyway, we had scouted him. And then the snow hit. And then we had all... Chris, you were there. I mean, who else was there? Bronson, were you there? I can't remember. I don't think on that one. I went there that day. So it was the morning with the snow. Well, before we had...

I filmed him with the handheld camera before it had snowed. But we didn't realize how big the deer was. And then we went back to the same area. It had just snowed. I was up on the ridge and I picked up this buck and I glassed down there. And I'm like... And we were down there. It's a pretty significant buck. If you guys want to go look at it, it's probably worth it. And you guys came up at the bottom. Yeah. And I was watching him through my scope. And I remember I looked away. And I looked back. And he was gone. Gone. And I'm like... And you're the spotter. Everybody's relying on you right now. I'm like, guys... That's a bad... I hate those guys. I don't know where this deer is. Remember that? Why you've been... You're on the spotter and you had to get a sandwich a little now or later out of your pack or something. Or you're sitting on an amp pile and you can't handle it anymore.

And you flick an ant away and look back and it's... I actually think... I thought they were on the other side. They were kind of going down into the next valley. And then I brought them back to hunt this deer. And now it's gone. I've lost it. And I'm like... And I'm thinking, if we got snow, we'll track this thing down. It ain't getting away. It ain't getting away. And what had happened... I started looking around and the doe was still right there. And he was with one doe. So he did bet it. And I thought, he's probably right there. I think he probably bet it. So I had no eyes on the buck, but I could see the doe. And so these guys went up the draw looking for tracks and whatnot of where I had just seen him. Did a smash and grab with the lever action. Jumped him. Keep going. I mean, I don't remember. Details are fuzzy. So they got close looking for tracks.

Because they're walking right to where the last place was I had seen him. And as they started getting close, he jumps up out of the brush and starts running up the draw. That's right. Perfect. With that lever action, he... Bam! It worked. Filed him up. The lever action killed him. Well, I mean... And they kill his hill of mule deer, which is the route. It was 195 net, which is old book. You know what I mean? It was net 195. Kip, we had him official scored, everything ready. And he's like, I don't care about the book. He has a... He killed two mule deer. One was net non-typical book, which... Okay. I had a broadhead in that one, too. Yeah, there's another creaser. That was a 250-incher in the velvet. 240 in the hard horn. I mean, I'm going to throw up in my mouth right now. I think it will. Then I'm going 247. You're making it worse, Chris. Hard horn. And then Kip smashed a...

I was there when I died. A book... Yeah. Two mule deer that we know of. A book typical and a book non-typical. 20, 30, 40 yards. He ducked my arrow. I mean, I made some mistakes. The buck did some smart things. Kip smashed it with a rifle. Okay? A book non-typical dies, and he kills a book typical, his first two mule deer. Who does that? I don't know anybody else that's done it. Without governor tags or something like that. No. I don't want to... These are bad stories. They're good. But let's call somebody. I don't know. Let's call somebody. Hunter Guide's here in Utah. He's a killer. And he's been on some big animals. Multiple species. Hound hunter as well. Man. Younger guy that's been there, done that. Yeah. Feels like. He was with me when we found that giant bull. I was telling you about it the other day on the Ponce ago. That was... Really? Yeah. He was with me. That 390s bull? Yeah.

Geez. We only killed it. We had a buck on the cover. Was it last October? We had a buck that him and his dad guided. Yeah. I think it was. 240-incher. Giant Ponce buck. Disgusting pig. Nat Booker. Well, anyway. Let's see if he answers. I don't know. I don't know how he's going to do it on a podcast. He's probably in a saddle right now on a mule somewhere. You think? Yeah. He's not. Well. It's going to go straight. Even cowboys have new age electronics, right, Chris? I thought you were going to say even cowboys like a little bit of rock and roll.

Let's give him a allure.

Hello. Are you in the saddle somewhere? Oh, no. Nope. Just got home. Well, this is Jason, Adam, and Wyatt, and Devin, and the whole crew on the podcast. How are you today? Good. How are you?

He's done now. You got a little somber there. We're not talking about anything serious. We're just talking big mule deer. And wondered. It's our 200th episode of our Epic Outdoors podcast. So we're talking big mule deer and calling people here and there and getting a few stories. And you've obviously laid your hands on some. And we talked about your Henry's archery buck. Oh, yeah. I wonder if you wanted to give us a few of your thoughts about that. What year was that again? You pulled a random tag, right? Just kind of out of nowhere. Yeah, 15. I was applying thinking, you know. Actually, I was just going to apply for a point because I was a guy nail cunts up in Idaho at the time. And I thought, what the heck? I've never even been on the Henry's. So I just threw it in. And I didn't even check the job results until two weeks after. Really? And found out I drew it. Yeah. Jeez.

Carved time out from an elk hunt in Idaho to hunt a Henry's buck? Yeah. I called him and said, hey, man. I said, I'm taking the first 15 days. I ain't going to make it.

Something came up. I found out over Wyatt and Josh. Josh Pollock helped me a lot. Josh is here with us today in the mic. So, yeah. I remember when you drew that. We were talking and you said, oh, I think I got a Dutton tag or something. And then two weeks later you called me. I drew the freaking Henry's. Yeah. Yeah. Josh was actually one of the first people I called. I know he'd spend a little time down there. So I started going over in the summer. Just on the weekend scouting and trying to learn it a little. It was fun, man. Trying to remember 15. I mean, they blend together all the summers out there. Was that a great year? Good year? I can't remember what. Was it off the turf? It was good. In fact, I remember. Actually, the buck I hunted originally, I seen you had some trail camera pictures of the buck with him. So I know you probably remember. But it.

See, that's what a 47-year-old brain does. I don't know. You don't remember. You don't remember. It was good. I think it's kind of when it started going the other way, you know. Kind of just past the peak? Yeah. I think it was just past the peak. I don't know. I didn't have any experience. But just talking to other people that spent time down there. We had like four bucks over 200 that we were, you know, chasing. After kind of on a list for you. Yeah. Yeah. We spent the one. The buck that was with the buck that you had on trail camera. And we hunted him for the first five days. And I actually. I hit him. But he ducked my string. And I just backstrapped him. But he was like. We figured he was like 205. He had like a five-inch kicker. Typical. Oh, yeah. And I actually. Two. Let's see. Two days after that. After I hit him. We found him again. And he was totally fine.

And I blew him out again. And we. We decided to take a break. And try somewhere else. And. End up finding the buck I killed. And.

Glassed him up. My cousin stayed there. And spotted for me. And I walked around. Kind of coming down a backbone. I actually bumped him. And I could just see him kind of working around. Kind of the face of the hill. So I ran over to there. And he come like. 20 yards from me. I shot him. But I. I actually didn't even know that buck was there. Really? The one you killed you mean? Wow. The one I killed. Yeah. What did he end up going? He was. Just two. Two. Just a little under 208. Gross. And he netted 203. Typical. Typical. Yeah. Wow. Geez. 50 inches of mass. Yeah. Baseball. Come on. Baseball bat at the end. Yeah. He was. It looked like he wasn't done growing yet. It was crazy. No. Yeah. And that's what me and Josh talked about. I think he had. Because that was. That year was. An early opener. This year. It was 15th. It started on the 15th. Just not done. He had. I think he had an inch.

At least an inch on both. Both of his twos. You know. Maybe even threes. I killed a deer like that. Even. August 20 something. Like 24th or 5th. And I mean. He wasn't done growing. You just never know. Some of these bucks don't finish. For. You know. Till late. First part of September. Yeah. It's crazy. Wow. Well. You got any. You know. You guys have been super successful. Killing all kinds of big animals. Elk. And lions. And bears. And deer. And. You got any. Tactics that have worked well for you over the years. Or anything that. You know. The listeners could take away. Something that would help them be successful. Our biggest thing is. I mean. Just time behind the glasses. Seem to be what's. Most successful. You know. I mean. I've seen my dad. And it used to drive me crazy. When I was a kid. But. I mean. My dad would sit on a knob all day. You know. And. It'd drive me crazy.

Let's go look somewhere else. Look somewhere else. But. It seems like just being patient. Worked the best for us. You know. Yeah. Don't get in a hurry. You know. Big deer's there. Especially. Yeah. Yep. Yep. You guys smashed a giant. Off the. Pontagon. You want to tell us. Just a quick. Rundown of that deer. He went like 240s. Net. Yeah. Non-typical. Just a monster. Yeah. So we had a guy. He had. Was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. So he got the 10 day extension. My dad had some general hunters in at the time. And I was still in Colorado. So my dad told him. He said. Let's just. Do your own thing for a while. And let's. Hunt that last 10 days of the. That extension. And. We were supposed to have a lion hunter coming in right after that. And I got home. One. Night. And. I was going to go cut for lion tracks. Look for deer. Do a little bit of the both. And. Just.

Got luckier in hell to find him.

Um. Sat down on a rim. Glassed him up. He was. He was. I think it was. Well it wasn't. Right at the first of November. And he was already. I mean. He was rutting pretty hard. So I called my dad. Said. Hey. Get this guy in. So he calls him. Guy drives all night. We spent all day. Um. Well. The next morning. We didn't turn him up. We seen the two does that he was with. Um. That night. My dad picked him up right at dark. And I was able to. Get him in there. And. Uh. He missed him five times. Luckily. Come closer every shot. He didn't know where we were. But. Yeah. It was. You love those. Unreal. Yeah. I mean. I. I'd never seen a deer like that. On. On the hoof in my life. So. I. Uh. It was pretty cool. Jeez. Me and. Me and Wyatt actually watched the buck. The year before. We. Uh. Watched him one night. And he just. He was like 190 inch. Six by four. Yeah. Had a couple. Little small extras.

Yeah. Then he just blew up. Threw him 50 inches. Yeah. At least 50. Jeez. Just the right. Right time. Lined up. Right time. Yep. You get the right age. And the right moisture. And everything. Stars align. And they just blow up like that. 2019. 2019. Just kind of an amazing year. For Utah. It was. Yeah. It was. Clear across the state. That's after everybody got done too. With that extension. I mean. The archery. Muzzleloader. And regular rifle. Had. All those hunts were finished. Yep. And that's what's crazy. Is nobody had a. I don't know of a trail camera picture. Or anything. I mean. And I. Me and my dad both. We have some property out there. And we spend a lot of time out there. Never seen him. No. And we run cameras out there. So I don't know. He just. Got in the pocket. Nobody checked. I guess. Wow. Wow. Crazy. That's a good story. Well. Sometimes they happen that way.

You take them every time they do. Yeah. That's right. Just keep hunting those lions and bears. And put a little less emphasis on these deer. Okay. Yeah. That's the plan. All right. Well. All right. Well. Appreciate you taking the call. Yeah. Appreciate you. We'll probably do it again. Heck yeah. And we'll maybe see in a few weeks. Yeah. We'll. Go try to round a bear up or something. That's right. Sounds good. All right. All right. See you. Have a good one. Bye.

That's awesome. Big animals. I was wondering if we should call that Corey Hayes. You guys want to give him a ring? Here. Here's another one.

Super Sim. Hey. What are you doing? What are you doing? Oh. I'm just here on the podcast. Got the whole Epic Outdoors team here. Very nice. Just calling to check in on you. What's going on, Corey? Just working. Slaving away. Well. We just want to know where we can find a big deer. I heard there's big ones in Arizona.

So this is our. Is that true? Our 200th episode of the podcast. So we're getting guys to tell stories about 200 inchers. And we know you've killed one or two. We were wondering if you got some tips and tricks. And maybe just a quick story.

Tips and tricks, huh? You asking me for tips and tricks. Well, hey. You always learn something. You might have drank something different than that day than Carter's ever drank before. I don't know. Maybe we'll get you to slip up and tell us the secret. Come on.

Just hard work, bud. You know what that's about. Just hard work. Tell us about the Oak Creek's buck. The Oak Creek seemed to be producing some giants. Yeah. It's been good. That deer was kind of a different deal for me. Just found him the first year and could not get him figured out. Couldn't get him patterned. And had to turn my tag back. What do you think he was that first year? 35 plus inch deer with split kickers on each side? Yeah. He was. I actually think he was a little bit wider the year before I killed him. But he definitely put on some inches of bone mill the second year. Added some points and just got a little older. Wow. But we got him figured out the second year and got it done really fast opening day. A lot of fun scouting him. A little competition leading up to the hunt that kind of made me lose some sleep a few nights. Oh, yeah. I can imagine. Yeah.

Yeah, that was kind of bittersweet. It took a lot of stress off. I know Wyatt's kind of in the same shoes. But I don't like having that many points. I'm not going to lie. Well, trust me. We know Wyatt. How do you even describe his infatuation with his points versus burning the points? How do we even go over there? I think Wyatt will die with a lot of points. Maybe. It might happen. You guys may or may not know this, but he's been pretty stressed about this for a few years. Well, let's put it this way. Ever since he's worked here and we've gotten to know him, we've known very clearly how much of a big deal that he makes us every year. So I always seem to be just one or two points behind what I want to draw is the problem. And if you had enough points to draw it, you still wouldn't apply. I could be fair. I'd probably look at something else. You still do the multi-season.

Adam and I have come up with 14 great options every year and every time. I mean, it's hours before the deadline. And he can tell us that if it would have had one more rainstorm for 33 minutes, he would be all in. Oh.

He's worried about the over-the-counter general elk hunt. I mean, what other excuses, bro? So we hear you, Corey. We know how much he worries about it. So how did you finally move your chips to the middle of the table and say, I'm going to make this happen this year. I'm going all in. You know, I'd heard bits and pieces about the unit. I'd heard about it from Wyatt for years. But, you know, after guiding on the Henrys for so long and kind of chasing, you know, a big deer down there or hoping to someday, I could see that the point creep was getting too far out of hand. And I could see the quality of the deer at the top end was getting knocked off pretty much by the end of the archery hunt. You know, the last, I don't know, six, seven years, you could really see it happening. You know, there wasn't a lot left to hunt by the time the rifle hunt rolled around.

And I just thought, what the heck, I'm going to put in for the Oak Creeks. And I had never even set foot on the unit until I drew it. Didn't know anything about it and just went and started pounding. And just kind of gritted the whole unit off and started picking places to look. And it worked out in the end. It was a little stressful, but it worked out. First year, you probably had, what, 30, 40 days scouting and ended up turning the tag back. Right. Yeah, I'd seen some really big deer, but I kind of had my heart set on that one. And, you know, when, as it led up to the hunt, I could see I wasn't gaining ground on him. You know, it just, I don't know what the deal was. He was running a big circle, and I could never get him figured out. Wasn't hitting cameras. It was pretty crazy.

And that was a rough day, man, when I sat at the Fish and Game parking lot with that permit, walking it back in the door. Did you have muzzleloader? Is that what you drew the first time and then second time again? Yep. Yep, muzzleloader. So, was it the next year or two years? How many years later? Yep, it was one year later. It was in 18 when I drew it the second time and went back and found him. And I kept knowing that I had the competition I did with a local that had the premium tag. I kept kind of looking for other bucks, but just keeping tabs on him. And I never did find another deer that, you know, I liked as well. Still saw some big deer again, but just stuck with that one and worked out pretty good. Dang. You found him fairly early in the velvet and kind of stuck with him for a long time. Yeah, I did.

He was, it seemed odd to me that he was moving as much as he was, like in kind of a circle around one of the ridges, peaks, you know. And the way that unit's set up, you can't just crawl up to a spot and see everything, you know. It's a pretty labor-intensive unit. So, it was a lot of work, but, you know, it paid off and super happy with the deer. It was fun. Was it the first day of the muzzleloader hunt? The first evening? Yep. We, yep, we didn't see him all morning. And about 2 o'clock is when we picked him up. I think it was a little after 2. And I didn't get him killed until right at, right before dark, maybe half an hour. He just, you could see him moving around in the trees, and he just would poke his head out. There was a couple different times I almost shot, but didn't dare. And then he finally just stepped out in the clearing between two trees.

And right when I was getting ready to pull the trigger, he started walking. I still made a good shot, but, man, I don't think I've ever covered that much country that fast in my life. I'm surprised I didn't break one of my legs or something to try to get over there. And that's a steep, rugged sucker, that mountain. Well, muzzleloaders, you're always wondering how many more times you've got to shoot them before they're actually dead, it seems like. I hate muzzleloaders. Right. But I love the season. They go down hard initially, but you never know if they're down for the count. It's like a slow rock going through them. There's no shock and awe. There's nothing. Anyway. Anybody's guess on how they're going to react with a muzzleloader hit. Ended up, what, 38 inches wide, 39 inches wide, and 220s? 39 and a half. Yep, 39 and a half and 222. Couldn't get 40 out of him, huh?

I couldn't get 40 out of him. Well, you know, I have a tape you can borrow for me. Devin's got a tape that starts at 1, and he measures all his big stuff with it. I'll mail it to you. But you've got to return it. It'll be about 40 and a half. I'm putting money on it. You've got to return it.

Oh, that's awesome. Well, pretty good. We know we interrupted your day. We're just having fun today. We're living in the 200-inch mule deer dream, basically. In March. That's what we do. The bucks have shed. We're thinking of this next year and wishing we were out of the office. You guys are no different than I am. We're always thinking about those 200-inch deer every day. It doesn't matter which month. How and where and, you know, why and everything else. But, yeah, I appreciate it, Corey. Thanks a lot. We may get a picture from Wyatt. We're going to do a little Instagram post when the pod desk goes live. Maybe we'll throw a teaser of your buck on there, too. So I'm sure it's out and available. You betcha. Yep. Okay. Thanks, Corey. Thanks, buddy. We appreciate you. Have a good day. Good luck this year. Yep. Thank you. Yep.

We're setting all kinds of records. Longest, longest. You guys, I'm going to need a third monster. No. Dude, I've got white in me. Well, and I've forgotten a lot. Purple in me, and I need a green. Benji, I was thinking about calling Benji. Who knows what he's going to say, huh?

Hey, buddy. What are you doing today? Oh, just fixing some power lines. Oh, nice. Well, hey. What's up? So, Will, it's our 200th podcast, and we're talking to guys that kill 200 inchers, and you came to mind. How's it going? Well, my wife has killed 200 inchers. Yeah, we can tell. Why don't you talk about 400 inch bulls and not 200 inch bulls? Well, you kill everything big. Give us about two years, and we'll call you back when we're at 400.

Well, what's up? Nothing. Just wondering how you're doing, and maybe throw a big buck story our way. It seems like you guys have done well over the years, Colorado and different things, and, you know, just 30 seconds of goodness. Colorado's our state if we're trying to find bucks, or it used to be our state. You know, I spend a lot of time in researching it, and both units that we have killed good deer in have been kind of off the radar at the time and just got lucky. I mean, my wife's 2014 buck was a 218 deer. Jeez. Just a giant deer. We've seen him, and it was the second to last day of the hunt, and I seen him in the spot and scope, and he was going up through the cedars, and I told her to hurry and lay down and shoot that deer, and she wanted to look at him through the spot and scope because she had passed up a couple 180 deer through the week.

And I kind of had about strangler to get her to lay down and shoot the deer, but she got killed. That would be a good reason to do it. That's a domestic disturbance right there. I mean, nobody would cite you for that. Yeah. And then her last one, you know, was just a real tough unit. I think she ran into you, Jason, there, and she killed a, you know, he's not 200 at just over 180 deer, but in a real hard unit. That was a tough, that's a tough unit. That's a tough unit. Yeah. Yeah. No, impressive, impressive. So, and you've killed, you know, giant bulls, and just seems like everything you do turns to gold. Just wondering if you had any tips for the guys out there listening that you feel like have made you guys successful. My biggest tip for deer is I just cover the ground and find the does that time of year. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what, what's, how we've got lucky.

And then on the elk, I just do a lot of scouting on the elk and it's worked out good. Yeah. So. Well, you guys are good hunters. We're about ready to apply for Colorado. I'm just wondering where you're applying and how that affects my application. You got any, got any, got any ideas? I don't have many points and probably take my mules down in there and ride into some of that high country if there's not much snow and, and try that. That's what my goal is. But if we get snow, I'll be down, down lower and driving my Toyota around. So I'll look for you. Okay. Well, that's big. Hey. Bring an extra mule. Just a minute. I was going to say, you're assuming Carter's not going to foot soldier it up to where you're hunting with mules. You're assuming he's not going to do that. Big assumption. I might bring a llama or a goat or something. I got a new rank mule. I'll put him on. Oh, yeah.

One of them proud cat suckers. Oh, you don't have to do that to mules. Never mind.

All right. Yep. All right. Well, we appreciate you answering the phone. I know you're doing, you're hunting state to state. We've talked about New Mexico and everything. So anyway, I wish you the best of luck out there. Okay. I'll be in touch with you guys. Thanks for calling. Okay. You bet. We'll talk. See you, boys. You bet. Good guy. And they, they hunt hard and they get, I'm not going to say lucky. They make their luck because they work, they work dang hard and hunt hard. But man, they've killed some big animals. Well, they said it's something about his wife passing up a 170 or 80 buck. And if you're doing that, like that's how you might kill a big deer still. If you're in a good zip code with big deer. Yeah. That's something to be learned from. I mean, I could see that discussion over the gun. Pretty, you know, I've had one of those with my wife. Discussions? Yeah.

We call that a discussion. When we were in Colorado this year, my wife was actually with me and we'd hiked up this hill. And that buck that I shot, we'd seen him. It was the day before. He was over there 600 yards from us. And we were sitting there glassing him and he was bedded down. And I was trying to decide whether to shoot him or not. And we decided we'll just, we were the only ones back in there. Anyway, we looked down, we could see some orange coming way down below us. I was like, well, I guess we'll see if these guys kill him or not. And it was this guy and his wife. You could tell. So they come up there and they were probably easy, 1,000 yards, 1,200. I mean, they were, and I was like, no, there's no way they're going to get down. They get down and he gets the gun out. She must have the tag. But we actually turned from watching the deer.

I like put the spotting scope on them because it was hilarious. He like had her down on the ground, shoving her head around, trying to get her moving the barrel of the gun around. And finally, finally, they just gave up. He was just, he finally, he just put her, put it down. She sat down and he just sat there and watched the deer. I need to go on record that I've never forcibly moved my wife's head or other body parts in the act of killing an animal. Forcibly anyway. No, not forcibly. Maybe audibly. Maybe I said something. This had to do with her buffalo hunt. And it was, she drew a cow tag on the Henrys and we had seen lots of bulls. We'd stopped groups, you know, that were a mile away and got in and nine bulls together. I mean, literally, we're like 150 yards. And she's like, that one's a cow. I'm like, what are you even, what are you even judging? They're bedded.

What are you even, you can't see boy parts. Their horns are that big around coming out of their head. I'm like, they're all bulls. We're done here. And she's mad. So anyway, we finally get on a mixed herd, right? Mixed. And what's your biggest fear then? It's like shooting a cow elk in the middle of a bunch of raghorn bulls or a spike elk, right? And a bunch of something. You gotta, you gotta pick the one. A couple of them had collars. And I'm like, I don't want to be that guy. Just left the division of wildlife. And here I'm, my wife's smoking a GPS collared cow. And they're going to get a lot of data from. Yeah. And I don't want to be, so I'm trying to line up with one that looks dry. Anyway, and all of that discussion, is there feeding and mingling? I'll get my dad on a podcast one time. He was there. He just backed off. He's like, I'm watching a divorce happen right here.

Well, I love watching you and Aaron talk or you and your wife. And I mean, you step back and you would just watch. Anyway. Anyway, so it was good. So once again, I guess, what do we, what do we talk about that one more time, Chris? And if you missed it at the first, or if you turned the volume down at the first, we're going to be giving away a pack wheel free of charge with saddlebags, you know, roughly retail value, roughly $2,000. Chris, you want to lay it out again about how people enter the, you know, it's going to go on our Instagram, but the details are going to be right here live in the podcast. Okay. There will be an Instagram post posted Friday, March 26th to our epic underscore hunts Instagram account. And that's going to be a video. So go to that video and tag two friends. And you also need to be following at epic underscore hunts and at pack wheel. And that is how you enter.

And once again, be aware of fake accounts. If someone tries to follow you that claims to be us, unless it is epic underscore hunts, it is not us. If it's got 30,000 plus followers, you've got the right account, right? That's right. And what are we at? Almost 40,000. We appreciate all you guys out there following. We got, of course, Chris, you're the one that heads that up and keeps everybody posted, so to speak, on what's going on here at Epic Outdoors. We appreciate you for that. But go on there and do what Chris is saying, and you'll be entered to win. If you win, we will direct message you, since we don't have everyone's phone number, we will direct message you from our account, epic underscore hunts. Yep. And you don't have to submit $5. That'd probably be a fake account telling you to give them money. So anyway, you want to learn more about pack wheel? Go to packwheel.com.

Give them a holler at 801-935-4764. Super good guys, incredible equipment, taking people in the backcountry, hauling stuff out easy. So pretty incredible, great product, super good guys. We appreciate their partnership here at Epic Outdoors. Everybody, we hope you enjoyed this episode. It was super long, the longest podcast we've ever been a part of. I'm freaking tired after two monsters, fellas. Bronson, how many monsters you had? Just one. Okay. Just one. All right. You're going to need another one. No. No? No. Huh? I'm good. That makes me want to go hunt deer. No, it did. Talking today, it was awesome. I like, you know, some of these stories I knew and maybe he was a part of, was there, but I loved to hear some of these. Just, I don't know. It's the time of year in March, no deer have antlers that we're really worried about right now.

So maybe a couple of two buys hanging on to some things. Stags. Stags. Yeah. Stags holding on to 2021 antlers still, but overall. Stags have the best meat, by the way. That is by far. If you mix it with beef, pork, and cheese, I don't know. I don't know about that. I've only had experience eating one of those. But that one was probably what? It was pretty old. 10. Well, Baird thought he was 13. Oldest deer he'd ever taken in. Didn't he say that? Yeah, he did. Wow. I know. We're talking about the Nevada hunt winner last year that hunted with us. That was an old freaking deer. Bag of bones. We ate it and didn't get sick. What did you say, Archibald? Nothing. It was disgusting. It was disgusting. Just, it was an old man. But it was probably better than the fake rabbit Chris had. I was just thinking that. I had some of that jerky and I didn't think anything of it.

Well, you put enough pepper on it, salt. There were different batches of that. I don't know if it was from hind quarter, front quarter, or back strap. But it wasn't all the same. But it was, we haven't caught anything that we know about yet at least. But anyway, it's a good time to be talking about 200 inches because moral of the story, it's a time we're not seeing any. You can't go find one right now unless you're looking for sheds. And we're tied to the office. I hope everybody's making big plans for 2021 to either get a tag or make the most out of just whatever tag you can get, whether it's general or easy to draw tags, Colorado, you know, Wyoming, whatever. Something. Make something happen. Be in the right place at the right time. We've heard a lot about it today. Be lucky sometimes. That's what matters. Anybody out there looking for information on how to apply, give us a holler.

That's what we do here at Epic Outdoors. We have a good time on the podcast. We like to talk about big deer, elk, rams, and anything else out there. But having said that, we, you know, for a living, we crunch the data, we apply guys, and we're constantly strategizing and helping our members obtain great tags, which equals big bucks and big bulls. So anyway, if you need some help, give us a holler, 435-263-0777. Go to epicoutdoors.com. Learn how to join. It's $100 a year. You get a monthly publication December through June, bi-monthly when we're out hunting in the field. And we help you apply across the West as well as booking hunts. Devin, you're constantly working with outfitters that have guaranteed tags as well as working on the draw. Yep. And we can help guys find hunts. Yep. There's always something out there. All right, fellas.

I was just going to say, along with your thing out there about applications, the deadline for Colorado is April 6th. So this podcast got you thinking about big mule deer. That's a state you definitely want to be looking at. Yeah. Apply, apply, apply, everybody. If you need help, give us a holler. Here we go.