EP 206: News of the West. Draws and Drought

You got deer, elk, antelope, bear, moose, all coming out 24th to 28th of May. Sharpening my archer steels. There's four more bulls that came in like five minutes later. Anything to do with Western Big Game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson coming at you from sunny southern Utah. Here in May, we're excited. But Bronson, there's a lot going on in May. We've been slammed. It's coming. Every day it's something new, something fast, something exciting. I guess not as exciting for me or you, Chris. Chris got an elk tag back in New Mexico, but we're still waiting for something. We're living vicariously through Chris right now. And John, John got an elk tag in Utah. He'll be glad that we announced that on the podcast. Everybody hit John. John at epicoutdoors.com. Tell him congratulations. Let's see how many emails we can send his way. Anyway, he's super excited and I'm jealous. But it is something coming every week right now. It's coming pretty hot and fast. And anyway, where are we at? I don't know. It's dry. It's dry.

That's bothersome. But before we get started, we'd like to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast about everything we do here at Epic Outdoors. Appreciate them and their support. They're an awesome company. Got a lot of new gear coming at you mid-July, which is right when scouting is heavy and the hunts are starting. So anyway, be watching for that. And of course, you can go on epicoutdoors.com and get a 40% off coupon. That'll help keep things at a minimal cost, very reasonable. And there's going to be a lot coming on for you out there. If you need another one, of course, you could get another one there. It's not like a limit to how many cards you can have. 40% off up to $2,000 per card. Pretty awesome. Anyway, appreciate them. Yep. One more shout-out we want to do for one of our sponsors is Stealth Cam. We carry several lines of their cameras.

It's getting to be that time of year. We've got lockboxes and cameras both. Give us a call on that. But one thing we want to do a blowout is with specifically the Fusion cams, the AT&T model only. We've got a little bit more inventory in there than we want. We want to blow them out. So what do you say, Carter? What price do you want to throw those out while supplies last? AT&T. Well, I always hate how companies do $119.99. What do you want to do? But I kind of want to do that. So should we do $120? What do you think, Bronson? That's more than $119.99. I know it's one penny more, but it's not like such a wrong number. It doesn't roll off your tongue? No. And then you've got to do tax or whatever. $19.99. That's a great deal. $120 for a Stealth Cam Fusion AT&T model. Now, this doesn't really have anything to do. It has to do with the tower coverage in your area.

That's what we're talking about when we talk about Verizon or AT&T. You've got to kind of know where you're going to be putting the camera. Some parts of the world have AT&T coverage much better than others, and some have Verizon. Bronson, would you be mad if we did $100 even? Hey, what about we do? $99.99? All right. Let's do $99.99. First come, first serve. That's a blowout. That's a blowout. That's a blowout special. Get rid of while supplies last. And I'm telling you, should we do a limit for each other? No. Huh? I don't care. If your credit card's good for it, call in and buy them all. Okay. There you heard it. And we're not going to announce this to anybody else other than the podcast. Other than the podcast world. So when you hear this, there's thousands of others hearing it. You better just call. The problem is today's a Friday.

First come, first serve. Whatever message Janet gets first and puts on Adam's desk. Jason says. $99.99. Awesome. Okay. Great camera. If you have the ability to, you know, you got cell coverage somewhere, AT&T coverage, and save you a little bit of a coming and going to checking your cameras, get them emailed to your account. Pretty awesome feature. So just to clarify for people, this is not what phone service provider you have. No. You don't have to have AT&T. It's the tower coverage. AT&T just has to be able to service your area. There's places like in Nevada, France, there's places there that AT&T towers and Verizons don't and are better. And that's what the cameras are tapping into. Just check your local regulations. Don't be running truck cams when you can't. You know what I mean? Stuff like that. We're not liable for those things. We just sell the stuff. All right.

Well, pretty awesome. So yeah, there's an app. Chris, to kind of further that, there's an app. And it has nothing to do with your cell service. You just log on to the app. You actually scan a QR code on the camera and it initializes everything, gets everything up and going. Well, and then you can change the settings on the camera. How frequently you want the picture sent to your email inbox, things like that. It's very easy. These particular cameras don't take pictures unless it can actually get cell service. So it has to initialize with cell service. And then pretty soon here comes the photos. And they'll save to an SD card. Plus they'll send whatever you want into this app at whatever resolution you want, depending on how much. Based on the size. Yeah. And you may want little small thumbnails knowing that the original photo is still on an SD card back at the camera. Enough of that.

But anyway, first come first serve, $99.99 plus shipping and handling. Bronson, well, we don't even charge for that, Bronson. No. We charge the bare shipping cost. That's right. Hard cost. And tax for residents. All right. Okay. Anything else? A couple other shout outs. One more. If you're looking to buy or sell Western hunting property, recreational fishing hunting property, give St. James Sporting Properties a call. Blaine and his crew, they're based in Colorado, but they're also licensed in Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. St. James Sporting Properties, 877-354-7247. Or you can shoot them an email or check out them on the website at sjsportingproperties.com. sjsportingproperties.com. And lastly, I think Bob has a shooting school. Speaking of MOA rifles, moarifles.com. If you're looking to build a new long-range Western rifle, half-minute guarantee rifle,

give Bob Beck and the guys at MOA rifles a call. 541-526-1820. And I do believe, as of yesterday, they still had an availability for late May on one of their shooting school spots, which we've actually been up to. We went up there. It's fun. We fought freaking Hurricane Hugo, it felt like, up there, wind and rain. It was not great shooting conditions. But, hey, that's what hunting's like sometimes. And we were... Yeah, you're still killing stuff. Throwing... Killing targets like it was your job. It was kind of fun. It was pretty realistic, hunting stuff. It was some wild, wild stuff. But give them a call at 541-526-1820. They build great rifles. And, again, I do believe have a shooting school opening. Yeah, you can call and just get a rifle. But they do have shooting schools. And they've got shooting school in June, too. Remember? Yeah, June 16th and 17th, they still had some openings.

Yeah. That one's a level two shooting school. So... What does that mean, Carter? I don't know. It probably ought to be better than a level one. You ought to show military clearance to get into that one. It's just... No, maybe. It's a little bit more advanced. So you get a little bit more technical in the level two. Yeah. Wow. All right. There you go. Well, let's go through a rapid fire of... Rapid fire. ...news of the West or something like that. Yeah, let's do it. Let's go state by state. Let's do it. Let's talk about front burner stuff. Well, there's some news of the West. Let's just kind of... I don't know. I've just got a... And you've got a little list, too. But anyway, thinking about some of these results that came out. We had Idaho sheep, goat, moose. They came out, Bronson. No. We did pretty good. Our members did pretty darn good. Yeah.

We spoke to a lot of people with sheep and goat moose tags and getting them set up and on their way. Unit 11, 36B, 37. I mean, we drew... Yeah. Cali's and 41-2. I mean, it was kind of splattering. Goat. It was a great draw. It was. It was. Some great goat tags. So anyway, congratulations to all those that drew. Anyway, just letting you know, we also have a deadline for deer, elk, and antelope coming up June 5. So anyway, we're crushing that, working it over. If you didn't apply for moose, sheep, and goat in Idaho, you've got the deer, elk, and antelope option coming up, like you said. Yeah. We're definitely going to be doing that as well. So anyway, working on that. Also consulting our members, anybody that's out there that's a member of Epic Outdoors, you need a little help, we're available. You can call us as well as look at the publication. That'll kind of get you started.

If you have any specific questions, give us a holler. We also had the sheep, goat, moose, bison results come out in Montana.

Awesome. You heading to Montana? No, I'm not. I was just wondering how your max points for moose fared. Just a plus one. So now you're at 21. I've got 21 sheep. You've got a load of sheep. I've got sheep. Yeah. And you're maxed out on moose. How about that? Somehow we always talk about the moose, but I don't know why. It's because I don't want them. Well, it's on our mind. Well, no. It's because I don't want them, and I'm trying to get rid of them. Well, none of us like points. We like tags. Well, that one bothers me. It just bothers me. Well, it's just one of those things you want to check off the list. No. I don't know why it bothers me. I'm too committed to stop, I guess, is why it bothers me, and I want them zeroed out. They want your money. They know you're not going to stop. I don't know. I might prove them wrong next year. We'll see. Anyway, congratulations.

Everybody got a tag out there. You know, pretty awesome. Bronson, we're going to be heading to Montana next year, by the way. Oh, yeah. A couple different things.

Full-on send it next year on a couple different species. All right. That's right. Well, anyway, Wyoming, a lot of results came out there as well. Sheep, moose, goat, and elk's going to be coming out soon, Bronson. That's right. Any day. We struck out there, sheep, moose, goat, bison, and elk. Yeah. Says the 20th. They were three or four days earlier on their moose, sheep, goat, and bison. You were hopeful for today, but I'm not sure. What do you think? No. Well, we're hearing rumblings, but it's probably not going to happen. This week has been unbelievable. So, results-wise, applications, things are coming and going like crazy. Usually, they do it at like 10 a.m., and I guess we could get done with the podcast and walk back in there, and they're frolicking with elk results. It's seven minutes. That's right. Our guys are slammed, and we don't even know it. Could be. Never know.

But that one's coming up soon, and it's kind of a big deal because we applied for that. It feels like two years ago. That was back in January. Two years ago. I mean, yeah, you can plug and play and change it up to, what, May 10th? And so, they just barely, I guess, that line in the sand was just, what is that, Monday? Yeah. So, I mean, they stopped the plug and play on Monday night, and now get the draw out. And you still have the antelope and the deer draw. That's coming up June 1st. A lot of people use that, like the Idaho that Jason mentioned, as a last resort. Get something in. And so, keep that in mind. June 1st is a deadline for deer and antelope. Let's just give them a little bit more as far as the deer and antelope. We're huge fans. And this year's going to be, we're predicting, who knows? I mean, who are we, right?

But, hey, just saying, everything they're finding on the winter range for sheds and picking up and whatnot, the overall winter conditions were okay. Yeah. Mild winter conditions. In most part, most of the state. Dry summer and fall, mild winter. They've actually, in the last, even since we went to print the magazine, they've been getting good moisture up there. A lot of our northern part of Utah and Idaho and Washington's been doing good in April and early May, where us in southern Utah and southern Nevada and northern Arizona have been getting jacked and squashed. That's right. So, anyway, if you're inclined at all to apply to it, there's no reason not to. A lot of good animals out there on the landscape, both antelope and deer. It might actually have wildflowers up there this year where I don't know if Utah can grow one. I don't know if Utah can grow a wildflower this spring.

It doesn't feel like there's going to be any in southern Utah. Do you think even Indian paintbrush might struggle? No. A cactus can't bloom. Okay. Now, Pine Valley, I was out there turkey hunting this morning, by the way, took Jana out, put it on the calendar. You know, that's not good. Those are hunting days that don't count against me. You know what I mean? Although, it was funny, you said, she woke up at four, hey, you want to take me turkey hunting? And you just bought her a tag like yesterday. Yeah, yesterday. And you didn't say, well, you know, you know where to go to go drive. No, I'm like, yes. I bought you for it, but I didn't say I'd take you hunting. I didn't. That didn't go down that way. For the record, she says, do you want to get up and go? And I'm like, whatever you want to do, which basically means I'm very tired. I don't know why this morning. I was tired. Were you?

Anyway, we went out. Didn't kill one. But yesterday I smashed one. You saw some green foliage. Yeah, you crushed one yesterday. So you figured, let's go back to back. Well, and I don't want every. Okay, yeah. You think, you know, when you killed one, you're kind of excited to kill another. But anyway, don't want everybody to think that's all we do around here is turkey hunting. That's not the case. Bronson, you and I are taking our kids out nonstop. You know, each year, nonstop, meaning each year, do the Kaibab, Utah. I don't know how long. It's been years since I've shot one. It's the first bird I've killed in years and years. And I just thought. Your kids were full. Okay, yeah. But they were also, they missed a couple. And I'm like, really? Dad had to show them out. I'm going to smash one. Just to get back at it. You know what I mean? And call this bird in and smash it.

I think you rent and worked the bird that you thought maybe had been worked. Well, he was worked. Actually, he was missed twice by Justin. Okay? And I smashed him. I mean, he did the same thing. He's lovesick. If he comes in again within seven days after hearing two 12 gauges go off and pepper him, he's, that bird is dumb. So in the breastfeed, it was a little bit of, what do you, trauma. Okay? Just a little bit of trauma. And Justin's like, maybe that was from my shot.

I don't know. There's no gangrene in there. But, you know, whatever, maybe. Don't bring that one to the office. Oh, pretty funny. Pretty funny. Anyway, good time. Whatever.

Turkey hunting like it's our job. Well, it's something you do in the spring. So moving on to Oregon.

May 15. Dude, that's tomorrow, Bronson. And so if you listen to this, it might be too late, but you didn't miss my day. Oh, Chris probably put this out today. Brutal. Somebody in Oregon is very offended. I apologize for what Bronson said. Although, you know what? Most Californians, Oregons, and Washingtonians agree with what we say. Yeah, mostly. And it's mainly from the perspective, the cost relative to the very, very minuscule tags they give to non-residents. They'll have 80-something antelope tags and give one or two to non-residents. And I'm not picking out antelope. I mean elk. They'll give 40 or 50. One goes to a non-resident in the draw. So it's hard to. Some of them, if they give 20 or 30, it's in every other year. They give one one year to an outfitter. The next year it goes in the draw. Yeah, so it's just hard to say spend $172 for a license.

If you're going to do sheep and goat, all right, add the deer, elk, and antelope points. But if you, I did talk to a guy yesterday, he's got 24 points for deer, elk, and antelope as a non-resident. And he's been doing sheep and goat or sheep most of the time. And, yeah, he's accumulated and has some options there. But it's tough. Well, so I've got like 16 elk points, most of which are accumulated in my former life when I was a young kid. And you stopped for a while. I stopped for like I was supposed to and like I preached. And then the premium tags came out. And I got excited. It did. And it's a raffle. And I'm like, and you've got to buy your hunting license to get it. Yeah. And I did it. And then, whoa, another eight bucks. I can get another elk point. So guess what? I'm in. I'm in. And I applied. I love those premium deer. Okay, I've seen it once in my life. It was unbelievable. Yeah.

It was unbelievable. All right. So anyway, they did go on a draw on the eastern side of the state for all those archery that used to be over the counter. That's a big change. Yeah, it was huge because now you actually have to use your points. And there's guys that were hunting deer every year and continuing to gain points. So it'll be interesting to see how that shakes out long term. All right. What about Nevada? Well, Nevada, there's. That is front burner stuff. We can't do any announcements yet. No, but we're a week after their draw deadline, roughly. Well, five days. Still do points, I guess. Points only. But I mean. Till the 17th. They are notorious for liking to spring things on you when you're not expecting them. Drawies look maybe out a little earlier. Yeah. And they do it in the middle of the night. Like a midnight madness, you mean? Yeah. They've done stuff like that.

So stay tuned next week sometime. Probably by Friday or maybe the week after. Who knows? Who knows? But we're super excited. And we're going to crush it in social media right before it comes out. Everybody's going to know. Once we get noticed. That's right. They want it to be a party. You know, that's what I like about Nevada. They take pride in it. We were talking to them and they were like, man, Montana turned their draw in 11 days. We've got to figure out how to beat them. I love that about Nevada. That's pretty good. Most states enjoy the fact that we're begging them. Maybe. You know? We could give a prize to the state that is the most. We could do like sports do this. You could do like the fastest time. Who gets your draw out the fastest? That's an award. You could do most improved. So who went from the longest to the shortest in the one year? Utah could have changed by a month.

Wyoming Elk. Wyoming Elk. We talked about that. That's now forever. And then, I don't know. They can't really give a rookie of the year because they've all done it before. So nobody's a rookie. But they need to. Hey, how about. I like the competitiveness of all the states watching each other because let's face it. They're vying for hunters' application dollars, all that. It's a fine balance. And evolve or be left in the dust. And there's some, frankly, that are left in the dust in terms of their turnaround or their interface. Or the process. Or the warm and fuzzy feeling about is the draw running good and correct? We're talking about Arizona. Let's talk about it. It's due. It's coming up. June 8th. June 8th for deer. Deer and bison. That's right. Huh? Least points on the bison. Yeah, that's coming up, too. That's, you got a little bit of time. It just opened.

But June 8th will get here before we know it. It's awesome. A lot of the deer units up north that we're always fired up about feel like. What? What? Dry, dry, dry. Well, it does feel that way. I mean. It does. Tell me. No, I don't. No, I don't. But still going to be a few giants. A few. Yeah. But max point, guys, if you had max points, would you be all after the strip this year? Maybe it's a coos year. I don't know. Maybe it's a coos year. With your max point? No, I don't know. No. By the way, there's a new deer option out there that we did throw in the magazine. There's a couple of those. We've talked to. And 383C. Yeah. So there's a lot of information. Maxing should be getting to you any day. Actually, guys, guys that are members can go check it out on the web. Emax. Live and hot. All right. So anyway. Utah. Utah. Results are out. Came and went. Bronson, how'd you do? Not good.

Got your email? Haven't been loading the portals yet. No, that's right. You've got credit card charges and you've got emails. They should be loading your account here. And there's always people that don't call us until they get a tag in the mail about a month and a half from now. Yeah. So check your Utah results. Check your email. Check your credit card. Or here in the next several days, they should hopefully load it to your actual account. So kind of a strange way they don't. They email you out. But a lot of people still, I don't know, either they didn't have a right email address or whatever they're wondering. Some people just don't see email. So anyway, we've been talking to a lot of hunters. Congratulations, everybody that drew a tag. Colorado. Deer is what everybody's wanting to know. May 24th to 28th is what they're publishing. Yeah. They do a species a day. Species a day.

Is it species or species, Bronson? It's species. It's what I always thought. Species. But a lot of guys go species. And so anyway. But having said that, it's May 24th, 28th. We're excited about that. We actually went on. You can go get on to some commission meeting materials and see the different tag allocations. It was kind of interesting. Good thing we'll know this year, they moved it up about a week. We're going to know those results before you've got to apply for, say, Wyoming and Idaho. That's kind of a big deal for people that struck out and don't draw their deer or elk or whatever. Again, they don't do them all on one day. You've got deer, elk, antelope, bear, moose, all coming out 24th to 28th of May. So don't really know the order either. It's a little bit different maybe every year. Yeah, who knows. When it's out, it's out, but it's that week. Yep. And then California, June 2nd.

No, everybody's excited about that. Okay. June 2nd, Bronson. Don't miss it. All right. Well, anyway, that's kind of the news of the West. We are excited. Even though it's dry, as we've been talking about, you know, go north, my son. It's kind of, you know, feels like it's going to be a good year in states like, say, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho. Parts of Colorado. Parts of Colorado. Colorado doesn't get hit as hard. It doesn't seem like in most parts of the state. Northwest could get hit hard. A little bit tough in New Mexico. I mean, I traveled through there. It was just, it was green on the east side. It was pretty green. Well, you get to Texas and they get like eight inches of rain every freaking three days. Texas was like, I mean, tall grass. Was it? Oh, dude. Unbelievable. Tickling cow's bellies. It was crazy. It was. It was hard to believe. It's hard to believe.

It's just, you're looking around. We stopped and had dinner and a gal. We asked gal and she's like, hasn't been like this for years. It rained in like nine and a half inches in two weeks. I'm like, wow. Okay. We haven't had that in two years. That's an entire year's worth. Two years. More than Nevada. I'll bet we haven't had that in two years in Cedar City. Somebody look it up. I think it was 15. I have a pitcher out in my backyard and the grass is like 10 inches tall, right? This year, right now, same time of year. Same grass as the first year. Not a blade of grass. It's crazy. Not a blade of green. Wow. Everything is dead from last year. Well, everything looks like it did last year this time. Yes. For 12 months, nothing's changed. Literally. Tell me I'm wrong. Crazy. No, you're not. But having said all that, are you excited for this year? We're always excited.

But I've talked about it in my June Rat and Rave magazine. I'm rethinking my gears. I mean, Nevada usually is something we target deer really hard. I switched some stuff up there. Arizona, I'm packing a bunch of deer points. I'm sick of talking about that. You applied for up north, maybe? Posse. Nevada? Posse. Nevada deer? I did. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I know. You get five choices, which if they're going to let you do it, which we're not super fans up. And you can turn it back. It's not the end of the world. But, you know. It's hard to feel that the southern units are going to be off the charts great. It's really hard to get behind that. It is hard. Way of thinking. It is hard. Well. But there's plenty still left. Like I said, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona. You've got lots of options. If you're middle of the point, Chase, you know, think about different deer. Think about coos deer.

I know you're in Arizona. We all think about mule deer. But if you're in no man's land, you might think about an awesome coos deer hunt or a different mule deer hunt there. Or we got our giveaway, Carter. I guess that deadline is, what, June 20th? Father's Day. We decided it ended on Father's Day for all you mothers and daughters to treat your fathers and husbands, I guess, potentially. I don't know. That's an option. Or maybe the husband to get a pass and play on it. I don't know. So anyway, yeah, we're giving away a desert sheep hunt. Super excited about that. A $55,000 hunt. $20,000 spring grizzly hunt for 2022. Nevada elk with a landowner tag on down through the chain, Bronson. I mean. Oh, yeah. We got Colorado mule deer. Unit 68 fully outfitted. That is in 2022. This hunt, we gave one of those away already for 2021. The one we got open right now is going to be for 2022.

But hey, the dates are only one day earlier. It's still awesome. It's going to be good. 12th to the 18th or something like that. Well, that particular unit's managed. The bio's doing a good job down there. And I mean, even with these late season dates, yeah, we're nervous. And there's going to be an increased take there. The tags are fairly conservative. They got older deer there. So great mule deer hunt there. We also got another Mexico coos deer hunt. That's for this January 2022. And then Utah mountain lion hunt here in southern Utah. Utah and again for this next coming winter 2021, 2022. And then a plethora or plethora. I think it's plethora. Well, what do I know? I don't know. I'm not Merriam-Webster and I don't want to be. But I'll say plethora. That's what I like. But you also say posible. Isn't that Spanish, Chris? Yes. So it's right. It is? Is that proper? Say it. Es posible.

Ah, it's a little different. Si, si. No, it's a little different. Well, he's just taking off the first part. That's like saying it is possible. But if I just say posible, that's possible. Yeah. Normally wouldn't say it. It's whatever you want it to be. Yeah, you could say that. That culture is so forgiving, they don't care. It's just whatever you want it to be. Whatever I can say in Spanish that is a legit word, that's my fluent Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. And they're going to laugh at you off to the side. That's right. They always do me. When I go down there and hunt, they just laugh. Right, Chris? And Chris hears it and he's nice to me and he doesn't tell me what they're saying. I didn't hear him. I don't know what they're saying. And they're laughing at you. You just order huevos rancheros every morning and they laugh at you. No, it's what is it? What's that? What is that?

What's that meat that they? Chorizo? Yeah, chorizo. Chorizo. Chorizo. Is it chorizo? Yeah, chorizo. That's another word for mystery meat. It is. It is. And you know they actually have it spelled out on what the chorizo, whatever it is, that they offer here in the States. But I don't believe them. There's some crazy stuff in those things. Tell me about it. What do they normally put in it? It's just like sausage. I like ground. It's good. Yeah, it's just like homemade sausage usually. Of various critters. It just depends. It just depends. It just depends. It just depends. It depends. It depends. And I would say a lot of it is probably fairly normal. Would you? Yeah. Just like our pork. Yeah. Pork sausage. Just like if you want to got a Polish sausage here. But some of it not so much. That's possible. Right on, Chris. I'm just saying. I never order that. It's possible. I never order that.

Because down there, Mario would say, what do you want, Mr. Carter? Chorizo? And he would just start laughing. And I know. Because he knew where the Glamas chorizo comes from. He knows. He knows. Right? Or he knows you're scared of it. Yeah, maybe that's it. No, I'll take carne asada. I want pure muscle meat. I want carne asada. I want steak. Yeah. Yeah. You can see that this came. This is a filet. This is a chopped up filet. That's what I want. Instead of pieces and parts and all that. It's pretty awesome. Anyway. Got a great optics package. We got a totally off a tangent when we're talking about a plethora of optics. But there's 13.5K in optics. Tell us what the. So the guy that won our last optics package. Jeez. You don't have to read it. Yeah, no. But it was crazy. So Bob Ballas, I believe, is who it was. He won that. The end of February, we gave away a bonus package.

Which this driver giving away a 231 deer tag. For those of you who buy a $500 package, you get a ticket in for the optics back in February. Well, he won that. Well, he went on to win that. And then like a month later, he draws like a 16A elk tag. And then a Utah rifle elk tag with like 11 points. And he's just crushing us. Hey, you guys started my year off awesome. I'm drawing tags like crazy. I got all this awesome optics. I get to bring West to New Mexico and Utah elk. And he's like, I'm not done yet. So anyway. Well, this is. He did mention this in the email. He said, everything inside was good. Of course, he got the package. And he says, unlike a hunt, which is a one and done, this prize will be giving me enjoyment for many years. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to win such a fantastic prize. Well, yeah. And he's got a couple awesome hunts to use it all on.

So anyway, we're giving one of those away in this drive, either for, and again, to get tickets into this, you either join Epic Outdoors or refer somebody that joins Epic Outdoors and or buy tickets. And you can buy those for the optics ticket. That's not just a $500 ticket item this time. Yeah, we changed it up a little bit. We changed it up a little bit. So anyway, guys were wanting to get the package just as much as a hunt or more. So anyway, we threw it in there. All right. Pretty awesome. Get in by Father's Day. Also, you know, you get a free ticket in there if you refer your buddy. To join Epic Outdoors as well as he'll get a ticket. Being a new member, he'll get a ticket in there for the hunt of his choice or the optics package. So pretty great opportunity. If your results came out and like me and Bronson didn't draw much, why maybe you consider

throwing a few tickets on the membership drive. All right, Bronson, where are we at? Well, I want a cold call. Go ahead. Prep it up. So I think we mentioned on a podcast last week about this culling effort that the Grand Canyon National Park is going to be doing within the park. We talked about the bison culling. I'm just going to call it that. And you had to apply Monday the 3rd or 4th of May. It's over. Done with. And they drew 12 or whatever people. Like 45,000 people applied. Wow. A lot. A thousand when you deployed. And initially you're thinking, this is a great opportunity. You need a bison. This is a great opportunity. And I'm thinking, I want to kill something in a national park. That would be cool. Yeah. But it was just. But they were telling you it's probably going to be a cow. You might be able to keep a bison within the group. And you might get yours.

And you have to stay there and help everybody else be their packer for five days or whatever. That just wasn't. I didn't even apply. And I wasn't excited about it. I was trying to get the other guys to apply. I killed one when I was a kid. I was like, apply. Let's go do it. But anyway, we know somebody that applied. Let's give them a call. Let's see if you answers. Okay. All right. Here we go.

You reached Eric with Arizona Desert Outfit.

Okay. Who else? Got to have something exciting. Who's gearing up for scouting? Like crazy scouting. To get people fired up about that. Davey. Davey would be worth a call. Talk about Arizona and New Mexico.

Carter. What are you doing? Dude, I'm just sitting here relaxing. Come on. You're supposed to be scouting. Where are you at? Bro. You at a pool somewhere? We got you on a podcast. You might braddle the tongue. Just slightly. Just slightly. Don't swear at me, Davey. Okay. Dang it. Sorry.

We don't want to edit too much. What are you doing? All the honeydews you've missed out on the past six months? Guiding? Yeah. Yeah. Taking care of the honeydews. And, you know, sharpening my archer skills. And, you know, just the summertime stuff. What does that mean, sharpening the archery? So, are you walking around in tevas or flip-flops, just the stocking type sandals? I guarantee he's on a beach somewhere. That's right. No. No. Well, you know, if Arizona's got some oceanfront property, maybe I'm on that beach. Okay. You're in Arizona then. Unfortunately, we're down here and I think it was 98 degrees here yesterday. Wow. I saw that somewhere. I said 100. So, somewhere in the valley, it was 100 already, which I know that's dropping off. Forget that noise, man. That's too hot. Yeah. Tell us how things are going. I know you've got to be about getting ready to start scouting. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, starting to hang cameras here probably closer to the end of this month. Other than that, just kind of gearing up and figuring out schedules and getting ready for this upcoming season. What do you think about New Mexico? That's where you do a ton of work and kill some great bulls, great bucks. I mean, you're in on a lot of big stuff, but just kind of want to get your take on it. I think New Mexico could use a little rain. You know, last I was over there, the feed looked okay, but man, we're pretty dry for animals drinking water anywhere. You know, the dirt tanks are, you know, primarily dry. You know, some of the catchments that I even know about are dry, but some of them are completely full. So it's just, it's just a weird year. We need some, we need a good soaker, you know, one that's actually going to catch some, catch

some of this water and, and, uh, put it in some of these dirt tanks. Yeah. What about Arizona? You've been spending much time around in some of your elk units and down there yet? Yeah. Yeah. I was, uh, I was out messing around and, and some coos deer elk units and stuff like that messed around. Um, and, uh, it, they look good also, but I mean, we're in the same situation here. You know, a lot of the dirt tanks are dry, but you know, early, early during shed season, great feed, just about everywhere. But, um, great feeds only going to get you so far unless we get some of that rain to fill up some of these tanks. You know, these animals can actually drink. So, yeah. Kind of crazy. Well, there's still going to be some great animals taken. I know, you know, even you guys have done well on dry years there in New Mexico. Depends, you know, depending on the year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We've still done, we've still done well, you know, um, you know, I think these drier years sometimes though, you know, you'll have a little bit more breakage, you know, with the rut, um, than, than normal and, you know, having a hard time finding bulls that are, that are put together or bucks that are put together all over, you know, without some, something broke here or there. So. Right. So, uh, I know you've, you've done well for a lot of different species there in New Mexico. Tell us a little bit. I know you're kind of into those coos deer over there. And I think that's one of those species. Not a lot of people talk about, but you've done well on that and Barbary sheep and different things. I mean, you're doing elk and deer, but you're also doing just about everything. Yeah, we do everything. We do everything.

Um, you know, I think we're, uh, I think elk and deer, you know, mule deer kind of, they kind of take the spotlight, um, you know, or, or take the cake over, over just about every other species in New Mexico. But man, New Mexico has some great, great, great, um, species and great hunt opportunities, um, to, to fill, you know, your, your hunt schedule. If you're looking for anything and some of them are some of the draw odds on some of those species like Barbary and coos deer, um, they're not impossible, man. You could, you could draw those, uh, you know, the very first year you apply, you know, with an outfitter. So, um, you know, they're, they're great, great hunts and, and fun hunts and, and, uh, real hunts. You know, those Barbary sheep are real hunts. They're not, they're not the Texas type hunt or, you know, some of the flatland high fenced Texas hunt.

It's, it's in some rough country and you're spending a lot of time behind the glass. But you're, but guys are successful, right? Like, I mean, it's not, we're not, I mean, not to scare people off, dude, you were posting photos like it was your job, you know, left and right of different Barbary kills while we were in the office working. Yeah, exactly. No, it's, and it's, it's, it's a, it's a great time of the year because you can hunt Barbary in January and February. What else you're going to hunt? You know, it's, it's, uh, it's kind of the, the off season, you know, so to speak for mule deer and elk, uh, you know, then we fire up our Barbary hunts and, and go for another month and a half. And, and it's a good time. It's, uh, it's, it's not easy. You know, there, there's not a ton of them, you know, you glass your butt off and, and spend some times in, in some rough country.

Uh, but overall, overall, it's at the end of the day, you're like, man, that, that was something we really worked for. And that was a fun hunt. So I don't, I, I haven't met somebody that came and did it and said, eh, I'm I don't think I'm going to do that again. Every single person I've taken on the hunt. It's like, man, I got to try and draw this all the time. This, this was a blast. Well, it's a lot of time in times of the year that, that maybe not a lot of other things are going on too, right? Either midwinter, late, late winter, you know, when you're not trying to jam it right in the middle of all the deer and elk stuff in September to November and, uh, things like that. So it's a good time to get away. I, sometimes decent weather down there, sometimes not, but. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was fairly brutal of a few days this year.

Um, it's when, you know, Texas had all those sub zero temperatures and all the snow going on. We had all the same stuff. We were just on the other side of the border. Now, you know what we go through up here. Yeah. How's it feel? I don't, I don't envy you guys at all for, for the winters. You guys have to, we wish it was more. Yeah. No kidding. I, I, I wish it was more, you know, because when you guys have good winters, we tend to have a good winter, you know, moisture wise down here also. So people golfed all year long in Cedar city, Utah last year. It was nuts all winter. It was not good. So what are you predicting? So this, uh, you know, June eight deadline for Arizona sheep and deer coming up. I mean, what are you predicting for the strip and, and whatnot quality wise, man? It's, it's tough to say because you would say with the amount of moisture that we'd have

another, you know, another subpar year. But then again, on the strip, I don't know if I've ever seen a back-to-back bad year and last year wasn't the best, you know? So we say that a lot too. It doesn't happen that often. And I don't know how like Nevada and Southern Utah feels the same way, how it can be off the charts good, but it may not be off the charts terrible either. That's the time. I agree with you. We don't see bad, bad back-to-back years. That's the thing is here. We don't, we rarely ever see a bad back-to-back year. Um, you know, just, just for the simple fact that the winter wasn't that tough and these animals were able to, to keep a little fat on them, you know, the little fat they had, they didn't, they didn't burn it off in the winter. So I don't know. I think that we're going to see a better year than last year, but I don't know if we're

going to see, um, you know, a top producing year. Um, just, just, you know, unless miraculously in the next two weeks or three weeks, we have that, that soaker that I'm talking about that we need. So I know you're a coos deer guy too. Like most, mostly personally, like that's something you like. I mean, how do the coos deer respond to some of this dry stuff? I mean, it feels like there's still big bucks taken. Yeah, there's, there's still, I don't know. The coos deer are a desert, you know, they're, they're just a different breed. I mean, they, they can thrive and they can thrive with nothing to eat and, and, and very little to drink. It seems like, and still find really good bucks and it could be some of the driest years and, and we still find really good bucks to hunt. So, well, they're a lot smaller body wise. They don't need as much.

And they also grow, I mean, the, the Northern Arizona mule deer, they grow sooner, earlier than, than, uh, you like your desert mule deer, but, but the coos deer and desert mule deer, they grow a little bit later timing. So you get into July and August when hopefully your monsoon's kicking on and boom, then it's just popping out groceries every year, everywhere for them and they don't, they don't finish out as early. And so they benefit from monsoon rain where the Northern Arizona deer, by monsoons there is too late for. Yeah, exactly. Coos deer are different because like you said, I think their, their peak growing is going to be, you know, the first couple of weeks of August. And by then we've, we've generally had three weeks of, of decent monsoon rain. So, um, you know, they're, they're able to, they're able to thrive and do a little better

just because of our month, you know, our typical monsoon season. So, well, even with it being a little bit dry, there's tons of demand out there. You were hitting me, you know, saying you'd landowner tags and everything else. So, you know, they're just so much demand guys are wanting to hunt. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. The Rona, the Rona is not, you know, it's not tightened everybody's pockets. You know, a lot, a lot of people are still wanting to hunt with, with a lot of the international travel being, being closed, you know, as far as hunting, uh, everybody's, everybody's trying to, everybody's trying to fill that, that schedule for hunting this year and, and the landowner, uh, requests and, and, you know, the, the, you know, the amount of applicants, you know, some of them were up to 70,000 new applicants, you know, per, per state.

And, and you really see it this year with, with, uh, I, I think it's because the international travels closed down. A lot of guys are wanting to go hunting. So yeah, they're, they're doing, applying, trying to go wet, uh, in the West where they know they can at least just drive to or whatever on their own without having to fly or have any restrictions and Canada and other stuff being off the limits. So. Yep. Exactly. All right, guy. Well, do you have anything to add that we haven't covered? We just kind of wanted to hear it from the source, Davey Matthews. Yeah, no, nothing, nothing really to add. I mean, it's, uh, if you guys are, if you guys are looking for any kind of package, scouting package, you know, just a hunting package, a fully outfitted package in New Mexico, Arizona, hit us up. Well, we're happy to help you. All right. All right, buddy. Sounds good. I guess.

Back to the honey dues. Yeah. Yeah. Get back on the clock with your wife. Yeah. Do whatever she says. Keep wrapping. Exactly. Yes, sir. You got two weeks. You got two weeks to do a year's worth of work, buddy. Exactly. Yep. All right. Sounds good. Take it easy. All right. See you, bud. All right. Bye. Okay. Bye. Well, let's, let's try Eric again. He said, hit me back. Did he? Yeah.

Hey, dude. What's going on? Not much. We got you on a podcast today. We just, we want to know how it felt to be one of the 12 out of 45,000. We just want to know how that felt. Feels good? Yeah. It's amazing, man. Yeah. Well, and hey, you've killed one out of the park, right? And now? I did. Now you get to go kill one in the park. I mean. Yeah. In 2019, I killed one on the second evening. So it's kind of a shocker to be going back up there. Yeah. You drew that one in the, I guess, regular draw. We've called the state draw. And then this one, this was like. Yeah. Out of nowhere. I don't know how it's going to work. I don't know how many people they selected. But I know in the email it said, in the next two weeks, they're going to reach out to me for a background check. Yeah. You think you'll pass that? What about the shooting? I hope so. And the shooting?

I think you've got to do a four-inch group. Four-inch group at Hunter? You got that covered? That's what I'm worried about. I might need to talk to you guys about which rifle to use. Well, I think just have Bronson come do it for you. His MOA rifle. Oh, I don't know. Yeah. I don't want to be there because then I'll somehow be roped into packing bison for five days. Five days. For people out of the canyons. But what I really want to know is you alluded that you're going to go full-on dances with wolves in terms of apparel and stuff like that. What are you going to wear on this hunt? So my plan is to wear a loincloth, some moccasins, and definitely a buffalo jacket from the bison I killed in 2019. Did you make one? Seriously? Yeah. You did? I didn't know that. Well, I'm in the process. No way. I don't have that thing finished yet.

Dude, you're going to be – I could just see you rolling up in some black, like, jacked-up Ford Excursion limo, and you step out of that thing with this freaking buffalo robe and a loincloth, and you walk it over to the sign-in, and, hey, I'm ready to roll. It's going to be a sight to behold right there. Well. As long as they don't tell me there's a dress code, I'm definitely doing it. Dude. Dude. So, you know, the original plan for that buffalo hide was to do a blanket for my daughter, but now that this happened, it just has to change. Oh, yeah. Well, and for kids, I mean, I know – I've seen a couple people – I've had clients walk in to, like, the sheep show and not wearing that – and it turns some heads because a bison coat is not something you see every day. And they're giant and they're heavy. It might snuff a kid out. It might not be safe to put your kid in a blight.

They roll over and might not – can't get out of it. They're heavy, big. Come on. Come on. That is true. The hair is eight inches long, Carter. I killed one one day. I know. Brutal. Good thought. I like the change of – I'd like the change of plan. It's still hard to – But, well, you got drawn. You're one of the – I don't know. I could say 12. I don't know how many it's going to be, but we'll see. But congrats, man. It was cool. Thanks, Chad. At least know somebody out of 45,000 people. Jeez. But Bronson will be headed down. Right? Yeah. I've got Bronson down. Pretty much. That's right. I know I have some – I have some – just – Skills. Save me the embarrassment. I don't want him to run my background check. I don't want stuff to be exposed, so just – I'm tapping out. He's clean. Don't run it. That's not an excuse. He's clean. I saw Adam fold up an antelope at 500 yards on the run.

There you go. Definitely. There you go. I need his support, and I'm also going to have Jason. Jason's on the list. I'm there. I'm there. I might just add the entire Epic crew. Chris is there. He'll film it. Dude, I wonder if they'll film it. Probably not. I mean, I can't imagine. I bet they don't. Something goes wrong. Protester. What are you going to use for a gun? What are you going to use? What did you use last time? What did you use? Last time I used a 300 short mag, and I can honestly say my shot placement at 50 yards was not ideal. High? Low? Low? I was an absolute. It was not where I aimed. I'll just put it that way. Were you nervous? Did you have bison fever? Oh, I was a train wreck. I mean, I literally was packing up to head back up to the truck, and as I was getting into my pack, I almost felt like the ground was rumbling. Seriously, like Dances with Wolves. What is that?

There was a stampede, huh? And there was 40 bison just coming in, and once they got to the salt, it was just absolute chaos. Wow. And I thought it took a while to get a shot, but once we looked at the trail cameras, it was over 20 minutes of just bison all over. Every time I went to pull the trigger. Sending one out, one big bull that's not going to have a pass through and kill a calf and a cow. That was it. There was calves going behind him, and then there was four more bulls that came in like five minutes later. And so I was able to size them up and figure out the biggest one. And then at one point, when I shot, there was a cow that was seriously five feet from my blind, like out the window coming to look at me, and I know she's just got shell shocked. She still can't hear. You singed hair off of her probably from her muzzle blast. Oh, yeah. It was amazing.

So tell us, sometimes those hunts are fairly tough. Like, give us a quick rundown on them. I guess we'll call them the real Arizona. Non-party hunts. They're tough because, yeah, these bison have found a sanctuary in the park, and that's why they're having to do other extreme measures, I guess, to try to call some out. But, yeah, a lot of water and salt. They come out. Yeah. So it's mainly weather dependent on these bison. You know, they know that they're safe in the park, and they don't start, you know, exiting the park on that boundary until, you know, it starts to get warm, water starts to dry up, and they're kind of needing that salt. And so, just for example, on my hunt, I had two buddies that had the tag before me, which was, you know, three or four months long, and nobody even really saw any buffalo.

And then, you know, their hunt ended, and mine started a couple days later, and I just, there started to be more activity. And I was hunting with Russ Jacoby, and we walked, we hiked down to this salt that it was about a mile down in this canyon, and it was just demolished. We checked the camera, and there was a bunch of cows on there, and the rut was starting to pick up. And he told me, he was spot on. And he said, you're going to kill a bison here. I was like, really? I said, just a bunch of cows. And he goes, no, their scent's going to travel up these canyons, and you're going to have a bull, and sure as heck, the next day.

When do they rut there, generally? I think it starts right there in June. I could be wrong, but, you know, June, and it goes through July and August is what I gather. Utah here, it seems like August is really heavy, and went on the Henrys at least, but I don't, I'm not a bison rut connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. Just interesting. Yeah. It's an interesting hunt. It's totally different than what we're used to. We're used to going out, putting in the work on these hunts, and yeah. It's totally out of your control, you know, and I wasn't used to that, so I was like, what are we going to be doing here? And you're basically, you know, they don't want you going down and going down to these blinds, because any sign of human, the bison are back in the park. So you're basically just going down and sitting in a blind for, you know, I was two days,

but I also, the story on mine was, I also had a daughter that was going to be due, her due date was two weeks after my hunt started. So there's no cell phone service up there. It's six hours to the closest hospital in Phoenix. You have an in-reach or something? Everything's on in-reach that I'm just like staring at, just a nervous wreck, and thank God it happened. I was able to get home and, you know, be there for my first daughter. No. Well, that's awesome. Kill the giant bull, and now, I guess we'll see. You never know. Just work your magic. Maybe you get to shoot some big white blonde 15-year-old bull or something like that. It's like, mean. Maybe it's been charging little kids out there in the park, and they're like, we need that thing gone. They're going to want to dump the cows. Well, yeah, but they might have a problem bull or two that they know is mean, mean Joe Green,

and they need to take care of that. Hopefully that's the case. Yeah. Anyway. Right. Well, before we let you go, I mean, I'll be remiss to not at least pick your brain a little bit, or just a general feel on the status of Arizona desert sheep. I mean, that period's open until June 8th, and it's kind of on the front burner, and everybody's dreaming big, I guess, right now. Things in generally feel like great in southern Arizona. A lot of good units. A lot of big rams, and a lot of rams come from a lot. Big rams come from a lot of different units. Yeah. Yeah, what I can say there is most of Arizona, specifically region 4, southwest Arizona, is really booming right now, and there's a lot of good rams in those units right now. You really can't go wrong. If you spend the time, do your scouting, there is some old, good rams in most of the units.

We spent a lot of time in 24B last year on two different hunts and struggled. You know, that unit's definitely hurting, and I know a lot of max points guys go for that. And I honestly think, you know, from 37A west, you know, you've got just as good of a chance of killing a book ram, if not a mid-70s type ram in a lot of those units. Well, and it feels like, I mean, Arizona, if you look at the, I don't have it off the top of my head, 110 or 20 sheep tags, maybe that's counting Rockies, so it's only 10 or 15. But of all the desert units, man, they're partitioned up in lots of pieces and parts or different seasons. So you don't have a lot of tags anywhere. And some years you have one or two tags in a lot of units. And so year to year sometimes, just depending on who draws and, you know, whether they hire a guide

or how much effort, you don't always get a perfect representation of what's coming from some of these two-tag units. And then, boom, you guys or someone else will smoke a 175, 180 ram somewhere. Seems like they're nomadic. Yeah, like you were saying, like about anywhere something real special could happen. It feels like in those, we'll call them the 30s and 40s units, you know, for instance. Yes. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I say it all the time. And, you know, people don't get to hunt sheep a lot. So you have guys that really go in and don't know what they're looking at. And, you know, a mature 155, 160 ram looks big, you know. And that's, I think, the difference on really spending the time and knowing what you're looking for to sift through those rams and find something special. And I really think – If you're not used to it, judging them is tough for a lot of guys.

Oh, it's – even for, you know, even for us, we sheep hunt a lot. Everything – every ram's got a different configuration. It just gets tough. You really need, you know, several guys to kind of bounce things back and forth and make that right call, you know. So. Well, we're excited. What you're hearing is it's full speed ahead. There's no – Yeah, absolutely. Go for a tag. Any tag's a good tag. And that's kind of generally the case in Arizona. There's a couple, maybe we'll call them northern or northwestern units that are – they're rough. A lot of those are one tag units or one permit units. So non-residents can't target them. But anyway, good year. Yeah, what I can – Good year to draw a desert sheep. Yeah, what I can say is it's definitely an exciting time for Arizona and specifically western Arizona.

So a lot of guys typically look at what ram – you know, was there a big ram killed in this unit and everybody's chasing dead rams, you know. Yeah. And that's where everybody's applying. And I would say to the guys applying, really do your research and kind of look at, you know, some of these other units that might not be getting applicants because every unit's going to be good, you know, the next few years. Yeah. Awesome. Well, all right, man. Well, we may call you again in a few weeks or a month or something like that. After this bison hunt, it'd be interesting. Yeah. Well, let it go. Yeah, I'm definitely interested to see how it goes. I really have no clue. I talked to one of the Game of Fish guys at the Sheep Society meeting the other night. And they basically help the park with the selection process. But, you know, everybody's really interested on how it's going to go. Yeah.

What it's going to be like. So I honestly have no clue other than, you know, after I pass this background check, let's see what the next steps are. Yeah. Hopefully I can shoot. Yeah, you'll be fine. Well, and then get that coat made and the loincloth. We want picks. That's all I'm saying. Oh, yeah. I just want to see you out there standing up in the field, man. Oh, no. I don't know. See what I'm out in the field. I want to see if it really happens. I don't want to see the picks that came out wrong. I just want to see you in the field. I want to see you in the field with a dead bison with a loincloth and standing there. I'll make you a deal. I'm going to go for it if we get like a giant framed picture of me in my outfit in Epic Outdoors. We'll do it. I'll do it. Hey, we'll do it. Might have to, on the page right before that, might have to put warning.

Graphic images. On the next page, you might have to warn some people. Because there's kids and people that watch this. I'm showing up in the office so you guys can look at it. Oh, I thought you meant the mag. Adam's office has definitely got a spot. No, we'll put it somewhere in the office. I guarantee that. But magazine, it depends on how much leather you use on some of the parts of the clothing. You better use a little bit more if it's going to get in the mag. Yeah, for sure. I will. All right. Okay, man. Well, we're just giving you a hard time. But congrats. Those are some crazy odds you beat. But it'll be interesting to see how it goes. So good luck, man. Thank you, guys. All right, guys. Have a good day. You bet. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye. Is that it, Carter? That's pretty fun. Let's call it. Pretty couple good things. Good stuff. Good stuff. Lots going on.

Yeah, May's a huge month. There's still a bunch of results to come out. Keep us in mind. We've got, if you're not a member of Epic Outdoors, we've got a list of Epic member experience database. If you draw a tag and you're self-guided and inclined and doing something on your own, that's a benefit. We can send you a list of other members that have been there, done that. Or if you need an outfitter, if you draw a tag that you feel is just too good to squander, give us a call there. We take who we recommend and where we recommend very seriously. We put our reputations on the line for a lot of our outfitters. And so trust us with that and give us a call. Yeah. 435-263-0777. Good luck in the draws, everybody.