EP 216: It's Elk Month!! Field Judging and Hunting Bulls.

It's elk mugs. Have you got... yeah, I know it. You're supposed to hunt elk in September, they say. Elk in September and deer in November, but... I've seen some really big bulls, and I'm just anxious to get after it. Anything to do with Western big game. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Testing, testing, clapping here. Remember, Chris, we used to have to clap with Ridge Reaper? For video. For everybody out there that doesn't know what that is, you've got to You can match up the sound with the videos. You always have those old time, what are they, Chris, back in the 70s, 80s when people are talking? The clickers. Well, you had the clickers, but then you had the, when the movie was too cheap to use the clickers, people were talking and then the voice comes later, or vice versa. Remember? I don't know. Real cheap shows.

I don't know. Oh, you do too. Dude, maybe it was before your time. You're an old millennial. You mean like on TV. Yeah, on TV. Yeah, and they're not matched up. Back when we had TVs? Yeah, I don't know. Do we even have TVs anymore? Do they even make them anymore, Josh? I don't know. They're so large nowadays, I don't even know. I don't know if you call them a TV. I don't know. Everybody looks at their phones. If it doesn't come across my phone, it didn't happen. That's what it feels. Hey, everybody. Jason Carter, Josh Pollock. I usually say Adam, but he ain't here. He's hunting. He's spoiled. He's in the field. So, we may give him a holler and see how he's doing. But anyway, Jason and Josh, Chris Peterson, of course he's at the keyboard making sure that he hits delete when he needs to, because sometimes we get crazy talking about Democrats.

And Republicans. All right. Well, anyway, as we get started here, we want to thank Under Armour. We appreciate their support here at Epic Outdoors. They do a lot for us. We do a lot for them. And it's a great partnership. Ooh, I got a phone call from a brother-in-law. I hit decline. Speaking of which, do you guys ever hit decline? They know when you decline them. Yeah. It's offensive, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Usually, you want it to keep ringing, so they don't feel like... they feel like it was left in the car, whatever. But now, my brother-in-law, Alan, just got declined. Not important enough to interrupt this podcast. He might use your tactic and call back immediately. Yeah, that's what... hey, this is important. I really need to know where my pin is.

Anyway. Maybe he's got a piece of equipment he's trying to sell you. Maybe. Hey, and by the way, I'm buying equipment left and right for this flood. I mean, seriously. I bought some stuff. Josh, I borrowed your tractor. It's true. They're like a farmer. I had to go buy a hat. You look good on it, too. I had to put a cowboy hat on. I'm wanting a little trailer to pull a bale of hay with. All right. So, we got a lot going on. There's just a lot going on. It's basically September 1st. How about that? September, I was... I was always taught that you hunt elk in September and deer in November, and sometimes I confuse that and even hunt late elk and early deer. But anyway, the elk are getting ready to rut, Josh. You've been up on the mountain. Of course, you live in some of the best elk habitat in the world. What are you seeing out there? Of course, you're-

I don't know. I just got a text. Do you want to see a bull chasing cows as we speak? There you go. That's it. That's the Verizon. So, Josh, this is some funny stuff. You've got- So, you've got some Verizon fusions that are constantly updating you. That's legal here in Utah. Yeah, yeah. For now. And they're giving you a live... Maybe not next year, but now it is. They're giving you a live feed. Seems like you had a dude walk across in front of that one day. Yeah, yeah. Carrying a salt block or something. What was he doing? He was actually removing his salt block, I think. I think he probably was worried that... He's trying to obey the law. Yeah. But anyway, they're working. They're working good. Oh yeah, I'm getting pictures from Gator Pass and pictures from Whitetail from the Midwest. So, okay, so let's quantify all this. You are getting your own photos. No, leave it on.

You are getting your own photos, but then once in a while, somebody else's photo squeaks in. Yeah, every now and then, I get a random picture of Whitetail doe on Scotty's camera or Gator Pass. Yeah. It's nice to see what the rest of the world's doing. I think it's just Stelkens' way of getting us excited about Whitetail. They did do an update, and I haven't got anything since. So, I'm guessing that maybe was what the update was about. Just to clean things up a little bit. But yeah, here we are sitting in the office, and I just get 35 pictures sent to me, the bull chasing some cows around in a meadow up on the mountain. So, between that and today, of course, Colorado let go of some more tags, which you had in your cart and didn't actually... Half. It was hanging out. Somebody beats you to the actual checkout process. It's true.

And so, we got the turnbacks in Colorado that occur once a week. That's Wednesdays. They kind of come out with the list earlier, let you know, hey, this is what's to be excited about, and then you're trying to get something. Yeah. And then you've got a Nevada return tags coming up, and you're constantly doing that, plus you're updating optics and doing 14 other projects. We've got you going on here. How do you keep it all straight?

Um, I don't. Was there a priority list? Just do what you can. Oh yeah, definitely work first, tag second. That's right, that's right. Ah, good stuff. So yeah, there's just a lot to keep track of. Of course, Bronson, he's in the field. He's archery hunting elk. Devin, he's been archery hunting elk. I just, I think we ought to give them a holler, and let's just see what they had to say. Maybe they'll slip up and tell everybody where they're at. I don't know. I'll be alright. Hold on. Let's call Bronson first. He's in poor service. I mean, this was Adam, the guy that didn't have any tags at the start of the year, that was just as nervous as could be. Yeah, let's bring that up. So, I wanted to make sure we were talking to the right one. And he actually had five in his pocket. Let's just bring all that up.

What's going on? Well, Mr. Bronson, you're on the Epic Outdoors podcast. We're just wondering how it's going out there. Pretty pleasant today. Pretty pleasant. Not even 80 degrees out here in hot Nevada. Oh, alright. You can't beat that if it's only 78 degrees. Oh, it's nice. Did you get a little rain last night? We got it. It got rained on all night. A little drizzle, Laskin drizzle going on. Yeah, not here until about 4 o'clock. So, 4 o'clock till about a little after daylight, but it didn't amount to much, but it cut dust, and it was a little damp around. So, we'll take it, but it's overcast, so that beats the 90 degrees plus it has been. Well, good. Well, hey, you know, before we dive in here, Josh had a couple questions for you. Josh, go ahead. Oh, I just... our offices might be next to each other, and I just think about four months ago,

and there was a guy next to me who was just in straight panic because of the amount of lack of tags he had. Although, he probably may have had the most tags in the office still at the time. Just wondering if you've talked to that guy if he's still in a panic about the amount of tags he's got now. Yeah. Now he's panicked and wondering if his wife and family are still going to be home when he gets done. Yeah, exactly. Or if they're not in Hawaii or some other wazoo vacation. Yeah, it's amazing how, I guess, a few months. My only tags at the time were like contingency. You can't count like Idaho General and Utah General, and that's what I had at the time. So, I didn't have that many. Iowa. Potential Wyoming. I thought it was a Coos tag in there somewhere. Coos tag! Oh no. That's next year. Oh, January. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, how are things going?

We mentioned you possibly were elk hunting, just wondering how things are going. Are things starting to pick up? You're seeing some good bulls. How's it looking? Yeah, surprisingly there. I've heard lots of bugle and lots of, I mean, every group of cows has got bulls with them. Yeah, I'm surprised for the last few days of August, today being September 1st, I'm pleasantly surprised, because I've hunted a lot of elk in this time I've seen him a year before, and it's... Miserable. Miserable. Yeah, so I'll take what I'm seeing and hearing right now any day. It's just got to find the right bull, and then hopefully game on. Something you can do with when you find him. Where he's at? That's awesome. Well, I was just talking to Davey. In fact, we may call him a little bit here in a little bit,

but he's saying it's cranking in New Mexico, just like it's 10 days early. They get really cranking sometimes in New Mexico around September 10th. He's like, they're cranking right now. Well, I've heard it's like the Garden of Eden down there. You know, it's so green. I've heard it's green, green. And I think a lot of it over here, it was obviously, it's not the Garden of Eden, but they've had a little bit of a green up to where I think it's just gotten things in a little bit better condition than they were a month or six weeks ago. And that's probably got everything, cows included, a little bit better shape. And I think New Mexico is probably the same thing from every time here, and it's just a golf course in most places down there. Yeah. Well, so you're out in the field. We've had some questions, and you know this. Guys, you know, quiz us all the time about field judging.

And you sent us a video clip of, you know, a really stud, you know, 350s, maybe even a little better, you know, 360s type bull. But how do we know that's a 350 class bull? What are you looking at? And mentally, what are you looking at when you're looking to kill a big bull, and you've killed several, you know, 380 class bulls? How are you field judging them? I mean, we all have a gut feel, but is there a way to take it a little further? Well, initially, yeah, you judge them based on how many hundreds and hundreds you've seen. And I guess that's, for me, that's what I do, but I guess to break it down, it seems like the first thing that catches your eye The hunt is the sword and the fifth and the beams. That's just what sticks up when it's bulls feeding. It's the sexy part of a rack. It's just the sexy part of an outcrack.

It is. It's what you see. It's what you see, but the fronts, the first three, if you count those six tines on both sides, in my opinion, that's where a score really cranks it up. I mean, a big fifth catches your eye, but that's one point. I'd shoot a bull with big fronts, and it had four or five-inch fifths, but giant fronts any day. You know, they'll generally rack it up a lot more, because you got those big, you know, three points a side on the front. So, big fronts, and I know, you know, when you're talking big, you're saying 20-plus, and how do you judge that? Well, you've just got to see enough of them and know that if they come out and then they hook up, and that tape's wrapping underneath the underneath side, and they wrap up at all, and you're looking at something probably high teens or 20 plus. And it wraps down to the end of their nose if you were to straighten it out.

Yeah, past their face. Yep, that's past their face. The other thing is main beam. A lot of times, you know, that's hard to judge as well, but this bull that I showed you today, I don't think has that long of beams. You know, it just doesn't reek of a long beam bull, so probably high 40s or maybe 50 inch or, I don't know, low 50s, who knows. Yeah, and I think it's good to quantify like short is generally, let's say anything under 50 short, but somewhere between 40s and 52 or 53. Medium would be 55 and long is 60, right? Yeah, that's right. You get high 50s or 60 plus, you're dealing with a real long beamy bull, And generally, then your points are all spread out a bunch, which, you know, never hurts. You get them all spread out, and they just really, you know, that rack when he turns his head just really, I don't know, has a different proportion.

It wows you. It can reach back to the back end. The fronts are what I look at them all, fronts and beams, probably. Yeah, right on. And then width, I mean, you know, narrow's 38 and last, medium's 40, and 45 pluses, or 44, 45 pluses wide, you know, for inside. I agree. And on elk, I mean, if it looks nice and wide, it's good enough, because there's only been a handful of what I would say giant bulls that I thought were giant that were like 30 to 35 inches wide inside that were like, oh crap, I wish he was wider. You know, usually width is not something that ever holds you back shooting an elk. It's just not. Usually, on mule deer it can. Elk it rarely does. Usually, you're going to be upper 30s to low 40s, and then if you get 45 plus, he's really wide inside. Yeah.

And then mass, you know, basically 30 a side, 60 total, but 30 a side's heavy, and then you got 28, and then you got 26, 27, but, you know, being light. But, I guess the reason we bring up the numbers is sometimes there's this gut feel, and you just look at them, and we don't need to put them on paper. But then sometimes you want to, hey, I got my gut feel, now I want to put them on paper. And you go and look at each tine, and you re-add. And I think with just adding up sheds, and adding up bulls you've killed, and scoring individual tines and lengths and whatnot, if your paper matches your gut, or you get close to that, it just makes you feel better about where you think he's going to land. You know? Yeah, and other stuff you can... I mean, I killed the bull in Colorado about four or five years ago.

This bull this morning reminded me of that, except for that Colorado bull had bigger swords and bigger fifths. And so, I just don't think... and the bull's like 361. I just don't think this bull... he's not that big. He's got a little bit better ones and twos, and that's it, you know? So, I think he's right around the 350, but solid bull. I don't know. I've got 15 days to hunt. Well, I don't know about 15 days to hunt. 15 days of season left. How about that? And then on to the next hunt. Yeah. Right, Josh? I think something too is if a bull has an extra, you know, if they have an extra brow tine, an extra come off his sword, something like that, it'll surprise guys pretty quick. Because you'll just look at it and say, oh, he's a 380 bull, you know, but it doesn't take much if they get a few extras here and there to add them up.

Some nice long devil tines or whatever, it'll surprise you in a hurry, too. So, if they've got extras... Well, I know, Josh, you showed us the photo of a bull that you're watching that has an extra tine up front. Yeah. Is it both sides? I can't remember. Just the one side. Just the one side. But, I mean, initially, you're like, that's a .370, .380 bull or whatever it is, you know. And then, oh, yeah, but he has this extra tine that's a 15-inch or 14-inch. I mean, that changes the game. It changes everything, and yet it's kind of hidden. It doesn't wow you on the back end like Adam's talking about, but it's there, and it adds up. And I think mass is one, too. Mass is one deer, elk, anything. That'll surprise guys. It hides tine length. It does. It does.

I saw a bull last night that when I'd been dogging him in the cedars at 100 yards, 80 yards. I think I bumped his cows once, because then they started trailing away from me, of course. And he was bugling the whole time. And it was a mile later, I caught up to him. And I first saw him, and I'm like, holy crap. His ones are giant. His threes are giant. His twos are okay. And then his swords, fifth and sixth, are just kind of bare. But he's so heavy and old and cool. I don't know. I maybe regret not making a play on him, but I turned to walk away, and then I heard another bull bugling. And pretty soon, that bull crept to the ridge and ran into that other bull. And they fought. And the old bull that I thought was kind of tempting snapped about six inches off of his sword tinder right in front of my eyes.

I mean, I watched him have it, and then I watched him fight for like 30 seconds, and all of a sudden, he's got no more piece of a sword on his head. But anyway, cool bull, like you said, heavy and old. A cooler bull than a bigger bull than he's going to score. Well, and then tell us a little bit. A lot of guys are asking, and I've had it even today, but calling versus not calling. You know, I know, you know, we don't, I don't like to call a ton. I like to glass and then get in close if I need to call or bugle, fine. You know, and we know when to do that, but just give us a quick rundown on what your opinion is when you call, or not. I like, I try not, I don't like to do it much. Let the elk do it. Unfortunately, right now, they're doing it pretty good. Now, in the afternoon, sometimes, if you get into an area and you're a crunchy ground,

I let some of those out every once in a while as I'm walking through, just because I didn't think I'm a dude walking through the hills, trees. Right. I don't...and they would fire up, they'd bugle every time, and so, okay, they just maybe, you know, maybe they think I'm out. Yeah, so that bull, he was bugling, and hearing that other bull bugle, and it brought him in on a string. I watched it. I mean, he was in a sea of thick cedars, and came from probably a half a mile, and all of a sudden, they got to the edge of it, and they just started fighting. So, I think we're at that time right now, and I watched another bull way out in a big burn just gravitate for probably a mile and a half towards this big group of five or six bulls going up here, and he just bugled and went straight towards them.

So, sometimes, like right now, when these bulls are just starting to really get cranking and find cows and move in, I think maybe a bugle, I think I'm going to bugle more than I'm going to cow call, Because, you know, you already got bulls with cows, and if a bull just thinks, hey, there's elk over there, and he's in that frame of mind, that switch flips, he's probably coming in hard. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, that's awesome. And then, you know, I like when you're, you know, walking through the trees, like you mentioned to cow call here and there, like, I totally do that. And, you know, it just puts everything at ease, you know? Yeah, and there was elk in there bugling, and you're in there with cedars, and you know I know they're kind of bedded, but you're just trying to get close enough that if they stand up, you maybe can then get in on them.

But every once in a while, you maybe step on a branch or something. You just do a cow call, and boom. When the bull bugles, you pretty much realize, okay, he's not alarmed, all right? And then I just stay there sometimes for five minutes, because if he's not coming, then I just want him to think, okay, there's a cow down there somewhere. Yeah. Well, what about optics? Are you just stuck on your 12s? Are you cranking on your 12s? Oh, yeah. I mean, we've had a lot of calls of guys saying, you know, our BTX is worth it. Well, this is a hunt. You're not even going to use a BTX, not one time, you know? No, they're not. And on elk, I don't use them like I do deer and sheep either. I just don't. Elk are bigger. You know, I'm packing my 65 objective spotting shield. It's a little lighter. I don't need the big 95 right now. Now I have it in my truck, and there's times I'm pulling

up on ridges and I'm glassing from the truck, and I grab it, and it's more, you know, everything I want. But when I'm hiking, I have my little lightweight tripod, and I have a 65 millimeter STX, and that's all you need to know to field judge a bull, you know, or a mile or whatever. You know, elk are a lot bigger, so you don't need the fine-tune, hey, what is that ram, What is that, you know, deer, whatever. So, yeah, and I'm carrying my 12 Pures on my chest. I did bring my 10s over here, my EL 10s, but I haven't worn them yet. It's still pretty big country and a lot of burns, and so I just like the versatility of throwing my 12s on my chest, taking off, and putting them on a tripod just equally as fast. I love that. I can't wait to have you look through my eights. I love them. With the tripod adapter, boss, I love them.

When you're in the cedars, yeah, it's like when you're in the thick cedars, I don't really want the 12s, but most of the time then, your naked eye is going to be all you need. It's your naked eye. You're talking 50 to 80 yards is usually about all you might ever be, or less, is all you're going to be. And you're still cranking with the SIG Zauer 2400 rangefinder. Even though it's built for our long-range rifles, it's great for archery too. Yeah. I've got my SIG rangefinder, and I just got it in just angle-modified range mode. It's out of my gum profile mode, and the angle compensator mode, so it'll shave off any yardage. I ended up shooting down or up, and yep, I'm good. How's... Well, good. That's awesome. I think that's about it. I was going to ask you, I'm not going to ask you, you got any sneaky feet in your pack or anything like that?

No, I don't. Hey, I bought a pair, dude, with these mule-der. I have a pair of those from the past. What I don't like about those is your foot is about twice as big as its normal size, and they're not as nimble. I like, and so I'm an old-school guy. I have a couple of big, giant, thick pair of wool socks. And I just can, they're just more contour right to your feet. They're hotter than heck. When I get caught in them for two, three hours, I about want to die because, ask my wife, I can never sleep with socks on. I don't like hot feet, and that drives me nuts. It's like an OCD thing, I guess. But when you're stocking something, you've got to wear them. But that's what I use. Really old-school, thick wool socks. You got the old school face mask in your pack, too? Like, I've got one of them both.

I just, yeah, I just had a little pull-up. It's a pull-up. I wear it around my neck and pull it up when you get into them. And I've never, I used to face paint years ago in high school. All that probably, probably just because it felt cool. But I hate cleaning the stuff. Well, that was a, it was a fad thing. I got to realize, Bronson, that was about 40 years ago. Actually, it was like 35. Well, and I don't know if they made a, I don't think they made face masks. They didn't. You had to put on face paint every day, and it's like, you know, yeah. Hey, I like how you called it the pull-up. We could call it the epic pull-up and make a face mask. I think that's also taken for training diapers for kids. I don't know. Epic pull-ups. All right, boss. I think that's also taken for training diapers for kids. Yeah, but it's a whole different category. I think we could patent that.

Some guys age in this office, maybe they're more mean than me. Yeah, there's some pull-ups. Might come full circle. Josh, how old are you? Josh's a little younger than we are, Bronson. But, yeah, life will get him too. Yeah, I think he's starting in the morning. All right, well, keep after it, buddy. We're gonna probably give old Devin a call. See, I think he's headed to Colorado.

Just see how the roads treat me. Yeah, I think he's starting in the morning. I figured that bull I sent him this morning, getting fired up, I was gonna text him and say, you better shoot that bull and call it out tomorrow if you see it, but we'll see how he does. He's probably got, you know, 10 and 2 on the wheel and not texting and driving. He's a good person, but anyway. All right, guy, well, we'll give him a haul. Okay, we'll see you in the morning. Yeah, I'll be out there. All right, good luck. All right. Yeah, bye. That's good, man. I think it's awesome. We've snagged a tag, and you know, those tags are hard to come by. Yeah, yeah. We've seen a few on the first come first serve list, which is basically the guys that are turning them back, can't go for whatever reason, don't want to go, whatever, and then

we see them pop up on our screen, and your points will go to zero, but it's whoever hits that button first. Yeah, it's a pretty amazing chance, really, because there's some awesome tags on there. Yeah. Tags that you could never possibly draw in your life, even, you know, and a pretty great opportunity. Pretty great opportunity. We know a lot of guys. It's funny because we'll see a tag, and then like 20 minutes later, the guy who got it calls in. You know what I mean? It's been way fun. Well, let's give Devin a call. I don't know if he'll answer. Maybe he's got a cheeseburger in one hand or a fry in the other. But let's see if he'll answer the phone.

Hello? Hey, what are you doing?

Changing a tire? What are you doing? Just driving. Are you? Well, you're on the Epic Outdoors podcast. I want to get that out early so you don't swear or do something dumb. Yeah. Which you don't anyway. Get pulled over or something. Yeah. Where are you at? I'm way over here. Are you in Wyoming? I decided to take the flat route. I went up to Wyoming. Dropping into Colorado right now. Yeah? Did you do some scouting for some antelope, or what have you been doing? Yeah. Killed one, actually. What? Did you hit an antelope?

A two-point, yeah. You hit an antelope with your truck? Oh, no. I was talking about the other day I killed one. Oh, alright, yeah. Well, yeah, you did. You killed a great buck over there in Nevada. Just a stud. Oh, yeah. But, alright, well, why don't you tell us where you're headed and what new unit you're scouting? I guess you're over there checking out some new country. Yeah, I've never been here. Just up in that unit 20. That'll be awesome. Yeah, it doesn't take too many points, but enough, and I had enough, so... Yeah. Yeah, drew that. It'll be fun. Got a little ranch to hunt with a member of ours. He's gonna go meet him and learn all that operation, and he's got some... There's some bulls, so it's gonna be fun. You know, we're here, and I've just talked to guys in New Mexico. We got off the phone with the Bronson. You've been in Nevada, scouting around and seeing some rutting bulls.

I mean, things are getting cranking, Devin. It's a good year. Yeah, it was 50-something degrees this morning. That's always good. Where? Across Wyoming? Like in Utah County when I left. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Rear's kind of raining, but... Yeah. Well, have you... Pretty excited. It's elk month. Have you got... Yeah, I know. You're supposed to hunt elk in September, they say. Elk in September and deer in November, but I don't know. They're getting cranking. It'll be a good year. It should be awesome. I think it's great. You're gonna see some good bulls. You know, we always hear about some great bulls over there, so I think it's awesome you're out. You know, I'm gonna learn that, and you know, it'll be great. You're gonna learn a lot of country. Yeah, it's always fun going somewhere new. I've never hunted elk in Colorado, actually. Yeah, isn't that crazy?

Yeah, just deer, and that's about it. Well, you haven't missed a ton. You haven't missed a lot. I've spent some time, quite a bit of time, and it's good. But I think some of that country you're going to, there's been some abnormally, you know, significant bulls considering the state of Colorado. So... Yeah, no, I think so. I think it'd be good. Hopefully come upon...find something here. Yeah, alright. What are you guys doing? Well, we're working. Right, Josh? You're hard. We had a guy send in a picture of an 86 antelope. He got it on the first-come, first-serve, you know, tag reallocation process there in Nevada, and he went over there to a new unit. He hit me before he went, and I couldn't tell him a ton. I mean, I've been through it and seen some, but it's not like I know it intimately or anything. But anyway, he smashed an 86-incher, man, and seen a couple other significant bucks.

Like, it's awesome to hear back from guys, you know, that are doing that. It is always fun. I was just driving, thinking about some of the sheep hunters. I can't wait to get back and call and see how they did. Yeah, we also had a guy, he drew the raffle Oregon sheep and smashed, I think it's 187 inch ram, with Sheep Mountain Outfitters. Just killed an absolute stud, sent a few photos in, and man, things are happening. It's just that time of year, September 1st, boss. I know, it's here. It's here. It's time to be killing stuff. I'm about done dealing with mud. I'm going to go out and, I don't know, try to get bloody somewhere, somehow. Yeah, it's time. I'll just be here taking care of the office. Josh! Hey, there's a guy, he's going to call, he needs a tripod. He just texted me. I had him call the office. He's probably calling right now. I'm on it.

So, Josh is feeling a little sad. He had a wazoo deer tag in his cart from Colorado and didn't check out in time. Somebody beat him to it. Gotta be quick on the click, Josh. Quick on the click, boss. Yes, you do. Then your world is turned upside down, and you have to say, call the wife and family and say, hey, this life-altering event happened. Devin, you were quick on the click. Twice. Yeah, that's how I got an antelope. Yeah, isn't that awesome? Holy crap. It wasn't so quick on the click of a safety. We were out there for days, me and Chris. This is some smart antelope. Well, I thought you guys were headed back, and then all of a sudden, a picture showed up. So, it's pretty awesome. Yeah. It's all good. Somebody's got to stay here and take care of Wyatt's crew for him and make sure they're in line. Wyatt's division?

Speaking of, I'm working on a new app. I don't know if maybe this is the time to announce it or not. Are you? What is it? It was like, I'm trying to figure out a name, like Epic Meats or Epic Encounters. I know we talked about it. It's similar to like FarmersOnly.com. Okay, okay. Right, Josh? Anyway, it's just kind of one of those things. I just know maybe a dating app for hunters only or huntresses only. I think the only thing you'd have on there is dudes. There ain't no- There's a few huntresses looking for dudes. I'll let you have that project and I'll just be on the sidelines and- This is Josh's. I don't have anything to do with this, Jen. I have nothing to do with this. We may have one here that's looking. I don't know. I'm just thinking you can either select, maybe you just need a one-night spotter, you know? Or maybe you need a packer.

Maybe you just swipe it, and you need a packer. You know, there's different levels. Maybe for the whole season. Yeah, there's different levels. I don't know. Dude, that might go. So, this is more than dating. This is a different kind of meeting app. I'm talking strictly hunting. I don't know. There you go. There you go. BYOG, bring your own gear. Yeah, yeah. You guys are talking about a deer dating app. Yeah, yeah. Deer dates. Something. Anyway, that's it. You put some thought into this. Swipe left, swipe right. I don't know. We'll have to say anyway. It's kind of a big announcement. Quick on the swipe, Josh. Kind of a big announcement. I want to hunt, but I don't have a tag. That's true. Exactly. Part of it's just getting the kill. EpicHuntingPartners.com or what? Yeah, exactly. That's what I said. Epic Meats, Epic Encounters, I don't know. Oh, jeez.

Jeez. This is the first I heard of it. This is quite an announcement, quite a podcast announcement. Well, Devin, all right, what did you take for optics? Oh, I got a Leica spotting scope, Swarovski spotting scope, Swarovski 15s, Leica 10s, rangefinders. Leave it to David. Is there anything you don't have? Maybe that would be a shorter list. Do you have- And it's gonna be thick timber. I probably won't even touch half of it, but you never know. You never know. Do you got good tires? Oh yeah, this time I'm ready. I'm prepared. Seemed like you used about 10 or 20 tire plugs last time you went out. Well, that was a couple months ago. I learned. Okay. I knew it was gonna happen. So yeah, we're prepared. Okay, and are you going to be a blind hunter? Are you sitting in a blind, or are you going to be calling?

Yeah, I prefer running and gunning, but he basically hasn't been on there at all. It's just untouched. Just letting him be calm. That's awesome. We're going to check cameras tonight. So, there's one big bull that comes through for about four or five days every year. Okay. He's a specific bull, and if he's hitting water, I'll sit there, you know, twiddle my thumbs, but whatever it takes. But I'd rather just go to battle, you know, on the ground. So, whatever it takes. Do you got enough tags for the year? We were teasing Bronson that he was complaining he had nothing when he did. He had a few, but now he's overloaded. We're just wondering how you're doing, tag-wise. Well, Bronson started the year off saying he's batting a thousand, and then it quickly went to zero. And then, so he was in a slump, and now he's like hitting doubles, triples. I mean, he's... Oh, it's left and right.

Yeah, he's swinging away. Yeah, yeah. He's wondering if he's got a family. He's wondering if his family's still in Cedar, if they're on vacation in Hawaii. He has no idea. So, anyway. Awesome. But you're doing good. I think you got a full fall. Josh is here and I'm here, but we have Full falls. Yeah. We promise you. There's plenty going on. Our time will come. All right, guy. All right. Well, sounds good. Well, good luck out there, and you know, keep us updated. Oh, one last thing. One last thing. You've guided a lot of different elk hunts, and hunted a lot on your own. Just, you know, tons and tons. Trophy hunters, too. But let's talk about field judging real quick. I mean, there's one thing to have a gut feel. We were talking with Adam, you know, and we went through

I'm going to go through the tine lengths and put them on paper a little bit, but just give us your thoughts on field judging and what can you teach people? Well, I've never been a big just numbers, like just measuring every tine or trying to come up with a measurement on every measurement. I feel like that's when it messes with your head. It's bone to body for me. I'll look at a bull, and you've got to know where you're at. Some bulls, like northern Nevada, those bulls' bodies are giant compared to Ely bulls, or some Utah bulls, southwest desert bulls, compared to Pavant bulls. Sure. They're different. So, you've got to have that in mind, the bone to body all day long. And when you see one, and it looks cartoonish, you know what I mean. All the other little numbers don't matter. Right. Big's big.

Yeah, and the other thing is, is look at, you know, I mean, I'm first to tell you, I didn't hunt elk last year in September at all. So, I didn't look at a lot of bulls. And this year, I've been looking for deer, and then these elk hunts just kind of crept up on me. So, yeah, you got to look at a couple bulls. Look at, you know, if you have a lot of time, take your time. Look at as many bulls as you can. Yeah. Well, right on. I like it. You know, and one thing I like is when their sword or their fourth time, you know, when the sword looks big, and if everything, if the sword is big, and everything else looks really good, you've got good time length. You know what I mean?

For sure, and I always, I always kind of, somebody taught me, I don't know who it was, but one good rule of thumb for elk is on most mature, you know, bigger mature bulls, the beam at the royal, center of the royal at the beam is usually 30 inches. That's right. So, from 30 inches tip of the beam, you can pretty much eyeball that, say, okay, that's gonna be 24, 22 inches. You know he's got a 52, 53 inch beam. Right. So, that's one other thing that, as far as his little knit. Yeah. I'll look at that a lot more so than anything. I heard that from old John McClendon years and years ago. He's one of the first guys to be out there field judging giant bulls and governor tags clear in the 90s, and you know, he always said, The big, big bulls are 29 to 30 inches right to the royal, and then you can double that.

Then you can double that, and if you double that, you've got a freaking, you know, freaking nature giant beam. Yeah. And then the royal, if the royal's big, you know, 24 inches is giant. Sometimes those decisions have to be quick, you know, like when they're coming through the trees head-on. Always get a head-on, too. If you see a bull, he's walking away or sideways, and you think he's special, special, you make sure, do everything you can to make him look at you, get a front-on view, because that can

You can change your mind in a hurry. Right, right. Well, good. All right, sounds good, buddy. Okay, we'll talk to you guys later. Get back on the road. I'm getting into some city. I'm gonna get lost here. Keep your hands on the wheel. Ten and two, boss. Ten and two. Okay. Ten and four. All right. See you guys. Good luck. Bye. Bye. No, ten and two, not ten and four. Or whatever. Nine and three. I don't know. Just keep them on the wheel. I think a beam on elk, too, is a little bit tricky to judge. It's probably one that's missed often, because you get, it's just like extras on a mule deer or something. We kind of get mesmerized with certain things, but you can get mesmerized with point length on a bull, and he has these big long points, but then you get some good measurement out of a long beam,

and if his points are all smashed up really close to each other, he probably doesn't have a very long beam. But if he's got, and that's for me a quick way, like Devin was saying, maybe you have a quick, You have to make a quick decision on what he is. If he's got a lot of length, if there's a lot of bone between each point where it comes off of that beam, odds are he probably has a good beam, if not long. But if those points are all, I mean, if there's six inches or something between his second and his third, he probably doesn't have a terribly long beam. And obviously, all bulls are different, but that's something just as a quick mental thing for me to gauge is distance between each point. That's one of the biggest mistakes I've ever seen on guys misjudging bulls. They see this bull, and they just look amazing. They're just stacked. They've got long points,

long points, long points. But a lot of times, they do have a short beam, and then you get up on that bull, and they're like, oh, it's only a 330 bull, because they misjudged the length of the beam. Yeah, that's right. And the one thing about beams is, there's a lot of bulls of 40s. You know what I mean? And people don't say it, or admit it, or talk about it. But the difference between a good beam and a weak beam on both sides, you're talking 20-25 inches. Yeah, and I like, you know, if you can let them put their head down too, that's kind of a good judge to me. It almost is obvious to you as soon as they put their head down, and if their beam's not even coming back, even as far as their shoulder, you'll see that quite often. Yeah. It's just kind of a good gauge. Okay, maybe you need to take a second look at him.

Yeah. I like it. Well, let's call one other guy, a good friend of mine, Davey Matthews. He guides in Arizona and New Mexico. I talked to him early this morning. I didn't really warn him, but I wasn't... Actually, we weren't even going to do a podcast, Josh. Chris came to me, and he's... Chris is a grinder, so we're putting one out to keep him quiet. But anyway, you know, it reminded me, Dave, he says, dude, they're freaking cranking in New Mexico. So, let's just hit him up, see what he has to say. I guess we can call this our elk podcast. I don't know. Anyway, but we'll talk about deer another day on Field Judging. Of course, we have to talk about deer. I mean, we should always be talking about deer. In fact, every podcast should have some information about deer. Hey, it is a good time to talk about elk, though.

Yeah, but it is September 1, and so we'll let one podcast go by without talking about deer, except for there's some really nice bucks in some parts of the country right now. All right, let's talk to Davey, see what he has to say.

Carter. You getting vaccinated or what? Not me, bud. Well, hey, buddy. I think the vaccination is going to, in 10 years down the road, people are going to be walking around, kids are only going to have one eye, and people are going to have brain tumors running around. Okay. Well, I hope that's not the case. Well, I hope not either. But you never know, you know? No. It's safer not to get it, right? Because we know that less of that will happen. Well, it's a calculated risk. This is the calculated risk. You calculate the risk of getting coronavirus and dying from it, or you knowingly put something into your body that we don't know the long-term effects of. That gives you some of the result of the coronavirus. Like, people that get vaccinated kind of don't feel right.

And maybe you have a little bit of a fever, or whatever, right? Exactly. So, I don't have it, I don't want it, but inject it so I can feel what it's like. I don't know. I agree. No, there's a lot of people that are getting, there's a lot of opinions out there. But you did mention your wife ended up in the hospital. Tell me about that real quick before we dive into important stuff, like hunting. Okay, yes. So, my wife, you know, she came down with the run-up, you know, from the son's birthday party, had a bunch of friends over. One of the kids had it while they were there. So, you guys had a super spreader event. Yeah, we had one of the super spreader events. You know, we had the community chicken plop club, you know, with the Rona. But anyways, so, she felt fine. You know, she's feeling fine the whole time, and then, you know, she starts doing the coughing stuff.

And we're talking six days in of her testing positive. She starts coughing a little bit, and then it kind of gradually gets worse. And then it ends up to where she's got these lung spasms, you know? And with the lung spasm, it's making her cough, but her coughing is creating the spasm. So, it just counter-effects each other, and they keep going back and forth. And it's hard for her to stop coughing once she starts because of the lung spasm. So, you didn't want to get the Rona, so you made her drive herself to the hospital.

But, hey... Well, no, I don't know. I'm just wondering. I told her I would come and take her to the hospital, and she said no. Oh! That she would drive. I am the guy that's staying in the motel in the town you live in. In your hometown. Oh, yeah. And so, the people at the motel are going, Davey, you guys having an argument? Exactly. No, I guarantee you I have buddies calling me, and they're like, what are you doing? You're staying at the motel? I'm like, yeah. They're like, what happened? Nothing that you guys think happened, trust me. I was like, I got the rona at my house while I was on an antelope hunt. Yeah, and you got clients and a business to run. You don't want to have to deal with that. Exactly, exactly. All right. Well, so she's out of the hospital. Are we doing better? She's on the man?

Yeah, yeah, she's doing better. They gave her, you know, the little squirters that people take for asthma and stuff like that. Oh. And it's not the same medicine. It's a different medicine, but I guess the guys at the hospital have seen this side effect of COVID with the lung spasms. So, they kind of have it figured out. They said in a day and a half she'll be 90% better. Well, Josh, just tell her, Josh always says that a monster a day keeps the doctor away. Bro, we're gonna dip into a whole different battle there, because she just, she gets so sick of my energy drink drinking, addictiveness to the energy drinks that it drives her up to crazy. What were you drinking? Weren't you drinking the Science one? What was the Science one? Yeah, the Science one, the Frostberry Gloss. Okay. Are you still drinking those? Yeah. They're gross.

Oh, come on! Those tastes, the taste of them are so good. At least it doesn't taste like cough syrup, like some of the monster ones that all you guys drink. All those just taste like cough syrup. Yeah, and they're not good for you. They're really not. They're really not. But I just don't understand how anything that makes you feel so good can be so bad. Okay, that dips into a whole pile of worms that we'll leave out of this conversation.

Well, tell us a little bit about, we want to talk elk. It's September 1st. I always was taught you were supposed to hunt elk in September and deer in November. But tell us a little bit about how things are progressing there in New Mexico. I know you do a ton of guiding in New Mexico, but just, you know, what have you guys been seeing? I mean, it feels like things are cranking in Nevada. You know, of course, we're hearing good things about New Mexico. Everybody's trying to ignore Arizona just because the drought was so bad earlier. But I know it's probably a green golf course right now, and there'll be some good bulls taken no matter what. Yeah, there will be. And you know what? New Mexico, we had the same drought as we did in Arizona. I mean, it was so dry early, but holy smokes, as the rain came on, as soon as the monsoons hit, it is a golf course out there.

And there's water running everywhere and massive amounts of rain. I mean, all the tanks are pretty much overflowing. And I've had some good bulls texted to me, you know, trail cam bulls, and the antler growth was fine. I don't get it. Yeah, the antler growth, literally, if you sit back and you look at 50 different bulls, you might see two or three bulls that you say, oh, he looks a little droughty. The rest of the elk look fine, 100%. So, I expect good things from New Mexico. I've scouted a lot of really killer elk, seen some really big bulls, And I'm just anxious to get after it. You got clients coming in, right? Yeah, we got clients coming in. I mean, we're days away from our first clients showing up for elk season this year, and we're going to be plugging away on both the archery hunts and the rifle hunts over there.

So, we're excited to see what happens here. You know, as far as the rut, it actually seems to be moving right along. You know, I think it might end up being a little earlier this year than normal years, or, you know, as far as them getting going. You know, they're already starting to bugle, you know, chasing cows and stuff like that. Things are looking good. Yeah, man, looking good. And I do see it on wet years. You know, it seems like when the monsoon's really good, it seems like those bulls get cranking a little bit earlier. So, I think this one's following suit, and we're gonna see a rut that we talk about for a couple years. You know, it's gonna be good. Last year, it felt non-existent, you know?

Some days, it was just some days it felt like, you know, later in the season, some days it felt like you couldn't get any better, but you wake up the next day and you go to the same spot and it's dead. Nothing. That's what I almost seem like. I feel like on those dry years, the cows don't all cycle evenly, and it's across the board, and so you'll have a rut that goes for a month and a half, you know, into October even. Yeah, it's healthy. Yeah, it's healthy, and it goes pretty fast and pretty good, and they go pretty hard. Exactly, and I do see the effects of all the cows kind of cycling at different times last year. I mean, I was just telling my nephew, we were up nesting around chasing some coos deer over the counter in Arizona, and you know, you see in a herd of elk, you see a calf elk that's just as big as mama.

The spots are already wore off, and then you see one that literally looks like it hit the ground two and a half weeks ago. Wow. And it's like, holy smokes, man, that thing is tiny compared to the other captain. And that's what happened. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So... Tell us about what your opinion is on calling versus no calling. Okay, so I always think this is my tactic in calling versus no calling is, you know, I tend to be able to call the bulls in a little bit better. Or the bigger bulls earlier in the season, before the cows are really coming into estrus, that type of stuff. And I always try and mimic. Always try and mimic the elk. If the elk are bugling and you hear some cows calling, feel free to call a little bit. If the elk are bugling very little, don't run around just honking on your bugle and calling all over the country, because those elk get savvy to it, in my opinion.

You know, calling early season for me is more productive than when they're just going crazy bugling. I mean, if you wanted to call in the satellites and stuff like that, which, you know, most of the time we're not really targeting those type of bulls, you could really have good success with that, you know, later in the rep. But we tend to hunt a little bit more silent, you know, as the rep progresses into, you know, the frenzy stages and stuff like that, And try and move in front of the elk and have them move by us and kill them that way. Yeah, spot and stalk, get in their way. Yeah. Let them tell you where they're at. If they're not telling you where they're at, you might encourage them a little bit with the cow collar. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So... What about optics? What are you using optics-wise out there? Well, I've got the good old trusty Swarrows.

I've got a pair of 10s and 15s. Are those the Swarrows that you're saying that are the old trusty ones? Are those the ones you drug behind a four-wheeler for 14 miles? You know, those... The ones that don't have any eye cups or... Come on, man. Hey, tell me, do your bonos have eye cups on them right now? I sent those bad boys back, and they put brand new eye cups on them for me. You know? All right, all right. Swarro's got a pretty decent customer service program when you're... Thankfully. Yeah, thankfully. Thankfully. It's not like Vortex, where I had one of my guys that sent him a pair of 15s in, and to They sent him a brand new pair of 18s back. I don't... Really? Maybe Swarrow ought to take a little... Vortex does have an incredible warranty. They take care of it. Yeah, they do. I'm just... They do. But literally, I've seen your binos, and they're impressive. I'm going to tell you.

Yeah, they're good. I mean, at least they're not cross-eyed. At least I don't see cross-eyed. That's right. So, you're using 10s or 15s? Yeah, 10's around the neck, 15's on the tripod, you know, and I still got the 95 millimeter scope. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's all good stuff. Okay, boss. All right, sounds good. Josh, you got anything, any questions for Davey over there? No, I don't think so. Not really. All right, sounds good. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys end up putting down for yourself this year also. Oh, yeah. Good luck, guys. We're cranking, you're cranking. It's awesome. We all live for this time of year. So, anyway, wishing you the best, buddy. All right, bud. All right, sounds good. Talk to you later. All right, see you. Bye. Well, I hope his wife gets better. Yeah, it's so weird how that thing can affect different people.

Oh, isn't it? And you've dealt with a lot, like, because your wife deals with the hospital, administrative side of things. I mean, you've heard a lot of stories, and you know a lot of different things. It's crazy, isn't it? It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. I know over there, they had almost every single one of their residents in a long-term care facility, and you'd seen a lot of those guys. It was just a death sentence, you know, in the beginning. They all got it, and they all survived. Made it. They needed help breathing. Yeah, exactly. So, it's crazy. You never know, I guess.

Yeah. Anyway, lots of good things. We've got some hunts out there. I mean, we've had some deer hunts in Canada. We've had a moose hunt up there in the Yukon. We've got a guy that's got some Unit 15 muzzleloader tags that are guided. We're talking, you know, great opportunity with guaranteed tags. New Mexico antelope, we've got some Colorado plains deer hunts. Rifle elk hunts in Colorado. New Mexico rifle elk hunts. There's just quite a bit going on, so if you need a hunt or something, give us a holler, and we'll try to hook you up and give you a few phone numbers and get you started. Chris, I think we should give away an elk tag. Speaking of New Mexico. Speaking of New Mexico, let's give away... Since this is the elk podcast. Yeah, let's give away... It's a cow elk. It's a cow elk hunt. But hey, it's a... Let's hear your best view.

Go ahead. Go ahead, Josh. You're not gonna tell me what to do. You do it. No. That sounded pretty close, actually. Yeah, it wasn't too bad. The no. The no sounded pretty close. Oh, no. Come on. All right. So, anyway, Cal Elk Tag Unit 6C, free tag, first come, first serve. Email chris at epicoutdoors.com. Chris at epicoutdoors.com. First email to Chris. We'll get it. How about that? Let's not even do a post. Okay. Now, say again where it's at and any details. It's Unit 6C for cow elk. It's a landowner tag. It's a thousand dollar tag. Okay? We're gonna give it away. You can, you know, you've got a couple of hunts to choose from. October 30th, November 3rd, November 27th, December 1. It's a firearms hunt, rifle hunt. Unit 6C, and you'll have to go on, put it into your portfolio. You'll be able to log in and purchase that. You've actually got to purchase the state tag to go with it.

But this basically allows you to circumvent the draw. And non-residents can't apply for cow elk. They can't apply for cow elk, but you can do a landowner tag. So, this is good for anybody. First come, first serve. Email chris at epicoutdoors.com. I was hoping we were going to have like a hashtag fill the freezer contest. We could. A loinless contest. A guaranteed photo of you holding I'm putting a back strap on the cover of our December issue. Josh, whatever, Chris, you choose. That's fine. The email is kind of fun. I'm kind of interested to see how many people email me. That's right. But the first email that comes through takes it. First email takes it. End of story, right? Very simple. Anyway, we're going to give it away. And then we also have a couple of archery tags in 6C. It's a great unit with great potential.

A member bought a couple of archery tags for him and a buddy, and they can't go. And these are bull tags? Yeah, yeah. Archery. Archery, any elk. So... What, the season? Yes, there you've got... The first one is now through 14. That's right. And then the second one is around 16 until the end of September. 16th, 24th, yeah. So, anyway, great opportunity. Unit 6C archery tags. So, that's normally basically a $5,000 tag. And, you know, 45 to 5, make an offer kind of thing. So, if you want to do, you know, go on a self-guided hunt, you can hire an outfitter if you'd like, but a self-guided hunt, this would be tag alone. Of course, same kind of thing as the cow tag. You'd go in, you'd pay the state fee, and you're good to go. You bypass the draw. Unit-wide tags, So, you can hunt anywhere as if you drew the tag, within Unit 60.

Alright, so just kind of a little something-something out there for people that are interested in hunting elk. There are some options. And so, anyway, do need to do a shout-out. It's archery season for elk course. Generally, you hunt elk with a bow in September, although there are some rut hunts with a rifle, like, and muzzleloader, like here in Utah. But anyway, a little shout-out to Hoyt. We appreciate their support here at Epic Outdoors. Hoyt Archery, you can go on there. Of course, we're all shooting Hoyt. Just incredible bows, so just a great opportunity. Adam was bummed he wasn't going to be able to get to shoot it, and look at him now. Oh, he's hunting with a vengeance. Archery left and right, yeah. So, he's got a lot of tags, right, Josh? He does. 35 or something.

Okay, alright. So, anyway, if you're interested in any of the Hoyt products, go to Hoyt.com. We've been super impressed. In fact, the best bows, we actually sold a buddy of ours a bow. We get a certain amount of bows each year, and dude, he says, by far, Jason, by far, it's the best bow that I've ever shot. Those are nice. Legit archery hunter. I was really wanting one bad, but I decided it wasn't worth a divorce. Well, you know, there's worse things, Josh. Yeah, that's true. I can't think of any right now, but anyway, Josh, since you're a huge fan of the Fusion, take it away. Yeah, Stealth Cam. I've been using the new Fusion, trying out both AT&T and Verizon. They have both. What's the difference? Nothing. Is there a cost difference?

I found nothing. You pay, you don't have to have any kind of sell plan with Verizon or AT&T. You just buy the camera. Basically, go to the area you want to go to and know if it has better service with AT&T or Verizon. Some of them, it's apples to apples, I guess. But I know there are some areas that just Verizon hits better or AT&T, so you'll want to maybe make sure before that. But they're great. I've enjoyed using them. It's pretty handy. You know, I've got some quite a ways back in that I can't check and would have only been able to check once or twice. But now, I get an hourly text. Anytime something comes by, you can set them up. Whether it'll send you one every time it takes a picture, or twice a day, once a day, or hourly, that's how I have mine set up now. Everything that happens in that hour, it lumps them all together and kicks it off to you.

So, they're great. I've used Stealth Cam. It's probably my favorite cameras out of any of them that I've ever owned since I've started on them on Stealth Cam. Pretty popular around here. Yeah, we've got a few left. Call us up. We've even got some boxes. In the box, there is one thing, if you want to get the fusion camera, I would say consider getting a box. I ran into one on the mountain the other day, and the elk chewed on it, raked on it, something. You know how they're always messing with your cameras anyway? The antenna was laying on the ground with somebody else's camera. It wasn't mine. But I'd definitely, if you want to protect them a little bit, get them one. The box goes up over the antenna. Not only protects them from people, but protects them from just incidental. Yeah, because elk mess with them all the time.

So, anyway. So, on the Fusions, I know a lot of people are intimidated by the setup process and the phone plans and all this. Oh, yeah. And I know years ago, it was difficult. I tried to set one up from a different brand at one point. Yeah. And I was like, this is just, it's garbage. Too much. There's layers and layers of things you have to set up. So, how hard is it to set up a Fusion? It was easy. The only thing I would recommend is doing it at home before you get out in the field,

Just to make sure you have your account all set up. The cool thing about it is, the first 30 days are free, so you get an unlimited amount of pictures sent to you for the first 30 days. So, set it up when you get it home, or while you're in good service at least anyway, before you put it on the mountain. But it's all just done through your phone. You literally turn the button to on. It has some lights that flash that shows you that it's in service. It'll actually take a couple pictures and send them to you immediately, so you can even check and see if your setup looks right.

But yeah, it's easy to set up. You can actually set it up. I can go in now if I want to and say, I can change it on the fly right now, whether I want to only come once a day. If you're getting too many pictures or not enough pictures or whatever and say, I want to get it immediately, I can go on my app right now, hit it immediately. It does wait till the next time frame. If you already have it set up on the next hour, on the next hour when that transmit time comes up, it'll change those settings. Any setting that you can throw video, picture, whatever. I mean, if that bull in there right now with those cows I was talking about earlier, if I wanted to say, I want some video of him, I can switch it to video the next hour when it transmits photos, I'll start getting videos. And switch it from video from your phone, from the app. Yeah, you don't need that to block up.

It's an app. It's actually easier to set up that Fusion than regular cell camera, or just regular trail camera, using the buttons and the menu and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's, they're pretty handy. They're cool. Pretty awesome. Anybody interested, go to StealthCam.com. Of course, you can call us. We sell them. Give us a holler, 435-263-0777. We are slowing down our inventory a little bit. It's right in the middle of the hunting season. There's people that have bought them or are interested in buying them, have generally purchased them by now. Having said that, we do have some AT&T ones in stock, and we can order anything. And we also have regular stealth cams, just the regular non-transmitting cameras. So, anyway, I also want to shout out to RedRock, RedRock Precision, redrockprecision.com. Super good guys producing some of the finest rifles made in the United States.

We appreciate them and their support. Super good people producing a great product. One of the best products. I love my Red Rock. Ashley loves my Red Rock. Jana loves my Red Rock. Everybody wants one, and only one guy gets one. That's me. So, anyway, appreciate them and their support. Go check them out. They've got a lot of different options and very customized. You know, a lot of these gun guys like, you know, this is kind of my cookie-cutter way, and these guys will do whatever you want. Calibers, stocks, barrels, they work with you. So, pretty awesome guys. That gun's probably going to get a workout later this year. It's going to get a workout. The kids are going to work it out. Anyway, not sure it'll be worked out like some people work their guns. Yeah. There's... sometimes there's a pile of brass there. This one's pretty accurate. Anyway, take it away.

Well, speaking of also field judging, oftentimes, sometimes maybe you only get a glimpse of something pretty quick, and we talked about it. If it doesn't... if you didn't get it on film, it didn't happen sort of thing. Go to Phonescope.com and get a Phonescope from Cheston and those guys over there. They have a great product. It goes on and off your phone. They customize it to the phone you have. Anything you need like that, they can help you out. They can have them for GoPros, phones, all kinds of stuff. You know, it's not just for phones. Get something world-class, email it to me. I'll help you feel, Judge. It's true. Jason at EpicOutdoors.com. Locations on. They've actually modified the design of the phone scope in the last year or two. So, if you have an old one, they didn't have the rubber pieces on the corners.

Yeah. So, now, it's a little better. You can get a little bit higher quality, more stable footage. Yeah. Is that what it is? I always thought it was to protect it when I drop it, because I drop it once a day. It has a dual purpose. Yeah. So, it'll protect it when you drop it. It's got a little sticky thing. Like, this thing is a gripper on the back, and when you put it on a table or something, it grips. Like, I keep this phone scope case on all the time. Of course, Chesten, he's no dummy. It says phone scope on it everywhere I go, everywhere you go, everywhere all our friends go. Yeah. And, you know, lots of advertising there, and he's smart by doing it, because actually, this is a pretty bad AK case. Yeah, and they weigh nothing. I mean, you don't, it doesn't have anything to weigh or throw in your pack or whatever.

It's just great. I mean, video and kill shots or just pre-scouting video, something like that, if you need to take video back and judge it back at camp later. And doubles as a phone case. Yeah, exactly. You can check it out, phonescope.com, P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P-E.com. Of course, they also do Pyro Putty, which basically saved Darren Bronson's life and anybody else out there that used it. It's pretty awesome. Go to www.pyroputty.com, P-Y-R-O-P-U-T-T-Y.com. Check it out. It's very affordable. Of course, we got a little surprise coming at you. Maybe even some epic, you know, private labeling going on with these guys. It's a great guy for good people and a product we believe in. So, anyway, go to pyropuddy.com. All right, guys, do we got anything else? This was very impromptu. Chris Short noticed. Chris comes to me and says,

Hey, we need to do a podcast. And I give him that deer in the headlight and look like, leave me alone. I was doing fine today. But anyway, it turned out to be awesome. I think there's a lot of good stuff in this podcast. Yeah. Any app suggestions or anything I need to add to that app? Yeah, hit Josh at EpicOutdoors.com for any dating app. Any dating app suggestions? Probably the last podcast I'll be on. We're right in the programming phase. I just found out about it just barely. Yeah. Sure enough, we've got a project going on. You thought I wasn't doing anything over my office. Exactly. I'm slightly concerned, but hey, this may be the biggest money maker yet. Who knows? You always say, look for the next $500 idea. Yeah, that's right. I'm just trying. Just trying. $500 ideas. You come up with something that makes real money, we'll give you $500.

So, anyway, hey, we'll throw that out to everybody else out there in the world. But, anyway, kind of funny. I don't know. This one appears to be a hit. I think there's something to it. So, alright everybody, good luck out there. Make sure you send your photos. They're starting to come in. Send them to photos, P-H-O-T-O-S, at epicoutdoors.com. Of course, take pictures with your cell phone. Everybody does it. But if you've got a point-and-shoot camera, we did have a point-and-shoot camera article John did an issue or two ago. And I actually read it and went and bought a camera. So, anyway, they do take a little better cameras than your phone does. But hey, we all have a phone, and it's got a Wazoo camera on it. So, worst case scenario, use your phone. Send them in. Photos at EpicOutdoors.com. Good luck!