EP 225: Q&A Part 3, Hunting the West with Epic Outdoors

What do you recommend for Wyoming Elk? Got a bunch of points. Hire an outfitter, DIY, advice. Rifle limited controlled hunts are way different to draw than the archery. People hunt different now than they did 10 years ago. Anything to do with western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson coming at you from Southern Utah. We got the whole crew except for Wyatt. I don't know what he's doing. He's a Grinch right now. He wants to be alone. He's got to work. Well, you know. We got a magazine to the printer. He's not here so we can crush him, right? We got John here. The magazine's the printer. So John and Chris are here. They're giggly. We got Josh. We got Devin. Jason and I. Wyatt, for some reason, thought he had something more important to do than the third in the sequence of three of three Q&As. What's funny about it all is we were waiting for him to get off the phone so we could all come in here. Then we wait and wait and wait. He's like, yeah, I think I'll make some more calls. Which is good. Somebody's got to do it. I'm glad it's not me.

Anyway, as we get started, we want to thank Under Armour. Appreciate them and their support here at Epic Outdoors. Thanks, Under Armour. Go to UA.com. Of course, you want to go to EpicOutdoors.com, download a coupon, get 40% off of UA. Anything on UA.com. Do that fast because those are going to expire at the end of the year. Yeah, they're going to expire. Do you think they'll give us some new ones? I don't know. Bronson, you never know. What are you touching my drink for? I think you've had enough. Well, I mean. I'm just moving it further away. Thank you. I mean, anyway. I'm not even halfway through. I know. But we've started off with a twist stop this morning, and that was a lot. All right. We appreciate Red Rock as well. Red Rock Precision. Super awesome rifles. I use them all the time. Of course, not so much this year. But anyway. You shot your guns in. It was in the truck.

It was in my pack. Packed it all over. It was your constant companion. Yeah, for like 16 states. Anyway, RedRockPrecision.com. Check them out. Incredible rifles. You need a scope to put on it. They'll do it too. But we sell those too. You want something from us? Give us a hauler. We'll make you a deal you can't refuse. But anyway. RedRockPrecision.com. Check out what they'll do. What I really like about Red Rock. They are very, very custom. But they're also customizable to you. There's a lot of these gun guys out there that have got a specific product. They do well with that product. But these guys will do anything. All kinds of calipers. All kinds of different brands and models of scopes. Anything you want to do. So it's kind of cool. So customized, but also customized to you. All right, Brownson. What else do we got? Well, save the date, everybody. February 10th to the 13th, 2022.

Salt Palace Convention Center. Salt Lake City. Western Hunting Conservation Expo. I don't know what year this is. 12, 13, 14. Whatever. Somewhere. 10 plus. But we'll be there again. We've got a great booth there, as always. And look forward to meeting and greeting a lot of you. We're going to have some big animals. Yeah, we're going to have some big animals. We're going to have a big booth, bigger than we've ever had. A bunch of optics there to sell, which is a new addition. We couldn't do that last year in person because they didn't have this expo. But one kind of new cool thing we'll have are tripods, things like that you want to touch and see how they go up and down and all that and how they pan. We can do that right in our booth. That's right. We're going to have plenty of room to do that, to be able to see, hear, feel, taste. No, not taste, but a lot of the other senses.

Somebody's going to be licking the tripod. Who knows? I like it. Here's a pair of binos. Who do you sell me them for? Everything but taste you can do at the Epic Outdoors booth. Cost. All right, here we go. Cost. Get out of here. First person that comes up and says, I just licked your tripod. I'll give you a hat at the expo. Disgusting. Hey, it's like you break it, you buy it, you lick it, you buy it. We're just getting that on the record. I'm also going to be worried if I see somebody sniffing binos. Disgusting. Why are we talking about this? See, hear, and touch. That's all we're doing. You got the mic. Take us out of this. The other two senses better not happen or you better get your checkbook out. All right. Come on. All right. Another sponsor of ours that we have here is Triple S Polaris, great partners of ours, put together an awesome, what do they call them? Side by side. UTVs?

UTVs. I don't know. For us, the Epic Crew, pretty awesome. Got it wrapped with our cool logo. That's what they specialize in is hunting and or play. Play UTVs. Whether you're Sandman, whether you're Rock Climber, whatever. Give Colton on the guy's call. Triple S Polaris. They're based here in southern Utah, but they're willing to talk with you, put something together to meet your needs wherever your riding takes you. 435-865-0100. Triple S Polaris. And you can mention Epic Outdoors ad and get $500 off towards one of your purchases there on a machine. There you go. Yeah. Spend some money here at our optic store and have a little credit with us. Anyway, you might even wrap it with the Epic Wrap. Huh, John? Guy right here does it. Some people have. Yeah. Pretty awesome. Good four-wheelers, too. I want to try one of their three-wheelers, one of them ones that do, they look like they do 120.

But if you wrecked on a three-wheeler, isn't that? Or had a deer going. Josh going up over the mountain in a snowstorm. Yeah. That'd be classic. Be dumb and dumber, freaking goggled out. You'd be locked into neutral, flying.

I don't know. Just something to think about. Kind of made me smile. All right. Well, anyway. And then also, we got Phone Scope. We appreciate them, Chester and the boys. Got a bunch of John, freaking pyro putty, lighters, electric lighters. Ours are coming in. Huh? They're about to arrive. You may have seen the briefing. Somehow they got off the barge. Yeah. Somebody went to work. Somebody paid off Newsome. Anyway. Right? We got some lighters coming. Yeah. Do some backstory on that. You can get lighters, Bronson Howe. Our lighters were, you know, at port for months and months. Floating on a barge. Yeah. But they're here. The Epic Hunt giveaway. You can get a free lighter. We got the $200 package. You get a free dual arc lighter package with a couple little envelopes of fire starters stuffed in the bottom part there. Pretty cool. Should be in every pack. Save your life, kid.

Light somebody up. You can shock them. Whatever. They're nasty. This isn't a taser, Carter. 300 strikes per charge. Somebody's getting lit up. We're going to try it. I don't know. But anyway, you can go to pyroputty.com. Check them out. Phonescope.com. P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P-E.com. So, anyway. Don't spell it correctly. Don't spell it right. We also will have some of those at the Expo, too, if you want to. You might even have a special of some kind. Who knows? Special? We'll see. Depending on the species. Okay. Let's, Bronson, let's jump in. I'll kick us out. Let's do one more ad real quick. Let's talk about ourselves. Okay. I'm going to let you do it. Go ahead. It's that time of year. Everything's kicking off in January. Our January magazine's at the printer. E-Mag will be live within, we'll just say days, John. I don't want to put you on the spot, but within days. Before Christmas.

How about that? Yeah. It's going to be on there. Can we be that bold? I don't know. Before Christmas Day? When do you want to answer the calls? The E-Mag. Tuesday. Oh, the E-Mag's up right now. Whoa. Yeah. Okay. It is. So by the time you listen to this, it's... Turn it off. Dude. Cat's out of the bag. Barely getting my desk clear. Anyway, but it's that time of year. We're planning for actual 2022 hunts. You know, that magazine includes Arizona elk and antelope, as well as Wyoming sheep, moose, goat, bison, and elk. But there's going to be one follow at every roughly 28 to 30 days. And if you've been a podcast listener for days, weeks, months, you know, years, whatever. Get out your billfold and join. This may be the time to get that, to be able to help that use as a tool in narrowing down your application strategy and be able to network with other members of Epic Outdoors once you

draw tags or bounce ideas off one of us consultants. That is a highly used feature of our service in terms of being able to really talk with somebody about Unit X versus Y for your point situation, your personal preferences, what's better, what's worse, why, all that. Are you telling me to apply for Region Y in Wyoming? What are we doing? No. Oh. Did not think I said that. All right. Well, Unit X versus Region Y. Hey, I think you should try it, though. Yeah. Tell me how it is. I would. Anyway. Maybe we'll send Y. Yeah. Let's nominate him. In fact, let's apply him without him knowing. He's got a hunt budget he needs to use. Anyway, it's that time, and we do have, you know, our Epic Membership Drive hunt giveaway going on right now. If you put it off, haven't joined, now's the time to do it. You get an extra ticket in the hat for one of the hunts that we're giving away, a doll

sheep hunt in Alaska, moose hunt in Alaska, Acoma Pueblo elk hunt in New Mexico, Utah mule deer hunt, or Nevada mule deer hunt 231, or Arizona mountain lion hunt. Every one of those that I just read off are 2022 hunts. And we also got a $14,500 optics slash trail camera package as well. So if you put it off, consider joining now before the end of February, before the deadline, and you'll get an entry in that. You can also buy additional entries like we've talked about as well. And there's some, all the details are at epicoutdoors.com or in your January magazine. You'll be able to read more about that. So we're starting to get in a couple stories and photos from guys that we sent on those hunts that have won in the past, and they're just phenomenal. They're just killing themselves. Somebody's going to win them. They're going to be, they're fully paid for. And most of these you can't book.

They're with outfitters that are booked out for two, three years in advance. Right, Devin? If you go book to these guys, you're looking two, three years out from right now to book the same hunts that we bought two or so years ago. Yep. Didn't you sell a hunt for 2025, Devin? A couple of them in the last couple days. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. What species were they? What species were they? I went to Alaska Stone Sheep Moose. Moose. The one I talked to a guy today booked for 2025 for that moose hunt. Come on. He's hoping he wins it, but. Yeah. Well, crazy. Next opening. Kind of the world we're in with the Canadian crunch the last two years. A lot of people not going there. Alaska got the overflow and just crushed outfitters, you know, openings. So anyway. We also have a license application service. Anybody out there needing a little help for us to apply them, you can do that as well.

We charge 50 bucks a state. That's for two species or less. One or two species. A hundred for three or more in that particular state with a 500 cap. $500 cap. That'd be five states, three species. All species anywhere. Six, seven, eight states free. So anyway, check it out. EpicOutdoors.com. We'd love to help you. Similar to, you know, license applications are similar to having an accountant doing your taxes. Like, you're still responsible for the tag fees. Tags and licenses come direct to you and then you get to choose. If you want to hire an outfitter or go self-guided or whatever, they're yours. We're obviously willing to help you find an outfitter and get you started. But anyway, very similar to the accountant. Accountants, you're responsible for your own tax burden. I wish my accountant would pay my taxes, but whatever. All right. Enough of that, Bronson. Good enough.

I do think, though, at some point in time, the podcast should be available to members only. I don't know. Just throwing it out there. No? I can hear gnashing of teeth right now. What does that sound like? I don't know. I can't hear anything. It seems fine to me. All right. Well, we'll move on. What were you going to say, John? You're a fan. No, I was just going to say on the license application, I've talked to a couple guys this week. We do your applications. Have you been happy with us? I've been super happy. All right. Keep going. That have switched over. I mean, there are guys that are capable. It's just like your taxes. You can do it if you take enough time and dig into it. But if you've got somebody that's a good financial advisor and does your taxes well, you're going to get more money back. And with us, you're going to apply for better hunts.

You're going to have somebody to float things off of. You're going to not miss a deadline. That's right. So that's, you know, I talked to a couple guys this week that have missed deadlines and said, I'm totally capable of this. I just get busy. And then same thing with taxes, things change, units change, whatever. Yeah. I got my accountant on speed dial. I know a lot of people got Wyatt on speed dial. You know what I mean? Yeah. And Adam on speed dial. What do we got in store today? Let's crush this last round, I guess we call it, of Q&A. We had a ton of questions you guys sent in. It's been great. We've published two of these, right, Chris? Two of these are out and published. Yep. And this is the third installment going into the Christmas break. So anyway, we're going to pick up where we left off. I'll read this first one and then you guys chime in. So this guy is from Illinois.

He said, how should someone in his early 40s from Illinois with zero points start hunting western big game?

Man. How should you start? You know, a lot of guys, they start with over-the-counter Colorado elk. It seems like we've had a lot of guys from the east. That's their initial. Such a good way to get your feet wet. Yeah. It's close. But you can only go up from there. Yeah. It only gets better. It only gets better. But a lot of guys get started from there because they can come do it. I think a lot of guys, they think they're behind because they don't have points built up. Or I'm so behind in the point game. If you start with a state like New Mexico, you're no different than any of the rest of us putting in. You know, start with a state that doesn't require points. Things like that. Go with New Mexico and Idaho. Something like that. Not that you have just as equal chance as anybody else to get a tag. I think that's a good place to get started, too.

Don't think that every state you're so far behind, it's not worth it. I think there's a lot of guys, too, that if you can just do, they want to go hunting. Like, this guy wants to go hunting. Like, have a plan. Let's get you on a hunt. All the while, you're getting points. You're going to start in Utah. You're going to start in Nevada. You're going to start in Arizona. You're going to start in Wyoming. And Wyoming, it's such an awesome state. I mean, you could draw a general elk tag, you know, two to four years. You're, you know, deer tags and different things, fairly easy. Colorado, we're always saying three to five years, use your points. I mean, that's three to five years from now. Get started. If you have enough of those three to five years, you always have an option about every year that you can command the draw in a certain state.

Because you've always got three to five points ready to go in one state. In the next year, that's a different state. So, that's probably one thing you need to emphasize is that if your trophy expectations are clear to the top and you're starting in your mid-40s or however old you are, it may be a while before you go. That isn't probably the easiest thing to just get your tags right out of the gate. But you're going to have to have some more opportunity, easier to draw tags. And then maybe a couple of states you have in a long-term approach. But there's plenty of ways to get out west, you know, in one to three years. You know, first year sometimes it's tough. But even like I said, you've got fallback options like over-the-counter stuff in, you know, Colorado, Utah to a lesser extent, Idaho, you know, has kind of changed. But you've got options.

So, you've got to, first of all, develop a plan on what species are most important to you, you know, elk, deer, you know, antelope, you know, things like that. And get going. Get started. I agree 100%. Josh, you did a landowner tag in New Mexico. You didn't need any points to do that. Yeah. You know, you didn't even have to apply. Like, you just did it, right? And it's not like, I mean, you did a very affordable one, so to speak. Right. And it wasn't that much, you know, for a good tag. Or there's a few of these states, Nevada, Colorado, they're running a turnback list, first come, first serve. You could spend some time on that and snag one off of there and get a good tag. Devin, why don't you tell us about that? I mean, you had basically no, it didn't matter how many points you had. And you got world-class hunting opportunities on a turnback. Yeah. Three of them. Three times. Okay.

Perfect. Okay. Some of us hate you, but go ahead. Well, that, yeah, I would definitely. I mean, if you have the time, absolutely try that. I mean, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Yeah, you're not going to lose anything. It took your points to zero, but those points didn't help you get a turnback tag. No. And you'd already tried to draw them. And like in the case of Elk, Nevada, like you could try for your whole life and not draw a tag. Yeah. For the tag I had, I probably, I never would have had more than what, a 2% chance, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there it was, yeah. Well, yeah. Anyway, I think that, go ahead. But this is a perfect example of a question that illustrates how a membership can help you. If you're this guy and you have this question, you call in and you talk to one of us, you get a specific answer for you.

And we'll go through the states and decide, okay, what's your short-term, medium, and long-term draw strategies. You list out all the once-in-a-lifetime species that you want. Okay. You start applying for those. You're not going to draw those for 20 years. Then your medium ones, you know, what's going to take you 10 to 15 years to draw? And you start applying for those. Okay. You want to go in the next couple of years. We'll help you, you know, get a plan for this next couple of years. You know, you're going to go over the counter. Might not be world-class hunt. You're going to come. You're going to start. Then, three years down the line, you're going to start drawing some of those medium tags and you're on your way. I think that's where the license application service could help a guy, too. And I'm not even pushing that. Literally could care less.

If this guy applies on his own, more power to him. I'm happy to help him do that. But I'm just saying a lot of guys will start with the license app service and kind of get their feet wet and then take it off, do it themselves after two or three years. That's fine. No big deal. You're not married to us more than a year, you know. And even one point can open. I tell people every day, every point you get every stay, it opens more doors. One point in Wyoming for antelope, it opens a lot of doors. Yeah, it does. Yeah, this conversation, you're going to get your $100 worth in the first 15 minutes you're talking to one of us. Yeah. Just to get your baseline started, you know, of what's important to you, what's your rotational, what's your short-term plans in the next one to three years, and mid and long as well. So I agree. And let's say he says he's in his early 40s.

Let's say you just kind of ignore it because it's frustrating. You don't understand it. Be like me going to Ohio or whatever, Illinois, where he's from. I don't know the first thing about it out there. I mean, you know, I'd have to Google it. I'd have to learn how to spell Illinois first just to get to the DNR website. And I'm just saying, like, it is intimidating. It's intimidating. Totally understand that. But that's what we're here for. Happy to help you. Easy to do. Not a big deal. We didn't visit with you not being a member, you know, for 16 minutes. We move into the 17th minute. We're going to be charging somebody. All right. Well, Bronson, we on to the next one? Yeah. All right. I got that one. Chris, I think this one came in just recently. You got it in red pen. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote that one down. All right. What is your trail camera scouting process for locating a target buck?

How often do you check cameras? Do you spend any time during the day glassing and looking for the buck? Thank you and love the podcast. Bronson? Depends on the area, I would definitely say. There's some places like, you know, arid areas of southern Utah or Nevada, where deer can be very dependent on some of the hot, hot summer months on some of the water sources. And you don't get any monsoons yet. And you can get a pretty good inventory of, okay, there's a buck here that he may be hitting at night 100% of the time. But, yeah, that then focuses where you need to start spending time to see him alive on the hoof and trying to get an idea of, all right, he's drinking every two or three days. Where does he spend the other time? You know, you've got to start broadening that.

But then there's other places in the mountains, Carter, like, you know, whether it be for elk or deer or something like that, that you're sitting them on crossings, little saddles, you know, maybe a wallow that they wander by, but it really doesn't start getting used to the rut or things like that, that more random encounters that just, wow, there's a buck or a bull living here. That, you know, if it's a bull, you're going to start getting closer to September. And if you had an early rifle hunter, muzzleloader hunt late September, that bull that walked by your camera for early August in velvet, you know, tells you he's there, he's somewhere, but, man, he may be 10 miles away during the rut. So it kind of depends on the individual species. But in this case, target buck, I think it also depends on the terrain you're hunting.

If you're mountain and high country, I end up finding probably more of the deer that I end up hunting glassing than I do in the desert. In the desert, I use cameras to narrow my search because it seems like you can glass your eyeballs, we all, until they bleed. You can glass until your eyeballs bleed in the desert sometimes. Jeez, sounds terrible. Well, tell me I'm wrong. Eyeballs are bleeding. Well, I've felt that way before. It's a figurative speech. It's true, though. It's a figurative speech, but, like, if you can at least narrow down, because everything in some of these areas is deer habitat in some of the more semi-arid, drier southern Utah, Nevada. It's like everything's a possibility. And you can't, don't have time to glass it all because you've got an hour in the morning before it starts hitting 90, and then they don't move until a half hour at night. It gets very tight windows.

So that definitely helps. Like I said, a lot of times just glassing is better, and there's a lot of guys that'll, you know, but there are guys that are running trail cameras up high. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, what are they, how are they getting these bucks up high? Like, it's illegal to run on salt. It's illegal to, you know what I mean, bait them, so to speak. And so how are they getting them? Just enough random places or enough repeated places that, you know, where deer cross from feeding to bedding that if I have a camera there for a month and a half, two months, I'm going to get an idea, a buck is going to walk by there in that amount of time. But I find you've got to do, the more groundwork you can do, the better off you'll be. Like just knowing tracks and feeding and just the more groundwork you can do, you're putting cameras in key locations.

You're not just saying, well, I'm just going to go out in Timbuktu and hopefully run a camera and see what I get. Sometimes I do that. Sometimes I do that. But a lot of times it's like, no, I know this area has obviously a lot of tracks. It's got great feed. It's known for it. There's too much water. There's a little history. Yeah, there's too much water to put just on the water. So I've got to find some other likely areas, little saddles, ridgeline crossings, things like that. But then once, you know, then once you get a picture, then sometimes the work starts. Sometimes you don't. Yeah, freaking on. Yeah. Sometimes it's hard to see them with your own two eyes. Now we're running 15 cameras to figure out what he's doing on top of glass. And do we glass in the day? Yeah, we glass in the morning and the evening. I love cameras for the middle of the day. I love doing that.

That's what you do in the middle of the day. Check SD cards. The frequency there probably depends. Middle of the day, you're not harming a whole lot unless you've got a camera in a bedding area or something like that. I know a lot of whitetail hunters are very sensitive about checking cameras, especially pulling SD cards in a whitetail area. And I don't think that we're probably talking about that at Mule Deer as much unless you've got them only in a bedding area because it's just middle of the day. Not going to hurt anything. It doesn't hurt as much. It doesn't feel like the chances of blowing your buck out unless you're really in his bedroom or slim. But I like checking them once a week, but I'm going once every two weeks. Once every two weeks for sure. And then adjusting settings and stuff depending on if cows are pounding it or whatever, 10,000 photos deep.

Getting tipped over with horses or whatever. Yeah. So the more you put into the trail cameras, the more scouting for trail cameras, where to put them, and the more you check them, and the more you tend them and take care of them, and all of those kind of things, the more you're going to get out of it too. It's going to help your scouting. If you just check them once every three months, you're ready to go start hunting. They got tipped over like two months ago. I forgot you had it on only 12-hour mode during the day and not at night. Yeah. Or a battery popped out. One of the batteries popped out. Covered in mud. Oh, yeah. You get bulls wallowing thrashing with mud. You got to clean off the... Somebody painted the lens. Nah. Okay. I don't know, but if you could get on top of that, you'd have a chance to get something. Anyway, Josh, you kind of came to mind. You're running cameras right now.

Yeah. Yeah. Just because. Get one picture a day. That's right. And why? Just, well, I guess. It's a test to see how long they work. It's a new camera, a new solar panel and stuff. During the winter months, too, yeah. How's that solar panel? It's going good. And you've got one near it that's not solar panel. Yeah, it's already dead. How's that one working? It's already dead. It's gone. Really? How long have they been out? I switched it just before, back in September, I think. And that one made it until the first cold snap and it was done for. I haven't had lithium batteries in it. Really? And usually they last longer. That was a... Both are cell cameras? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Same exact. Wide energizers? I love those. Yeah, they were a little silver, lithium, whatever there. So they lasted two, two and a half months or whatever in this one. Yeah, and it was getting quite a bit.

It was, you know, the bulls were... A lot of activity. It was kind of on a wallow, so the bulls were... Elk were hitting it a ton. Santa giving you some more solar options. Yeah, maybe. In your stocking. Maybe. But it's... And now I wish I had a few more because after you use them, you realize how nice they are. You can go put them in a spot and have to worry about going back to them for now. But no, it's nice. I've always used cameras as oftentimes once I glass something, I'll try and get him on camera. I've done that before. Or, you know, I go out and glass when I can and use cameras in the spots where... So you can see what's there at night or during the day. Or the times when you're not glassing, something else is working for you just as an additional tool. It always works. Plus, it's just fun to check them. It's addicting. It is. Gets you out in the hills.

Yeah, it's a great tool to use. Devin, you're not going to get off without talking. You run cameras. I run cameras. It depends on the purpose for me. Like, the first of the year, sometimes I'll blanket stuff to locate a buck. Or if I have a specific buck, it's very specific. Blitz, yeah. So blanket stuff, meaning you're covering a whole unit. Trying to find a buck. Yeah. Or, yeah, just a general area. A splattering. Exactly. But I've actually used them for migration stuff, too. To know, should I hunt high? Are the mature deer gone? Are they low? Are they high? Yeah. You've got the stuff that's, like, closer to home. You can go feasibly, you know, every other week or whatever. What about something that's farther away? Let's say, you know, high country Colorado for us where, you know, your 8 to 10 hour drive. Well, John, you tell us. You went to New Mexico and ran cameras. Yes, I did.

But how did you do? So what I did was I went out early, put up the cameras, and then went early to the hunt, checked them all. After three months? After three months. And? And I found bulls and it was great. Nothing was ripped off? Nothing was ripped off? But I had bear boxes on all of them. Everybody else I talked to that said, all of them get, you know, ripped off. Well, there were tons of cameras that didn't even have locks. No locks. Just bare bones cameras. So anyway. They aren't from Utah. Yeah. Because if you're from Utah, you've learned by sad experience that that doesn't work for long. You don't end up having a bunch of cameras. But doing that, like John did far away, it sets up your expectation. You know what qualities there now. Yeah. You know if you see a bull and pass him, and then you realize that's the biggest one you had all summer. You made a mistake. Better.

So it worked, John. I saw you posted up a bull that you didn't kill. Somebody else killed. Yeah. And you're like, holy crap. Super skilled. So he's writing a story. It's really cool. Yeah, and you're going to throw it in the story. Yeah. It was a picture of 1,400 years ago. That was fun. I love it. No, and I'm wondering, like, let's say Colorado. And let's say you can only use cameras while you're there. How would you do it? You know, how would you do it? Well, certain hunts. You can do it every day. Certain cameras like that, you have to do it every day. If you've got a seven-day hunt, and you've got to reason that deer are on water or whatever, you've got to check them every day in the middle of the day, or it's like, why even put them out in a seven-day hunt at night? I've done it, and it works. You know, there's. I just think it's like what you said, bro. It's a numbers game.

How can I see more deer? Well, I can glass them, and then I can run my cameras, and I can get more deer. And the more deer I see in general, the better chances are of finding a big deer. You know what I mean? Another way to be two places at the same time. Or five places. Or 10. Or 15. Yeah. I like it. I like it. Well, are we good? Chris. Chris is quiet. Chris runs cameras, and nobody even knows about it.

Sometimes not even me, because I forget they're up.

I do that, too. Yeah, you go back the next year, and have lunch on that little rock that I had last year. Oh, yeah. Well, there's my camera from last year. Do you have cameras in Nevada you don't remember, Chris? Not in Nevada. That's a problem. You probably ought to be pulling them down. No. No. I don't run cameras in Nevada, because I only have a tag there like every 12 years. So, no reason to do that. All right. All right. I did just think if they change the laws in Utah, it's going to be days and days that I've got to go pull cameras out of places. Josh, do you want to chime in? What are they proposing in Utah? Might as well while we're on the subject. Yeah. Right now, the Division of Wildlife just recommended basically your cellular cameras and stuff. I think the season would be you couldn't use them for hunting, scouting, those kind of purposes from July 31st to January 31st.

So, it kind of basically covers. But if I want to see squirrel movement, I could put one up. Yeah. Yeah. If you don't use it to hunt. You better not see anything else on it. I mean, you know. If you don't use it to hunt. You got a filter in your email that says, only send me an email picture unless it's a 200-pound animal? I just want to know if squirrels migrate. I'm going to put them on this deer trail and see if my squirrel migrates.

Okie dokie. All right. Keep going. No. That'll be interesting to see. A couple of the RACs, there's a process, basically the public process that these laws and rules go through. RAC is a regional advisory council. Then it goes to a wildlife board, which basically adopts and makes the laws of the state for wildlife. So, that meeting, I think it's January 4th. It'll be a meeting you can go to if you want to have input or listen or whatever. See online. And they're going to be talking about that. A couple of the RACs did talk about going to all cameras, similar to Nevada. Banning them. Yeah. Banning them. And a ban on all trail cameras. After July 31st. And just recommended wireless, you know, your cell cameras. So, it'll be interesting to see what the board does. We'll have to listen to it. Yeah. Barlinson, I want to hear your opinion on the banning of all cameras.

Well, I mean, we've had to deal with that in Nevada, right? We have. And it's okay. I mean, there are certain instances that probably, I mean, we'll use the word saves animals, I guess. I mean, I don't know what to say. Maybe less pressure. Yeah, less pressure, especially during the hunts. Yeah, I think so. Potentially in areas like the Arizona Strip, there are certain places that I think have a lot more pressure on trail camera dependent type resources. Water being key. There's other places that, you know, deer, elk, whatever, in mountainous situations that it's a lot more random occurrence. You know, whether it be feeding, bedding, metals, whatever like that. And so, I mean, if I was the king of Utah, I would say, yeah, whatever. I mean, we are very good here about hunting with whatever weapon.

We have 14,000 different weapons, it feels like, one in every state to be able to use when we have to use that weapon. And we'll adapt and do that. We're not, we realize L states are different. I think we should go back to no scopes on muzzleloaders. Yeah. I mean, there's another one there. So we'll do whatever gets passed. We're not going to be. And a percussion cap. But, I mean, I think that if you want to say, hey, the real-time transmitting cameras feels like it violates some of the, you know, aspects of fair chase or whatever the arguments are. All right. I mean, there are certain times that it's nice to have cameras up throughout the fall and have to pull them all down before July 31st. But, I mean, if they ended up. Especially like John's hike. Yeah. It would be nice to have some bad places. There's some places that I leave up in. That's why the camera's still up there.

There are some places that I leave cameras up for sheep 365 days a year and I don't go back to them until the next year. And they sit there dead for three or four months with no battery life. I think there's one or two out there for years. One that I've remembered. That you recall? I think about it every year and I'm like, no, I'm not going back for that. Ever. That's a Bushnell camera. It's worth about nothing right now. Yeah. And the sun has warped. That lens. It would be funny to see what it looked like, you know, if it melted. If it actually melted in the sun. It probably did. But. Pretty sure. Anyway. So, I mean, yeah. I guess I don't like to see it go away completely in the state of Utah all hunting season long. But, I mean, if that's the way it passes, I'm not going to kick and stream and fight and go hold signs at the Utah State Capitol and pick it and all that.

And say, you know, trail cameras matter or whatever. Trail cam lives matter. Yeah. I'm not going to do that. I think I'm kind of mixed. I like Nevada's rule, but I do think they're a little more water dependent than, say, Utah. Yeah. That's what I think. As a general rule. So, like, for our state, that's what I think is a classic example of what's good for Nevada may not be good for Utah. It may not matter as much in Utah. I don't think we're as relying on them. There are people that are relying on them. I sure just love it. The cellular cams. Josh, you're running them. Like, you haven't killed anything from it. I don't think it's hurt. I don't think it's hurt anything. You still have to physically be there to shoot it, you know? And so it takes. But it does. But you could see where it could make a difference. Oh, yeah.

If you were very diligent in keeping them up to speed and you had them strategically located in good cellular service areas and specific bucks, I could see how somebody could abuse it. Oh, yeah. Having said that, I don't even know anybody that abuses it. You know what I mean? And I guess last year they got rid of baiting in Utah. And I think. But we knew people that abused that. Well, my point is with that, I think the greater impact to some of these deer specifically was that. Trail cameras let you know. If you just have a trail camera running and you can't have it on bait, you can't have a transmitting camera after July 31st, it's back to the way it was forever. Maybe it's okay is what you're saying. Yeah, it feels like that's always been the case, except for now we got transmitting cameras and baiting the last 10 years heavy in Utah.

That's when it feels like things really felt like maybe crossed the line and we really started impacting some of our deer in places that were not otherwise maybe huntable or killable, especially in archery season. And we're all complaining that there's no deer. Yeah. And so then at some point you got to fix something. You got to give up a little bit. So you fix one thing or two things and then everybody's complaining that you didn't fix. Well, what about the long range rifles? What about the range riders? What about the bow hunters? What about the muzzleloader hunts? What about all this? And so you're like, okay, yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe we need to fix everything and just cut it all off. Yeah. But I think what you're saying is at some point we fix the bait, you know, there's no baiting. And as you back off of a few things, you don't have to backslide to everything. Yeah.

There's going to be some positive change just with what's happened so far. Yeah. Just with what's happened so far. Yeah. But. You see it. You know, when good moisture years, you go back to even 15, 16, 17. I can't remember. When did they start doing scopes on muzzleloaders? About 13. Somewhere around there. 14. Anyway. A lot of people were all about it, but deer numbers, honestly, we're good. We're different than now. We had some good wet numbers and everything was good. Everybody was all about it. You get these dry years now. Nobody was really complaining about scopes on muzzleloaders or bait or trail cameras, anything like that. Right. And then you get three or four years of drought like we've had. And then the deer numbers really start to suffer. And then it's like, okay, now it's not just habitat projects or water, things like that.

Maybe something as hunters, we need to try and curtail something we're doing to maybe try and help that, you know, whether it will or not. I don't know. Seems like a lot of harvest statistics and data that it's always just the same no matter what, you know, but you never know. So I don't, I'm personally probably not a fan, like for Utah, I'm personally probably not a fan of eliminating all cameras at any point in the year, but I don't know necessarily why I'm a big advocate of the deer. I love to see, I want to see more 250, 260 bucks live, you know? So, but, but, but having said that, if they, if they do away with it, I'm cool. We'll go with that too. Yeah. Not, not the end of the world. That's the way it is. We'll move on. We'll hunt that way. Just like we have to in other States. But Nevada, I do think I do. Oh, there's no question.

I mean, I pressure deer more when we ran them year round. Like I, I would go check those cameras during the season, middle of the day. What else you doing? You're going to check cameras. And then it gives you the confidence to keep pounding an area. Cause he came in, I watered at night. Like how far can he walk from 5am till 7am? How far can he walk? Keep working guys. Like he's here. Come on, you know? And that's what everybody's doing. And so there was an inordinate amount of pressure due to cameras. I felt like, but having said that again, their state will abide by the rules, whatever they may be. Devin, I know you want to talk. Jump in. I think you guys covered it. You agree? Amen. Can I get an amen? All right. Bronson, I think you had, let's lighten it up a little. I think you had a question possibly sent in by a listener for Chris. Are we there yet?

I was going to save that for a minute. Oh, you can save it. I'll save it. Chris, you have a question that you were going to read that just barely came in. I thought you just read that one. That possibly Josh was going to address. I've actually got two questions. And this one goes, there's actually this next question I was going to read. Keep in mind, I haven't even read it yet. Is maybe dovetailed into the one you're going to read. So I'm going to read this one, and then we're going to read that one. I think they're in some ways very similar. I'm just guessing. We barely heard these questions like 20 minutes ago. Oh, yeah. These aren't anything we've studied on and gone back to Val Geist books or anything like that. Is he alive? I think he passed away this last while. But I don't know. I don't want to even say that. Were they specifically questions for me? No.

Because two, I'm happily married, and yes, my mustache is real.

You're infatuated with your own mustache? You're disgusting. Is there any other questions for me? Holy cow. Do you use the Barrett's beard oil? Do you wax or not? Do you wax or not? Jeff Barrett, tell us. It's Josh, our regular client. Jeff Barrett, please. Let's get him on the phone. I use that stuff all the time. What? You got him? Do you? Not anymore. To shine? Yeah, you got a groomed one. I don't want to talk about it. Why? Does it work? Does the work? Oh, yeah. What don't you want to talk about? I just use the beard, man. It's cold out there, and I go outside in the morning, and my face is cold. Oh, so you miss it. You give yourself nine days, and you're done. If I could have a big beard all the time, I would. Why don't you? Does your wife not a big fan? No, she prefers, yeah. What are you doing then? Why did you shave? I mean, you got to give the skin away.

You got to see the light of day sometimes. I got you. Why? Guys in Alaska are still alive. It was going good. You looked like you had a badger attached to your jowls. You looked like a real man. A badger? No, Josh was just jealous. He's got a mustache. You had a real beard.

Why don't you grow a beard, Josh? I don't know. Your wife? I have to change it up. Well, yeah, because she hates my mustache. She hates it? Oh, yeah. And so that's why you're growing it longer. Wow. He's a jerk. And I'm trying to inspire other men, because you know how many times people say, oh, my wife doesn't let me grow that. Well, neither does mine. But guess what? I have one. Stand up for yourself. Be a man. Be a man. Exactly. Good job. Good for you. How's your marriage? It doesn't get me anyway. Let's give her a call.

Let's talk about the stash. Anyway, what was that question, Chris? I'm going to read this one. Chris will read his. I think they're somewhat similar. So this first question from Jordan says, when I find a mature mule during my summer scouting, I have a hard time finding them the next year. The young bucks seem to stick around and almost follow the same pattern next year, but not the older ones. What can I do different to turn up the older bucks year in and year out? Not perfectly lined up with what Chris said. Chris has maybe to do with younger bucks and how they show up. We're talking about bucks showing back up on summer ranges year after year. Read yours real quick and we'll get into maybe some of both these questions. They say, this one might be a little out in the weeds, but with the radio color info, we know where the fawns are dropped, et cetera, and the does yearly cycle.

So I'd be curious what you guys thoughts are on how the two year old bucks end up in their summer range with their new bachelor group. In our area, the bucks and does don't really summer in the same area, but each year new young bucks show up in the bachelor groups. So, yeah, it happens. I mean, there are places that I never in the summer see does and I always see young bucks show up, two or three year olds. And I'm like, how did they find this? They didn't get born here and their mama brought them back. But there are some, you know, examples of bucks leading other, but I mean, they're bachelor groups, right? At some point, a deer's make a habitual. Yeah. But they're like, I don't, I'm not falling mom anymore. I'm my own man. I'm on my own. I'm going to be with the boys. Yep. That mentality. I think there's places in Nevada down low. There's, it's bucks, man. Nonstop bucks.

But then up high, you got the, what I call the nursery, you know? And what I think he's saying is he's saying, Hey, how does it, the first year he's with mama, but then the next year, where does he know where to go? And how does he know where to go? Oh, Josh, you've done some telemetry stuff. We saw this. We had a cow elk or was supposed to be a cow elk that was caught when we were doing an elk study over on Mount Dutton. Capture crew caught what they thought was a cow elk. Apparently didn't lift the tail. So when we were, we were back doing a survey the following year and there was a spike bull that had a collar. I was like, that's clearly not a cow. And we probably need to get the collar off of it because he's going to grow. That's going to swell. Yeah. It was made for a cow, not a bull. But anyway, when he was a calf, we had the data that was with it.

He stayed with his mom the entire year. When he was a spike, he basically stayed with his mom the entire year. So from the time he was a calf to a yearling, he stayed with his mom. And then the third year when he became a two-year-old, like they're saying, he actually switched and completely moved his whole migration pattern and everything before he was going clear to the Monroe Mountain and then back to the Dutton. And then when he became two years old, he switched and moved over to the boulder in the springtime, which that's what those bulls will do. And I think a lot of it has to do with, and there's been studies done, you can look them up and see, a lot of it just has to do with metabolism of these animals. If you consider the metabolism of a bull elk and metabolism of a cow elk, the different times of the year, obviously during the rut, they're all going to be together.

But the bull has different needs than the cow and vice versa, the fawn, fawn, doe, buck, all of those, they all have different metabolism needs. And then a lot of it also comes back to their survival. So if you have a bull elk that's out there feeding, he needs so many calories a day to survive compared to this cow. And she may need more if she's depends on if she's got a calf or not. So sometimes you'll see dry cows together. I've seen it before and they don't have calves. Or you'll sometimes see a lone cow with a group of bulls. Well, their needs are different. So you're not having a group of elk. You'll see a lot of times they all get up, they feed, they bed together. Same with the bachelor groups of bucks or whatever. They get up, they feed, they bed together. And if you have, here's a buck that he's been up here feeding and he needs to feed 15 minutes longer than the does.

Well, he lays down and as he's laying down, all of a sudden does are starting to stand up. They just don't like that much mix all the time because it also impacts their ability to hide and things like that as well. So there was some studies done by BYU that talked a little bit about their metabolism structure. And that's why I think you'll see why all of a sudden a buck starts to say, well, and I think it probably just naturally happens. I don't think he all of a sudden decides to change and say, okay, I'm a man now. I got to go hang out with these guys. But his hormones or his metabolism needs are driving him to do different stuff. And he'll naturally, I think they just, and this is just my, I guess, guess on it, but he'll just start hanging out with those bucks more because his needs are more curtailed to what those older, more mature bucks do.

So he ends up going off with bucks or other mature bulls than the group of cows and calves feeding off. Sometimes you'll see too, we see like two big deer running together. You know what I mean? They're old. Thunder and Lightning. Five to nine year old. I've named bucks Thunder and Lightning before. And so they're running together and you just wonder, like, I'm wondering, you know, they don't want the three year old giving them away or, you know, dealing with shenanigans. The two point that gets up on his feet 12 times a day to feed when you're, you know. Making poor choices for predation or whatever. And it gives them away. And so I think that has a lot to do with why you see that. As far as the question. And I think, yeah, as far as the young deer together, I think that has a lot to do with it. As a deer matures, they start to know what it's taken to keep them alive more.

A young deer that doesn't figure that out dies. Either by a car, by a lion, by a hunter, by a lot of different things. Utah guy. Yep. Yeah. And you also, I don't know what this specific question Jordan had of, why don't I see the bigger deer? You got to just realize that deer that didn't, you don't think he got killed in October. Well, now you got to go, as they get older, the rigors of just the rut start to put such a much bigger tax on some of these bucks. And what they do to migrate and rut and then just survive the winter and cross highways all winter long or whatever. Like you're saying their needs change. Just because they don't die from a hunter in October, the older they get, they're getting on borrowed time with the amount of pressures that are placed upon them as an older mature deer. Now, I know there's certain cases where you got big deer that they don't rut.

But we're talking about the greater population of mature deer that become more aggressive, move a lot more, rut hard, fight, doing all those things. Crime of life. Yeah. They're just, that's the reason why humans as well as animals, the male of the species have a lower life expectancy. And they're just a lot more placed upon them. So anyway, those are some thoughts. I like it. I wonder too, if in a transition between summer or any, you know, when they migrate, if they will follow older deer to. Learn. They learn. Well, and I think that's partly. Or they just, in the winter, they hang out with older bucks. And then when they transition, they go to a different summer because they followed those bucks. Yeah. I think so. I think that's that switch in their brain as they're growing physically, these younger bucks into more of a mature deer.

They start gravitating to those, you know, either areas to forage or whatever, based on what their, you know, dietary, you know, just like us. When we're craving something, you want something hard. A deer goes the same way. And I think the bucks align themselves coming out of the rut, coming out of the winter as they're maturing. Their physiological needs are more in line with. And so they kind of gravitate to the same feed, same elevation of playing and all that, like Josh was saying. I think just like humans too. I mean, we got a lot of your people, you know, their friends are the same age, got doing the same thing, whatever, raising kids or retired or whatever. You know, and so people just align with similar, what we're doing together. I was up in Wyoming. When do you start regressing? When do we start regressing? Like, when do we start going the other way? We're definitely.

Bronson, you and I hang out together because nobody else wants to. Thunder and lightning. Right now. Nobody else wants to deal with this. Right now we're a lone buck under ledge prone for lying kill. I'm good with that. Kill me and finish me off. I'm getting prone to that. But I'm in Wyoming hunting deer and there were seven forkies running together. And not one of them was a three point. And I'm just like, what? How does this happen? It's the same thing. They feel comfortable around each other. They just feel comfortable, you know? Then once in a while you find a giant with a doe. I don't know why. He's not even rutting. You see that with spike out during the rut lot. And I think they're so scared crapless to get nether. You find one spike, you find three or four. There's three or four sometimes a lot. They're just like, let's just band together. Four of us can beat one big four.

That's right. Strength in numbers. So, anyway. Strength in numbers. I've got another theory after my Colorado hunt this year. Uh-oh. It's that they're just tired of their mama's kicking the crap out of them. Yeah. Did you watch that? I was sitting over a water and it was brutal. Just like every, you know, doe and fawns that came up. I mean, she was teaching them a lesson. If they went to the water too quick, she came and just kicked the crap out of them. And I'm like, this is like child abuse, you know? Turn her in. Yeah. Pretty soon as they're old enough to leave. We'll smoke her.

They're like, get away from mom. All right. All right. We might have addressed this next question. I don't know. But I don't know that we did. Out of all you guys, who would you say has the most patience on a hunt and why? Did we talk about that one? We didn't talk about it. I think we read it, but I don't think we answered it. So. I don't know. Devin, I haven't hunted a lot with Devin and Josh. He feels like a patient person. But he feels like a patient person. Then I was disappointed. He left early in Colorado. I was like, until that happened. But he'd had 14 days just prior to that being patient in Nevada. By myself. And he's a newlywed. And he's been on the road for about three or four months solid. Yeah. So we'll cut him a little slack. But I thought Devin maybe, but Devin or Josh. I will say I'm not. I'm the least patient. I'm not. I'm not going to win that contest.

Well, that would. Being with you guys. When he says most patient, is he saying as far as pulling the trigger or just on a hospital? Just who can have the most patience. Because sometimes I like to kill something. Yeah. I'm there, too. You laid some stuff down this year. Yeah. I laid a couple things down. Chris seems pretty mellow. Yeah. Chris is patient. I don't want to hunt with Chris a lot either. But he feels like probably he's the least, what's the word, eccentric. He doesn't get wound up too much and frustrated and vent. I just don't think it's out loud. Maybe McKenzie would tell us differently. I don't know. Let's get her on the phone. Get her and Josh's wife on the phone. We've got to learn some things. Chris seems really mellow. But maybe, tell me if I'm wrong. Now, Chris, do you view yourself as a patient hunter? Because I think you're a pretty patient person around the office.

I think you're pretty mellow. I do, all right. Sometimes I get frustrated when it's 10 days in. And you're like, I've hiked 3,000 miles. Okay, 10 days says a lot. You've answered my question. 10 days says a lot. 10 straight days, you're the winner. Yes, you're the winner. Wyatt can, or excuse me, Devin can do it, too. Yeah. Wyatt's not patient. I've had to work on that, too, as I got older. You know what I mean? I think we all do. Yeah. When you set your standard to something, and you're going to stick with it or go home. Yeah. And it takes time. When I brown bear hunted, and you guys were blown away, I lasted 20 days. Yeah, this takes the cake. Really blown away when I stayed and extended. Huh? Yeah. No shower for 20 days. You can do something, anything once. Give me some credit. That's the gold medal out right there. Does that define you as a patient person? Give me some credit.

Because you've never done it since. All right, move along. Or move along. And that's a good point. All right. Read the next one, Carter. All right. If you had four points for Wyoming Elk as a non-resident, would you do a general tag, controlled tag with 80% or more wilderness, or hold out for a better controlled tag? Geez. Four points is kind of no man's land, man. Getting close to bighorn stuff. Well, no, about double the weight. I would say, if you're going to quantify that with going on an outfitted hunt and you're totally willing to do that, absolutely go on a general season hunt with four points if you're going outfitted. I agree with that. There's nothing better. That's the most undervalued elk tag in the West, perhaps, with the options of general. We've got 360 and 80 bulls coming from general units. That's right. Not by the numbers, but 300 plus all over the place.

And I would say most of them are in the wilderness where you do not help. Yeah. And I've had guys, I mean, they've said it well, guys that live up there, so points buy you into non-grizzly areas. That's what they do. And less wilderness. That's what points give you. They buy you. It doesn't give you a big bull. No. And public land. More public land. More public with non-wilderness public. That's all. That's something that you can do on your own more. You need a lot more points. The high amount of public land, no grizzlies, no wilderness. Yeah. You need a 124. 30, 31, 124. All those types of units. 45. But if you're willing to hunt backcountry with either non-wilderness, because there's places, look at Reason G. I mean, there's places you can go archery outcunt up there, or even rifle outcunt, non-wilderness. And there's pretty good outnumbers. Yeah. And there's decent outnumbers.

Even down southern stuff that we hunted. Yeah. So I would say there's nothing better than that, really. Quality-wise. With four points. And after four, then where do you get to? You got to get to seven, eight, double the weight. Yeah. Before you. You got to double that. Well, or six-ish, seven-ish, you're starting. Anyway. Yeah. Some of the big ones. Yeah. You've got some options in there. No. Yeah. So anyway, do general. I wouldn't be scared of it. I think, like I say, points buy you out of hunting with grizzlies and wilderness. And I kind of read the next question because I kind of read what I'm talking about. Question for your podcast. What do you – I've never even read these before. What do you recommend for Wyoming Elk? Got a bunch of points. Hire an outfitter, DIY. Advice. Bunch. I wonder what a bunch means. Devin, you probably get a lot of those types of questions.

I think this is where one point opens up a lot of doors. Like, it just depends on what a bunch means. Yeah. Are we talking nine or are we talking – Let's say they got 10 or 12. I mean, Max is 16 this year. Let's say they got 10, 12 plus. It goes back to whoever – you just said that a minute ago. Points buy you self-guided public land opportunities. So they do buy you that. Now, there's a few exceptions to that. You're not going to hunt 58 by yourself with Max points. As a non-resident, you're going to have to hire an outfitter. 59 late. 56 late, you're going to need an outfitter in those backcountry units. But in general – Some guys go self-guided, but you're not getting in. You're not getting in. Well, and I talked to a guy, a member earlier today about this. He had Max, and he was thinking about doing it on his own, but all the big chunks of public, Max, he might have an 8% chance.

Yeah. Or he could have just a good hunt for the same quality bulls for – but if he went guided. And if you're willing to deal with some private, like, say, Unit 7, you could get in. But you're going to have to deal with some things. We've hunted it. I mean, you've got to spot hunt it, so to speak. This spot, that spot, the other spot. Get through some access through private over here, whatever, if you're going to do it self-guided. And you can totally do it self-guided. Totally do it. You're just going to be – it's like Colorado deer. You're going to be working on Onyx quite a bit. You're going to do that if you do it DIY, or you're going to draw a tag every 10 to 20 years. If you do – if you want top-end bulls, we'll just call it 340, 350 plus. Because you're not going to hunt a lot of DIY self-guided elk hunts in Colorado limited entry hunts.

Because they take a lot of points to draw them. I'd say I like the general option. I do. I've seen 340s. Bronson, you have too. I've hunted age. And non-wilderness. I've hunted age. I'm just like, wow. Yeah, I'd take a tag here for elk. I've seen 350 bulls. I've seen it, gee, and then even down in the southern stuff. Right there, two days before the hunt's going to start. I don't know. I just think there's a lot of good options there. These are good questions. And by the way, there's not an exact perfect answer. Depends on if budget is – are you really strapped to spend $65 to $8,500 on Outfitter? $95 or whatever. That's a good chunk of money. There's no question about it. But collectively, for that price, for what you get in Wyoming, there's some great elk hunts. When you compare it to – no, compare it to Utah. Buy a conservation tag and hire a guide. Okay?

You're talking five times that much money. For the same bull. Yeah. People – it's not like it's killing them at 380 or 390 bull. No. It's not. We killed a few of them. But it's not like it once was, 2005, 2003, 2007, whatever. It's not like it once was. All right. What do you all tell customers about multi-state strategies? What state should I be building points for as well as how many points per state is a good starting point? Mostly for elk, but also deer. Somebody. Somebody. Okay. So he's an elk hunter, you know, but maybe adds deer on the side. So I would definitely say start with a New Mexico. No brainer. No points. No points. Everybody's in the same hat. Definitely going to start that one. My next question would be, all right, you like hunting elk. What – where on the trophy spectrum is your criteria? If you say, hey, I'm fine hunting three, you know, 290 to 320 bulls.

Okay, there's a whole lot of states. If you say, hey, I'm only interested in, you know, 350 plus bulls, then I have to say, okay, you know, units like Nevada, Utah, Arizona that have them. Are you willing to pay a couple hundred bucks a year in those states to apply, buy their license to apply it for relatively slim drying odds for 350, 375 bulls? If you're only doing elk, it's hard to – it's hard to justify. Maybe a little harder to justify, but – Then when you say, okay, well, if you want to add deer for 15 bucks in those states because it's easy, add it in Nevada, you know, add it in Utah. That same non-refundable hunting license helping you gain points for other species. You get banged for the buck. That's exactly right. So mostly for elk, you need to kind of dovetail, are you an archery hunter? And what's your trophy criteria?

Because if you are realistic about that, you know, Wyoming, as we just talked about, that's kind of a no-brainer for elk. New Mexico is a no-brainer for elk. So I would put, you know, the Utah, Nevada, Arizona in that no-brainer for elk, but also the fact definitely add other species because if you're going to buy a $150 or $60 hunting license in some of those states, add the sheep or add the antelope or add the deer to get more bang for the buck. Well, I think in this question he's talking about right now, mostly for elk but also deer, in five years he could be like, ah, kind of fix the elk thing. Yeah, I killed five bulls. Now I'm mostly deer. Oh, I wish I'd have gained points for deer. And by the way, I do want to kill a speed goat or truck chaser or whatever. You know what I mean? And so then you're like, well, I wish I'd have gained points in Nevada for antelope.

And so you've got to really think, what do you really want? A, what do you really want? And then B, what do I think I might want? And you can't buy time. You can, you know, I mean, it's not like five years from now if you didn't get your deer and antelope points or you just missed a state altogether because it wasn't worth it for elk alone. And then things change and you're now 45, 50, 55, whatever. Yeah, it makes it tougher to start. So good starting point. No brainer. I think, I mean, this is an investment. To me, hunting is an investment. It's expensive to do anyway. If you love it, you're just going to have to sink some money into it. And it's not the end of the world. It's not really, the non-refundable fees are going to add up, but it's honestly, if you add up what you do in other aspects of your life, it's not that much. So I would add Montana onto that too.

If you're an archery elk hunter, the short interval, whether it be a general or whether you'd be a eastern Montana archery hunt within say four to six years, that's a short interval. No brainer. Montana for archery elk. Rifle for elk. If you're a general hunter, okay, Montana. But rifle limited controlled hunts are way different to draw than the archery. Tougher. But, you know, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, get started those. Then you have to really ask yourself the questions. How much investment do I want to make if you're going to add Arizona, Nevada, Utah? And to me, I'm doing New Mexico, which, you know, we do it. And you and I killed great bulls there. It's a no-brainer, but not a point state. So Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, I mean, no-brainer for me. Montana, no-brainer. I think it's a no-brainer. But, again, we look at it from our perspective, and it's worth it to me.

It's worth it to me to do it. Montana's a twofer. You can do the general. Keep your other points and go back. Get a preference point and do a bonus. Yeah, you can do general twice and get your limited stuff later. Cool, cool. Yeah, I think we covered it. Anybody else have anything, Dad? I think just something to say about going along back to getting a membership. If you go back to, like, our December issue, you know, John came up with a really cool matrix that shows all the stuff you guys just answered. And everything, all that information's in there. So you can, if you want to know what state you need to be doing and all that, it's all in there. You can go through it state by state. And you guys both put your strategies in there. And very helpful to a guy to get a membership. Those are the type of questions right there that get answered by having a membership.

Yeah, you're going to spend $100 to get a membership. I guarantee you the cost savings of applying more wisely in adding a state or deleting a state is going to add up to higher than that every year. Yeah, exactly. $100 is dirt, dude. You can't buy anything for $100. I just fill your tank. Yeah, you can do that in Iowa, but not Utah still. What's gas in Iowa? It's like a buck cheaper. Loaf and jug. Didn't you say they had a loaf and jug or a come and go? Come and go. They got those there. Yeah. Surprise. I don't know how far east they go, but they had them. But I mean, yeah, it was like 80 cents to a dollar cheaper than Utah. Maybe it's the ethanol they're close to and all the corn. I have no idea. It was like freak. Give me that price of gas. But anyway, moving right along. We've kind of talked about this on the post-Colorado and as the Colorado second, third, and fourth

podcast went, but did the hot and dry weather save some bucks in the more migratory units in Colorado? So, Jason wants to ask, and this is not Jason Carter.

I'd like to know, though. Well, I mean, I think. Do you think it did? What's your opinion? I think. Did it save bucks? Some of the units, this is what happened. In my opinion, you guys jump in. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you agree. I'll say yes. I think. I think. Bronson. I think there was bucks that hit the winter range like normal. I think there was bucks in the middle. I think there was bucks up high. If there would have been heavy snow, they'd all be jammed on the winter range. So, we have a spread. They're spread out from one end to the other, and that does not help things. It definitely helps deer. It helps save bucks. It does not help kill bucks. Which I'm glad. It helps save deer. I'm glad about that. But having said all that, we've asked ourselves this, and we asked it on another podcast. Are they there? That's the question I had. Are they there to save? Are they there to save?

We know what the bucks are that got saved. We've been saying that for four or five years. We just don't know the true current situation of these units. Well, maybe we do. I just can't wait until there's a real winter out there. So, we can see really what shows up. Oh, there's going to be some giants. Are they really there? Or are you going to be like, wow, I've been waiting for this. Three more, one 78 bucks. I mean, you know what I mean. There's a 35-incher really there. Eight by eights, triple-eye guards with pipe masks. I mean, I'm just wondering. It's a real question. It is. Because I'm starting to wonder more myself about that. I think we've been dang good at hunting, and I think, guys, when they're spread out, Bronson, you and I have even gotten better at hunting since 2005. We're better at it. And if they're not on the winter range, I'm going middle.

If they're not in the middle, I'm going high. And I understand it more. We all understand it more. I think hunters as a whole have become better educated. The harder that deer have been able to find and kill, the smarter we're getting, and we're thinking about it more year-round. And we're learning from each other with social media and the confidence that so-and-so, and we're talking to each other. We have cell phones now. You know what I mean? Like, there was times when nobody was talking to each other, and so you just kind of, wherever you ended up, you ended up. And now we're knowing, hey, so-and-so's hunting this unit, and they're saying they're seeing stuff at 10,000 feet. Way high. You got to go higher. Go higher. Oh, boom. I smashed a 180 buck. Yeah. Thanks to the Instagram that I saw last night. Yeah. A little something, right? I just wonder, sometimes, hey, tell us. Email us.

Are they there? Are the bucks there? I'd like to know. Did it save some bucks? Yeah. It had to have saved some bucks. It had to have, didn't it? Yeah. But I just wonder what it saved. Did it save the forkies and three-by-twos and three-by-threes and 22-and-a-half-inch four-by-fours with a basal point? And I think that probably happened. I think some of those were saved. And so it can't hurt to have a dry, it can't hurt the deer to have a dry season. But what's there? Anybody else want to jump in? You'd have to drive over there and check the wind range. I'm talking to people, but they're probably lying to me. Yeah. Chris, you said it best. I want you to say what you told me when you said, I remember what it once was, and now I'm seeing what I'm now seeing. Why don't you do that? Yeah. I mean, if you go back 10 years, when I first got into hunting Colorado, it was totally different.

You had a different class of hunters out in the field. When we were hiking, we saw no one. Okay? Fast forward to this year. It doesn't matter where you're at on the unit. You can be in the most remote place. You're seeing people everywhere. Guys are posted on every ridge. There's more effort, it feels like, going through it. People hunt different now than they did 10 years ago. Colorado, for non-residents, is way more popular than it used to be. It's not the same ball game anymore. So, yes, the game has changed completely. And what I think we ought to do is we ought to petition Ben and Crockett to lessen the scores and so we all feel better about ourselves. Like 180 net. It's called Wyatt. Makes the all-time book. Huh? Get Wyatt on the phone. You get a two-oh, three-and-a-half-inch non-typical net, Big Deer should be in the book. What do you think? This reminds me of a song. Come on.

Come on. I don't know, but Chris, tell me if I'm wrong. It resonated perfectly in my mind. I'm like, why haven't we just thought about this before? Toby Keith. Colorado. It ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once. You killed that buck right there. I'm as good once as I ever was. Yeah. So it can happen. Still might as well be there. But it ain't as good as it once was. And I messed up on a buck that. Yeah. I would have killed in 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Jeez, we're old, dude. When you said you'd have shot that buck 10 straight years and now we're in the hardest year of those years, 2021, and you didn't shoot him, it begs the question why. Adam would like to know that answer. Q&A.

Q&A. This isn't for you. You just said you'd kill the deer for all the glory years of Colorado. We're past them. You see that kind of deer now and you don't. A special deer is a breeder buck. I don't want to. Oh. I didn't want to. For the greater good. I see. For the greater good. So they are out there. Hey, the answer is the breeder bucks. Two. There's two. Let the breeder buck breed. Okay. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. A, I think the hot, dry weather saves some. I'm grateful. I'm grateful for that. I think they need a break here and there. We've had hot, dry weather for freaking five years. On behalf of myself and deer hunters everywhere, thank you, Jason, for letting a breeder buck live. I mean it. Genuinely. Did you kill that from my soul? Thank you. You might as well have shot a two-by-three. Accidents happen. No. Take him out of the gene pool. Okay. Here, let's talk about this.

You guys. Ponsagon. Hot, dry weather. We have a management hunt where you can kill three point on one side. Big freaking deer turn to a three point on one side. Tell me I'm wrong. A lot of deer. So much so that the Game and Fish was petitioned to shut down the management hunt. They fought to have the management hunt. Now they're fighting to get it shut down mid-season. Tell me I'm wrong. Because, quote, normal non-management bucks turned into that this year with extreme drought. Which I think teaches us all a lesson, Bronson. In 05, I would not. If you tell me a book typical turns to a three-by-four, I'd have said, I think you are. But we've learned. We've seen collared bucks. We've seen it. And seen them every year. And you know. You get them in your hands. And you know what happens. I think we saw that hunting in Mexico, too. On certain years, we would go. And it was extreme drought.

And there were just everywhere. These ugly junk bucks. Two-by-fours. Chris, you smashed one. Garbage. You smashed a trophy buck in a junk year. I think he got him a junk buck. I think it was a freebie, too. It was a freebie. It was a call buck. Yeah, but he had eight-inch freaking bases or something. He had three basal points on each side that were. Every one was eight to ten inches long. It was disgusting. He should have been charged full price. And he wasn't a stag, right? He wasn't a stag. No. No. This thing's a breeder buck of all breeder bucks.

You're saving him. El Chapo.

El Kingo. So I think you're right, Chris. I think you're right. But then we came back the next year. It was a wet year. And all of a sudden, there's giant bucks everywhere. And what's funny is you can't recognize any of them because we weren't running trail camps back then. You're like, whoa. What happened? Well, they don't even resemble themselves. You grow 50 inches and have a decent frame. Going from Chris's 3x4 with 14-inch. Well, we've seen it in Nevada. We've seen it at lots of places. So I've contended on the Henrys that that was long overdue to wean that out. That manager of the hunt. Because you start shooting two. If you have wet year, six to eight-year-old three-bys. Well, if you have them. But when you're shooting two- and three-year-old three-by somethings that just haven't been able to grow a fourth time yet. So guys can fill their tag. It's a problem.

And then you get years like this. I'm not a big fan of it. Very short periods of time. I don't think that they should just be there forever. I think you can do more harm than the good. And I think on the Henrys, that added up 30 extra bucks a year for 10 years. And we're seeing that. Plus years. Josh, maybe you can jump in on this. You spend a lot of time on the ponds. Jump in on this. Like, what are we seeing up there on the management hunts on a dry year? Well, you think about the reason why those management bucks were – why those hunts were made was because of a surplus of deer. Essentially. It wasn't – didn't have anything with a genetic thing. Yeah. Didn't have to do with anything. How can we kill more bucks that aren't awesome bucks? Right. So that's what the problem – you know, I get – well, I would get a lot of questions or mainly complaints.

Guys were always saying, oh, this whole place is just terrible. I see more three points than anywhere else. Well, a lot of it was because a lot of those bucks are just younger deer. And a guy is going from a general season unit where he may see 15 bucks per hundred dollars. And then he gets his first ponds contact and goes down there. And now he's seeing 40 to 50 bucks per hundred dollars. You're going to have more deer in every age class. So you're going to have a lot of these deer. And a lot of those deer are in that three- to four-year-old range. But I do contend a little bit. I side with them a little bit is they've all saved so many points. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience and they don't want to tag a three-by-four or a three-by-eight or a three-by-six or whatever. And that's what happens is they just – there's so many genetics out there.

And there's different genetics because you have that many more bucks on the landscape. So when it was first initiated, like Bronson was saying, maybe it was – when it was first initiated, it was good, A, for genetics. But like you said, partial reason. But like you say, to take – Old deer that were that way. And it was good because those bucks aren't going to get killed. So it's a good – I mean, a great opportunity. And it's a feel-good thing. Still is if guys could do it. I smashed a seven-year-old that's a three-by on one side on a wet year. He's obviously genetic deficient. Happy to smash him. Yeah. It's a great opportunity for younger kids, older guys. That's who definitely benefit from that hunt. And they can go out there. And if they actually go out and do it right and kill a mature buck that's just an old, ugly deer, it's not hurting. So fast forward 2021. Yeah.

You have two years of drought and it – you run the risk of having – This year, it's a great year to have a management tag because you have whole choices of all the whole world of what you want to kill. They're all mature deer. But they're all bucks that probably shouldn't be getting killed. Yeah. Because they all would have probably been 200-inch. Might have an impact on next year's trophies a little bit. It's not a genetic thing. It's a – Yeah. Just a feed and body condition issue. Yeah. Killing tomorrow's trophies today. Smash them. They're renewable resource. Kill them all. Sounds like a song, Chris. Title it. Rough it up, man. Kill them all. Like it. That's what makes it tough because there's two conditions there that they run the tags off of. One is an age. They want like 50% of the bucks harvested to be over five years old and older.

So in order to get that, you're going to have to have a lot of bucks get that age. So you're going to start to see a lot of weird or different things coming out. But then those bucks aren't getting harvested. And then they use that management buck hunt to kind of try and keep the buck-to-doe ratios down. Yeah. Into the 50 range as well. So that's where that hunt was kind of set up. All right. I like it. All right. Where are we at, Bronson? This is maybe the second to last question. I had another one too. Oh, okay. Is there any way to stop point creep or reduce its effects without sacrificing quality? That's a tough, tough one. Point creep's tough because we just have more and more hunters. And there's just more demand on tags. I mean. On a finite resource. Yeah. So to increase tag numbers to counteract point creep, yeah, there's going to be, it's a tough

balancing app to maintain the quality that you have if you have to increase tags to get more people drawn to help the point creep process. I think some things you could do, though, is like Utah could take some of their elk hunts out of the rut and issue more tags and not hurt the quality and yet get people out. Move them through. That's a good example, in my opinion, of what you could do there. Like New Mexico. Five-day seasons in New Mexico. Could you imagine what the Utah guys would say if we had five-day seasons in November? I don't know where this Sean guy's from, but if he's from Utah, I would say that's like a number one thing you could do to help that. Just season dates. You've also got people that have invested 20 to 25 years into their point system and have not had their chance yet. But you've got to change it at some point. Or not. Or not. Or live with it. And be tough.

They tried to banter back adding 10 more percent to the Utah max point pool this year. Currently, it's a 50-50 split in the bonus point pool. So they wanted to propose going to 60 and then only 40 ran up. But that didn't mend up passing. I don't think that collectively would have done much for point creep. But it, you know. Well, I think there's things too, Bronson. We've talked about this. But you can take like, when we had baiting in Utah, you had non-archers hunting over bait because anybody can shoot a boat at 20 yards. You know what I mean? And so you would have a bait pile and a blind and you would have trophy hunting dudes. You know, wealthy guys or whatever hunting the archery season because they're very vulnerable over bait during that particular season. And they only shoot a bow here in Utah. They don't want to go archery hunting Nevada. You know what I mean?

And so you can take, now we've adjusted that. You increase point creep on some of these archery deer hunts. Even general season archery deer shot up because of the efficacy of that. Now there's going to be less people that want to hunt archery though. Yeah. Yeah. And same thing with like muzzle. Say we went back to a primitive muzzle. Think that drawing odds wouldn't get better? Yeah, they would. Rifle would get worse again. You're going to dang sure want to know that you're happy with a more primitive muzzle. With a 48 or so year old eyes. Idaho's rule. Idaho's rule. Yeah. Colorado. Nobody's tough. I had to get to 41 yards before I felt comfortable just shooting my butt. I mean, I felt like when I slapped the trigger, he was going to die. I did. But that was 38 to 41 yards depending on the class. You have had to go to readers. Reader glasses. Yeah, but that's it.

The older we get, Bronson. That sight is, I'm seeing starbursts on the end of it. That's about 10 to 12 inches in front of me. I don't have a problem out there far. I know, but I'm just saying as we get older. It is. I shot that deer in Nevada at 125 yards open sights. I don't really want to shoot much further. No. I don't. And when I was a kid. Covering up a lot of the animal. Yeah, and I'm shooting on an open sight. But I'm actually, my aim, my point of intact is the top of the ball. So it's not like just put the ball on his chest and pull the trigger. Where at? Is that bullet going to hit? So I'm using the top of the ball. But, dude, I'm not sure I can see the top anymore. I don't know. Things are changing by the year. When I worked for the Division of Wildlife, they made us go through a hunter education class to become an instructor. So I felt like I did my part.

I'd intentionally fail half the class just because I was trying to save point creep. Dude, you caused suicides. Suicides went rampant here, Corey. Just like, let me see your target. Go home. Come back next year. Go home. You suck. I haven't failed. I didn't fail a student in like 10 years. But I thought about it every single time. I'm like, I want to limit my class to five kids because there's going to be a competition for me. That's all you guys are. It's competition for me to draw tags.

Little booger eaters. All right, John. I like. Hey, you and John would get along great. You and John would get along great. The youth of getting sheep tags and awesome tags is disdainful. That is well documented. John doesn't want to issue a youth tag ever. No, no. Yeah, that's true. Little booger eaters. No, no. Elk and deer, but just sheep. I don't think you should be able to draw it before you're 30. No, that is one thing, though. I get a lot of people would complain. You know, you'd get guys would complain because they say, well, kid's never going to draw a tag. My kid can't draw a tag. And then, well, why is there no big bucks? And every kid that turns, every youth should have a free tag every year, you know. And I felt those pains as a dad. Yeah. I want my kids to have a tag. I want them to have a tag on a regular basis. And we've had to go out of state to make that happen.

Yep, exactly. That's just, that's where it gets, it gets tough. You want to see your kids succeed and hunt. But anyway, it's tough if you want quality, too, because not everybody can get a tag every year. Well, what frustrates me, and I know I'm going to ruffle feathers here, if you can't see through the sights, you shouldn't be exempted. And given sights, given a scope. Like in Nevada, there's a, you can, if you have problems with your vision, you can, your eye doctor can help you figure out how to get a scope, legally. And same thing with archery. Oh, I get to use a crossbow now. We know guys that are abusing the rule. They have a, let's call it a traditional bow, and a crossbow, and they can choose day to day what they want to use. Yeah, they got stiff pain that summer to get a crossbow permit. Hey, if you can't pull a bow back, a normal bow, then you're going to not use a bow.

I'm sorry. That's just part of it. Like, if you can't see open sights, maybe you don't. Don't apply for a muzzleloader hunt. In this era, if you want to be a muzzleloader hunter, you can be a muzzleloader. If you can't see, we'll just give you a rifle. That's what I feel like we're moving to, to make sure they can enjoy a muzzleloader season. Can't discriminate, Carter. Yeah. As I get older, my pisses might change. Identify as a scope muzzleloader hunter? Yeah. Or as a muzzleloader hunter, but I've never shot one? That's what I identify as. That's what I feel like we are. You identify as a blind muzzleloader hunter. But I only shoot a rifle. You're going to make a stipulation that allows me to use a rifle. I'm blind. Yeah, but if you can't see to drive a car, they don't give you some. Bingo. That's my point. Bingo. That's my point.

They seize your driver's license at some point, don't they? At some point. There's some people's hunting licenses that should be seized. There's some people's hunting licenses that should be seized. Well, if you can't see to drive, you can't drive. Somebody's glassing you through a rifle scope. Their hunting license should be revoked. If you can't see your sights, then get a rifle, I guess. I know how people feel. They hate me right now. I know that. But I'm just tired of the abuse. What bothers me is I know 30 to 50-year-old guys getting crossbow permits for one year. Or for one particular tag. Yeah. They're holding off surgery. Tell me. We know guys. And if you had a problem, get it fixed and go back to hunting a bow after that. Have some pride. Yeah. We know guys that are getting surgery in August, so they'll go and get a crossbow permit for a particular tag. It's just.

It's not a permanent disability. If it's a permanent disability, that's the intent of it. If you go 100 your whole life and you, I don't know, have a permanent disability. New Mexico's come leaps and bounds on their mobility impaired. They have cracked down on it a lot because there was abuse. Before, it felt like if you were on a high cholesterol statin, you could get a mobility impaired. It felt like that. You'd get tennis elbowing. And I've got a. Dude, I've got an elbow problem right now. I hear you. You too. I do. It's from glassing. And I feel. It's called improper glassing techniques can cause tennis elbow. Yeah, be careful doing that. Do you have a sheet? Or is there any proper technique that I can purchase off you, a technique sheet? I don't know. Tips and tricks. He showed me what he did with this little twist and turn thing. And that looked like that's probably what caused it.

We're at two months now, three months. Oh, dude. I've got this from glassing with a tripod. He does this little. So, last night. And I got a scope on there sometimes so it's even more weight. I wake up in the middle of the night and you know how you sleep on your side and you got an arm out. I have to grab it with my other arm to lift it up. Same here. Because it's asleep? Really time. No. Because of this tendon that runs through my elbow. You can't move it. And it's pain. Major pain. But I'm just saying I don't care. I'll give up bow hunting. If I have to and I can't pull my bow back, I don't think it's right to just start crushing everything. I think it's the abuse. It goes back to the abuse. It goes back to the intent. And we have no big deer so we need to take everything away instead of be realistic about it. And I guess I'm at that point. Let's take everything away then.

There's so much abuse and everybody's abusing it. Let's just take it all away and forget it. You can't shoot a regular bow with 80% lot off. It shouldn't be out there. You have to have a scope muzzleloader. It shouldn't be out there. Use a rifle. If you have to use, you know, again, we're using some of these modern muzzleloaders. You know, if it's legal, it's legal. But I'm just saying if you have to use a brass 9mm shell with primer to get it to go off, maybe. You know what I mean? Like, can we just have a percussion cap? I just seem to have a percussion cap. Go back to Flint. Pretty soon, people like Archibald can nap their own broadheads. He's going to be. You might be sitting on the gold. That's your retirement program. That is what people. When we go back to that. That is what people's argument is. What? What are you saying? We need to go back to broadheads. Where do you stop?

You want to go nap out a broadhead? That's not what I'm saying. I'm going to invest. I'm going to give you $100. Come on. Show us. That way, if we ever have to do that, I will. I am your first client. Is it going to be one of the five that I gave you? Yes. What? You want me to nap your broadheads? I just want, when it comes to that, I want to be the first customer. Nobody gets them until I get them. I paid them first. I'll give you $200 to do that. Because I don't allow. Make me a full arrow. I'll give you $100 per arrow. I still need to finish my bow and try to kill one with it. Yeah. That'd be cool. And then you go back to, that'd be a high wounding probability. That's a problem, yeah. That's not ethical. I'm shooting at 10 feet. Make sure it's got a 7, 8 cutting radius. And you're probably. It's got to be within the specs. Knowing you, you would take it to 12 and wound something.

All right. Well, anyway. Where are we at? Chris, you got one more and then I got one more. Real quick. Chris, we better end this thing. Otherwise, we're going to be two hours and people are missing Christmas. All right. Dinner time. If you had enough points to draw any archery elk tag in Arizona and enough points to draw a 13A or 13B rifle anytime, what units would you apply for? Why and what are you looking for weather-wise to pick a good year to do it? Someone's got some points. There was actually some big bulls taken on this last drought year. It was pretty impressive. Yeah. But I wouldn't have taken a tag this last year. I would have been nervous too, but it ended up being okay. But it's hard to look past the 23s in a good moisture year for the sheer number of tags or the lack thereof, right? For elk. Well, based on the number of tags is what you're saying. That's what I mean.

You can go to 9 or 10, 27, 3, 3-seas, and there's 100. Well, and you can fight for water holes on 9 and 10. But those have 10 to 20 tags on them, and you've got reservation boundaries and bulls coming off of them in wet years. It would be hard to look past those if you could say, I want any tag, right? We know the guys that do in wet years, and they're undoubtedly. You mean on 23 north and south? Yeah, yeah. We know guys that get them in those years, and there's nothing better in Arizona. There isn't. I take a 23 south, but I'm a desert guy, and those freak, freaking giants that that has the potential for. But people argue that about 23 north. It has freak potential, too. And the same years that happens, 10 kills 10 giants, too. It does. So we're not minimizing those others. It just, if you're, you can pick one in a wet year. That's probably what you'd pick. And deer? 13A or B?

I don't remember the question. Versus anything else? Was that the question on 13A or B rifle? Yeah, or when do you know? Well, the luckily thing about deer is you don't have to put it until the, what, second Tuesday in June, Jason? You kind of know. Yeah, second Tuesday in June. By then, it is very clear, usually, stay away or green line. Everybody knew this last year was going to suck, and guess what? It sucked. Yeah. Elk, by the second Tuesday in February, it's not always clear, because from about right then through April is key. February 8th. You know, so. They haven't even shed. No, and you've got to apply. Yeah, so, and that's normal. Most states are kind of like that, but overall, you've got to go with your gut. You better have your point guard on elk. Deer, you can predict it by the second Tuesday in June down in Arizona, and yeah, there's nothing more you want in a wet year.

Name another units that don't produce, that produce more to 10, 20, 30 bucks. 9, 10, 23s. I mean, they're all, there's going to be big bulls, 4As even. Jeez, good grief. There's some great bulls out there. All right, and 13B over 13A, but man, I can't ever forget, there's a year, and anyway, 13A produced so many big deer, and it was like one of those years where it rained, and it pulled them out of the park. There was shoots of green grass. The does came to the green grass. The bucks came to the does, and it was just one of those perfect setup scenarios, and there was absolute freaking monster skill. So anyway, 13B's probably pretty special, 13A's too. All right. Had a question for Chris. This one came in, Chris. Oh, I'd love it. Who, who, did we, this was an anonymous. I don't even know if this is a legit. I don't know if this is legit. This was an anonymous submission.

Where did this come in at? This definitely says anonymous. It says anonymous. That's where it came in from. Where did this question come through? Because I didn't see it come in at any. You don't get all the questions. Sometimes I get questions. I think Wendy took a phone call. A DM. Wendy, Wendy. This came from Wendy. This one was mailed. Yeah, this is a DM. It was a snap. I got a snap. Might have been a TikTok jingle. I don't know. All right. Chris, are you a horse guy, a mule guy, or a mix?

Or a mini mule guy. Okay, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

I didn't even know they made mini mules, Chris. Go ahead. This might have to be edited. No. You can't think of things. We don't get to preview the questions. We read these for the first time and have to answer. Off the cuff. The time is now yours. I sent a text message to John Bear today, and it says, you're a bad influence. I don't know what I've gotten myself into. I remember thinking, John likes them, so maybe I'll try one out. Were you talking about what? Well, half of one. I'm a half-assed mule man now.

So where are we at, Chris? Are you the proud owner of a mini mule? Where are we at? I bought a mini mule.

Did you return it for a full refund? I haven't returned it yet. It's kind of growing on me, so I don't know. Come on. Okay. He's a cute little feller. Just from the biological, how does a mini mule get hatched? Is this a Shetland with a Jenny? It is weird. How do we make them? Seriously. It's kind of like a Coos breeding a mule there. Yeah. It's a pretty cool little animal, but it's about the size of a normal-sized donkey. It's just way thicker. Okay. So it's about this tall, but it's beefy. How do you breed them? Do you take a Shetland and breed it with a donkey? Lots of options. You have miniature donkeys. You do? Yeah. Oh, I don't know. There's miniature donkeys, mini jacks. You also have- Where? All over. I say Shetlands, but I know there's probably other breeds of little horses. There. There's also- Yeah. You also have- Arizona desert? The Pettis, Mississippi.

Miniature horses, ponies. Okay. Okay. So in this case, you have one of those concoctions met up. Uh-huh. What's cool about them, they could probably pack some weight for how big they are. Yeah. Yeah. Like I look at a mini horse and I'm thinking, I ain't going to crush it by jumping on it. So they're about the size of a regular, let's say a jack. A burrow. A male. A jack. That size or more like the female? Like how big are they? I don't know. So they come in all different sizes. So there's one mini jack donkey that my friend has. It's tiny. What does it do? Hey! Carry trapping equipment to the trap site? I got videos. You carry that in a pet carrier in your back seat. You could board an airplane with them. I got videos. Classified as a toy donkey. Can those be classified as an emotional support animal? Yes. Yes. Literally some of them are just. A blind hunter could use one of those.

Some of them you can't ride. They're not riding donkeys. I love it. Go ahead, Josh. Take it away, Josh. Take it away. Chris, that was really good. So you have one of these. You have one of these half-assed donkeys. Yeah. Okay. Have you ridden it yet? No. Or is this only for kids? Have you tried? Is this only for your boys? Yeah, it's for the kids. A hundred pounds or less, maybe? It's big enough that I could ride it. But you're scared of it. No. Is it good and broke? Is it hard-headed? I don't know yet. What made you? Okay, here's the question. What made you say to John Bear what you said to John Bear? Because it's not a horse. It is not a horse. I had it last night, and I tried to lead it up on the concrete. My horses would follow me anywhere. And this little thing, I walk up on the concrete. You're trying to drag it on there. You can't even do it. Yeah, it's like, nope.

It's hard-headed. It's four feet tall at the shoulders, and I can't. You can't. I can't pull that thing in the air. It's locked in, man. I bet they're tough. Gristle ball. Yep. Wide? You said thick? No, yeah. Dude, think about going up in Region G with that sucker up in Wyoming. Some of these. I'd drive one. I don't care if it's. I don't know. You could overload that thing. You feet are dragging on the ground. I bet they didn't pack a whole elk. I don't know about that. But anyway, yeah. Got it for the kids. And the reason I bought this one was because I've been, it was owned by a friend of mine, and I went on a ride with him a couple years ago, and his son rode it. We went up into the wilderness. So it has been ridden. Oh, yeah. It went up into the wilderness, packed his son around, and that thing went anywhere. It'll go through. No shoes, just like most mules. No shoes. No shoes. Yep.

And it'll go anywhere. Or, I don't know, it may be a step up from what my kids are needing right at this moment. In terms of what? Well, it's like having a 50 Honda motorcycle versus a 125 two-stroke. And it's a 125, and they need a 50. Okay. So this little mule is ready to roll. Oh, yeah. I just wonder, are we going to start the epic mule rentals? No. I don't want that kind of liability. I don't want that kind of liability. Can we rent a trailer with it? I don't know, Bronson. We go someplace. It'd be nice to take one of Chris's animals. You make your own LLC that does rentals. I don't want anything to do with it. I don't know anything about horses. I just know that I don't want one. I do know that. Oh, funny stuff. Man, that was a good question. Whoever wrote that in, thank you. I know exactly where that came from. I appreciate you, Anonymous, for that. It's enlightened a lot of people.

Yeah, thank you. That was John because he saw the thing about an hour after I picked it up, and I'm like, I don't know what I just did. John might have mentioned it in passing. I don't know if John knows how to DM, though. I don't know. But this morning I went out there, and I'm like, I kind of like the little fillery. Chris likes things that give him a challenge. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. He does. And then six months later, if you watch him, they follow him around like a little puppy dog. That thing will be worked in around. He'll be eating out of the palm of his hand, and he'll be sleeping at the foot of his bed here at some point. He'll be selling with the Expo right up the middle of it. That's right. Chris, we've got to put a little. Yeah, Jay Clark will have nothing on Chris. We're going to have to put some tarps down at our booth. Rope them off. Pony rights. Round we go.

You get bucked off and you survive. You get an extra prize. I'd be one of those parents who'd be like, throw my kid on there. All right. Well, call it a day. We appreciate this. Everybody that submitted this, we are. Are we done? No more questions. This is it. We'll do it again sometime, months from now, but we appreciate it. You guys had an overwhelming response. It took three podcasts to get through it. Of course, that's with a lot of diversions, distractions, digressions, and everything else. However, we appreciate it. We milk three podcasts out of it for all your listening pleasure. For all your listening. Oh, boy. Anyway, anything else? Want to just, I guess, wish everybody Merry Christmas. I don't know when you're going to get this out, Chris, but probably before Christmas. Yes, before Christmas. Have a great new year.

You know, if you need anything, the Western big game hunting, want to consider our service, give us a call. But what do you want to add to that? EpicOutdoors.com, 435-263-0777. At Epic Outdoors, we help you reach your hunting dreams. Whether it's helping you to develop a long-term application strategy or finding the perfect outfitter for your next hunt. As a member of Epic Outdoors, you'll also receive the Epic Outdoors magazine and have access to the best hunting consultants in the industry, online tools, and more. To join Epic Outdoors, visit EpicOutdoors.com or call 435-263-0777.

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