EP 256: Back from the Field, Talkin' Elk, Mule Deer, and Antelope Hunting

Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour.

Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, the entire Epic Outdoors crew with the exception of Wyatt. Wyatt's been killing stuff, we might have to give him a call. He's, I'm sure he's still on a high, wouldn't you figure, Devin? I haven't seen a pitcher or heard anything, so I don't know, we probably need to talk to him. I haven't seen a pitcher either, we tried to get one, but I don't know, we'll ever see a pitcher. I don't. I'll bet he shot a two point. I guarantee you he shot a two point. He probably doesn't even have a basal point. Sounding more like maybe Shanks the Speed Goat? I don't know. Shanks the Speed Goat. He was getting away? Something like that. Yeah. All right, well, here we are, October 11th, and we're in the office. I don't know why. Today's the deadline, huh, for Arizona bison. And javelina. Javelina, turkey. Things like that. What else? I don't know, some kind of.

Falconry bird of some kind or something, probably. But anyway, tonight, 1159 Arizona time, if you want to get a point for bison or apply, this is now the time frame for the good hunts. Earlier in the year, you can apply for designated bison or a cow bison or a point. And so anyway, you can get two points per year. We've got it all in the magazine. And there'll be guys applying. Of course, we won't be hearing this podcast until after the deadline, but it is on our minds. And we told you. And we told you. It wasn't your first one. You can't say we didn't say it. So anyway, here we are. Devin, you've been killing stuff. Yeah. Devin's got more species than the last. I haven't been in this room since August. Do you feel guilty? A little. He's like, I think I'm out of tags. I think I'm out of tags. I'm running low. You only got one left, personally? Two. Two.

You always forget. Oh, yeah, I got it. There you go. There you go. A couple deer tags. Different species. And I'm saying species deliberately, everybody, just so you know. You don't think it's pronounced species? I don't. All right. Well, anyway, it's kind of a good time of year. There's a lot going on. There's been a lot of big animals taken. We've had an exceptional elk here. Nevada, Arizona, Utah. Just been incredible. Even a few big bulls in Colorado here and there. And Wyoming haven't heard of a ton. Have we heard of? Wyoming, a lot of Wyoming stuff's coming up. Just started the last 10 days for elk. A lot of elk, least rifle. Seemed like a slower rut from what people are telling me. It's hot, just a little slower. But you had a good hunt. Yeah. Arizona archery. A couple good ones. Yeah. Utah and Arizona. Yeah, good hunts. Oh, yeah. Helped your brother here in Utah.

Smash an awesome bull. Just an awesome stud, heavy sucker. Anyway, pretty awesome. So, good time of year. Everybody's been, everybody's kind of out. We are taking care of the office here. We are still open Monday through Thursday, even maybe sometimes on Friday. But generally, we're doing four-day weeks and just hunting a ton. But if you do need anything optics-wise, of course, we're stocked. We've got some new Vortex Fury. Yeah. ABs. Just came in today. A whole bunch of them. Some of them were on a pre-order, I guess you could say. They left the second they came out of the box. They went back into a different box. Out the door. Went out the door. So, yeah, we've got a few of those. Give us a call on that. Got a good deal on those. Pretty awesome. And they have been scarce. Yeah. That's the first ones we've seen. Scarce is not even the right word. They've been not existed. Rarity. Rare.

Yeah. Rare. So, anyway, glad to have them. Anybody wants them, give us a holler. Glad to send them out the door. John, we have a few questions. We've got a little segment sponsored by Vortex where we've got a little question for us. So, the first question is, if you could have only one magnification power of bino for the rest of your life, what would it be and why? One magnification. I'm just wondering if it's all going to be the same for everyone. Well, let's see. Adam, if you could only have one, what would it be? Binos? Yeah, binos. Did I hear it right? Yeah, binos. 12. Okay, 12s. 12s for me, too. I'm similar, and a lot of it is just because. I wouldn't have said that two years ago. No, I wouldn't have said that. No, I would have said 10s. 12s have gotten very popular, and they were kind of like the least popular. 12s and 8s were like very.

I probably would have picked 15s then just because I felt like I used those. More than 10s? I needed them more than 10s, and I would, if you could only pick one, are you going to say 10s the rest of your life? No, I couldn't have said that. Probably not, but I like them. How about my 8s? I love my 8s. Well, pick one. Well, I'm not picking them. They're pretty awesome. We're talking about them. They're pretty awesome. They're awesome. Well, they're good for. They're good for a lot of things. Hey, I was showing them to guys in camp. Good for rabbit hunting. About some five pair. Came away with no money.

Josh? I would say 12. I've fallen in love a little bit. Fallen in love. Okay. Like it. What was the question? Sorry? If you could only have one pair of binals for the rest of your life, what power would you get? Magnification. It'd have to be 12s because you're kind of a hybrid. Yeah. Yeah. Best of both worlds. You can handhold them, but you can put them on a tripod, and you've almost got 15 power. And with the new clarity, let's call it a new clarity. It's just the new technology. It seems like every year things get better and better. Pretty incredible. I'd take that, you know, crisp 12 over a less crisp 15. You know what I mean? Yes. Exactly. They're still state-of-the-art. It's unbelievable. So, all right, John. Moving on. Okay. Yeah, that's it for the Vortex section today. Oh, it is? Well, here's the thing. You want to do some more? Well, we have some other. Well, we have some.

Not from them. But we have some other questions, right? Do we? Oh, all right. Yeah. Josh, I think you got those. We had one guy asked us yesterday, if you were to magically be able to pick residency from whatever state, you could. Just pick it off the wall and just be like, all right, this is what residency you can have. Whether you live there or not, what state is that going to be? Based on my current points, I'd be in Arizona by tomorrow night. I agree. Based on my points. I agree. I'm so. I would have a deer tag next year wherever I have liked. Yeah. Even when we were hunting down there, we talked to some residents. And what's that worth? A lot. And remember that one guy said, I've killed five bulls here in the last 15 years. Yeah. They get to hunt all the time. They hunt all the time. And you got one tag on that 15 years.

I'd probably have a chance to get a dead or sheep tag much more likely. But it's that deer tag that I'm sick of talking about. But here we are talking about it. Then you're going to be a koozie freak. No. Well. Maybe. It was the question, where would you be? I mean, I'd probably leave after I drew. Oh. I think you've got to stay there, don't you? There's certain periods of time. Okay. Well, let's answer that. I'm going to rob the state and leave. Okay. Well, let's answer it from the perspective of if you're going to move somewhere to live for, let's say, the rest of your life. If that may be what he had in mind. Where's your best? You're going to move somewhere. Deer and elk or whatever for hunting purposes. That was his question, John? Yeah, pretty much. It was just which state. And it didn't say if you had to live there, if you could just pick a shelf, residency off

a shelf, what would it be? I'd have to say Colorado or Wyoming probably. And myself from a deer and elk perspective. Because once a lifetime species are still hard to draw everywhere. But I'd say those two would be hard. I agree. Wyoming. Probably Wyoming. Yeah. But elk are good general, even general. And they're deer general. Where can you hunt those two things generally? Colorado, you still have to draw the deer tags. Quality deer, quality elk every year. Yeah. You just don't have pretty lawns up there. They like freezes all the time. Where are you going to live? It's a cold, cold sucker. Let's just say you could still live here in Cedar, your house, but you have a residency somewhere else. You can just drive enough that it makes it legal. Yeah. And your phone enough. I like Nevada. I live, I love Nevada. Yeah, but you still got to draw, though.

And they draw way more frequently than us, but they can't hunt anything every year. I'm talking to those other states to hunt good bulls and good bucks every year with a tag at Walmart. But you can trap bobcats. You can as a non-resident. And you can hunt a Himalayan snowcock whenever you want. Yeah. That's a big deal. I don't know if you know that, but that's a big deal.

To some people that do slams that don't be named by them, upland slams and bird slams and stuff. I'm sure there's a coin you can get for that.

So anyway. We're going down some. What do you guys think? No arguments out of Wyoming or possibly Colorado? Probably not. No. And those people who move from Wyoming and lose their residency, it's like weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. Well, that's the only reason to live there. I've had a couple of hunters this year that they're going to retire there for that reason. Yeah. There's no enterprise. I mean, what's the big city? Wind farms. You know? Yeah. You get the wind farms. I mean, it's just. But the deserts are full of wildlife. That's what I like about Wyoming. It's crazy. You got ducks in the desert. You got foxes. You got foxes. You were just up there. There was animals frolicking. Everywhere. Everywhere. Badgers everywhere. Coyotes. Elk. You name it. How many bucks did you pass up? 152. 148. Killed the 149th. How do you know they were different? 100%. Cookie cutters. Bull.

We never went to the same place twice. Okay.

48 places. Two giant loops.

Wow. That's impressive. I remember I got. That counts like not the fields. We didn't count that. That's in scopes or binoculars. Like you could actually get out and kill them. It was almost exhausting. Yeah. Dang. It was fun. Dang. So tell us a little bit more about that. You took your wife. You took. Yeah. And I told her. I said, besides seeing antelope, I want you to count. Today, we're probably not going to shoot one. And we're not going to shoot one until we hit 50. And the first day, we hit 101. By dark. It was awesome. Jeez. So day two. About four o'clock, she was getting pretty tired. Like, there's one. We got to stop. There's one. Hand me the scope. She's like, my arm hurts from grabbing this thing in the back seat. Now, tell me what the difference would be. When are you going to get excited? He looks pretty good. I'm like, yeah, he looks like the last 70 bucks we've seen.

Yeah. It was fun. So you killed day two? Yeah. The next day. Right before dark. Yep. Oh. You milked two days out of it. That's good. You had your dad and brother come up just on day two? Uh, they got there. Part. Yeah, the. What would have been? Friday night. And you were two or three weeks into the season. So this is not like your hunt just opened. Yeah. This is what, they may have taken, I don't know, hundreds of bucks off your unit already. I think I had four tags that started the same day this tag started, so. You mean four other species? Yes. And states. Deer? States. So. Oh. Yeah. It was last.

So we went. Yeah. I see what you mean. The season had been going for a month before we even got there. That's what I mean. So you're seeing tons of game and like the only one there. And everybody's already shot bucks in line. You've actually got some. Besides elk hunters. Elk hunters. Everyone. I'm talking antelope. Yeah. Everybody. I didn't see anyone that looked like they were looking for antelope. How did, what would they look like if they were looking for antelope? Inside the truck. That's true. Yeah. Not glassing like six miles away. Did they have decoy maybe in the back? Did you ever use a decoy to flick the tail? But granted, you know what's funny is everybody was looking for elk up in the hills and stuff. They're on the sageman. They're out in the antelope flats. Yeah. Frolicking. Frolicking. Bull screaming with like 20 cows. Really?

Antelope all around thinking they're part of the herd. This is exciting. Yeah. These guys are cool. Somebody's getting bred. If they see something, they'll be like. Who is it? Who's it going to be? Yeah. It was funny. Pretty cool place though. Even antelope don't know what they identify as. Yeah. Exactly.

Okay. We're not going down that road or I'm going to get. Janet's going to get mad. We pride ourselves on the ones where we say, you don't even need to edit that one. Oh, I know. And then she listens to them anyway, by the way, after they're published. I try and tell her they're good and she doesn't take my word. I wonder why. I don't know. Probably Logan or somebody is the only one she'd believe. I'm like Janet. She might even think he's dated. Who knows? Might think we're bribing him just to, hey, rubber stamp this thing. Let's move on. Exactly. Well, while we're on the subject to antelope, should we give Wyatt a call and see how his home lives? See how many he had to pass. I don't know if he'll even answer. He will. He's got to be getting close. I bet he's within an hour of home. I can let you talk for a second. I don't know what to say.

Hey. Wait, here it goes.

Hello. What are you doing? Oh, just got home getting cleaned up a little bit. No kidding. Yeah. Well, you're on the Epic Outdoors podcast. Let's hear about it. Podcast, huh? Yeah. Devin told us about his frolicking antelope hunt. We want to hear about yours. Well, frolicking antelope everywhere is how my hunt went. Really? I looked over a lot of bucks. Yeah. Can you beat 149? In two days? I didn't count, but I bet total I was over 500. I probably saw that many on Devin's unit driving home. 500 total antelope? Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, I didn't go 10 minutes yesterday without seeing a different group of antelope. You'd kind of consider them range maggots. I mean, can you imagine what kind of feed they put down? Wow. So you didn't have one of those little silver clickers like Devin had given Miranda to keep track of? No, I had no clicker. Just a guess right there.

It was definitely, definitely hundreds and hundreds of antelope that were roaming around out there on the plains. They need to give more tags. Did you get up there yesterday, Wyatt, and smashed one and drove home today? Like 24 hours ago? Yeah. Sunday night, I drove up there and I got to the area probably around midnight. Just threw out in the back of my truck and woke up the next morning and started glassing. And I mean, I had them glassed up right from my truck the next morning. Jeez. So I spent all day looking over goats. And then last night about an hour before dark, turned up a pretty good one all by itself and snuck in there and shot it. Did a smash and grab? Did a smash and grab, yeah. It ended up being, I ended up making about a 300-yard stalk on it, but I ended up getting the truck within about 200 yards of it. Found a little two-track that took me over there.

So it worked out pretty good. So a quick little run to Wyoming and back. Well, we haven't seen a picture yet, any of us. So what's he look like? Oh, I was pretty solo. Biggest fork at home you've ever seen. So yeah, it was kind of tough to get pictures, but I did get some. He's an average goat, probably a little bit better than an average goat, I guess. Yeah. Mid to upper 70s type goat. Well, yeah, sounds, I mean, I'll make a great one. We're looking forward to the jerky because we're eating jerky that Devin brought in and we have no idea what it is. Yeah, I need to get some recipes and maybe try a few different things out with him, see if we can get him edible. Those things up there, they were rutting hard. I'm sure Devin kind of told you too. They were rutting like crazy and running around. And those things only stopped for about 30 seconds before they tried to run to the next

group of does. Run a buck off. I mean, yeah, they were just running everywhere. It's hard to keep track of them so much. So much just going on. How far of a shot did you have to make? A 350. A 350. What gun did you use? A 6.5 PRC. The new one? The new Fierce I just picked up. Yeah. No way. It worked? It worked. It worked. Yeah. It's good out to 350.

For sure. I haven't really stretched it any further, but yeah, it's good. It's on the board. Good. Yeah. It's got to kill. Good deal. Well. You were telling me you might have led it just a little far. Yeah.

I might have. Okay. All right. But still, it was a one shot, right? Saved a lot of meat. Yeah. One shot. That's all it's all about. Saving that meat, Wyatt. It folded pretty hard. I probably hit a little bit even forward of Devin. Oh, no kidding. Devin was a. Devin about took his head off. What was yours? About five? 500 on the dot. That's what it dialed to anyways. He might have been about 470. Well, range finding them things are hard sometimes. Why can I never have an accurate range? Well, it's a flat antelope country's hard. You need to use the range finder, number one. Well, I did. You can see the video. This is a lot of archery shots, and I'm not so sure. Click it. Click it. Click it. Standard deviation of 60 yards. Josh, you were there. I was 30 yards behind him, and it was so thick, I couldn't even see him half the time. So, I don't know. Me? On the archery elk. Yes.

On the archery elk in Arizona. When there's a bull, and you can see into his eyes. You don't need a range finder. I don't range him. Well, and when he doesn't range him, he doesn't kill him. So, I don't know. It's true. Hey, he's dead, though. Did you? What? I hit mine in the deck. Did you range yours? Because if yours was on the move, Wyatt, what was the range before you got on the gun? Was he moving? Yeah. So, I'd seen him really quick, and he kind of went down into a little divot or ravine wash thing right there. And so, I was sneaking up kind of slowly to the wash and kind of range finding as I was going. So, I just had the wash, and when he came up out of there, he came up kind of running. I don't know what he was running from. If he'd seen me or was just running to find the next group of antelope or what was going on. But he came up out of there.

So, I just got down on the gun and put it on him and pulled the trigger. You didn't range, then. A little in front of him. Yeah, I just think it was .350 is what I had the gun turned to. That's what the wash was. Oh, gosh. Did the whole Devin thing. He's dead, though. You ain't going to kill anything if you don't shoot, right, Wyatt? Yeah, kind of guessed close enough. It worked. It worked. Well, sounds like, so you got the meat on ice. Like, we want to make sure you properly took care of it, because we want a good-tasted antelope in here. Oh, yeah. I had a cooler full of ice right there, and I got it on the ice within a half hour, probably. Well, good. Pretty fast and in the truck, and I'm home. Nice. Okay. Well, you're going to be in the office in about 15, 20 minutes? I might. Just after I get showered up, a few other things cleaned up, I might come check in.

Come and defend your honor.

You boys will probably still be in there. Good chance of it. All right. Well, good. I'm glad it was successful. Did you learn anything else on the way home or check any other units out? Did you see any big bucks while you were out there? Any big bulls? I saw a handful of elk. I saw a handful of mule deer. Just average type mule deer. And lots and lots of antelope. I mean, Wyoming's loaded with them. Geez. Isn't that crazy? Scary to drive at night, huh, Wyatt? Yeah, it is. It's almost like Wyoming people don't drive at night. I swear driving up there, I saw I didn't pass one vehicle in like two hours of driving. No. If you got broke down out there, it'd be a while getting any help. Yeah. That's kind of what I thought. I was going. It's kind of eerie. I thought the next thing that's going to roll up behind me is that truck from the hills has eyes kind of deal. Jeepers Creepers.

That's the one. Jeepers Creepers. I don't know. They've lost me. No one here knows what you're talking about, Wyatt, but I do. Which is scary. Is that back in your college days? No, it's a movie. Jeepers Creepers. Jeepers Creepers. Yeah. A creepy little van that runs people down on the road. Wyatt had bad nightmares for his youth. So Wyatt pulled over immediately in dark. We're too old for that. We're Jeepers Creepers. That's right. Well, it's terrifying. Well, good job, Wyatt. Did you get an ounce of sleep by yourself in the back of that truck, Wyatt? Oh, I sleep really good back there. So I slept there two nights, I guess, now. Do you lock yourself in the camper shell at night? Most nights I leave it up. It's nice to have that little breeze. Just didn't know how jumpy you were. If you and Carly were to ever get in a fight, would you end up out in the camper shell? I might.

It's probably not a bad place to go. Just have that canvas cutter unrolled in there and go. Well. Still haven't had a fight. Can you believe that? It's coming, Wyatt.

I'll let you know. All right, guy. We'll see you in 15. All right. All right. Talk to you later.

I'd love to have been there. I'm not sure how it went down. Would you by yourself? I bet he didn't recover a bullet. You know what I mean? A job or something. I don't know. I just want to see a picture, man. I was just waiting to hear if it was foggy or not. If it was misty fjords or, you know, maybe. I don't know. I guess not. Oh, Josh. Misty fjords. Do we have to vet that out a little more? No. For people that aren't familiar? No, they've already heard the story of shanks. Shanks.

All right. Well, that was good. That's funny. I have to ask Devin a couple things about this Arizona hunt. You were there. Is this the one you were there on? I was there. For a minute. And then you took off. There's some things you were going to tell us that we were saving for the podcast. I'm excited. Well, Devin and I were able to come up with, we came up with a couple potential investment. Is this my genius idea? Yeah. Oh. Because we were wondering what, it was a little bit random, you know, you're out there in the middle of nowhere and we really didn't see that many people. No. But you would come across a tank and there would be a, not a hunting blind there, but just like a brushed in type blind. And so we were trying to think of the etiquette on that first of all. For a brush in? Well, we, you wouldn't put a blind there because there's already one there.

Does the brush have dead leaves on it or is it fresh green? Some dead, some fresh. And we freshened a couple up because it's like, we were going to sit there. But then you never sat there. Never once. But if a guy was showing proper etiquette and didn't go sit there because you. Because now he sees really fresh branches there. You actually screwed him and he was being kind. Well, the plan was, because I'm not patient enough and I didn't want to sit there, we're going to chase bugles. And then sit. And then if they start going to water, I'll race back getting the blind. Yeah. And then I told Josh, I'm like, dude, it'll be just our luck. We'll get there. And somebody will be sitting there. And somebody will be sitting there. Yeah. So we had this, I had this idea. What's, okay. Josh. I know what, I know what you're going to say. It's kind of like when you go to the movies and there's those.

Reserve time. Poster cutouts of like, you know, the rock or something. You're going to get one made of Devin Archibald that just sits over at the blind. A poster. Come on. You're going to take posters of yourself. We were going to call, so my brothers were coming out. We were going to call them and tell them to swing in somewhere.

Vegas or something. I don't know. Oh, come on. What was it called? Did it blow up a bit of the blind? Come on. Come on.

Dude, it would work, right? Because if you come rolling around the corner, we called it an inflatable figurine. Yeah. Come on. Because the men, you put a hat on it. You put a mask. She has a job to do now. She doesn't need to see this one. We're good. I'll let her know we're good. A crash dummy, you know, with a mask on, and then somebody would be like, oh, somebody's in the blind. And then if we have to run back and get in it, you just push the crash dummy over, and you're in. A male version of Annie. Remember your old CPR doll, Annie Annie? You okay? Yeah. She put a hat on. There were two things we had discussed. We were trying to figure out what to name it. I thought maybe the blind buddy would be a good one. Come on. The blind hunter. Yeah. The blind buddy. But then that could take on different connotations. It's not a bad idea.

We also figured, depending on the model that his brothers brought down, we would probably need a face mask because... Come on. What? Face mask. COVID mask. And then if you need hunter-art. You can't roll it around the corner. You're... You can't even say it. And you're side by side. The guy was in a mask.

Golly. You'd probably need a mask. Are you videoing this, Logan? Exactly. Oh, come on. You'd need a mask for it. So, yeah, we're going to have to work on design and some of that kind of stuff. But I think it was a good idea. Because the first night we were there, we did. We went and chased bugles. You guys definitely need to register a patent and get things rolling. Because somebody's going to steal this idea. It's so good. If you guys... If this was your unveiling and you're going to start asking for capital investors, I'm out. This is your Shark Tank moment. This was kind of a Shark Tank. I'm out. I'm out. That's what we were hoping. This never even made Shark Tank TV. I mean, they laughed this right off. Okay. I'll be Mark Cuban right now. I'm out of here. I would take a couple. I'm going to get a pot. Take a couple. Don't make thousands of them. Just make... I like the Montana decoys.

You could buy your Montana decoy and this could be in that package. I'm telling you. If you roll up to a tank and you look over and see a guy with a mask on. A bald head. The wind's looking up. Yeah. The wind's going from side to side. Yeah. And you're like, oh, that guy's in the blind. We're going to go to the next one. A hand that goes up about every five minutes. That's what we were thinking. Like, get some fishing line to the hand tied to a branch so that it's away. As the wind blowing. You could do it on guessing points. And you could have clothing. Like, he could have Hunter Orange. Yeah. Hunter Orange is required. Oh, it's camo. Well, you could dress him. You could put him in whatever. Because one night we beat elk to a water hole and it was unreal. It was awesome. They just piled in there. Is that where this idea came from? Yeah. Like, we want to save our blinds.

Well, then we realized, like, I had three or four blinds with me. We set one up, never sat in it. And the rest already had little blinds made. So, it's like, we fixed most of them or built them. But who? I didn't want to go sit in a blind that somebody. They usually put a note in a bottle. So-and-so and I'm planning on being here for the archery animal. And then if you're an elk hunter, you're like, okay, that's an old noter. Didn't see any of that. But it got tricky because that particular blind had a chair in it. Yeah. But it looked like it was a chair maybe left from somebody's lunch pal. Anyway, we were just. A total waste anyways. We never sat water one time. We were just trying to make it easier for guys so they wouldn't have to worry about their ethics. Would you guys have to blow it? Like, whoo, whoo, whoo. Here comes an arm. Here comes another arm.

This is kind of product design that maybe we were thinking you guys would want to get in on and help with some ideas. You want Epic behind you? Yeah. We're maybe going to grab a decal and slap on the back of its head. I already told you. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. I know a guy that might be interested. Who, Jeff John? Yeah, let's call him. I don't know why he can't do that. Let's just see what he says. He loves inventions. And he hasn't been on the podcast for a minute. Should we give him a holler? Yeah. Is there a reason? Well, I just want to get his opinion. He's not going to answer your call. No, we're good friends. What are you doing, boss? Well, we're hunting. Sitting in a blind. Glass. What are you doing? You're full of shit. Hey, don't swear. This is a podcast. This is a family-friendly podcast. You know how close I came to just launching it off there.

Where are you at? Are you glassing? No, I'm working. Are you in a – What do you think – Well, it just seemed quiet. Are you in some lady's house in a basement? Are you shoveling out of – No. A septic tank? In a crawl space somewhere? I just stepped out of the truck and was walking through a parking lot. Oh. You called. All right. Well, make sure you're talking into the mic. But we've got a really good idea. We just heard Archibald and Pollock had a really dead afternoon on an Arizona elk hunt. And they have some ideas for inventions. And so we wanted – they wanted to run them by you. They're looking – this is like a Shark Tank moment. You're always thinking. I don't know if somebody thinks more than you do about little knick-knack inventions. So we want to run this idea by you and see if you want to be a terrible investor. I'm ready. Not we. Pollock and Archibald.

This is not – this is not our idea. Adam's – I've already told them. Adam's already Shark Tanked out. I've already told them I'm done. And I went and got a drink. And they're politicking the other Shark Tank folks right now. All right. Sweet. All right. I'm in. What are we doing? Okay. We first – it started off by talking about ethics of blinds. And not like a blind somebody has set up. Just a brushed-in type blind over a water hole. There's a fresh brushed-in blind, Jeff, that's green. Got green greenery. Do you feel like you could sit in it, even if it's empty? You know what I mean? Ooh. Like, it's obvious that a previous hunter – The weak predator. But it's been there for years. Yeah. It's a common blind, but it's fresh. Every year, new greenery gets freshened up to it. Yeah, not – the way I see it, if no one's there – No one's there. I mean, that's what – first one there, that's the –

There's some UFC fighters that live in Arizona that would be like, ah, hey, get out of my blind. Well, that's the thing is I think it would be obvious that I – I mean, yeah, somebody's working it hard. But if they're working it hard, they would already be there. They could be home. They could have killed their elk and be home. So you don't – Or – Or – Go ahead, Devin. Or now here's the plan. So, Jeff, we spruce up this little blind on a water hole, and then we leave because we want to chase bugles, right? Right. But the elk, if they go back that way, I'm going to beat them, and I'm going to crawl in the little blind and wave the last 20 minutes of light. Want that blind reserved. But I want – yeah, like, we just fixed it, and so we just had the idea to just have a – what was it, Josh? A blind buddy. An inflatable figurine. Or a blind buddy. A blow-up. Jeff, a blow-up doll.

That's a blow-up doll. A blind buddy. Jan is making us call it an inflatable figurine. I think it'll be more like the blind dummy. I think it'll be more like the blind dummy. I think it's not good. I think it'll be more like the blind dummy. Hey, put a hat and a mask on it, tie its hand up to a tree, and it waves in the wind. Yeah. Put hunter orange on it if it's hunter orange needed, or it could be full camo. What do you think? I mean – Oh, that's hilarious. Montana decoys. You could get your antelope decoy, your elk decoy, and a figurine. Just keep your silhouette up there. And your blind hunter. And your blind hunter. You've got to send them a full front row view, and they'll make a figurine match. What do you think, Jeff? That's hilarious. I think it's great. I think it's a winner. I think it's a winner. You would buy one? No, I wouldn't. I was going to say, that's three.

Because Josh has got a couple of inflatables he can sell you. Because I'm not an archery hunter. I actually like killing stuff.

Oh, good point. Well, we've told Devin, you've got to range find him. If you're going to kill him, you've got to range find him. Oh, yeah. Yeah, those are sore spots, man. But you know what? Devin is – he's going to start a mobile butcher shop this year. Oh, I know. With all the stuff he's put on the ground. Yeah. Oh, I couldn't agree. We tease him, but he's about gotten a North America 29 this year. Yeah. Which is funny because I think he took half of Cedar City with him to Wyoming to chase a freaking antelope is what the pictures look like. Oh, that's just half my family's.

I was like – For the packout. If you were hiring guides in Utah, that'd be illegal, Devin. Yeah, we were. We had four of us. He's done. He probably bought them dinner to go up there, and that's probably too much, of course, in Utah now. That's just too much to go to. Don't incriminate yourself. I mean, I bought my wife dinner, so – She owes you. Yeah. She owes you. She was stuck to a $25 limit. That's right. Taco Bell. Hey. The value meal. Anything over Taco Bell is a waste. Is there any other, like, important things you guys are talking about today? What do we got going? I mean, I'm shocked that there's four of you in the office. Well, that's the only reason we're in here is we are all in here. We're talking – I don't know about the hunts. You've been on some hunts. How's it been going this year? No. Well, I got my butt kicked on the elk hunts. That was a bummer, but that's all right.

We still had fun. I think it was by choice. You guys were picky. You guys were picky, right? Yeah, we were a little picky. We could have laid down bulls. But, you know, when you draw the limited entry tag in Utah for elk and, you know, you want to be a little picky, but maybe we were too picky. But, I mean, we really weren't. You know, it was a fun hunt. We got to chase bugling bulls, and that's what we were after. So, yeah. Yeah. It was a good time. And it was with the kids. It was awesome. Yes. Your kids are growing like crazy. They're getting old. Oh, my heck. Yep. It's true. That's all true. I love it. How about Cason going back down and trekking halfway across the state or more on his own? And blowing a tire. We're still trying to fix all the broken parts. Blew a tire and kept driving. Blown out tires and all that stuff. Didn't have a spare. Spare was gone. And then they called Jeff.

The cable has just snapped. Oh, I've had that. So, I have no idea where the spares are. So, then they're calling and saying, Dad, come get us. Oh, you're 400 miles away. You know, you're driving down the road and you see those spare tires laying off the side of the road. You grab every one of them. What's going on with that? Grab every one. Why did somebody just lose his spare tire? Well, I get it now. I totally get it. There's always a place of origin for that spare tire. Start of the vehicle. Those cables break. Yep. That's what I figured. Did you get the truck back? Oh, yeah. We got her back. I went down and did a drive down after work one night and then drive back, you know, drive back home the next morning and then try to go to work afterward. Jeez. Yeah, that was always an adventure. Still suffering. You know? Yeah. That's fun. Well, Jeff, give us a northern Utah mule deer report.

Like, what you're thinking this year's like compared to past years or whatnot. You know, I would say in northern Utah, I would say horn growth is probably average. I wouldn't say it's really good. I wouldn't say it's bad. I would say we're average. The deer, I've cut up five deer so far this year and every one of them had fat. Not as much fat as you would see later on. And they, you know, they just weren't, they just weren't roly fat like you'd like to see them. But they did have good fat along, you know, across their hinds section and whatnot. So, you know, I would say they're, it's, it's average, you know, not great, but average, which is good because we are still in, relatively, we're still in a drought, right? So, you know, I would say we had some good rainstorms that bailed us out. You know, I always say you got to have two good rainstorms in June for deer.

And, you know, we got those just, they weren't quite heavy enough and they were a little spotty, but to be good. So. Sounds like southern Utah. I mean, better than last couple of years for sure down here, but. You ever seen a deer? But they're actually fat down here. Yeah, I think we got some. Our deer are way fatter because of the monsoons. Yeah, they didn't get up there. Didn't do as much for the antlers by then, but they are, they're roly-poly. I saw a buck so fat this year, it kind of wigged me out a little. Yeah, well, I mean, down on, you know, down there by Moab, holy cow. I've never seen green like that in anywhere down. It was just amazing, amazing. It is. And it's got the animals spread out. There's been, you know, tougher hunting conditions, actually. Yeah. Well, they can live anywhere. I mean, there's enough, there's enough moisture in that feed that they're, I mean, they're.

They're not, they're not hunting water. They're not hunting feed. They're just existing. Make it tough. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes you see those fawns and they, you know, you see a few ones that you're like, oh, that one's still got, you know, especially there at the end of September, you know, and you're like, you're seeing fawns and occasionally you'll see one with just, you can tell they got a little bit of spot left and whatnot. That's non-existent this year. Those fawns down there are freaking healthy. They're going to have a great crop. So. I like it. Well, can these guys count on your hundred grand for a startup on this blow up, buddy? That's a hard pass. Wow. You were so into it. I'm going to go. You just want Josh's freebies right here that he's already got. If it ever took off, people to get shot with arrows thinking they're blind buddies would not be good. Oh, man.

Can you imagine? Like, like we all need one more reason to be hated in the hunting world. You know what I mean? And when you're out there and somebody's in your blind. Oh, no, I wasn't in your blind. That was my dummy. That was my blow up, doll. That was my mannequin. Sorry.

Oh, geez. Oh, wow. Well. Okay. All right. Well, sorry, Pollock and March of Ball. We're still hunting. We're still hunting for an investor. We're still hunting for somebody that's looking to throw somebody. I only wanted to get one of them. That was it. That was the idea. Not start an enterprise. If you had an idiot and you thought you found anybody. No. We were just wondering your opinion and then if you'd have enough excitement to keep it going. Now, Jeff. Oh, that's awesome. Jeff, you could use it for others. I got a septic tape. There you go. There you go. What's that, Jeff? All right, Filler. Wait, Jeff. You could use the blind buddy on your property. What? Out of three? Jeff. Jeff. Yes. We could put a gun in its arms and put it on your property. Oh, it would keep people out of there. That's not a bad idea. Yeah. Yeah. See? He's in. Hey, he's in. Yeah, that's not a bad idea.

Put a squirt gun, an AR squirt gun. Yeah. I don't know. Squirt a gun. Gilly suit him? Yeah. There you go. Prone him out. Hey, this is a lot of uses. We keep going and we really got something here. There you go. Somebody's going to steal your idea now. You're putting it out on the podcast now. All right. All right, guys. K sounds good. Talk to you later. Be good. Catch that. Yeah. Thanks. There is another one. What? But we'll wait to call Jeff on that one, too. It's kind of another situation I'd ran into while helping Adam over on the Ponce. I do not know where this is going. Yeah. I know where this is going. Oh, no.

Bronson, what happened on the Ponce? I have no idea where we're going. I thought that was a squeaky clean hunt. We only hunted 48 hours. I don't know. It was. I just felt like maybe there was a situation with one of your spotters that may. Did he blow the spotting? You gave him one job and he blew it. I haven't heard him finish this question. I still don't know where we're going. I happened to be there with, I would say, Adam Spotter. His first letter, G, and last part of it ends with Airy.

So we'll blame it on Gary. But I think he had lost the Bucs at one point, maybe.

That's a problem. So I was just thinking, at what point could the Bucs have gotten lost? And it could have been while maybe we were going to the bushes or something, you know, to take care of ourselves. Oh, yeah. Well, stuff can happen. Yeah. So that's what I was just thinking was maybe another invention. I don't know. We could call it the glass cath or I don't know. Something. The what? Come on. The glass catheter.

So you don't have to leave the glass. You never have to leave. Your eyes never have to leave the deer. At one point during this hunt, at about 10 hours into- They call those Gatorade bottles. They call them Gatorade bottles. I was going to say, they have a sheepy thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, but he likes the idea of a catheter. I have a feeling Josh likes it. The problem was there was two of us at some point, and I don't feel that comfortable with you and I together this close doing certain things. Oh, I see what you're saying. So if, say, I just had a hose running down my pant leg and out into the bushes, you'd never know, and we'd just be talking about what's going on. Oh, does anybody like getting a catheter put in? Has anybody had one put in? I mean, come on. Let's change the subject. Anyway. I'm going to take some Advil.

I'm going to take Advil right now, just because I'm starting to feel like I'm going to get hurt. I'm starting to feel achy. Yeah. I'm starting to feel achy. Just put me out. Anyway. Just put me out. Just a couple things that I think maybe could have helped the hunts this year, because at one point, I had lost a buck. There were about six and a half hours there of heavy investment. Stale. Heavy investment that you were in a killing. We were in a killing distance, 250 to 280, and we see flashes of one buck that's with the buck we're trying to kill. And we can't find the buck we're trying to kill. Like, and my kid, he's trying, he wants to kill it at that point, because after six hours, you're pretty boy. That's a three by two. He's looking pretty good. It was a pretty big buck. It was a good buck. Yeah. But it was not the other one. I'm like, he's going to step out any second. Well, he did.

But he's about 600 yards. And my spotters, who are the best in the business, had blown it.

I would say it must have been a coyote or something. Yeah. I don't know how it happened. And I, and I, hey. And my eyes never left the deer. Okay. Well, how did it end up 600 yards away? Those are questions. In their defense, you could not see the deer in its bed. That's right. So you get tunnel vision to a 20-yard section. If that deer leaks out of that peripheral, you're done. Yeah. Because you're honed in right here. So you can feel a little better. Yeah. And I was there all for about an hour, hour and a half. I did a stock for probably the hour and a half to get that close. And then I was right there, too. So I'm to blame as much as them. So it's not like. But it kind of is a rookie mistake.

Oh, I know. Josh, what vinyl do you use it? What? Were you using the kit vinyls? Whatever he had on these. He stopped and got some cascos. I don't know. Gary brought some up. Whatever he had. Whatever he had at the car care center. Let's slap them on. They're really good. Yeah. Whatever he had at the Sinclair. Everybody had. The glass. Let's put this for the glass. It wasn't the problem. The glass was not the problem. It was pretty crazy, though, watching those bucks. Because the one buck that he was with, that deer got up and bedded. Five times. Five at least. Or more. We saw him every hour, within every 30 minutes to an hour. You guys had to have been thinking, like, something's not right. Well, at some point, I'm like, how is he holding this tight when the other one's up and down? After you're done, after you're done, it made sense later. Like, he wasn't ever there.

That's why we never saw him. Never there. But it was just crazy. He did some weird things. At one point, he got up like he had winded us or blown. Something had spooked him. Because he had just kind of walked around. And it was in some mahogany. And he had gone behind it. So we're like, okay, that's the last time we saw him. So you just leave the binoculars there. And it was possible he kept feeding and moving. And he was always over there. Yeah. Maybe he made his way over there. Oh, at some point he did. And never did bed right where you were looking. Exactly. But this was the other buck. And all of a sudden, he came shooting out from those mahogany's, like, on a hard trot. And ran, like, 25 yards. And then just dove straight to the ground. And just plopped down. Didn't paw or nothing. Didn't paw. Didn't stop and feed. Something. It was the weirdest thing.

And then he just stopped and turned from the direction that he looked. And he just sat there. So anyway, it was pretty interesting to just sit there and watch a deer all day long. Yeah. I wonder if, like, that moment, maybe those other deer blew. Yeah. And he heard him but didn't know, like, I'm just going to lay down. I don't know what they're running from. And two hours later, he got up. And maybe in. That could have been when that happened. I don't know. But I just happened to sit back for a minute. Because it was prime time. That other buck had gotten out. And he was starting to feed across the flat. Any second, this other buck's coming up. And I got out of the glass for a second and leaned up. And I look. And here's this buck coming down the ridge over there, 600 yards. Out in the sunlight with the naked eye, you could see a 30-inch track. I mean, it's just glowing in the sun.

I've got questions. Glowing in the sun. No. He said where it wasn't. I looked up there. And I'm like, OK. Yeah. Yeah. The best part when Gary goes, you tell Adam. You tell Adam. You tell Adam. I'm not. Because I'm like, Gary, I think I got that freaking buck. And he's like, what buck? I'm like, the buck we're glassing for. Where? I'm like, clear out by the fence. And he's like, no. And I hurried and grabbed my BTX and put them up. I'm like, that's him. And he's just like, you tell Adam.

Gary. I love it. I love it. Excuse me, sir. There's a beer. There's been a family emergency. Gary and I are no longer going to be able to stay on the knob. Gary flumped up here. And he's headed home. But I've got you. I've got you. This phone's beeping. I'm losing battery. Good luck the rest of the night. We'll see you tomorrow morning. Look 600 yards ahead of you. I'm out.

Hey, Ben. You spotted for me one day. Spotted for Adam one day. Two dead bucks. That's true. Josh was there a few days. Well, you haven't spotted for me. I haven't been invited. That's not true. You also are a little smarter. I looked up and Josh had one eye in binoculars, one eye in a scope, and he was filming at the same time. Come on. Come on. That might be how this happened. There's a coyote coming in from the east. There's 20 does to your left. The bucks are grouped. They're moving this way. And he's all over it. Next thing you know, there's just a herd of like 30 deer. He was all over it. He's like a dispatch. I love it. Call you the dispatch. I did tell him the story about that owl. A little bit. Oh, yeah. Oh, on the podcast. That was so long ago. I totally forgot about that. But I think they need to hear your vision. Your version. At my camp. All night.

I hate that when they do that. The night before the muzzleloader hunt, me and Josh are there. It's almost dark. You may have already told this. I didn't elaborate too much. This thing comes. We hear this just. And it come out like looked right into my eyes. Soul. Your soul in your eyes. They can fly a certain direction and look out the side. He was flying past us. And he just looked. And they got those big yellow eyes. He looked into his eyes. And I was like, Josh, that's that pterodactyl owl. And it goes out. And we have it on video. Goes out. Comes back. And flies right at us. And then it tails off at like 10 yards. And it's just. I'm just looking into this thing. He's like soul. It was weird. It was like a weird. They're meat eaters. He's looking for flesh. He's looking for an ailment of some sort. I don't know. I felt like he was just like, hi, man. Because I've been living there.

Oh, you think he was just. I slept under his nest for 11 days. So you think he's just saying hi? I don't know. It was just. He's imprinted. He thinks you're one of his young. There was a connection there. He was communicating something with us. He was communicating something. Dude, you should have been there. He's coming over there ready to regurgitate some jackraps. And then it just went. And it was gone. Headed to camp. I think he was there to tell us you boys are doing the right thing. That's what it felt like. Come on. He was. The deer's going to be dead in the morning. And he was. We saw a cool owl one night driving back to camp over there on the ponds. And we stopped and videoed it. Anyway, it was really cool. Stood on the main forest service sign. We pulled that. It was like here to the door. Woodsy. Huh? Woodsy. Woodsy the owl. Yeah. But anyway, it was awesome.

You don't see him like that. Yeah. One of our guys showed up at sheep camp six in the morning down there in the desert. We're all Aaron. Aaron and Wayne were down there making plans. Senator. But he looks at the grill and is like, what's out of your grill? Walks over there. There's a wing and a talon sticking out of the freaking grill. They pull out this freaking owl. Out of the grill of the truck. Out of the truck. He's like, oh, I thought we missed that. No. They'll take out your grill. They're no joke. Jeez. All right. Good old Mike. Mike might need a new grill. All right. Let's. All right. Well, let's. John. I'm done. Those are my only contributions. I don't know where. So I'm done. Well, I mean, are we going to talk about Triple S? Isn't Triple S down for like shoot, shovel, and shut up? Shut up. I love those guys. We shouldn't. We shouldn't.

We shouldn't talk about that right after we talk about owls. No. No. It's no. We're not transitioning to that. Or Devin's wild horse meat that he fed us today. I am his burrow. But anyway. His burrow. Wendy really likes it. We told her it was wild burrow. That she was not such a fan. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think she trusts us for some reason. I wonder. I wonder why. Anyway, these guys. I mean, that's the best name in the world. We should definitely support them, John. Yeah. Let's give a shout out to Triple S Polaris.

Jason's been running our machine really hard. Not by choice. By choice. I like it. What do you mean? One of my other ones is in the shop. I've had no choice. I was grateful it was available. Yeah. Like, anyway. Keep going. Well, tell us about. At one point, you were telling a story, and you said, normally, for a normal side-by-side, you've got to winch out of a certain place. Yeah. I mean, there's some places. Well, it's nice. So, the big question, like, do you go with the Wazoo, you know, Razor, fast Razor type, or do you grab a Ranger or something that's. . . And there's good applications for both. The nice thing about this, I mean, you can. . . You step on it like you're going to get somewhere, and you're probably not going to get stuck. And there's places that you would get stuck in a normal machine, like a normal hunting rig. Our rig, this is built. It's built. He geared it down.

It's got the travel and suspension and the clearance and the speed. And you can check a lot of cameras and run a lot of miles in a day. But then, you know. . . Yeah. It depends. It depends on your application. Yeah. 33-inch tires. Yeah. Colton knows how to build them custom for hunting. And so, if you're in the market, support the guys who support us. Call Colton at 435-865-0100. And who doesn't want to buy from a company that's named Triple S? Seriously. Huh? It's the best. Protect the game. Triple S. They're based in southern Utah, but they'll ship and do the new stuff anywhere. Nationwide. They will. So. Another shout-out we want to give to the folks. Kenna Trek boots.

Mine are a little bit stinky because you get this time of year. You're running hard. They're ripe. Let's just put it up. But, hey, they work great. And, anyway, mine rode in the back of my truck the whole way home from sheep hunting for four days because I'm not going to have them inside my cab. And you're not going to keep wearing them when you're in the cab. That's right. But, anyway, awesome. Awesome boots. Got a big assortment. Whether you're looking for hiking boots, insulated, non-insulated. Waterproof membrane or not. Pack boots for later on in the year, which we're starting to get closer that time of year. Look them up online at KennaTrek.com. K-E-N-E-T-R-E-K.com. They've got socials, Facebook, Instagram as well. Probably no need to call them until you're ready to order, but just go to KennaTrek.com.

Look out their different assortment of boots that they've got there for your application that you're looking for. Good people. And they're hunters. They're awesome guys. Jim, Benjamin, and his crew. Let's talk a little bit about our license application service. You know, it's that kind of time of year where we're sending out our renewals for guys that we currently do their applications. If you're looking for somebody to do your applications, you know, definitely give us a holler. That's what we do. We've done it for years and years and years. And, frankly, we're pretty good at it. Like, we treat it like you treat your applications like they're our own. And we help guys make plans, short-term, mid-term, long-term plans. We're $50 per state for the first species. If it's one species in a state, it's $50. If it's two or more, we're $100. And then $750 max. So we tap out at $750.

So, anyway, and that's for unlimited states and species of the states that we apply guys in. So, which is a lot of them. Everything here in the West. So, anyway, if you're interested at all, let us know. 435-263-0777. Or you can email us, info at epicoutdoors.com. And we'll definitely get you hooked up. We'll get you some forms. Easy to do. Once you're on board, it's easy. It's no big deal. Simple renewal process. We're very aggressive. Take very good notes. Because there's a lot of things that change as your hunting schedule changes. And the years go by. And so, anyway, Adam and I and Wyatt, Devin, Josh, here at Epic, will definitely help you customize it and keep it customizing as the year goes along. You can call us as often as you need and make adjustments. And so, anyway, we help guys with it. And it's, quite frankly, you know, time is money kind of thing.

And as you get older, it's just nice to have somebody that's looking out for your best interest. And I would say definitely have your best interest in mind. We want happy clients, not just clients that draw tags. We want to draw the right tags, and it makes sense. And I think one of the things that people forget on that is it's like having a financial advisor for your hunting tags. And we're going to see the whole picture of what you're applying for, what your goals are. And we're going to come up with potentially some opportunities that you're missing, you know, and say, hey, you're really trying to kill a 180-inch mule deer. Why aren't you doing this opportunity or that opportunity? So we'll kind of, you know, do some guiding on that, on which applications you might add or which ones might be wasting your money.

Yeah, with this Arizona deadline in Texas, definitely talked to quite a few guys. It's that we're considering adding, and we give them the pluses and minuses. Every state and every application has pros and cons to it. It may be cost. It may be drawing odds. It may be whatever. And we go over that, and we're well-versed in it and make a living doing it. So anyway, we also have the regular membership, $150 a year. And, of course, we print the drawing odds and kill percentages and best units and kind of our take on everything. But then we're also available to visit as much as you need. And so anyway, check it out, epicoutdoors.com, 435-263-0777. Yeah, I think if you're not familiar with our magazine, pretty much what it's going to help you do is when it's time to apply, we go through state-by-state, and we go in-depth.

Changes and, you know, regulations, things like that help you put together your plan for applying, you know, each year. Yes, and so much more with tags and hunts and different things, too, as far as booking fully guided hunts and whatnot. So anything Western big game, that's what we do. All right, Bronson. Also want to, I guess, give more or less a heads up to an event that we'll all be at, which we're always at, and that's the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo. This year it's a little bit earlier. It's February 2nd to the 5th. So all you dudes out there that have always relied upon the Expo to take your wife on a Valentine's event, it's not going to happen this year. You're going to still have to do that later for Valentine's Day because this is the 2nd to the 5th of February. Moved it up a little bit. But in all seriousness, it's a great event. We'll be there. We're always there.

We've got a booth. We'll have us, a lot of the biggest, you know, deer and elk or sheep or whatever in our booth, we like to try to amass to bring there to kind of show off or let some of the hunters that were fortunate enough to take some great animals to bring them there to be able to let them be seen. Also have great deals on optics and whatnot. But one thing, if you are from out of town and all that, you're going to also want to go online at HuntExpo.com, get your hotels. We've learned by experience. We do that way early because stuff, the better ones than the stuff right close, fill up. So jump on at HuntExpo.com. They've just got promo stuff. It's some of the hotels there. It's all on their website. And then at some point, I don't think it was turned on yet, but they'll have the $5 tags, the raffle tags will be turned on. You can start applying for those.

Usually it seems like in, I want to say November. But anyway, we've still got a few months ahead of that. But that's just get it on your calendar. February 2nd to the 5th, Salt Palace Convention Center downtown Salt Lake City. We'll be there. If you haven't been there, those are premium draw tags in Utah, and there's about, what, 200 plus of them that get into the raffle there, $5 each. And it's a great price. And the proceeds, a lot of it goes to support wildlife in Utah. And so a really good cause. One of our members actually drew an elk tag and has a story in the magazine. Adam, do you want to? Blaine Wooten, yeah, he drew a coveted Southern Utah elk tag here. That would have been in 2021 at the Hunt Expo. And his story is in our October-November 2022 issue. It's called Go Big, Then Go Home. And he did that. He went home with a 390 plus inch six-point bull. It was an awesome bull.

And got that at the Western Hunting Conservation Expo. Those tags are totally different than the regular state draw tags. This year, when I say this year, I guess 2023, the Utah application period is going to be shifted, not due until later April. So these tags will all be drawn like they always are in February and are totally independent of anything in the regular state draw. There's $5 per hunt you put in. Nobody can put more than one per hunt. If you win one of those, you buy the permit and go hunt. It doesn't affect your points or anything like that. So check out Blaine's story in our newest magazine. Just an awesome bull. And I've had a lot of hunters. In fact, Aaron, he's got a deer tag this year. He won it last year's Expo. So he's going to be hunting here soon. We had a guy call in that we'd actually ran a story last year in the magazine. He'd applied and drawn an elk tag in Utah.

And basically, that was his one elk tag in Utah. You know, I'm in a premium unit. He got lucky and drew it randomly, 13, 15 points or something. It should have taken him 27, whatever. He drew that last year, killed like a 380-something bull. Goes to the Expo this year. Just throws in a $5 ticket for that same unit. Draws the freaking Expo tag. This year. This year. Goes over there and rolls a 390. Two bulls on the same unit, two years in a row. And you couldn't do that unless you did this Expo thing. What's your saying, Carter? It's a crazy opportunity. I don't know. Fly, fly, fly. Fly, fly, fly. Or you've got to have a name in the hat. What do you say? For 20 years now, I've been applying, applying, applying. I'm just wrapping my head around asking Jenna if I can invest in this blow-up business. I was thinking about calling her on the podcast, but I'm not.

You've got to change the vocabulary. Inflatable figurine. Yes. Hey, what if you remove the term inflatable? Figurine. Yeah, that works. The decoy Montana decoy don't have air in them, do they? No. They're just a silhouette. It's just a silhouette. The best part about that whole story, too, is we just talked about this. We'd chased elk forever. It was hot, long days. We weren't in our right minds several times. Devin was having some vivid dreams. We're not even going to get into that. Devin sleeps with some very interesting sleep attire. We get back. We get back that night, though, to the side-by-side. We just get back and start to drive literally from, like, by the tank where we were talking about and putting Delilah, our inflatable figurine. And all of a sudden, we stop for a second and hear this, whoo. Yeah, that was weird. I don't know. Devin's like, did you hear that?

And it does again, whoo. And we're like, what in the world is that? And we decided it was just Delilah, a little bit arrogant and out.

Like on a balloon. A little gassy. It had to have been. It's the heat. It had expanded. It had to go somewhere. It had to have been a fawn or something. It was a fawn bleat or something. Another reason. Don't have any air in them. Right from the blind area. They're going to pop. You've got to remove the air factor. So that's what we were saying. That could give you away if all of a sudden you're sitting there. Well, we were severely. We were doing legit 10 miles a day. Yeah. I chose a camp spot in the dark that was the worst place on the unit. But it had a lot of shade. Once you set up, you can't move. We had to migrate to get cool air. Well, and you were chasing nomadic elk. You weren't just covering mountains. Yeah, they never stopped. You're just chasing, roaming, you know, roaming. What I like is there's big bulls in about every unit down there on the right years. That's right.

It's just awesome. All right. I'm good. I'm tapping out. I have way too much fun for me. Were you guys good? Yeah. Yeah, we're good. Oh, I guess the only thing I could say going along. Oh, come on. Send in your photos. No. Yeah. It is that time of year. It's that time of year. Send in your photos. We're getting photos. Stories, photos. We're getting a lot of stuff on Instagram, guys, sending us just pictures, you know, and send those to photos at epicoutdoors.com. We obviously love to see them on social media, but make sure we'd love to put them in the magazine, that sort of thing. So send in those photos. Email them. Full size. Yep. Photos at epicoutdoors.com. All right, fellas. Let's get back in the field where we belong. 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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