EP 282: The Final Countdown, Muleys That Will Make You Sick with Colten Petersen and Wyatts Alaskan Sheep Hunt

Hey everybody, before we get started on this podcast, we just want to throw a little shout out to ourselves. We've got the summer epic hunt giveaway. It's our summer membership drive. We're giving away a freaking ton of hunts, gear, all kinds of stuff. It's just awesome. Geez, upper hundreds, dang near $200,000 worth of stuff. Everything from doll sheep, elk, deer, antelope even, we're excited about that. Barbary sheep and an optics and gear package including rifle and bow. So just a ton of stuff that we're going to give away in about 10 days. We're talking, we're down to the last week, week and a half. Make sure you go to our website. You can call in 435-263-0777 or you can go to the website epicoutdoors.com and grab some tickets. You can refer a friend. You can join if you're not a current member. That'll give you an entry in there. So there's a lot of ways to get your name in the hat.

Some of the best drawing odds we've ever seen. It's just crazy. And we've even done a few different hunts. You know, elk would be, you know, this particular tag would be valid in Utah and Nevada. We've also got an archery only mule deer hunt out on the eastern plains of Colorado. So there's some different hunts as well. Antelope tags that are landowner tags. A pair of them for you, friend, family, whoever. So anyway, go check it out. Epicoutdoors.com. Make sure you get your name in. Of course, we've got a lot of draw results that have come and gone. And then we've got a few coming out. All the regular application season has come and gone. But anyway, if you're left without a hunt or you do have some open time in your schedule, why, that would be another way to get a great world-class hunting opportunity.

Again, these are hunts that Adam and I or John or anybody here in the office would do ourselves. We only work with the best, and we're proud of it. All right, let's start this podcast. Anything to do with Western big game.

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Big Mark! Big Mark! Big Mark! You like us now, Mr. Connor? Nothing but good memories. Hey, everybody. Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, John Peterson, Cash, Cash Lynn, and Logan, Logan Marshall, the famous. Sippy Cup Logan, we got him here with us. Southern Utah, sunny Southern Utah. Bronson, is it ever going to get to be 80 degrees? It's amazing. It barely touched 80 one day, I think. Maybe it's supposed to be in another week. But it's unbelievable to be mid-June in Southern Utah. And even the places further south of us aren't hitting the mid-90s or 100s. So it's not like we hit, get really hot here, but we get mid to upper 90s. And it's been monsooning, or whatever you'd call this. El Niña-ing. El Niña, El Niño, monsooning, monsoona. Whatever. It's been unbelievable. Big Mark! I don't know where I'm at right now. Mr. Bronson is a big Mark.

Feels like, I mean, it's the perfect temperature every day. It is. And it's not even really been windy, which is unusual, too. No. Like, it's just crazy. What's in the forecast? We've been talking about it. Oh, 70s. More of the same. Maybe a week from today it's going to hit 80. Maybe. I'm just excited Lake Powell's rising. Oh, yeah. Like crazy. Yeah, we've got trips planned in a couple weeks. Yeah. I want it to cover rocks. Of course, it just makes other problems. You think it covers rocks, but there's always other ones that are not. I dinged a prop. I got a new prop coming. They make more every day. For hundreds of dollars, you can buy new props. Did you ding a prop, or did rocks touch the bottom of your boat? No, I dinged a, well, I mean, you know. Did you run to the ground like I did? I tried to garden in shallow water.

Rototill. Rototill. No gravel? Dude, you're out in the middle of nowhere, 30 miles up lake or whatever, you know. At least it's gravel and not bedrock. Well, we're fishing it. Slick rock. Yeah, and we're fishing it, and then, you know, your depth finder's saying, deeper, deeper, deeper, everything's good. Yeah, and all of a sudden it's not. All of a sudden you're gardening. There's an island in one inch of water. Yeah, so anyway, whatever. Made it back, no problems. That's the life of Lake Powell. You know, there was guys that always said, when you're looking for a boat, you just always ask them, is this a Lake Powell boat? I never really understood what that meant. You don't want a Lake Powell boat. There's a lot of potential hazards. You're going to encounter. It's a matter of time. Lots of loose electronics everywhere because the waves beat you to death.

Every day is a monsoon trying to get back to the dock. So, you know, anyway, it's fun life. I've got some trophy gouges in the bottom of my boat. John, so should we talk about your gardening experience was different than mine. You were full bore, pedal down. What are those machines, you know, when the freeway needs to be repaved and they run it over the freeway and it chews it up and spits it out in a windrow? What is that called? That's more like what John did. Asphalt chewer upper. Yeah. Because there was no. I was pulling a skier. So we were going 30 or something. Yeah, you're pedaled down. And we came to a stop immediately. Did you? Oh, yeah. Everyone almost was ejected from the boat out the front. Jeez. And it was. What did the skier do? Did it pass you? No. He bailed. Yeah. When he saw. He bailed. He was going to stop him. Yeah. And so he crashed.

He was okay because it was such a small spot. Like the. And we were high centered up on top. Like my boat was for all intents and purposes on dry ground. Out of the water. Out of the water. Off a trailer. Yeah. There was maybe an inch of water. Running still 4,000 RPMs. But you know. But John's an amazing. John, I just. Kudos to you. You can rebuild anything in life. Is it YouTube? How is it that you know how to do everything? Oh, yeah. YouTube. I mean, you'll take a 1960s trailer and make it vintage, brand new, worth $400,000. He put an all new wood bottom in the boat. You rebuilt the boat. Yeah, I rebuilt that boat pretty much. With a new wood bottom. A new. I mean, geez. But. But I was 100 yards from the shore. Wait, wait, wait. 100 yards up on shore? No, no, no. So you could. I was going along the shoreline. I'm 100 yards from the shore. Yeah. Yeah. And there was a little.

And there was a little tiny spot where. Fan. Gravel rock. Yeah. Gravel. Welcome to Lake Powell. Gravel bar. Welcome to Lake Powell. We were on top of it. I mean, Lake Powell. That lake's changing with every foot, two foot, five foot of water, plus or minus, let alone 50 or hundreds of feet different. It's a new lake every day. Every time. Every time you go on there within a three to three month period. Yeah. We save a lot of rocks. And I go down there now. The ones are 70 feet out of the water that I thought were problems two years ago. Yeah. I look at it. They're like 70 feet out. Yeah. No, they're glassing vantage points. Yeah. Now I sit on those rocks. Yeah. It's the truth. And so I used to mark them. I always mark them on my onyx, too. It's funny. So you know not to hit them. That's right. And now we go by the fish finder. You mark them and stuff.

And it's like, am I ever going to need that point again? Should I delete it? Yeah. Should I delete it? There's drop marks on the top of it. And it's 40. It's 40, 50 yards out of water. That was from two to three years ago. Yeah. And now it's probably this year we might start to. Those might mean something again after 70 feet in there. I say about that like yellow and a little box. What's that little emoji on the freaking onyx? It's a little square. Treasure chest. Lock. I don't know. Like a salt lick or whatever it is. Anyway, I say that's rock. That means avoid that. Talking Lake Powell. Wyatt just joined a series. We love Lake Powell. You love Lake Powell. I don't know that it's a love. You proposed to your wife there, didn't you? Your wife loves it, so that means you love it. Yes, yes, I guess. And you proposed to her there. I did, yes. At Lake Powell. So very fond memories.

I forgot about that. Part of the, I guess, the gents and part of the lake has been dewatered. Lone Rock now has water around it. So this year might have water. So good for you. They're already planning a trip. You get to now go back to Lake Powell because you had a year off. Yes. I did get a year off. So I'm excited for you. You're going soon? We're just talking we're going fairly soon, too. Yeah, July, I believe. Gotcha. Good. So anyway, kind of interesting. Well, that experience of running into the ground taught me how tough the bottom of the boats are. So yeah, so did you have to refinish the bottom of this boat? When we hit, I swore the bottom of the boat was going to be gone. Like a hole. Like a big hole. Like you're going to have to helicopter the boat. Yeah. The shell. Right. Yeah. Or. And there's a couple gouges that are pretty good. They're significant. But. Not a big deal.

You could run that thing off the trailer, drag it down the road for three miles, you still wouldn't have a hole. Wow. Why did you have to replace it then? No, I didn't. Not that. A different hole. He's talking about. No, I replaced like the floor. Inside. Inside. He rebuilt the inside. Underneath the. Rip the carpet out. Put the. Yeah. Yes. Oh, yeah. The outside. Or the underneath. In the hole. Fiber glass and stuff. I mean, it's got some scratches, but it's not. You didn't even put a new resin or nothing. I didn't even do anything. It's not even deep enough to. One little prop and you're back in business. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Amazing. How did you get it back out in the water? So it was. I was up on the water so much. We rocked the boat back and forth. So we lifted one side. Had the kids dig out the boulder. Well, they're like small rocks. Big gravel. Yeah. Big gravel. Yeah.

Like two, three inches. Kids, you know, dug it out. Then we rolled it back the other way. Dug out the other side. By about when we were, you know, about good. Ready to push off. Then a couple people came over with ropes and pulled us out. And then they pulled you. Pulled you. No. Was your prop. My prop. Cratered. You could. Probably a third hammered. But you could lift it back. And we got back. No problem. Yeah. That's amazing. Oh, yeah. It's crazy. These are good stories, Wyatt, that are coming your way. I forgot about that story, actually. Yeah. Yeah. So Jason had a slight run in. That's what brought it up. Well, I mean, I just. Yeah. He'd guard you. As he called it, he'd guard. Well, I was rototilling some rocks underneath the water. Just a little bit. You know. Yeah. It'll happen. Oh, it'll happen. It's a matter of time. Everybody. Right.

And I had a spare prop under the seat, but I didn't need it. But I am going to replace it. I want it right. Perfect. I want it perfect. Anyway, fun times. But welcome, Wyatt. Wyatt, you were on a phone call for a minute. Yes. Just customer service. Yeah. Doing good things, right? How would you describe your life and the rest of ours after, let's say, Tuesday, June 6th? After Tuesday. It's a whole different world here at the office. You're in shirts today. Yeah. I mean, is he really? Oh, dude. Whoa. I saw him cleaning his desk. Like, with, like, a clock. Oh, yeah. That was something I couldn't wait to do. Really? I'd been putting it off for. Just cleaning off the dust. Just paper. There's also a few things that are there that are, like, kind of deadline things or stuff that you refer to a lot that you're glad to be done. Yeah. Regulations. Put them away. Yes. Regulations. Epic books.

Epic magazines. Put them back where they go and make it look like it. Closing out files on your computer. Yes. Jeez. Minimizing window. Yeah. Not minimizing. Closing windows. Yes. In your browser. The, you know, state application sites. Well, it's a lot better. You're right, Wyatt. It's, in fact, we've got a skeleton crew around here right now. Wyatt, we're so excited for your year this year. You've got some exciting plans. And I don't have to dive into all of them. When you're ready, you can tell. I don't want to dive into all of them, but most of them. And, but just, I want you to be thinking about a hunting story. You've done a lot of guiding, too. It could be a guiding story. Just something fun. Something fun. We'll throw a few stories on the end of this podcast. But as we get going, Bronson, maybe, do you want to dictate how this is going to go down? Order of events here.

We're going to call our good buddy, Colton. Let's give Colton a call first. He's going to be a good talk for big mule deer stories. Okay. After that, let's maybe then get in a little bit on our own schedules. A little bit, which is not final. I want to say that. It's not final. But we're all wanting. Bronson's in need of some consulting. So if you've got any good ideas, now would be the time. John might need it more than me. I might need it more than anybody. John. We'll get into that later. John, we can spend points and money we're really good at. Especially other people's. Yeah. Points has not gone so well. No, we need to. Money might be the only option. We should have taken that into our own hands a little more. You were in France for two weeks. If you'd have just given us your card, we could have made something happen. Yeah. We would have got Jennifer. We would have got.

She's got a tag. So this year, I'm like, okay, I'm going to have to hunt my wife's tag hard. Not me hunt it, but scout it hard. Which means she's going to have to get up early. Yeah. Which she's fine with as long as she has like a cell service. Cell service. Wee-fee. She's got wee-fee. She can just sit on the point and eyeglass and she scrolls. Isn't that what the French call it? Wee-fee? Yeah. It's wee-fee. It is really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's spelled the same. I know it is. It's different. Yeah. Wee-fee. Wee-fee. Okay. There's a lot of, not just French, but like English, like British English words that are like that. They phonetically say them instead of like how they got Americanized. So I think the important part of this conversation is going to be coming up after we talk to Colton is A, I mean, there's a lot of people in that boat. Yeah. It is. What do I do now? Right?

What do I do now? It's June. It's about over. Yeah. And like you said, Adam, like, what have I really got to look forward to? Like, what would get me excited to go to Colorado or to go to wherever, right? Wherever, John. What would get you excited, right? Same with everybody else out there. So anyway, that'll be a fun conversation. Colton Peterson, Wyatt killed a freaking giant. Last year. Last year and the last few years. And the last few years. I don't know how many. This one graced our cover. I don't know how many he wants to talk about. Yeah. Pick one. I think he's one of our only two-time cover guys. With ginormous. He might be. Don't know that for a fact. John can probably do that later. But anyway. Yeah. One of the few. Maybe there's one other. Vince Bloom, maybe. I can't remember. I can't remember if he's not. Yeah. He really concentrates up there in northern.

He had that velvet elk and then that Oregon mule deer. He really concentrates his efforts up there, it seems like, anyway, in that northern part of the country. Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, all that country. And while we're trying to do it in five or six states. Or usually underachieving in five or six of them. He's sticking to where he knows stuff really good. Well, I think he's good at that. We'll ask him what he thinks his secret to success is. But it feels like it's making good on local knowledge and hunting. And repeated. Yeah. Repeated areas and stuff. Yeah. I'm going to ask him if, you know, less is actually more. Right. All right. Type principle. Carter needs that talk this year, I think. I offered John some of my stuff. Did you? Yeah. The problem is. Especially the whitetail stuff. Yeah. He's giving away. I'm having a little buyer's report. I don't know if this is a whitetail year.

Maybe, though. Hey, it's always a whitetail year. It could be an incredible whitetail year for me. I've heard it's never been better. It could be one of the most incredible mule deer years, though. I'm envious here. It could be amazing for blacktail. That's true, too. And so anybody that wants to do blacktail, we've got options for you. Sitka. And Columbia. Whatever. So, yeah, I'm just not sure I picked the right year to do the whitetail. But, hey, those opportunities came, and I snagged them. Okay. Well, let's call Colton. We'll find out what deer he wants. Well, which one of the last three he wants to talk about. And I really, the one that's on the recent cover. Yeah. I mean, dude, it's stupid big. Yeah. Frame's stupid big. Boxy like this, but tings like this. But he claims that it, you know, I know initially that just, you know, not just a total accident, but somewhat lucky.

Let's get it from him. And I just had a hard time believing. Well, it was late in the hunt. I had a hard time. I mean, it wasn't like an opening day, but after opening week. He knows what he's doing. He's a predator in the woods. Let's give him a holler. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Sounds like some 35s rolling down the highway. Yep.

Yeah. Well, it's Adam and Jason and John and Wyatt and Cash and Logan. We're all here. You got a few minutes to talk big deer? Yep. Got y'all. Well, good. Well, we're just, we teed it up a little bit just with, you know, who you are, where you're from, and how you're really, really good at, you know, that northern Utah, southeast Idaho, southwest Wyoming, kind of where you put your, I mean, you obviously guide in southern Utah units and things like that. But as far as personally, you know, we're wondering, sometimes Jason and I, and we start trying to chase everything around all of western U.S., and sometimes you wonder if that's, less is more. And so that might come out today, but let's, you know, how's things? First off, is the winter broke finally, and you got green everywhere up there finally? Yep. It's kind of crazy how fast it changed.

Winter took forever and thought it was never going to stop, and then all of a sudden it just left real quick. Yeah. Well, I know, I haven't been up as far as where you are, you know, northeast Utah, I guess very extreme northeast corner, but everywhere else is green and pretty in Utah. I know that, so I'm sure it is up there. Yep, it is. What do you think? I mean, what do you, what's your kind of forecast of all that country, not just Wyoming, but all that country? Like, I mean, obviously nobody likes to see a heavy winter kill, but what do you think? What do you think this year's outlook looks like? Yeah, so that's really hard to predict. I mean, obviously we can't really foresee what's going to happen in the future. When I've been talking to a lot of people lately, really it comes down to your mindset when it comes to hunting.

You know, if you don't have a good mindset or positive mindset going into it, you're going to have a hard time staying focused and dedicated at 3AM on a trailhead. So really, the truth is there's going to be less deer. I don't know how drastic that really is going to be, but there will be less deer. But on the same note, there's still going to be big deer killed. There's still going to be big elk killed. So I don't know if that answers your question or not. So basically, you're going to have to be willing to accept it. You're not going to see, you're not going to, maybe the buck, if you did hunt it last year, somebody or a buddy did may not be right where he's at or he's dead. But basically, tell yourself, there's something big here, I just got to find it. Going with that mindset. Yep, yep.

You have to have the right mindset because if you're really worried about whether you're making the right decision or not and then you go in, you're already starting off on a bad note. If you have one slow day up there, no deer, you're like, they all died and it's easier to drive home. Yep, and all my points, I made the mistake, I shouldn't be doing this. And it's just a downward spiral from there. So really, it's your mindset. And that's hard for all of us to do. And a lot of people I've talked to, you know, I'd probably say 95% of the people that were deciding if they should put in for some of these units up here, whether it's in Wyoming or Utah, most of them backed out. And it wasn't, it was just the unknown. And it was, gosh, I should wait four or five whatever years. But when it comes down to it, it could be worse then. Like, that's what we don't know. I have another winner.

You could have another partial winter kill coming up this year. Or next year or three years. That's just as bad. Who knows? Yeah. For sure. Interesting stuff. Well, Colton, not to, I mean, not to, you're a humble guy, so I don't necessarily want to, you know, embarrass you or anything. But, I mean, you've killed a number of big deer. How many giants have you killed over the years? And it seems like it's fairly recent, the last, I would say, decade. Yeah. Sure. All luck.

Really lucky guy. No one will believe that. 10 or 15 over 200. Every one of them was luck. Yeah. Somehow they walk in front of my bullies. Every year. Or arrow. How many of these giants, I mean, how many 200s have you taken? And it's just, and it's more or less just interest. It's just an appreciation for all the hard work that you put into this stuff. Yeah. I think I've killed six over 200. 200. And then pile of deer between the 180 and 190s. And of these 200s, like, I mean, they're big deer. Yeah. This cover, but this last cover bug, multiple over 220. And one of the cool things is, too, he has a lot of history with these deer, too. I mean, that's one of the first things when I met Colton was just the history he had with mule deer and big mule deer was just unbelievable. Following them from summer to winter. Sheds. Sheds. 50 miles. Trail camera photos. Everything.

How are you, Colton, I mean, are you using trail cameras up in that high country? And if you do, what do you find that's somewhat effective? So, you're not, so, in Utah, before they started making law changes or whatever, you know, salt was very effective when it came to locating animals. Whether it was moose, elk, deer, whatever. And with all these new law changes, it definitely makes it harder to use trail cameras effectively. In the high country, because the country's so big and it just swallows you up, you can't just go scatter cameras out like some of these other units where you can drive and walk 30 minutes and hang a camera. So, when you're, like, just specifically talking about Wyoming, it's really hard to be effective with trail cameras there because you're not supposed to use salt or any type of bait.

And so, whether you put it on a spring or a saddle or a tree line or whatever, yeah, you could get something. But it's just not as effective because of the laws placed. Yeah. Just very random encounters. If you get something, it's a supplemental versus, oh, yeah, I can find a bunch of deer to hunt off of my trail cameras. It's not, it's usually the other way around. You know, maybe seen a deer, know of a deer and wondering, all right, how big is he roaming in here? And, oh, I got a picture over here. That kind of gives a piece of information, basically. Not often, oh, there's a new deer you've never seen before type thing. For sure. So, are you finding, I mean, you've, you know, I guess you're just, I mean, even though it's less effective, you know, it still seems some guys are doing decently. I mean, they're doing everything. They're glass and heavy.

Obviously, that's the main, you know, the main way to scout on some of that high country. But running a few cameras, too, and just key locations and things like that you've learned about over the years, I'm sure. Yeah.

Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Um, I'd probably say, you know, in that high country stuff, whether it's wherever you're at in high country, I tend to try to locate an animal before I would even consider hanging a camera. Uh, just because of how big the landscape is. Yeah. Um, but like, I'll, it's northern Utah. Like, I'll run a bunch of cameras for all the big game species. And, you know, I might have a camera set in, uh, lower country where there's a lot of elk and catch a, uh, up-and-comer buck or a buck that's big. And then I'll hone in on that. So, uh, unintended, yeah. Whether you're doing one, you know, you, you guide elk up there and some moose and sometimes a buck shows up and, you know, there's a bonus basically and, in a random place. And then it starts from there and you try to fall and then hone in on where's he actually living and things like that. And Wyoming, it is vast.

I mean, it all, it looks the same. And you're right, like a saddle or tree line. And then there's generally water, a lot, plenty of water. Even in the desert. Yeah. The desert has running streams. Right now. Like it's, yeah. Like it's not going to be a normal. But even, even dry years, it's just Wyoming's a different desert than down here. Yeah. You know. For sure. Yeah. So. So are you, are you finding it effective? Like you're sinking months and months after the season even. And I know that's got to be helpful. Like what, like what Wyatt's saying is how much time and energy and following these deer and, and, and, and you're doing it just because you love deer, but it's got to be helpful too is learning everything you can about them to be in successful and harvesting some of these giants. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah.

So a lot, a lot of, uh, hunters out there, it's, they just do it when the hunt is, or they draw a tag and then they'll start scouting a couple months before and then it's over. For me, uh, it's always been different. It's year round and let's not talk to my wife about this because it's a sensitive subject, but, uh, I've learned so much from following year round, learned so much from watching them migrate and then showing up on their rut grounds and then moving to their winter grounds and then watching how they act. And just the transitions it's taught, it just teaches so much. And it doesn't just happen. You can't just do that one year, two years. Like it's a consistent, um, growth process. Yeah. Something you got to stick, stick to it and, and grind it out. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, when I was thinking about it, uh, when Adam texts me and asked to come talk to you guys, I was like, gosh, like, I didn't know what I was going to say or, or obviously, but with my success, obviously there's a lot of preparation that goes into it. And, and, and just as much luck, but I would probably say I've learned more from failing and mistakes in the field than I have killing a big deer, you know, killing a big deer or a big animal, whether I'm guiding somebody or first myself. I, I, I've been able to achieve that from heartache, from mistakes, from things that I screwed up. And, and that taught me like, okay, I can never do that again. And that's, that's been probably what's helped me grow most in what I love.

Well, and to add to that, maybe you, you're also, and it's a little bit different from Southeast Idaho to Northern Utah to Southwest Wyoming in terms of how you acquire tags. But I guess I would just still lump that all into their general season type areas though. Easier. You're not talking about waiting 15 or 20 years to hunt, you know, Ponce and Aunt Henry's limited entry type stuff. If you do that, you're not going to hunt. I mean, you do get a chance on good moisture to hunt really big deer and it's phenomenal. It's great. But if that's all you wait for to hunt big deer and go hunt, you're not going to learn how to fail. You're not going to learn from your mistakes and all that. So you're hunting, you know, many of those areas every year and maybe two out of the three or maybe all three of them some years based on preparation and planning with friends, both Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming.

And there's something to be said for that hunting repeated areas and areas you can hunt, hunt a lot. And instead of, you know, of your six deer, I don't know of them all over 200, but I don't know if any of them are on a primo limited entry hunt. I don't think they are. Maybe you could correct me, but they're just from a lot of freaking time and effort and learning, like you said, and doing things repetitively. Yeah, 100%. I haven't been able to draw a limited entry deer tag yet. I think I'm pushing 20 points now, but you nail it right on the head. I'm like, I'm not going to wait to chase big deer until I'm 40-something, you know. Until you get a pond scott tag and you happen to draw it on a dry year. And then you end up with just a buck and now you've, you know, you've smashed six giants because you've got a lot of elbow grease in it, a lot of work. Yeah.

And that's honestly moving forward 21st century in 2023. That's more and more how you're, how you have to do it. Tags are hard to get. Not just talking to Utah and these three states we're talking about, but everywhere. Nevada is incredibly hard. Arizona for a quality mule deer is incredibly hard. New Mexico is almost impossible because there's so few real true units. So Colorado's moderated. So you've got to, we've said it a lot, you've got to make more with less and you've got to try to put more into maybe the more average tags that you can get easier. And it's not going to happen every single year. Surely hasn't for you. You've been on a great run. It feels like though. It feels like every time you're killing a big one. But, but you're also, you know, adding, adding layers of info year after year in the same areas and something to be said for that. I don't think that's an accident.

You call it luck and it does take some, but it's, it's luck is, you know, preceded by a whole lot of, whole lot of effort and preparation. So, so are you, Colton, are you concentrating? Like, do you find yourself, I mean, you know, just concentrating in that area because that's your favorite area and that's the way you like to hunt or what's, what's, you know, or is that even something you consciously think about? I mean, you know, what's your formula for which tags you get and you like to hunt? Um, honestly, you know, just like you guys just said, it's, I can't say enough about how special general seasons are. And, and I think that the world has kind of put general seasons in kind of a bad category. Like it's like the crap units. It's, it's, everyone can be there.

There's orange everywhere, but really, um, it's, they're by far some of my favorite units to hunt and it, it requires more effort. That's for sure. You can't, there's not a general unit that can compare to the Henry's where you can go down there and drive. The dirt roads, um, for three hours in the morning and, you know, see 50 to a hundred bucks and not even step, step off the road. And in some of them being over 200 inches, you know, but it definitely requires a lot of work, but. You know, I, I just focus on where I can get a tag and then, um, try to just. Go off what information I have. And that's specifically, uh, like I talked about piling up my information year after year. So last year, what bucks did I see? What bucks were on the cameras? What bucks have people been talking about? If I get a tag, I'm going to hone in on those deer and try and figure them out.

But, uh, it just, it definitely requires more work, but the deer are just as good on general season as they are in limited and special quarters. That's awesome. Um, let's talk about this, you know, this latest cover, you know, you've been on a couple of our covers with just giants, but let's talk about this latest one. And maybe, uh, give us a quick story on that sucker. I mean, what a, what an absolute slob, giant freaking four point frame. And then just stupid, amazing. It really, I, I don't even know where to start other than it's the first deer over 200 inches I've killed that I did not know about. And I'm talking like within an hour of me first finding them to killing them. Um, you know, I, I was hunting a different deer, you know, and I, I assumed the other buck was maybe like 220 or something.

Um, and basically took me all day to get up in there, uh, set, set a couple tents up, had a couple buddies with me. And it is funny, you know, one of my buddies, we, we, we hiked in on Sunday and, and I respect him. He, he said, I'm not going to hunt on Sunday. And I said, that's fine. You know, he was totally cool hiking in. And he's like, I'm not, I just won't pull the trigger on Sunday. And I said, no problem, man. Well, we're setting up the tents and I kid you not, like I look off the hill and it was less than a hundred yards. There's a buck, a little buck that's feeding through the timber patch. It's probably just a two year old three point. And I'm like, oh, that's look, had him look at it. It's kind of cool or whatever. We're 10 miles in there. Anyways, it was two, three minutes later. I look back down there. There's a buck that's probably, you know, at least 185.

And he's feeding there. He's 80 yards away. He's got a split three, probably seven inches deep. And I looked at my buddy and he, he's like, I'm not shooting him. I'm like, dude, grab your gun and kill the deer. You're like, that's self-defense. It's close. We can ask for forgiveness later. Yeah. You're going to be just fine. And I'm not going to bring his name up or whatever. And hopefully that is. But I'm like, dude, just kill the deer. Like no one's going to know. Just do. That's an awesome buck. Anyway, he's like, nope, not doing it. I'm like, okay. Anyways, buck just fed, fed into the timber on my colic couch. Anyways. So there's probably an hour left of life. I literally walked a hundred yards from the tent and looked into this drainage. I just sat there and wasn't really expecting to hunt. Just kind of relaxing or whatever. And it wasn't too much longer.

Heard a bull. There might've been two or three bulls starting to go off. And this was, oh, the very, this is, I think there's only two or three days left of the hunt. So this is the beginning of October. I think the hunt ended like six or something. Anyways, this is the first day that I've hunted in this, on this season last year. Like the first day I've, I'm only hunting like three days. And, um, bulls are screaming and I'm like, oh, I'm going to try and see what, what type caliber bulls in here. And, um, it wasn't too long, too much longer. I looked down in the very bottom of this drainage and it goes flat and it's just really thick willows. And I, with my bines, I see a look to me like a doe. It's just coming out of the willows. It just, it just wasn't where you would see a big deer. Anyways, I grabbed my scope, put it on.

And immediately the only thing I remember was short twos, narrow frame, and some couple of cheaters. I mean, I didn't even see a split three. I didn't even see how long the cheaters were. I didn't realize how long times were. And I was like, oh, I'm like, that's actually a pretty good deer. So I'm looking about 1,000 yards straight downhill, which is, uh, over 2,000 feet drop in elevation. So you're looking down, obviously you guys know, on an animal like that. You can't really tell actually how big it is. Looking on down is the worst look to, you'll underjudge stuff sometimes that way. And then you're also thinking it's about to get dark. I got to lose 2,000 feet just to confirm what I hope I'm thinking. And then I got to hike back up to camp. But all these things are racing in your head as it's time to either go or not go for that night. For sure.

In my mindset, um, I know it's a bad mindset, but I'm okay eating tags. Like I'm either, if I'm going to kill a deer, it's going to be big. And if it's not, I don't need to kill, you know, a 180 buck or whatever. Like it's okay. I'm okay within myself. I don't need to. Anyway, so I flew off this finger ridge and immediately got engulfed in pines. And I, I, well, back up before I dropped off, he had one little buck with them and they immediately laid down. Like I watched him lay down, but I was looking through a big pine. So I was like, okay, take off. Got a chance. I took off. And, and I knew dropping all this feet in a matter of minutes, I was like, I'm going to hate coming out of here. Especially if I don't kill this deer. But I have, I have to, because I don't really know how big this deer really is. And I just, I need to at least know.

And so I flew off and I was getting closer and I was trying to like, look. So, so I was kind of like, it was like a finger ridge, but kind of on the North facing side. So I'm really in thick pines. So I'm, I'm looking, trying to look out of the pines on my same hillside. And it's really hard to do. So anyways, I finally get down and I'm looking where I thought he was. I'm like, gosh, he's not there. He got up. Crap. And all of a sudden I saw the little buck. I'm like, oh no. So I look just next to him. He's sitting right there. So hurried and pulled my scope out of my pack and put it up just to look. So I'm roughly like 200 yards from him now. And I only looked at my scope for probably maybe a second or two seconds. And I'm like, yep, I need to kill him. Now, and still, I, I didn't even look at detail. I didn't even know it was beam split. Didn't know I split three, nothing like that.

And so hurried and grabbed my gun. And it was a really, it was complicated because I wanted to lay down and I didn't want to screw it up. But all the undergrowth wasn't allowing me to do that. I couldn't even sit down because the, the boughs from the pine trees on the same hillside as me were in front of me. And so basically I had to raise my tripod up to a point where I couldn't even kneel. I had to be higher than kneeling, but low, higher than kneeling, but lower than standing. So it was a really awkward situation. Anyways, I just freaking hope that I didn't screw up and squoze it. And, and, uh, I watched both of them jump up and they ran into the willows and, and he didn't act hit. And I was like, Oh crap. So anyways, I dropped down, went over there and the little butt came out and went running, but the big deer didn't.

And I was like, Oh, by the time I got there, I had to get a, I had to get a flashlight out. Um, so I started to look kind of where he's bedded, no blood looked where I thought he ran nothing. That's where I was starting to get sick. So I went up a little higher and I only went in like 10 yards and it's piled up and going in there. He, he had piled up. So his head was under his body and pulling his head out. And I literally about puked because everything was way bigger than I even imagined. It was a very special experience. Cause usually when I go up to animals that I've helped people kill or I've killed, I, I usually know what we're going to grab. I usually know, have a really good idea. And this one was, uh, so far off. I mean, I didn't even know if it was a 200 inch deer. I knew he was good, uh, but it was much more. Much, much more. How much more?

Just get the dimensions. He's obviously on the cover and everybody that there's been a lot, most, a lot of listeners have seen it, but I mean, we're talking a ginormous four point frame and then big freaking long cheaters straight out. But how, uh, you know, anyway, what is this frame? What's this trash? Let's talk a little bit. It's frames to two, two 11 girls, two 36. Yeah. Was that a Wyatt score? I've never officialed that one. No. All right. He needs to. So bring him down. Bring him on down. We'd love to see him. Well, I guess we did see him at the expo. So yeah, well, yeah, but I mean, geez, get it. Final. Final.

Final. His, his G threes were 17 inches. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And the dwarf, you know, we had shorter G twos than those threes. I don't know if I've heard of a bigger one. No, that's as big as they make. Yeah. Yeah. And so that with those big threes, it probably, I mean, his twos weren't as short as they look, but when they're next to those threes, yeah. And then his fours were 16 and a half. I think the one, the one, the big cheater, I think was eight inches. Just everything was super long. It was really neat. Do you think, I mean, is this a deer you think you've seen on the winter range or have history that you're not, that you don't remember sometimes or even seen that buck in the summer in previous years? It's all this. Yep. This is crazy. I, I, when I walked up, I was almost 100% sure I knew what deer it was.

Um, a buddy picked up his sheds and I think last year, uh, he was like 198. Um, and so I was pretty sure I knew what deer it was until I had to wait the whole year and see if the buck came back. And sure enough, he showed back up bigger, same, same looking type deer. Obviously not as big. That deer showed up. So I'm like, wow. What deer is this? Who this? Yep. And it's crazy. I, there, there's, there's so many deer out there that I have no idea about. They'll show up on the winter range. I run cameras on underpasses through Wyoming on migration routes and I'll get hundreds and hundreds of bucks and, and never see them again. Never. Some of them I have seen on the summer ranges. Some of them I'll see later in the winter, but there's other bucks that are like, I don't ever see pictures of sheds. It just goes to show how many bucks are really out there that are going unseen.

Well, the winter range was loaded this year and it does. It gives you a country. Gives you hope that Colton hasn't named them all. That's right. Well, and it's, but if you've been to that part of Wyoming, it's vast, it's rough and it's timbered in a lot of it. And there's a lot of summer range to just swallow them up as they spread out, you know. How many miles are you finding? I mean, some of these will, some, some of them don't travel that far and they, I don't know, maybe they winter near after or whatever, but how many miles are you finding that a lot of these deer will go? Um, I think on average it's, it's between 30 to 80, 80, 60 is pretty average. Um, but you know, some of them, some of them will be, you know, over a hundred miles, but average is yeah, 60, I would say. Long ways. I mean, you know, you go Eastern U S that's across sometimes two States, you know, how

out West that's a, that's a hop, skip and a jump. And we have a few units like Northern Utah, maybe not quite that, but like poncegant deer move a long, long ways, you know, not always 60 miles, but, uh, that part of Wyoming is fairly well documented through that, you know, mule deer migration initiative there and even Northern Colorado, Southern Wyoming. And they've done a lot of cool stuff there and tying this together. So that's why back to kind of where we started talking today, the winter loss and the pockets that got hit, you don't even know what summer range, you know, the general ranges they go to, but the specific areas that, that these deer go to winter, how far they're pulling from. You don't even know how to, how to say how bad it's going to be and where that bad is going to be throughout the whole Western part of Wyoming.

So like you're saying, Adam, like they could have major, you know, winter loss in this geographic area, 15 by 15 or whatever it is. Right. Where does that look like? Where do those, what does that look like on the summer range or in, or when you're in the field in October or September? You don't, it's really hard to figure out because of that 30 to 70 miles. Yeah. You know, so some deer, you know, don't. You know, there was, there's a couple, a couple boxes I've seen on the summer range, which is kind of, kind of cool and unique. There was two box that summer together and I was able to locate where both of them ended up on the winter. One of them, so both of these are a region G deer. One of them went to pretty much the heart of the winter range, right by LaBarge. The other one went to the red desert. Wow. Jeez. And they, and they summer together. Yeah. And they summer together.

And, and that, you know, that my buddy ended up killing the buck that went to LaBarge. And I think he was just over 200, but that other buck that's still going to the red desert, he went, he, he showed up there this winter, which is crazy. He showed up down in the back to the red desert. In the red desert this winter. Yep. Again, another crazy thing. A lot of times we think like, okay, um, this Wyoming herd, uh, if any of those mule deer are coming down, like through Sage Junction, heading to Edmigston, you think, okay, they're G deer. There is a buck that came through this winter headed to Edmigston. There was a region H deer. So that far North. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And kind of cross waves a little bit. Just kind of. It's awesome stuff. Yeah. Yeah. We've even learned, we've even learned stuff like Josh, he's not here today, but these

poncegant deer that migrate from the poncegant back up over the top of Panguitch and, and winter north of between Cedar and Peril. Like you'd never think that in your life that a poncegant summer buck is going to go up over the top of a summer range that's way higher than where it's summering and go north. And, you know, we're just, you don't think that way. And they get, they get killed there. Killed on the second weekend of the general on the sagebrush. Anyway. Crazy. Lot to learn. Well, what do you, uh, are you hunting Idaho a bit or, or here and there or how often you do in Idaho? So yes and no. I, I have a young family. And so I definitely have to be smart with what, what time I spend away from them. And so I'm very, very active in the Idaho part, have some really close buddies that really have it, you know, on lockdown and the deer that they're finding are amazing.

Um, but I just have to be smart with where I place my time and where I spend it. Cause I also am a father and the husband and want to take care of what's important. So, you know, when, when, uh, my, I didn't have all these kids, I was hunting all these states, you know, but once I started getting a few kids, I was like, okay, I need to hone it back a little bit and just focus, um, on one or two specific spots. Do you usually, do you usually hunt at least two of the three up there a year yourself? At least two of the three. Is that about right? Yeah. And have you found like Adam kind of has alluded to that less is more is actually, even though the kids and family have required you to concentrate on what's most important to you, you're actually more effective and knocking down some of these. Yep. I, I, I found so back in, let's see, 2019, that first buck that, uh, you guys put on your

cover that I killed, um, with my bow in Northern Utah. I had, uh, Idaho, I had Wyoming, a region G tag. I had a dedicated tag in Utah. And, and when I found this buck that I ended up killing in Utah and, and realized how big he was, I knew that I was going to regret it. If I put my eggs in all these other baskets and it was unfortunate because I had finally drawn G, but I didn't put the time that I wish I would have, because I had another buck that was to me, well worth if I could harvest him than trying to kill, like I'm not going to go kill a 200 deer in all three units. You could, but you're going to need a lot of luck. And so less is more for sure. Let's maybe talk about that deer a little bit more. That's one where you had years of knowledge kind of, kind of sheds and kind of connected the dots to where it finally came together on the summer ground. Yeah. The one in 2019. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's, he gross scored two 52 and was 41 inches on his outside. His inside is 19 is a really unique frame, big flyers. He, he was a buck that, uh, two years before I killed him, he showed up in Logan, like downtown Logan during the rut. And that's what happens a lot of times in, uh, up here in Logan is a lot of these mountain deer will migrate off the cache and then come down in town. And so if you don't really have a good idea of what's, what's a city deer or not, you're, you're not going to know, but when these bucks show up during the rut and they have black antlers and you've never seen before, it's like, Oh, where'd you come from? Come out of the dark forest. Anyways, he was just a young, young buck with, uh, cheaters on each side. I think he's like one 70. I didn't really think much other than that deer could be something special. It's going to take a year to know.

He's able to pick those sheds up. Not that I really tried. I didn't put much effort into it. It was just pulled up and he's laying there bald and they're out there laying there. So picked them up. Um, the way I found out where that deer summered, well, he summered on Beaver mountain, the, the ski resort. So a lot of people go up there. A lot of people, um, there's a lot of scout camps, girl camps, fan reunions, uh, bike trails or whatever. So the buck during the summer was showing himself. He was out on the lawn. He was out. Not when I say lawn, he was out on the ski runs, all that stuff. And so a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people were seeing him. He wasn't stupid, but he saw people. Yeah. Yep. He was letting, letting, uh, everyone know he was there. And so picture started getting out. I got a picture fairly soon in the summer, knew exactly, you know, what deer it was.

And so I'm like, okay, I need to at least go figure them out. Went, went up there, put some cameras, um, immediately started getting them up. And that, that next year, I think he was like in the one nineties. And, um, I had to decide whether I was going to hunt him or not. And I chose not to just cause I felt like he still had more anyways, the next year was pretty crazy. He came back and he looked like, I mean, early, um, summer, he just looked like a four point frame and it was, I'd say three to four weeks difference. Like there was points coming out everywhere and starting to lose sleep. Jeez. I grew six, 60 inches in one year. Wow.

How do you, do you know how old he was when you killed him? Did you, um, take a tooth or did you have a guess? I, I, I, I didn't, but I, I think he was only five. Wow. Are you finding that, so we can quantify, we can watch these droughts come and go and down here in some of this Southern country and, you know, and we can track antler growth really consistently with water. But how about that high country talking about that? Are you like, obviously he was at the right age and he blew up, but do you find that they come and go with water or what do you find that affects them? In the high country. Yeah. Yeah. In the high country. I don't believe that the drought had that big of an effect as it does on, uh, the Southern States and Southern units for sure. Cause there's, I mean, on a drought year, they're still going to be really big deer in the high country.

And you're, I mean, you're probably, you know, there's years on drought. There may not be a 200 inch deer on the pond scout. Um, and you, and you'll see some of those bucks that were two 22, 30 the year before, and they're one 80, one 90 on that drought year. Um, I think just those mountains, those, those high country deer are affected differently. Um, maybe hard, hard winter might have more of an impact than coming out of a hard winter. And even if it is a good summer that, but generally you're just saying age is probably just number one thing. They just got to get old. If they've got the genetics and they get old there, they don't have the wide swings as much as some of these older five to five to nine year old deer down here can go up and down and up and down year to year. Up and down and maybe live their whole life and never really meet, reach a maximum potential. Yeah.

If they're, if they hit, you know, 2020 in the last few years have been kind of rough and that's their prime years, you know, say five to seven, and they haven't been able to manifest that, but watch out. It's 2023. If they're alive, they're going to bring it. Yeah. It's interesting. Right, Wyatt? I hope so. There's a buck that shows up in Jackson Hole every winter. Um, and you know, he, he's posted on social media. Um, not a lot, not like some of these other bucks, but this Jackson Hole gets pounded with snow, like feet and feet and feet. And this deer gets bigger every year and keeps coming back. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's just a good reassurance. Like, Hey, even though there are some bad winters there, these deer are very resilient. Some of them really can, can get through it and, and, and they get bigger. That's awesome.

I don't have anything else. I want to, I could talk for hours with you cause you, you were such a wealth of info up there in that country. And, and it's interesting to us cause it's not our backyard. And, uh, and it's, it's, there's a lot, there's a lot to be gained. Um, anybody else have anything for Colton? What a, what a, what an accomplishment you've, I mean, you've killed lots of big deer in recent times and it's just a testament to the, uh, the focus and energy and time and years and months and days and whatever, uh, that you, your family put into this friends, uh, and you just done a great job at knocking down special deer and it gets us riled up and, and, and, uh, of course, I mean, found a big old pair of sheds this year.

Yeah. I appreciate that. That you guys want to talk about that for a minute? Well, we would, but we didn't, we didn't want to go somewhere. You didn't want us to go with it. No, that's dude. That's, that's totally fine. Let's talk about the King. Yeah. That, that was a something else. That riled the West, uh, pretty good. Yeah. Um, but very, very special experience. Um, uh, to, from the get go, I'll be honest. I had no intentions of even looking for that deer. Not, I didn't even have intentions of looking for him last year and I didn't. Um, but let's see. So last year he had dropped time year four. Okay. So three years ago he showed up and was just a buck, like 170 had like a dinger on each side. Nothing, nothing. Just, uh, took some video of them. Um, the next year he showed up, uh, he put on mass, his two split and had a couple of cheaters on each side.

And I think, um, he was like 195 that year, a buddy picked up one side and then someone from Idaho picked up the other. Up to that point, that deer was under the radar. The next year, which is last year, not last year. Yeah. Not, not last year, the year before when he had the first drop time showed up and he started turning heads and, um, really impressive deer. I think that set, um, wasn't as big as he looked. Uh, I think the, the big side was 103 and then the other side was, um, 78 with probably a four inches broken off as two. Well, last year he shows up and just as an amazing deer explodes. Um, the winter hit really hard, probably beginning of January and the snow packed into the point where you can't get on two tracks that are open anymore. So the way it works up there in Wyoming, there's a certain area that two tracks close and where the buck was, was where the two tracks close.

So a lot of people are going up there filming the buck and then January 1st starts, the roads close, snow pounds. And I don't know what it was, but it seemed like from January 1st on no one was seeing the buck. And I don't know if it was because people weren't going out there if the snow was way too deep and discouraging people. But once that snow started hitting, the buck started shedding really fast, really early. And basically if you were to go up there and do a trip, you weren't seeing very many bucks packing. And it's probably just, all right, that was it for the year or whatever. Just out. It was hardly very many bucks packing. Anyway, so I was up there looking for another buck the end of January that I had lost. And I was driving. I wasn't where the king was. And I looked over, it was probably like 10 in the morning, looked over, um, four or 500 yards.

And I saw two deer standing in a draw. So I pulled over, pulling byles up, about crapped. I'm like, holy frick, it's the king. And that, it was, it wasn't until then that I was like, I should probably keep an eye on this deer because I don't think nobody knows where to steer that. He's been missing for a minute. And I got him in my scope and you're, you know, late January, February, wherever it was, it's getting closer now to time. And other bucks have shed. So, yeah, I mean, so I was like, ah, I better put some effort into it. Um, and so I started, I thought that he was probably going to shed pretty soon just because everything else is shed. He's a really big deer. And basically everything that I had believed up to that point went out the window because I felt like if it was a really bad winter. Stress, they shed early. Yeah. Yeah.

If their bodies are in bad condition, if they were hit during a hunt, they were hurt in the rut. They usually dump earlier. Well, he kept them. And long story short, he kept them a week past when he shed the year before. Wow. And I was just like, what the heck is going on? I was getting frustrated. Um, anyways, I, I kept going up. Um, and luck be, we were there when he shed and we knew right where to go. And it was a pretty special experience. Yeah. Man. Then you had to want two and a half, three months to basically wait to be legal for some people that don't, don't know what, uh, Wyoming had a initial, I guess, shed closure until May 1st. Then it got postponed. Was it the 10th or 15th? I don't remember. 15th. Yeah. 15th. So. I'll tell you, that was probably one of the hardest things to do is drive away from one of the baddest muleys ever knowing that they're laying there.

Well, the only thing though is it kept snowing and snowing and snowing. So they were probably getting buried. That's maybe the only, the only good thing about it. If it was a light winter, like they're just, they would be, you know, just out there seeing from outer space. They'd be in the local bar. That's right. Instead of here in Utah where they belong.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll bet that was a long wait. Pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. Every snowstorm after he shed, I was like, yes. Yeah. Just bury him. Deeper. Deeper. So kind of like the year prior, he was still maintained being somewhat lopsided, like 126 inches and what, 90 on the other side or something like that. Yep. Yep. And then with the inside, you're what, Creston, you're 240s or something. 40 to five or something. But, but one of the most amazing 240 inches ever built. Like ever built. Mass. And I think it just captivated the whole world. The whole hunting world was captivated by this deer. He's over 40 inches wide and, or 30, but just under 40, I guess, 39 or something. But you can correct me if I'm wrong, Colton. And then just, but then just the look, like he's just the shock and awe. You know, you just don't have deer like this alive anymore like they used to have. Yeah.

He's a, he's a specimen. Somebody would paint or draw. Yeah. That's that type of deer. Yeah. Yeah. A fictional buck that you would draw. You know what I mean? That's the type of deer when you look at them, it's like, oh yeah, those don't really grow. No. That's kind of the deer he is. You paint, you paint those. You paint them and draw them. And they're figment of your imagination. That's right. But anyway, I mean, when you went and held them, I mean, are they, they, are they dense? I mean, they just. They, they are as impressive as you could have even imagined. Wow. They are heavy, heavy, heavy. And that one side just isn't right. The right side. That big side. It's 126 inches of freaking dense bone. Yeah. It's, I mean, they're not light. Super, super heavy. It's just, it's special. It's very special. Jeez.

If somebody gets the privilege to harvest that deer, they are going to be blessed. Oh, yeah. Huh. All right. Wow. Well, that's pretty awesome. What can you say about that? A lot of mule deer overload. I'm, I might spin it right now. Well, Bronson needs tags, Colton. You got any, got any ideas for Bronson? Well, we got a, yeah. There's a lot. I mean, I'm, I'm rethinking. Maybe I don't. Maybe I need one and put everything into that one. I feel like that. I do feel like less is better. Less is more. Less is better. It's just hard at this stage in our life is how many more hunting seasons do you have? Bronson. How many more do you have where you're physically and mentally, and you really want to make the most of the tags? 50. 50 more? Yeah. You're going to be a hundred. So. Got to be optimistic. Colton said, you got to be, what was the word he used? No, realistic.

What was that word right there? Yeah. Mindset. It's a mindset. You got to have a mindset. Well. Let's put. You want to be realistic? You got 15 bosses. Bull crap. 65. You ain't going to be running cameras. Come on. Guy. No, I got it. My boy will be like 30, 35. He'll run them for me. He ain't going to run them the same. Yeah. He will by that. You're going to micromanage him. You're going to micromanage him. So he puts them upright. That's right. But. Oh, it's all. You're right. You're right. I mean, I. We all count them. I mean. Whether you're. But. But less tag. So it's hard. Mark. I guess our point, Colton. I mean, you're going to get this way when you get old like us. Is, you know, is you see the years go by and they go. They went by really fast. And then you've got X amount of years coming up and that you know, they're going to go by really fast.

So you grab every tag in the world you can or even that you thought you wanted. And then you end up doing nothing justice. Yeah. Kind of like when COVID hit. Water was in short supply cases of water. You'd grab one every time you saw one. Oh, we still have those stupid 500 gallon freaking storage bins. What do you mean? I got two. So, I mean. Who needs that? 600 gallons. Who needs that? I could shower in that for three weeks if I needed to. Okay, anyway. In my basement. All right, Colton. You got anything else that we haven't asked or that you want to offer while we got you on? Oh, it's good talking to you guys. And I appreciate the opportunity and that you guys feature some of my bucks that I've been able to harvest. And it's just a great privilege. So I appreciate it. We appreciate you being willing to visit with us on a work day. And I know you've got plenty going.

One, I'm not hearing you rolling down the road anymore. You might have pulled off or something. Yeah. I pulled off so I didn't wreck or anything. Well, we appreciate it. We do. Thanks a lot. We know everybody's busy and got stuff to do and you could be doing. But thanks for taking a minute. It's good for us. Good for listeners. No problem. Yeah. Best of luck on your hunts this year. Okay. Thank you. All right. You too. Okay. Take it easy. Be safe. See you guys. Bye. All right. Bye.

He kept mentioning luck. There was a lot of preparation. Oh. He hunted. You know. And you can't. I'm sure he's being a little bit humble. But it does. Like on general units, you're dealing with lots of other hunters, elk hunters at the same time on top of deer hunters in Wyoming because you had archery elk going on at the same time you rifled deer. And just pressure and what that does to older bucks, it makes them go underground in that country. Yeah. It saves them. You know. And they're in timber. They just dig in deep. Yeah. And it's why you can, you know, have a chance to show up the last three or four days or whatever you said it was. Three days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And still have a chance to kill a deer like that. Well, and your outfitters are allocated permits and they're only allowed to hunt in certain parts of the general regions. Yeah. Certain camps.

And so where it's like he, as long as it's not wilderness, he can go wherever he wants or anybody. Or with a resident, he can go wherever he wants. Doesn't have to camp here. He can go coyote out, you know. And so there's. End up where he ends up. You have a little bit of freedom if you're willing to stretch and hunt on your own too, you know. I can get creative. But anyway, that comes with years though. It's anybody that's successful at anything in life. It comes with years of being there. He's been up there a year. Three requisites. Yeah. That can't have time to go through them all. And knowledge builds on knowledge, right? Like. Well, he said it. The Red Desert versus, you know, La Barge versus whatever. And then the Summer Range is a no different. This Summer Range, that Summer Range, this Summer Range. It's just like the local history we have here. I know I'm killed about here.

We have places we're going to go look first when we hit a unit. Yeah. When we go back. It's that local knowledge. You can't beat it. I'm going to have these teal pockets. That's the first place I'm hitting. Because odds are when something's good and it's a good year, there's going to be something good there. But his local knowledge is different than his neighbor. Oh, yeah. Because he's been blessed with a job that allows him to run a little bit, a good wife and family or whatever. And even though he's been constrained a little bit, he's. Yeah. He watched the king for how many days in a row. You know what I mean? He does have a little. Well, he also lives within a, you know, two hour proximity or whatever. But you got to be willing to drive two hours daily. Gas, gas, gas. Sleep in the cab of your truck, probably.

That's definitely something that a lot of people don't take into account is how many days he went out and probably didn't see a decent deer. Right. To every big deer that he did find. Or lots of bald bucks. How much time he did spend. Stupid amount of time. Yeah. And good for him. He said two things and I'm kind of curious on if you guys have any experience with this. But one was the most you think you've seen one deer grow in a year and then range. Like how far you think you've, you know, a deer has traveled. I think like, yeah. Well. That's as high as probably I would say. 80 miles is on the far end. And that 60 inches is like the far end of the spectrum. Yeah. It's normal. It's common to be 20 to 50 inches. Yeah. 20 to 40. But I mean, in places like that where genetics are superior, places like strip, things like that can happen. You can have huge, huge swings. Huge growth. That's not.

There's only. There's body conditions. There's, you know, what the year prior looked like. Body condition. The age he is, you know, the bad year and then the good year. Is he getting over the hump? Is he getting into the hump? Is he going four and a half to five and a half? Five and a half to six and a half? Or is he going from seven and a half to eight and a half? Yeah. Yeah. You know, or three and a half to four and a half. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. And there's a lot that goes into that. That stuff's so interesting. But 30 to. Yeah. 20 to 50 inches, right? 20 to 40 inches. Yeah. One of the things he mentioned, too, was talking about high country and the drought, how it doesn't really affect it. I was shocked when really how much moisture there is, even on a drought year when you're really high. When I had that oak tag up on the penguins, I mean, it was drought still here. Yeah.

And you had, you know, neck high grass, just lush, lush, lush up there. And the burn. It was great. The burn over that, the whole unit, not, you know, not just where you're hunting, but the unit as a whole had helped interject a lot of good high quality feed into it, too. A lot of the country you were concentrating, too, are riparian areas because that's where the cows are, that's where the bulls are going to be. Like, you know, I mean, there's other parts of the unit that were pretty dry, you know? Yeah. There's a lot that goes into all this stuff, but it's fun to think about. Stuff we didn't even consider in the 90s or 2000. We didn't even put two and two together. That deer I shot on the Henrys, I think, I didn't have the sheds from the year before, but I've got video of him. He's probably, he put him about 30 inches. 30 inches. With a broadhead in his shoulder. Yeah.

He got shot as a four-year-old, about 190. I mean, I figured he's around 190 in the video. He's like 221. He was five. He was only five. A lot of that was five. Yeah, and a lot of that. We'd have to go back. What year did you kill him? 2019? Before that. 2018? 17. 17. 16 was a good year in Nevada. 17, but I mean, 30 inches with a broadhead in his shoulder. I mean, if I have it on my desk. A lot of times, a wound on one side will kick their antler weird on the other side. Yeah, or a weird broken, abscessed tooth in their jaw. Or the regress period, score-wise. He didn't skip a beat. I mean, it just, it was interesting. Yeah. Didn't even know it. The meat cutter told me how to broadhead. I saw, well, you probably found one of mine in the off shoulder. Because, you know, deer die in road, pieces break off in there. He's like, no, this one's been here a little longer. It's been here a while.

And it had. He's the one that, he put it in my cut and wrap meat box. He said, you're going to want this. Yeah. So, anyway, just interesting. Well, with options, you know, there's a lot of people looking for options. I think we should talk about our membership drive and all the crazy hunts that we've got coming out on this membership drive. I wish I could apply. Because I know John wishes he could apply. I wish I could apply. I've got nothing. John, those are choices. What do you mean? We all have choices. I've applied. If you give me carte blanche, give me an open check. Give me an open check and your points. I will have you some tags, boss. Yeah, but he did draw Utah General. Those are not hard to draw. I've got points, too. Well, it's probably these young kids that don't deserve the tags that got your tags. Exactly. Those dang young kids. Don't get John started on that. Vane.

I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We're talking about sheep tags. But. Okay. Don't put words in my mouth. But in general, it's been a tougher draw year for us around the office. I mean. Yeah. Really. Collectively, everybody. I mean, I can't remember. Logan, do you get a tag? I got a general tag. Good. That's a win. Yeah. But he also chose not to apply for some things he could have got because he's going to have heavy school. We talked him into it later in the year, though. There was one thing I really wanted that I applied for I didn't get. And then after that, I just decided I was prioritizing school over hunting this fall. So. Yeah. What was the thing you didn't get? I really wanted to hunt Arizona elk. Our trio. Yeah. Hey, I'm with you. And I let the points came out. And I was like one shy of some average stuff. Yeah. I mean, still. What I wanted. Cash, you didn't get a Utah.

You got a Colorado. So, I mean. Yeah. I've got a Colorado. You got something in your hands. I've got. I'm going to live vicariously through a few people this year, I think. You are. You are. I've got some family members that have some decent tags. Do you do? My wife's got a tag that I'm really excited about. It's just a general tag, but I'm excited if a specific deer comes back. I'm really excited. Well, yeah. And I've got a family member. I've got two people. I've got somebody with an archery tag. And somebody with a rifle tag that are pretty awesome. Yeah. Utah. My dad this year. So, I've got a couple of those that I'm really looking forward to as well. Like you said, it's. And they're long awaited tags. So, it's like. And good. Stellar. Limited entry Utah tags. And good years. So, I'm really am looking forward to it. My brother last year had one. He won an expo tag.

And we hunted our guts out. Carter, that's how that went. It was a rough year. But, hey. It's an expo tag. I was right there with you. It's a freebie. It was a freebie until you start filling up your truck. And it's day after day. Turns into week after week. Turns into trail camera after trail camera. Whatever. Day after day. All the scouting. All the prep. All the. It wasn't free. Yeah. What a difference a year can make. But, anyway. We're all going to have to live a little bit vicariously through some others. And their tags. And it's going to be a lot of bounce around. Anybody wants a whitetail tag, let me know. Wyatt, can I interest you in a. Well, I've still got the one from last year. A big old deer rat. The way they run, those whitetails run, they just look like a rat. I don't. They are. Their face. They're in the face, too. The long nose.

Those gnarly big old freaking bucks are just a big old rat looking at you. They're special, though. Smart suckers. Can you get to offend some people? They are, right? I want a giant. The problem with it is you have to give up everything else in life. And you've done that this year.

That's a good point. I know. I feel terrible about my choices. We all have choices. Well, let's get back to the choices. Here's some good choices. We got it. We got it. We got it. Bronson, Peterson, we're giving away some hunts. We're giving away a doll sheep hunt, Alaska doll sheep, for 2024. Give you a year to prep for it. Yeah. And these hunts, not to be a broken record, but they're hunts we would want ourselves. When we see opportunities and find opportunities, we buy them. And this is a pretty short drive. This one is always our second one. It's always like 45 or 50-something days by the time we announce this thing. And June 19th this year, which is, I think, the Monday after Father's Day. That's the deadline. And that's coming up really fast. By the time this hits, what's tonight? Eighth or ninth? This will be live? You're going to have 10 or 12 days to get these in.

But, yeah, starting out, the Alaska doll sheep, obviously, to give one of those away in June, it's kind of hard for everybody to plan an August hunt two months away. So this one is for 2024. That is with, you know, up in the Brooks Range. So if you've got time to plan, go try to book a 2024 doll sheep hunt somewhere right now. Go try to book one. You can. Yeah, you can't. We booked this a while ago. You can't book a lot of these hunts. Go try to book one for 25. That gets hard. Not even Canada or Alaska. For 25, it's getting tough. So there's a good opportunity for that. Things come available, Bronson, that, you know, you and I or John or anybody in the office would want, that we would want. We think about this and putting them in the drive. Because you've got to think a year, two, three years in advance. None of these are leftover hunts.

These are planned and most of them years in advance. So what's next? We also have a Utah elk hunt, which it's published as a Utah, but it's a Utah, Nevada. It shares the border. That landowner takes good for both sides. So it's pretty special. Rare opportunity to hunt that. And we have Nevada hunters that draw or Utah hunters that draw can hunt both states too. That's right. It's very unique. And we have a good friend of ours that went last year and smashed a bull well over 400 inches on that particular hunt. So when it came available, we jumped on it. It's a rifle hunt September 16th to the 20th of this year, 2023. You're going to be one of two dudes, and you're going to be first. It's pretty special. So anyway, awesome opportunity. We've got another New Mexico elk hunt. New Mexico is going to be incredible. Let's do this year. It's unbelievable. They're a southwestern state.

The monsoon is last year, the winter this year. This one's in Unit 34 or 36. We left it a little bit open-ended so that the hunter could choose archery or rifle or muzzleloader, whatever they want to choose in terms of, you know, so it's appealing. It will include the landowner tag and guided hunt there, all included. These guys have got a private ranch option too. Yeah, in 36, right? For archery, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So add some, you know, everybody can apply for that. Pick the hunt you want, the window you want, whether it be, you know, first to the 24th, sometime in there for archery or October hunts for firearms. So that's going to be a good one. We've got another mule deer hunt. This is an interesting, that's with ECO Outfitters, Alex Nestor. Just an incredible opportunity for an archery hunter. You know, it's just one of those things. It's a five-day hunt.

And it's, you know, it's very flexible season dates. You're going to be in November in the rut, out on the plains, private land, guaranteed landowner tag. And he's stacking the deer up. He's stacking big deer up. So just a great opportunity for archery. And the drawing odds are stupid good. Yeah. That one's archery only. And as you'd imagine that, you know, the majority of hunters are not just archers. Yeah. You know, so your archers are going after that one. The rifle hunters have to skip and look at the next one or the next one that we got. And we get the different, you know, we get to look at, you know, what people's preferences are as they send in, we call them applications. They send in their tickets. And the odds, they're incredible. The odds over the entire drive are the best we've seen. I don't know what's going on out there in the world.

But anyway, they're the best we've ever seen. And this particular hunt, for the deer quality, you're hunting, it is archery, but you're hunting hard horned mule deer. You're like, some people don't like the velvet. You know what I mean? But you get to hunt hard horned big deer, private land. Correct. Pretty special considering the odds of this. Yeah, going through this hunt, putting together the pictures, just big deer after big deer after big deer on this one. Next one we have a Nevada. We've often done these Nevada landowner tags in Unit 231. Well, we live right here and they're big deer. And we feel like we can, well, the versatility adds to it. You get to book your hunt with the outfitter, which is taken care of on this hunt. And landowner tags are still good for all season. So you've got all kinds of flexibility. Archery, muzzleloader, rifle. Great bucks.

I mean, 231 is well known when it's a good moisture year. It cranks out as many good deer as any unit in Nevada. It really does. It's got more numbers than a lot of other units. There may be in the southwestern part of the state. Not quite as arid. And so when it's good, it's usually really, really good. We're anticipating this to be a phenomenal year. So that one's like a no-brainer. And you can't hardly find lander tag. You couldn't. They almost were nonexistent this year because of some of the tag cuts and things like that that Endow's done, which then, you know, cuts straw tags and landowner tags were lower because there's fewer deer. And a lot of it is just a product of the deer hitting the field. They count the deer in the field. And some years, there's just less deer than the private. Yeah, that's right. And so there was very few tags considering, you know, other years.

And there was even one that went at auction tag alone for 28K. Unguided. Yeah, unguided. So just an incredible opportunity that we're proud to be able to give that away. We've also got a third season mule deer hunt. It'd be November 11 to 17, coming up seven days with Clay Hill, Hill Guides and Outfitters. Just an awesome opportunity. Guaranteed landowner tag down there in the Swatch country, Alamosa Valley. Man, well-known for great deer, great opportunity down there. He does really good. And we just appreciate him and his support over the years. We've given a number of hunts away with Clay. And our hunters love it. You see tons of deer. I love that place. We've killed multiple big deer right there in that same unit, personally. A lot of us have hunted. John, you've hunted it. Multiple times. Great unit, man. Anyway, now, Bronson. This is for you, boss. Why'd you say it like that?

Well, this is the one that you would want your name in. It's a pair of landowner tags for antelope, buddy. You've killed more big bucks than most people. More big what? Antelope. What, one? Dude, you've killed a pair of big bucks, haven't you? I can't think of a pair. You need another. I drew an Arizona tag and killed a great buck. And that was mostly luck because I drew in a great year in Arizona, which is about like- I had it in my mind you killed a pair of them. Maybe you have. You're thinking of Devin and Wyatt. Well, I know that pair. Yeah. That's the famous duo. I don't know about that. I've killed three antelope bucks in my life. These guys smashed multiples. They killed a pair up there in Wyoming, a pair in Nevada. I've only killed one in Wyoming, killed one in Utah when I was like 15 years old because you got a pick in Utah, deer, elk, antelope.

Back then, I think we could do everything. Yeah. I know we could. Yeah. So I drew it and I was like, when I say 15, I don't know. My first or second year hunting, 14, 15. I killed one before you knew what you were doing. Kind of like your buffalo. You drew your buffalo about the same time, 15. 15 years old. Yeah. So I just don't remember on that buck, I shoved it. John, I stole a tag from John and I didn't even appreciate it because I was a kid. See? Now you would really appreciate that tag. Back then, I didn't even have my own vehicle. So you're just like, I would have scouted more. Yeah. You know, anyway, but yeah, same thing. I killed multiple antelope in Wyoming, one in Arizona, didn't know what I was looking at. For me, they're always an add-on. It just feels like there's always something. So we're giving them paratags. Yeah, paratags.

These are unit-wide landowner tags here in southern Utah, Mount Dutton, Poncegont. So two of you, whether it be you and a buddy, you and a father, father-son deal, father-daughter, daddy-daughter date, whatever. Smash and grab. You and your wife. Truck chasers. Do it. Yep. Take it. Go have a good time. It's awesome. I'm glad we're giving a pair away. The odds are going to be phenomenal. Yeah, that's a good one. We always usually have a couple that are like, that was just a brainchild one day and we made it happen. You get to choose archery in August, August 19th to September 15th, or you can do rifle September 16th to 24th. So. All right, Wyatt. Yeah, the final hunt we're going to talk about is one I've been down and done personally. It's a Texas Audad hunt. I guess Audad or Barbary sheep, same species there. First class operation down there with High West Outfitters.

I mean, this is a guaranteed to be a good hunt. These guys are just awesome and they put guys on big rams. I killed a 35 and a half incher when I was down there. Anything over 30 is considered big. And Wyatt makes me look at it all day long. It's like my window to Wyatt's office. He makes me want another one. I mean, I shot one that's like 28 and a half or nine. I can't remember. I honestly don't remember. 28 and a half or 29. Right. And it's just a nice part of it. But I want one. I want like that. Wyatt. But one guy, I had a guy call me the other day, Wyatt, talking about this hunt. They were concerned about it's only like a four day hunt. And I reassured them about the number of Audad on these ranches. And maybe you can talk a little bit about that. I mean, four days is a semi-shorter hunt. It's not as short as like some antelope punts.

But that's plenty of time because of the well-mannered ranches and the number of animals, right? Right. Yes. I went early. I went in February. So it was kind of early. I guess still winter, I guess is what you'd still call it then. It wasn't even early spring. Did it snow like a half inch down there? They shut everything down? It snowed a half inch. Shut everything down there in Texas. But yeah, we had no problems. Half inch and nobody went to school for a week. The diner was closed. We went and tried to get breakfast. The diner was closed before we went out. Really? Airport, delayed our flights another day. I mean, this is Texas when they have giant four-wheel drive trucks. That's right. It shut down the postal service. It was kind of crazy. But yeah, we saw plenty of good mature rams on that hunt. And those guys, they just know what they're doing.

I mean, they're going to put you on sheep. Yeah. A lot of sheep. Good guides. I mean, they're not over hunted. It's not, you know, so don't worry about that. Those are shorter hunts. You don't need five to seven day hunts on those. Pretty awesome. And we also have a kind of our, you know, we call it, I don't know, optics package. But it's an optics bow, rifle, ginormous $15,500 package, Bronson. Well, it's stupid. I'm looking forward to getting rid of that bow. God, we've had them marked for like six months. No, I mean, we've had them marked. Well, Bronson's a check the box kind of guy. And it is. They do. You look at them and you're like. Get it out of the office. Well. Because sometimes, hey, what's that bow? Oh, yeah. And I've looked at it for six, seven months. Still here. I'm going to get rid of it. Yeah. Fierce, Twisted Rage, 300 rum. We've got a 60 to 70 pound Hoyt VTM.

You know, a Swaro 95 objective. And we also have an ATX or an STX. You get to choose angled or straight. Not going to tell you which way to go. I'm a straight guy, personally. The Leica Amplis, you know, 3 to 18 rifle scope. Vortex Razor HD 4000 GB rangefinder. That new rangefinder they came out with. Thought that was fitting. And then a pair of Zeiss 15 by 56s. And the six hour kilo 10Ks. The binos. The range finding binos. So, dude. Man. I didn't catch your breath. That's a huge list. We're going to have to do some reordering time. That stuff leaves, Bronson. I'm glad to get rid of it. I mean, it's been stacked and piled. And I like getting rid of piles. Yeah. Checking boxes. And there's my job. There's a couple ways to get your name in the hat. And if you're thinking it's really hard, it's pretty easy. Like as low as $25, you can have your name in the hat for one of these hunts.

And, you know, the more tickets you buy, the better deal it is. Yeah. If you get the $200 package, then you'll be in for that. The headlamp. The headlamp. The freaking Epic Outdoor headlamp. I freaking can't wait. Custom headlamp. Dude. You can shine. So, you get that automatically. Let's say you can spotlight animals at 100 yards. It's stupid. You get 10. You're on record. Is that on record? I don't know. I'm blown away. So, we tested it. We had a test. They're lined up to be showing up here any day. But, anyway, it's a sick headlamp. It's pretty sick. You get the headlamp. You don't have to win it. You just get it. And you get 10 chances as well. If you buy that $200. If you buy the $200. Yep. If you buy the $500. If you buy the $500. Then you're in for that bonus package of all the gear. All the crap I just lined up. The bow. The rifle. Crazy. $15,000.

And then, if you want a free entry, just get a friend to join. Refer somebody. Or join yourself. Or join yourself. We have members that say, yeah, what about me? You had your name in when you joined. This is the same gig. Everybody's got a chance to win something. And everybody will get their name in if they join. You join, you get a name in there. Refer somebody. Refer somebody. Get more names. Unlimited amount. So, anyway, it's awesome. We're super excited. And this is, John, are we in the last week, week and a half of this whole day? Yeah, we got 10 days, I think. About that. And if you listen to this podcast. Depending on when it comes out. Going into the weekend. You know, we're not going to be here over, you know, Friday and through the weekend. You know, generally get into the summer. We sometimes aren't working most Fridays anymore. Like tomorrow. We have it off.

But you can always go to epicoutdoors.com and buy tickets over the weekend that way. Or, you know, we'll be here, you know, Monday through Thursday. Probably, well, yeah, I guess that next weekend we actually close down to Monday. So, the Monday the 19th we'll be here, too. Oh. Really a procrastinator. Yeah, we're super excited. You know, we're excited to give away a bunch of these hunts. We've got a week and a half. You can get your name in. I'd get your name in a few times if you can at all swing it. It's pretty awesome. Draws are about over. Yeah. I mean, we're down to that. That's right. We do have a lot of draw results coming out. Some of them are tougher to draw states. Arizona, California, you know, residents and deer tags that are not too hard. But good luck getting a sheep around. We're pretty. You know, and we're going to four-day work weeks around here. Wyatt, are you excited?

I'm excited, yeah. Ready to spend some time on the mountain. Yeah. Yeah, I am, too. It's pretty awesome. Me, too. I'm back on the golf course. Just about had an ace this morning.

It was pretty impressive, and I don't even golf. I'm looking at it. I'm like, whoa. That's legit. That was a little 200-yard par three. Oh, jeez. That's the ball. That's the divot right there. In inches. But I'm more happy because my elbow surgery is over. To me, it looks like, to me, I would liken that to the big one got away. I had to witness. Yes. It was a tap-in birdie from 18 inches. But, I mean, the ball marks was two inches from the cup from 200 yards out. What do they call it? A gimme? Couldn't you just call it a gimme and be one? The guy I was with, and I had a witness, and he said, that's a gimme. I said, no, I'm doing this. You know, put it right in. But I had one the next hole I missed. So, anyway. I like it. But, hey, I'm back golfing. So, are we really going to let Wyatt off without telling us a story? Tell us a story. No, we're not. I can tell a story.

Tell us a quick story. Okay. So, we've got enough mule deer today, so I think we'll talk about my sheep hunt. Oh, yeah. Love it. Yeah. Love it. We never have talked about it. I did take a doll sheep back in 2015. So, I wasn't extremely young, but I was definitely a younger man then. Were you in the 20s? I guess late 20s? Yeah. Late 26, 27, I think. So, later 20s there. And I was just down at an office with a buddy, and we got a phone call from an outfitter. And it was a $9,000 doll sheep hunt. And I'd never heard of one that cheap. Hunt cancellation. Cancellation, right? Was it summer? Yeah. June or July? Cancellation. About right now? It was July, and we had to be there in August. It's like back up, get on the plane. I'd never been to Alaska. Only dreamed about it. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought about it. You know, this is opportunity of a lifetime.

You know, I'm not a rich man, but I'm going to throw what I have at this hunt, and I'm going to kill a doll sheep. So, ended up there opening week, and I think it was the 14th this year, 10th. 10th is opening week. 10th. So, it would have been like the 10th that I ended up up there in Alaska. And had no idea what to expect. I borrowed a bunch of gear to go on this hunt. I mean, I had no idea what to expect. I was a hunting guide in Utah at the time. That's when I was guiding full-time for a living. Slow rolling the pines. Yeah. I kind of thought I was in pretty decent shape for Alaska, but it's a whole different world once you get up there and see that thing. It's a whole joke. It's a whole different world. I wish I would have trained, or I guess I really didn't have time to train. You had youth. But you had 26. But I had youth. You were 26. I had no quit in me.

Were you drinking Mountain Dew at the time? I was drinking Mountain Dew at the time. You were fine. You were well prepared. Another interesting thing that I found out on this hunt is I couldn't stand the taste of Mountain House meals. What? It wasn't freeze-dried meals. I just had never eaten them before. Well, they stuff you up a little bit, too. Yeah. So I lived up there every night. So what did you eat? Snickers bars. You did? Snickers bars. Yes. You ate Snickers the whole time? So you traded your guy like, give me your Snickers, and I'll give you my Mountain House, because I would take the Mountain House. You seriously ate Snickers the whole time? Luckily, I had taken a bag with me of just candy bars. I didn't know what to expect, so I just threw a bunch of candy bars. And now Snickers is junk. Caramel, peanuts. Like, nougat. It's got a little bit of everything in there.

It's got to be good for me. They do satisfy. They got nuts. They got a wide variety of good things in them. They cut the hangry. I figured it was good. So anyways, luckily, I took a handful of those up there. And how we decided we were going to attack this hunt was going to be to raft a river. So it was a pretty cool experience. We started a base camp there, dropped a big raft into the river. And just you and a guide? Just two of you? There were three of us. So there was a guide and a packer with me. So dropped into the river and started floating down. And I mean, it was awesome. I mean, just big old canyon with valley floor. Big old side hills on both sides. And yeah, I mean, we're glassing up sheep just instantly. Just ewes and lambs, ewes and lambs. And they were all down in the lower, I guess, they would call the area the crags, which was

about, I don't know, three quarters of the way up the mountain. There was these big old set of ledges. And everything below it was kind of green and grassy basins and meadows. And everything above it was just shale rock. So as we're going along, we're glassing up black bears and doll sheep and even some caribou. We saw some grizzly bears just kind of floating down the river. And I think we ended up doing 10 plus miles of river that day. The next morning got up and we're only about two miles into the river and actually glassed up the ram that I killed on day two, just laying up there. And it was above what they called the crag area. And the guide did not really want to go up above the crag area to hunt rams. I mean, I was fine with it too. It looked pretty rough up there. Was he alone wide? He was all alone. He just laid up there on kind of a pyramid looking hillside.

And he just laid up there on the very tip top of it and just basically stared down towards the river all day. I know. When they do that, you're like, how do you, there's no way to get close to them. Yeah. I feel like that sometimes. But you get onto their side of the mountain and somehow there's enough cover. But anyway, he's telling the story. Anyways, we found them day two, day, all that day we watched the ram. All the next day we watched the ram and he didn't move 40 yards in these days. He just kind of got up, spun circles. I don't know what he was even finding to really eat up there. There wasn't much food.

And then the next day we actually watched him the whole day too. And that's kind of, we got a, I can't remember how they got the message. It must have been an old in-reach or a satellite phone. He talked to the main outfitter there and the guy said, hey, there's weather coming. So you guys better be ready. We don't have to force this. This might be our last, you know, good day of hunting. So we talked about it and decided, hey, we got this ram. This is really all we have going. So we're going to make the climb and at least try him one time. So we made the hike up the canyon, through the alders, crossed the creek 150 times.

Got up on the backside and was able to come along the top. And as we're kind of sneaking in on him, I kind of knew, like, we're going to be close when we see this ram. Like, he's going to be, we're going to be right on top of him, just the way the terrain rolled off there. And anyways, we can come over to just this little teeny rise. I can see just the top of the ram's back. And I'm trying to get set up for the shot. And the guide's like, no, we're getting closer. So we dropped down into the next goalie. And then I really knew the next time I popped up on this ram, we were going to be really close. Like, how far were you a minute ago when you saw him? 100 yards. What? 100 yards. Yeah, and the guide wanted to get closer because he wanted to make the call. He wanted to make sure it was a legal ram. And we weren't 100% sure. We were looking five miles when we were down the bay.

Yeah, so you, he wanted to. We were looking a long ways. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so he wanted to. You wanted to cut the distance in half. Yeah, I wanted to cut the distance in a lot more than half. From 100 yards to 50 yards. It was close. And anyway, so we get down there and we crawl over the last little bit. And it was actually the little kind of rock ledge that kind of blocked out at me seeing the whole entire ram from 100 yards away. We crawl over the top of that and we have the ram at 30 yards. Is he batted still? No, he's standing there looking. He hears us. He sees us now. So he's looking up there at us and the guide gives me the thumbs up that it's a legal ram. Did you just what? We shot. Offhand? No, I was, I was laying down. Oh, really? Laying down, had my backpack in front of me and just. Easing up and he was just staring at you? Yeah, just staring at me. Shot. Hit the ram.

He ended up kind of, kind of going over the edge there to where we lost sight of him back towards the valley, back towards the river. So we lost sight of him there. The guide and myself kind of, you know, had a little argument on whether I hit or missed the ram. He was thinking I'd missed it. I was pretty convinced that I'd hit it. It was 30 yards. Yeah. But it's hard to, hard to really say though too. There's not a lot of reaction that something at 30 yards happening that fast too. So we finally, you know, dropped down over to the edge there when it dropped down over to the edge where we'd lost sight of the ram. Was able to look down and the ram had fallen about 1500 feet, was caught up down there. Oh, wow. Could you see it? Yeah, I could see it. Did you glass it or with your eye? Yeah, I glassed it down. Well, I could see it with my eyes, a big old white thing down there.

And glassed it and took a minute to confirm it was a sheep because it just looked like a big tangled ball of white. But we were able to drop down off there and recover it that day. I was going to say at 30 yards your muzzle blast might have turned him from a doll to a fan. But after rolling 1500 yards, he looked like a full-blown stone. Yeah, he was pretty beat up. I mean. Jeez. Well, I'm funny to real funny. He broke three to four inches off each horn. Did he really? About snapped one horn right off. Like it was a sad deal to get down on him, but it was still awesome to recover. Did you find some of those tips? No. Oh. But I didn't think so. Jeez. Wow. Awesome story. I mean, that is a great story. I don't know. We should have Wyatt tell more stories. He's a good storyteller. He's kind of like, I don't know. Who's he like? Who's he like? The good storytellers of like Louis L'Amour? Louis.

Louis. Louis. He's very particular on nicknames. Cousin Louis. But would you agree with Louis? I don't know about that. I mean, she is. He doesn't want to be called Louis. You and I will end up calling him Louis. Nothing will stick. Oh, it's all good. I like it. That was a good story, though. I liked it. That was my doll sheet. We're going to pull some guiding stories out of you, too, because there's some funny ones. Yeah. Those will be some good ones, but we ought to get some clients to talk about those ones so they can at least defend themselves or I can defend myself. You've actually talked about maybe we should call them and visit with them. All right. Well, it's awesome. One thing we want to just real quick. We're done. This has been way long. But let's just talk about the Muleys matter. The donations keep rolling in, Bronson. Maybe say what we think we've got. We've got more.

We've got more. Well, I mean, roughly. We talked about browning and a browning package and whatnot. We've also got a tripod that was donated by Cannity Tripods. We really appreciate them. Good friend, Ryan Iverson. He's thrown in a gift certificate for a Stone Glacier backpack. I mean, legit. He had it sent, and we've got it here ready to give to somebody. There's going to be a Longhorn Bull photograph. It's a large metal print by Trevor Thompson. Just awesome. It might be popular for a Texan. Yeah. Or who knows, right? Cabin decor, things like that. PSC Outdoors Photography. Stedman's Jewelry. They're doing a Muley necklace. I've got one. It's awesome. Do you? Great big deer antler. Yeah. You wearing them? The exact one. Not today. I should, actually. And then also some earrings. I'm not wearing those. But they are awesome. So for him and her, whatever, or both for her, whatever.

Anyway, we appreciate them. And then the Rock Slide and Rockcast guys up there, Ryan Avery, Robbie Denning, anyway, they're sending in something significant. So they just keep rolling in, and we've got a stack of them. And, of course, that's on the spreadsheet. We're going to have dozens of winners. Dozens and dozens. We're already at that. 50-plus, probably. As we keep adding to this, we'll announce it, I guess, before we go hunting, you've got to kind of announce the official rules by August, because there's some people that are bow hunters. Yeah. And they want to know before they flip the string on a meat buck what the consequences of them missing out on are. So we're going to announce that at least by August 1st. If you have a chance to kill a buck with a bow, just slap him. Slap him. Just freaking knock him down. That's right. Well, but if not, send us in the tag.

Yeah, send in the tag. Anyway. Yeah, if you missed other podcasts, basically, to be in the drawing, you've got to send us a tag from 2023 that's not used. After you hunt. We're not doing it until November 30th. We're expecting people to go hunt. Take your women and children, or woman and children, and friends and family, go hunt your guts out. But, yeah. But instead of just killing, don't shoot it. Yeah. Instead of just killing something to kill it, why maybe you think twice. That's all. And there's a link on our website, which is awesome. That'll be great. But, anyway. All right. Big box. Big box. Roll into the weekend. This is a fun podcast. Let's go. I'm hungry. Let's go get a Snickers. All right. Sounds good. I don't care who you are. That's some funny crap. Snickers. Save plants. We'd like to thank all of our sponsors here at Epic Outdoors.

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