EP 285: The Inside Scoop with Nevada DOW

Anything to do with Western big game.

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Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson coming at you from southern Utah. It's a hot, sunny, freaking perfect scouting weather. Huh, Bronson? Finally turned summer. It looks like this week's, maybe, well, last week, a couple of days. But it's been a long, long time. I think Vegas and maybe St. George is sneaking 100 in or close to it. So, which is kind of crazy being almost June being over with. Perfect weather for tire plugs. And, I don't know, Lake Powell. Yeah. It wasn't too hot. You and John went to Lake Powell. I wish I was in Lake Powell. Instead, I was using 14 plugs and two cans of fix-a-flat. Rubber cement, fix-a-flat, and parts of your t-shirt sleeves. I've done that before, by the way, whenever I had a plug. I've done six or eight plugs. I've done wood. I've done wood sticks, like sticks. You know, I'm like, oh. It works. I had a whole sleeve of it.

Cutting plugs out of a sleeve out of a shirt once. So, you're sleeveless on one side because you had to go number two. Sleeveless on the other side because you're plugging tires. I don't think the shirt ever got worn again. There wasn't enough of it left? No. So, yeah. It got me home, and that's the motto. Kind of like you. It's scouting season. You know what's funny is it's interesting. You throw a spare tire on your side-by-side. But what good's the spare without a jack that can jack it up two or three feet? With your suspension. On these wazoo ones. Well, yeah. On the razors. It's never-ending. That spring just keeps stretching, and it leaves the tire on the ground. Just stretches and stretches. It's two feet. I think when I got done, I jacked it up this morning to, you know, throw all the good spare on so I can go grab the other one fixed properly.

And, man, it had four foot of clearance, it looked like. It's probably three and a half foot of clearance. Sick. And then once you get driving it, then the suspension chills out. A little bottle jack doesn't cut that. No. Unless you have timbers two feet tall, then you might start. I was looking for, what do they call it, snatch blocks and different things for the winch to figure out, okay, if I go over a limb of a tree, back down to the bike itself, lift that tire off the ground. Lift the back end up. That's what I was looking at doing. Lift the whole back end off the ground. Yeah.

I was thinking about it, and I'm thinking, you know, it's pretty smart. I just don't know. I need a little more tools than what I had. And I had an old janky freaking air compressor that was all broke down. And, anyway, it got enough air in there. Between that, two cans of fix-a-flat, 14 tire plugs, and a T-shirt, I made it home. In fact, we ran the rest of the day. It's crazy. Sean started doing 70-75. What? And on half of a tire, I'm like, chill it out, boss. You got, oh, that thing. Motors. Yeah, I know. But you start throwing a plug or two in a second. I told him, I said, what's your life worth? You know? It was on the rim about 10 minutes ago. You know what I mean? So, anyway, yeah, we've been running cameras for, I don't know, what waters, Bronson, what? Just a little scouting tip from you for the rest of the world. What waters do you choose to put cameras on?

Streams shorter than 100 yards. Okay. And did you see any? A couple. Hey, how about this? Tell us about your... Well, I don't know how much time we've got. We've got to call our good friend, Mike Scott, over there in Nevada. But tell us about the time you were scouting. Maybe two weeks ago, three weeks ago. My AC went out. And when you, you know, basically donated your front bumper to the state of Nevada. Well, yeah. I mean, you get going on some of these two trackers that haven't seen a whole lot of action since last... How about any action? The locals know better. They know there's water everywhere. Well, or last year, since the monsoon season, ripped some of these apart. And, you know, they're never graded. So, you're... Four-wheeler, the side-by-sides are fine. You get a, you know, full-grown or even half-grown truck going into one of those. You're going to... Half-grown truck.

Bumper. What's Logan's truck? Is Logan's truck full-grown? That's a full-grown. I'm a full-grown truck? I call a half-grown truck. Well, it's a... Because the size and dimensions are full-grown. Yeah, they are. I mean... But the guts are half-grown. Yeah. But, I mean, I'm just talking... My guts? Well, meaning the engine. The engine, towing capacity, all of that. Capable, you know. For Logan, it's a compliment. Half-grown trucks are made for the Arizona Strip and rugged places. Okay. Half-grown is like the ZR2 Tacoma, stuff like that. Oh, I see. Okay. Yours is half-grown inside, but exterior, you've got the big-grown dimensions. Yeah. Just different. But, anyway, yeah, I had to jack up a couple tires and load a bunch of rocks to get out of that one by yourself. Yeah. I found out that my office hands were pretty soft because just running a shovel for like

30 seconds, I ripped the whole palm of my hand off. I mean... Hey. I look down, I'm like... Where's my hand? Do I got a skin condition I don't know about? What the heck? I hit the shovel twice, three, four times. They make what they call leather gloves. Yeah. Finally healing up.

I thought you had golfing gloves or something in there. Well, you golf with... I'm a writer, so you golf with... Oh. You only put a glove on your left hand. Your right hand doesn't ever get... Ever. So it's... You're just screwed. I've got keyboard hands. Yeah. So how did your AC work? Yeah, and then that didn't work either. So I had a little thermostat sensor go out, so you truck... And that caused 14 other issues. Well, kind of. That were attached. Just, you know, your fan won't shut off. You're thinking you're going to overheat. You're watching it. You're paranoid the whole time. But the truck thought it was in worse shape than it really was. The truck was fine. It never even got hot. But your temperature sensor bottoms out. It doesn't move. Your fan's kicking on all the time. It kicks off the AC because it's probably trying to, you know, dial back. You're talking resources.

Yeah, there you go. Dial back. Yeah. These smart trucks are smart. The interesting part is when you take it into the dealership, they know exactly what you're talking about. They knew exactly what it was. I started scrapping. I saw, was your power stirring out too? I said, no. I said, well, a lot of times that goes out with the AC. With the AC, attached to the thermostat. All those little things. Quite frankly, sir, you're lucky to have made it home. It's like you blew a timing belt and all those things. Well, that's what you were thinking initially. Well, half for a split second until I popped the hood and then saw that was not the problem. Then I knew it was electrical and I wasn't going to fix it. I was just going to, you know. Yeah. So now. Overheat or not overheat. Back every, after every extended weekend, we make trips downtown to resupply and re-gear. Yeah. We got to talk about it.

I got trailer bearings and tires this week. Trailer bearings. Yeah. Tires. Wiring. Gray cirques. Gray cirques that break off. I mean, it's nonstop. Just the time. You're using stuff hard. It's got to get fixed. It's got to work right. So anyway. One of these days, though, you're going to say, I had enough. And you're going to send Orange down the road. I don't know. I'm going to get a little truck. A little half pint. I start pushing at 100,000. Yeah. Hey, you got one. You know what I mean. They're good little trucks. Jeez. But I get pushing a half, 100,000. I'm getting another one. That's in the works. I just can't believe how much gear it takes to get out. Stay on top of it. Oh, jeez. And when you're there, you want to have all your options. You need sawzalls and drills. There's just a lot. Plus all your optics. Plus your in-reach. Plus 14,000 other things.

Well, and it also, when it's the first couple of times of the year, like I came back, I told you. I said, I'm not mid-season. Hey, I need leather gloves and a shovel. Well, I have the shovel. And you were like, jeez, I was grateful I was in there. Smart enough, I had the shovel. There's no snow and mud. But you still throw one in because you don't know why. You don't know why. How about a Hennyman Jack? I have one in all the time. I don't have one of those. Just bought one last week. You did? Yep. I had to get one. I do have, call it an aftermarket, you know, two-ton bottle jack. You know, they're bigger than the janky ones they have behind your seat. Yeah. And then you don't have to get that out. But the older you get, it's funny. Like, I went, we got the three-ton jacks. It was off-road. Giant three-ton floor jacks. I want to take it everywhere. I don't care.

I want the ease of lifting something off the ground. I hate it. I'm not rolling around in the dirty like I did when I was a kid. I'm over it. And I want it to work. You get down there, tweak your back, and then you're out for two weeks. So anyway. That's what happens with 40-somethings. Nah. Pushing 50. So anyway. Yeah. Now we've got to go get more tire plugs, more fix-a-flat, more air compressors, and back on the road. So ready for Thursday night. So speaking of four-day work weeks, Nevada, scouting, just all kinds of stuff going on. Utah, I mean, going to be heading to Wyoming soon. All of this crazy stuff. New Mexico, Colorado, whatever. We're just going 100 miles an hour. But Nevada, it's kind of fun because Nevada, Utah, it's kind of our backyard. So it's our initial scout. Within our two-hour, two, three-hour loop of town here. Yep. That's where we're doing damage. All this stuff.

All around. Utah General, Southern Utah, Southern Nevada. Yeah. So with that in mind, Bronson, everything's kind of coming to a close. We've got Idaho elk, deer, and antelope coming out here shortly. And what else is left? I mean, Iowa came out. Arizona basically has charged cards. Everybody's not happy with the point creep that occurred in Arizona. Got crazy. No question about that. Jumped six plus points in some of these hunts. Seven, eight maybe. Yeah. On early hunts. Big surprises for everybody. People are just realizing it's a pretty darn good year. And you're not drawing anything else. And with 20 to 23 points, let's call it. 20 to 24. Max is 26 for deer. So you're three to five points behind that. You have no other options. Yeah. Three, three C. Except for the early rifles. I mean, what else are you going to do?

And that's just because they manage the state for bulk generally with the exception. Those exceptions we talked about right there. Yeah. So guys are just saying, hey, let's go. Yeah, let's dump. Let's go early rifles. Goes to November 5th this year. Yeah. Good moisture year. Yep. Stars aligned. Yep. Low tag numbers, which is fun. It's fun to be in the field when there's, you know, relatively low pressure considering prior years. And then overall, deer numbers are fine. Quality is going to be incredible, you know, by all estimations. And so anyway, I've seen a lot of point creep. That might leave a few of you out there tagless. Tagless in Seattle. Running out of options. So, yeah, here we are. I'm usually the last to give up. You are too. We're kind of junkies at times. Total tag junkies. It's about time to give up. I'm still applying. There's a couple of these. And I am way over full.

And I'm still applying. Dude, I've been doing raffles left and right. Yeah, I've been doing those. But you did Idaho. I did sheep, so I can't. You're still waiting on Idaho. What if I did it? I'm not. Stupid. I did one of my kids Idaho.

We're still playing raffles left and right. Yeah, those are different. You know, we always, the dream. Speaking of. I guess. Dream. The ones you dream about. But in the case of Nevada, they actually call them that. Nevada dream tag. So that deadline's coming up here shortly. What is it today, Bronson? Is it the 26th? 26th. So we've got three, four days. So we're sitting at Monday the 26th. The 30th is Friday. It's got this week. So, you know, kind of interesting. We're huge fans of Nevada. Nevada has like so few deer tags right now. And, of course, deer is just kind of on our mind. But, I mean, hey, we take a sheep tag. We can get them. You can apply for both species of sheep. Deer, elk, and antelope. Yep. I think a bear. But we're not talking about that. Well, no. There's bad things that happen. Bears and Tahoe and break-ins. Cabins and giants. And greenies. Well, anyway.

Not a good combination. They're people too, Bronson.

All right. Well, let's call Mike Scott. Let's just get a feel for what's going on over there. He's always fun to visit with. A wealth of information. And knows what he's talking about. He's the deputy director over there in the state of Nevada. So let's just give him a holler. Hello, Jason. Hey, how are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm good. Bronson and I are sitting here at the podcast table just, you know, talking about options that might be left for the year. Of course, Nevada DreamTags is one of those. And you guys are right in the middle of it. We're right in the middle of it. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm sitting here with Mark Freeze, who's our habitat chief. Oh, nice. Yeah. So, yeah, we've been talking about the DreamTags. And, you know, this process is coming. It's getting a little bit short now. I think this Friday is when it. 30th, right? Yeah, I think so. So that's when it.

That'll be the last time that you can apply for it. Yeah. You know, Adam and I always, always apply for it. You've got to have your name in the hat to be able to win anything. And people that complain, you know, a good portion of them just don't have their name in the hat. But you do have to have your name in the hat. Just kind of wanted to go over that. You know, when it comes down to the end, this is when everybody starts realizing how tough the draws have been to them. And, you know, usually have somewhat of an open schedule. And so this is, it's a nice time, actually, for guys like Adam and I and everybody else out there to consider, you know, what their schedule looks like and what kind of openings they got. And what an incredible opportunity here to get one of these tags. Yeah, absolutely amazing. And, you know, we've talked about it a little bit before.

But, you know, for this year, I mean, as, you know, long and hard of winter as we've had, we haven't seen habitat conditions in Nevada like this in a long time. So, you know, with respect to antler growth, horn growth, it's going to be an amazing year. It's unbelievable. Adam and I, with that, Adam and I were wondering when the, when Nevada Department of Transportation is going to go around and clean out some roads. Like, there's so much water. There's five-foot ravines on some of these dirt roads. Some of these counties got a lot of grading to do. A lot of them didn't get done after the monsoon season we had last year. You know, they, we both had stuck in the last two weeks in Nevada. Oh, we've been stuck, winched out. I mean, it's crazy. And, hey, it's nobody's fault. We're on two trackers that I'm sure aren't even going to get graded. But even good roads got.

We're having a good time with it, but, geez. The water that you've had, a lot of it was probably just spring snow melt runoff, too, that gullied them out, you know, in some of these southeastern parts of the state where, yeah, we've been begging for it for a lot of years, and now we got it. And you're right. It does look amazing. It doesn't come without a price. Ours has been tire plugs and handyman jacks, you know. Yeah. So, you know, we're still looking at some flooding conditions in Nevada on the Walker River. And, you know, I mean, it's hard to believe the amount of water that's coming down some of our drainages right now. And I've seen some videos of some of the little streams in Nevada that they, right now, they look like the Truckee River. Yeah. It is crazy. Well, and you've got these little no-namers that are just washes that, you know, we've been to before,

and you've got a trickle of water that goes 50 yards. Yeah, you might be able to throw a Truckee River or things like that. I've got some of those I ran into. They're going out. They're going a half a mile still out into the Sagebrush Valley. And I'm like, well, this was a waste to drive into here. I can't throw a camera a mile and a half a crick. Well, yeah, and that's the one thing that we've been talking about a lot of this in the office here is, you know, the one thing about a lot of water, which creates a lot of feed, but it spreads out the game. It's really good for the game, and we're usually in favor of that, anything that's good for the game. But we kind of want a break, too. Like, it's nice when they're concentrated on water or a particular reseed or chaining or whatever for the feed, but there's feed everywhere. The worst stuff is good-looking this year. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah, our habitat is in as good a shape as I've seen it in a long, long time. Well, let's talk. This is really good for the future of wildlife. And, of course, you know, fawns and calves and whatever, everything that's going to come up through the ranks, it's just awesome. What a nice break. You guys are like us here in southern Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, feeling the brunt of this long drought. It's really hard to be a biologist and answer to the public and whoever powers it be, you know, during drought conditions. There's just not a lot you can do about it at times. But let's talk about the DreamTags and kind of some of the different projects that they can fund and help out with, whether it be, you know, reseeds after fires or chainings or whatever, things that you guys have done and seen in your tenure there. Yeah, thanks, guys. This is Mark Fries.

I'm the new Habitat Division Administrator here at the Department of Wildlife. I mean, DreamTags has been an awesome supporter of projects and funding those projects. I think I look back from 2016 to present, DreamTags almost contributed $2 million towards our fire rehab program. And that's that over the last six years, we've been able to implement 570,000 acres at a cost of about $12 million. And so we think DreamTag, you know, 100% of the funding that comes in through DreamTag goes right on the ground in seed or aerial contracts to get that seed out. And so we've been blessed to have that partnership. But they also do other conservation projects in addition to fire rehab, such as pinion juniper removal into sagebrush encroached habitats or aspen stands,

helping us, you know, enhance the values of those sagebrush and aspen stands, as well as spring riparian and meadow enhancement protection. I think, you know, with DreamTag support, we've been able to take on about 1680 acres in the past six years of spring and meadow improvements at about $2 million costs. And then pinion juniper removals, about 45,000 acres, you know, at almost $5 million costs. So, yeah, DreamTag's been awesome contributing towards the habitat, which we can enhance to provide better quality habitat for Nevada's wildlife. Man, that's crazy. And you're talking about this amount that it's raised, but then you were talking about the cost of these projects being even much higher than just the, I think you said $2 million over the last, what, five or six years or whatever it's been.

But you are also just being able to leverage other funds, right, federal funds or other state funds or federal funds with that money to make it all stretch a lot farther than just your $2 million. Talk about that just a little bit on how, you know, those progress, you know, you bring money to the table, you usually can get matching sometimes two or three times for it. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great point. You know, for the fire rehab projects alone, you know, $2 million since 2016. You know, we take that and match it with our wildlife and sport fish restoration grants, which are a three-to-one match. So, we take that $2 million and turn it into a net total of $8 million for fire rehab alone. And so, those dollars are critically important to provide that match component for that grant dollar. Wow. So, maybe let's just dive in just a little bit deeper. Like, you have a fire. What's next?

Like, are you seeding every fire? Or is it based on fire per fire type basis and location and things like that? Like, how does that work? That's a great question. It really depends on the fire year. I mean, we have years where we've burned more than a million acres, where we can only treat, you know, 10 to 20 percent of the acres out there based on the amount of funds we have and the seed on the market. But there's other years. I think last year, we had 58,000 acres burned and end out alone treated 65,000. That's not including BLM, Forest Service, any other partner. So, we were able to make up some ground last year. But it really depends on that fire year. And typically, what happens is, I mean, this year, it's not going to burn for a little while because of the green conditions out there. But usually, we're monitoring fires as they burn through the season.

We're coordinating closely with our federal partners. Nevada's about 84 percent public land, most of which is Bureau of Land Management. So, we're monitoring those, planning projects closely with the partners because they do require authorization to go and seed, spray herbicide, those sort of things. And so, we'll go through the fire season. And usually, September, October, when things start winding down, we'll prioritize projects. And we're really looking at where are the highest wildlife values from our perspective. And where can we get the biggest bang for our buck or create the best uplift. And usually, where those two intersect, the highest values and the greatest uplift is where we're sticking our dollars. Well, selfishly, Bronson and I want to get a dream tag. But if we don't get a dream tag, we can get the feel good from, you know, being able to don't.

The tag we draw down the road that got benefited from dream tag dollars, right? Right. Maybe there was an increase in whatever, permit down the road because of all the habitat restoration or whatever. That's another way you got to look at it. So, yeah. So, anyway, it says here, I'm just, we were kind of on the NevadaDreamTag.org website. Just said all money received from the raffle, less the cost of the dream tags purchased by the nonprofit. And any administrative cost charged by the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada must be used for the preservation, protection, management of restoration of gain and its habitat as determined by the advisory board on DreamTag. So, there's an advisory board that gets to kind of help allocate funds and things like that? That's correct. Yeah. There's an advisory board. And anybody can submit projects. And NDOW does frequently.

You know, we show up to the meeting. We write the proposal. We talk about the proposal and its values. And then the board basically votes on whether, you know, you get funding or not, have an opportunity to ask questions, specific questions about the projects. Okay. Well, the one thing about these tags, so, Bronson and I have looked, of course, we write this, you know, we talk about all the western states in Epic Outdoors publications and whatnot. But you've got PIW tags, you've got the Silver State tags, all of that is separate from the DreamTag. The DreamTag is basically like a PIW tag wherein the winner will be able to hunt any open season. That's right. Or a tree. With that particular weapon type. That's right. For any of the six species, they could hunt any open season in any open unit. Yeah. Right.

And so, that would be for deer, antelope, desert sheep, California bighorn, elk, and black bear. Any open season until you harvest that animal. Yep. Yep. Okay. And then the residents and non-residents, there's no designation. Everybody can apply. This is for anybody and everybody. Just strictly to generate money. That's, you know, self-tickets to generate money. And, you know, I mean, the whole idea is that this money goes right back into the conservation of those species to, you know, hopefully make more of them, make better habitat, and, you know, allow, you know, an increase of the same species. So. Okay. And then, you know what I like, too, is that anybody can participate. So, they're five bucks. Bronson, they're five bucks. Yeah. You can't even buy a sandwich for five bucks. No. And so, anybody can, anybody and everybody, you know, even newbies, Logan. Even bro college kids like me.

That's right. So, anyway, anybody and everybody can at least have their name in the hat. And then, but there's no limit. You can buy a ton of tickets if you want. If you have unlimited numbers of tags, you can purchase as many as you want. And, again, the money goes to a great cause whether you win or not. But, you know, if you do win, wow, what a year to have a tag. What a year. But, that's what we can't get over. We've been out there. We've experienced it. I haven't seen anything like it. We've talked about it for months. And, people are probably getting sick of it. But, you honestly can't believe it until you go see it. I had to clean out the radiator. I had to clean out the radiator. It was loaded with all the seeds and stuff. And, they're green. They're not even dry yet. Right. And, it may not necessarily, you might not see a net result on, say, bighorn sheep right now, this moment.

But, it is nice to be out in the hills. It's just nice to be out in the hills when it's green. It's gorgeous. It's cool weather. Yeah. Crazy. It's been crazy. I don't know if Vegas actually hit 100 this last weekend. They talked like they were going to for the first time of the year, which is crazy. Later than ever. Later than ever. But, it's been a weird, crazy, awesome summer. Spring, summer, winter, everything. We're stringing together almost 12 months of incredible weather when it comes to, you know, rangeland health, which then translates to, you know, animal health. You know, reproductive health in terms of good fawn production. I mean, it's everything. You're hiding pronghorn and deer fawns out there right now where in the past there was no new regrowth in plenty of these areas. And so, it all adds up when you have a lot more ground cover. So many little. You can hide them.

There's probably going to be more mice and rabbits at some point. So, there's more game for coyotes to eat and not just fawns. I mean, it's all cumulative. It's good for everybody. Anyway. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I mean, it was only a couple years ago that we were filling guzzlers with a helicopter. Couldn't keep up. You guys couldn't keep up. Trying to, you know, keep animals alive on the landscape. And now, I mean, I think most of our dozens are probably overflowing. And they're not. Most of them are not. A lot of them aren't even getting used right now. I'm just. Yeah. Only because they're clear full and there's water everywhere around them. And that's good. They're getting a break, too. The downside is it's hamper scouting a little bit and it spreads them out. And we're disgusted about that. No, it's good. It's so good. Just. We did a pod.

Or I did a podcast with you a couple weeks ago. And I told you then I was looking out my window at the rain. And I'm looking out my window again. And it's raining, you know, right in right north of Reno right now. So, you know, we'll take all the rain we can get. But, you know, there are some places around the state that are, you know, flooding. And, you know, we're waiting for some of those waters to recede. But, you know, I would take this every single year. I would take this over the drought years. Oh, yeah. But the drought years, you know, drought makes us all look bad. And, you know, it's just, it does so little for us. And I just, I love seeing the rain. So keep it coming. Nothing like it. Yep. And so, anyway, I know, you know, the odds, the chances of winning are tough. There's no question about it. You buy one ticket, yeah, you've got a chance. But I love it.

Right on the website, it says the more raffle tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning. That's obvious. I think, you know, spend a few hundred bucks if you got it. It's definitely the year to do it if you're ever going to do it. You know, waiting periods do not apply. So it doesn't matter. You know, anybody can apply. And just maybe not the felons. But other than that, if you're not a felon, you're eligible. Am I right? Pretty much. I mean, you know, if you're, I guess if you're, you know, six years old, you might not be able to. Oh, okay. Legal hunting age. Yeah. But everybody else, yeah, absolutely. If you're eligible to hunt, you're eligible to apply for these tags. And it would be an awesome tag to have. And I'm with you guys. I really want one. And so we're just super excited here. Anybody that wants to go on NevadaDreamTag.org, you can go on there.

They've got a list of the facts. They've got everything clear to check out. It's basically $5 a ticket. Of course, there's slight incidentals. Doesn't come in at 5.00. But very, very inexpensive to get your name in the hat. Yeah. I did find this real quick. I'm going to read this real quick. Yes. I'll clarify it up. It says, the endow will draw the completed regular draw nearly a month before the DreamTag raffle occurs. And you can apply for tags in the big game draw without fear of jeopardizing your DreamTag's options. If you should happen to draw a tag in the endowed draw and then win the DreamTag for the same species, you must return the endowed drawn tag to obtain the DreamTag. But hey, you just get an upgrade. The DreamTag is going to be better than what you already have. No question about it. So here's your chance to upgrade. That's all. Yep. Definitely an upgrade. All right.

So anybody that has questions about that, there you have it. If you've gotten a tag with the same species, well, you can be able to upgrade. I'm not going to be able to kill two. Unless, of course, landowner tags and all that's separate. So all right. Well. Anything else you guys would like to add about just to highlight it? I mean, everybody likes the fact that 100% of it goes back on the ground. That's compelling, of course. You can't get a better percentage for return on the investment than that. But anything else you guys would like to add to it? You know, if anybody's interested in seeing the projects they fund, on their website, there is a projects tab at the top. And you could click on that. You could go through, I don't know, it's up to 80 or 90 now, different projects. And you can see how that committee's put money on the ground. So folks may want to check that out.

And then anybody who does draw a tag this year may want to be out there scouting this July. Because there's going to be places that roads are washed out. You know, BLM Forest Service counties can't get to. And so I think, you know, it's a blessing to have this much moisture. But it could be a little bit challenging, too, to get around in the field this year. No, it's good. We just went to that tab. And there is quite a list on there. It was the date. The date they occurred. And the amount of money they put forth into it by project. And then there's a ground amount, the original match, and then the proposed date. And all kinds of stuff. Just crazy. So anyway, awesome. Mark, looking for good things. Of course, you probably got your hands full. Are you dealing with the entire state and all habitat within the state? Yep, yep. But it's a good year to step into this whole.

Because, man, I don't know what a hero right now. You're not going to have to worry about too many fires. Fires are hard on things. And if we time it right, by the time the fire season gets bad, the monsoons will kick in. And, you know, maybe we get wet again like last summer. So, yeah. Habitat looks great. Yeah, habitat looks great. Makes your job a little bit more pleasant when the habitat looks so good. Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah, we were just driving across Nevada. We went to Ely this last weekend for the Wildlife Commission meeting. And, you know, driving across it, I mean, you know, parts of Nevada, it looks like Ireland. And then, you know, you look at, you know, the wildflowers that are blooming all over the place. It's absolutely gorgeous. And then even the sagebrush that's been looking, you know, fairly peaked the last few years, this year it's robust and healthy and happy.

And it just looks awesome. It's amazing the difference. It's amazing the difference. It really is. I'm out there taking, okay, can you picture me taking pictures of flowers? You are? I did. I showed them to you. I showed you the video of the globe mallow, you know, fields that were as far as the orange tinge I could see for 10 miles. I have a field of orange. I have an entire field of purple. And then the yellow mixed with bitter brush. And the bitter brush is in full bloom. And I'm taking pictures like a greenie. And I'm just, whatever. It's just something you don't see every day. That's right. It is. That's exactly right. But cactus is flowering. Everything's flowering. Yeah, absolutely. It's gorgeous. And, you know, you think about, I mean, our upland game birds are going to be, they're just going to go crazy this year. It should be a really good year for that.

You know, I just, I mean, whether it's lizards or small mammals or, like you said, rabbits and things like that, pasture and birds, everything should get a real good shot in the arm this year. And we appreciate these years when they do come. Well, Mike or Mark, have either one of you guys killed a Himalayan snowcock?

Oh, I've got two elk tags in my pocket as we sit here. And I'm probably going to focus on that. But, okay. Well, I was just wondering, I mean, Adam. You guys, we tease about every once in a while. When we have a light schedule, we're going to go head to the rubies and check one of those off. But we've never done it. I just wondered if either of you have done it. That's all. I've never killed one, but I did go fly mountain goats with Scott Roberts, our biologist for the Ruby Mountains, a year ago in January. And I could not believe how many of those things are flying around. You're kidding. Flushing them. Well, they're everywhere. In the snow, in the dead of winter? Yeah. Well, they don't. How's the Himalayan snowcock? You know, snow, and they're way up in the rocks. And, of course, you're in the helicopter, and they're flying down. You don't want them flying. Like a magnum chucker.

But there's a lot of them. A magnum chucker. I like it. Yeah, there's something else. And I had a person asking me about this just the other day. And I said, good grief. There's so many of those things. But, you know, you also look at the Ruby Mountains. And it's. Go up and get one. Go up and get one. You know, big, steep, rocky. And you've got to be pretty dedicated to get after those things. And so, you know, but if you ever do, I might meet you out there and tag along with you. Yeah, it's just interesting. At least there's a good population. At least you're seeing them. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, that population seems to be doing really well. Yeah, just interesting. Oh, it's just one of those. Unique species. Just a little fun fact for Nevada. It's just kind of interesting to talk about it once in a while. I just wondered if you guys had smashed one. But yeah. All right. Okay.

Well, hunting's what makes this all this biology and everything go around in Dow and whatnot. And so the sale of tickets and, of course, the DreamTags and all the different PIW Silver States and then just the application process. I mean, it's just awesome. You guys got quite a great program going on there. Of course, we're huge fans. Always have been. And Nevada's kind of close to where we're at here. But just you guys, you know, take pride in managing for quality. And then when you have, you know, when Mother Nature helps you as well, it's just everybody's excited. Tag numbers are low. Of course, we've just got done with a brutal drought that we've never seen before, the likes of which we've never seen before. But generally speaking, the guys that have tags are going to have a world-class experience in the state of Nevada. It's impressive. Yeah. This should be a tremendous year.

And, you know, I just can't wait to see some of the animals that are harvested out in Nevada this year. It should be pretty impressive. Yeah. Well, we appreciate you, fellas. So I'm glad to see it's raining out there. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. We'll take all we can get. Thanks. We appreciate what you guys do and the partnership that we have with you guys. Well, appreciate it. Yep. Review with everybody. Get your tickets in by June 30th. Yep. And Mark will start lining up the projects. That's right.

We got plenty to do. The list is about endless. So we can just keep using that money to do really good conservation projects. Okay. All right. All right, guys. Appreciate it, guys. Have a great day. And, yeah, we're looking forward to Friday. It closes, everybody. Get your names in. NVDreamTag.org. Go online. You'll be able to grab any and all tickets that you want for any and all species. And, you know, no limits there. And you can't win unless you play. So. Yep. Thanks again, guys. Appreciate it. Have a good day. Okay. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. Talk to you later. Talk to you later. You bet. Bye now. Bye.

Well, dude. We're done. I get myself fired up. Oh, yeah. Don't know why. How much are you going to spend? Spend something. No doubt about it. You got to donate. It's always worse in the year when you don't have. Near enough. It's really easy to support. Worse meaning easier to. Oh, it is. You're going to go. It is. It's easier when your schedule's a little bit open. Yes. The other side of it is it's really easy to support a state that works so hard to have quality animals. Well, and for, with the most limited resources, they're the driest state in the nation. Yeah. And their habitat is collectively dry. Limited in nature. They get the most out of what they have. They do. They squeeze everything they can out of it. And for being a state like that, they're going to have low, let's call it, you know. Low tag numbers. Yeah. Generally speaking, for elk, deer. Deer, elk, antelope, all of them.

I mean, it just so happens it's a dream for desert sheep. You know what I mean? It's got dream habitat for desert sheep. But generally speaking, how do you fund a state? And then on tag numbers like that. And then they're also striving for $30 to $35 per hundred does in all deer units. Who else does that? Yeah. It's so impressive. Now, there's other spotted places, kind of like spot zoning, Bronson. Like, basically, we've got certain units that they manage for high buck-to-doe numbers, age class, things like that, in Utah or Arizona or whatever. But Nevada's, like, statewide. They want quality everywhere. You know what I mean? Yeah. Pretty easy to support them. Somebody's going to win big. All right. Well, we got anything else? No, I don't think so. Logan, what do you think? All good? I think I'm going to be buying a ticket or two into that thing. Yeah. It is. Yeah. No-brainer.

You got, like, you know, three plus months to hunt deer elk. You got archery, muzzleloader, rifle seasons, multiple rifle seasons. So, like, even a college student, you can work time in to go hunt statewide somewhere. That's a pretty sweet deal, especially for a guy like me. Yeah. A guy like anybody, Logan. That's right. Yeah. Anybody and everybody. So, anyway. All right. Talk to guys every year that win these things. Every single year there's one or two of them that will call us there at least. Members that call that draw one or two of them. And what do I do now? Well, you got a lot of options. So, wish you luck if you decided to play. All right. Believe I would. All right. Sounds good. Get your name in. We'd like to thank all of our sponsors here at Epic Outdoors. For top of the line hunting, clothing, and apparel in every environment, visit UnderArmor.com.

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