EP 293 (Part 2): Western Mule Deer Management and Why We Started the Muleys Matter Movement

Anything to do with Western big game.

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Well, pretty awesome. You know, there's just, yeah, we're just kind of coming to the end of that. We're jumping into some of these late bull hunts. There's, you know, some late rifle hunts, Utah, Nevada, other places, you know, Arizona and whatnot. New Mexico, they're right in the middle of some of what they've got going on. And then, you know, they've got a November hunt timeframe as well, even some December hunts. And so anyway, it's kind of fun. With that, we're right in the middle of mule deer season. We do have this Muley's Matter thing that we've got going on. This was, you know, this was interesting.

We've had a ton of donors, and we're going to call them out and talk to them a little bit and whatnot. Really appreciate everybody that's donated to that. Muley's Matter. Basically, if you've got a deer tag, and we've got a list of the states on our website, the Muley's Matter website, which is embedded in epicoutdoors.com, as well as a standalone. But you can go on and check out and register. So, John, Logan, you basically, if you want to be entered, you have to register plus send your tag in. It's a two-part process. Yeah, we've got so many prizes that you need to register for which prizes you'd like to be in for. And you can select all. You can select all if you want, or you can just click the ones that you're interested in being in for that drawing. And if you pull their name, they're going to get the prize that's left that's the most valuable. Yeah. Right?

And then we just go down the list. There's only five of them that they want, and they don't necessarily want a tattoo, or they don't necessarily want whatever it is, right? They have Starlink. They don't need a Starlink. They might not select that, but they would select everything else. Yep. Right? Yep. Or a rifle. There's rifles, bows, all kinds of prizes. And so you select it, and then we go from there. But there wasn't another way to do it, really. Yeah. I think it's a good way to do it, and you'll get your preference on prizes, too. So. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we've got that, and then you submit your tag, send your tag in to us.

I don't know, Josh. Should we talk a little bit more about some of our thoughts? The lack of support for certain DWR personnel? Wow. I just guess, I guess, well, the reason we started this, and I'm going to start it off, and then I'm going to draw off Josh a bit. Anybody else that wants to chime in, obviously. But I guess when we started this, it was because we've come off of a heavy, long drought. And it's not necessarily off of it. We just had an incredible year, and then we're forecasted for another good year of moisture. And so water equals life here in the West, especially parts of Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico. Let's just say it. Water equals life. And then you could also say water or snow or whatever, winter conditions, equal death up north. And so we had this coming off the drought and a little bit of excitement, but also a lack of game. Our populations have struggled.

Quality has struggled. There's a number of factors. And maybe some departments' apathy to cutting tag numbers in a timely fashion. They want to wait for trends. And there's certain times that that makes sense. We need a trend here. We don't want to just take a random sampling, and what if our sample's off? Or what if we just didn't have a good count or whatever? And so you don't want to just jump the gun and knee-jerk reaction on some things. But there's some times when it's staring at you in the face, and you know you should be doing something about it as best you can from a biological management perspective. And so you just can't beat the weather in many cases. And you could categorize this extreme drought in that. Same thing with winter killed. There's only so much you can do when they're all dead. When they die, they die. And there's only so much you can do to combat that.

But our perspective is maybe over-the-counter tags don't make sense. And maybe you should be able to combat it a bit and help the resource as much as you can to even out those ebbs and flows. So, you know, you end up doing a Muley's Matter movement, which basically just says just if you decide not to harvest, you don't see the buck that you want, don't just do a smash and grab on the last day to say you were successful. And a lot of people, if you buy a tag, you know, the success of a hunt is did I get one or not? Did you kill a buck? Well, yeah, I got one last day. It was, you know, not what I wanted, but I smashed him and went home. Or you could not smash him, leave him to mature and help out. And where the departments maybe were slow to react, it was just our way as sportsmen to negate that a little bit. Yeah.

Even if you say no matter what any wildlife agency did with permits, tags, whatever they were doing, increase and decreasing, whatever, there was no – we wanted to do something. The thing is we love Mule Deer. I mean, we love all species, but we love Mule Deer, and we wanted to do something ourselves personally. And so it had, in a way, nothing to do about all that. As a group of sportsmen. Yeah, as just us. So we decided let's do something that's going to take a whole lot of work, a whole lot of extra stuff and time that we don't have, and to make absolutely zero money on it. Let's do that because that sounded fun, right? But the reason why we did it – But it was frustration of the slow to react mentality. Yeah, and so we thought this is something that we can do as sportsmen and it doesn't have anything to do with anything they're doing, whatever.

This is something that we can do and we feel like we could have an impact on. And who knows, you know, maybe save some deer, whether it's some Mule Deers, maybe Buck Deer, whatever it is. We just wanted to try and do something. And then also once we opened it up, we didn't go beg for a single donation from anybody. Like the amount of donations and stuff from people that were just like us that were so excited to say, man, this is awesome. I like this. I want to do something. I mean, people came out of the woodwork that just want to help because that's how much sportsmen, hunters, people want to have a resource out there to hunt. And is this going to – Josh, is this going to fix the deer? Absolutely not. Okay. It's not necessarily going to fix the deer. No. I think what it does do, it leaves a bunch of deer on the landscape. Who knows how many? We don't know yet.

It's going to leave a bunch of deer on the landscape to either mature or be bred, such as a doe, right? So the potential of us doing that versus not, versus otherwise, which is helpful, but it's not going to totally be an entire fix. And so it's just something that we can do, not saying we're going to fix the whole thing by it. It also brings a level of awareness. People are talking about it. People are – it's like, hey, this does make sense. It's all of a sudden it's like, you know, maybe – I didn't realize the winter was that bad. I didn't realize the drought-affected populations like it's done. And all of a sudden, again, it gives us something to talk about to continue to bring an awareness to people. Yeah. It is your voice matters. If you care, go to some of these meetings, you know, and bring it up. Yep.

And whether you intentionally or unintentionally kill a deer or whatever, as far as like – What do you mean? I just mean as far as – I don't know what you're talking about. Unintentionally. Whether you willingly don't kill a buck or you just don't fill your tag, you can still send it in. Yeah. You can still send it in. An unpunched tag is an unpunched tag. Yeah, exactly. It's a deer that's still out there. And we're willing to give you something in return for that. Or the donors are. Yes. And we're just facilitating it. I mean, we've donated plenty, but we're just facilitating that. And it's awesome. And it's fun. Yep. It's fun for us to do in a time that's somewhat trying for mule deer. It's honestly the toughest period of time for a mule deer to exist, it feels like. It really is. And I think it's been – it's very extremely noticeable.

I don't think any of us knew, okay, yeah, we got a bad antler. Because let's face it, we predominantly look at weather and think antler growth predominantly. Well, at the same time, if you're having bad antler growth, you're having reduced fawn survival in the same thing. Like, they really do go hand in hand. So, I think we just, ah, it's another bad antler year. Let's ride it off. Well, no, there's probably several thousand deer that didn't make it this year that aren't going to be there next year. And then, again, the next year, those other several thousand. And they're easier to predate on because they're congregated at water because it's a drought year. Or they just died because they couldn't exist through the snow conditions. You know what I mean? And icy conditions. They persisted and never gave up. Yeah. Right? So, I mean, that's – Yeah. And so – Those are hard to quantify, too.

It's hard to quantify. Why is this population dying and gone? Yeah. You know? Like, why is it a fourth of what it once was? And, yeah, we had some dry years, but there were still springs to water out. Like, I don't quite – you know what I mean? Or there was feed. Maybe it wasn't premium, but there was feed. But there's so many different variables that go into it, maybe even intangibles. You know, fawn weights, body conditions of does, all kinds of things, predation on top of all that. There's a hundred different things. And so then you get – you do have some people that are in power, and they go and make it to where we can kill – you know, Utah has never been done before, but you don't necessarily have to have a lion tag to kill a lion. And, you know, there's a lot of people that don't agree with it, and there's a lot of people that agree with it.

But the bottom line is, is there was people in powerful situations. That did not come from the DWR, Division of Wildlife Resources. There's people, powerful people that decided to do something, try something, right? Yep. And maybe it didn't go through the right – what most people call a correct channel or a correct procedure or whatever. Maybe it goes through the legislature or whatever. But people are just – they need to be doing something. We need to be more proactive as a division agency, people in general, industry. And so anyway, that's all we can do. Our little corner of the world, we do a Muley's Matter. Well, then we hear through the grapevine, and, you know, this is to be expected, that, you know, maybe certain biologists say, well, we're going to go ahead and double down and give more tax just because these guys think they're going to make a difference, and they're not.

And they care about – you know, they're trophy hunters, and they don't care about the resource. And we're going to – we just think, you know, if a buck is born, whenever he's killed throughout his life is fine. And we need to just go ahead and make sure that happens, you know, because the longer he's alive, the longer he's predated on by maybe a lion or something like that. And so they want to go ahead and issue more tags to thwart the Muley's Matter movement. I guess I have a problem with that, Josh. Oh, I do too. I do too because it's pretty stupid, honestly. It's pretty immature. That's probably someone who's just graduated college and in their 20s and thinks they know everything. Know something. You know, they went to college and they learned something, and they lack a lot of real-world experience. And that's probably someone that's similar to that, I would think. I would think.

And maybe also just not understanding the public – you know, the public's perception on some of this. And, like, you kind of – you work for the sportsman. You know what I mean? There's a process. Listen, for you to just take conception to something we're doing to – and that would be a change in the way you manage wildlife. Or maybe just your opinion. And, of course, it's got to go through your superior and it's got to go on down the chain or whatever. But it would be easy for a division agency to ratify those quota recommendations. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And so you did. You won, maybe, on your unit. You went ahead and issued more tags to thwart the Mealy's Matter movement. You know what I mean? Which just seems ridiculous because it's almost like, well, do you even like the resource that you're trying to manage? You know? Like, we're just trying to save some deer help there.

They like it. They just don't like us. It's benefited because – Or they don't like the sportsman in general. Exactly. That's just it. It's a personal thing. But it's like we're literally trying to help you get to your buck-to-doe ratio so that we can increase tax. And if your buck-to-doe ratio is good and your quality is good and the sportsmen are happy with you, wouldn't that help you? What's wrong with that? Yeah. Wouldn't you be happy with that? Because in your mind, you know, you were right and they were wrong and that's all there is to it. That's what it kind of feels like. So, yeah, there's some interesting – there's going to be some interesting things happen and potentially interesting proposals on game management. Right. And I think – and same thing with the technology and, you know, the muzzleloader thing and there's a hundred other things going on.

And I think people are – people, division agencies, whatever, are hypersensitive when deer are struggling and deer seem to struggle pretty regularly. Everything wants to kill them. I want to kill them. Okay. Lions want to eat them. Coyotes want to eat them. Bobcats want to eat them. Bears want to eat them. They're just – Elk want to kill them. They're like – yeah, where elk do good, deer don't. So, we're – I mean, everything feeds on muzzle deer. Mule deer are the big rabbit. Yeah. They're a rabbit with more meat and it actually tastes good. Yeah. And so, you know, that's – it feels like everything feeds off a muzzle deer. And when muzzle deer are doing good, everything's doing good. Predators are doing good. We're doing good. Division agencies are doing good. They're able to issue tens of thousands of tags, maybe even more, tens of thousands more than North

normal by having wet years and good management practices. And so, I just struggle. I think that some of these smart people that are in powerful positions other than the division agencies, okay, people that we know who are out there who are making a significant impact, I think sometimes their energy could be better spent on coming up with new landowner tag programs or landowner compensation programs. So, these landowners don't – aren't able to have the does killed just because they ate some of their alfalfa. And I understand. I get it. But the wildlife isn't owned by the landowners. And – but at the same time, they have to deal with landowner wildlife conflicts. And, Josh, you've dealt with a lot of this. Oh, yeah. But I just – I think there's a way to compensate landowners so – by the private sector where they're making their landowner tags transferable and able to sell.

And so, you know, even on a general unit here in Utah, which you can't do necessarily, what if it was transferable in a – the private sector, you and I, the industry, could purchase those and bypass the draw or whatever. And a landowner is like, ah, I guess I don't mind having a few more does on my property. Instead of saying, kill them all, they're eating me out of house and home. Yeah. And then division agencies go and kill them. And I know it's easier said than done. I just think there's some smart people and powerful spots that could make a difference. Something could be done with that because I'm going to be straight up honest. And it was awfully frustrating. And a lot of it with a lot of landowners – I'm not saying they're all this way – but there were a lot that they didn't like the deer because if they don't like the deer eating

their alfalfa, then they don't get their check for their kids' Christmas. Meaning from what? Where did that check come from? From the Division of Wildlife. Because – and like I said, that's just the honest nature of it. Some of them, there is a program out there that says, okay, if I have these deer on my place, I can actually get paid to have them there. But – But then I'm going to complain. I have to be – So give me the check, but get rid of the deer. I have to be terrible. I have to be mean. I have to be a thorn in the Division of the side in order to get that check. So I'm going to have to do that every year. I literally had talked to landowners before that said something about like, oh, that's my Disneyland check. You know, take my kids to Disneyland every year. And it's that when you're a biologist trying to help, thinking that you're actually trying

to help them to reduce the impacts from the stuff that they're losing. And it's just – it doesn't really matter in some ways. It's their extra check. It's their extra money on the year. And it's the deer that are ones that are paying for it. And you're doubling up and stacking up deer trying to get them off of there, whatever. It does get hard. So biologists are in a hard spot as far as that goes. But definitely, it's not about tags. And whether we increase tags this year or decrease tags. We've got to do something to help deer. And that's – I think we could quit – we've got the Mealies Matter thing going, okay? And we've got some – there's other things that are being looked at. But we should quit killing depredating does. Yeah. You know what? Don't you think? I mean, we've got – We need a high fence on 56 right here out of town. Yeah.

We need a high fence with the bridges, you know, the wildlife crossings. Yeah. They're working in other places. And we've done – worked on the Poncecott and had the wildlife crossings. I just saw a thing today. They were actually a news report. A second one. It was the second one on Utah Mule Deer. Why, I don't know. There was just one the other day on KSL. And this one was talking about how – I don't remember the year, but they did a study and they said something like 10,000 deer got killed on the highways and stuff. And they estimate like 20,000 deer get killed during the hunting season. And it's like we're worried about 1,500 permits on a unit. John, this morning, we go out. We see dead deer, dead does. Yeah, dead does. Yeah. I mean, okay, and she has twins. They have twins. Whatever. Every night. Yeah. Every night.

And I'm just saying that would be Pine Valley, one of the major sources of contention. Yeah. And the lack of deer, which there's – when you go out compared to Nevada, I think there's a lot of deer. Yeah. But having said that, there's a fourth or a fifth of what there should be or could be. Yes. And if you want that, a good way to get that is to take care of your does. Take care of your does when they come to the winter range in these general units and not just go wipe them out because they're creating this damage. Maybe make it to where landowners are okay with them. And that might be a slight tweak in the landowner tag program. That might help. It might not fix everything, but it just might help. Because in a lot of states, someone like Nevada, they want the deer there. Oh, we got landowners making cultivated properties for the landowner tags. They're mad when their counts are low.

They're mad. I wish I would have 500 more deer. They're doing everything they can to increase their numbers one way or another. They don't care how it happens. Maybe that would be all right. And when the quality is better, because maybe muley's matter was a small part of that. But when the quality is better, the tags are worth more. When the tags are worth more, the landowners want more of them. When the landowners want more of them, they're not going to kill those precious does. Which that, in turn, all benefits a brown bean eater from Minersville. Right. Whoa. Like, literally. How is that going to affect Logan? It trickles all the way down to that. He killed a deer on the last day. Well, because he can't get into the muley's. Can we participate in the muley's matter? I was told no. I was told to people that can't, that work here. What about my spouse? Work here, you can't.

Good grief. This is not about profit or membership drives. This is strictly about saving deer. So, anyway. And that's why we're all about giving towards muley's matter. So, yeah. Sorry. That's why we pay you to work on it and we lose money. Even if you could have participated, and you can't. But even if you were to participate, you would have still smashed that boat. Oh, 100%. That's the idea of it. Yeah. That's the idea of it. It's not to, if you want that deer, like, you should absolutely harvest it. It's just to stop a guy from just filling his tag because he could. That's all it is. I think also, like, I'll get on a soapbox. It's, even if it has no impact, it creates awareness for, let's say a kid. Right. And it gives them a reward for making a choice to pass something. Right.

And so, it may be just right now, this, but it creates awareness that I can let something walk and I get a little bit of satisfaction out of that. And that could last the rest of his lifetime. And maybe. It's a learned, it's a learned, I think it's a learned skill to know how to pass something. Yeah. Nowadays. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like a 14-year-old kid or a 24-year-old kid walks out there, you see an 18-inch three-point or whatever, you get excited to see a deer. And it's telling people that there's, it's okay to do it. There's pride. Right. There's pride in having an unpunched tag. Right. Where normally people are like, did you get your book? No, I didn't. Yeah, smash it too, Paul. Okay, that guy, he sucks. He's not that good a hunter. Well, and it's. And it's not that. It's not. There's actually pride in not filling a tag at times. Yeah.

And it's hard because when you spend thousands of dollars and you drive to Colorado, and this isn't just a Utah thing. How about if you drive to Nevada on the daily? Yeah, drive to Nevada early. 60 days in a row. Whatever. Yeah.

63.

And there's, there's a little bit of something that says, I need to make this worth it. You know, in the back of your mind, a lot of guys. And so a lot of guys struggle. And you go do that and you spend all this money. And if you don't come home with something, your kids, your wife, your neighbor, everybody thinks that maybe you're a loser or whatever. They don't. Like, it doesn't matter. Your kids don't have faith in you anymore. Yeah, you dad. You ever going to kill something? Hey, hey, you throw it out there at 1100. Let me show you what's up. This is not about just smashing something. Right. So, so yeah, there's, there's some of that that you can, you don't have to kill something. You're, you're still okay. And this helps, like John said, to bring that awareness. Like, hey, maybe, you know, it's okay. And this year, especially if you win a gun, if you win whatever.

John, did you freehand that? That's our logo, our skull from our, you freehanded that just sitting here? Yeah. You have skills, dude. Have you ever done? I made our logo. Have you ever done any? And I drew it. Any painting or, or, I mean, that's a stencil. What do you call these? You know, I, I went to art school, so. I didn't know that really necessarily. Well, I haven't paid attention. I did too, but I was just the nude model. They always wanted to. Oh, come on. Come on.

Like, we need something. We need a heavy detail on shading and shadows and crevices. Oh, come on. I'm a significant human in the art world. Yeah. Got some mustache. Go ahead. Put the detail in the mustache. There's lots of rolls and folds to have to shadow around, so. Good grief. All right. Anybody, anybody that gets this right. It's got an A for the quarters. It's going to take me a minute. Let me get there. Okay, I. This went off the rails. Wow. Yeah. I don't think that we've said anything, though, that she can delete. No. No. I think we're still good. Still PG, maybe. I think we're solid. I think we're solid. Even the bean eater. Jeez. Nice. We're good. Minersville sandwiches for lunch. Right, right. All right. Well, I just think, I think there's powerful people that, that are in the position to help. And, and I just see the, I wish we could have.

But Devin has, he, he, he has a significant opinion, as we all do. Adam is not here. Wyatt's not here. Everybody has a significant opinion. Devin, I know the biggest, one of the biggest places that we could make a huge difference. Somebody could. They don't want to hear from us, necessarily. But somebody could, is a, is a landowner type, type program or working with landowners to, because right now, Josh, there's plenty of does that are being smashed because they're depredating. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it's, it's, it's not as bad as what it was. You know, back, back when I was a biologist, we had a significant amount of deer. Yeah, we have a significant amount of deer. When you have, there's no deer to kill anymore. And don't get me wrong. There are, there were some landowners that had some legitimate concerns. I mean, you roll up and a dude's got 700 deer in his alfalfa.

And he's not getting compensated whatsoever. Yeah. And he's trying to save, save some of that, like last crop for cows that are going to come off the mountain. And that's free feed for him for a month. He's not going to have to go out and feed. Totally understand that. They'll push him in there. Like it's, that's, that's, that's when programs like this are very beneficial so that we don't have to go kill all 700 of those does. We can say, Hey, look here, you're being compensated for them. Please let them live so that they can continue to live. Because then we go kill them all. And then we could run into five years of straight drought. It's significant. And I, you know, just this year, I've noticed a lot like antelope. There's, I've, we've, I've been hunting in some areas that I haven't hunted before with some of the tags that my kids have had and that sort of thing.

And I was anticipating seeing all kinds of antelope. I had a friend that had an antelope tag. And I thought, Oh sweet. I can help find him, maybe find him a buck while I'm out here and give him some points or whatever. No, I didn't see any antelope. And you're coming back to the office early. You're like, Hey, good luck to you. Yeah. I got some, I got some emails. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not just deer. It's elk. It's antelope. It's everything that we've, we've struggled for the last five years here in Southern Utah, for sure. With the drought. And I think the drought has a lot bigger impacts than anything else in the state for us. We'll get a bad winter, but usually bad winters are followed by good moisture. And so the year, if you don't have another bad winter for another five years, it's just that one bad winter.

But when we get significant drought for years on end, it's, it's more significant than anything else for us. I think the local biologists, yeah, they're not the final say and they, and they can say, oh, this is just my recommendation and whatnot, but heavily, the division heavily relies on what the local biologists say. And, and, and, uh, you know, some of these boards and racks and whatnot are made up of, you know, division appointed people. And so you end up with this whole movement, uh, you know, from a, from a, uh, you know, maybe a DWR in all the States, uh, you know, a DWR slant and whatnot. Uh, and so I think it makes it, I think it, there's, it makes a difference on, on who the, who the biologists are and what they think and just don't want to be at odds with them, I guess. Yeah. You know, there's a significance like in science, um, a buck's a buck's a buck.

So he doesn't need to be a four point. He doesn't need to be eight years old. He doesn't need to be six point. He just needs to be able to breed a doe and that can occur as a yearling if he wants to really. So it doesn't, there's, and then you start seeing a lot of the science that says, well, CWD is passed in mature deer. And it's not just Utah. It's a, it's all of our surrounding States. And so it literally is a war on like mature. It's a war. It's a war on mature deer. Like there's absolute no value. A mature buck. And you can say, well, we have a harder condensed rut when there's mature deer, you know, mature bucks, and that's good for a population. And then, but then they'll fight back and say, I had no conclusive evidence. Yeah. A mature buck will eat twice as much as a yearling buck. All that kind of, so then they say, well, then that's twice as much than that should

be a mom and a baby eating. And so literally like a lot of, a lot of Western States, a lot of scientific data, a lot of stuff is, it literally is a kind of a war on mature bucks. Like having a mature animal in your species isn't, doesn't benefit. That's what they're, they're, they're content. The landscape. Yeah. Honestly, in any, any species, whether it's sheep, cause then it's just an old sheep that dies. Well, he just died. Well, they feel like that was a waste. That was a waste of space. That was a waste of habitat. While every deer, while every deer hoofs up in the back of trucks. Some guy just died with his points instead of that. He could have killed that ram or whatever. So there's no reason to have. Could have been killed as a spike. It literally. Like a spike elk instead of a branch bull. Kill them all as spikes.

There's generally, there's not a big love of mature animals in a lot of state agencies. There's just not. Because they don't look at it and see it. So that's how management's, that's how management's done. And I think there's a, I think there's a disconnect between the public and state agencies in, you know, with different theories and perceptions and what the public wants. And in theory, you know, the division answers to the public to a degree, but it just feels like there's a huge disconnect. And we don't think that every animal should reach the age of eight. Like that's not. I don't think we need to make, I don't think the entire state needs to be a Ponce Connick experience. Heck no. We don't want that. I like, I actually like, I actually like the system in Utah. I don't think the system's necessarily broken. It's not. There's nothing wrong with it.

I think, I think when a guy here, the residents have to choose, right? We have to choose deer, elk, and antelope on say our, our limited entry type options, our premium limited entry type option. But we can all do the general deer. Yeah. We can all do a general deer. So we can choose an elk and a general deer. We can choose antelope and a general deer or something like that. I don't think that's necessarily a bad system, you know, and there's two different point systems. So you can do a limited entry deer and a general deer. And so I don't, I don't think, I think that's unique. It's very unique considering other states and provides lots of opportunity. I just think the, the management style and the, you know, waiting for a trend to, you know, we know we had this major drought.

We know we have a fourth of the deer on the landscape, but we want to increase tags because we had an abnormal amount of, you know, fawns live this year. We had a, you know, our, our, our survival rate was, was better than expected. And so we want to just, you know, a knee jerk reaction instead of waiting for a trend there. We want a knee jerk reaction to go ahead and increase tags, even though 90% of the public are vocal and that they, they didn't want to increase tags. I just think there's a disconnect between the public and the division at times. And, and that, that creates, you know, major contention, which then you've got powerful people wanting to change the entire system. And I don't know if the system's broke necessarily. I just think we need to be, maybe we need to work on tag numbers and saving does and a few of these other projects, landowner conflicts.

High, you know, I'd like to see less dead deer on 56. Yeah, exactly. And one of the biggest sources of contention in the entire state. Yeah. Here on General Pine Valley. Which, as just a heads up, you're going to be seeing here in a couple of weeks, there's some wild stuff going to be coming down the path. All because they want to fix the deer. Because, because. They want to fix the deer. There's some guys that are fed up and they're the guys that have power. And then they push power on people that maybe, let's say, at will, whatever. And so they. And forcing the general public to, you know, to look at some of this and potentially adhere to a new, you know, programs, management programs that they didn't ask for. They might be fine over there on the other side of the state or the other side of the southern region. They might be fine.

But because we're mad at droughts and maybe the apathy of the division to react, then we're going to go around them and we're going to come up with new programs. Yeah. There's going to be some significant changes. I imagine we're going to go over those when that stuff comes out, when we see the final recommendations. Because it could severely impact your deer hunt every year. The unit you've been applying for. You may have to go buy an atlatl. I don't know how deep it's going to go. If you want to come here in Utah. Who knows? Because. I'm going to. Although it's going to be fun. Hey, bring it. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go do some weird stuff. Let's go. You said. Let's use some weird weapon types. Atlatl and loincloth. Just saying. Well, I mean, that's for your art school. John. John. John. If you were in art school and they said, you're going to be drawing a Joshua Pollack today.

Did you ever have to do the whole nude thing? Did you ever have to draw a nude dude? I didn't. I don't know. You stopped that? That's in the master's program? No, I don't know.

For some reason, they chose female models. I don't know. Anyway. Oh, did you have to draw a nude chick? Yeah. It was art school.

Josh, do you have an art major? No, I don't. But as much time as I spend in that art class, I should have had a major.

Good stuff. All right. Well, it's kind of fun. All we're saying is, is mealy's matter. And there's some, you know, it's just a fun, lightweight, light conversation piece. Just, you know, just lets us talk about some things, give away some prizes for saving a few deer. And it's probably the only thing we can do here in the private sector. You know? I mean, we have an opinion here and there, but nobody cares about it. People have, you know, an adverse reaction every time we talk about some of this stuff. We've, you know, compromised. Someone right now just turned the podcast off, just so you know. When we started talking about it. Well, I guarantee you. I guarantee you. They know it's recorded. And in a weak moment, they're going to go back and listen. Maybe even on company time. State time. Oh, yeah. Driving around. They're in the state truck right now. Picking up dead bear.

Talking about how dumb we are. Whatever. Whatever. I just want to see mature, a few more mature deer. Well, and mealy's matter. We have a section for bombs on moms. Like, it's not just about bucks either. No. All right. The whole population. It's not just about bucks. So we're going to divvy up the prizes, too. We've had a few questions. We're going to divvy up the prizes. We're going to see in percentage-wise to the tags sent in here at Epic Outdoors. So, you know, percentage-wise, does matter. Every doe matters. And bucks matter, too. And so if you send in tags based on general or limited entry and then the doe tags and the limited entry buck tags, then we'll divvy up those in relation to the number of tags we have submitted. And so, anyway, that's how we're going to do it. More details will be coming. It's kind of fun. There's a lot of hunts happening right now.

And we've already had quite a few submissions, but we know a lot more submissions are coming as the rifle hunts are just getting started. We generally hunt rifle deer in October, November, and they usually end right at the end of November. There's a few hunts that will be wrapping up. But nevertheless, go online. Submit it as the hunts finish out. And if you're not successful and you want a free entry, why you'd go and you'd register online, epicoutdoors.com. You can go to the Mealies Matter website from there. And then you need to submit your tag. You've got to see it here in the office. And we're going to put them in a bin and roll it around and give out some prizes. So we appreciate everybody that is participating in that. We also, you know, both from the hunter's perspective as well as the donor perspective. I want to throw a little shout-out to St. James Sporting Properties.

He's super good people there. SJSportingProperties.com. Blaine St. James, a personal friend. I'm not working with him necessarily because he's a personal friend. He runs a great business. He's a hunter himself. Killed some great animals. And looks at sporting properties, properties in general, from an outdoorsman's perspective. And can enlighten you, whether you're selling or buying properties. He's very well connected. Done it for many, many years as his main focus. And just is really good at it. So anyway, we endorse him 100%. www.SJSportingProperties.com. He's also got great employees. And just runs a great business. Proud of him. And grateful to be associated with him. Kind of fun to just kick around on his site. See what's available. See the, you know, dream a little bit. Even if it's out of your price range, it's kind of fun. We need to have an epic property. Yeah, we do.

That we work with. Blaine to acquire. To acquire.

That would be awesome. We manage it the way we want.

Save the does. Save the bucks. Have it a non-hunting property. It's a buck knife. Just hunt only. I just want to. I just want to. I want to grow. I want to grow a low fence 300 incher. On an epic property. Well, just to do that. We need porcupines. So we need to start. There you go. Boosting that down. We also want to thank Phone Scope. Chestnut up there from the potentially proposed finger of Nevada. Maybe. What do you mean? Beaver County? Yeah. Everything good comes from Beaver County. Yeah. Up there in Beaver County. That is right. He's made some awesome stuff. Be able to throw cases on your phone. Put on any optic you want. I mean, he's got stuff for GoPros. Anything you need. I mean, he's got it there. He can manufacture it for you. That way you can get some video of anything you might see out in the woods. Maybe even take a dark class. I don't know. He might see stuff there.

Is that low fence 300 incher? But go to phonescope.com. Check them out. It's pretty awesome. You go on there and you can actually. There's a custom builder. So you can make sure you can get a case for the exact phone you have and a portion and adapter for the optic that you have. It's pretty awesome. We should give away a free phone scope to people just to embarrass Justin. To go on to at phonescope, P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P-E on Instagram and just put like a comment, Justin Rolls. Or something like that. Just to embarrass him. Free phonescope for anybody that goes on phonescope's Instagram and says, Justin Rolls. Hashtag Justin Rolls. Go look at that hashtag and see if it's taken. Justin Rolls. Just because I love teasing Justin. Might be something we don't know about. Be careful. I like teasing him. They're a very innovative family and just good friends. Is it? No results. On Justin Rolls?

We're set. Justin Rolls. C-H-E-S-T-O-N-Rules. R-U-L-E-S. Do a hashtag, Justin Rolls, on the phone scope account. We'll go look at that. Maybe we'll give away a few of them. I don't know. We've got them here in-house. We can do them custom to your phone. Anyway, we've got ways to do that. One of the cool features is you just have your one phone case. Then you have an adapter that can put on your binos and one on your spotting scope. My BTX this morning. Of course, I didn't see anything to BTX. Which I could have. But you could have. I could have. My kids dropping that Kaya 900 yards, they could have phone scoped it. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right. Phone scope is also a donor to the Muley's Matter giveaway, too. It's awesome. I just want to put that out. They're really supportive of that. Are we doing Justin Rolls? I'm just like, why not? Yeah. Okay. So how do they enter?

For Justin Rolls? Yep. So you're going to go online and comment on any post on the phone scope page. Hashtag Cheston Rules. C-H-E-S-T-O-N-R-U-L-E-S. And then if you want to make it easy on us, give us a tag. Epic Hunts in that comment. Or we'll just go search through the hashtag and find it. So the phone scope page on Instagram. Yep. Phone scope page on Instagram. At phone scope. P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P-E. Okay. Okay. Cheston Rolls. Cheston Rolls. Just, hey, he's one of the main founders. Their family came up with the idea. Kind of the entire industry, the entire videography industry. Cheston's a good dude. We really like his family. And appreciate them and their support and their partnership with us here at Epic Outdoors. I also want to throw a shout out to Red Rock Precision. He came out with a new rifle. A mountain hunter rifle. Anyway, I've got one.

One of the first two or three that were built. And it's awesome. It's incredible. Been to the range. Shot 1,000 yards with it. Huh? Oh, yeah. You were there? Oh, it's legit. It's legit. And so, anyway, I got it in a 7PRC. They loaded Acubons. I'm an Acubon guy. It's like the first loaded Acubons I've seen for the 7PRC. 7PRC is a relatively new caliber. And so, you know, a lot of times we were buying boxed ammo for them in different rifles, different 7PRCs and whatnot in like a 175 ELDX or whatever. And they've performed. Killed plenty of game. But I'm just, I like an Acubon. I said, hey, let's load up Acubons. It's unbelievable. It's a TAC driver shooting 160 Acubons for the 7PRC. Just a great rifle. Has all kinds of integrated features. Has a rail on the stock. You know, removable eyelets for your sling. And also has an Arca Swiss built into it. So you can slap it on a tripod.

Thought about everything. And I topped it with a Z8i, a Swarro Z8i. Shit, stupid. It's got an integrated rail system on it. Just everything about it is state of the art. And so anyway, proud to have it. Got it here. Went out, shot it. And it's in my truck right now. Back up just a little bit on you shot it. How many shots did it take you to be within like an inch at 725 yards? The first shot. One shot. And we shot it again and it was stupid. The quality of the gun speaks to that. Yeah. Well, those guys, yeah. I sent them a Z8i. I had a Z8i here. And he's like, what scope do you want? And I said, I'll send you one. I've got it right here. Pulled it off another rifle. So anyway, sent it to them. And they put it on. Went out, shot it. They built it, shot it. Five boxes of ammo show up with the rifle. And they said, it's ready to go. It's dialed.

By the way, here's what the data you need to put in your range finder. For these new smart range finders, they're dumb. Those smart range finders are dumb. But anyway. If you want to see them shoot those first couple of shots, a little bit more of that rifle, the video is on our Instagram. Instagram. Yeah. Anyway. So, yeah. I get it. Put that data in my smart range finder, which a lot of these range finders, they'll take in temperature, angle. Basically, you just hit it. It tells you what to dial to. You dial to it. And you squeeze the trigger. You might have to adjust for wind, depending on your situation. But anyway. Yeah. It was unbelievable. Went out to the range. And it just makes a killer out of a guy. Except for a guy who didn't kill. Because mealy's mattered. I tried to be selective. But then Josh hammers me for it because I suck at hunting. Right, Josh? Go ahead. Just say it.

Our model of the year. Go ahead. You do not. You do not. Our art model of the year, Joshua Pollack. I was like the final boss on any video game. You know, I was like the final exam. That's when they'd bring me in. Okay, y'all think you're good? Yeah. Y'all think you're good? Yeah. Here you go. If you can draw this, you get an A. Oh, man. These are visuals I'll never be able to. It's like you said, when you're walking down the little piglet aisle. You're welcome. These are visuals I'll never get out of my mind. But hey. We've also talked about it enough. It's impossible to cut. Otherwise, half of the podcast does not make sense. Now you guys know why Jana hates me. No. You make editing difficult. All right, everybody. Well, good luck out there. There's a lot of hunting going. We haven't had a podcast. I was getting on Logan. I was like, these podcasts aren't showing up on my feed.

Like, where are these podcasts at? And he goes, boss, every podcast we've done is on there.

It's just been a little while. We need to go to the podcast room. It's been a month. I think it's the longest since we've done a podcast. It's just telling you, we've had a lot of hunts. They've come and gone fast and furious. Most of them haven't ended happily. Bronson's in the field working his guts out, you know, hunting sheep and different things. And so, you know, Devin's up in Nevada right now. Wyatt, Wyatt's got a new kid. But he just came off of an extensive brown bear hunt that I can't wait to talk about on the podcast. And so, anyway, everybody's going 100 miles an hour in different directions. And, yeah, no. We're going to do podcasts on the regular. No issues. Don't worry about it. It's just been a minute.

We've been in the field and, you know, we're doing as much office work as we can when we're here and when we're cranking hard, selling optics like crazy and whatnot, but just haven't had a chance to do a podcast. And then you also have a few tough hunts and you're like, well, I don't really want to do a podcast.

Don't want to talk about it. But, hey, it's been fun. We really appreciate everybody submitting photos, stories, hearing about your successes, being tagged on social media. Also had epic failures, people that have struggled and whatnot. And we like talking about that, too, and visiting with you about that and whatnot. We just, everybody's doing their best, working their guts out. It's a warm environment right now out there. It's warm. I mean, they're saying on the Gila it was 84 degrees yesterday. So, you know, down in New Mexico. So it makes for some tough hunts. And I'm getting ready to head out, do some of that myself. And we'll see how some of that goes. Anyway, it's just tough. Also going to be heading to Iowa, Colorado after that, Canada after that, New Mexico after that. I mean, Josh, what do you got going? You got a lot coming up, too. Yeah, yeah. Same kind of thing.

Going to be going to the Utah deer hunt starting tomorrow again. Trying to keep grinding away on that thing. And then, yeah, same thing, going to Colorado. At the end of the week, we won't even be able to finish that one before I have to go to Colorado. And then basically get back from that. I mean, we're going to Canada. Yeah, I'm excited for that. Cash, what do you got going? Just getting ready, gearing up to go to Colorado. You got a significant hunt in Colorado. I'm super excited for you. I've been itching more and more as it gets closer. It's going to be fun. Grandpa Jason's in your corner, boss. If it wasn't for Grandpa Jason, I don't know where I'd be. No, what do you mean? I'm just here to – I love people burning tags and burning gas. So I'm here to support you, and I hope you kill one. It's going to be a grind, but I hope you kill one. I'm ready for it. I'm excited.

It's the only tag I've got for myself this year other than something over the counter, but I'm excited. John? Yeah, we've got already the December magazine we're cranking on, and so that will be coming out and maybe even a little early. A lot of that is because we're in the field heavy in Colorado in November. Of course, we'll be in Canada too, but then you're also dealing with your own hunts. Yeah, and then I've got a third season. How about that? Yeah, it's – Pretty awesome. You've got to do a little overtime here and there to clear up some space. Logan, he's got plenty going on. His family, of course, he's still trying to get a turn back tag or something. Working on it. Working on it. I like it. As of right now, I'm in full helper mode, so. Yeah, I like it. No, you've got plenty going on, and I know your dad's got plenty, and he's going to need your help on. Oh, yeah.

How much weight can you pack? I want to know. I mean, do you have a freighter frame? I want to know. If we kill a spike or a small mule there, how much can we count on you for? I'm pretty good. I've packed out significant amounts of meat. I like it. You've heard it. Pushing 40 pounds. Yeah, should have called – No, Cash. Just kidding. Should have used Logan. Hundreds. We're going to use Logan. We should have brought him as a decoy too, Cash. Should have done it. Yeah. Bring an orange vest. No point. We could have had him hanging on the back of the pack wheel, dragging me up the hill. That's true. We left that out, but holy crap. One last thing before we wrap up. Yeah. We are doing a Muley's Matter pre-giveaway giveaway, so just to generate a little bit more interest in the actual Muley's Matter What are we doing? Let's do it. Let's do it. We're giving away some pretty cool stuff.

It's an Instagram giveaway. You've got to like the post. If you're following us on Epic Hunts or Muley's Matters, you've seen it. Like the post. Comment what state you're hunting from. What post? We posted it earlier today. It's a post of the prize that you'll be getting. Very good. It's on the Muley's Matter and Epic Hunts page. Okay. Like it. Comment what state you're hunting from or what state you usually hunt from. And then share it on your story and tag Muley's Matters when you share it onto your story. Every day you share it onto your story is an extra entry you get into this giveaway. Holy cow. So even if you were successful but you'd like to promote it. Who conjured up this thing? You can do it. This is not something that you could have done. This is what happens when me and John. It is way above my pay grade. John, will you explain this slow?

So just to support the movement and to possibly win something, then you can enter this one. You enter it on Instagram. It's an Instagram post on Muley's Matter. Yep. Anybody is eligible. We just wanted to give an opportunity for everybody to win something and generate a little bit of interest. What's in this specific giveaway? Well, there's some schwag. Some schwag. Swag. Okay. From the new Epic merch store. Muley's underscore matter. Yep. Okay. You're going to be winning a pair of Diamondback HD 10x42s. I like it. You can choose any two shirts off the new Epic merch store. We'll ship those to you. Epic headlamp. Epic outdoors. Epic outdoor edge knife. And a lighter pyro putty combo along with a hat and decal. Nice. Hat and truck decal. Dude, this is legit. It's a pretty good package. Jeez. Have we talked much about the store that we put up yet? A little bit. A little bit.

I don't know if it's super public. Yeah. Talk about it, Cash. Throw it out there. I don't know as much about it as Logan does yet. But, I mean, we have a merch store. When I first started here, there was people, where can I buy a hat? Where can I buy a shirt? Do you guys do it? And I'm like, well, I don't know. I just started. But, you know, not too long ago, we started this Epic merch store. And, man, there's some cool stuff on there. There's a lot of stuff. I've got to do some shopping on it myself, really. Blankets, mugs. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. John's art school came in handy for that. Yeah. Yeah. T-shirts. We're going to be adding sweatshirts real soon on there as well. So, just trying to get the sizing right. Lots and lots of stuff. I think, I mean, mugs. Mugs are flying off their shelves. I don't know. Lots of people drinking. I hate the word merch. I do, too. We know you do.

I do, too. Logan, how does people. Check out my merch store. I mean, it just seems so Gen Z. Yeah.

That can be found in our Instagram bio or on our website. There is a merch section in our website. It may soon be changed to apparel. I'm fine with it. Merch. If the Gen Zs are going to support Epic, hey, have at it. You can start running some Epic merch. Running some Epic merch. Going to tweet about it. We're going to, what else? What do we do? Oh, snap it out. You're going to Snapchat it? Oh, every day. Or what else? What other things? Put it on MySpace. TikTok. TikTok. How's our TikTok doing? Our TikTok is doing good. Yes. Do we have stuff going out? Yeah. I post on it pretty frequently. Come on. Yeah. Tell us about TikTok a little bit. What do you want to know about TikTok? How do you find it? Our TikTok is epic underscore outdoors. You've got to download the TikTok app. And yeah, we post highlights of our YouTube videos on there. We post podcast highlights. Sometimes.

They call them TikToks, right? Yeah. You post out some TikToks. Yeah, exactly. This is where Logan can post whatever he wants because none of us have TikTok. But he does. And then Devin's like, hey, somebody told me there was a TikTok about my hunt and this is weird. Because TikToks aren't normal videos, right? No. No, they're very different. And it's one of those things where if you're not in it, it would look really weird. If you're not in it, meaning if you're not a Gen Z, you're going to look weird. If you're not on TikTok, you're going to watch a video that I've made and say, what the heck is that? But they work. That's what we do. They work. They work? Yeah. Okay. I try to keep it pretty. You've got to cater to some of the teenagers, right? I do. I try to find the middle road between what would please Jason. This is how people lose control of their business. Right.

We've got a merch store and TikToks going out that we don't have any clue what's out there. That's why we hire good people. We trust everyone, right? I'm over. Okay. I'm over this. How long have we gone? We are one hour and 40 minutes. Wow. Good grief. Let's go have some lunch. Hey, everybody. Smash a giant. If not, go to Muley's underscore matter. And you can figure out how to enter. Go to epicoutdoors.com. Also, you can submit, register, and send in your tag. Your unpunched tag. Thousands and thousands of dollars in prizes, cash prizes, rifles, bows. I mean, you name it. It's there. And if you kill one, it shouldn't say kill. Do we have to be proper? No. We kill. You smash and do a smash and grab of a giant. We want to see it. Yeah. We want stories, whatever. Send in your photos, stories, whatnot, to photos at epicoutdoors.com. Email, and we'll go from there. We'd love to hear from you.

Appreciate you all. And, yeah, we're going to do some more podcasts. And when we're in the office on a regular basis, they're going to come out on the weekly. They're going to come out on the weekly. All right, everybody. Bye. 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. We'd like to thank Under Armour for being our title sponsor and making this podcast happen. Visit our website, epicoutdoors.com, for discount codes to Under Armour hunting apparel. Handcrafted, quality, precision rifles from start to finish. Red Rock Precision is one of our sponsors, and many of our staff uses Red Rock rifles. Visit redrockprecision.com to find out more. If you're in the market for a hunting property, our sponsor at St. James Sporting Properties

specialize in premier hunting properties throughout the West. Check out available hunting properties at stjamessportingproperties.com. Good-looking, comfortable camo describes Kuyu. The new bush pants from Kuyu keep your legs comfortable while walking through the thorns and bristles. Visit kuyu.com for sizing and prices. Kenetrek makes great boots for any situation. Most sheep hunters in the high, rocky altitudes use these boots to keep their ankles in check on the rough terrain. Visit kenetrek.com to learn more. We at Epic Outdoors are a fierce firearms dealer and have many popular models in stock and ready to ship. Call us if you would like help deciding which options are right for you. Fierce long-range rifles are a great rifle and many of our employees here use them. Visit fiercearms.com to learn more. Triple S Polaris specializes in custom setup hunting side-by-sides.

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Or visit epicoptics.com. For only $150 a year, you get 9 issues of the Epic Outdoors magazine and unlimited access to our hunt consultants, as well as access to our verified research website. To see all the other member benefits, visit epicoutdoors.com. If you hunt multiple states, our services are essential. The Epic Outdoors License Application Service is for you. If you ever miss deadlines or would like help developing your long, medium, and short-term license application goals, give us a call today at 435-263-0777 to learn more.