EP 301: The 2024 Draw Odds Overview and How to Become a Research Expert

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Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, John Peterson. We got Logan. Logan's at the keyboard. I like to say keyboard. I don't know. It's kind of janky looking to me, but whatever. I don't know how to use it. Logan does. They're called boards of some kind. Got probably some chips and stuff in there. It's keyboard enough for you. It's good. Do you even know how to play a keyboard, Logan? Play a keyboard like the piano? Yeah. I dabble. I thought you might. I can do like chopsticks. You art guys. John, do you know how to do that? I figured you did too. Bronson? No. No, me neither. You need some right brains and left brains to make businesses work, everybody. We figured that out. John, I missed it. Did you say you'd actually do a little bit? Oh, of course. Yes, but with the caveat. What? For some reason, my brain can't do, it has to be like symmetrical, right?

So I can play the piano one hand at a time. If the hands are doing different things, my brain just is like, what the? Yeah. Well, anyway. My brain can't do either, neither, or none of it. Well, my wife's a really good piano player, and so you only need one in every family. That's right. Yeah. That's what I say. You have nothing to prove. No. Nothing to prove as a dude, but I am impressed with y'all. You two? Who? Very impressive. Logan. For trying. I mean, anything John tries, he's a naturally good at. Logan, we're starting to see what his talents are. Seems to be doing pretty darn good. All right. Well, this particular podcast is going to be a little bit interesting. By the way, let's just talk. Can we talk about the snow, Bronson? We bring up moisture every time it's on top of our mind, nonstop. We had a long stint of, we'll call it very mild.

I mean, they were golfing right up until Christmas around here. Yeah. John, you're in Mexico, so you were golfing down there. Nobody in my family is golfing. I wasn't, but I mean. But people were. But it was that kind of weather. It was like 50s, you know, through the end of December. Yep. And then we've had three storms in 10 days. Yep. Six inches, four inches, another eight or so hits. They talked about this El Nino pipeline starting first of the year, going for a few months, and so far, they're right. It's got quite a pipeline going. We watched the radars crazy. We woke up at like 4 a.m., thought we'd get something done, come to work, and what? There's eight inches laying out on the ground. So then you've got to get in a whatever, skid steer with a plow and. Cover alls. Bronson likes to tease me. Like going out to feed the cows. Put on my worker hat. Yeah. Freak.

No, you're the maintenance guy. Yeah. The maintenance guy came and pushed our stuff. John and I are going to give you a hat one of these days. I have plenty of hats.

Anyway. I can't be caught without a hat. I've got plenty. I don't need any more. Plenty of hats. Keep your hats. Speaking of which, I'm just getting over being sick. Bronson, you had the. Month or so ago. Devin was there. Wyatt. I'm just getting over, too. Just hit everybody. Perfect. It seemed like. We're going to go to the expo. Everybody else is going to be sick. We're going to be perfect. Have immunity built up. Immunity. 14 variants of COVID been through us. We're good. Herd immunity at its finest. I'm like 95% back. And it feels amazing. I'm like, I haven't felt this good in years. But it's just normal, you know? After you've been sick. You get our age, John. You go three days less than average. And you're about really good. Are you guys just taking your daily aspirin? Jason. Like you're supposed to, as an older person. No. Yes, it's the 82, little 82. Am I supposed to do that?

Yeah. It helps you not have a heart attack nearly as many times. I want to remind you. You're like 16 months younger than us. I mean, I don't know. I'm just wondering. I'm not saying you guys. You're younger than John. I take my daily aspirin. Do you? You should. You should. Yeah, I don't either. You should. It's good for you. But he's talking to John. Folic acid. Do you take it? Now, you two over there. You've got your metamucil. Magnesium. Your geritol. Magnesium. Magnesium. What do they call the hair grow? There's some hair grow stuff. Minoxidil? I don't know. What? I don't know. You would know. No. I don't use any of it, obviously. But I don't know what you're going for. Chia Pet? What are you after? Hey, we should. Epic Chia Pet. Epic. Epic. All right. Well, anyway, kind of fun. We got a lot of moisture out there. We ended up cranking out plenty of work this morning.

Bronson and I are working on Utah, New Mexico, Oregon. Got that coming down the pipe. Here in the next couple of weeks. It's a lot of fun. It's kind of a great time of year where we're crushing the odds and looking at stuff. And when you're doing that manually, you see things. I mean, you notice every little detail. And so it's kind of had top of mind of our online odd system, Bronson. It kills it. And we never talk about it. I think, I mean, because we do a regular podcast, you know, you feel like you kind of get tired of talking about Epic Outdoors. But then we gloss over some of the main things that we do. And these online odds, we've had a lot of great comments. We've made leaps and bounds, huge strides in our online odds and the way they're portrayed, accuracy, things like that. And the timing. I see it was, what, January 10th and they're all online.

All the 2023 lives are live online. All of them. All of them. Including, like, Nevada Guide Draw. If you want to know if the Nevada Guide Draw, the rifle hunts for deer in Nevada are better odds in the guide side versus the regular side, go look. You can look at every single hunt on there. Really encourage everybody to do that. It's, you know, if you're, we're getting calls from people that are three or four magazines ahead of where we're at right now. And most of the reason for that is, you know, we don't just come out with a rubber stamp magazine and then have a state monumentally change something and change units, change dates, change fees, any change we don't like. We do them calculated in order. John, roughly every 28 days or 30 we go into print with a new one so that you have fresh that year stuff. But with the odds, those will be reflected in the magazine.

But those are there now for those people that just can't wait for the March, April, May magazine. Me, I don't want to wait. Do you want to wait? No. I mean, this is 2023. Do we have to wait for anything? 2024. My wife called Walmart. Walmart delivers now. You know what I'm saying? I mean, not just meet you out front. They deliver. They charge you for that? I don't know. To deliver? I don't even ask. I pick it up because I don't like going in that store. It's just so busy. I hate it. I won't even go there. I'll pay $10 extra for a bag of cat food to go to Lynn's or somewhere else. I hate Walmart. I hate it. You know what I mean? But if they deliver. I need to ask her if they charge extra. That's a question. We will call her. It was $20. They do? Flat fee? That's what Dan said. Well, she was having them deliver. Or is it a percentage of everything? Flat fee? Oh, it was.

She did say something because they'll deliver to our office. We had cases of Monster. Yeah, lots. Yeah, a truck full. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, instead of having her go do it and deal with all that. And have her clock out. Well, or whatever. Yeah. You know. That's a good comment. I'm not going to tell her when to clock in and out. Are you guys? Jason. Kind of need her around here. You're talking like you are now. There's other times you talk about. Okay, well, we're good. We're good. We can blow right by this. So the state's available for the online odds. It's Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming. That's what's live right now. Yeah, and it's been fun, Bronson. Like, we're going to call Kurt. He's the mastermind behind a lot of this stuff. But, I mean, you can go on here and do minimum point searches.

And when you do the minimum point searches, you can say, I want to know everything. Let's say you had 15 points for elk in Wyoming or whatever. You said, well, you know, I would take something. There might be something awesome at 11 point here. Or I'll take, you know, show me everything from 11 to maybe 16 because I don't know, what would I be close to in the next year or two, right? And so you click on that, boom, up comes everything. And it tells you the points needed off onto the right. Regular or special. Yeah, and regular and special. And so anyway, I mean, I don't know. Jump in. Well, that's great. And what it allows you to do, and there's some things like that. Some of the things in that specific example of Wyoming, you've got the increases in the special fees this year,

which is a whole other thing you've got to kind of superimpose after you see some hunts that you think you might be in the running for. Then you've got to be thinking, all right, that went way up this year. In the unit I'm in and the number of tags that they're giving, how many people, if there's three tags in each pool, sometimes the special is harder to draw than the regular just because that's the way it goes. There's two sides to the equation. There's number of applicants. There's number of tags. Number of tags. But if there's, you know, a unit with six, 800 tags, you know, special and regular, usually special is almost always better in that case where there's enough tags to absorb the weird crossovers. I'm doing it no matter what. Get out of my way. But just for the purpose, you know, of Wyoming, but then going to Utah or Arizona and whatnot, see what you were flirting with.

And one thing you do have to remember, which we consult on this a lot too, is your point total today at 15, you were 14 on the screen that you're comparing that with. That's right. You've got to remember those are the odds as they happen going into the draw. You didn't get your extra point until you're unsuccessful. A lot of people don't fully understand that. And that one point sometimes is monumental. It's huge. It's huge. And that's exactly right. So a lot of guys are saying, well, I have 14 today. And they don't even tell us that, Bronson. They say, well, for this year I'm going to have 15. And you're like, okay, what do you have like today? If you log in right now, what do you have? Well, I have 14. And so in every case, with the exception of Montana, you're going into the draw with what you have today. Montana, if you participate in that system. Preference system, yeah.

Choose to participate in it. You're going into the draw with one extra. And so they'll award the point. Basically, you're in advance. But you'll go into the draw with a point. Let's like, and we need to call Kurt. I want to, you know, get him in on all this. Because, I mean, it's fun for him. He loves this. He geeks out on it. But, Bronson, we're consulting people on Colorado. We do, say, a deer minimum points query. You click on it. Boom. You hit, you know, you'll hit a point range from, let's just say. Four to six. I don't know. Four to six. Like, four to six. Every third season of, you know, third rifle that might be what I might be interested in. And you could really do two to six or something like that. But O3R. So when you click on those, the O1As, O1Ms, obviously archery, muzzle, first rifle, second archery, all these, these are kind of generic for elk, deer, and antelope.

Yeah, exactly. And things like that. So anyway, we're going to go the O3R, most popular for deer, four to six range. And we'll click non-resident, right? Really, this is like automatic for resident. We should swap that where it's automatic for non-resident. Celebrate the non-resident. All right. So anyway, on this four to six, up pops what? What do we got here, Bronson? Six choices. Yeah. 43-3rd. Solid options. Yeah. 43-3rd, 62-3rd, 63-3rd, 68-3rd, 73-3rd, and 161. There's a couple on there that I believe I would. Well, I mean, there's most of them on there we have. Yeah. Okay, like- I think every unit, but one of those we've been to. Okay, 161, 70, 68, 63. John? I've been there. 62 is it. 62, no. 43, yes. I mean, so anyway, those are four, five, and six point type options. If we went ahead and just clicked back, we go to O2R, boom, O2R. Ooh, the list is going to grow big.

Yeah, it gave us one. Maybe just not quite double. Unit 5, 22. I like it. 30. Yeah, Unit 30 kind of produced this year. 40? 40? Not one of my favorites, but it did produce Unit 40. Kind of a great option right there. Gunnison's second. I'm skipping those, personally. Super popular. 54, 55, dude, a lot of people like them. Hey, they complain. That's the one thing, bro, some people talk about. They hate it, but they will never quit going. They go back. Every time. But I don't blame them. You kind of get to where you have local knowledge after a period of time. You feel like you're a local. You hunted it so much. 63, 67 seconds. 76. 79, 83. Okay, well, there are some options there. I wouldn't say they're as good as the third, in my opinion. But so fast, right? So fast. You can go on there, boom, done. I just think it's interesting. Not a lot of people know that it's out there.

And, Bronson, we can only put so much on paper. Yeah, exactly. In the print magazine, you can only do so much. And we put disclaimers in there. There's some states that we can't cover every single unit in the state. And for sheep and moose and goat, we usually always do that in the magazine. The non-resident units available. But for deer, elk, and antelope, we don't have enough pages to cover every unit in the state. Colorado, Wyoming, they got dozens or 100 plus, I don't know, in some cases. So, yeah, play around on there. Tell your heart's content. Plug and play, like Carter likes to say. I like it. Hey, you know, one of those things I don't really want to call Kurt now because you get going down these thought processes and we just want to crush the place. He's going to slow us down, Art and fill it. Why? I don't know. You just get going down these thought processes.

But what I want to talk about is this is all included in your $150 membership. So, there's a lot. You go on there. If you have a membership, we need your email on file. We have your email on file. Boom, you make up your password. Send you authorization. You make a password and off you go. And that gives you full access to all the online stuff. So, most of you out there listening have access to this even if you haven't used it. And if you need help, call in. We'll throw in a password real quick. Boom. While you're on the phone, you'll be able to log in, change it up to whatever you want, and off you go. Let's just call Kurt. He's probably ice fishing. Who knows? Who knows?

He's not coughing probably. No. They got snowed on.

Dang it.

Hey, man. Are you even working today? Yeah. No, you're not. You sound like you're in an ice blind. Yeah. I don't know. I'm freaking right in front of my computer. Oh. Well, that doesn't mean you're not in an ice blind.

That's exactly right. I have Starlink. That's why I have Starlink. I have a strawberry. Guaranteed he has Starlink. Did you take Starlink when you ice fish? Yeah, dude. We watch TV on the ice. Come on. See? So let's just answer the real question. Are you on the ice? No. I can even send a picture to prove it. We don't need any pics, boss. We don't need any pics. Well, we just, while it was ringing, we were wondering, I said, he's not golfing. They got snow. But he said, I got money that he's ice fishing. Oh. You never know what's ice fishing. But we got too much snow. But I like what I think, Kurt. I think Kurt ice fishes and does some of these things on purpose just to make us jealous. I don't even think he likes to do it. I think he just likes saying he does it. I'm on strawberry. I get to that here in about 20 minutes. Kurt's our age.

You don't go freeze your butt off if you don't like it. That's why I'm. No. It's a good thing. That's why I have a tent. Because I don't do that. I don't freeze my butt off either, dude. We have monster tents with floors in them and cameras. Carpet cameras. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Carpet cameras? I just got a mall carpet and cameras. Cameras, you know, down the hall. Down the hall. We're not going to fish unless you can see them. Got a 12-volt TV we plug in and watch football at Starling. Oh, my gosh. We literally have four cameras. It's like a video game. You just watch the fish eat it and then set the hook. It's all like playing on the wheels. Where have I been? How big a fish are you catching? I don't know. 20, 25-inch cuts up on strawberry. Wow. Dang. Oh, that's a blast. We have lots of fun. But, yeah, we've been getting too much snow. Don't worry about us down here.

We're just pushing snow and working. Yeah. Oh, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Then come August, I don't think you guys poke your head in the window. And, yeah, we're all jealous of the 43 tags that you guys are. That's chasing. Let me tell you how many tags I had last year. Zero. What do you mean? One tag. Come on. You need to consult your online odds a little better. Didn't you go to Kansas? Was it Kansas or was you just with your boy? I thought you were in Kansas. No, I was just with my – no, I didn't have a tag. I was just with Trevor and Kinsey. They both had tags. Okay. Geez. Well. And then I didn't go to Ohio. It's still over the counter for now. We'll see. They're talking about changing it. But I didn't go. No Wyoming stuff last year? The home of the – you know, the whole turf? Didn't draw anything. I mean, I went, but I didn't have a tag.

I mean, I went on a lot of hunts, but I didn't have any tags. So, it was bad. So, I golfed a lot. Kind of crazy. Well, Kurt, maybe, you know, since you do a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff with some of this, we've kind of been crushing our online odds and the coolness of it all. I don't know if maybe you want to dive into a little bit of it or how we insert you and some of your comments on this stuff. Yeah, some of the new stuff you added this year, too. We talked a little bit about it, but tee it up.

Well, let's see. Well, I mean, nothing really new just yet this year other than all the states are up and loaded and good to go. Usually a state like Nevada, we have to wait until almost the last day, you know, to get that stuff up and going. And we've already got that out there. So, that's kind of a nice little special add-on. I mean, every year we go out there, we're just kind of tweaking things and making adjustments and just getting better and better. You've added some minimum point queries and things like that, though, too, in some of the states where it makes sense, where they give, you know, 20, 50, 75, whatever percent to the max point where it's possible to do. You've added all that, too. And point ranges. Yeah. Yeah, if anything, that's probably one big thing is, you know, maybe two years ago, people maybe only were really relying on Wyoming or maybe even Utah.

But now we've, with Arizona kind of changing up some things, that's actually a state we can do a minimum point query on now as well. We can actually dive into the data and figure out the resident versus non-resident breakdowns, which allows us to do that. So, that's probably something new for people if they've not been out there in the last little bit. If Arizona's a state that you're looking to apply in, we've got some minimum point query stuff there.

You know, Colorado's added out there as well. So, we've expanded Oregon. So, in the past, if you've put in for just the kind of more of the, you know, we kind of call those lifetime, you know, those species like sheep and moose and goat kind of stuff. You know, now there's elk, deer, and antelope out there as well. So, we've just, we're just expanding and making it better. Yeah, and I think it's important to know, like, Adam and I are cranking on these non-stop. Wyatt too, Devin, Pollock, I mean, everybody. And we want it to work for us. I've hit you, what, two or three times today or yesterday, and we made changes, like, on the fly. That's what I think. Exactly. We want it to work. You know, we made it to where Utah, you can click on the CWMUs for residents. You can either include CWMU options in the draw or not.

We say residents because it's not even available to draw as a non-resident on a CWMU. But, anyway, just some of those cool features that make it to where it kind of concises and consolidates and makes it to where you're not coming out with a result of 40 deep, you know, that don't make sense. Yep. You know. And I think just for some background, Kurt, just tell us, like, how long have you been really an odds geek? Like, it's forever. How long have you started? Oh, gosh. Well, let's see. I'm probably back to, I would say, probably 2006.

Adam's brother, Aaron, and I kind of formed HunObs.com, if people remember that old legendary. I still own the website. Do you? Yeah, but we own you, Kurt. So we own the website. Well, sorry. Yeah, Epic owns the website. Come on. If anything ever happens to me, you know I'm ready to come find it. I mean, yeah, so I've been, I mean, what is it? It's 2024. Holy cow, I'm old. But, I mean, I've probably been crunching odds in spreadsheets for almost 20 years now. Yeah. I just wanted to. I kind of have an analytical data geek brain. And so, yeah, I mean, a lot of these things were, we were cool before odds were cool, if that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah. And you're a coder, too. I mean, you can do something with it. You can't, you're not just putting stuff in spreadsheets. You actually can build what you build websites. And I think, yeah, like, Kurt's one of those interesting guys, Kate.

He likes to fish, but I think the reason he likes to fish is because of all the crap that goes with it. What do you mean? Well, I can take Starlink. I can plug in this. I have the cameras. All the equipment. 14 cameras down below. Some people like to hunt and fish to use the gear. He's big into the odds, but he didn't have a tag last year. But he geeks out on all the stuff that goes with it. Just really all of these kind of analytical stuff. Do you dare tell? Speaking of Starlink, I bought a redneck blind or two last year for our Kansas leases, and we literally have a place to put a little TV, and we're going to slap Starlink in there and just sit in there and watch football while we're watching. I hunted whitetails, and you're supposed to be always alert, Kurt, and you never know when it's going to happen. You are going to start missing games. I've got another good example of way.

Yeah, but that's why you kill giants and I just shoot deer. I've got another example because I think you're on to something. I see where you're going, Jason. Kurt likes to use the gear. He gadgets out. He loves all that stuff. Yes. Kurt, you've got a couple video games you like to play, right? What's one of those that involves a gun, a weapon of some sort? Do you remember? All of them. I know. Well, you know the one I'm going for. I know COD. Huh? Call it. Yeah, Warzone. Well, we play Warzone and Escape from Tarkov all the time. So when it came time to ordering a new Fierce Rifle, how did you pattern that new Fierce Rifle after? What did you pattern that after? Yeah, the T5000 on Escape from Tarkov. That's why you bought it, right? That's why you bought it. That's exactly why I bought it. I have to own this gun. Come on, mate. That's my point.

My kids are like, you're buying a Fierce Firearm custom decked out one. Why? I said, because it'll match my Escape from Tarkov profile. Okay. Okay, Kurt. And I want to know, have you shot it yet? Well, hell no. That is my point. That is my point. But he's got it. But he's got it. I worry about people like you. How is the scope on it yet? I worry about people like you. He's like, hey, how does it shoot? I'm like, I don't know. I'll find out someday. I said, I'm going to order one. And by the way, we did. And they're batting. They are. And I'm just like, Bronson has one. I don't know. Anyway, who knows how many we're going to end up with. But kind of interesting. We're going to shoot ours before you, and you've had yours a full year before us. Yeah. Well, no, I didn't get it until June. But keep in mind, I got it around, what, June or July.

Who buys a brand new freaking awesome rifle and hasn't shot it yet? Back in June. I'm kind of a gadget guy. All right. So these Arizona odds, I just clicked on them real quick. I mean, it's just so fast. Anyway, I did deer, point range of 12 to 18, non-resident, boom. Up comes 12A east, 12B west, 21, 23, 27, some of the limited draws within those units, down to 12A, 12B archery, which took non-residents 13 points, by the way. So anyway, and then there's some random odds, obviously, as well. But there is up to half of them go to people at the most points. And so you can kind of tell when you're going to get drawn. And we've incorporated that into the Arizona minimum points queries on the website for all Epic Outdoors members. Available all Epic Outdoors members. So pretty awesome. I guess I can't get over.

We've had outfitters in Montana, especially working with Devin recently, and they're like, I cannot believe the ease of these odds on the units that I'm guiding them. Yeah. They're in the eastern part of the state. Most of their archery areas there take between one and, say, six or seven for some of the harder archery areas. And they want, if you jump online on Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks website and know how far to dig and how deep to dive, you can find them. You can find the spreadsheets on there like Kurt can get. And then if you have a way to view them, they're not always easy. They're just data in columns and rows. But a little bit difficult, raw. We're used to looking at them because we've dug them up for 20, 25 years. But it's a nice way to visually portray it so that they can then send a screenshot or something to the clients that are applying for their units.

Say, well, here's what it's taken, guys. You know, this is the guys at Epic, and I trust them and things like that. So they've loved it, too. That's just one example. Other outfitters in other states have done the same thing. And we did this one, Kurt. I'm going to run back to Arizona. Remember, before we leave Montana, remember how we did it where we were looking up the odds. Here's what the theoretically the odds are. But then here's the actual draw odds that actually happened. So guys with zero didn't draw. 4.17-21, guys with zero, nobody drew. Guys with one, nobody drew. 13% with two, 30% with three. You can see what actually happened when reality, just because nobody drew doesn't mean you had zero odds. You actually had 13% chance. Yeah, exactly. That's an example. They square your points. And so you can calculate a mathematical probability. It's 99%.

But that still doesn't mean you're going to draw. And you can see that. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't happen sometimes. So anyway, so if you see the 99% or you saw it in the past, you thought, okay, once I get three plus points, I'm guaranteed. Well, it may not happen that way. What actually happened was over on the other column. Yeah. It was more like 67%. Really cool stuff. That comes from using it and saying, well, there's a little more to it. What were you going to say about Arizona, Kurt? Well, I mean, if we're talking about, you know, cool new features for 2024. In some of our states, we've had this. But a big project that John and I have been working on, you know, all the odds are out there now for all the states. But if you go to Arizona, you're going to see, and we're going to see this for all the states as they kind of roll out with the magazine.

But, you know, if it's a unit where you guys or any of the consultants have talked about it, I mean, it's going to immediately pop up the unit information. There's going to be maps there for you to glance at real quick. And then the epic notes are right there. So you don't have to go thumb through the magazine. Now, keep in mind, you know, there's some guys that like to thumb through the magazine, check out all the arch units at once. But if you've got like a couple of units you're locked into, you can just run out online real quick, pull up, you know, say 3A, 3C, and see exactly what the consultants think about it. You immediately can see how many points it took for a non-resident. You know, we've got other information from the state out there, you know, like what kind of habitat is in 3A? What kind of, you know, is there some camping options?

You know, what does the state of Arizona even feel about the elk herd? So you've got a lot of this information at your fingertips all in just one spot, you know. So, you know, as you thumb through the magazine and you kind of lock into 3 or 4 units, go out there and utilize the website and, you know, see where this is located in the state if it's new to you. See what we're saying about it. See what the state thinks about it, you know. And this kind of information, we're currently cranking it out for all the, you know, Wyoming's out there as well. You know, we've got this same information for Wyoming. Utah's right around the corner. So as we roll out things with the magazine, keep in mind that the website and the magazine, they're kind of synced together so that they're used as kind of a tool where, you know, we can't print everything in the magazine, right?

So make sure you lean out onto the website to get that little extra info about each one of the units. We even have the tentative app schedule. You can click on that. Boom, up comes the tentative app schedule. We put tentative on there because in the event there's a typo or maybe a state doesn't do exactly what they said they were going to do, somewhat tentative. And we try to come out with it really early so guys can kind of make plans. But they are subject to change a little bit based on final regulations. So anyway, there's so much on there. We also have the e-mags. You can go click on January 2024, December 2023, or you can go back X amount of years and go look at stuff and click on that. And then you scroll through the e-mag. It gives it to you early. You know, printers take time. Mail delay over Christmas, things like that.

You can click through it, read the stories, and super clean magazine. That's the one thing I guess we could brag on John a little bit here. Although it doesn't need to occur. Everybody knows this for the last 25 years. John's got a great design, something I guess Adam and I are partial to, where it's super clean. Everything's super clean, easy. It's not, quote, gaudy, where it's just loaded with garbage, you know. Yeah, we're busy. I just strive to make it so it's just super fast. You look at it, your brain processes it very quickly. You find what you want very quickly. So there's a lot of guys out there, maybe Bronson and I and John, our age, that we like. I like paper stuff. I like to write on stuff. I like the paper stuff. But then once in a while, I like to get on my phone in a pinch.

Or if I'm in one of Kurt's tree stands and I think I need to go look at an e-mag real quick, I can go look at it on my phone or whatever, you know. Grab some mods or whatever. And one last thing I'd like to mention is, you know, I get asked every once in a while, hey, what's something out there on the, you know, in the member tools that just maybe I didn't know about or I'm not using? And I think the big one for, to tell, you know, to let it remind everybody out is our little, we call them our epic scout maps. And, you know, they're on that front research page when you go down there. But, like, if you look at, like, a state like Wyoming, you know, you can, they're very interactive. You know, we didn't go out there and build the maps that we thought people would use. What we did was we built the map.

You know, those were actually built, you know, with Adam's brother, Aaron, who he's been a buddy of mine for, you know, over 20 years. And we've worked in the mapping industry for a long time. So one thing about these is they're not built the way that we want to use them. They're built with all the layers that you can turn on and off so that the hunter can use them that they want to use them. So, you know, I can, if I drew antelope, I can go in there and turn on all the antelope units for, you know, say, for Wyoming. I can zoom in to, you know, my favorite area, 93. I grew up in camera. And I can literally start to turn on other layers. Like we've got, like, for mule deer, we've got, like, migration corridors. We've got walk-in areas for Wyoming. I mean, we've got all these things where, you know, I just pulled up area 93, turned on walk-in, and it highlights them in red.

But I didn't even know, like, growing up in camera, I didn't even realize some of these were kind of that walk-in area. So this is in my backyard. And so it's super handy. If you've never been into a unit, you can see all the BLM boundaries, forester boundaries, campgrounds, ways to get in and out. I mean, that's one tool that I think that a lot of members or a lot of people don't even realize we have. And then when they do pull them up, I don't know that they realize that, you know, it's custom to kind of how you want to use it. When you pull it up, you just click on, you know, which state you want. And there's a little tab in there called content. Click on that content tab, and that allows you to kind of control the map, and you can build the map yourself. And what's cool about it is, you know, you build you a little map with the layers you want on.

You go up there and press the print button before you know it. You know, you've got – you're off and running. You can save it as a PDF, put it on your phone, and you're, you know, you're good to go. So it's a tool that I don't think a lot of people realize we've been building those up behind the scenes. And, you know, they're pretty slick. So anyway. Pretty awesome. Yep. There's so much there. On there also, I guess I wanted to talk about this a little bit is, you know, Devin's updating this all the time, but there's a guided hunts tab. And he brought it to Adam and I's attention today. He says, go look at the white-tailed deer. You know, of course, that's on our brain a little bit. You're. But, yeah. Well, I mean, you too, boss. You're gone. Yeah. You're booked.

Possibly. Okay. Well. I mean, yeah. For all intents and purposes. Anyway, you scroll through those. Boom. And he's uploading them. One of the last hunts he just barely uploaded today. He's like, oh, it's not on there. And he, all he had to do was click off of his computer. He clicked off. Boom. It uploaded. Off. Off we go. We saw everything. And so, pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. And he's updating these pretty regular. This isn't everything he has. It's just kind of what's on top of mind. He's customizing hunts for people all the time. There's a lot of hunts that we book that never make this necessarily. But if you are at home at 9 p.m., midnight, whatever. And you're bored and you're looking for a mule deer hunt or elk or antelope, sheep, moose bear, whitetail, whatever. Other. Click on it and start scrolling. These are updated. You know, I don't know.

Maybe 10 years ago or something when we were really, you know, getting our feet wet in this. And trying to get a look and feel of exactly where we wanted to go with the future. I mean, it wasn't updated as often. Now, this is on a daily basis we're crushing this thing. And so, anyway, there's a lot out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, whether it's odds, hunts, or anything. If we're doing it, if you guys are doing it in the office or if it's something that, I mean, it's live and immediate. All of our stuff is, you know, there's no lag time anymore like there was 10, 15. I mean, it's all. That's the Gen Z way, right? That's right. That's the Gen Z way. It's got to be now. Can't be yesterday. And as far as they're concerned, their way is the only way. It is. Yeah. Well, let's just remind them that it's a Z. There's a reason they're last. Oh.

On the optics, Jason, one thing about that. I know, you know, John, to some extent, Kurt, everybody there. We've, you know, many of you know we're also optics dealers. We talk about it all the time. It's in the magazine. We came up with new tripods and all that. But want to impress upon people's minds. If it is a weekend or if it's a night and we're not here to call and pick up the phone and get a price quote or something like that, make sure anybody can go to Epic Outdoors and click on optics and look at our inventory, make an order and buy it. Make sure if you are a member of Epic Outdoors that you actually log in when you go to our website and then click on optics because the member pricing is different than non-member pricing. And the difference is usually more than the price of a membership. Yeah.

So it's just if you're a member and you're in a hurry and just click on there and order, we've caught some of them actually. You're fine. You're going to pay what everybody else is paying in the whole world. Yeah. Yeah. The best price. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. But anyway, just make sure you log in so that if you're comparing our price to anywhere else, log in to your member pricing. You'll see a personalized quote for you. It's the same one you're going to give if you get us over the phone, but we're not here sometimes over the weekend. Just make sure you log in. I like it. And these prices aren't just available to the whole world. And we also can't like publish these prices out in the magazine per se. So log on, just like Adam saying, go log on, sign in, and then go click on that. And it'll say members only price and it's all in red. And so you're good. You're good to go.

And then you can filter the products and whatnot. Also on there, if it's not showing in stock, it'll say call to order. There are some things that we do on an order-by-order basis because maybe they're not super popular. Not popular. Yeah. Especially like rifle scopes where you have very different magnification levels, objective size, and reticles that we're not going to have five or ten of everyone on the shelf because sometimes they'll stay there for years and then they change a new model and then you've got scopes. So just because it's not on there doesn't mean, I mean, most of the time we could have it shipped from drop ship to you and it's the same time whether it comes from us or them directly. So don't hesitate to reach out to us if you don't see the exact thing that you're looking for too. That just doesn't mean we can't get it quick. All right, Kurt.

Well, one of the things I was trying to bring out with Kurt's background and how long we've been working with Kurt is that all odds aren't calculated the same. And we're hunters, we spend the majority of the year researching, going through really how draw odds work. And so our formulas are specific to us. Yeah. And we feel that they're the most accurate that there is. Yeah. Well, and yeah. So anyway, yeah. And it's one thing to calculate odds and it's like Adam always says, odds are odds are odds are odds. You can get odds anywhere. And it does feel like that to a degree. The one thing I like is the way we portray them. The ease of looking at them and then you add that with the consulting or comments and things like that. And you add a personal touch of, like Adam said, we've been to five out of six of these units. Yeah. I mean, there's things like that.

Do you have anything to add on that, Bronson? No. Yeah. What I mean sometimes, odds are odds. Some people, you know, and even Kurt would agree. They're hung up on odds. Yeah. They're hung up on odds as everything. Well, you know, you look at some years, one year versus another stuff will jump two or three points and they'll go back the next year a point and a half. Like it's a snapshot in time of what something took. And in some cases, there's a very linear trend of point creep, all that. It's very predictable. There's other places where it's not, but it's a piece, it's one data piece in making your decision on where you should go hunt. But there's a whole lot of other things from terrain to physicality to wilderness to whether it's got grizzly bears, whether you're going to go guided, unguided, public land versus private land.

Anyway, so draw odds is one piece and I think we can offer a whole complete package as consultants here and as a magazine when you talk with us. And what I meant by that, yeah, to expound upon that is some guys will call in and say, well, you offer odds, but I can get those anywhere. Right. And that's kind of, kind of true. And I think that's what Adam's explaining. It's just, there's a lot to it. It's awesome. I feel like we're extremely refined. And then, and then you add the layer of personal information from being out there and doing it for so many years. Yeah. How much more? Yeah. And that's a key, that's a key piece. When I talk to different people and members, they're like, they, it's a big deal. Like, they're like, Hey, look, I can go figure out that it took three points to draw in Wyoming on such a, such a unit on my own.

But what I don't know is like the sum of all the parts, right? The drawing odds is just one of those parts. But what makes it awesome is what you guys are talking about. If you add up all those other parts, that's when it becomes unique. When it's the odds combined with the, you know, consultant notes combined with the harvest statistics combined with, you know, all the things that, you know, just because you drew a tag doesn't mean anything or just because you can, that's just the start of it. So, and that's what we're trying to do out on the website with all that. Like I said, so as we move forward, that's one thing that members may see a lot more that, that data mapping stuff and the land ownership stuff, like you've talked about. Yeah, habitat, you know, different things about the unit. Where do I camp? You know, combined with the epic note.

So, you know, when, when, when you, when, when you land on a page, we want you to just be able to click some buttons and just get all the information you can right there. And it goes back to what we talked about a minute ago. You know, you can't put that in the magazine. You can't go out there and write out this, you know, 14 pages on a single unit. And it's part of the reason. Yeah. We also don't talk about unit by unit, every species on the podcast too, because the podcasts are free, frankly. Exactly. And, you know, we realize there's member benefits that you should get for paying your membership of the year. One of these is the online odds. Another one is build a call, pick up the phone and talk with us. And another one is the, yeah, some of the other online tools that Kurt's talked about, you know, whether, and optics pricing and all that.

So, anyway, let's appreciate your work you've been doing. One thing, I think Adam and I have a question for these guys. I'm like, how is it that John ends up with all the epic sweatshirts and we don't even know where to buy them? And then I see there's an optic store and maybe even somewhat of a gear store, epic store. It also happened during that time of year, Kurt alluded earlier, from maybe August through September. That we're gone. Yeah. And then they have free reign of the place and they need samples. Yeah. So, what is it you guys have been working on with the store upgrades and things like that? And then how can we go get sweatshirts too? So, if you go to our main epicoutdoors.com and you click on store. Is the word merch, John? Is that going to come back up again? I hate that word. I hate that.

That's actually gone now because we are also transitioning all of our optics to that store as well. So, if you go, not to there, but you go to our main site. Okay. So, I'm going to go back, click up here at the top. Yep. And then click on store. It's the first menu item. So, I want to go back to this because this took me a minute to get used to. So, here we are on Epic Hunts and I want to get out of here and go to the main. There's not a home button, right? Like guys like me need to see something that says H-O-M-E. Yeah. But up in that upper left logo, it actually turns yellow. The logo is the home. Which, you know, has been standard in the internet world for, you know, like 20 years. Since the beginning of time. I want something that says H-O-M-E. Your home has been gone for like 15 years. Come on. It's not been gone on the websites I still go to. They were probably designed in the 90s.

Yeah. That's why I like them so much. So, on the upper left, that'll load you up and then off you go back to the home. There's a place called store. Yep. Okay. I like it. Just like home should be. Four letter word. Yes. Okay. Perfect. Well, and one key point to that, and maybe John's getting to that, is he mentioned it a second ago, is we're transitioning. You know, as we transition, if you want to get that member price, make sure you go through the, you know, the Epic members page right now. Because as we transition, those good pricing will be behind, you know, on that research page and all that. Whether it be the merch, whether it be cameras, whether it be tripods, whether it be optics, whatever. You can do it on the other way in the optics store. But as you transition and you hit store, first thing, there's a little dude with shoulders icon right there. That's where you hit.

I've learned that you hit that to log in. Yeah. I wish it said sign in. That's right. Log in here. Right? I mean, everything's an emoji now. I mean, geez. That's right, Bronson. I don't know. I'm glad somebody else sees it the way I see it. Kurt, can I ask you a personal, kind of a personal question? Always. Are you 50 yet? No, I'm only 47. I'm still young. Whoa. Never mind. All right. He does grow a gray beard earlier than the rest of us. Well, no, I'm just, I, for some reason, we haven't worked, I worked office by office for 10 plus years now, but I thought you were closer to John and I in age. Dang it. No, no. I feel like a really young buck and I love it. John and Adam are Gen A and I'm Gen B. Come on. Yeah. What's sad though is I think I have more grandkids than you guys. This is true. Oh, they got started. Actually, that's not sad. That is amazing. You all got, you all got started.

Grandkids are the bomb. I'll tell you what. Are they? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Grandkids are like going from shooting a little old Remington 700 to a brand new fierce firearm. A brand new fierce that you've never shot yet. I like it. Yeah. I only have two. I have one of each. That's awesome. Boy and a girl, but they are like, oh yeah, I would do, you say you'd do anything for your kids, but your grandkids, like I'd travel over my cross. Run over your kid to take care of your grandkids. 100%. Pretty much. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. I was sad to say. What do they call you? Are they old enough to call you something? Grandpa? Poppy? Oh yeah. It's Nana and Papa. Nana and Papa. All right. Oh, I like that. That's good. Nothing makes you feel older than getting a nickname as a grandparent, but it's awesome. So are you guys, is this still a work in progress here? No, it's fully functional.

It's just the member pricing is not engaged on our normal store yet. Okay. So eventually you'll be able to. Eventually meeting a day or two. Week. Week. Kurt? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say a week. Yeah. It's sure. It depends on the weather, strawberry, and a few other things. Yeah. It might be ice fishing this weekend, but I'll get it done when I get back home. But all of the products are live. All of the prices are the best pricing that it's legal to publish. But if you go log in at the main home, you can still go purchase optics at member discount. Yeah. Right now. So, I mean, if you're listening to this a week late, then, you know, all of this. Not going to make a difference. It's not going to make a difference. You go to the store. Go to where we told you. Log in. But the only way to get this new merch you're talking about is to go to the main site and hit store. Yeah.

And what do you got there, John? What do we got? It's pretty awesome. It's the stuff you guys don't have yet. Well, you have to go to the store. Go to Apparel. Scroll down. All the t-shirts. We got Muley's Matter t-shirts. Who are these dudes? Those are special models. They're called models. Where did you get them, John? Other Gen Zs that we don't know. What would we pay them? I mean. Yeah. Where did you get these guys? I don't even know these guys. I think AI did that. I think John's just. No. They actually are. Those are provided. We don't have anybody. They're provided. They're provided for the manufacturer. All right. All right. They're not our company. But that way we don't embarrass anybody either. If we don't have them in the right color scheme that they did wish they would have had in a different one. We don't have to deal with that. I just wonder if we have rights to their image.

I guess we're good. I think they are AI. So that doesn't matter. They don't have rights. Okay. I don't know. You never know. If you're artificial. AI would sue you right now. Bring it. Yeah. They're AI generated. All right. Well, anyway. It's there. You can get a little bit of merch. We'll probably bring it out. And we'll have a few things at the expo. But the best thing to do is to get on there. Get your right size color scheme all there. Hit order. Have it shipped out. We will have one of every size at the expo. So you can try on sizes. And then you can order right at our kiosk. And maybe somebody could buy that sample at the end of the show for half price. Wow. The one that's been fondled for four days. Hey. That's why it's half price. Everything's for sale. So you're going to tell somebody to meet us at our booth Sunday at four. Everything's for sale. All right. So anyway.

If you want to buy optics at member pricing and do it online after hours, go to the main home site. And click log in. Log in first. Once you log in, there's an optics store. Go to the optics store. You'll see it in red. Members only pricing. If you want to go buy merch just from the main home. Just hit store. Hit store. We're good. All right. Kurt, you got anything else to add? No. No. That's it. I think it's good. What are you going to do to make sure you get a tag or two this year, Kurt? Since we don't want to repeat. Not that you didn't. Well, I'll draw Kansas because, you know, every other year. Yeah. I got my one point. And, yeah, we're excited about that. And then hopefully in Wyoming, I'm curious to see how these general. Yeah. How this western general stuff that usually up that end of the state, it might jump higher than it used to be.

You're competing with all the outfitters up there and their clients and they're competing with you. Yeah. I don't know. I might sell a kidney and put in for the special and see what those kind of options. Oh, come on. Well, or maybe I'll sell like one of my gadgets, right? Or maybe do a few more little knickknacks on the Epic Outdoors website. Yeah. You know I'm lying. I won't sell a knickknack. I'll probably go buy another one and then not. Yeah. I was going to say, don't get rid of that gun until you at least shoot it. Pretty soon I'll just be playing deer hunter on my computer and I'll call that my hunting season. Yeah. No. With the grandkids. Yeah, exactly. Take a kid hunting. My grandson's already awesome. Log on, son. We're going hunting. Yeah. Speaking of Kansas and my grandson, they don't have a minimum age out there. You can mentor them. Yeah. And so. How old is he, Kurt?

How old is he? He's three, but my buddy that lives out there. My buddy that lives out there, his daughter shot one at six. Don't you guys? I mean, he's probably a bigger white tail than most of us will ever shoot. But don't you and Trevor usually hunt archery or can they use crossbow? I mean, what do you think he's. Yeah, they can use a crossbow. Archery, crossbow, just put it on a tripod. You know. Draw locks. Whatever. Yeah. Close your. Grit your teeth, son, and pull the trigger. In Kansas, you can use smokeless powder, muzzleloaders. Who knows? Whatever. Yeah. Everything. No, it's a good fun state. So that's coming up. Yeah, so I should have a couple tags, I'm hoping. I mean, I could. Well, I was going to draw a muzzleloader Utah this year, but now that they decided that technology is stupid, we can't have trail cameras or, you know. What were you going to draw? Power scopes. Elk.

Hey, you can use a scope. Nobody's saying you can't use a red dot. Elk. Wasatch elk. Oh. Yeah. Nothing against it, Kurt. I mean, up until 2015 or 16, you probably hunted muzzleloader a time or two, didn't you? Yeah, but you got to remember, I suck at hunting, so I got to get back there at like 800 yards. They say success rates were no different, 3% different. There's no different. You're good. You're just as effective with open sights. That's what they say. Yeah, I can. If you say it, you'll believe it. I can have tag soup. I can eat tag soup with or without a powered scope.

Well, all right. Well, I believe I would. I'd go for that, Kurt. You got 12 days. 12 days. It's really hard. I don't know what else you're weighing out. You know, it's either that or. I have 23 sheet points for Rockies. Rockies, well. Yeah. Let's draw that. Let's go have fun. Let's go have fun. Draw a tag and call up the Bronsons and hope they can squeeze me into their. Oh, we'll be there. We'll make. We'll make. We'll make room. You bring the Starlink. We're in. Starlink. Oh, yeah. The TV. The TV. The TV. Could you imagine me on a desert hunt and all of a sudden there's a helicopter drop and these guys are like, what are we doing down here? We're down in the middle of the Escalant. Yeah, I had a firmware update. They were bringing me in some corduroy to do something like that. But, yeah, you did that Rocky hunt. That's like November 1st.

That's always like the tail end of the MLB playoffs World Series. So, we're going to need that TV and stuff. All right. Yeah, we're going to need that. And football started up. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's good. I have the whole Starlink ready to go. Like, we backpack it in on horses. So, it's got its own little container and everything. You guys think I'm kidding, but I'm not. No. I believe you. Trust me, Kurt. You're not sounding far-fetched one bit. Have you got a Tesla?

I saw everything made by Musk, Kurt. No, don't have a Tesla. I'm still an old GM guy. Oh, I like it. Oh, that's not true. I have Toyota everything now. Do you? I've gone overseas. Oh, yeah. You can't beat them. Oh, you can. You can. But we're going to. No, I got a little Tacoma and you cannot beat them. Those things are the way to go. So, that's my opinion. All right. All right, guy. Well, thanks a lot for your work. Who cares? Thanks a lot for your work. Have a great day, guys. You've done it on the website. Appreciate it. It's looking awesome. And we, you know, look forward to adding a few more things. Like I said, as we use this stuff, we find things ourselves. We pass on to Kurt. It's not like we got to go through 15 layers of red tape to get something done. No. We're, you know, you're talking to the company. That's what I like. We're doing it.

We're writing it and we're on there doing it and we're making changes ourselves. So, it's easier to look at. Yep. So, all right. And always remember, as obsessed as you guys are with what you guys do, we're obsessed. John and I are absolutely obsessed with what we're doing out there on the website. I mean, if anybody meets me, they know I'm a geek and that just goes right into all the hard work we put into these drawing odds and all the information out there for people. So, anyway, we geek out on this stuff. Good stuff. Have a good one. Good talking to you guys. Appreciate you. Yep. Bye. All right.

Pretty cool. Pretty awesome. Yeah. Well, it's awesome. Yep. There's a lot there. Encourage everybody to go out there and check it out. You know, there's going to be times that there's not something we cover in the magazine or, you know, all the general season deer units in Utah or every dedicated hunter unit in Utah or whatever. There's things on there that you're going to have, find a few gaps in from time to time that we don't cover everything in the magazine. Jump on our website. Log in. Go check out the odds on there. Two states are going to be dang near right at 40 pages each and we're still not covering it all. And so that's why we have this and it's awesome and it's easy. You can plug and play and just crush it. 150 bucks for the membership. I mean, come on, John, you spent 150 bucks in the last hour. You didn't even know it. This is true.

Most likely. One of the things that I do want to mention that we didn't, Kurt didn't bring it up either, is a really cool tool we've got in there. If you hit your name, Jason, there. You mean that emoji, dude? Yeah. Okay. We have a point tracker inside your own account. So private to you. You hit that point tracker. Jason, I'd like to see some of your points. And instead of, we talked about spreadsheets in the old days. I have a Google sheet.

Whoa. This is the new way to do it. You keep it all in here. You can go in and in one place, you've got all your state IDs. You've got all the points that you've got. Stuff people. They've loaded this. Who did? It's an example. Jason's of the test account. Oh, I'm like, wow, a lovely elk state. I'm going to change my passwords. I'm sick of you guys infiltrating my personal space. So point is, if you want one place to track everything for every state, when you go to apply, it's all easy right there. Well, and the reason we did this is a lot of times you're sitting down, researching, querying a bunch of odds, seeing what it takes. And you're like, how many do I have? Now you've got to go find your odds somewhere, wherever you store them in a spreadsheet or somewhere, or go log into the state website. Well, here's a place to just load them all right here.

Of course, every year you're going to have to update them. As you get an extra point, or in some cases like Arizona, you might get two points a year if you take their Ethically Hunting Arizona course or something like that. But it's all right there. Point tracker keeps it there all in one spot. Add your state ID. Yeah, state IDs. And there's a place for notes. So let's say you're researching odds and you come up with three units you want to look more into. You don't have time at the minute. You just put in the notes there. Check out, you know, unit 63, 68, 70. You know, Arizona. Something like that. I mean, Arizona. Jason, looking at you in Arizona, looks like. So I had to actually. So on here, when you first look at it, you're like, add state ID. So you can click on that and add it. And then it says add points. Click on add points. And then there's drop downs.

Okay, I want to add my Arizona. I'm going to put in. Well, you know. Turkey. I'm going to tell everybody how many antelope points I have. Anyway, so I go add antelope and I can put 26 points. No, I'm not. I drew it back in the day. Anyway, I can put some notes on what I'm thinking about. Add. There you go. Boom. Up it comes. There I am. Antelope points. Notes. Yada, yada. So anyway, you don't have to use it. It makes no difference to us. It just makes it. It's nice, though, when you're on the website querying a lot of stuff for Colorado. And you want to, I need to double check. Where am I at? Or where's my wife at? Where's somebody else at? You asked me today. Where your points were? Yeah. For Wyoming or something? Yeah. What was it? Wyoming out. 14 or 15, you thought. But what? Yeah. So you didn't even. Plus or minus or whatever. That's right. 15.

So anyway, you know, and I didn't know, right? I went to my document, Google Sheets or whatever. Right? Yeah. And so anyway, you just kind of, it's just an easy way to put it. I should use this, actually. You should, except we use it for testing. So yeah, we need to. Don't do it or it's going to mess up your points. Use your home for testing. What's on John's? John, let's log me out. You're going to have 14 kids. That's true. Grandmas. It's true. Point boosters. Well, you don't say point booster one. Point booster two. Okay. We're not going to go. This is going down a really bad road. Bronson, let's get out of this. Basically, it's 150 bucks for an Epic membership. It's worth it. Go do it. Get online. Time of year to do it, too. It's the first of the year. All the magazines are coming out. January through June is when we cover all the state magazines from a 2024 perspective.

You're going to get the drawing odds benefit online. You're going to get the optics pricing throughout the whole year. Call and consult. You're going to get a member experience database. When you draw a tag in some state, you're going to be able to call, say, hey, I drew Unit X. Can I get a list of other members that have had Unit X in the past? Their names and phone numbers. We're going to send that to you. That's a member benefit. Might be one or two phone calls that changes your whole hunt just because you talked to somebody that's been there, done that in the recent past. So, anyway, well worth it in our opinion. Welcome you. Jump online or give us a call, 435-263-0777. So, the other things are, we should probably tell people where we're going to be the next two, three weeks. Let's do it right now. We're going to be here. Where are we right now? Well, we're in the office. No.

We're at Dallas. Parts of us. Yeah. Pieces. Yeah, that's right. Dallas Safari Club is going on right now. Thursday through the weekend, we've got a crew down there with the Nipik Outdoors booth. What's our booth number down there? 534. 534. Go stop by and talk to Cash, Josh, Colton, whoever else they've got there, stand in there with them because who knows, they might have recruited somebody on the drive down. Yeah, you'll be able to visit with them. They're selling optics. They've got a stack of optics there as well as our new tripods. You can check them out. All new gadgets. Of course, John, you're the gadget guy. We got, Bronson, we got gadgets. We don't even know what they're used for. Phone holders, scopes, stuff. Yeah. All kinds of phone holders. But when you use them. Bad, eh? They're so cool. But when you use them, that little orange thing is cute. It is cute.

It's pretty front pocket. It is cute. Adam used it. It reminds me of a fire starter. You used it. Yeah. I'm on myself. What do you mean? You've seen the pictures. What would you say? I use the rubber band snubbers, and I never get it right. I never get it right. Okay. I'm going to grab one of those next time. I've got one. I used one on my Coos deer. I'm all by myself. I'm rushed. It's like pushing 5 o'clock at night, and it's going to be getting dark. Yeah. Anyway, threw that on there. Put it on the pack. Little foam clamp. Foam clamp. 10-shot bursts, and then you kind of scroll through. And, you know, you rotate slightly and pick the ones you like in the 10-shotters. Awesome. You know what? But John has his actually little, the thing we talked about with Cheston. John has the little photo shutter thing. I've got my Apple Watch, and I do the delay on my phone. I don't have a phone.

Killing stuff just to use the Apple Watch. The cool thing is. Guaranteed, you guys are killing animals just to use the Apple Watch. And Apple is freaking loaded by libs. You know. If they knew that you're using that. If they knew that I was using it to kill photos of deer. They would disable it. They're saving the images. They're saving the images, John, and you're going to use them against you. Yeah, so. Well, you know. I'm still old-fashioned, hitting the 10-set, second, jumping around, running like an old man. I thought you meant old-fashioned, like 35 millimeters. Well, no, just the hit self-timer and run back both. It blinks. Here's the coolest thing on the Apple Watch. It gives you a preview. You sit behind the animal, and you can tell if you're in the shot. I am not on Watch Weather, and I'm going to tell my wife.

I'm not going to get in trouble by saying this, but I got one of those for Christmas last year. And what? You gave it away. Two months later, I gave it to my daughter. I don't wear watches, and I don't want a big. Me neither. When I say big, it's slim. I just mean. And you know where this is headed, right? What? Where? Harvest surveys. Knowing exactly where you're at. Sending you a ticket in the mail. Yeah, because I forgot to do it at the kill site, but I'm driving home. Mom, I'm going to do it now, and they're like, my phone's on airplane mode 98% of the time when I'm hunting. Oh, my gosh. Just saying. It's mostly just from that government. But anyway. Uncle Sam. I don't know. China. China. China. You know, I don't want to be nuked last.

You'll find me in a bungalow out on the strip somewhere. All right. We're going to be shot dead right now. Sorry.

So, yeah. So, Dallas Safari Club this weekend. Next weekend is the Wild Sheep Foundation Sheep Show in Reno. We're going to be there. 35-48. 35-48. We're going to be there as well. We'll have a crew there for the first couple of days, and then more of the crew will show up probably Friday, Saturday. Just simply because, you know, it's a very busy time for us to shut the whole office down for two straight weeks. Because by the time you drive down to Texas and drive back from Texas, drive to Reno, it's two weeks. We've got a magazine to put out. We've got a lot of consulting due. We've got a lot of licensed application clients that we're consulting. And it's, frankly, Arizona opened up yesterday. It's time to apply. We're starting to start getting applications in. It's just you can't just shut down this time of year and have everybody leave. Some people do. Well, some people do. We don't.

So, how about that? So, then we've also got the Western Hunting Conservation Expo. It's pretty awesome. Huge one for us. We always have a big booth there. 10 by 50 or 20 by 50? 20 by 50. Yeah. So, anyway, every one of these shows will be selling optics, tripods, and also consulting. Having a good time with everybody. We really enjoy that one. We shut down for that one. Yeah, it's in Utah. It's a great show. We've done it forever. Anyway, and normally, I forget, it's like 12th to 15th or something. And then, February this year. Yeah. Don't know exact dates. But we'll be there. You'll find us. You can't miss us. Yeah. Anyway. Look's up there. Need to do it. Anyway, so that's what we're doing. The show circuit for the next short while here. Next four weeks, we'll be at three different shows. And covering the countryside is pretty fun. Good times.

And I wondered, was there anything else we were going to talk about today? I don't know. Do we have time for a Christmas story? What? Oh, what? Like Mexican stories? No. No, no, no. I had a fun little story. I did go to Mexico, but this was actually when I was back and having Christmas with the kids. Real quick, before we stop, just a little shout out to the Western Hunting Expo. February 15th to the 18th, 2024. Found the dates. I found it. And it's always around Thanksgiving because I think it's always the most wonderful thing I can do for my wife is take her to dinner up there. We usually do that, don't we? Yes, we do. And it is wonderful. What's their reaction? And it's thoughtful. You know. Been there, done that. Kind of like, really? You know what people do for a steak dinner? I mean, these gals act like, come on. I mean, be grateful. Be careful. Oh, they're good.

We got the best wives in the world. Anyway, so John. So anyway, give the shout out. We found it there. But what were you? Is this a hunting story? Or were you Santa Claus? No, but there's blood involved. Okay, let's do it. This is good. Be careful with that. Stop. Record button over there, Logan. Be careful. I was Ralphie from A Christmas Story. You mean bundled up like crazy? No, no, that was his brother. Okay. Ralphie shot his eye out with the BB gun, remember? No. He wanted the Red Ryder BB gun, everybody said. But what? So that was me. Where? At home. Here or back? You had a lion in the backyard. I can just picture where this is going. No, no, no, no. So we're having Christmas with the kids, right? Was this before or after? And they give me the coolest present I've ever got. You know, I'm really into knives, right? No. No, I don't. No, I didn't know that.

It scares me now to know that. So I love knives. You do? Just all different kinds, you know, of stuff. Anyway, they got me the baddest A knife. It's so cool. You know how well we know each other? And how do I not know this? Well, anyway. He plays the piano when he loves knives. I mean, but only with the left hand. I mean, jeez. So what they got you off. What is it? It's a gravity knife, which I don't have one. And they're illegal in some areas, right? What is it? What do they do? So you open it, and it slides straight down. Oh, yeah. And it's gravity feed, but it's super fast. Like a switchblade. It's like a switchblade, but not. But not. So when you pull it out, it's locked. No, you pull it out, and you have to flip it with your wrist, and it opens, and the thing shoots out straight. Like in one motion. It's so cool. Okay. Anyway.

John, I'm scared to go to lunch with you when you're the driver. Yeah.

You bend over, and something falls out of your pocket. I'm getting shanked right there. Yeah. So, you know, and my wife's like, hey, you're going to shoot your eye out, you know, this kind of thing. Well, I'm playing with it. It's just like those butterfly knives when you're kids. Yeah. Butterfly switchblade. It's like a step above cooler. I mean, anyway. Because there's some automation to it. And they're, you know, these are like $160, $200 knives. Well, I've got, you know, anyway. Yeah. Keep going. I've got a story about those. Anyway, I'm just kind of getting the hang of it, right? Oh, man. And it's out, and I drop it on my foot. Barefoot? No. And it's locked in place? I've got slippers on, and it hits right between the slipper and the thing. And it goes in. And what thing? And like my pants, right? So, like right at the top of the slipper, right in the top of my foot.

Straight down? Blade down? Yeah, blade down. And it goes in deep. I grab it, and there's already my socks full of blood. And I grab it, and the kids are like, and I'm like, shut up, shut up. Don't tell Jen. Don't tell Jen. They saw it happen. Yeah, they saw it happen, and they were laughing. Did you have to pull it out of your foot? Oh, no. I'm grabbing Band-Aids and surgical tape out of the cupboard, you know, and wrapping up by the time I got it wrapped up. She's the one that stores that stuff. She's the nurse. Oh, yeah. She knows where it is. And she just starts laughing, you know? But I'm like, I felt. So, she knows now. Yeah, I felt like Ralphie. Oh, yeah. She knows. So, you hit it for like 30 seconds is all. Yeah. But I was like, don't tell, don't tell. I was shooting blood everywhere. It was pretty funny. But anyway, one of the coolest gifts I've ever received.

I might have to look them up. Do you have it on you? I don't have it on me. Good. No, you know, I've been banned from playing with it for a while. Do you normally carry a concealed weapon? No, but I do carry a knife all the time. Do you? Yeah. Okay, and I'm good with that one. I'm good with that one. But leave the concealed weapons. We should put no concealed weapons on our door. Jason, you're the Packer. I know, but I'm safe. I've got this blue card, Bronson. You talked about it last time. That was from 1975. I've got this blue card. It says I'm safe. Yeah. You were 10 years old when you got that. Okay. 10 years old. I was safe then. I'm safe now. You're now 49. I've got my totenship from the Boy Scouts, but that doesn't mean I'm safe. No. No, no. No, it doesn't. No. Okay, Bronson, you've got a story. I've got my safe.

Well, it's nothing that big, but we went on a trip to California with one of my friends when I was in sixth grade in their motor home, me and him and his parents. He was like the youngest child, and all of his siblings were already out of school, so he was like sixth grade. And we went to San Diego, and then we went into Tijuana. And, of course, I can't envision this now, but, yeah, his parents just turned us loose. They said, meet us back here at whatever time. In Tijuana? Yeah. You heard me right. I've been to Juarez, too, when I was like 12 or 13 with young men's groups. I remember this. This is insane. I mean, just having been there last year, I mean, maybe it's gotten a little worse, but still. Meet us back here at whatever time. So, picture two. How old are you? 12, 13? 12, 13. We just graduated sixth grade graduation. Sixth grade is 11 to 12, because you're five. We're older.

We're older. So, we're 12. You're 12. We're older. We're older. We're older. We're both October, November birthdays. You're 12. So, we're 12. So, we own the place, because you leave elementary school, what? You're the top dog. Right? Okay. Okay. You leave it. And we go down there. And we buy these Switch plays. They're awesome. Yeah. I mean, we're buying stuff. Okay? What happens when you go back into the U.S.? What are these? Who's there to beat you?

Border Patrol, right? And we're just... Did you guys buy anything? Yeah, look at these.

Let's have them. Let's have it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's have it. And we're so dumb. I mean, but you're just... You don't know any better. All full of you-know-what at that age. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, John, they were not legal in California. So, they got their money in Mexico, and they kept their products in Mexico. That's what it worked. And they sell them again. They just send them back. Yeah, there's some more American kids. Sell them. Yeah. Yeah. So, your quasi-Switchblade, that reminded me of that. It's been a source. I've never been back to Tijuana since. No. I thought about hunting the guy down. Yeah, they owe you something. $10. At least right now, it's like fear for your life, right? I mean, at least if you're in the immigration line, and you have to wait and walk six blocks like we do. Yeah. And we had a motorhome. Think picture. You're not walking. We have a motorhome.

We could have hid a dead body in that thing, and they wouldn't have found it, probably. Yeah. That much room. Just put them in there and shut your mouth. I mean, what would I tell my kids now? Put them in the drawer and shut your mouth. Let's just let me do the talking. Instead, we're there to meet the guys. Hey, guys, look at these.

So dumb. So dumb. That's awesome. I love the stories. I love the stories. I really, I like John's stories, too. Yeah. John has fun. John, are you healed up? Did you have to get a tetanus shot? No. I just wrapped it really good with the 3M tape and stopped bleeding all over, and it's sealed up good now. But, man, I put on my sock. It was a little rough because I forgot. And I was like, dang, it still hurts pretty bad. You know, did you ever catch up with the mountain lion that's been lurking around your neighborhood? No, no. But, yeah. We've been researching some air guns. There's some legit 50 cows. There's some 50 cows. So I get one of my wife calls, and she said, the neighbor just saw a mountain lion in the backyard. I was like, really? Walking their dog. Yeah, walking their dog. It's not a good combination. Puppy on a string.

And my wife's dog is, you know, all of about 20 pounds or something. So, I mean, it's not even a, it's cat food. That's when the cast was on. Yeah. I mean, anyway. So, and then didn't someone else see it? So, yeah. Or the next day? Yeah. They saw it just down the ridge a little bit that day again. But they said they called the DWR. They came out, but nobody came. You know, nobody came to chase the lion. It's still there. Well, they're not even protected anymore. No. They just want you to take care of it almost. If you have a hunting license, I mean, which you have to have to apply for anything. Well, watch John shoot it, and his expired the day before. And it goes back to the scenario. His Apple Watch knows that because he bought it on his Apple Watch. That's my point. And it proved that you were protecting the neighborhood.

And the Apple Watch senses percussion from a firearm because it's so close to the gun. That's right. I mean. I think I could legally shoot it with a bow from my deck, but not a firearm. Legally? You think. Inside the city. There is some kind of code and conduct within the HOA. There's no HOA. That's exactly why I bought this place. John is anti-government. And that's why I can't believe you're so into these watches. All right. So I was the HOA president at my last residence for five years. Let's tell a story. King John, you mean? King John. King John. I love it. I love it. So, John, tell the King John story. All right. I got to preface it a little bit because. I love this story. You know, I hate. I hate. Okay. Here's what I hate. Overreach. I hate people who love to control other people. Yeah. Okay. So that's it. I wonder.

So we move in and the HOA is just like a Nazi, a bunch of like Nazi wannabes. Yeah. And they just like, it's so bad. Over the top. Yeah. So my wife was like, you know, why don't you run? Why don't you just become the president? And then that way we can use the swimming pool when we want. Yeah. We can just do without a 48 hour prior notice. Right. Whatever they were getting on you over. We don't have to clean it. Whatever. But that's the great thing is, I mean, anyway, they just come up with rules that, you know, for no reason. No reason. We had like a big clubhouse and a theater and all this stuff. And it's like, nothing's being broken. We have video cameras everywhere. Why do we need someone from the board to approve everyone who uses it every time and unlock it every time? There's no reason for it. Right. Anyway, so, yeah, I slowly worked my way in and became president.

Adjusted everything. With the stroke of a pen. Oh, yeah. They hate you. Yeah. King John. Yeah. There were, so once a month, it was the worst. And there were like six really old people there that that's all they had to do. So they were at every HOA meeting. And anyway, yeah. So. They were anti-Jetwood Ward thing. Oh, I knew the bylaws and everything by heart. You memorized them. And everything. So anytime they said anything. You'd correct them. Oh, I just knew like, well, only people on the board have votes technically. So let's vote right now. Anyway. And you're the only board members sitting there? No. No. I had five board members, but they had. They had clarity of thought. They had really bad presidents in the past. And so. Oh, okay. So yeah. I mean, we just. It ran awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway. But. But. But. So did you get labeled? So after five years of dealing with this, I mean.

Oh, so. You don't even. You got labeled. In one of the. In one of the meetings, it got pretty hot and heavy. And the guy stands up. He's like, yeah, you're just King John. Do whatever you want. The King John story. I'm like, okay. Before we had a ton of problems, people were getting towed all the time. Like for no reason. We had plenty of parking. Like we just. People are going out. There's boots on the. Yeah. Just anyway. So. But it was funny. Yeah. I was King John from. You know. What was the. What was the issue that caused that? Oh. Something to do with that swimming pool. Yeah. Well, they wanted to fill. Here's an example. They wanted to fill in. It was the only. The only complex in Cedar. There's like two that have swimming pools. Yeah. And so that's one of the reasons that we bought there. Originally, it was because we had teenagers that just love the pool.

The other one was three fountains down there. Yeah. And so. I just have one. Yeah. So. It was awesome. But these guys. I had a swimming pool when I was a kid. Yeah. Was it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was what? It was. There was a swimming pool there when I was a little kid. Well. Yeah. Anyway. So. It was awesome. Huge hot tub. Just. Anyway. It was great. But they wanted to fill it in with dirt. The swimming pool? Yeah. To be done with it? To just be done with it. Because they were old. They didn't use it. And you're just like. And just to do it. Yeah. Just to say. Hey. We don't use it. We think. We shouldn't have one. Just because. That costs too much money to heat and stuff. And we had. You know. I had all the bills and stuff. You're like Dion. Dion. You're like. Yeah. You're like Dion. It's costing you 30 cents a month. You know. Like. It's nothing. You're like. Coach Prime. I got receipts.

Yeah. And. Right. Like. I got the receipts. Yeah. If you want to see it. Because. You know. That's right. And because that place had a pool. The value of your property. Is a third more than it. You know. There you go. Yeah. Pull out some survey on the internet. And throw it at them. But we're never leaving in the. Oh yeah. What's the price of life? Just sell it. Yeah. The raucous that causes out there. Fashion. I mean. Come on. Who wants to listen to that? Trying to go to bed at 635 every night. Yeah. So yeah. I don't. I wouldn't fill in the pool. And one kid did a belly flop. Can you believe it? That's a hazard. We need to protect his life. All right. I should have. Yeah. I should have been telling stories the whole time. But. Oh. It was that bad. Yeah. Anyway. So now. You move to an area. So now I'm anti-HOA. Anti-government. Anti-everything. Because there's no HOA.

But you have all your locations on. You want all notifications. You have Life 360 or whatever that. Those apps are. Find my phone running. You don't want to. 26. 24. 7. 365. You don't want Biden knowing where you're at. But we'll tell China everything. Yeah. No. I don't have TikTok. Oh. I downloaded TikTok. Whoa. You did? Just to see one video. Now I've got to get rid of it. So I never locked in. I was just. You know. Like if somebody sends you a TikTok. There's a lot of hunting TikTok. Whoa. I mean. We're on TikTok. Right. Logan? What's our. For heck's sakes. What's the word? What's our tick? Yeah. Or talk. Well. It's Epic Talk. Just Epic Outdoors. Or Epic Underscore Hunts. Or whatever. Okay. Oh yeah. I've never even seen that. Yeah. That's a Gen Z thing. But hey. Yeah. Hey. We're on it. It's a little bit more modern. But we're there. We're there. But anyway. So yeah.

Sometimes you've got to grab an app to do that. But then you run the risk. It's being annihilated. All right. Are we done? Are we done? Nuked in your sleep. Nuked. I want to be the last guy nuked. Actually I don't. Everybody worries about dying. I don't know that I care. No. We're all going to die. You don't want to be. Why are we living in fear of every little thing? It's like the. What was the big Trace movie online? I don't know. I'm bad.

Pascal dude's in it. You know the.

Apocalypse. Yeah. What's the series? There's like a whole series. Pedro Pascal dudes. Oh. Last of Us? Yeah. Is that what it is? Yeah. Who wants to live in that condition? Nobody. Yeah. You don't want to live in that condition. It's calling it a day. Yeah. Well. I don't think we get religious very often on this. But I think that's. If you are. And you have faith in the afterlife. I think it gives you. At least a little less fear of that. Well. If you're trying to be a decent dude. Yeah. But you know what I mean. Nobody's perfect. But you're also. Death is not the end of. Like the worst thing. That could happen. That's a fact. That does add confidence. You're right. Yeah. It's confidence. But it also. It's the reality side of the brain. Like. Yeah. You want to be hiding around from spores and stuff. That you can't even see. No. I mean. You're the last person. No. Whatever.

Food storage is getting old at that point. I'm sick of. Heart potato pearls and freaking. And whatever else. Hey. You know. Some of it needs to be rotated. I just hope I get all mine rotated before I die. So I don't waste any. You better start, Bob. So I don't waste any. You better start. I've got tubes of toothpaste. I don't know. A mile deep. That stuff turns to concrete. You can use it for. You know. Tile. Yeah. Caulk and cement. After a while. Hopefully it all gets used right before I die. All right. We're done. Well. We're done. We're done. Everybody. Have a good week. Don't forget to come see us at the shows. How about that? For only 150 bucks a year, you get nine issues of the Epic Outdoors magazine and unlimited access to our hunt consultants, as well as to our verified research website and member experience program. To see all other member benefits, visit epicoutdoors.com.

If you hunt in multiple states or want to expand your hunting portfolio, the Epic Outdoor license and application service is for you. We have dedicated hunt consultants and a team of application specialists to help you develop and achieve your short, medium, and long-term hunting goals. We do the work. You draw the tags. Epic Outdoors license app. 435-263-0777. The Utah Hunt Expo is right around the corner. Head over to the Epic Outdoors booth, chat with us, and get access to exclusive optics deals. Don't miss out on the 2024 Utah Hunt Expo at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City from February 15th to the 18th. Handcrafted, quality precision rifles from start to finish is Red Rock Precision Rifles. Many of our staff use Red Rock rifles, and we are excited to announce the new Red Rock Epic Mountain Rifle 2.0. Visit redrockprecision.com to learn more.

If you're in the market for a hunting property, look no further than St. James. St. James Sporting Properties specialize in premier hunting properties throughout the West. Check out available hunting properties at stjamesportingproperties.com. Here at Epic Optics, we are a verified dealer for Swarovski, Zeiss, Leica, Vortex, Pulsar, Stealth Cam, and more. Call us today to visit about available optics we have and what would be right for you, or visit epicoptics.com. Good looking, comfortable camo describes Kuyu. Check out the new Encounter Camo line for some of the best early to mid-season gear out there. Check out Kuyu.com to learn more. Kennetrek makes great boots for any situation. Most sheep hunters in the high, rocky altitudes use these boots to keep their ankles in check in the rough terrain. Visit kennetrek.com to learn more.

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