EP 307: Choosing the Best Rifle Scope for the 2024 Season and an Overview of Big Game Status in the West

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Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, and dang near the entire Epic Outdoors crew. Dude, it's been a minute since we've done a podcast. Bronson, we've been hard at it. Got everybody here, Cash, Devin, Wyatt, Josh, and Logan. It's good. Right on the hills of New Mexico, that's why we're here. Let's keep it real. We haven't done a podcast. So now that we've applied for New Mexico, can we go around the room and figure out what everybody applied for?

No. I applied for on-range oryx. I'll tell you all the species. You wanted the species I applied? You don't want exact hunts? All right. Wyatt, you applied. Hey, I threw it out there. On-range oryx. Threw in. On-range? No kidding. We also did that broken horn cow tag. Yeah, that reminds me to one of the quotes I heard this week from Jason. Come on. That any oryx is a trophy. Any oryx. Hey, there's been people shooting some janky oryx. You said any oryx is a trophy. And I've never killed one. That's cool. I haven't either. I've heard they taste amazing. I've applied like crazy. I've heard the same thing. They do. They're all spikes. Similar to horse from what I hear. If it's a spike and a half, it's still going to taste like a full spike. I'm sure. It's a good theory. I shoot one. I want it to have two intact spikes. That's what I want. I do, too. Tax numbers can build amazing things.

Heavy base is long, normal, intact. I don't want to have to call Phil Tuttle and have them recreate my work. I just don't. What do they call them? The salt grease ribeye or whatever? The ribeye of the clay? Of the greasewoods? Yeah. The ribeye of the greasewoods? The ribeye of the Sahara. The ribeye? I mean, come on. Okay. So what else did you do? What else did you do? What? Oh, I applied for some Burberry's. Did you guys do those two together? You probably killed a big one. Duels? Can't kill another one. All right. All right. We had to delete some apps because we didn't really pay attention to the dates the first core round. What? What do you mean? Over Christmas or something? Pollock had to remind us. We applied for a... We wouldn't have been on the hunt expo. Yeah. It's a good thing I was checking the route. So we have the head of our license app referring to Pollock. Yeah.

On the app checker. I caught it. I caught it. Who thinks far enough ahead in February? Like, what do I have to do in February? I assumed Wyatt knew, you know? So yeah, you do have to watch out for the expo. I did some January and February, but it was like the last weeks in January and the last weeks in February. Yeah. I thought I would have got a... Hey, good catch. Usually the maxi's at the printers. It was a good catch. And the expos and cheap show and all that over. Did you actually... Did you get to authorize his apps and check them? Pollock does check license apps. But he checks yours? Yeah, he checks mine. That brings me to another one of Wyatt's quotes. We're just... You guys are on my sticky notes. Right out. Okay, so... Wyatt told me. He said, I'm going to start letting you... I'm going to start listening to you on my apps. Wyatt said that to me. He did? Yeah.

But did he come to me from New Mexico? No. The rest of us are offended. You don't care what we have to say. I tried to get everyone to swap one office and apply each other. That's right. You did try to do that. No one wanted to do that. Well, we did think that would be a kind of a cool game to just pick one state and one species that you would just give to the pot and said, all right. Like for me, that would be Montana. I just feel bad whoever I'm applying because I'm applying you where there's no game and most likely you're going to eat a tag. For me, it would be Montana antelope. Okay? You guys pick wherever you want. Put me in for that. Because it's only a $200 tag and I don't have to go if I don't want to. It costs you five or six to get there, boss. That's what I mean. $200, but I don't have to even leave Utah. And I only eat $200. That's the species. You guys can't pick that one.

I've already picked it. How about some of those antelope units on the other side of New Mexico? That comes, you factor that in as far as your drive. You mean 31? 30-hour drive. Yeah, I put it in. About from hour 15 to hour 17 feels like another 10 hours. It might take me longer to get there than the hunt goes. I actually will probably fly. If I get that, I'm probably going to fly from Salt Lake to El Paso and be there quick. That would be quicker. I mean, me and Pollock did it. It would be. We're in a big van. We did it. That's true. Yeah. We can take it again. Speaking of which, you guys had quite the experience in Dallas. Yeah. It was a good time. The trek to and from. Yeah, it was good. It could have been a lot worse. A long ways down there. Appreciate you taking one for the team.

Adam's checking stuff off the list. No, it's just all. You guys tee it up perfectly. You know, well, all right. Well, you know. I've got some more things to you. Bronson, why don't you tell us. Let's see. It seems like you were batching it there for a minute. Yeah. And, you know, Becky was involved. She had to go up to the legislature. Yeah. She had seven weeks. Right? Yep. Of dealing with some of that. And then also. Plus or minus. Yeah. With the kids and whatnot. And then. The kids? Well, the kids. I have one grown daughter. You and a daughter. Okay. And then she wanted to go. Yeah. And you would be the Lone Ranger. Right? You would be the Lone Ranger. Yeah. You and the. She was on spring break. You and the dogs. She was on spring break. And she was going to go up there. They were maybe going to go skiing. But then they ended up going to like a Broadway type play and all that.

So it was like three or four days. The only thing you would have to do would be to feed the dogs. Feed and water. Play with the dogs. How did that go? Well. I wasn't even given a choice. It was taken from me. Okay. So I just want to know in the Bronson household how this goes down. I asked the question when I realized it was a day or two for my daughter who was going to be going up Salt Lake. I said, wait. So, you know, I just got to make sure, you know, because these dogs are little. Let's put this. Because the evolution to where they are, they are a dog. But they're so far removed from a wolf or a wild dog. Then the survivability on their own outside. I tease all the time. They wouldn't last five to ten minutes outside. I mean, a magpie could probably kill. Let's set the stage even a little bit better.

Are you a – do you feel like – would you consider yourself a dog person or a dog lover? Oh, yeah. I have dogs all the time. I am. Yeah. But not an inside dog. Not necessarily. And these are inside dogs. But you've kind of grown to love them, right? They're kind of harmless. But they need you to take care of them. Like I said, they're not – they are not – they're not – Not like you feed them once a day and call it a day. Like in a lab, you can have them outside and feed them once a day and call it a day. There's no – Domestication has removed a lot of their instincts. I'm just going to – that's the easiest way to put it. Survival instincts, gone. Yeah. They are like people. They're like kids. Small enough, a hawk could scoop one. Oh. Not in your backyard. I said a magpie. For sure. A magpie. A magpie. From the sky. And they're little yappers.

I mean, they're yapping at the golfers going by. I mean, they're just little yappers, right? So, yeah. So, I brought it up because it's – we were in the – that was a bad week here, if you may remember. Like meaning a bad week, meaning very busy. You get a magazine, whatever the deadlines were. But you're still going home every night, right? Yeah, but we're coming really early. And the problem is they kennel at night, and if I wake up at 5 or 6 and come to work, then they're, you know – Lonely. Well, they're just running free, and it's pretty cold. So, not like a normal dog where you have a doghouse outside. And you throw some food out there, make sure the water's not frozen solid, and they stay alive. And they like to be mentally invigorated in the middle of the day, too. Or you just – if they're inside, they could make a mess, you know, in more ways than one.

So, you've got to check on them. So, I asked the question, what – To the family. And they said – To your daughter and wife. Oh, no, we're taking them to the doggy daycare for four days. And I says, what? You don't think – What? You don't think I can keep these two dogs alive for four days? Like, I'm a grown man. I have kids. I am responsible. I grew up raising dog, picking in the – you know, dad bred Malmutes. Yeah, you're – For all intents and purposes, you're a dog man. Yeah. Well, you said without your help that they just run free. You're the only one that – I'm the only one. That has respect from those dogs around your house. I'm the only one that's taught them tricks. Anything. And how to sit, how to – you know. They only hear the word no from me. I love that. They don't. They are not disciplined. If it wasn't for me, they would be undisciplined and, you know, all that.

Moms never rub their nose on the rug, has she? No. No. And in their poop? No. Bad dog. Have you done it? Got to the point. When I say the word no, they know. They know exactly what they've done wrong if I say that because they know. And I reinforce it later. It's all good. But it's just kind of like raising kids where you've got to tell them no sometimes. So you are not involved in the decision-making process of where the dogs are going or whose care they're in. They trust a third party they've never met more than dad. Well, they've taken them a lot there because of this very type of thing. Yeah. So now tell me a little more about Doggy Daycare. They're aggressive. They send you updated photos and videos. Oh, yeah. We were – where was it? The expo or something? And Becky – because when we went to the expo, we were gone too.

So Becky was up there and Hallie and so they're at the daycare too. And, yeah, they send you texts with pictures once a day. And they say, he wasn't in a very good mood today. Yeah, they just like hanging out with the staff and being pet and cuddled by the staff instead of playing with the dogs. And then a live picture. And you're like, yes, that's our dog. It does like people more than other dogs. They are accurate. Like they have an accurate depiction of our dog. They're that big. Like 98% of other dogs could have them for lunch. So that's why they don't like other dogs. Like a chicken tender. Too much. So, yeah. So I wasn't trusted with the dogs, but actually made for a pretty peaceful week. I didn't have to go home during the day, do anything. I don't even think you had to cook dinner. How'd that go?

That was another thing that came my way. She was up in a mail. Yeah. Okay, I'm marking stuff off my list like it's my job. I turned 50 years old recently. Okay. Okay. And I think, I mean, I've been fed and watered pretty good out in my life. Most of the time by myself. But for some other reason, too, my wife, and bless her heart, she's just looking after me. To her, she wants to make my life simpler. For the last seven weeks. Because for the lion's share of the week, she's gone. She's not going to be there to help make dinner and take care of whatever. She wants to take care of you. Like, I. Okay. But how old am I? You're 50. I said 50, not 90. Yeah. You know how to do top ramen. Pretty soon, the first week, on a Tuesday, I get this box called Blue. I call it Blue Emu, but that's some other company. It's Blue Apron. Okay. And it's pre-made meals in the mail.

In a freezer cooler with ice packs. You were potentially looking forward to going out and eating once in a while. To a restaurant. Like Wyatt. When Wyatt's wife's gone. What do you do, Wyatt? You eat whatever you want. Whatever you feel like. Whatever you want. You actually own yourself. When she's gone, you own yourself. Yes. And Wyatt doesn't go to the grocery store and buy the groceries for Monday through Saturday. No. Because then every day, then you're locked into what you bought. And you're locked into staying home. Yeah. A lot of commitment. Your palate changes, right, Wyatt? Right, yeah. On Monday, you feel like a pork chop. On Tuesday, maybe it's a steak or chicken. Or you want to go have a chili verde burrito. On Wednesday, it's whatever, whatever, whatever. So when you're approaching the end of your work day here at the office, you have nothing to look forward to.

I open my fridge. I open my fridge. And there's my meals. There's your meals. Right there. A variety, though. Oh, they were a variety, yeah. And my daughter was there. And so they have pre-made kind that is like two or three minutes in a microwave. And for those kind of meals, they're not frozen. So they actually taste good for those pre-made times. And then they have the version that is, here's your raw ingredients with the freaking list that, you know, you're supposed to be like a European chef, pretty much. I mean, they're easy to make. So what are you buying, right? You start from scratch anyway. Carrots and potatoes and steaks. So now you have to work for your food. You can't just drive up and pick it up. This takes an hour. Or go out and have somebody serve you. It takes an hour to make it. And it tastes good when you're done. And the problem is they were coming faster than I could.

I couldn't take a day off. If I took a day off, food's getting old in the fridge. He's putting them in the neighbor's garbage so he doesn't get off. They were on auto-renew. They were on auto-renew. They were, literally, every week. If it was one of, you know how those food drives that come around this time of year in the spring? The trucks, the food trucks. I would have put them on the porch for one day, but they'd have to eat them that day is the problem. But I would, I needed, I had, they were coming too fast. And they're delivered. No. To your doorstep in a little cooler with ice packs. Do you have to give them the empty cooler and then they fill it next time? No. No. They give a new cooler each and every day? A little. Wow. A little zipper cooler. Kind of. Yeah. Soft-sided thing. But anyway, I survived that.

But yeah, when she got home, and the funny thing is, this is the funniest thing. And Becky listened to these podcasts, but I've already teased her about this. And I was well taken care of. I wanted to be. The first day back after she was home. The first Monday night. She came home. She wanted to go out to eat. Yeah. We got takeout. That would be nice once in a while. It was so wonderful. That was my first takeout in seven weeks.

The first night she was back, she didn't feel like cooking dinner, so we had takeout. I'm like, well. And you said, you told me, you're like, gosh, I haven't been out for a long time. I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah. I'll take a Bronco Buster. I'll take a Bronco Buster. And so when the dogs, when you finally went and grabbed the dogs, did they just leap into your arms? Well, of course they do, because anybody's dog that knows the owner. Yeah. I went there on a Saturday. They had actually signed it up through Sunday. And I'm like, why'd you sign them through Sunday? Oh, just make it easier. I'm like, no. So I went and got them a day early. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, you know, of course they got, you know, they got treated just fine. Fed and watered and kept alive and played with and everything. So anyway, but yeah.

Sometimes you know where you stand with your wife and kids if they don't trust your own dog with you for four days. You know, Bronson, there's one other thing I want to talk about while we're on this 50 year old subject. What was your favorite saying here in the last couple of weeks? You guys, you guys remember what Bronson was talking about? If I ever do that, take away my passwords.

I've said that. It feels like. Elaborate a little more on what we're talking about. Well, you probably can't. Because we're talking about just stuff that, let's just pay more seasoned veterans that start doing. You see stuff that people do. Old guys get weird. Well, yeah. And I tell my wife, I've already put it in my. If I start posting on Facebook or Instagram or doing weird stuff, take away my passwords. Right? I mean, that's where you're at. And among other things, yeah. What? Like what? Well, just. I'm going to get.

Yeah. You all know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to tell you who I'm talking about. I was just wondering about. At what point in time do you. And think about being an old man. You think you guys, you guys know Adam. Are you getting a password? Are you getting. Is Adam giving you his password? I don't often say what I think. But if I see any of you guys as a grown man posting a selfie in a bathroom in a swimming suit, you're done. Okay. Thank you, Josh. And how are you going to take my password from me? It doesn't matter. It'll just be removed. We need to sign documents, Bronson, so that the court, it can be court ordered that you are to give him your password. Well, we recently. Bronson agrees. In the last year or two, we did a will, a trust. A lot of our stuff in a trust. And there's a whole bunch of stuff from medical and DNR or whatever your medical wishes are.

And then there's a social media clause. I'm going to go add that. That's an addendum. And don't give it to her. I'm going to put it all there. Give us your password. Because we have your best interest in mind. It'll be in a book. It'll be a book in my. You guys will be able to walk in my house. The day I die or the day I start to go slip. You can walk in there and get it. The slipping is what we're worried about. When you're dead, you're not posting. But it's when you're posting and the weird chiz comes out. Just please. You guys all, if you respect me in any degree, take away my privileges when I start slipping. Okay, you heard it? Right here. Is this a verbal contract? I think verbal contracts will hold up. It's recorded. It's as good as written. I'll say it to the camera. I'll put it on film. I'll put it on. It is on film. Becky, go listen to podcast number 305. Adam wanted us.

I say this to her. She hears everything I'm telling you guys. She's heard the same thing. I tell her the same thing. Take away every privilege I have if I start doing this. You just hand the phone. You say, this is what I'm talking about. We've all seen things I like. Come on. Take away my privileges. My privileges. I am no longer an American. I don't want my privileges. I'm an American. But I need to be bridled. You don't need to do certain things when you reach certain ages. I am checking stuff off the list. What else have we got here? Sure. What did you apply for? Where? Well. New Mexico? I was going to say Montana. You had some plans. No, I haven't. But we still have a little time. Yeah, I've got 10 days. I'm not done that. But I'm probably going to go swing for the fence. Probably going to swing for the fence. I'm not going to probably. I've got a bunch of elk points.

I like an archery elk tag. But I haven't found the right spot. Yeah. That I really, really think is where I want to be. So probably be. Probably just best in state. Probably like that. Probably what we'll do. Deciding whether I want to retain a deer tag or not. I can't decide. No plans in Montana. The Montana, the stuff we learn about Montana, you know, and remember about the convoluted application process, it's crazy. Yeah. Up there. Well, it's not cheap just to try to draw the quality deer and elk zones. Deers, one deer zone, we'll call it that. Yeah. A bunch of elk zones. But it's, you know, kind of convoluted. They get you on the hook for a general. If you are going into the draw with zero points and don't apply with the outfitter draw, you might as well just not apply this year and get your preference point this summer. And then next year, buy your second one going with two.

But if you go in this year with one, you're not going to draw. So if you want to draw this year and you have zero right now, you're best to not buy the preference point and go in with the 50, 60% chance. But you also next year will just have that same 50 to 60% versus a 80 plus. Versus 82, then 100 at year three. So it's kind of a weird, there's a lot of weird nuances to Montana. You can't just cherry pick the best. You have to be on the hook and draw the general, which I did buy a preference point last summer. So I'd go in this year with buying my second one going to Montana. And the doves give you the points going into the draw before they do the draw, which is unique to most other states. There is a guy emailing us pretty aggressively. He emailed me this morning about some potential changes. They want to change it to where the deer maybe have a little bit of a break as far as rifle

rut hunting and when to adjust those seasons for. Not have a five-week deer like they do rifle elk. But those residents are obviously going to have to, that's going to be their deal. You know, it's not, I mean. You just, they're just seeing the quality. And he's also seeing the relationship of cow elk, like the cow elk season. When everybody has a deer tag in their pocket, they're out in the field for cow elk and then they're smashing the deer they see. So they're just, you know, maybe a little bit more take during a, like a cow elk season, things like that. So anyway, it'll be interesting as, as the world changes. We constantly got changes happening. It feels like there's a lot. It continues. About the time you think potential changes. I mean, I've heard stuff thrown out there about Utah and Colorado and you better do this and you better do that because this is going to happen.

And they're just committees right now on some of these things talking about it. So let's just see what comes out of it. You know, see what comes out of Colorado. See what comes out of anything in Utah. That's clear next fall. Colorado did the cost analysis and it's literally, I mean, they're talking about going from OTC elk in some seasons and whatnot to, well, you know, limited draw and capping non-residents and it's to the tune of millions and millions. Oh yeah. It's not chicken feed. And there's other stuff like stuff being thrown around about maybe moving to a hybrid, you know, bonus slash preference thing, like if Utah or Wyoming, something like that. Where you'd have a random draw potential. That's got to happen. But that does, you know, that commission does meet on some of that stuff here in April. So really interesting to see.

You know, the five-year season structure is coming up too. A lot of potential discussions there. I've heard compelling people pushing for both things. One status quo, which is kind of the late dates. And the other ones, let's go back to the previous five year and not have a big gap in between first and second. Yeah. Bring the deer earlier, you know, even possibly even some deer in first season hunts. So, but man, don't get too far ahead of yourself. Let's let it. Let's let something pass. Yeah. A hundred percent. We've talked aggressively about it and looked into it. And are watching and participating in some of the different meetings and committees and whatnot. But anyway, kind of interesting how all this stuff, you know, evolves. And there's just a lot of, we had recently Arizona, you know, I mean, they're basically voting to do away with auction tags. Short, you know, slowly.

I mean, next year there'll be one for each of the species. And then after that it'll basically be a raffle. Kind of interesting, huh, Wyatt? Yeah. Lots of changes out there in the West. Or lots of proposed changes, I guess, too. Yeah. So, anyway, it's just, who knows?

Fun stuff. We got a lot. We got Wyoming came out with their potential recommendations as far as all the different tag quotas. Yeah. Those are all online. From now, I think the commission meets, I want to say, April 16th through 18th, somewhere right there to kind of ratify everything. Yeah. They moved, of course, the sheep, moose, goat, bison deadline to the end of April now. So, you're going to have not only proposed numbers, but approved numbers before you have to pick your sheep and moose and units like that if you're high point holders. And in some cases, yeah, for elk, too. You got up until, what, May 8th to modify your elk application. If you see something on there you don't like or do like or whatever. But, and the deer and antelope proposals are out there, too. Not monumental changes on that, of course. I mean, this is a whole other subject.

They're going to slash propose another 100 non-rescent tags cutting in G and 50 NH to the point where, at some point, we're going to have no tags for non-rescents there. So, is that, are they, all right, at some point, if that happened and the deer still don't come back, who are they going to blame? Us. Okay. They're already blamed. They blame us no matter what. They're already blamed us. That's all right. I mean, it doesn't matter. But we've almost got no tags left. Because we killed a deer in 1953. Thousands of residents. But, and I understand residents should have the boat. But I'm just saying, cut them to zero, and I'll bet you still see the reaction you're going to see. There's a lot of people out there that just think OTC tags, it'll work itself out in the wash, do OTC every year, no matter what happens with the game.

If that's the truth, then why keep cutting the non-resident draw tag? Because you don't believe that if you're a proponent of OTC tags and it'll work out in the wash. Just let us go there. Let us go. Let us go liberally as well. Why are we capped in Idaho if you really think that? That's right. Or, in this case, GRH down to 250 to 350 tags. And it's just, we've said it for years. It's probably an era that's, in some cases, in some places, gone. Gone with. The OTC doesn't fit some places anymore. But that's my call. Yeah. Well, interesting. All this stuff is interesting. I think, too, that there's a shift in expectations. You know, back in the day, when we were young, Bronson, we were 50. But back in the day, people expected a certain amount of quality. Now, I just think, you know, everybody's saying, well, the new, you know, the new 180 or the, you know, is actually 160.

Or 160 is the new 180 kind of thing or whatever. And I really think that's happening. People have lower expectations. I think there's some truth to that. And I think as some, you know, even like our dad's era, I mean, my dad doesn't hunt as much as he used to. He only kind of wants to hunt a bigger animal if he does. But he likes to come along with us on all of our hunts. But I guess where I was going with that is his era and then maybe even ours have seen, quote, better days. And it's hard to see some of that slip without at least trying to maintain something that moves it more back towards that. And maybe, yeah, there's 20-year-olds that have never seen it any different. They're 20 to 30-year-olds. And they just want opportunity and all that. And I'm all for maintaining opportunity.

I just would like a balance in some places and have options that aren't just all all for opportunity and young deer or young elk. So, anyway, what are you pointing at here, boss? Nothing. I think there's a lot of people, too. And I understand. I sympathize with them a little bit is it's tougher and tougher to get a tag. And so they're just wanting a tag. So they're saying, well, let's just have opportunity for everyone. I'll go grind it out on this tough mountain range. And I know I'll still come up with a 180-plus buck. And so, but as you see tags getting tougher and tougher to get, I think they're, you know, guys are thinking along those lines, even though they are somewhat of a trophy hunter anyway. But I don't know, lots going on there.

What do you think, Wyatt? Me? I want to hear from you. Well, on those terms, you know, a lot of guys, I guess there's a lot of guys pushing for just the, I guess, quantity of tags or just wanting the potential to be out there in the outdoors and hunting. But then you've got, you know, kind of the older generation or the generation of trophy hunters, too. So it's kind of trying to find a happy balance between the two is, I guess, the tough part for fishing game and divisions here. Yep. I agree. All right. Well, Devin, I want to, I want to. Do you have a sticky note or something? No, I don't. I've got it memorized. Oh, boy. It's in his head. It's in his head. I was just wondering, so you're, I want to know what the thought process is behind choosing a rifle scope. It seems to me like you're in the market for that.

I just wondered, like, you've got, you of all people, you know all the nuances of all the different scopes, brands, models. And what's important to you in choosing a rifle scope? And maybe what's important to you today? Today? Well, it depends on the purpose of your rifle, mostly. Okay, let's talk in, let's talk a big game rifle. You got a big game. Let's talk a seven mag that you guys would use on a moose or a brown bear, Wyatt. Hey, they worked. Did you test it? Well, he killed a moose. I thought you said brown bear for a second. He brought up brown bear. He took it. No, he did not fire. I took it that way because, just because, you know. Fire a shot at a brown bear. I know what caliber. So, I'm just wondering. I mean, it's possible I've heard that you're in the market. I've answered that question to other people many times. And it depends on the purpose of the rifle. Okay.

I mean, if you're a guy who's just, you know, I hunt timber or I'm 0 to 500, kind of don't really need to stretch it out, you don't probably need to go over 18 power. And it also, that then weight comes into it. I mean, there's a lot of variables. But you kind of want that perfect mix, in my opinion. So, but it is nice to have a scope that can be used for anything. Like, you don't know what hunt you're going to want to go on next year. Yeah. And maybe you only want one or two hunting rifles. And so, you don't want to have to take a scope off specifically for a certain hunt. Although, you'd be willing to. It's nice to have something. You could shoot long range, but then it's maybe a short range weapon as well. I would say long range hunting rifle, minimum of 18 power. Probably no more than 25. I like 20. Why no more than 25? What's your, just your thoughts behind it?

You zoomed in to, have you ever shot one that's on a 35 power? No. I have problems at 18. That's what I'm wondering. I have problems over 18. Your follow-up shot or just trying to find the animal. You're just too close. And I mean, even at like 700 yards. Yeah. I mean, it's nice to get in tight, but. That's what I'm wondering. You're not seeing impact. It's too much. And then you can't, if you need another shot, you're cranking your scope down. If you're still and you got a spotter with you or you're filming or you can just look back in your scope and see where your impact was, that's one thing. But for hunting, I say no less than 18, no more than say 24, 25. I mean, you used to work at a, I mean, a gun manufacturer. I mean, you've dealt with this a lot. Yeah. Like, you have a lot of questions. There's nothing you haven't heard. What's the magnification range you like?

What do you like personally? Like, what's Devin's perfect? Low as you can get, up to 20. So, which. And I don't like less than 20. So, my 28. 18 in the world. My Z8i, you don't like. But I'm telling you, I've had rifles on a bench and I'm shooting 1,000 and you do 18, 18, and then you pick up a 20 and it is a significant difference. Yeah. Even two power. But I have the Z8i. You told me you like that scope. And it goes to 28. It does. It goes three and a half on the very low end, but to 28. You wouldn't be on 28. I would not be on 28. I would use a Z8i in a heartbeat. If you're shooting targets. You'd love the Z8i. Yes. It's the ultimate. It's my favorite scope. Just expensive. Yeah. It's probably the most expensive. I mean. It's hard to get the ranges because you're always bound by the power. Yeah. Yeah. In a V4, you're 4 to 16, 6 to 24.

I like a 4 on the bottom end, 3 or 4 on the bottom end too. Because sometimes you are in timber and I don't like to be, a lot of them bottom out at 6. And I don't like the 6. Oh, I remember. I was Elmer Fudd in it in freaking 44 in Colorado. And it was, meaning I've got my gun and I'm walking around. You know what I mean? It's not like a planned stock because it's so thick in some of that country. It's nice. You want to be powered down. Nice to crank down. Yeah. Especially if it's a second focal plane. That's. So that's what I was going to get into. I want, just from you, because we get a lot of this type of question. You know, the differences between first and second focal plane and why or why not to use each one. Well, first focal plane changes the size of the reticle as you zoom. It's variable. So for a hunting example of this, I was guiding somebody once.

We saw a buck go into some timber, quakies. You go in there and it's, you're in tight. And it's getting darker. He zooms all the way out. Buck comes out, looks over the, you know, I mean, I'm like, kill him, kill him. And he just, nothing happens. Yeah. His reticle disappeared. It went so small. So tiny. Yeah. It goes so small because as that reticle changes, it is a true MOA representative of whatever distance you're at. So that means a thousand yard mark would be a thousand on any power. You can turn it down. Correct. And it changes. Yeah. Right. And you would think that the, the, the, the, the normal guy calling. Yes. The normal. That's right. And so the normal guy calling in says, why wouldn't I want that? And your point is as well, if you're shooting long range, would you ever be under max power? Exactly. So if you, and with a second focal plane, it never changes.

It's always the same. Your reticle shape and size. Yeah. But my point is, and it's never true until you're all the way zoomed in on your maximum power. Then those come into line. Then they're, that's what it is. That's what it is. So my point is, if you're ever going to hold the wind, why wouldn't you be on full power anyways? Right. Because if you're less than that, it wouldn't matter. Yeah. If you're at 300 yards, you're not holding wind. Yeah. You're not. Never. And you're not even really needing the reticles. Yeah. You're generally. We're talking in a hunting situation. Hunting. Hunting scope. For the, yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, you have a lot of people that'll call in and ask that particular question. And why would I choose this versus that? And so you're looking for, personally, you're looking for a second focal plane.

And that's generally speaking for 95% of the people out there that aren't bench res shooters. Yeah. You're looking for, you all out there listening would be looking for a second. I like five powers. I like eight powers. They line up good. What do you mean? What? Five and eight. Five and eight. A straight eight? I had a Simmons straight eight. Five? Your Z8 eye. Oh. It's in increments of eight. Oh, I see. If it's a five, you can do a five to, say, 15 or whatever, or five to 25. So mine is, well, three and a half, but to 28. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And the eye is illuminated. Are you with this? I think you're in need of a new scope, right? Yeah. He's got a naked seven. You kind of have a state-of-the-art scope from back in the day. Well, we've talked about a couple of my hunts the last couple of years. People might remember. And you found. Let's talk about it. Found out. Let's talk about it.

And I mean, I'm laying down to kill this buck. This is a 10-plus-year-old scope, maybe, Devin? Yes. And, but. I don't like changing things. Yeah. No, I don't either. It's not a matter of the money. No. It's a matter of change. Yes. It's all dialed in. You know what? So I had a scope I've had for a while, and it worked really well. I liked it. I liked the reticle, this, that, and the other. Year one, two, and three, it worked well. Then it started getting janky. Year to five, probably. It's probably been five years. Eight or ten years. Jeez. Anyway, so yeah, I mean, deer, deer, I mean, a buck in the snow, 500-something yards. Dead to rights. I'm laid down. I mean. No problems. No wind. I mean, boom. And I shoot over him. Moose. Like three times. I mean, you're, you're. You were there. I was there. I watched it happen. If he's flanked. What else did I shoot over? Moose. Moose. Moose.

Moose, I can't. Yeah. I shanked one. Yeah. Of course, we were yelling. I mean, it was chaos. We were talking the size of two horses that's standing out there. A black piece of plywood. Yeah. And we thought, here at Epic, that you guys were just excited. But it was like 500 yards or so, which isn't a far shot on a moose, necessarily. It wasn't four or 500. I don't know. It wasn't like a 200-yard shot. No, it's, but come to find out my reticle, and you can test this on the range, and people should do it, but I could zero it. Everything's fine. And then you, you know, you stretch it out. I shoot out to eight, eight, nine hundred, a thousand. I'm cranking the turret. I come back down. And so then you go home, right? Yeah. I just shot freaking a four-inch group at 700 yards. Like, I'm ready to roll. I go out there. Bucks at 500. I'm shooting over stuff. Jeez. Hitting hot.

So anyways, then this... And you're wanting to throw the rifle off a cliff, but it's not the rifle's fault. It's the optic. It's the optic. So I go to the range, and I do that. Everything's perfect. I zero. I come back down to 200. I shoot six inches high. 200. Oh, you came in. You're like, I am frosted. It is the tracking. My turret was not coming back. When you dial up and dial back. Yeah. So anyways... Yeah. That's what you found out the problem was in there, on that scope. It's a problem. Yeah. Confirmed with the manufacturer. So the manufacturer, you send it away. What do they say? They didn't send it back. It was that bad. I thought they rebuilt it. No. It was a different new... Oh, it was a different rebuild. Which was super cool of them. You know what I'm doing? Yeah. But it's just like, I was stubborn, and I shouldn't have been, because I was like, you know...

Should have swapped this out. I should have. Yeah. Two years ago. You sell these scopes every day. Things to think about. Right here at Epic. So I would recommend guys that are shooting at the range, after you do, you know... Play. Long range. Shoot at 200 again. Bring it back. Go under zero. Bring it to your zero, whether that's 100 or 200, whatever, and shoot one shot. End that. End there. Before you go hunting. Yes. Yeah. Because that's what... We're talking two or three years. Well, you're down sometimes today. Of frustration. Yes. And Bronson and I, I'm like, behind the scenes, we're like... We thought it was my speed. You were just stuck on this particular... You didn't want change. You don't want change. I'm like, dude, we got to do something different. Devin's got to do something different. He's got problems. Well, it works good for so long, you're confident in it.

You're confident. Something happens like that. I can't have so much stuff with that right for you guys. I mean... Yes. So after it's all done, you know it. And my left and right was never an issue. And so what did we do? We get the new chronograph. We check things. You probably don't ever dial the left and right. Most people... No. I don't dial. I don't dial for windage. But my point is, is that whole... Through all that struggle, I never changed the left and right one time. Yeah. That's what I mean. So then you think, okay, it's speed, right? That's what you would initially think. And we had some speed variability, but I remember thinking like... Not this much. Not this much. If you're within 100 feet, you're not seeing a difference. It's not like you're... Like you're not seeing feet of difference. Even 50 or 100 is not 60.

The other thing you could do is a ladder test and things like that. That gets a little bit... Whatever. Yeah. The easiest way to do it is when you shoot long range, bring it down. So what did the scope... Back to zero out wherever. What did the scope manufacturer tell you? Crooked reticle. Reticle is crooked. Broken. Broken. Here you go. Here's a refurbished model. Good luck to you. Two key words. Broken and crooked. I mean, I don't think it was crooked. Wasn't tracking. That's just what somebody typed, but yeah, it wasn't. So today, we're... Gunless, right? Like you're looking to... You're looking to top this gun, right? Like you're going to keep the gun and you're going to put a scope on it. I like Zeiss V6s. But they're not illuminated. They're not illuminated, which I don't understand why. That makes zero sense to me. Me too. And I kind of want to get 20 power. Yeah. That goes...

Top at 18 sometimes. Which I love. To 18. Which is... It's fine. It's fine. I just... I don't know. And I would still hunt with them. They're awesome. I might give them. I want to ask you guys... I haven't made up my mind. But they're V8s. They're pretty awesome. Two point something to... What does it go? What is it? It's a... 24 or 28. Yeah. 24 or 28. They have one that goes to 20. They have one that goes to 20, yeah. It stops at 20. It's two point something to 20. That's... How many? And it's illuminated. And it's illuminated. We talked about illuminated. And it's affordable. Okay. We keep saying illuminated. I love the illuminated. Okay. Have you ever used it to kill an animal? No. No. Okay. How many... But I know this. Just real quick. If I would... I would have more dead animals if... Really? Yeah. What happens is you get a rainstorm late in the evening.

You still have legal shooting hours. You can see it. But then when you look at it, you've got a dark crosshair on a dark animal in dark light. So you've not... Not... It's legal and it's ethical. You've not shot maybe because you... Because... Yeah. No. Or I don't... I can't pinpoint that. Well, we all love... And I attribute it to my age because I didn't care. When I was a kid, I could kill anything. I could look direct into the sun and kill it. You know, when I had clients... I mean, I was guiding and I remember a couple of instances and I was so frustrated. Or a client would be like, I just got this glare. And I'm like, you are kidding me. I kill the animal. I don't care if there's a glare. You look through the glare, you kill it. And now... And then every once in a while it happens to you. Yes. It's like I need someone standing up in front of you, plugging their ears.

And you can imagine me yapping in a guy's ear. What are you talking about? We've got to this point. We've got a culmination of a year's worth of work. Two years, whatever, a named animal. And you're not going to pull the trigger? Are you... And the guy threw me his gun and said, you look through it. And I look through it. Oh, jeez.

My eyes. Sorry. My point on that, though. There are some. But I've never, never shot anything with my illumination on. I know. Don't make too big a deal. I think there's a difference. It's not the end of the world. There's two different types of illumination. You've got the whole reticle. I hate that. To me, that does nothing. The whole reticle is this great big red in the screen. And if it's low light and you crank that thing on and it's on, like, number 10, you're blinded. Even at a one or two, it's starburst and glare. Swarovski. I like that tiny little dot in the middle. And it's usually a low. Very fine, adjustable, illuminated dot. That number 60, that Zeiss number 60, just a teeny little dot. I still go back to how many animals in your life have you said, I did not kill that animal because I didn't have an illuminated scope.

And in the back of your mind, you're thinking it's like you've got to deal with this little watch battery. And you don't know where to find one. It's going to be in some janky store. You know what I mean? And you're dealing with rangefinder batteries as is. You're always in the back of your mind. I'm relying on electronics. The times I do come up is when I'm behind coyotes. The first call of the day, the very first setup here you're sitting up, you're waiting in the dark for it to get set. And your eye can see a little better than your optic. That's when I would like to have my illuminate on a faint red dock. And then you just start calling because then I could kill. That happened to me more than once, calling coyotes. I will say that. And I have to wait. It feels like 10 minutes longer than I should. I killed a deer once with it and couldn't have.

I don't know that I would have made the shot without it. I remember that story. Because it happened once, I'm going to say I will not own a scope that doesn't have it. Because it did. And you probably still would have killed the animal. When you look close, you can figure that reticle out. It cost me one. Just the confidence that I had because I was sitting on the gun and thinking, literally had thoughts of, okay, this buck's not going to go anywhere. He's going to be right here again in the morning. I'll just come back in, get up on these rocks, that sort of thing. And then I'm like, why? No, I can shoot that far. The gun can do it. The bullet can do it. It was just some of the conditions the sun had just set behind him and stuff. And then in my mind, I remembered, oh, geez, I've got this. It's illumination. So I just reached up and kicked it on. Oh, okay. Yeah.

And the older you get, you want nice crap. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, Bronson, we want nice stuff, you know? And you're just like, oh, if it's a nickel more, it might be worth it because I liked it because I killed an animal with it. And it was so nice. I turned it on. It was beautiful. The cost difference in the scopes is in a whole lot. It's not. For not illuminated and illuminated. And it's not always on. It's not, for people that don't know, it's not always on. It's something you can turn on or not. So I don't always do it. Every one of them you turn on. Otherwise, you've got dead batteries. I feel like, too, that same rifle that I have. Now when I got another rifle, I put the same exact scope on it that's illuminated and all that. But my kids, my wife, shoot the other gun a lot.

And being able to turn the illumination on for them, every time I go to get them set up, I turn it on. And it's like no-brainer for them. I feel like they're significantly better shots. I haven't really seen them miss. And they've made decent shots. Not significant, but 300 or 400-yard shots. And I tell them, okay, see the little red X and put it on it. It's great for kids. It helps focus, I think, their eye on a spot. Put the red behind the shoulder. Yes, you're not getting lost in a crosshair. They're not looking at the two MOA line to the ride or something. So I feel like for them as well, it's helped me be able to talk them through a shot better. I like that. I don't know. That's just something. That's a good point. For me, I'm like, I won't go away from illuminated unless it's something. But I'm like Bronson. Bronson, you've got one of the V6s. Yeah. And I like it a lot.

It goes to 18. It's a little bit shorter than the V4s. It's light. I like the glass a little bit better. I think it's more compact on my sheep hunting guns. I love it. And now I've got another one coming. I like that. I've got a Z8i. And once you get one particular scope in one model, then you buy more. Yeah. Because I want to pick up a gun, I've got a Z8i. I can pick up another gun, I've got a Z8i. You're the same way on the V6s. But those 6.5s too, they're, when I say long range, I've killed. You're talking 600. I've killed 700 yards. It's about, I don't, and that was a deer. I wouldn't shoot a sheep that far. But I mean, it's like Devin says, the scope is prescribed to the gun I'm using. I want a more compact, a little bit lighter weight sheep and mountain packing rifle. That's what I go. I don't need the illumination.

I'm shooting, it's light for 23 hours on my sheep hunts when I go up there. So, illumination is probably never going to be an issue up there. And it's just, it fits versus have a little bit longer profile on a V4 or other scope. Back to the application of what Devin was talking about. Exactly. If you're, but my other guns. And same with the caliber. My other guns, my 300 rums, my 7 mags. I've got a 4 to 24 by 52 and it's got illumination if I need it. And I like it for that because, you know, I've hunted wolves with those and I will shoot at a wolf. As far as I can get a range reading, I will shoot at a wolf. Any shots ethical on a wolf. Every range, any range. There is ethical. I will dial and shoot. There is no ethics. I will dial and shoot. Everything's ethical. And so, I want a gun that has that long range magnification that Devin's talking about on

that gun because I don't have just a wolf gun, but my 7 mags is what I usually take. And that's what I take on that. It goes to 24. Got a big objective. Got a 52. And illuminated a lot because if you do hunt wolves, you may be at low light a lot of times. That's true. That's true. The cool thing with scopes nowadays is it used to be like, if you want to be lightweight, your dial ability drops. It does. It decreases. You don't have the range. You don't have the depth. On the lightweight scopes, it used to be always a struggle like the Z5s. My Z5. It was the best scope ever in the world. If you wanted to shoot 1200 yards, you were looking at big, heavy. And so, they kind of contradict themselves. They do. But with these new lines, they're kind of. The new lines and a 30 mil tube. And it's pretty awesome. The one-inch tube, you weren't dialing far.

And the Z5s, like if I was going on a sheep hunt and I was building a sheep gun, I'd have a Z5. Yeah. Tarofsky. Well, and I've still got it and I'm putting it on a gun. I'm going to put it on a gun. And it's not illuminated. You're not going to have a turret or availability. But it's a 6.5 and it's a 700 or 800-yard gun. That's right. That's kind of what my sheep gun are. I don't need a 1,000-yard gun. With that, you become a bigger, more heavier, longer scope. Yeah. I did this. You don't need it. Kind of a lightweight, fierce Z5. 6.5. Excuse me. 6.5. PRC. PRC. Just, you know, it's got the foldable stock. Reaper. You can throw it in. It's lightweight. And I don't want to take a lightweight, you know, gun and throw a giant scope on it. But my .338 Rum? No. I've got a giant night force. And I won't take it off. It's got its place. It's got its place. I will never take it off.

But I'm not advocating a night force that's way overkill. Turn that gun sideways. Don't throw the night force right between the jaws of the bear. I could. Tell him to bite. I could. See if he could do damage. I could. And when you dial it, it's like, collect. It's a terrible choke. I mean, it clinks in. It's such a crisp. It's tracking. Gears. It's what you want. It's what I want for that situation. So, Cash, you've done a lot of shooting. Building your guns. Building rifles. I want you. You can't get a word in edgewise with these guys. But I just want you to tell us a little bit about some of your thoughts. I would kind of echo what Devin was saying. It's all situational in what you're trying to do. Like with my gun that I built, I built something that was more of a mountain-style rifle. Something that's not too heavy but not too light either. Because you get, like, it's a 7 PRC.

If you build that crazy light, it's still going to kick you like a .300. Even with a suppressor. And so, like, tracking a bullet or impact if you're alone, a lot of those factors play into it. Do you remember what you're using for a rifle scope? It's a V4 from Zeiss. Oh, okay. It's a 6 to 24 by 50. There you go. So, that's, I mean, it's not the lightest out there. I mean, it's light, but it's not heavy. Yeah. You know? And so, that's kind of where I met everything in the middle on that gun. Is it illuminated? It is, yeah. It's got illumination. It's got... It's that same reticle I have. Yeah. Has it been shooting also? Yeah. It tracks. Like, I've had it out to 1,200. And it tracks. And you're shooting stuff at 1,200? Oh, yeah. Like, if you're a person out there, you want to be scared. Yeah. I've seen him do it. What bullet do you shoot out of your 7 PRC? What bullet? I'm shooting.

It's a 175 E-LDX. Yeah. Yep. So, and it's shot well. Like, I haven't tried another bullet in it because it's shot well. The only... Last year was the first year you hunted with it. Mm-hmm. You're in Colorado. Yeah. Maybe something else. And you smashed a buck. Smashed a deer with it, yeah. Yeah. How'd the bullet perform? It blew right through it. Like, I was surprised. How close was the deer? It was like 250. Like, it wasn't far at all. Yeah. So, it was like, you didn't really get any long-range performance out of it, whatever, as far as evidence. But it was still tracking pretty fast, and it held together. Oh, yeah. Boom. Held together well. It blew through it. Everything. What? Boom. Boom and they're dead. That's how it performed. Boom dead. Yeah. That's how the bullet performed. I've got a buddy of mine that always sends a text. It didn't move. Boom dead.

I've had the same experience with the LDX. But, you know, this particular gun that mine's in, it's slow. It's slow. It's 2,800 feet a second at the muzzle. But, I mean, it's blowing through elk at 600, like, and holding together. So, no problem. I mean, I think there's been some problems. Devin, you got, Adam. 3, 31, or 200, you might still have some. Fast bullet, close range, blowing apart. You know, it feels like maybe a little bit of a burger type. Well, if you're shooting. I was on an elk hunt last year. A guy was shooting a .28 Nosser and shooting 162-grade ELDX. Okay. Ordered ELDX. Shot it four times, sub 200 yards. Not one. Pass through. Not one made it to the cavity. Wow. The shoulders were gelled. I mean. And it was just because of the speed. Just carnage. The speed. Killed it. It was sucked. Yeah. Well, they're so fast at that close distance. It was just, boom. Blowing up.

An elk. So, it wasn't bonded. It's a hard animal. A deer is a little different. But an elk. It's just not bonded. It's not a bonded bullet. Yeah, they're just like a burger. I mean, they shoot awesome. There's no question. Yeah. You don't want to shoot something at 100 yards. We love Acubons. I think everybody here at the table. I wish you'd have had an Acubon. Yeah. I wish every rifle I own shot one of those. But sometimes I don't like them. Sometimes they don't. The rifle always chooses. They don't have the right. Rifle chooses. Yeah. Grain that you want to use sometimes. So, this saga of Devin finding a rifle. What has he not said that you want to hear him say? What he's going to settle on? I don't know yet. And that's my favorite thing about Devin is Bronson. You know this about him. I mean, Wyatt, you're one of his best friends. You know this better than anybody.

It's going to be months. But once you settle, you're married for life to that. Locked in. I don't know, man. Just want to know. Some of my things I do are so impulse. I'm like, what is wrong with me? Are you taking that gun and there's other things? For example, Devin, this Tundra you bought. When did it come on sale? I bought it within 10 minutes of it becoming costly. On a day that I told my wife, we're going to go look for cars for her. Who does that? Wow. Who would do that? I mean. Me. The freaking navigation. Hey, yeah. Change of plans. We're going to. This just kind of came up. Yeah, we're changing our Saturday plans. We need another truck. What do you think, honey, about this truck? Have you ever liked a truck? I think I got a good one because, yeah, that was. So, yeah, that was an impulse. That was a good one, though. That was a good impulse. But it was a planned impulse.

I think in the back of your mind you were looking for a second truck. Kind of always looking for a good deal on those. I've been waiting for a year, but it just happened to be the 10 minutes before we're going to go look for my wife for a car. Well, the problem is. And then I go buy a truck. You got Wyatt's grandpa's truck for the standard of the deal he got and the condition of his truck. Yeah. And you're kind of trying to duplicate that for the last year and a half or however long Wyatt's had that truck. I'm not that worried about the scope thing. It'll. So, you know what? It'll come together. I would be content to go grab a V4. I love the Z5, but I would like to shoot. He can't make a decision. I would take just about anything. They all are awesome. They are. Is that gun going with you to Alaska? You're naked seven going with you to Alaska this year. Yeah. Because it's naked now.

And that's how long are we? Dude, it's close. Five months? If I'm Devin, I'm thinking about it every night. I just. Hey, the time. I don't have a gun to take on my next hunt. I would be. Why don't you just put open sights on that on this? We've got to think it. We've got to think. Look at his eyes. He's nervous now. I'm good. I know I have to drop off the shelf time we get out of this podcast room. I'll be good. Mark my words. I'll be ready to go. So part of the elimination thing with me, and it has nothing to do with scopes, is getting older and looking through open sights. Open sight muzzleloader on my deer in Nevada. It was dark. And it has a crosshair on the end. And it was dark. And I'm like, am I that old? Like, I can't see that crosshair. It's like four in the afternoon. When you say crosshair, it's a globe. It's a globe.

We are talking Nevada, so we're not talking a scoped crosshair. Let's just make that clear right now. Thank you, Bronson. All right. I don't need to be investigated. Okay. We're talking about the front globe. This is an iron sight with no isotopes. What do you call it? Radioactive isotope. Yeah. It doesn't have any of that. You're talking the front globe crosshair. However, I do feel like I want to paint a little bit of glow in the dark. Like, on my nightstand, I've got a pair of snake eyes looking at me. It's from the glow in the dark sights on my pistol. And I love the snake eyes. And I feel like I need that on these open sight muzzles. Is that radioactive? I don't know. What is that compound on that? I don't know what a radioactive isotope is. Well, to make you feel better, even in the middle of the day with those globe sights, I struggle. I mean, it's hard. It is hard. It's hard.

But when I was a kid, you put it in front of us, we killed it. Well, same with me. It's just your aging eye. That's what it is. So, now it transmits into scopes. Everything needs to be light and bright and happy. I'd even get your eyes laser to try to fix the problem. So, now we're not. Okay. No, we're not. Well, it's time. Are you doing okay, Devin? I'm all right. Yeah. You'll be fine. A little touch-up and you'll be fine. You have another appointment, don't you? Oh, he goes under the freaking knife. Oh, jeez. I don't know. They're redoing it? As many complications I had, they may not accept me. But he's speaking. Not this guy again. Have you ever met a guy that was allergic to the freaking eye drops they give you? She said, I've been doing this for 16 years. I've never seen this before. And guess, and who freaking told you that you were? A different optometrist. A local dentist.

So, he said, you better know. He's not a dentist. A guy that looks at eyes for just general health. We're talking a general health practitioner kind of guy. No, you're messed up. You're messed up. He's just not a laser surgeon. Whatever it is, it was less than where he was headed. He was coming from the best of the best that they could have figured out. I look like the spawn of Satan for 42 days. So, what happened? Tell the world what happened. You're allergic to the drops I've been taking for. And so, then what reaction? What was the chemical? What was the, when you isolated the chemical compound? Boric acid. So, a little tiny trace of boric acid in this particular eye drop. And what would it do to you? You immediately stopped that, though, and immediately got better. Dude, you couldn't even see through your eyes. You guys couldn't even look at me. No. Without tearing up. No, I felt bad.

Yeah, it was rough. And then I'm like, well, Lasix is the best thing that ever happened to me. That's what everybody told me. If you had got pulled over, you would have been booked in jail. The crappy part is my left eye is amazing, my right eye is about the same as it was. And that's my shooting eye. But you'll get it touched up, and it'll be fine. I don't know if they'll, we'll see. And you'll use different eye drops, and you'll be fine, man. Be golden. So, anyway, but have you ever thought maybe you'd have to learn how to be left eye dominant? I've thought about it. It might change. And then that might, you might need a left eye. Left eye. Either that or I'm wearing a monocle. Well, I'm both. What? A monocle. Like the Monopoly man? Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Peanut guy. He has one. Oh, was that the guy that we talked about in Harry Potter? What was that guy's name? What was his name?

You didn't even remember who we were talking about. We looked him up. What's his name? The Harry Potter guy that's got the freak. Harry Potter. I can't remember. Fur criminy. Fess or something. Can't believe we're talking about Harry Potter. He had one of those pieces. Anyways, I'm saying I think you're on to something with that. What's that? With those globe drop-in sites. Well, I think they need to be painted with radioactive isotopes or whatever that is. Avoid that word in Nevada at all costs. It's my advice. I want them to be brighter. I'm just thinking. I look at snake eyes on my desk. I'm like, why can't my muzzleloader look like that? I used to paint back in the old brass pen days. I used to take white out and paint the end of them in white. Paint them white. On the carol bow. With literally white out. Yeah. But what happens when it rains? That crap is water-soluble.

They don't last. So it's like. And then you tried fingernail polish. White doesn't glow. It just sticks out a little bit more than brass. Anyway, I think these open sites can come a little further. But Bronson, I want to talk about this one power scope. In Utah, it's kind of one of those things that now Utah is open to apply for, Wyatt. It is open up today. Wyatt, you were clicking boxes like it was your job. I just got in there just to see if there was any changes that we needed to know about. And what were the changes that you saw? Which brings up my one power scope. The only thing, you know, that I really noticed was they separated out all your archery into three different sections. Last year they had it all for elk. Last year they had it all just under archery. Guys would select the December when they want to. Now it's a whole separate drop-down thing.

How many warning boxes did you have? Did you have to click, Josh, before you went down Utah? Yeah, there was 8-0. Well, usually it's like we're going to be doing surveys and we're going to spook the animal you're after. You've checked that box. We might be flying. Don't be a felon. If you are, we're going to come after you. This time, what was it? It was a muzzleloader warning for sure. Did have muzzleloader? And you agreed to your residency. Like I'm not a resident. That's on there every year. There was some name change stuff. Even though I live in New York. Because they've shortened some units. Unit name. Boulder is just Boulder now instead of Plateau Boulder. But then also that when you're applying for a muzzleloader that you know that the muzzleloader restriction has changed. Yes. Okay. So it's a one power scope or open sight. One power red dot or scope or red.

And Bronson, I like what you've been talking about a little bit. You've got to find out what works for your eyes. A scope's nice. So a scope is nice. Even if it's one power. But your point is you go ahead and look through a one power. It looks like you're looking down a tunnel that's a mile long. So when was it? 20, 16 or 15 when we could still use those? Well, before we could use them. I had a one power crosshair scope. And I put it on and thought this is going to be better than open sight. I didn't like it. I took it off. I just, me, that crosshair, maybe it was a little bit too blocky. Maybe it wasn't fine enough. But I just thought as I got to 152 or 250 and tried to stretch it, which you thought you could with it because I have a scope versus open sight. It just covered up so much of it. I'm like, I would rather have a peep. So I don't, I went to that years ago, just a peep.

So you're looking through just air. And then I did go to the interchangeable front globe sight. And you find which one your eye likes, whether it's the T, whether it's across there, whatever you like there, fine, duplex. That's what I ended up going with. So I do think there is not a one size fits all. It's kind of like boots. Feet are very unique to every people. And eyes are very different at ages 20 to 80. Well, I've got a dot loophole and I brought it into the office to you guys and I turned it on and I'm like, it's starbursting because of my Lasix or whatever. And you can't get it to change. I don't see a fine little dot. I see a starburst. You know what I mean? And maybe that's the scope, but maybe. Anyway, so you're going to have to, everybody's going to have to, and I'm going to be one of those guys. I'm going to go to the range. You're going to do open sight.

Well, I'm going to do open and I'm going to probably look at a different red dot and a different cross there and go with what I think I like. And I shot a bull here in Utah when it was a one power and I used open sight. You know, I felt the same way. I know optics have come a long ways. Like these scoops have come a long ways. We're going to do a little research. But Josh, maybe dive into a little bit. I know you've looked into some of the one power a little bit. We've got Vortex that have come out with it. Leopold, which, by the way, we're going to be now going to be an option here at Epic Outdoors. We're bringing Leopold on and being able to sell those. So guys that are looking to buy a Leopold, please, you know, shop here first. Let us have a chance at earning your business. But Josh, go ahead on what you've. Yeah, so Vortex is coming back out.

They actually discontinued that one power scope that they used to have. I want to say it was a crossfire. I want to say. But they discontinued it because really no other states. It didn't work. It was pretty Utah-specific scope. Once that came out, they reintroduced it and it's going to be coming. They're saying here in April we're going to start seeing shipments of it. We've got some on order. So it'll be a one power scope. They also did say the possibility of, I want to say, was it Kenton Industries that has a turret that you can put on it. And so everybody said, oh, great, I can have a turret.

And you've got to just remember you're still at one power. Same with Leopold. Leopold's got a little red dot, a red dot that they have. Yeah. That same kind of thing. It comes with a little, you can get it in an MRAD or MOA turret. Yeah. And you can put it on there. Just same kind of thing. A lot of guys are thinking, well, I'll keep dialing it. And it's just hard because of the magnification. The problem is we all know what muzzlers are capable of. Like Bronson, we've heard this in New Mexico. Guys know what the, they recently changed to iron sights. They had multiple power scopes. About anything went in New Mexico. And everybody went down there. And you knew these were 500-yard guns. Yeah. And so now in your mind, we've got a 500-yard gun, but we have iron sight. So people are lobbing them, throwing them out there, and starting to realize, whoa, okay, whoa.

Optics did help a lot on a muzzleloader. Yeah. And so it is, it is just kind of personal preference. We're going to have some red dots as well from some different manufacturers we're going to have. And we do have the strike fire that Vortex has. It's got a red or green dot. So you can change that. It does make a difference sometimes in the daylight or where you're at, whether sometimes your eye can see red or green better. Colorblind people, yeah. Like Jason's saying, too, sometimes that dot's not like a fine little teeny dot. But I know just personally when I went from back before I didn't have a one-power scope. I just went with a red dot. I felt like at 200 yards I could comfortably shoot and all that stuff with it. But I knew that my red dot was basically just you put the dot on the shoulder. It wasn't like I was holding a spot or anything like that.

But I knew I could see that red dot better on that buck or that bull's shoulder, whatever, better than I could. Cross. Like with a crosshair. Yeah. Or a standard open sight, you know, with just a post on the front and the dovetail on the back. Yeah. Because at that point the whole dovetail covers up the deer. You're going to have a one-power scope. No question. Either one power or red dot. One or the other. Yeah. Well, same thing. You're going to have a scope. My eyes, my brain, something works better. I did like, you know, I went Devin to Nevada and he had that. That's the first time I'd looked through that globe, that Williams sight with the crosshair. It was pretty nice. It's nice. It did feel like that was something I could do as well. Well, and I've got used to those. Nevada, Colorado, you've got to shoot open sights. So, I know. No. Pretty soon.

I mean, I already have four muzzleloaders, you know. I love. I love Bronson. So, Bronson, you've got a 6.5 Needmore. Well, that's not a muzzleloader. No. But I mean, I'm just saying you have a plethora of rifles. Muzzleloaders. You would say you're an enthusiast. Maybe even some of which are for sale. I would say he's an enthusiast. You're a gun fanatic. I mean, he's got no more than any of you at this freaking table. If I don't have a gun this fall, I know who I'm calling. The evolution of the modern firearm goes through eras. If you catch him on the right day, you're going to get a deal. What's better than having one muzzleloader that's set up and can shoot and everything like that? Two or three or four. Two. I know. Two. He does one in case you have to go to Idaho. No. You've got one set up for all the restrictions there. That is only for Idaho. Yeah.

And then I have another one that's kind of been my Nevada, Colorado gun. And I shoot a solid lead bullet out of it in those two states because you can't use a Sabat in Colorado, so you've got to have a full bore projectile. And that works good in Nevada, too. I use that gun. But then I have, yeah, the guns. Like in Utah, and Jason, you have kids, too. And if I have one long-range gun and I get off work and want to go hunt and my boy took it, I've got to go grab an open sight gun out of my safe to go in Utah when I could use a magnetized scope. No. I'm not doing that. So I've got another one set up and ready to go. So now, you know what I've got? I've got a kid safe and dad safe. And leave dad safe alone. Okay. But my point is one of those ultimate guns is going to have to be stripped down. And I could make that into my, quote, Utah muzzleloader and put a one power red dot or something.

If I went, I can already know, like Josh was saying, a red dot fits my eyes better in a scope than that one power crosshair does. It does. I don't like covering up too much of the animal and praying, touching off. I like that. Having said that, red dots have come along, too, because a lot of times they weren't parallelized correctly. And you have to kind of anchor onto your gun on a red dot back in the day, kind of like your bow, to make sure you're looking at it from the right side. But then some are set up to wherever that dot is. Yes. You hit. You've got to have that correction built into your scope, which means you're going to spend a little bit more money. The real cheap ones, kind of like your AR ones that are real cheap, you've got to kind of anchor on those because you move your head around and that thing moves around with it. It does. It appears that it moves around.

What were you going to say? Oh, no. That's all I was just going to say. Oh, I thought you were diving. No. Yeah. You weren't. It's the same kind. Okay. Sorry. I thought. Was there somebody who was trying to dive in? All I'm saying about this topic is the human eye is more than one power. Yep. If you're looking through a one power. It's like 1.3 or 4. It's like being at the 100-yard range and walking back. They said it was like 1.4. Walking back 70 yards and doing the same job. Well, and the problem is you run into the objective size as well because you're getting into it at a 24, 24 objective size. A straight one power, I feel like it's got a 10-millimeter objective on it. Yeah. I'm looking through a 24 or something like that. It feels like you're looking through a toilet paper tube. It's a mile long. Yep. And part of it is because of that objective size.

You don't have a one power that's got a 50 like we're used to looking through. And so you get back into that low light, early morning, late at night. And in that case, an open sight might be more beneficial. So there's a lot to consider. Everybody's eyes are different. You're going to have to shoot a few things. Everybody's going to have to spend a little bit of money in Utah this year if you don't have your stuff that you took off five or seven years ago. So whenever that was eight, maybe. And with red dots, the one thing I was going to say, yep, then you start worrying about batteries. And is it on or is it off? And I've had instances before I've been sneaking in on something and all of a sudden, okay, I'm going to pop up over this. Left it on battery. I pop it up over here and I can't get it to turn on and something's sitting there staring at me and I'm, anyway.

Can I tell you a secret? What I do on those, I have a couple. Eliminated ones, you get that tape. You put, we put on our tripods, just tape a battery to your scope. There you go. There you go. I have batteries on them. I like it. Of course. I'm an Eagle Scout, man. How long would it take you to cut that tape off to get to the battery? Devin, I got it. 30 seconds. Okay. Since you brought up birds and you're an Eagle Scout, Devin. Whoa. Birds, okay. Did you go on a turkey hunt recently? Are you kidding me? Yeah, you did. No, I might lie right now. Well. No. Yes. But.

Always a big bite. Hey, you brought it up, Dev. You know how many members and people in the world out there I've talked to and said, I am not a turkey hunter. I will never go turkey. People hate turkeys. I hate turkeys. I will be the first person. Because they will invade you. They will ruin you. But once you have a gun in your hand, they become a real animal. And they're smart. I've been defeated. To answer your question, yes. Wyatt. You even had a spotter. I had a spotter one. One of the best spotters. Wyatt. He does it for a living. In fact. Wyatt. We have actually killed things together. Wyatt can slow roll the pines with the best of them. And when there's cottonwoods, he's even better. But he also had competing against the symbol of our country. We also had boundaries that we needed to keep it within. Yeah. But you all set up what this is. It's a depredation. Okay.

They encourage you to shoot heads. Which means there's lots of them. They're everywhere. Yes. And you don't want to shoot a female. And me and my wife, it was a friend of hers and their farm. And so we go out with her. And she, what God. I mean. Smashes it. A minute in. Yeah. Okay. So Devin's like. Yeah. But it was a Jake. I'm like, awesome. We ate the thing. It tastes pretty good. So I'm like, yeah, I'll provide for the family. Yeah. Shoot. Why not? Yes. But you also didn't realize you were. Then I saw a couple of the Toms. Significant. Their beards were dragging the ground. Oh, the little one. He said bigger than any pony. Double beard. Bigger than any pony. I wanted to get that one. No. Oh. Double beard. A double beard. Oh. Jakey looking. So you have one dragon. Like a kicker. You have a dragger. A double beard. And a double. So yeah. Of course. What do you think I'm going to do?

Go for the big one. Hold out. I didn't shoot that great white hand. I mean. There was options. But. Didn't pan out for me. Yeah. And you even gave me. I gave you a three and a half. And you even gave it back to me. I'm like, Devin. If you get within 150 yards. Let her go. It wasn't that far. But I'll tell you. They'll stone them at 100. They're interesting creatures. I mean. Just. I don't know what to say. So anyway. Is that all? If you want to. Is there any particular story? Well, the night I thought it was going to happen. I'd kind of looked. I got into it. You guys know. I left at lunch. Scouted them out. Yes. But you were on it. You didn't even know. You were gathered around Wyatt's desk. I told Bronson. I'm like, look at this. These guys are scouting. They're on to something. Well, we have boundaries. You have to stay within their property. And Wyatt's like.

And Wyatt would come to work. Dude, Devin, you should have been there. They were everywhere. They were crapping in my truck. You know? And I'm like, what? Off the unit. Here's the part of the story I like, though, is then you realize you're not the only ones hunting these birds. But the symbol of our country was staged all around the fields. There you go. Eagles wreaking havoc. And tell them about how these turkeys had gotten smart and how, where they would, when they had to cross open country, they would walk where, Devin? Right under the wheel line. Under the wheel line. All the. So they couldn't get dive bomb from above. Came walking to me. Wow. I mean, within 10 yards. You know? Smart. But they went all the way down that, that wheel line. Evolution. So that they hawked. The smart ones live. Eagles. They're bald eagles. You saw them. The symbol of our country. Like I said.

Wyatt's like, yep, I spot them. I also saw them walking in and out of abandoned cars, Cadillacs. Literally. Yeah, I was laid up against an old school bus. Love it. Okay. And then when they would get to the end, they would just mad dash for the brush, right? Pretty much. But didn't you find feathers and turkey parts all around there? The eagles are. Eating well. They're hurting them. They may not need depredation tags in the future if that continues. You guys are doing great. My list is shortening. I love it. That was on your list? Well, kind of. Right here. Archibald. And I am still, I will proclaim now, I am not a turkey hunter. I could care less to go. If you guys invite me, don't be offended if I say no. I don't. And Wyatt, I owe you an afternoon. Normally, it's like chuckers. They would be a devil bird, and now you would be addicted to them because they beat you.

These are animals that have literally attacked me. Multiple times. Followed you. Followed me. They run you down on a bike. Four-wheeler. Four-wheeler. And you get a tag, and you think you're going to go provide? No. It didn't pan out. No. Your wife provided. Your wife shows you how easy it is. Your wife provided? I could have shot jakes and heads, but I'm not. That's the idea of a depredation. I know, but you should have seen that double beard little bugger. Yeah. He was dragging. Stratting around. Beard dragger. The BD. Bristled up. Yeah. Actually, he was. Well. Don't know. Good times. We're had by all. Josh, you've got a pretty extensive list there. If you want me to keep going, I will, but I want to hear something from your list, or else I'm going to keep going, because I've got one more I've got to talk about. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I want. Do you have anything? Nothing.

It might be a full podcast. Yeah. It's a full podcast. He's got a lot of would-you-rather type things, but maybe one for Jason. This is the time of year. This is the time of year we always have the moose saga in Montana. Oh. And I heard from you that I might do points only. And Wyatt, I want to hear from you as the head of our license app department. When do you do license-when do you do points only on once-in-a-lifetime species with max points and you're 50? Never. That's my point. I talked to a guy today that was 92 years old. I just hung up with him. He's doing points only. For a couple of species. Come on. Nope. Did you advise him that was not wise? No. I've guided him and I know he's a great guy. He's killed everything under the sun and he's kind of picky. He might be the only guy over 90 I've ever known that kept hunting. When I guided him for desert sheep, he was 87.

He needs to be tall. He was old when I was in divers. He needs to be considered. He's a good guy. He's our friend. He's a good guy. He's a great guy. He's done a lot of great hunting. He needs to worry more about how hard of an avocado should he be buying at the store rather than points only. Do I buy green bananas or not? But hey, when I hunted with him, and he went great. He went better than some 40 and 50 year olds that are just mentally soft people. But he told me today, and I remember when we hunted with him, me and several of my guys, desert sheep in Utah, killed an awesome ram with him. And I just remember saying, A, I hope I am alive and have a quality of life at 87. Quality of life. But B, then to hunt and hunt sheep. And he's drawn tags every year since because he's drawn desert sheep in Arizona and now has 32 points again for Rockies, of course.

So that tells you what he's done in that state over his life. He's killed one in Utah, a desert sheep. So he told me today, he says, now, I know, nothing's changed since I hunted with you. So he says, I don't need the easiest. Nothing's changed. I don't need the easiest. But he says, I don't want to deal with horses. He's dealing with sheep in Colorado, units. I went through all the states with him. And I said, I don't need the easiest, but I don't want to deal with horses either. But, I mean, he's not like saying, I need to get out of the truck and shoot something. He's not saying that. So hats off, man. If you're 92 and you're full tilt, more or less, yeah, with some caveat sideboards. I mean, yeah. But my comment, to rein it back into Montana, is the quality of the units that we sometimes are able to apply for is a non-resident. As non-residents change. The units change each year.

And, man, and, you know, we just got done research in that state. And it's a state in general terms that is not like on the pinnacle of producing a ton of big Shire's moose like maybe a Colorado is, which if I could, I think I made the comment. If I could. Okay. I've made other comments, right? But anyway. I didn't accept a Colorado moose tag. I know. It's probably one of the biggest regrets. Yeah. And you took the money. Really? Don't talk about that, Wyatt. Ow. Yeah. That's probably what stung the most is you took the money. Well, I didn't care about them then. This is my point, I guess. As you're going through life, we're dealing with licensed app clients. And Wyatt, you're dealing with a lot of them. Adam and I are with you. Everybody here is with you, actually. Cash, of course, a lot. And so, but as you go through life, you think the only thing I care about is big deer.

And I sympathize with that. That's really the only thing that matters in life. But then all of a sudden, one day you're like, man, I really do want a Shire's moose. A big one. Yeah, I want a big one. A big one. You've killed one. You've killed one. Yeah. Jason of today says, I want one kind of bad, actually. You know? That may or may not have been on my list, but. But, yeah. And so, anyway, and I'm just saying, and that's the same thing. It goes with sheep. It goes with goats or whatever. Whoever's listening, a Barbary, an Oryx, or whatever it is. I don't know. You go through definite phases. Phases. I've gone through all those. Couser. I'd like to get a big one. Yeah. Me too. You know? But San Carlos won't take my money. To my point here, it was just the day I was just depressed that I didn't have anything I thought was really, really no-brainer. And I don't like. And you normally don't.

If you're going to go, you want a big one. Yeah. And you can't put in for the one good unit in the state because the odds are there's like a thousand non-residents putting in for it. You know what I mean? I do want to get rid of my points. Yeah. But so if you do go for the only good one. I'll be there. Let's go. Let's make this happen. I made you guys promise this. And your point, there's some wilderness opportunity. I'm like, no. That's right. Let's do this. And you're like, well, I hate horses. I did. I promised you there would not be a horse involved and you would not need to all pack your 10 millimeters for a grizzlies. You will not need to bring them. Okay. That eliminates 95% of the opportunities. Yeah. I was going to say, what are we left with? Region four. Crumb. Let's do this. Okay. We're going to. If you guys would help me with the processing, I'll shoot. I'll crowd.

Dried bread crumb. Dried. Not even normal. So that's why I said I might do points only because nothing excited me there. And hey, that's max points doing points only 50. But you'd probably rather not even go than just go in. Exactly. Well, they don't mean a lot. You don't want to kill them. They mean the least. I might say big antelope. I will say this. Big antelope mean more to me than a big shirus. Come on. 100%. They would. Come on. They would. You've killed a big one. You've killed a big antelope. But if I kill an 85 or 90 inch antelope, yeah, I'd do that over pick. And I'm not talking a 190 or 200 shirus because that's pretty rare. Why it's a scorer. How many times do you put a hound on a 200 inch or 190 shirus? I don't know if I've ever measured a 200. I've measured 80s and 90s this year, but I don't think I've ever done a 200. Yeah. And that's not really possible.

Why it's an official scorer. If you had the raffle tag in Colorado. It's renowned in these parts. If I could have one moose tag in North America, lower 48. Sorry. Be Colorado. Be Colorado. Raffle tag. That would be an amazing moose tag. What about Nevada?

You could have a state record. Hey, and we could live in Panaca. Let's go. You could shoot. Let's claim residency. I was going to say. And if the state doesn't follow us correctly, we could probably take residency in Ball State.

You could have looked for moose in Panaca. Is that what you heard, Wyatt? I'm not saying a word. We're going to become a resident and we're going to partake in the first moose hunt ever offered. Probably kill a state record. You will. We're going to kill a state record. If they give two tags, you've got a 50-50 chance to kill the state record. That is happening, everybody, for residents. Interesting stuff. We wrote all about it in April Magazine, which is out and about online. You can view it. It's online. I think we're what? Monday? When's the opening day, Wyatt? Probably there. 25th or something. It's tomorrow? I can't remember. It's coming up soon. Wyatt, I got something for you. Oh, what do you got? Just as we wrap up this podcast, I'm wondering if we shouldn't call Cameron, your best buddy. Buddy from college. Not maybe your best buddy, but really good friend of yours. And Archibald.

And Archibald. And Archibald, too. Archibald and him go way back, and maybe we even get a story out of him. See what an off-season guide is doing. And the off-season guide and what he thinks of the Utah draw opening up, because I already know what he's going to say. You haven't forewarned him, have you? No. He tried calling me, actually, while we were in this podcast. Let's see if he answers. So it's going to be a natural when he sees you call back. Let's talk to him about what's your opinion of the Ponce got. Or whatever you, whatever comes to your mind. What else were we going to ask? Do we have an audible beep sound? For when? We got golfing, which has got more. Bronson, I've got another note for you about golfing. But we'll talk about that later. I'm going to go to the night after work. Hello? Cam, what's up? What up, dog? Just wondering what an off-season guide is doing right now.

I'm just going to meet old Jimbo Brinkhurst. Oh, nice. He's a good dude. Yeah, he is. Yeah. Hey, Gil. What's up? This better not be a podcast.

What's happening? Hey, I thought you were golfing today. If this is a podcast, I will hang up right now. Come on. It's not a podcast. It's not a podcast. We're just going to launch. It's a recording. I feel like you guys have to have some sort of, there's got to be something beforehand. You can't just spring someone into that. Well, you called Wyatt while we were doing this. Just a courtesy call back. And he's just telling you, but he didn't know if you were in trouble. I called Wyatt to say a bunch of swear words and stuff, not during a podcast. He's just returning. He's just being nice. He's returning your call. He didn't know if you were stuck in a snow drift hunt shed somewhere. We figured you wanted to talk about Utah. No, no, no, no. The Utah draw opened up today. We were just wondering if you wanted to talk about that. No, I absolutely don't. Are you golfing today?

Wyatt said you may or may not be in a tournament today somewhere. Are you? That's Saturday, you know, and still might be looking for someone to come up here, Adam. I'm going to be up there. I'm going to be up there, but it's supposed to snow, so I'm out. No, I'm not going to golf in a blizzard. What? It's supposed to snow this weekend. You're a fair weather golfer? Oh, come on. Come on. I'm 50. We got a cart covering a heater. I don't. Yeah, but you got to get out of that cart to hit at least 72 shots in a round. Yeah, but you get out real quick, get back in. Okay. Well, Cameron, is Wyatt a good golfer?

Wyatt, I've seen him hit some good golf shots. Yeah. He does have brute strength. I'm a terrible golfer. When he can rein in that brute strength and straighten one out on the hideout, he can go pretty far? Yeah, but it's tough to do. I mean, I seen him one time. He sent a rocket into a flagstick and it went in the hole. It might have been going 4,000 miles an hour. Oh, you mean just a chip? He bladed a chip from 62 yards and hit? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, this wasn't. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. That ball would have stopped in the next county if it wasn't for the flagstick. Yeah. So, Wyatt's the kind of guy that's going to hit a true hole in one before I ever do in my life. So, that's how it's going to happen. Yeah, he's one of those dudes. Yeah. Hey, Cameron, how many brackets, NCAA brackets you've got right now out there in the sports betting world?

So, now you want to talk about how I'm a degenerate. Oh, hey. We've got some. So, you know, yeah. Who doesn't? I have three myself. Who doesn't? See, but mine's a little different because I'm more of a parlay than a bracket guy. And it gets – I haven't showed you any wins lately, have I, Arch? It's been a minute. I've been worried. It's been a lot of losing going on. Okay. So, you're not in like a league or a bracket with other people. You're just – No, it's kind of like Instagram, you know. You only see me when I'm on the highlight reel. But it's quiet. It's not going good. Whenever you've got that ticket to hand in to the clerk to get paid out, you put them on there, huh? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know. If you had BYU, they're down eight at halftime today. So, I don't know if you picked them. Oh, well, is anyone hoping they win? Come on. Who knows? Are you kidding me?

You live within the school boundaries up there. Come on. What are you saying? Exactly. That's why I'm rooting against them. Me too. I second that. I picked them to lose first round. Hey, can you even pronounce the team they're playing? Can you even pronounce that correctly? I don't even know who they're playing. That's my point. You want to know what I mean? I think basketball is almost worse than soccer. Haters going to hate. It's called Dukesny.

He's not lying. No. Cameron, have you got any good Wyatt stories from way back? Oh, this is going to get good. Or Devin?

I think you better go with the Devin story from way back. George Archibald shoot a hummingbird with a blow dart gun through the garage, like the rails that guide your garage door up. Come on. He shot it in the head with a blow dart gun. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Oh. Was there baiting involved or not? I remember that. We got a federal fan. This was 100% fair chase. We're going to have to check out the legality of this before this publishes us. Was there any trail cameras used? It's not like we were hunting hummingbirds. He was stuck in a garage and we tried to get him out forever. Finally, he just killed him. I'm done with this. I don't think Archibald went anywhere without the blow dart gun, so it was just kind of an off, you know? Wow. That bird showed up and he said, I'm going to hit it, and he hit it, and I about shit.

That makes a lot of sense because we teased Devin about having bunkers and stuff stashed everywhere. I knew he had a blow dart stashed somewhere for when survival guaranteed. Red Dawn came. I knew it. I still have that blow gun. Oh, yeah, and he definitely practices. Yeah, wow. I think even a felon could have a blow dart gun. Yeah, is it on that list when you have to check on Utah when you apply? Is a blow dart on? I don't know. Not for sure. Next person to apply. I mean, it had a broken wing. They might add that to the ham's hunt for Archibald. There you go. There you go. I like it. Put a bee in there somewhere. This is probably when we were 12, just so you all know. Statues of Limitations is long gone, 20-something years ago. You guys could tell us the real stories. Yeah, that's a good one. No, that was it. That's a real story. I mean, why it?

I heard Fair Chase, but then it was trapped inside a garage. Walk me through that. Walk me through that. That bird chose to fly into the garage. He made his own choices, and he learned. The gate was down, and then the gate was shut. Was the door up or down? There's been gates. There's been gates down, and critters get in, and then gates are up. You know, it happens. Right. I mean, Archie's always been 100% Fair Chase, I think. I know. Me, myself, a little sketchy. A little sketchy, but. Whatever. The ends justifies the means.

This better not be on a podcast. It's all in jest. It's all in jest. It's all in jest. Your employer might have something to say about this podcast. It's all in jest. It's saying too much. Good stuff. You might just have to delete everything. Good luck in this tournament. Is this a one-man, two-man scramble, four-man? What are we playing Saturday? This is a three-man scramble. Odd numbers. That never goes good. And we got no ringers on our team, Bronson, so we might need you. Well, I'm tied up. If you're playing Nephi Icebreaker or wherever you're going to be, you're going to be breaking ice out of the cups. This is the Nephi Icebreaker. Yeah, I'm out. Yeah. Nope. It's a high temperature. Nephi's probably 44 degrees. They don't even let you golf in Cedar unless it's over 40 for liability reasons. Don't get me started. We hear about it every year. Don't get me started.

Don't come in, and the Epic office has a great day when Bronson gets to play golf. Golf before work. The problem is you go there. Stay out. There's no day better. 39? There's frost on the field, and he has an altercation. I thought it was because the greens are sensitive, and I understand that. And I thought it because you can get a little bit of frost on them. When you step on them, it looks your whole shoe can kind of make a depression there. Size 12. Size 12. But that, no, that's not it. And I said, what's the problem? He says, for liability reasons, if you slip. Oh, come on. Last I checked, water froze at 32 degrees.

10-degree buffer. Tell them you'll sign a waiver. We're all bracing. We're all bracing for the frost. So if they know. That place doesn't even take tee times, and they're worried about your well-being? Trust me. Do not get me started on that. I am a season pass holder. I don't want that jerk. But, I mean, there's some stuff that doesn't make sense. I'll just say that right now. That's horrible. No, we don't take tee times. Just get in line on whatever hole you want. I'm like, what? Get in line, but we're going to keep it shut until 9 a.m. just to make sure it hits 40 degrees when it's 38 and a half. Yeah. They just like to have control of bronze in any age. So, hence, I'm not a good cold weather golfer because I don't get to golf when it's in the 40s. So, they're probably not your guy, and I've not actually played a round this year yet.

So, another reason I'm not your guy for this weekend. Well, I don't know, but I think one of the guys on our team will be lucky if he hits the ball. So, you can't be any worse. Well, maybe Wyatt needs to show up. That is his home turf. He probably does know his way around that course. He does. Yeah. Maybe not golfing, but maybe some hunting and blow darting. I don't know what around that course went on back in the day. Right. Hometown golf courses. I tried getting him, but he said no. I may or may not have killed. Well, I was going to say some stuff about my past at the Monticello golf course, but some of those were predators. Some illegal activity? Not illegal. Not illegal, but there's a lot of gray foxes. I've watched wounded bucks run across it. I've killed plenty of gray foxes off of the extremities of that golf course in my years when I was back that way.

No, there's people that listen to these podcasts. There's nothing wrong. I had furbearers licenses and stuff. I mean, city limits, weapon types, blow darts. Nine iron. No blow dart. It was always a 12-gauge shotgun. Trust me.

All right. I've seen a three-legged deer with an arrow hanging out of it. I mean, I didn't do it, but there's much worse. Yeah, there is. Yep. And I'm just trying to keep people's cats safe in their home because them gray foxes are trying to kill cats in people's neighborhoods. So, anyway, that's what I was doing. Yeah, you're just doing the good work. Citizen. Yep. Yeah. Good Samaritan. Yeah. All right. Well, let's turn this back to hunting, Cam. What do you got for people looking to apply in Utah?

Cameron's like, it's the off-season. All right. Now I'm confused again because that sounded exactly like a question that would be on a podcast. That's a recording, not a podcast. That's right. It's not a podcast until it's published. Not a podcast until it's published. We won't know until we're all done how it turns out and whether it's good enough to be a podcast. So, let's just keep going. It's not going to be good enough. Just hit the lead. What do you think some high points in Utah are going to be this year? Are we going to kill big bucks? Big bucks, big bulls, big antelope, big turkeys this spring. What do you think? What's in store for Utah? Big gobblers. Yeah, for sure. Well, Archibald talked, walked us through the big gobblers. He already got that so far. He told the turkey story. I'm the turkey guy. We're 0 for 1 on gobblers this season. The depredation.

I mean, I'm pretty biased to the poncegant, and I think it's going to be great. Yeah, it is. Awesome. It is. And not just the poncegant, you might add, right? Like, I think mule deer in general. Mule deer in general. Elk in general across southern Utah. Mule deer in general is going to be good, and I hope the elk, you know, maybe pick it up a little bit where I've been. But I think elk will be good. Yeah. I think it'll be great, really. Yeah. Low snow load, but wet winter, and warm and wet. Right. A lot of half. Yep. I love Utah because there's so many options. So many options to spread out the applicants. You know what I mean? Many of options. One or two tags here and there. One or two. Not a lot of non-resident tags especially, but options everywhere. Season types, special interest groups, 14,000 things. Are you in the elk category like Wyatt?

Wyatt's making his first dip into the elk category after 20-something years in the deer category. So are you on elk right now? No, no, no, no. Listen, I got a lot of crap for this. See how I edited myself right there? No, I don't know. Are we talking prom horn? Nobody would do. Nobody does prom horn. Antelope over deer and elk. For residents. That's a deer and elk guy. Let me tell you one other thing. I've missed two calls from Jim Brinkhurst that wants his Swarovski in the back, and I have no idea where I'm meeting him here. I'm just driving. Okay. Okay. Very well. Jim. We know Jim, and we'll smooth that over later. But for residents. Or until he calls again, and then I might have to hang up. The residents, we have to choose. I started putting in for antelope. That's how much I care about hunting an elk. Well, dang. Oh, wow. That's a pure statement.

I already knew he was going to say that. How many years is your deer? Did you get on the deer waiting period when it went to five years? He's back in deer. I was the year right before. So are you back on to deer this year? Are you going to stick with antelope? I'm back on to deer now. Okay. You're not going to stick it out until you draw? Oh, geez. So you have how many antelope points, and you're walking away from them? Wyatt, do you encourage people to bounce around like that? Well, the beauty of Utah, they're going to hang on to those points. Oh, okay. So they're not going to expire. He's back in for an upper-tier animal. In 20 years. He's back in for a respectable species. Exactly. I would say respectable upper-tier. In 20 years, when he might draw a deer, he'll have those four antelope points waiting for him. Is that what you're saying?

Exactly, and I'll go back to him, and I'll be old enough that I'm definitely not leaving the truck at that point. I don't leave it much now, but. Who slow rolls the pines better? Who slow rolls the pines better, you or Wyatt? Oh, I don't know. That is. Wyatt might have the upper hand. He's got just a little bit more patience than I do. He is patient. A lot of years of practice together. We've done this a long time together, can't we? We've done the truck together. You know. Perfected technique. Perfected technique. You know, you've got to have the right exhaust system, which is none.

Leave it stuck. You guys driving electric vehicles? Whoa. No, just stock exhaust. Oh. We're just bouncing ideas off. I like to be electric. Maybe electric bike. Maybe. You know, if that ugly Tesla truck. I almost feel like too quiet is almost too loud. They feel like they're being stopped. They feel like they're being stopped. If you're an electric golf cart. They need to hear a little something so they know what's going on. When you just creep up and you're just there, they're like, oh, shit. What's going on here? Okay. That's right. You're saying just as average as possible. An average truck. What's the optimal? Exactly, Archibald. What's the optimal? I feel like they really like a Tundra. What's the optimal speed? Optimal speed? And do you use a cruise control under those situations? It depends how hard you're hitting the trees.

But optimal speed, I would say, is under 10 when you're in the pines. Because a lot of vehicles don't work. I've never tried to set a cruise control. A lot of vehicles, you have to be at 25 and up. Yeah, I think cruise control has a minimum on most vehicles. Does not work? You've tried it. Oh, yeah, you can't hit cruise. What you're admitting is that you've tried to set it at 9 and it doesn't work. Who hasn't? I have. I don't know. That's a good question. Of course I have. Staring out the window. I don't want to be worried about speed control. I love it. I agree 100%. I love it. I can't look and push the pedal. And where Wyatt wants the roads are perfectly groomed. Groomed roads are nice. Freshly graded. Okay. I like it. I mean, you know you're really doing it right when you can put scratches on your truck on a county road just because you're not paying attention to what's on the side.

You know, there's some amazing bombs of knowledge being dropped on this podcast. For being 30-something-year-old guys, you guys have a wealth of it. That's right. A plethora of knowledge. People think, let's hike to the top of the mountain. Then let's hike to the top of that one. I'm like, you guys are idiots. Cam, you guys have killed a lot of booners close to vehicles, guaranteed. Oh. We've got to be. We've got to be up there in the records. I would be. I love it. I love it. It's true, though. You're not catching me deep in a wilderness, generally speaking. We actually have a client trying to participate in the road slam, just North American 29 from the road, and he's doing a dang good job. Is he? Is he doing a good job? It's a self-anointed slam. I watched him shoot a mountain lion from the road. Whoa. Or just off. Okay. Now, hold on. It's a fence at the edge of the barge.

50 feet off the road. He was within legal distance of the road. He was just saying, yeah. Basically, was spotted from the road. There was a road right behind him, and this cat jumped out of the tree and ran to him. It was amazing. Wow. Wow. Dang. We can't stop that. Still a few gaps in the story, but we'll just let it be at that. There's some questions. People have questions right now. Yeah. You might need to delete that. Just delete. I don't know. Nothing was illegal about it, but it sounds a little sketchy. I agree. No, I think it's interesting. Jim is calling again. All right. We'll let you go. We'll let you go. All right. Well, when you want part two, let me know. Oh, it's coming. All right. We got questions next week. This is great. We got questions. All right. Sounds good. Later, Tim. Thanks. Bye. See ya. Bye. Bye. Oh, boy. I love it. He's a wild card.

Never know what you're going to get. I love it. What did we get ourselves into? But hey, I love the Devin and Wyatt stories back from way back. Youthful years. 14. Blow dart and hummingbird in the garage. I love it. Where did that even come from? Do you remember that? I do remember that. In the head. How does he just come up with that on the fly? We never forget you first. I've known him since I was eight or seven, you know, of all the things and stories. Well, what I think is funny is it goes from helping the bird to live to just shooting in the head. Like, if you're this dumb, then you just... I don't remember the exact circumstance, but... All right, Josh. Well, speaking of shooting stuff, Josh, dive into Red Rock. Yeah. If you guys are looking for a great rifle, give us a shout. We can help you guys get hooked up with the Red Rock.

Jason just got one, what, I guess I saw it unveiled just about the Expo. You had it up there. I actually had it at the Expo. It's a new model. It's unbelievable. Seems like lots of people put their paws on it. Yeah, I was nervous. It's not new anymore. I actually tried to get dropped. But it's got the Z8i. It's unbelievable. Pretty awesome rifle. They shoot an acubons. They hand-loaded me acubons specifically for it, 7PRC. Keep going. Got a new box of them the other day I saw show up, and you're ready to rock and roll. Can't wait to see what you kill it. Yeah, it's good. It's definitely. If you want to go check them out, redrockprecision.com. You can go on there and throw one together and see what you think, and then give us a shout. We can help you out. If you have any questions or anything you need to do to get it built up, just let us know. Yeah. Appreciate it. Yeah, give Kurt a call.

You can give him a holler out there, 801-425-6574, 6574. Anyway, or go to redrockprecision.com. Appreciate that, Josh. Incredible products. Bronson, what are we at now? Stealth Cam. We're going to be talking about Stealth Cam. It's now time. Basically, I love it when green grass starts coming up. Josh, the green grass came up a little later than last year. The green up. Last year, the green up occurred in January. The green up of 03, February 10th. Biggest winter in 58 years. Josh looks at a greenhouse. Josh looks at a greenhouse on the way home and told us it was starting to green up. There was literally two feet of snow outside. You get those bar ditches. You guys weren't looking where I was looking. And what happened to the elk on that unit where I was looking? It wasn't next level. I contend it was snow mold. But anyway.

So, Josh, what are you predicting this year for antler growth for elk? They might get a little bloated up. So, it might be too green. Is it next level? Too hot. Well, anyway, when we hit springtime, we're always thinking about Stealth Cam and cameras. Shortened seasons in a lot of these states. And Arizona did away with it. But Nevada, shortened season. We call it a season. But basically, the opportunity to run cameras is in the summer. And you're scouting up to August 1st. And you crank them out. And you're going to need to run double what you normally do. Just to get the coverage and not miss the game. But anyway. We do sell Stealth Cam here at Epic Outdoors. We've got a big shipment coming. And normally, we try to have everything here by May 1st. So, pretty awesome. You can go check out the new models. They've got some pretty awesome models.

I mean, just crazy new technology that the cameras are coming out with. Stealth Cam is kind of the leading authority on some of that technology and whatnot. Just awesome. Anyway, go to StealthCam.com and check them out. Let us know if you need any new cameras for the year. We sell accessories as well. Perfect.

Anyways, it looks like Cameron wants to talk again. Here, let's answer the call. He's basically saying. Hey, I guess you haven't had enough. What do you got going? What do you want? I was hoping to get Wyatt alone.

No dice. We're still eating lunch. All right. You boys have a good one. Talk to you later. Talk to you later.

Pretty awesome. He's watching. I can predict. Wyatt, you better tell them guys none of that. I do not give my written or verbal consent for any of that to be used. That's what he's going to tell Wyatt. But too bad it's published. We're live, right? Logan. Are we live, Logan? I'm way too quick for somebody to revoke their permission. Good. I like it. I like it. Let's give another couple of shout outs. I want to give a shout out. Kenetrek, Jim Wendham and the guys there. They've been with us from the start. They've got a new product. This Bridger High. New boot. Kind of a hiker boot. Seven incher. They're lightweight. A little bit more, I guess you'd call mid to early season boots. But you can use them, hike and wear them. Then just wear them around town, whatever you want. Check them out. The new Bridger High at Kenetrek. K-E-N-E-T-R-E-K.com.

Or if you're interested in ordering, they've got a QR code in our magazine or the 1-800 number. We've got an ad in this April magazine. E-Mag's on live right now. You can check it out. The new Bridger High boot from Kenetrek. So give it a shot. I like it. Some of the best boots made. Go ahead. Shout out to Zeiss. Looking at them here on the back cover of March episode. From scopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, anything you want. They've got good stuff. We just talked about their scopes for a bit. Forever. That's what you're going to end up with. I think most of us are shooting one of their rifle scopes. I can already tell. That's why we gave you that ad to read today, Devin. Just to maybe set the hook deep. We will follow up on what I decided. We will follow up. Zeiss is incredible. Give Devin a call with any questions. You know, along with that, we do sell optics here at Epic Outdoors.

Epic optics. Anything you want. We have incredible pricing. Just give us a chance to earn your business. And if we don't have it in stock, we can order it, and you'll get it in a timely fashion. It seems like most companies have a lot of product out there built, ready to go, so it won't be a long waiting period if we don't have it, but we generally have most items. I got one other sticky note. I was just wondering about Logie Bear a little bit. But, Logan, I'm not going to dive in way deep, but I'm just wondering how you're doing. This is a welfare check. I'm good. I'm doing good. You're doing good? Yep, we're good. I like it. Anything else? I'm just good. All right. What podcast number is this? This is 307. Holy cow. 307 of these. 307? 307. And I'm already going to be 0 for 2 in my March Madness bracket. Bronson's over here. I thought you were texting. I didn't know what you were doing.

No. Are you telling me you put Mississippi over Michigan? Absolutely. We're going to have to tell Jana that BYU probably ain't going to make it to her national. She put them to the finals and looked down. She's awesome. They're down 14 with 15 minutes to play. And I support whatever she does. Hey, who chose BYU here? Just out of show of hands. Just one game. I gave them one game. I gave them one game this year. One game. No games. You can tell me and Cameron grew up right there by that place. Feelings. There's some feelings. But in relation to their basketball, you got anything else to say? No. They're going to lose. It's fine. Yeah. They're down. They're done. They're cooked. All right. Sounds good, everybody. Kind of an interesting podcast, but. That's what happens. You don't do one for two weeks and everybody's pinned up. Sticky notes with everybody.

And a hot mic gets shoved in your feet. Yes. Next time. Let's do a podcast tomorrow. Yeah. We'll do one tomorrow. Let's do one tomorrow. And we'll space them out. It's a good week. Let's do it. We'll do one tomorrow. I do plenty of listening. I'm going to start making some sticky notes. Do it. We ought to do the same thing. I hear some stuff. Yeah. Especially the stuff Wyatt says that we don't hear. Something should not be talked about on the podcast. The stuff we don't hear Wyatt. No. There's some things that don't need to be talked about. Like my moose or whatever else you guys got going on. Your moose? What do you mean? Colorado mishaps. All right, everybody. Have a great one. If you hunt in multiple states or want to expand your hunting portfolio, the Epic Outdoor license and application service is for you.

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