EP 308 (Part 1): The 306" Mule Deer Episode and an Epic State of the Union Address

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Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson. We got Josh in the house. We got John and we got Logan. Logan, are we still doing all right? Just another little welfare check. We're still doing good. Okay, I've talked to your dad. I don't think we need to. I think the smile on his face tells me all I need, Jason. I think we can drop it. He's good. Drop the has-beens and all that. All right, all right. I like it. So anyway, here we go. We're cranking here at Epic Outdoors. It's our second podcast in two days. Cranking it out like it's our job. Of course, the last two weeks we haven't done our job. People have been disappointed. Haven't come out with enough podcasts, but we've been grinding. And speaking of grinding, we've been using every single day. I use our own website as far as, and this isn't just a say in it. We actually do it and go through all the odds and whatnot.

As we're consulting, I've had multiple guys even today talking about Colorado. Of course, Colorado, you'd think we're kind of sick of it. I kind of like talking about Colorado. Really? Yeah, I do. I like talking about it. Okay, I'll tell the girls when we get over there that all calls for Colorado go to you. No. Because I'm actually sick of it. But it is interesting. I had a guy today, which is interesting, say he was a non-resident, now becoming a resident, and then leaving soon. Whoa. Raises a flag. No. I wouldn't admit that to anybody. But anyway, went through some of his resident odds, and usually, you know, with the non-resident stuff, we kind of got that half memorized because we've dealt with it so much. But the resident side of things. I'll give you that. It's nice to, when a guy calls you with 13 points as a resident, they got tons of, they can draw 95% of deer tags in this area.

They're going to kill a big 178. Yeah. That's right. Well, the thing that's nice about it, too, is, you know, you can, you have an idea, or you remember in your mind, you're kind of like, I've got 16 points, we'll get you this roughly in Colorado. You know, you just kind of, some of the units and point levels you remind, but the guy says, hey, I've got 17 points. And instead now I just grab it, pull it up really quick, type in 17, so if I'm, as if I'm just him looking at it, too. And so you can, like, this is exactly what you can do. Or a minimum point search. Maybe there's something there that I haven't thought about because, because in Colorado we've seen some units come down from what they were three years ago. And then that point level was kind of stuck in my mile. Actually, no, it doesn't take eight anymore. It took five this year.

Well, and this year with a further reduction in non-resident caps, this guy's a resident. Yeah, his resident odds are actually going to get better. And so non-residents are going to get a little worse probably across the board in general. On average. Residents should get a little better. But the fun thing, like what you're talking about, Josh, the fun thing about Colorado is, and we noticed that, you can see that in the two- or three-year analysis, wow, for some reason you get a few people that drop out or change their mind or whatever. Maybe the state of the nation addresses it. One tough year or whatever. Looks tough, yeah. But anyway, in celebration of 300 and freaking some odd podcasts and talking about Colorado deer, I was thinking maybe we give Kyle Lopez a holler. He killed a freaking monster back in the day when we killed Chief in Arizona. 2007. 306-incher.

Remember, basketball shorts in the back of a truck, and he's 13 and a half, 14 years old. We got questions. Yeah. So anyway, it was like a 306 buck, and we were thinking about the 306 podcasts. Turns out yesterday was 307. Logan, we blew right by 307. We're not preparing ourselves, Ray. We're just getting here randomly and without thinking about the ramifications of blowing by something way too fast. Instead of talking about a 306-inch elk, let's talk about a 306-inch mule there. Which is crazy because a lot of the things we do in this office are pretty planned and methodical. Nothing's just, you know. Everything. Nothing's a crap show. Nothing's a crap show. Yeah, exactly. Everything's well planned, well thought out. Especially at your desk, Josh. Very methodical. Very stakingly slow, you know, methodical. We just amplify along. Nothing ever just comes up.

We should talk about people's desks and their thought processes. I know Adam's organized. Like at 10.08, I can have my first monster. But I start off with a V8, and I start that at 7.03. Something. Until I need more. Until I need more. And he has a clean desk. My desk, not so clean. Josh's, worse. It's true. All right. Well, let's give Kyle a call. I just want to hear an old-time, big, old deer story from Colorado. And then we'll talk, John, let's dive in. I know you've been utilizing our Epic Odds tools for hunts of your own and whatnot. And maybe that will take us to a new state. So let's give Kyle a holler.

Hello. Kyle, Jason Carter, Bronson. We got Pollock here and the Epic Outdoors crew. How are you? Good, man. How are you guys doing? Good. Good. Good. How's you guys recover from that big snowstorm a week or so ago over in Colorado? Man, we're trying to. It's been a wreck up there at the family ranch. Grandpa recorded over 63 inches. Jeez. Yeah. It took us like a week just to get to him. Really? It happens once in a while where you guys get a storm. Like, we're talking, isn't this like once a decade type? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, Grandpa's 80 years old and he's lived on that ranch his whole life. And he said he's never, ever seen a storm like that in his lifetime. It just sat over you guys and churned and kind of counterclockwise wrapped over. It just didn't even, the snow, the blue didn't even move for like three, four days. Yeah. It seemed like. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was insane.

And we already had probably three feet on the ground, you know, so you had over five feet. And now they're calling for a storm coming in Sunday to drop potentially another foot. Holy cow. Wow. Well, I remember back in the day, Bronson and I were talking about this a while back, but there was a time I was going out on the eastern plains and they closed down the, what was it, I-25? They closed it down and we had to move the cones to just keep going. You and an old rancher, right? Yeah, rancher and I, we rolled up to the cones and we're like, and he looks at me and I look at him and like, you're not stopping a, I'm a kid at the point, at that point in life. With a four-wheel drive. Yeah, with a four-wheel drive and chains. And if you know what, with four chains and a kid, you're going to get in trouble. And he looks at me and he goes, I'll go if you go.

And if we get in trouble, we get in trouble. We're in this together. And I'm like, right on, let's freaking go. And anyway, it made it out there, but it turned out like they would have Blackhawk helicopters delivering, and I think it was, yeah, hay to cattle that were stranded and stuff. I mean, it was one of those kind of storms. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was kind of the same for us. I mean, that was actually, Grandpa was fine. You know, we weren't as worried about him. We were worried about our cattle because, you know, we're right in the middle of cabin time. And thankfully, they're all fine. Everything's good. And they made it through. Well, back in that storm, you know, Kyle, you'd have been about seven, probably. But we wanted to talk about when you were, I don't know what age you were when you smashed that absolute giant. And of course, we're in our 300th series of podcasts.

We didn't somehow missed 306. We was thinking about having you on at 306. But anyway, just kind of wanted to talk about, kind of thinking about Colorado because the application deadline's coming up. And then anything can happen, even in tough times. And Colorado, once in a while, we dream about these absolute giant deer and just kind of wanted to hear the story on your big old deer, if you can remember it. I'm not sure if you can remember a deer like that. It's far. It's long enough ago that he, you know, 17 years ago, he was only what? How old were you? 14, 15? I was 14. 14 and that's 17. So over half your life ago, what do you remember about this son? And I was just curious. I was just curious about that camo pattern. Is that Russell champion and one? What was that? Basketball shorts? Were they basketball shorts? I mean, what were they? And one? Is that what that was?

You know the worst part about that? Everybody always gives me grief for that. You know, we didn't get back to my dad's truck with that buck until like midnight. And the next day was a school day, I believe. Yeah, it was a Friday. So we actually had a football game that night. And I was thinking dad was going to let me sleep in and everything. Oh, no. He rousted me out of bed that morning. He's like, hey, let's go. You're going to school. I'm thinking, I only got to sleep for like five hours, dad. Man, I got a football game today. Yeah. We'll call that the, you're in the Colorado, so that's the Buffalo black, the Buffalo black camo. That's what we got. Colorado Buffaloes. So the picture we're looking at, yeah, it's you in the back of a truck of rigor mortis buck, breaking daylight, and you're in, you know, got some, anyway. Jordans or something on there. You got something on, you know.

Yeah, that was basically dad saying, hey, put some clothes on to go to school. I'm going to take your buck and go skin it out, but let's snap a quick picture before you go to school. Yeah, and that's what everybody gives you a hard time that you were just, you know, rolling in and Jordans and a Colorado Buffalo sweatshirt. I thought that's what you were hunting in. I mean, just from seeing stuff out there on whatever, I don't know if we had social media. Those are the pictures we've seen. No, there was no. Yeah, you know, it's funny you actually mentioned that. I was at a show earlier this year, and I had the buck with us in our booth, and I actually had a kid come up talking to me, and he was like, man, how are you not instant famous? Like, how have I never seen this? And I said, man, when I killed that buck, it didn't even exist.

I said, we used to use what was called a forum, and that kid looked at me like, what is that? A forum. This kid's 60 years. Wasn't MySpace popular at some point in history back then? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, like, our social media back in those days, you guys remember, was Monster Muley's. Yeah. You know? A couple forums, and that was it. That's a bow site and Monster Muley's. And everybody just texted, and viral texting. Viral texting. Texts lived on forever. Exactly. Brutal times. Well, so tell us the quick story, I guess. I mean, you know, did you know about the deer? Didn't know about the deer? Total luck. I mean, tell us the story on this deer. Yeah. So, I mean, it started out, you know, that was the third rifle hunt. And I remember we'd gone out. I actually had my uncle with me and Dad, and he had the tag at the same time. And he'd never killed a buck.

And on, like, day two of that season, we had kind of hunted that evening. And Dad was like, you know, we're just going to cruise back and kind of road hunt our way back home since we didn't find what we were looking for. Well, I'll be doggone if we're cruising back and we look down in this bottom and just see this gorgeous typical down in the bottom. And Dad's like, man, that's a good buck. You know, one of you two needs to shoot it. And I looked at my uncle, and I'm like, you know, you never got to kill a buck. He was just fresh out of college. And so I said, you know, Joe, you've never got to kill a buck. You might as well go shoot him. And so he went down there and smashed that deer, and we ended up getting it taken care of. And that buck was actually like a 197 and some change. Is that in the truck? There's a picture on the web. Is he with your buck? Yeah, yeah.

So there's one where, like, that 190 buck is all, you know, caped out and everything, and then my buck is right next to it. And I think my dad's holding it or something. Yeah. It looks big. It looks maybe even super heavy, maybe even bigger than 190. Deer like that in Colorado, these day and age, they go viral. Yeah. Those are the biggest in state. That typical right there, that'd be biggest in state right now. Anyway. Anyway. So he smashed the buck, and he's done, but you had four or five days to hunt or whatever. Exactly. So he's done. We actually go out the next day and go up that exact same drainage that we ended up killing the 300 in. And we're cruising up that drainage. And Dad's like, you know, I don't like this ridge. We need to pop over this next ridge because once we get in the basin, we can see better. We pop over that ridge, and I remember this buck until the day I died.

This buck had to have been pushing like 34, 35 inches wide, and he was laid down in the bottom. And he jumped up, and he kind of took off down the drainage. I got three shots off at him, but, you know, running and everything. This is a different deer. Yeah. This is not your deer? No, this is not. And you were – were you – so I guess – Jason needs to know how the deer is built. I have questions. You've got to tell him how the deer is built, or he can't move on. I want to know how many eye guards. It's a pipe mass, 35 wide, triple eye guards. But what I – I guess, were you slow rolling the pines? Because Wyatt would call that slow rolling the pines. If you're just kind of – you're kind of cruising on the access roads in that country? Yeah. Well, so when we ran into that buck, what we had done is we drove, we parked,

and then there was this big basin up against like the end of – like at the bottom of a mountain, basically. Okay. And it always held a lot of deer. And that's where Dad was wanting to get to, is get up to our glassing point and start watching that basin. And we just happened to run into that really big wide buck, like kind of going up that direction. We've got a 190. We've got a 34-incher. We've got a 190. And we've got a 306 we're trying to keep track of. The 306 almost didn't happen. If he would have killed this buck, the 306 almost didn't happen. Or we'd be talking to somebody else right now. Absolutely. So, yeah, so I missed that buck. And, of course, you can imagine a 14-year-old kid. I am down on myself like no other. Well, school's starting, so I've got to go back to school and football and all that. So we go through most of the week. I remember we did our walkthrough.

It was either a Wednesday or a Thursday. And then, no, sorry, we did a practice. And then our walkthrough was supposed to be the next day. And Dad actually pulled me out of school early and surprised me. He showed up and he's like, hey, I've got basic backpack, your hunting clothes, your gun. We're going. We've got to get out there before dark. Are you looking for, at this point, looking for that specific, the wide buck again? Is that kind of what you're going back looking for? Yep. Yep. That's what Dad had thought. He's like, you know, that buck's had three or four days to calm down. Let's get back up in there and try to go get him. So we cruise out there. We jump out of the truck. I remember my dad, like, throwing me a water bottle and a box of bullets. He goes, put that in your pack. We've got to go. And, I mean, we're sprinting, basically, trying to get to this spot.

And we get up there close to where we'd seen him. So we kind of start moving slow and everything. And we're not seeing him or anything. And then Dad's like, well, maybe he's up in that basin. So we pop out into the basin. And Dad actually wanted to go south, which would have been to our left. And he turns and looks. And there's like 15 does. They've got us pinned. They're staring us down. No buck or nothing with them. Dad's like, dang it. Well, he goes, I guess we'll work the north side of the basin. And all he does is turn around. And at 180 yards on the ridge across from us, we see a buck standing there. And Dad, you know, get down. So I get down. And we're looking him over. And we were hunting in that old burn up there. Everything's black. In the background, that deer had on him. You couldn't see any of the trash or nothing. You could just see a giant frame.

And I think what threw it off was, you know, he's got those flyers and everything that if you measure those on the farthest outside of my buck, he's 37 inches wide. Well, I think that's what made my dad. Dad goes, there he is. That's him. So I set up, shot him at 180 yards. He dropped. And I remember we walked over there. We get there. This is the craziest story. 34-incher turns to 37, multiple bucks. I've got some questions. I mean, sheds, unit. I mean, we got some. Where are the sheds to all these bucks? Like, all right, keep going. So anyways, we get over there. And I remember he'd fallen into a mountain mahogany bush. And I remember telling my dad, I'm like, Dad, that bush is all tangled up in his antlers. And he's like, yeah, it kind of looks that way. And I remember Dad picking his head up out of that mahogany. And I was just like, what did I just, like, what is this thing?

You know, like, it was just. The bush covering up was the buck. Yeah. The buck was the bush, too. Yes, exactly. Please. So, yeah, I mean, that's. Let that happen to us once in a while. Wow. So then, I mean, what a moment. You and Dad, I mean, his eye guard split. That's a shooter, no matter what's above it, for most other bucks, you know, these days. But, I mean, that's a moment. You and your dad freaking out. I mean, just. I mean, you're young. Maybe it's your. Did you know? I mean, did you know what you had? Or was it more like, this is a dang nice one. Geez, never seen one like it. Yeah. I mean, for me, I was blown away. I was like, I'd never seen anything like that in my life. I didn't even know what to say. And, I mean, I think my dad kind of had an idea. I know, you know, now when we reminisce about it and talk, he's like, you know, the first

thing that came to my mind, Dad was like, I was thinking like 250, 260, you know, with his guiding experience. He kind of understood that. Never in our wildest dreams did we figure we were going to be that far off. Wow. Just keeps adding up. So, how far off were you? Maybe give us a few statistics on him, official. Yeah. Yeah. So, like I said, my dad had him guess at like 250, 260. I remember when Dad got him home, the outfitter that he worked for at that time was like, man, we need to score this deer. Well, they scored him up in the original, like the very first score that Dad and the outfitter came up with was 307 net with a 314 gross.

And, you know, they were kind of, they didn't really know what to do. Even my dad was like, look at the outfitter. He's like, what do we do? I don't even dare say that out loud. What did we do wrong? Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that again. Doesn't have three beams. What did we do wrong? This is not an L.

I remember that outfitter guy that was there, he tells my dad, he goes, just keep quiet. I'm going to make some calls to some, you know, people I know. And he goes, but just don't tell anybody about this. Yeah. Don't tell anybody. Don't answer your phone. I'll take care of it all. Pretty much. Where did you see the other wide buck? Because now you're done. Where's the 34 incher? Oh. Wow. So anyway, what did he official at? Do you? So his official was 306 and 38's net. Wow. And the gross was like 311 something. Yeah. Hey, we should have waited three podcasts and got it on 311. Oh, we could have done that. We could have done the 311. We thought we were late, but that was the net. Just label this the 311 people think they missed you. We'll save it. We'll save it for a month and publish it on 311. No, just kidding, Kyle. We're going to go home with this quick. But, wow, that's awesome.

He's awesome. Do you remember how big his frame is, the four-point frame netted out, or roughly, or the frame? Yeah, so his frame was 201 and some change. Wow. Sold. So he has 110 inches of trash. 10 inches of trash. Oh, yeah. Yep. There were long flyers, fork and cheaters, multiple fork and cheaters. Basel eye guards, forked eye guard. Oh, no, sorry. Actually, now that I'm thinking about that, I'm backwards. His frame is actually 207 because he's got 99 inches of trash. Okay, there you go. 207 net frame, basically. Yeah, net frame. Net the frame at 207. So his frame's 210 or 14 or something like that, probably. I mean, girls. Beautiful. The most perfect deer ever built. I mean, you got a giant four-point frame, giant eye guards, big mass, even a drop tine, kind of coming off the beam. And then basal points, which are amazing. And then you got big old fork and flyers. Bladed eye guards.

I mean, it doesn't have any. Nothing it doesn't have. Well, one thing. I'm not seeing a 10-inch inline. Yeah, they're all stickers. I like inlines. Is there a bona fide inline on that buck? Yeah, that's right. I found a fault. Oh, that is a once-in-a-century type deer right there. Yeah. For not just. It's one thing to kill. People say you kill 280s, 290s, whatever. And then they end up stripping the velvet and it can come down a little bit. Or this thing's hard horn, freaking bone, grossing and netting over 300. Yeah. Yeah. You know, pretty awesome. Did it ruin you or did it just. I mean, obviously, you're still hunting aggressively. But, you know, maybe it just lit the fire. Maybe it didn't ruin you. I don't know. You know, I wouldn't say that it ruined me. I mean, it probably, if anything, it fueled my passion for mule deer and everything.

And the other thing that I've always said to you is I was like, I guess it took the pressure off, you know. I don't have to. Yeah. I don't have to go to the woods and try to get that great big monster. I already got him now. Yeah. Never going to be. Stay home. Help the rest of us. Right. So tell us a little history. See, I'm just going vaguely. I remember hearing that somebody picked up sheds to your deer. Is there any validity to any of that? You know, so there was a guy that had picked up a set of sheds. It was kind of interesting because he was so secretive about it. And I can't remember that guy. It was so long ago. But he would never tell us where he found the sheds. And we kind of compared them and everything. Actually, the guy that was the Boone and Crockett scorer on mine, he compared everything. And he was like inconclusive.

He said, you know, he goes, they could be from this deer. He said, they're missing a lot of what he called like signature points that he felt that deer would have carried, you know, throughout his whole life. Big eye guards. Stuff like that. Yeah. One thing he said, he goes, you know, these could be sheds from three years previous. He's like, I just don't know. Do you remember cutting his tooth or like his age at all? Do you remember that? Yeah. So, um, the, the taxidermists actually, they tooth aged him out at eight and a half. Yeah. Prime as you get it right there. Yeah. It is. It is six to nine. Yeah. You know, you, they can be their biggest at six or even whatever, five and a half. But you get six to nine, you, you just get. You're in the window. You are. And all the other environmental factors and physical factors you come off of, you know.

They even say the year they're born if they were, you know. Early to life sometimes. Early to life sometimes. Just not all deer can even grow that. But that's, that's a specimen right there. Well, and you know, it's, it's kind of funny you said that. So we had talked with a local biologist about it and everything. And he was saying, he's like, you know, the timeframe that we hunted that deer in that old burn up there, he said that that was like the perfect timeframe because that burn was in the stage of the regeneration where a lot of the shrubs and the grasses and everything were coming back at a 14% protein synthesis. So he's like, you know, this deer was getting phenomenal food. And he goes, it could have made him blow up just because. Yeah. On top of genetics, on top of age. You just had the perfect deer at the perfect age with the perfect feed. Yeah. Yep. And no harsh winners.

I mean, nothing. Just. That's right. Well, it's pretty special. He's always going to be one of the bucks. We always, when we still leave the house hoping to find, even though you found him early on. What, any other big deer stories? I mean, obviously you guys are, are big deer hunters and have been part of multiple 200 inch type deer, but any other family favorites? Oh man. You know, God, one of my favorite too was in 2019 and 2020. God, my dad was just, he was on a roll at that timeframe. Actually, sorry. 18, 19 and 20. He killed a big high eighties buck in 18 or no, sorry. It was a low eighties buck. And then he came back in 19, same area, like 20 yards difference. And dad killed a high eighties buck. Wow. Roll into 2020. We got a big, I don't know if you guys remember that big snow storm that hit in September here in Colorado. Oh yeah.

But we had that big snow storm hit and I actually, I killed a bull on September 8th. And then on the ninth, dad was like, Hey, let's go out and go see if we can find a buck. So we go cruising out there and I kid you not, same area again. We're talking maybe a hundred yards difference and dad smacks a 192 in that same spot. Jeez. I mean, he just, for whatever reason, that spot was on fire and dad went on a roll. I mean, can we book a hunt with your dad?

Man, I tell you enough, my dad's a big buck slaying guy. He really is. Oh, that's awesome. All right. Well, we appreciate you being on. We just kind of wanted to, I don't know, reminisce about some of the good old days. It's tough out there right now. Obviously, you know, there's some bright spots here and there and you try to stay on top of it and whatnot. But anyway, it's nice to talk about a throwback giant that you killed. Absolutely. All right. I appreciate it, Kyle. Thanks a lot. Fun stories. Thanks guys. You guys enjoy your day and it was good chatting. You too, man. Have a great weekend. All right. See you guys. Okay. See you later. Bye.

Jeez. Take that off. Yeah. I can't look at that anymore. Logan, go to our website.

That's just one of those deer you'll never get out of your mind. But anyway, pretty special. Pretty fun. Pretty fun. Well. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about an amazing state, Utah. Okay. John, let's dive into some of our features there on the Epic Outdoors website. We've got a members only feature. Basically, you can log in if you're a member here. $150 a year. $150 a year gets you a monthly magazine December through June. Bi-monthly, the remainder part of the year because we're in the field and the odds and whatnot are all basically over. You've got some point-only application deadlines, Texas, Arizona Bison, a few little things like that. But anyway, as a member, you can log in and then it unlocks drawing odds and whatnot, the information, guided hunts, a bunch of different things, e-mags, the electronic version of our magazine, which all of them are on there.

But anyway, one of our favorites is just the odds for all units, nearly all units. I don't know. Maybe there's obscure antlerless stuff or whatnot that we don't include. Sorry. Sorry, but not sorry. We're not going to put statistics out there for dropping bombs on moms on every little state. Right, Bronson? Yeah, we can only pay a guy so much time to put odds on there. You can stop where you're going to do black bear and turkey and swan odds. Goulds. You know, sage-grouse. I don't know. Hey. I mean, there's odds for everybody. Sandhill crane. Sandhill crane. I mean, there's always another species, Jason. So you've got to draw the line somewhere. Okay, so we drew some lines. That's right. And you'll have agreed, right, Bronson? We agree. If we like it, you like it. But anyway, go on there and you can check everything out. And it makes it nice.

You can only, the magazine's a print publication. We do, you know, quite the lion's share of the highlighted units and whatnot and units you'd be interested in are in the publication. But for every little thing and just to get on and screw around when you're at work, of course, when you've clocked out or on your lunch break. On your 15-minute break. That's right. We don't have any state road workers on our website during work time. But, John, you were recently using this. Yes, and I wanted to just go through this exercise. Somebody else might be able to learn from it. But there's some applications. You're really studying odds and you're looking at your options and blah, blah, blah. And then there's others where you're so far away from drawing that you don't look. Random odds is all that you're caring about. And so this happened for Desert Sheep in Utah.

That's my once in a lifetime what I'm applying for. And this year I've got 22 points. So I finally thought, I'll go see how close I am, you know. The max is probably, you know, 25, 26 or whatnot. So I jump on and I'll walk through this. You guys tell me if I'm wrong. So last year I went in with 21, right? Because we're looking at 2023 odds because that's the only thing there is because it's in the past. You realize this exercise is going to sober you a little. Yes. It did. We're also, John, we're talking other units. 20 years does not entitle you to a Desert Sheep tag, John. But now you know where some of the vendetta he has about youth drawing tags with one or two points comes from. Now we know. Okay. And we'll get into that a little bit because I need to clarify my position there. I've been taking a little heat. You have been? Yeah. No better you than us. We never take heat, Bronson.

No, no, never. Of course, we should talk about some heated subjects here shortly. We might. Okay. All right. Drive in, John. So if you guys tell me if I'm wrong, but if I look at this, a guy drew with 28 and a guy drew with 26 points last year. In the max point pool. This particular, a Kuperowitz unit, resident. Yes. And there's two tags, right? Is that right? Two max point tags, two random tags. Right. So a total of four, right? But two. Two is the only ones you can for sure take out, right? Every year. Yeah. I feel like I want to drive. Bronson, do you ever feel like you want to grab the mouse from Logan and drive? That's right there. But anyway. All right. So take those guys out and count up everybody who's ahead of me. It ends up being 54 tags. 54 people are left above you right now and they're taking two a year out. So divide 54 by two. 27 years before I guarantee you.

Now, I think you're, this is where it's not quite, well, but is he taking into account how many names he has in the hat versus a zero point guy or a one point guy? No, he's just talking to people above him. But our odds do take that into account. Before he would say, this is my year. He's just saying, when can I be in the maximum point pool? That's what he's doing. But let's say Kate didn't have any desert sheep points. So she went in, she'd have a 0.02%. 0.02. Right, right. And you have a 0.51. Yes. Because of your points. Yes. But just if you're. So you're saying there's a chance. Yeah. Well, he's got one in 200. So there is a chance. That's one in 200. That's pretty good odds. No, come on. Anyway. Let's help John here. Just sometimes in your head you think, oh, yeah. I'm close. I'm at 22 points. The max is 26. I'm getting there. That's not that far.

I'm getting, I'm making some progress. When you go to our website, you can see how many people are in each tier. Yes. And this is in every state. This is Colorado. This is, you know, people like Colorado elk. They realize, I'm only a point away. Well, or two points away from John, one of the 210-201 hunts. Well, that might be the same number of people. And they're taking five out a year. Five into 50. Ten years. Okay. Plus a couple people might pass away. And add on to that. Yes. And we talk about this daily as a guy will say, well, I have six points. And it says I had a 50% draw with six last year. Well, no, you had five. You had five. Yeah. You had five last year. So look at your five-point tier because all those guys are coming up through. Like John's doing. He's plugging himself into the 21-point tier and counting everybody from 22 up. Knowing he has 22.

And that's not counting the 22 people that are in my same group. Yeah. So then even in 27 years, then you've got your guys assuming everybody plays the same and doesn't die or doesn't give up or whatever. So the point being, John, what are you saying? Yeah. What are you saying, John? I may need to look at my other options. So let's look at some other options. And we're committed to do that. We are committed to do that. Are you wanting to drive or are you wanting Logan to drive? I don't know, John. Look at this. Applications are going down. Yeah. Oh, we got an application trend on our website. And death is probably my best friend here. You know, people dying. Yeah. You're 50-ish. It's easy to say because you're alive and kicking right now. Right. I know. Other people dying is going to increase my odds more than anything else. There is no promise for tomorrow, John.

And this 14-year-old right here, not your friend. So that 14-year-old had two points and drew a tag, John. And then there's another 19-year-old that drew the other random tag. This is a clean podcast, but I want to say bad. Yeah. Bast. We don't know their age. Bast. Okay. Okay. And let's talk about that. I joke a little bit and play the devil's advocate that, you know, anyone under 30 should not draw a sheet tag. John, those were true feelings, John. So let me clarify. You were so mad because you had to take a half a day off. Let's get the official position statement of JP himself. JP. Logan was like, man, no youth tags at all, huh? I was like, no, no, no. Logan's over here. I just want a little general tag, John. What will you allow me to have? Can I have one? King John. I'm talking sheep tags. What can you allow me to have? Sheep tags? No one under 30. Sheep only is what you're saying.

Yeah. All the deer and elk tags for youth. Well, Kit, let's face it. Kids wouldn't appreciate them. That's my position. Hey, we just talked to a 14-year-old kid that appreciated a 306. That's a deer. And he has a lifetime of memories because of it, John. Yeah, that's a deer. He thinks about it. It bonded him and his dad early on. A 14-year-old that kills a sheep has no idea what he just shot. No. It's a spike. Yeah. He does not appreciate a spike. The only good thing about those numbers is we talk to a lot of these guys every year in all these different states and it gives you some hope. It does. That's what it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It keeps the states flush with subsidies. Somebody's got to get those. Like that movie Dumb and Dumber. He's saying, I got a chance. He's saying, I got a chance. Can we run a minimum points query on Desert Sheep for 22? Is anything happening?

Will anything happen? I don't know. I think I have an idea of what might come up and, John, I don't think you're going to want to do this. Don't. I can wait. Touch minimum points. I don't want to wait 27 years. You know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. Yep. So just type in 21 to 22. Just 18. 18. Because there might be. There's one in particular. So we're doing a minimum. That's what I was thinking of. You don't want to touch that. Archery Dirty Devil, John. Well, there's some bits of people do it. Are you in? I'm not in. There's sheep out there and there's been people do it. I could have shot one with a bow there last year. No problem. Yeah. I mean. But there's been people that have had problems on that. Yeah. Yeah. Dirty Devil Archery, John. So John, the state of Utah would say, John, you have choices. Yeah, I have choices. Draw that. And go ahead. You know, you want a sheep tag or not?

So there you have it. Did a minimum points query. I can wait a little. We call it a minimum points query. But basically, you would go in for, let's say, Colorado deer or whatever it is. And when a guy calls in and says, I have five points, I usually go two or three to six. Yeah. Because on our website, when you say to six, it's a percentage with five generally. Yeah. And then guaranteed with six. And so I go two to six or two to seven and say, okay, here's your options. And then right off the bat, you have a list. And it says two, three, five, six, seven. And you can say, well, if you want to wait a couple years, this one took seven. If you want to draw now, you could go here. Or you're a percentage chance, 50-50 this year. And like we started talking about earlier with the changes in Colorado this year, with the

majority of the non-resident unit quota being reduced from 35% until the 25, that you're going to have to look on some of the lower. It's not going to be, you're going to probably see some units be tougher. So set your minimum number a little bit lower. Residents, you might actually put it a point higher than you currently have now, or two points higher, just to see what might be in play this year, as your odds might get, in some cases, a little bit better. And the units that are affected from this new quota system of saying, did it take a resident an average of six points over the last three years, minus last year, yada, yada, this whole formula, it's indicated with a plus in the regs. And you can see when those units that will be affected, that will have less non-resident tags available, more residents.

Anyway. Play around until your heart's content, but it's on there. It is fun to play. I love this system. You can do this in Utah. This is a user-friendly. And then, what, all the states that give a percentage of their permits to the high-point hole that you can play around in. Let's plug in, let's say he had, let's go 21 to 24 points. Yeah. Let's give him some hope. Go back, Logan. This is where I want to drive. 24. Yeah. I couldn't be a backseat driver with Logan. I'd have to just kick him out of the driver's seat. I tried to look around Josh's head here. It's my fault. Well. Whoa. Things change, John. Dude, things change. You got a Henry Mountains option, John, at 23 points. Whoa. Click on that Henry Mountains. Whoa. Something happened. Something happened. I don't know what number you're tempted. We got 27s and stuff down here popping up. What did you type in? There we go. There.

There. That's better. Touch the Henry Mountains right there. Scroll down. 100% draw with 23. There's five guys with 22 and three guys that were in your tier, John. Yeah. So. A lot. If I change my plan. And you would get one. Yeah. You would get one. It would be a grind. Yeah. But you would kill a sheep. We killed an 11 or 12-year-old ram there last year, John. I'd show you pictures if you'd like. Yeah. And it was actually a guy. That was kind of a great story, actually. We're not telling that. Okay. But I love that story. Good story. All fun and fun was had by all. All right. So. Scroll back. Let me look at a couple of other options just now that we're into. Is there like a potential to burn. Right there. Gear. Do we need to add that to these sheep? John, you might burn gear on the Henrys depending. Do we need to have a tab for potentially. I think he would be fine.

Percentage for burning gear. We're just going to be a lot better at what goes in your pack to start with this time, John. A little bit different. And Logan. So I forget when we tell these stories that some people. I mean, not everybody has the background. They know that one. But go ahead. Logan came after. He's like, you're really burning all your gear. And I was like, okay. I did. I had a. It was life or death. I. It was. It was either. Burn gear or don't make it out. We tease about that. So let's preface a little bit. We tease John. I can't remember how much we said this. Because we were all there. And it was real for all of us. It was not easy for any one of us. And now we had a sheep. Even though he had a handful of us to split it up. You still got meat. Cake. And horns. John was family. He's married to my sister. Right? At the time.

I love John. He's basically my brother. So we have a picture of his family in one hand. And Bronson. No less than a flask in the other. Remember the goos? They had the little single serve. That wasn't good enough for John. He got the flasks. We got him a flask when we got home. I was worried. I'm like, if you OD. I mean, John's one of those guys. How fast can your heart beat? How many beats per minute is the threshold of death? Isn't that serving size based on weight and volume of body? Yeah. And metabolic rates. And how fast you can burn off this goo before you keep squeezing. And there's a sand slide. And it's what? It feels like it's a mile and a half long. It's not probably. But it's probably a mile. And it's up. Straight up. You know it's waiting for you the whole way. That's what I was going to say. Like, unless you've seen that country, been into that country.

I mean, there's times I've spent time in a helicopter trying to fly sheep in that unit. As a biologist. Yeah, as a biologist. Flying sheep. And you do a two-hour fuel cycle and don't see sheep. Yeah. And the amount of miles you cover. Yeah. It's literally. It's so vast. You don't know how big and insane that country is. 16 miles. We're talking to the Escalante. We're not talking to the Henrys now. But this is an Escalante trip when this infamous account happened. I will add I did make it back to the truck first. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because you had more goo waiting in the truck. Well, John, when you don't have a pack and you have a flask in your back pocket, you're going to beat us. John, how do you have a flask? We're dealing with sheep. And by the way, we didn't waste an ounce of meat. It was hot. At night, we would lay it out at night. It cools in the desert. It does. And cool it off.

And then we were wrapping it in a space blanket. Double space blanket. Sleep bags all that. Put it in your pack. Yeah. Put it in your pack. And then go all day in the heat of the day. Lay it out at night. And we ate it each night. That was probably one of my favorite memories. It was awesome. We ate meat. We were stripped down to nothing almost. Almost. And just chilling out at night. It was so nice. The way out was way better than the way in. Well, yeah. You're 50 pounds lighter. Yeah. Which is not normally how it goes when you kill a sheep. No. How about the burger in Escalante? Good burgers. There's not a burger better. They can serve a cheese pizza, and it would be the best food you've ever eaten. I remember. It's funny when you say that. When I was with Russell, when he killed his sheep down there, it was just me and my brother, and we were clear up in there. Same guy. It was not.

We weren't as deep as you guys. We luckily ran into sheep sooner, but we were still a couple days in. I remember it took us two, two and a half days to get where we were at, where we killed the sheep. We were sitting there, and he's like, all right, you guys. It's essentially all down sand. Yeah. And down to the lake and the boat and everything. He said, we can either do two things. We can just take our time and enjoy it up here and stay the night. Really enjoy this experience. Yes. Or if we hurry and you guys really hike, we can make a back to Bullfrog to a hamburger tonight. Hamburger fries and maybe even fries off. And a hotel room and a shower. I was a 16-year-old kid. I've had the experience. Was it Trevor? So he's 18-ish? Yeah. So you had – oh, Russell was smart. Yeah. Take two big 16-, 18-year-old strapping mules with you. It was actually a funny thing.

Trevor, he called it – Trevor was suspended from school at the time. What? That's a podcast. Yeah. Well, it was – I can't remember all the details, but it had something to do with a threat. Was he in high school? An internet threat him and his friends had made to – it was like when President Clinton was coming to the Grand State of the Bayes. The monument. That was a heated issue back here. Remember when he just closed everything down? Yeah. Make it a monument. And they typed, don't come through paying with you or we'll burn you down. That was like 19. That was 95 or 96. And they were seniors in high school, him and his three friends. And they got on the internet. I mean, it was the early days of the internet. But you have to know the other way. They were suspended for three days. So Russell always jokes. He's like, I'm going to take these boys into the wilderness and straighten them up.

I'm going to straighten them up. We have respect. Yeah. For the clans. Yeah. So that's why we – Well, no wonder. Part of the reason why it was his desert. No wonder we see him. He's kind of in – he wears a mustache, covers a lot of curly and face. He's got a lot – he doesn't want to be recognized on any – I'm not a fan of the Clintons, but I'm not sure I'd threaten their life. No. Because I'm pretty sure – That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Your life might be in danger. They can take care of stuff. So anyway, it was supposedly a straight in and out trip. Yeah. But anyway, he just needed some help packing. Yeah. I'll take them from you. Anyway, so yeah, I get what that burger means. It can be significant. Oh, it – There's nothing like it. Well, John, so at the end of the day, you've got options. We will – we've got – Well, in packing better, I would pack better. You will. You will. You will. Like –

John. We talked about the tripod. I had a giant tripod with a video head. We're talking 10 to 15 pounds. Now we have tripods that are in the 2 to 3 pound range. Yeah, I was going to say, think about technology and how significant it is. Oh, I'd be taking one of those STCs. Yeah. Yeah. Call it a day. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. You don't need to count cheaters. A pair of 12s. You know what I mean? Instead of the 15s. Yeah. We probably – We were 30-something, so we probably took 10s and 15s and spotters. Yeah. Back then. 30-something. And everyone. Let's see. What was that? 2009? Not quite. 8 or 9? Yeah, 32. 8 or 9, wasn't it? Yep. 2008 or 9? 2008. All I know, I wasn't man enough for 77-pound packs, so – Mine was not half of it. Mine was like 92. Yeah. You were doing – And you're taking 10 days of food. Seven to nine days, and I have the gun. And your wife was going on, so you're like –

Here's a question. How many bullets you taking? Yeah. Usually it's a box, right? Well, you're 20 miles in or whatever it is, and you get in there and hike around a bunch. How many you taking? Well, that – Because if you fall and have to re-sight your gun at some point, it's a legitimate thing. Or you're shooting off a cliff straight down and you end up – Yeah. You know. Missing a bunch? Well, I mean, not a bunch, but – I have had hunters – That blew his head off because I hit him in the neck. Yeah. Yeah, because it was – Yeah. Before range-finding vinyl. Yeah. I mean – Angle compensating vinyl. Angle compensator, so you're doing what every 30-year-old would do. Kentucky elevation. Back in the day when you don't know anything. Aim a little low and touch it off. Touch it off again. Have somebody hold your feet so you don't fall over the cliff. That's right. Yeah.

Literally people hold their feet. Good times. Yeah. Another time when good times were had by all. Well, all right. So, on the subject of Utah – Utah's open. Let's do it. Let's break it down. Yeah. And, I mean, we don't have any cheat sheets or anything, but, yeah, let's talk about it. We love – we like Utah. Our home state gives you – I love – what I love about Utah, I'm just going to open it up, SKUs for everyone. Yeah. Special interest groups, I love to call it a special interest group. And I will talk about that. Because it gets – it kind of raises a hackle, you know. And I will talk about that from a non-resident perspective slightly that that is not a good thing. Okay. Okay. In a couple of different ways. I know. There are some residents out there that think, why can't we apply for all species?

Well, if you look at 15, 16 years ago, what happened when non-residents were allowed to apply for everything. You look at the odds for, like, even antelope. Nobody applied for antelope. People are applying for antelope even if they don't care about them because you can and it's cheap. That's right. And it doesn't preclude you from doing elk. And they're doing every once in a lifetime and they're doing deer, elk, and antelope. So non-resident odds – resident odds are really bad and we have to pick one once in a lifetime and one limited entry. And they're still very, very bad for that. Be careful what you wish for if you say, I wish we could apply for everything because everybody's just going to do it. And that doesn't affect – As residents. As residents. And that doesn't affect – improve your odds. The other thing that I was talking about, about SKUs, gives you options and all that.

We really saw this last year on the non – for elk. You look at most elk units in the state of Utah, we have an early archery, an early rifle, a muzzleloader, a mid rifle, all right, a late rifle, and a late archery, and a multi-season. Okay? Okay. So there's seven SKUs for elk. I like it. And we go to your first choice and then go to the next guy. So you choose one. But let's say you have 50 tags on a unit. And I'm not advocating if you had them all in one pot because, you know, there are some states like Wyoming, most of them don't even have archery. They just have here's their elk tags and that's it. Basically, your point is you're going to have a certain amount of quota and you're going to divide it amongst all the skis. Now you spread it out all over all those pieces of pie. And for most non-residents, there's like – One tag. In the good units, there's one tag in every hunt. One tag.

No max point tags. And that's going to go on a random. So now it's really hard to compute your odds. You can compute your odds. Oh, yeah. But I'm talking to 26 and 7 point holders left and right right now that were in the old early rifle, muzzleloader. And because of the splitting and redistribution of more of those tags to, say, the mid rifles, there's not places to use them. If you felt like you have 26 or 7 points vested, you can't force the draw if you want to stick to these dots. I love being able to force the draw. We call it forcing the draw, meaning just like what we talked about with John. John, you could force the draw. You have an option. You may not be an option. You want. You have a option. But you have an option. No more complaining. Okay.

So, and that's what we're talking about, especially works when you're talking about deer, elk, and antelope or other states, Colorado, you could force the draw. Preference point system, I can look at it and I can force the draw. That's another reason we get so many questions because people are talking about stuff that are legit options. They will go hunting, make plans, take time off work, take their family, their family would draw, whatever. And so. Utah is not one of those states you plan that way with limited entry. Not as much. For non-residents, almost at all. Yeah. Non-resident wise, not at all. Once in a lifetime, there's very few of any of those five species. That's right. You know, there may be one mountain goat unit, maybe a bison unit, no sheep, no moose units that they give max point tags. Or maybe wassets, sorry, on the moose.

But like a general deer, you'd look at it and maybe there would be options for non-residents, right? Yeah. So in a nutshell, you know, and you factor in that non-residents bumped it up to $120, what, $15 per species. For $120 for an annual hunting license, $15 per species. You're over $200 pretty easy if you get, you know, a handful of species on there. And you feel guilty if you don't apply for anything of interest, right? Yeah. Like, it's not like you're going to hold back because of the $15. We've kind of always said if you're going to make the commitment to Utah back, it was $60, $65 for, feels like ever, for their hunting license. But if you're going to make that commitment, add all the species you're interested in. And back in the day, to be fair, we were at the commission meetings, board meetings, whatever, went back when they initiated that.

And it was to justify the non-refundable hunting license for non-residents. They were worried they were going to not. You have to give points for everything. When they started making you buy a license, they were worried that the non-residents would stop. And so they said, why don't we let them apply for all species? And that might be the big enough carrot. And back then, the odds were different than they are now. Things change a little bit. And so here we are with this system, which isn't necessarily broken. I like the SKUs because there's options. And I like that you only can, you have to choose one choice. In Nevada, you get five choices and your odds are through the roof. If they went to one to two choices, things would be different even for residents. And now I've got a little thing. They're proposing once-in-a-lifetime desert sheep.

Sheep tags in general, once-in-a-lifetime tags being once-in-a-lifetime in Nevada. A lot of people think, naturally, you think that's a once-in-a-lifetime species. And that's the way it's always been. It's not been that way over there. And so residents, there's been residents that have drawn three desert sheep tags. Well, I contend if they'd have had one or two choices, the odds may have been good enough. No, I'm not saying they're great. Sheep odds are never great. But maybe the odds would be different. And maybe the sentiment, the mentality would be a little bit different. Well, you can maybe actually hunt through the odds online. Hunt and find some better odds. You know, sheep are always going to be bad. But maybe better odds deer or better odds antelope. You know, right now when everybody can throw five choices in for deer, a lot of people throw that first one or two.

The best units in the state, the 240s, just gets annihilated with applicants because you can dream about it. From a guy in Reno, just because he's heard that 24 is the best or knows that 24 is the best. But if you gave him one choice, he might hunt their home. He might not. That's right. You know. Well, Josh, you're quiet. And I know in your mind you're not quiet. He's ready to. Josh thinks things and I wish they would come out because it'd make us all blush. We wish that until then we hear him occasionally. We're like, oh. Oh, geez. He went there. He went there. Where's the women and children? Put them away. Put them away. Josh, what is it you're thinking about? I'm the reason why we have to go back to editing podcasts. As we're spewing, what have you been thinking? Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening to our podcast.

For this episode, we're splitting it into two parts to help get it out a little bit faster. Part two will be up shortly after part one, so make sure to go give that a listen.

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