EP 328: An Alaskan Moose Hunt and Utah Elk Hunt

You're listening to the Epic Outdoors podcast brought to you by the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo and Utah Life Elevated. This is an event we don't miss. So come and see the whole Epic Outdoors crew February 13th through 16th, 2025 in Salt Lake City, Utah. For more details, go to HuntExpo.com.

Hey, everybody. Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, the entire Epic Outdoors crew, at least the guy side. I would say we have everybody here at the table. Is that right? Pretty much. Roll call. Everybody? That's right. Logan, say aye. Aye. Devin? Aye. Wyatt? Here. Josh? Aye. John? Aye. Adam? Present. Cash? Present. And myself, Jason Carter, coming at you from Southern Utah. Some of us have been getting our butts kicked out of the hills. Sunny and hot. Sunny and hot. And you know what? We've got to do some advertising here at the first. I probably should just do that. Let's digress. But let's digress to the heat for a quick sec. Every single year, we're setting records for the record heat. I just think September's hot, and we're just never getting used to it. But anyway. Are you saying you believe in global warming, Jason? No. I'm just saying, well, I don't know.

Something's warm out there for sure. But it feels like we're setting records every single year, and it just gets, yeah, maybe, Bronson. Maybe that's. We have more people flooding into America than ever. So maybe just body. The body. It's increasing the temperature. What is that called? Millions and millions and millions. Over 20 million people coming illegally across the border. We should all go down to the border, take matters into our own hands. What do you think, Logan? You in? I think that's a great idea. You would be right behind us. I'm sure. I'd lead the charge. Scared little fellow. I'll video. Oh, no. No, you can't keep up, remember? You couldn't lead. All right. I can keep up. So. In other news. In other news. We do have the expo coming up. Okay. They are official sponsor of the podcast. Of course, we wouldn't just let anybody. We actually love this hunt expo.

It's the one we will never miss. Been there since inception of Epic Outdoors and maybe even slightly prior. Way prior. Yeah. So, anyway, they treated us well. We love it there. Everybody comes. If you're after big deer, big elk, big antelope, maybe even piglets or whatever else. Logan hunts. I don't know. You've hunted some javelina, haven't you? I've hunted javelina once in my life. Yeah. Maybe twice. Does that have to be my thing? No. But, I mean, you could be the javelina expert. I'm okay. Seems like you hunted them in the snow, though, didn't you? Well, you would have hunted them in the snow, too, by translation. Yeah, I kind of did, but I don't want to talk about that. But, anyway, huntexpo.com. You also need to get your reservations for motels. They fill up fast. February 13 to 16, we will be there. Epic Outdoors crew. We have a giant booth kind of in the center.

Actually, the best spot in the place. We'll never give it up. And 20 to 50-foot booth. We're going to be selling optics like it's our freaking job, talking to guys about hunts, booking hunts, talking about, of course, our membership and the perks there. Have everybody there. Kind of exciting. I don't know. You guys excited about the expo? Always. The best Valentine's date there is. Okay. It's always over Valentine's. And I think Jenna likes it. Devin, I think you'd kill a couple birds there, right? Birthdays, whatever. I'm caught shooting on that one, kid. Birthdays and whatever else. It's a two-for- All of our wives. Wyatt, your wife loves the expo, right? Yeah. All of our wives. She swung up my last year. They really appreciate Valentine's Day, the expo, all that. There's nothing like it there. There's nothing like it. And they'll go test it. Jenna? You and Jenna?

Always make big plans there, don't you? I mean, hey, you know, sometimes I'm grateful when she forgets things like our anniversary, stuff like that. So then it makes it Valentine's Day. It's okay. Because you didn't forget. You were there. Hey, I brought you up. Anyway, we have a lot of friends at the expo that are doing booths and whatnot. Outfitters. Obviously, the trophies of the year show up. Some of the big stuff that you're seeing on the gram. By the way, if you didn't post it up on the gram, you didn't even kill it. Right, Wyatt? That's right. Yeah. Another thing, too, is the 200 tags. I mean, definitely. There you go. Show up to have a chance at those. Got to put in your $5 ticket items. I think it's some of the best odds there is out there. Yes, sir.

Obviously, it's not the best odds, but it's another name in the hat. You got to have your name in the hat. But if you ever want to win anything, we've known guys that have won a couple of times. Aaron. Aaron. My brother's won, too. Makes me very frustrated. Your son won. Yeah. He did. And he didn't earn it. John, he was like you. It's like, really? How old are you? You don't deserve that antelope tag. Right. He didn't appreciate it. I think you should be 22 years or older to get an antelope tag. What do you think, John? Where's the draw? 23. What about an elk tag? How old should they be when they get an elk tag? 27. What about a deer tag? Yeah. 12. Sheep? Did you and Kate ever get over that situation? What do you got there? No, but there was some friction there. Well, anyway. She's not one to let that go by. She heard it loud and clear.

Even maybe had a question for the question and answer podcast, which I think we have a bunch more questions even at some point. Have you guys been saving them? It might be out. Yeah. We'll have to get to that after we got the stories over with the kills. Well, I'm talking about maybe another podcast. I think we've got almost one whole podcast worth of questions left. We do? At least. I thought you guys polished those off. So did I. What did you do while I was gone? Nothing. Okay. Well, that's since July.

That was below the belt. Okay. We've had two magazines go out. What stent are you talking about? All right. So anyway, the Expo, we're super excited about it. We've got an advertisement in our magazine. There's a little QR code. You can scan it and go there. Whatever. Just Google it. Have it on your calendar. Yep. Put it on the calendar. Come out and hang with us. We're going to have a big booth and, of course, a couch or two. We'd love to visit with you. All right. Let's move on. All right. So right off the top, you know, I got one thing. So it's kind of hard. Like, you do a podcast. We may need to edit this, Logan. What minute are we at? Just six minutes? Give Logan a pen and paper. He's going to be busy today. He's going to be busy, I think. I have a feeling. I feel like this is, I'm up to bat and there's a huge curveball coming. Well, there is a little something.

John, you don't often pipe up. No. What do you got to say? How about Cash? He's already finished off his candy and he's quiet. He's just quietly eating candy. We should replace it with popcorn. No, I'm good. I'm just sitting here watching the show. That's like 60% plastic. That's not even real candy. I know. I'm probably going to get cancer or something from it. Candy corns do not hurt people. The government would not let those be sold if they hurt people. Definitely FDA approved. Trust the FDA. Kamala has definitely got her stamp of approval on it. All right, John. What were you saying? All right. All right. So sometimes with the podcast, like, you got to advertise yourselves sometimes. But I've called in a favor. So, Logan, let's show us the favor. What? What are we doing? All right, folks. Buckle up because this is big. Let's talk about the Epic Outdoors License Application Service.

It's not just good. It's perfect. Perfect for anyone who wants to draw tags like a true champion. You just sit back and let the pros handle the heavy lifting. Now, let's face it. When you do your own applications, you walk in a tightrope. If you haven't messed it up yet, believe me, you will. You're going to forget a deadline and lose all your points. Then end up looking like a total loser. Or worse, you'll apply for a cow tag with your precious help points. That, my friends, is a disaster. When that happens, and trust me, well, you're going to be kicking yourself, wishing you'd go out with the Epic Team. But you don't have to go down that road. They're here to save you from that nightmare. When you have the professionals at Epic Outdoors doing your applications, you'll be out there making deals, making money, living large while they're doing all the tedious stuff for you.

You're going to be raking in so much cash, it'll be insane. You'll be almost as rich as me. Almost, folks, nobody's as rich as me. Let's be honest, but you'll be close. When Epic Outdoors handles everything, the only thing you think about all year are those glorious draw results. Not those annoying deadlines. No more stress. No more guesswork. It's going to be huge. Huge. Is that with a Y? Save you millions and millions of dollars. Millions and millions and millions of people. How much did we have to contribute to his campaign to further say that? I'm just scared. Do we need to edit that? We're going to have to pay his campaign off. Exactly. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, that's not all. Logan, kick it off. There's more? That's like my first experience with AI right there. Yo, yo, yo, Snoop here. Let me break it down for you real quick. Big shout out to my man Donald, the one and only.

Ain't nobody out here dropping knowledge like the Donald, you dig? His game? Legendary. When it comes to Epic Outdoors, it's on another level, baby. Straight up. And the illest part? That member discount when you scoop up some optics, man, it's off the charts. Oh my gosh. Now that member discount? Bruh, it's massive. We talking crazy, blow your mind savings. You get yourself a fresh pair of binoculars and bam. You stack in enough cheddar to cover your epic membership like three times over easy. Cheddar. You feel me? It's that kind of deal. And these dudes out here, they straight up legends. They out in the wild snatching trophies using the flyest binoculars, spotting scopes and all that good, good rifle gear. These homies, man, they ain't playing. They're true OGs in the game, collecting wins left and right. It's so sick, baby. Give them a call. Wow. Snoop Dogg. Who's that?

We got Mark Stewart on there too? Well, it is political season, so we get about a month. You know, you guys are pretty creative, but whatever. I don't know what to say. Snoop Dogg endorses us. I mean, we're doing something. This is what happens when John and I stay late at the office. Oh my gosh. Unsupervised. Were you guys clocked in? I just wanted to know. Everything they said was accurate. I don't think we need to talk about it anymore. I'm totally in. I approve that message. We approve that message. This is Epic Outdoors and we approve that message. Moving right along. Let's talk about some stuff. Where are we at? There was some hunting that happened. How far back do we have to? Feels like. It was July, I think. Feels like we haven't been in this room together since about June 15th. Is that about right? Is it on the order of the hunts or should we go to just what we jumped to?

Let's go in the order. What happened we talked about? Adam? Probably my deer hunt. I did talk about my NWT trip. That was a great trip. So after that, stuff changed. Yeah. And I joked that it was kind of a groundhog day scenario, which I think the next time we talk about after this deer hunt, we'll probably have echo those same things. You just get in routine. You wake up with your eyes closed. You know where your socks are, your pants are, your belt is, your shirt is, your other shirt. You get dressed. You put your boots on. You walk out the door, rinse and repeat over and over and over. But anyway, had a great hunt. You guys, a lot of you guys were there to help me, you know, throughout the front part of that hunt, especially before you guys went to Alaska. In and around, Nick. Yeah. In and around, you know, near miss. We'll leave it at that.

But I hunted archery deer, a couple of big deer for 22 days. 22 hunting days of the 28-day season. And the only reason I only hunted 22 is I had to leave the last two days because I had sheep hunters coming. So, I mean, I technically hunted 22 to the 26 days, and then I had to be done. So the deer in this case won. But I had a great time hunting a couple of specific deer. Fortunately, I had them to myself, which you can't ask for a whole lot more than that. Had one day where several of you guys were there watching. You guys, I haven't really asked you guys this, but I have a feeling some of you guys, while I was stalking that deer, when I was sitting there like 35 yards bedded, you probably were in your packs replacing your, you know, Epic Outdoors, Outdoors knife, getting blades on it. He's going to kill this thing. Get your knives ready and all that. And you jinxed me. You jinxed me.

Did that happen? Well, you're hoping it happened. Or they could have been like. I don't want to point fingers, but like Gary, when I walked up there, you were there. Yeah. Gary said, this, if this, you know, you hate to say, because it's archery, but like, this is going down. If this doesn't happen, he doesn't deserve to kill the deer. I want to know exactly what he said. I think he just said, dude, this is archery, so you never know. But like, this is looking good. It's going down. He did say that. Something like that. Wind was blowing so hard. It was one of those days that was a 25 mile an hour wind. And I literally never took my boots off. I usually, once I get them in 60, 80, or 100 sometimes, I take them off, put my thick socks on. I just walked in. I had everything picked out, approach, had some dead trees. You know, it's thick.

But I had my live trees that I had to keep between me and the deer. Got up there 35 yards. You know, he's in thick stuff. Sat there for an hour and a half or something like that. Feeds out. Drew back, ranged him 30.4 yards. So it's a nice round number for most people who have a 30-yard pin, right? Sounds pretty good. Sounds pretty awesome. So I drew back. As soon as I hit anchor, he stepped forward about 5, 10 feet, I don't know, and tore all I could see was his head and his butt and squatted to take a leak. And I'm at full draw. And I went through the video for 82 seconds. I was at full draw. That's too long. And I still, I mean, I shoot a 70-pound bow, which I think I've shot since I was 25, you know, my whole life. I know as you get older, a lot of people start bringing the poundage down a little bit just to be a little bit more comfortable. And I haven't done that yet.

But so that's a stat. I'm just here to tell you, I ain't built like a dame gorilla like, you know, some people Wyatt knows. But I didn't know if I could hold that back. And also, when you hold it back for a long time, have you guys ever let off? Sometimes it can be a little violent, like just because of the fatigue. And, you know, it's not a natural movement. Even without that, it's not fun. It's not a natural movement. You lose the feeling of how much muscle to keep into it to not let it just jam forward. So you're at 80 seconds and you're like, I don't know how much I'm letting off. Like your muscle is. And the deer is still in killing me. I need to not spook him because he's just. You got to let off. But you don't need to be letting off and janking everything. So he, you know, quit taking a leak. Which when they do that in squat, I want to say, pee like a man. Stand up. Come on.

Lift your leg like a dog. I hate that. Something like that. Something manly. I hate how they do that. You're a grown A buck. Yeah. Yeah. Be proud of yourself. Keep writing. That one's fine. Keep writing. That one's fine. But anyway. So I finally, I let down and he didn't, he didn't, didn't react. And, you know, then you're just kind of, you know, catch your breath. I had the cam shoved in the dirt actually. Just to try to keep some leverage. Anyway. Because you're kind of in a contorted kneeling position. It's not like you're up in a perfect, you know, driveway situation. And anyway. Long story short, he didn't, it didn't take him long. And by then he's, he's moving a little bit. Didn't take him long to start moving through a gap. And so now there's no range. You're just not situation. You're like, I'm going to have to draw. I guess. And pick a pin. And shoot a pin.

And I, and I totally missed him. Totally missed him. Shot, shot underneath him. And, you know, as he walked through a gap, did a little noise. And I wish it ended there, but it didn't. So. This is when you're an outfitter.

And you've done all you can do. Well, yeah. For your hunter. And there's kill fees involved. And you're just like, really? This is why outfitters don't like kill fees. That's right. Because it's like, well, you had, how did you not kill him? Well, you know. You're Adam Bronson. I got a little fatigued. And I had to pick a pin. And he's walking through a gap. And I, I guessed the wrong yardage. Okay. Wish it ended there. Devin, we've talked about that. Like, you always range, right? We've talked about this. Yes. Nauseam. Yes. But there's times when you can't. You can't. You guys watch. There's no. I told Adam, I think he did the right thing. Well, you can keep going. Yeah. Sometimes you got to. You either shoot. Or you might be five, ten yards off. Justin did the same thing. You don't shoot at all. And just. Missed the ball. Yeah, dude. Every time. It just happens when you don't range.

It feels like. Yeah. It does. But you got to try. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Keep going. Oh, fast forward. What? An hour and a half? Yeah. I don't know how long that was. I mean, the buck runs like 100 yards. Kind of settles down. Re-beds, I think. Oh, he bedded within like two minutes. It's 75 yards or 100 yards. Re-bedded. A hundred yards away. And I went up there. I did. I think I found my arrow. I made sure. Yeah. I knew. I knew I didn't hit it. I knew it. But anyway. So I got up on the ridge. I'm like, I don't know where I'm going to sit now. But I'm going to sit right here. And then just kind of weirdly, the buck got up. He wanted to go the direction he was walking when I missed him. He wanted to go back that way. This way he was leaving his bed the first time. And pretty soon, here he comes. These guys were watching. He comes walking back up to the ridge I'm sitting on.

And I look up and I can see his antlers. He's out there about 60 yards. And he's kind of quartering toward me like he's going to get closer. And as soon as he got behind some real thick brush again, I had to run down a little tiny saddle. And it was just one of those things. There he is. And I'm going to run down the saddle. And I'm going to have to draw my bow and shoot. He's walking through a gap. That time I didn't even make a noise. I just shot and nicked him. Hence the name Nick. So, yeah. I came. Anyway. I came up glass and I said, you know, I got thinking about this buck because I saw the Nick. I saw the. Right on the top of the shoulder. Right on the withers, you know. And I was just like, you know, I came up with a name. And he goes, oh, yeah, you and everybody else.

You named off some other names. Like that was a cluster chuck day.

Whatever. Cluster chuck. Yeah. Just both. Just both scenarios that moved when you range. The second time he was walking back through. Just walking through stuff. And it was literally there's no chance to range. You know. He's in thick. There's a gap. But I shot. Hit him high. He was actually. How many and more. You probably had another 15 encounters. Oh, yeah. I did. Over the course of days and days. Yeah. Went some days without seeing. Sometimes four or five days without seeing him. But other days then you'd make plays on him every day. Had another couple of times to kill him. And had other bucks see me. That just tip. Just normal bull hunting stuff. You know. Lean out. Ranging. But it feels like you had a little more. Ranging at 46 yards. Put my range finder down. Hook my release up. Go to draw. Look up. Another buck has stepped out right in front of me. I'm like three feet.

And has me picked. And now is frozen. Blocking me from shooting another buck that I've just ranged. And we have a stare down for like one of those cramping moments. When you're kind of standing up from a crouching position and things like that. And anyway that buck blew. It just feels like you had a. Normal bull hunting stuff. But you had a. A ton. A little abnormal amount of bull hunting stuff. Yeah. We did. It had some weird. When you hunt a deer that long. You can have a bit of everything weather. But it had some really high pressure periods. Where it was just baking hot. And like zero to six mile an hour winds all day long. Which. You have those janky thermals that go back and forth. They'll do. You know. And there's not enough. Not enough wind to. To steadily keep your wind in the right position. Or to cover your noise. Or let's face it. When you have some blowing. Bouncing. Drim.

Limbs. And all. All those things help when you have a good wind. You have bouncing limbs. You have noise. Cover you. And your scent. So anyway. Tough. And I would bounce back between that and another. Some. Some days. You know. I'd be in both places. I'd have guys looking from one buck. Guy looking another. I'd make a plan one deer. You guys had another buck come through on the. Snapchat line. And you guys went and found him. Like the first time you tried. And it looked big in photo. But wasn't big in real life. Oh. Yeah. That was in the middle of a rain. One day it was just pouring rain. We literally didn't get out of my truck all day. So much. That. We had to. Winch out. Twice. In one day. Yeah. I wasn't the driver. I was the passenger. It's a brand new truck with a winch on it. And we would have. It was bad. Had to winch out twice. But you went and found a deer that was. Heard a rumor.

And this buck looks big. We come around the corner. The thing's staring at us in the middle of the road. At 30 yards. And he's a baby giant. With our naked eye. We're like. Well. Yeah. I didn't want. We thought he was going to be. Just watched him. 30. 35 yards. I was like. What? You're like. Oh yeah. We could have killed him. I'm like. What? Watched him for 60 seconds. The photo does look good. It's amazing looking deer. But anyway. That was. That was good. They didn't have to waste too much time on him. But there's another big typical I hunted. Long story short. I got everything out of that hunt. I don't need to go through every day. And every play. But. Normal. We could go through. Normal bull hunting situations man. We could go through a few of those other days. No. I mean. They're just. You know. That you have another buck dead. This other buck dead right. 55 yards feeding.

And I'm closing the last five yards. And then. Three points. All of a sudden. Steps out at like 12 yards. And feeds right to me. At like eight yards. And then just comes out of a skeleton. You know. It's kind of like. We've all had hunts like that. Like. You feel like 98% of the time. You do that hunt again. You kill that buck. Yeah. Yep. You were the 2%. You know what I mean. It feels like. How did I not kill this? Do you guys remember this summer. When. When I talked about last year. Last year. Killed a buck. The first day. Yeah. And I said. I was there. I have a feeling. This is going to be a grinder. The average is going to work out to about. 16 day hunt. One plus 22. Divided by. Divided by. And that wasn't even. I mean. You blow the buck. Then you go sit at the water. And the buck comes in. Like. Who does that? Never happens. Never happens. Like I said. There's the 1% chance. Yes.

That it takes to go right. It does. It did. The other time. I do the 98% you feel like. That I do right. And it doesn't happen. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yes. Yep. So it was that. I have no regrets. I had a couple big deer. It was awesome. Had a lot of great help. I appreciate you guys. You know. You guys left on your trip. And there was a lot. There was a lot of inreaching. Going back to you guys. Giving you updates. And then stuff went cold for me. About the time it went cold for you. And we just quit asking each other how things were going. Because we knew that no news was bad news. In both instances. Pretty much. That's a nice segue. Right. To Alaska. I was just going to say. Like. We got to go back to. Devin mentioned a name. And I'm thinking. I think I know where that deer was roughly at. And I think there's kind of an equation.

So it goes back to a story from a couple years ago. And I'm thinking. I probably wasn't part of that equation on that first hunt. I think it was. The second name mentioned. From a different glassing point. And I'm just saying. Maybe Gary. I don't know. Maybe. Gary's the common denominator. That's what I'm. I'm just trying to clear my name. From the first time. A couple years ago. We'll leave it at that. Wow. Josh. You're showing some colors. I appreciate everybody. It was there. Gary. Gary even the most. He spayed their tongue. I ain't bad talking to anybody. He's awesome. I had a great chance. Hey. Just didn't happen. Gary was there. Went down swinging. Long haul. Yeah. He lives right there too. Yeah. And just. But he did have a lot. He dedicated his. A lot of time there. Well. Okay. It was good. So this is a segue into Wyatt's favorite hunt of the year. Alaska. I mean.

I'm looking forward to going up there all the time. I mean. It's a. You three went up there. Great place. I'll let Devin and Josh take it from there. I'll start. I have an idea where to start. Where? So there we were. Three days. We couldn't fly in. Right? Same with her. Staying in Anchorage. Yeah. A lot of bad weather. Tried to talk these guys into going and checking out these little tarp villages. They didn't want to do it. Are those like homeless places? Yeah. What do you mean? The homeless. Okay. So. It's unbelievable. We went to Walmart. There's homeless up there? Lots. Okay. Listen to this. They can't survive the winter. I thought they always go down to Quartzite and places that are warm. How do you get there from Anchorage? You don't. I just think people that are homeless die in Alaska. Dude. We were freezing to death just living like going into restaurants and places.

It was so cold. Wasn't it? And there were homeless dudes walking around with wife beaters. On shorts. On shorts. The spam at Walmart was behind locked glass. Yeah. The what? The spam. I mean. Like it was. To get a tarp. A tarp? Like it was amphetamines? You had to ask them like a gun counter. Like you had to unlock. They had a worker had to unlock. Every camping supply. Like those little chintzy $2 match. Because that's what they all steal. This is like some of the ingredients for meth. That's what they all go forward and you got to. Or just. Yeah. Like the five gallon. Like the collapsible water jug was behind a lock and key. Like a gallon of white gas. That would be under lock and key. Yes. So everything in the store is under lock and key. Well. Almost. Just this. I don't know. So we were a little on edge. Wouldn't you say, Josh? From what? From what?

You guys thought your camping supplies were going to be stolen? Well, you know, like the guy at Walmart told us about the problems and you see in it is really sad, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And so we were kind of killing time. We went to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. This story is not appropriate for a podcast. It has to be. Why is the best part of our entire trip? Why you asked them to take it away? I would love to tell this story, but I can't tell this story without the graphic language I believe that needs to be said. I'll tell it for you then. Family friendly podcast. Dummy it down, Devin, but we got to hear the story. There was a guy. We sit down. You don't have to use bad language. There's a guy. We sit down to eat, right? At Buffalo Wild Wings. At Buffalo Wild Wings. And there's a fellow here next to us. He'd taken some fentanyl or something earlier that day. We figured. And what?

I was looking at this guy, and it looked like a monster can-sized black thing. And I was like, what is that? I didn't think much of it. He was talking to somebody up in the air that wasn't there. Really? And Wyatt, as long as I've known him, he doesn't like public. Yeah, I do not use public bathrooms. He doesn't. I do not use public bathrooms. What about the time when you're- This was the seventh time he has used a public bathroom. He does. Because one time he passed a stone, and it chinked off the person. Okay, but urinals are okay. Okay. Okay. But to sit down. Yes, I do not sit down. You go squat in the alleyway? Yes. Do not sit down. I think this was the first time Wyatt used the bathroom that whole first day. Literally. I've never seen a man with a bladder like this guy. I don't know why. We got on that plate at like six in the morning. What do you do?

And I think that was the first time he used it. This was like seven in the afternoon. Say you have an emergency. What do you do? Well, this was an emergency. It was. So what? Wyatt has to go. I haven't ordered Wyatt goes to the restroom like a normal person at a restaurant. No big deal, right? Yeah. So I'm sitting there in the stall. You know? No one else is in there. It's pretty safe. Which reconfirms why he never goes to a public restroom. Here we go. So for the rest of his life, he'll never go. Pretty safe, you know? Well, just about midway through the project is what we'll call it, I guess.

All of a sudden, here comes in this guy. We'll call him Seabass. The guy that was right behind you talking to people. Seabass. Imaginary things. These guys knew about him. I didn't know about him. They had seen him. Dude, you didn't see him when we sat down with those speakers? I went straight into the bathroom. You guys went straight. Oh, that's right. Literally, he didn't even sit down. We went in there and he went to the bathroom. He had projects. Yes. So I had no idea. And you guys see this guy. He's coming in and now he wants to get in there with you in the same stall? Apparently. So I go to the far stall, the one that's almost out of the way. And apparently, the other one was out of order and I did not know this. So now what? So anyways, this guy comes in and he is just mad. Same thing. He's got projects to work on, too. I want to interrupt you real quick.

This guy's about maybe six foot. Okay? Yeah. What does that mean? I mean, that's a normal dude. He climbs under the stall. He climbs under the stall. No, just go ahead. So, yeah. He comes in. He's just mad and he is yelling. And he takes it out on the opposite stall, the stall next to me. He's kicking the door, kicking the toilet, ripping things. Right in the middle of your project. Shaking everything. He's shook my door a couple times. And he's yelling. Yelling. At the top of his lungs. Things that cannot be said on this podcast. He is yelling. Okay. I think I know what he would sound like. I'm not sure, but I think I know. So, I've got options now. I can either call Josh and Devin to come in here and rescue me. Call 911. Which would be kind of a childish thing to do, maybe. I don't know. You guys come in here and help me.

So, he kind of calms down for a second and I, you know, kind of sneak out of the, you know, finish the business and sneak out of the stall. Did you wash your hands? Yeah. So, I head over there to wash my hands. I, like, walk behind the guy, like, two feet behind him. And he doesn't even act like he acknowledges me at all. Like, there's no idea. Nothing happens. And what you want to say is I've just opened up a stall for you, sir. Yeah. So, anyways, I just sneak past him, think I'm in the clear. I start washing my hands. I just happen to look back because he goes in my stall. So, I just happen to look back and I don't know if he stood on the toilet or how he did it. But he raised up over the top of the stall. Just his head was over the top of the stall and he is just staring at me with the biggest smile you've ever seen in your entire life. Wasn't he laughing at you, sir?

On his face, laughing. Why? I don't know. I mean, you had flushed, right? Yeah, I had flushed. The project was gone. The project was, everything was gone. And I don't know. He just, I mean, it was wild. You said you've never felt so vulnerable in your entire life. So, I walk outside and I get to like Archibald and Josh's table, you know, and I'm like, you guys will not believe what happened to me. And they're like, we will. Let me guess. He's a little six-foot guy with dark hair. Now, they'll take over. Now, go ahead. Well, we're sitting there. Wyatt goes to the bathroom and this guy's, he's shady. Tweaking. He's tweaking. He's tweaking. Yeah. And I was talking to Josh or whatever, ordering a drink, you know, and I look over and he's gone from his table. And I mean, he's got two pitchers of beer gone. Like, he's, it wasn't just beer. He was whacked out. He was lubed up. Yeah.

And I'm looking and all of a sudden I hear what Wyatt heard in the bathroom. You can hear it. Because this fella has two Bluetooth speakers on his table. So you heard everything that went in. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, slam. You know, I'm hearing all this stuff. Did you guys realize where he's at? Yeah. No. I said, dude. No. The guy's kicking the crap out of the toilet. He's beating the crap out of this bathroom. You think he's beating up Wyatt, maybe. Well, that's what I told Josh. I said, dude, did that guy go to the bathroom? Wyatt's in there. And all of a sudden you're, toilet flushes. And you guys are like, Wyatt is on his own. Dude, I was about to get up and once I heard the toilet flush and then I look over and the worker is over there turning his speakers off. So he had to have been on a phone. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And I'm like. He went in there to video you, Wyatt.

Maybe. I don't know. So Wyatt sits down and he is shook. He's like, he turned his chair on the table this way so he could look at this fella. And he says, I thought I was going to have to beat a guy. Like this guy. And then this guy's like talking to someone up here in the sky. And he left. Oh my God. It was nuts. Wow. Bluetooth speaker. And then we get going, Josh. It was so loud. And this guy turned into basically Carl Malone. 6'9". Smiling at the world.

Because he was flat footed looking over the stall at me. Yeah. It was one of the odds we could hear it on a speaker. Did you ever hear Wyatt's voice? No. I just heard a flush. Wyatt was scared. And a lot more commotion. Wyatt was scared. I was waiting for that what would you do guy to come out of the corner. You know? I'd be like, you handled this well. Like a prank? I'm John Quinones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'd like to congratulate you. You're looking for Ashton Kuchar over there in the punk crew or whatever it was. Yeah. I didn't know what was going on. But yeah, that was. And so ever since then, have you used a public restroom since then? I have not since then. Even the flights back. Like, I would definitely go standing up in a public bathroom. I mean, that's not a problem. He was literally caught with his pants down. I'm like.

He said, I was so vulnerable. What do you do? And I'm like, I don't know, dude. Like. Yeah. Anyone have any ideas? How would you handle it? I think he did. He's like, if he came in the stall and attacked me, I'm a dead man. I would take care of business, whatever it was. Well, that's what I was doing. Even if you had to take care of him. I would have fought him for a past year. And then I would do what Devin did. And that's to buy new underwear. Devin, would you like to go? No. No.

What is this story? It's not my story. I don't know what you're talking about. Devin. Well, that's for down the road. Yeah. You guys, that's a good intro. What about the rest of your hunt? We just talked about the restaurant before he lived on your trip. You haven't even got out of town yet. Yeah. Yeah. That was. I laughed so hard I cried. The funny part, you should have seen everybody's face in the restaurant because you guys have all been in Buffalo Wild Wings. It's a loud place. It's a loud place. Sports bar. You got games going. There's TVs going. They've got music. It's loud. Wyatt comes out of the bathroom. They're putting two together. Everyone's looking at him. Everybody's looking at him. Wyatt. And Wyatt changes the position of his seat. So they know there's some weird stuff that went on in there. And this guy was right behind him. I mean, we've seen five seconds.

These two had some commotion going on in there. That speaker was blaring so loud. Everybody in the restaurant was turning and looking at us, thinking it was us. A lady from the kitchen came to turn it off. She was in an office. She came from the back and turned it off. That's how loud it was. And that's when I was like, dude, did that guy go to the bathroom? Because Wyatt's in there. And then the flush. And I'm like, maybe he's already done for you. That reminds me of the good Jeff John DeWalt Blue speaker scenario. That's exactly the same thing. Jeff, if you're listening, that was a funny day. It was a good day. I mean. Machine gun fire. So Jeff would use the bathroom. Machine gun fire. And I guess you could call our bathrooms public. He wasn't scared of them. Wyatt, are you scared of our bathrooms? Well, ours aren't necessarily like public. We don't know who's been in there.

We clean them at least once every few days or week. Come on. Or months. When I say we, if the girls that listen to this, I'm just saying. But Jeff would bring in the DeWalt speakers and then he didn't realize that he had a Bluetooth in and he was playing video games in there. Machine, Jason and I are at our desk and we hear machine gun fire. And I turned to Adam. Fully automatic. Loud. He comes out. Me, I don't fire. And it was Jeff was in there. And it was Bluetoothed out to the DeWalt speaker that's in the hallway between me and Jason. Just full automatic machine gun fire. And we're like, did you win? What? What? What? What was I shooting? AK or AR? What are you shooting? 9mm. Well, all right. Anyway. All right. So then that's, when did you guys get on a plane or what do you do here? What was the purpose of going to Alaska? We were hunting moose.

We had a, what, three-day weather delay there in Anchorage. So we spent a lot of time in Anchorage. Good thing is you went early. You had plenty of time. Yeah. Got flown into. We're talking like end of August. August 27-ish. We were on the ground before the hunt started. Which is September 1st, right? Flown into camp and instantly flown into. Prime moose country. Prime moose country. And I think you guys could skip to September 18th if you'd like.

Well, I didn't get to do that. It would be pretty easy to do that. I didn't get to do that. We saw one janky, almost legal, and then we got picked up. That's about right.

All right. No, keep going. It was just a slow hunt. I mean, we were definitely in the country. It was warm the first couple days. The moose were in the country. We just could not. I feel it never felt like I took so many left turns when I should have went right in my entire life. It's kind of how I would sum it up. Sounds like you got cursed with me before you left. That sounds like what I meant. You did 98% of the right things. And the other 2% that had to happen just didn't happen. It was mantel. It's always mantel up there with moose. For me, it was like we were on a river. And it was kind of loud. But your calls, like, every time I called, I was like, I wonder how far that's going. Obviously, moose have good hearing better than us. But we would cross the river and call. Would you test each other? Like, go out there 400 yards.

I'm like, I'm going to turn at you when you see me go around this corner way out there. What was it? 400? It was about 380. Yeah. And he heard me, you know, across the river. So, yeah. A lot of calling. Yeah. We had a little boat. Apparently, I'm the only one who can physically call once again. Jeez. You did do good in the office. What does that mean? Pollock had a pretty mean call, too, when he let it loose. What do you mean? Did these guys just refuse to try? Did Wyatt not even? Raked. Raked? I raked. We had a boat paddle, and I just beat the crap out of some brush. Is that that thing Aaron left you guys? We got that home, too, right? That is, yeah. Yeah, it's in my house. Okay. So. We raked. We called. Grunted. Grunted. Drove the little boat around. We had a little jet boat up the river. Yeah. That was kind of cool. No problems with that boat? All things possible, huh?

Well, we did break a bolt in that boat. Our plan was to be, what do we say, be conservative with the boat. Because the boat's our lifeline, right? We kill a boat across the river. You got to have a boat. And it's only like 60 feet or 60 yards wide. But you can't wait. So, early on, like, they're not really rutting. We're just going to be patient and try to get lucky. One might walk by, essentially. And then it's getting later into September, so we take the boat. Apparently, it was a Sunday. I didn't know that. I've been diagnosed by Wyatt with time blindness. So, I did not know what day of the week it was. Oh, that's pretty easy. And me and Josh, life flushed in front of our eyes, essentially. That was like the sixth time that had happened. Yeah, it wasn't as bad as the time we had to grab the oars. I was serious.

Everything up there, sometimes you feel like you're 10 seconds away from being in a life or death situation. Yeah, we broke the boat. Just floating by. And it wouldn't stay in gear. So, then we were stuck in neutral. Floating. Floating downriver. We only had to go, what, 200 yards? Yeah. We made it. And these guys, we get there and they're like, oh, are you guys okay with the boat? And they're like, yeah, Josh has a boat. He's good. I said that. We named it Captain Paul. Let me remind you, it doesn't run.

It's just, and I'm like, okay, yeah, I have a boat. I drive a boat on a lake that is like stalled water, you know. With the steering wheel boat. Yes. Not a little outboard out there in the back. Your point is, where's the steering wheel? In a river. So, you're on a stick and you have to turn. Opposite. That way you turn, or that way you turn that way. This way you turn that way. And then the whole time, you're floating. So, then you're like, you literally have to, and it's a winding river with rapids. It wasn't like a little thing. So, you're trying to anticipate two turns up because you basically have to drift this thing around every turn as you're going. So, anyway. I thought you did a great job. Probably a video game you could have used to train. Well, we weren't aware of it until. Yeah. But, I mean, looking back.

There was one point me and Josh went way downriver, farther than we should have, to walk up this other river that we thought was a creek. And it was a raging white rapids. So, now we've got to go back. And that was. Up current. Didn't you guys. We had to go against the current. And I was, I was. I'm not going to lie. I was extremely nervous. Well, I think. Didn't you guys attach yourselves to each other in case one guy falls out or just to save each other? I mean, you know. No. That's not. It was every match for himself. Basically, you only want one of you to die so the other one can get you out. Good point. But you guys did have some moments together. What does that mean? We spent a lot of time together. Well, but I mean, like, even when you were fighting upstream, when you were. Devin had indicated, like, this was serious. You guys were. Oh, we had a Snickers. Yeah. Together.

Whoever makes it, gets it. I said, Josh. What do you mean? Like, this could be our last meal. We sat on the bank. Seriously. Had a Snickers. Did you? Cheers. Touch tips with our Snickers. Oh, my gosh. Come on. You cheersed each other with the Snickers. Dude, are you nervous to go back? Like, those are straight up white rapids. And there's rocks the size of cars with holes. Yeah. That we have to navigate. Yeah. As the river's coming down. Jeez. I would love to go there and then compare this podcast with their stories. Yeah. Because it could be football-sized rocks turned into car-sized rocks. Josh. When we hit the thing, I was like, all right, I'm just going to have to be full bore. So I had that thing just. Full bore. Yeah. The whole tire. And at one point, we were in one position. And you felt like it was 83 octane. 30 seconds. You got Alaska gas mixed with water.

I had to sit there and, like, move it back and forth just in hopes we could, like, skid. What am I going to do? I was just trying to be light as a feather. Use the oars that were for safety. I only had one. The other one was missing. And did you have a throwable? But we found one. We did find one. Yeah. You did? Yeah. Found one what? Another oar. Just a random oar. So this is. And a random river in Alaska. I want to read a couple of texts. You know, you guys. So Adam and I. Come on. This is so fun. Because Adam and I, of course, we're texting here and there. But we're not wanting to bug you too much. And, of course, we're busy doing our thing, too. But this is fun to see the different perspectives of you guys. So sometimes you're having good days. Some of you are having bad days. And one person's good day is the other person's bad day. So this is just between Devin and Josh.

And I hate all three of you once in a while. But this is funny. Okay. So this is an update September 2nd. Well, that barely even. This is Devin. And I said, how's today looking? Devin. Just watching a smaller than football-sized field opening across from camp. Saw a porcupine.

Okay. So this is Josh. Cold this morning. I said, how's today looking? Identical. Same day. Copy and paste. Same day. Copy and paste. I just. Because I'm thinking one of you is looking at your inreach. The other one's not. I want an update sooner than later. It could be 10 hours and the next guy gets a hold of you. Right? Cold this morning. This is Josh. Cold this morning. Frost on the ground. But we're supposed to have sunny. 60 degree sunny day. So probably tough for movement. There was a porcupine outside the tent this morning. So started the day off with seeing a mammal. Is a plus. I mean, saw a porcupine. I mean. Devin. Watch the smaller than football-sized opening. Saw a porcupine. I'd probably text you in between like I was going to go call over here or something. I just love the difference in perspective. What did Wyatt say? Nothing. Wyatt? No. Did he not reply? Wyatt's over it.

You guys mentioned Groundhog Day. So Devin would wake up. Me? We all did the same thing. Well, I'm just going to talk about your little workspace. Oh. Oh. He'd walk over. Yeah. You had one tent, right? To the place we were glassing from and kind of calling a lot from. Devin had this little workspace where he'd sit down behind this bush. That's true. He had a certain spot for his moose call. A certain spot for his in-reach. I actually have a picture of that on my phone. Hey. I want to tell you. The exact same thing every day. Devin's whole life is so organized and planned. It's called workspace. So he's got his rifle to his side. He's got the moose call here. He even told me he did that. I mean, there's the Nalgene bottle. There was a hole in the ground where my bottle would go. Like, this is what I do. You know, these guys had these reclining chairs.

I have a three-legged janky foot off the ground tripod chair. You have a milking stool. My leg holes would go in the same holes every day in the sand. Pretty soon you're down there hitting the water table. One day I actually hung my in-reach where his moose call, it goes. Oh. I mean, he just grabbed it and didn't say a word. Just handed it to me and put his moose call there. I mean, there was no word spoken. Wow. I could totally picture that. What if we had to stop one real quick, man? We've done that before, and you just went, hey, hey, hey. Remember that? Yeah, I do remember that. Okay, so here's Wyatt's reply to that same message. I just found it. You know how you have to go look at text, but I have to look at the in-reach text. So it took me a minute to find it. September 2nd, 940 a.m. How's today looking? Did the exact same one. Not great for moose. Sunny and warm.

Wyatt didn't see the porcupine. Wyatt is over the porcupine. I've seen them before. You don't need to know this. They're not noteworthy. We had what you call a prickle living by our tail. There was a prickle, and there was one boss. Boss. Boss hand. Boss pine. What's a female called? Okay. He was a big old boar. Are they boars and sows? I don't know what it is, but up there you've got some weird dreams. Okay? Both these guys. One night, Wyatt punches the tent wall and says something was messing with it. The next night, Josh heard something, and apparently this, whatever this thing was. Jeez. How did it go? Thing was? What do you mean? He heard in the night this sound, and it went like this. That's what he said. Right by my head. Laughing. I thought it was dead and dreaming. And then, right after that, he hears, hmm, hmm, hmm.

Dude, he woke up and was, he was not scared, but just like, what the freak did I hear? Now we've got to Google if porcupines laugh or mock you. And then, another night, Wyatt goes, get out of here.

And I wake up like, what is it? You know? And I went back to sleep. Nobody said anything ever again. I mean, Devin and I have loaded pistols. Wyatt was still having to cock his. But imagine you're in the middle of the night. It's a miracle one of you guys didn't shoot each other. We did see a grizzly like 400 yards across the river from us. It was their entire time. Are they grizzlies or brown bears? Grizzlies. Grizzlies. Grizzlies. This thing had dug up the whole earth all the way around us. Yeah. Big sucker. Like eating roots and stuff. Going back to the podcast of digging holes. Oh, yeah. So that's in the back of your mind. We're in the middle of this minefield. When we went to go put our tent up, we went to put it up at this one spot at first. And we were like, yeah, no, we're not going to put it up here. Because that grizzlies, he comes through here. This is a bedding area.

He comes through here often digging up roots and stuff. An acre of holes. He lived across the river from us the entire time. So, yeah, it's pitch black one night, 2 o'clock in the morning. And all of a sudden, hey! You're like, what? What? What? My pistol's right by my head in the tent holder. I just was, what is it? And nobody said anything. We just went back to sleep. It was just a bad dream. We've all been here. You guys, have you ever been in a hunting camp or a trailer? And you're the one. You say something and you wake yourself up. And then you're just like, oh, nobody heard that. You sleep talk and you wake yourself up. So, in that case. I'm just glad you were aware, awake. Because half the time, I'll admit, I had earplugs in, dude. I was gone. I was trying to survive. So, Wyatt, people that are supposed to protect your body have earplugs in. Yes. Exactly. I'm sorry about it.

I'm bothered. I'm bothered. He doesn't have the right to have earplugs. With an audio, with a Bob Lazar audio book. He chooses to be on the outside. You choose not to have earplugs. The guy in the center? Me? Ando Fon. I got thinking the guy in the center is probably in the most vulnerable position. Because if a bear comes in, he's probably going to use the door. No, they don't use doors. Come right in. You're the first guy to snack on it. They don't use doors. They're just going to come in. Hey, guys. How are you doing? I'm going to eat you first. Hold on. How do you use this zipper? Is this a lot to open with my claws? He's probably going to come right in through the door. One thing I thought about was your head was probably the closest object to the other tent door that had some food in it. A lot of food. We had a lot of food. We didn't even get to eat it.

You had a tent cache with your food. No Oreos were opened. There was no celebratory. I want you all to know I did listen to the podcast yesterday in the truck drive. Which one? And so I already know you've been over this. We did not crack open that thing until it was over. We did call right in the podcast, and so we got a couple of details from Wyatt. That's true. We donated it. Our celebratory snacks. Well, you donated it and then partook when they opened it. Yeah. We let them open up. There were successful moose hunters back at Lodge. Yeah. They deserved a success Oreo, right? Yeah. All right. The brownies never got it. I didn't want it. I wasn't going to touch the brownies. I ate their celebratory. I wasn't going to eat the one eye. Well, but they were also still, they've been there for 21 days already. They were pretty dang good. By its lockbox in the middle of nowhere.

It absorbed a bunch of- Water. Moisture. Did they even crunch when you bit them? They were good. Oh. They turned into soft bakes. That porcupine did try and come into our tent the one night. He did. The big boss. Yeah. The big boss. While we were- But he didn't make like a- It was an old- The brick of walls. You guys, when are you going to get to the wolves? Oh, yeah. We did see something. Josh. Oh, I've got a text on this. Do you? Oh, yeah. Okay. Find it. Devin screwed me up and I missed the wolf. Is that what it says? I got you covered. So we moved spots. It is the same thing. Like the weather just kind of kicked our butt, I felt like, the whole time. You know, it's just, there's a lot of time under a tarp where you're just sitting there. And then it would go from hot to cold to rain. You know, it was just pretty tough. But we got moved to a second spot and we got up there.

We could get around a little bit better as far as the boat-wise. We could see a lot farther and that kind of thing. So Devin and I would take kind of a daily trip, twice daily. And we'd go up. And the one time where we had made it barely, like we had barely left camp, maybe 100 yards. And Wyatt was going to go down and kind of call and stuff from a spot where we had seen a bull. We're running out of days at this point. Yeah, we were down like two or three days left. So we jumped in the boat. We got just up around almost the bend. And Devin starts yelling something. So I'm back by the boat, or by the motor, sitting there trying to drive. And I thought he yelled, bull. I just heard him yell something. It was kind of a loud whisper. Yeah. So I look up, and I'm like looking across the sandbar, thinking there's going to be a big giant black thing standing there. Yes.

So I'm like, what the heck is he talking about? And then he yells something again. And then I kind of thought it was, whoa. And he just says, get to the beach or something in Devin fashion. No, we had codes. Like, if I point like this or something, beach. Okay, so let's go over the codes. This was right. This is left. If I point, that's a hazard. That's a hazard. And if I go like this, that means beaches. I mean, did you go to that? No, because I'm here to drive, and we're trying not to talk. He's way behind me. Did you go to that? I know, but you've got so many codes. And you can't hear each other. You've got an engine going. So it's like. But he would point like this the first day, and I'm like, well, am I supposed to go that way? Or is he seeing something there that I need to stay away from? No, that's what you need to stay away from. That's death, right? That's death.

That's a hole that will swallow us up. The big rock under the boat now. This is a problem. This is merge. This is merge. Did you seek any, like, websites, like air traffic control website for, like, to be something that's We say boat. We inflated it with air. It's a rubber day. It's a raft. A raft with an engine. Yeah. It worked. So we had to be extra careful, because if you hit something, whatever, like, you're done for. Oh, you could smash something in there in your dutch. Yeah.

Jason knows all about those kind of boat rides in Alaska. Hey, hey, hey. Let's talk about, A, they're thinking about Aaron. Aaron's been submerged in a river. That was a scary experience. Then they're thinking about the Grizzly podcast. Why it's been there with calling Grizzlies in with predator calls and no firearm backup, which I'm thinking he's bad, eh? Yeah. Turns out he's scared nonstop.

I don't know. So you finally find out he's talking about something you should shoot. Yeah. So I look up, because I see him starting to rip the gun sock off and stuff. It was probably the most athletic thing I've done in here. And I can see. Yeah. And so I look up and I can see just some small little white dots, like 500 yards up the river. You know where we're at now. Across, like, the bend. I'm like, oh, he said wolves. And then as he yells, get to the beach, I'm starting to, like, navigate to get over there. And there's a few steps to, like, get this motor up so it's not driving in gravel. Motor, you're dealing with life vests. I've got to turn it off. You're dealing with guns. He's already out of the boat. You're janking around. He grabbed his gun, like, and it was pretty athletic. Jumped. Chambered. As he's jumping, he's got the gun in one hand. Life jacket comes off.

Like, he's already prone. Wow. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done. He's already prone on the ground. It's kind of like stealing home to win the state championship baseball game. It's all a blur. It was cool. He's prone on the ground before I even stepped foot on gravel. Like, I had to get the boat up on the shore, pull it up so it wouldn't wash away. You're piped. There's five in the scope. Five wolves? There was five. Yeah, I don't. Whoa. There was a pile of them. And I, so by that time, I just got off, and I got the boat up. I still had my life jacket on. I was just like, well, I don't have time, because he was ready to shoot. I probably cost him one for sure, because he should have been shooting. But he was kind of waiting for me to get ready, but I was trying to get the boat up. I wanted a double, man. And I had to get my gun out after I already got to it.

You just wanted another four of my rounds ready to go. You've got to shoot them. I cannot believe they even let us get them in the scope. You've got to shoot them. It was unbelievable. When they're in the scope, you've got to shoot them and be, who cares about your body? Yep. And I, and I just, so how, but he's driving. Well, Josh said, our one mistake was, he said, what did you say? You said, what's the MOA? Yeah. And I'm thinking he meant yardage, so I'm like, 485 or something. Yeah, because your MOA is different. I'm thinking he doesn't want my MOA. Josh is interpreting that at 4.85. Josh is saying at 400, just give me yours. It'll be close to mine. Josh is in it. I was just thinking, I'm going to take three off of his, whatever he says. Just because. Because he, whatever he dialed to, I'm like, no, what'd you dial? He's like, I dialed to like eight. So I'm like, okay, I'll dial down.

Mine was five. Eight on the dot. Yeah. You're ready. It was even. Eight even. And then he said, he asked me again, MOA. And I said, I'm eight. You know? And yeah, I look back and he was ready. And he said, whenever you're ready, dude. And at that point, there was what, two left? Yeah. And the big one like turned and we just pop up.

Airball. Both airball. And I think there was some wind a little bit. Yeah. And they were wet. And I had. I didn't even think about that. I had like, I still had a life jacket on. So it's like this far out. I'm over there just the front of the boat. Like just holding it over the front. You're a hazard. I had. You're a hazard to his health and your health. You're lucky you didn't shoot the ref. A hundred percent. Oh, I've shot off. I've shot off enough car hoods. A little decimally. A little desk pop. I've shot off the hood enough. I maintain where the barrel is.

That was exciting though, man. Anytime you even see wolves, it's super, super cool. And then the worst part about it wasn't for me the miss. It was, I looked at Josh and like, holy shiz. You know, like that just happened. And I turn around and you want to talk about athletic things? Wyatt's standing on the other side of the river. He was there like that. And then I'm like, I have to tell Wyatt, we just, we didn't kill a moose and we missed and I just felt terrible. So you were just running up there after you were there like that. He's thinking we just smoked a big bowl. I was watching this all go down. I'm like, did you see the wolves? I never saw the wolves. The wolves were around the corner, but I could see these guys. Wyatt's point is, is you guys blew every moose out of the country. Possibly. And you don't have a, you don't have a wolf to show for it. Yeah.

Disappointment was a little in my face. I wasn't mad. I was just disappointed. Yeah. By this time, you've been there. Father Wyatt is steaming. He's got a grin, right? He does. He's across the river smiling, just like, we killed something. Tell me what happened. We killed something, like we did it. And I had to walk to the edge of the river. It's like a little inlet. The walk of shame. Yes. And I had to say, there was wolves. And they got away. I think we missed. And then they started mocking us by howling at them. Did they? I've got a text on that. They were howling. They were howling like crazy. Yeah, they did. So then that scared me. That was the worst part. Scared all the other. Because he was, you could just tell he was excited. Well, after what? This is probably at least two weeks. This is probably day 17. So two plus weeks. 18. And you finally hear gunpowder roar.

And you think, it's on. I'm packing quarters. They shot a double. Two bulls fighting. They're both dead. We got work. That was the confusing part, was there was two rifles that went off. And I'm like, gosh, you know, that's confusing me. Arch can work a bolt, but maybe not that fast. Belt feed. No, I watched Josh shoot with his life vest on. I watched you have yours up. Do you want to hear Wyatt's text log on this? So the Wyatt's take, and I might have to. I said, you winning today.

Wyatt, do I dare share some of this? I don't know. Winning at staying dry and staring into the trees. Spotting moose, not so much. I said dry is good. Now, I'm the only one who hasn't fired a shot, though.

And I'm like, whoa, you know, that's crazy. I said, Josh hit me saying they missed wolves. And I said, 480 chip shot. Because it is a chip shot. If everything's right, you know. And he's like, yeah, wolves must get guys worked up. Because I've heard of a handful of guys that have missed them this week. Everyone was missing them. And you know what? And honestly, Adam, you and I have killed wolves. Like, they're not. They're big, but they're a lot of hair. They're about that much of a core. Your MOA better be on. Top to backbone to brisket. And to have a life vest on, come on. Dude, there is no reason I should have missed that. Other than maybe when the thing turned. But, like, dude, you're proned out. Did you have a bipod? Were you on the rocked up? I was. Everything's perfect. And I didn't hold for wind. I didn't even think about wind. But it was. We're in a river corridor. Maybe 10.

Maybe. I mean, you talk that much on a wolf that's facing you because it was chest, you miss. I don't know. You never know about it. I've got Josh's text log. It's pretty fun.

That's what I had, too. Do you? It's probably similar. Yeah. Take our inreaches away next trip. I tried that once. It didn't go well for me. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that was weird, though. When you're being up there that long, you talk about going without things. I've never had dreams like that in my life. And Devin and I discussed it. I had them in Northwest Territories. And I woke up to Wayne and I said, did I say anything weird in my sleep? Because I woke myself up a couple times. We all did. And I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. But I don't dream a lot. Tell them. Or remember them. Yeah. But I had like three or four nights in a row the same exact thing you're saying. I'm like, I don't know where this is coming from. I think wolves and coyotes are the most missed animals in the world. Easily. Yeah. About the. There's grown men. A lot of grown men.

We know about the TV screens or whatever when you start. Oh, that was my theory. Oh, your theory. My theory was like we look at phones. We're always like all day stimulated. And I was telling these guys, I'm like, I wonder if it's like our mind is doing that on its own because we haven't. It's called a dopamine detox when you do that. Whoa. It's a real thing. Yeah. What? So instead of watching all these reels and stuff we see all the time, we go to sleep and our mind like. So like he's playing out reels. Wyatt kept dreaming about a moose that was like the size of a dinosaur. I did. And we could never catch up every night. In town. In town in the subdivision. It was an ongoing story in the subdivision. He stepped on a tent and was crashing. This is Wyatt's last town experience was frightful. This is a thing. A dopamine want, Logan? It's called a dopamine detox when you do that.

Like Instagram, TV, whatever, all those things that entertain you constantly. Well, and the other thing I had going for me is I about probably a month or so before I went, I wasn't feeling the results quite like I wanted on my training. So I quit Monster in like June. Just quit it. Maybe that. Maybe that'll help. And then I go up there and had another. So maybe it was detoxing from that plus whatever other stimuli. It could be your, I think it's been four months. Somebody told me it could be your diet too. Probably. Well, at least it wasn't pure Snickers, right? Why? It wasn't pure Snickers this trip. Yeah. You guys had some food. We actually ate pretty good. Yeah.

Like, it sounds exciting. Here's our daily intake. All right. So do we have anything else? I don't know. There's lots of stuff. I mean, it just was, yeah. Grind, you didn't see the, hey, let's talk, there's one moment that a lot of barrels got pointed at a swamp donkey, probably. We called one in. Yeah, we called one in. Thought it might happen. Thanks to Wyatt's superhuman ears. He's like, when he looked at me, Wyatt looks at me. I mean, we're talking, for those of you who are listening, we're talking 20 days, 22 days actually, right? From morning till night, Colin looking at a wall of trees, and out of nowhere, Wyatt goes, I heard something. And I could see in his eyes, like, he freaking heard something. This is not a lie. I grabbed my rifle, take that cover off, whatever janky thing I had on there. These guys had some cool rain covers.

And I'm like, kind of going behind us around like this little, I mean, tiny little, like 40 yards, because he said, I heard it. And you know he did. I know he did. I could see it in his eyes. And I turned the corner, and this bull's standing there. 35, 40 yards, and he's just, I mean. And I'm still trying to get Pollock's attention. Yeah, I turned. Kevin's got this bull dead for 10 minutes. No, I turned instantly. I'm like, Josh, like, you know, he's looking at me, and I'm like, and he comes up, and he's, boom, he's on him. The bull's standing there. The bull turns, walks away, and we're looking, making sure he's legal and everything. And I go, you know, I gave him a call, and he turns. Give us the call. I can't remember what I did. Just like a grunt. Just a little moan. Oh, grunt. Maybe I did. I moaned, I think. I went, oh, like something. And he just turned him. And he was 3-3.

And you got to be 4 there. Where do you guys run? It would be nice to be 4 on one side. Yeah. Probably mid-50s. But I don't know. You know, it's hard to say. 35 yards, 40 yards. I mean, it's hard. Yeah. And I was looking through my binals. And they put my binals down and really look at it. And Josh is like. I was on like 12 power. And if it's not legal, you can already. I was just looking through the scope. I didn't even put binals up. I was just looking through the scope like 12 power. And it was like September 8th. So we got a lot of time left, right? Yeah. And we let him walk. And yeah. That well. And then you saw a cow and a calf. We saw those a couple times. Yeah, multiple cows and calves. Yeah. It was a good time. It was. It was a good time. You guys are all. I mean, we're here at the podcast table together. It was a good gig. Oh, yeah. I mean, spending that kind of time together.

Three dudes and one tent. Oh. You've got to tell the story about my one job. I felt really bad. And I've seen Wyatt get angry before. But I've never seen his eyes turn red. Like, what? His whole face. His whole face and eyes turned red. I'll tell him. Because I witnessed the bull. And he looked at me like, are you shizzing me right now? What happened, Wyatt? Well, here it goes, Josh. It was more like an oh. As opposed to are you shitting me right now? Yeah. I almost threw up. I felt bad. What happened? Josh. We get back to Anchorage on the day we're trying to get home. And it's like 530 at night. What's your head at home? We hadn't slept for two days. Mentally, you're. You can't get there fast. Yes. And the other thing is, this was kind of a weird thing, too. Once we all went on airplane mode, we didn't want on airplane mode.

Like, literally, we hadn't done anything other than text and inreach. Yeah. These days, to do that for that many days, it's really weird. And none of us, like, dared to go off airplane mode. We got back to the lodge. They had Starlink. And we were like, not yet. Do I really start this? It's going to ruin a day. Yes. Just enjoy the night. It's a mess. So anyway, but when we had to get back to Anchorage, we had to start working on flights and some Uber stuff and whatever. So we got on that and got going. And then. We all had our own jobs, you know? Yeah. And so we started looking up flights. And Devin's like, I got this. I'll do it. You know, we're driving. I got this home last time. Like, you know. Red Eye flight. Middle of the night. What was Wyatt's job? He's like, I felt. He was driving. Wyatt directs. I was driving. He was driving. He's driving saying, Devin, you do this.

Josh, you do this. Wyatt had a ride. What was her name? Bella? No. In 30 seconds. Like Uber. No joke. He owned his job. Yeah. Bertha. Bertha picked him up. He went to get a truck for us. It was. Wyatt crushed his job. So we're getting back in the truck. We're driving back to the house to get our guns. Take a shower. Because, you know, it had been 22 days, obviously. We probably wanted to do that before I got on a plane. You didn't even shower at the lodge? No. No, because we were borderline going to leave at any minute kind of thing. Oh, okay. You know? And anyway. So we didn't shower there. But we're going. And Devin's like, I got the flights right here. There's one that goes out tonight at 1155. Do you think that'll be a good enough time? And we're like, oh, yeah. That should be plenty of time. Give us four or five hours. We can go eat, shower, get back there. And he's like, okay.

I'm going to book it. I'm like, yeah. Sounds good. And Wyatt looks at me and says, do we trust him? Do we? Yeah. He said, do we? Out loud. No. Out loud. So Devin can hear. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Hurt and feeling. And I was like, Wyatt. And I'm like, I've done harder things than this in my life before. You know? Of course you can trust me. Who do you think I am? And I was like, Wyatt, this is the checker of the office. Like, this guy doesn't miss anything. He doesn't miss anything. Like, this is the guy that checks the checkers. Like, it's, no, he doesn't need help. Remember the organization of his truck? Yeah. I'm like, he's the last guy in this truck. There's a tire plug out of place. But you're wondering if he's, it's 11.55 a.m. the next day at midday. You're wondering things like that. I had taken some Dremamine. I was under the influence of Dremamine. Okay? I felt weird. You felt weird.

We were tired. We hadn't slept. Okay? And I just started looking at flights. And it was the 19th or something. That was that day. Yeah. And the red-eye flights are all the 20th. So when I'm scrolling, whatever, I get this flight. And I said, how about 11.55? That's midnight. We'll get in Salt Lake at 9, 10 in the morning. Well, that's the next night. Well, we go to the airport. A day or 24 hours early? We get there at 9.30. And Devin's like, I know it's kind of early. We get up to the lady. All three of us, she's going to check us in at a time because we have all of our stuff. You're 26 hours early? Is it probably too early? Was there something about time blindness? Yeah. Yeah, we should have probably heated that a little more. So we get up there. And Devin's like, I know it's a couple hours early, but can we check in for our flight? She's like, oh, yeah, no problem. Let me look you up.

Well, because sometimes if you get there too early, they want me to check in. Yeah, two or three hours. And so she's looking up. She's like, I don't see you. Do you have your confirmation? And Wyatt's already losing his mind. No, I'm good right now. Devin's like, I just booked it. It might not have shown up already. I had my confirmation on my phone. So I gave her my phone. She was really nice. It's Alaska Airlines. I wish we knew her name. Shout out to her. They were awesome. And they were, she's like, oh, here you are. Oh, yeah, I see that. That's 11.55 tomorrow night. She goes, no, first she said, well, who booked these for you? Yeah. Both of these guys go, he did.

And I'm confused. She's like, I still am like, what is the problem? And she's like, well, you're a day early. I'm like, what do you mean? And that's when I kind of, Wyatt kind of like, turned out. You start seeing smoke come out of the ears. His face went red. I know my face was red because I was like, we're going to sleep in an airport all day. Not only am I not going to make it home, but now I've made Wyatt mad. I wasn't mad. I was just caught off guard. Like, what? You have one job. I had one job. And we're not just going home to go home, too. Like, you had a birthday party. Like, we had things going on in our lives. Like, we've been gone for a long time, but we are going to be home. Three and a half weeks, you guys have been gone. This is why I paused and said, do we trust? Because Devin has time blindness. It may be true. So what did you do for 26 hours? Of course. No, she was cool.

She changed it. There was room? We went on a flight at, what was it, 155? Yeah, so it pushed us an hour later. We were an hour and a half later than we would have been. Oh, no, you're good. I wish we knew her name. Alaska Airlines. They were great. She even didn't make me pay for my heavy bag. Yeah. Yeah. Or your carry-on. Josh, did you take enough gear? Yeah, I did. That was good. What does that mean? I was just wondering. I didn't use half of it. Josh is the most prepared guy in the world. There was nothing extra, wasn't there? He was. He has solar that works when there's no sun. His solar panel was as tall as me. It was awesome. Charging your stuff. Everybody was on it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. How about this? It was like a sow pig, and these guys were just suckling off and up the whole time. Just USBs everywhere. I never once plugged into your solar. What? Not one time. You had your own? Yeah.

Oh. Solar? Did you have your own solar? I had my own. Or a battery? I had my own. I had battery packs on top of battery packs. Yeah. Well, after the in-reach incident of 2021, you weren't going to have a repeat. How about this? We fly into Seattle, and we're on the next plane, and we really, you know how they have zones? We're like zone E. Okay? A, B, C, D, E. F is like everybody else. Like, if you're F, like, you're F. You're next to the bathroom. You're next to the public bathroom. F. Oh, it's Wyatt is a fan. No, F is cargo. Yeah. So, we all have our hunting packs. That's our carry-on, like, strapped tight as we can get them, as small as we can, so we're not a nuisance. Josh's was... Rather large. 6,000 cubic inches bursting. So, I sit down. I sat behind these guys in that flight because I wanted a window seat, you know?

And I'm sitting there, and Josh is like, we somehow had room to put our packs, and Josh is kind of fighting his. And we all fought our packs, but Josh was struggling. And there's people behind me, and some guy, that ain't no carry-on.

And some other guy's like, call that a carry-on? And I can hear them, and they're just like, you ain't gonna get that in there. I was like, I'm gonna show you what I'm doing. That ain't gonna fit. And your teeth are off. That's when you look at them right in the eye and say, I fit dead bodies in smaller places than that. Yeah, that's right.

It was pretty funny. Oh, jeez. Good times were had by all. Some dude right in front... I mean, it's just like some dude right in front of us on that next flight, he came in, giant dude. Like, he was twice the size of the dude that was gonna kill Wyatt in the stall. Like, he was massive. His head was dragging on the top of the plane. His shoulders were wider than... Wow. He comes down, and he's like, you're in my seat, to the guy right in front of us. The guy's like, no, I'm not. And somehow they'd, like, booked two guys for the same seat, and flight attendants were trying to get it figured out. He's like, okay, sir, would you be okay to sit in number 17 to the guy that was already sitting there? He's like, yeah, that's fine. And this big dude had this little bag, like, this big. And they're like... A little pink backpack. Yeah, they're like, okay, sit down.

And he's, like, trying to find space above, and they're like, sir, everything is full. You either put it at your feet, or you're gonna have to check it, and you can get it at the next place. He's like, go. There's my chihuahua. Anyway, long story short, he left the plane. What? Because he couldn't... He didn't want to leave his bag. What's in that bag? What's in that bag? And Wyatt just was like this, because he doesn't want another incident. Yeah. Wyatt is not making eye contact. I've just never seen a person just turn around and walk off him. How did he compare to maybe that big feller we saw down there? Very... Shot show. Similar. Similar. Similar. The bouncer. Really? He had a Washington football shirt on. Yeah, this dude... There's no way he wasn't a defensive linebacker. Yeah, he was a Washington football team. Okay. So he rivaled the bouncer for hogs and heifers.

His head wasn't as big or whatever, but he was a big dude. Yeah. He was... He was some sort of a retired NFL football player. 100%. He was huge. Wow. And we made it home. Miracle number four happened, and we made it home. Yep. We're glad you guys did. There's some tender mercies to be had by all. Good to be back. Wyatt, are you back into your routine? 629, I have a bagel and a half an egg. Getting it figured out, for sure. Hey. I'm on a regular. When you got home, your boy... What was he doing, Wyatt? Heard he's running around the place now. He's walking, yeah. That's awesome. He turned one and started walking about two days before I got home, so now he's all over. What's the saying? Not that's cool. What's the saying? Oh, wow. Oh, is it? Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, wow. Dad's home. Wow. Who's dad? Who's dad? Who's dad? He didn't like my full beard.

I had a pretty bushy beard when I got home, and he wasn't a big fan of that, so... What are you... You didn't really hold him, huh? Intimidated him a little bit? Yeah. Yeah, he's come around, though. We've had some good times since. He's fine. Okay, let's break this up. Devin, take it away for a quick sec. Oh, yeah. Shout out to Red Rock. Red Rock. I actually have a Red Rock, and I brought it to Alaska. It's no joke. Fired at one time? Yeah, I fired it twice. I shot a target and then airballed a wolf. Yeah, currently it's 0 for 1. 0 for 1 so far with mine, but that was human error. That doesn't count. For sure. It doesn't count. And, yeah, today I actually, we sold one to a fellow, a member, and he emailed me today. We were talking about barrel twists, but he shot it over the weekend and said, with factory ammo, it's unbelievable at 1,000. It's perfect. Wow. Jeez. So, yeah. Just got it.

Remember what caliber he was shooting? It was a 7 PRC. Awesome. 26-inch barrel. It was, yeah, he just was unbelievable. So, they make an awesome rifle. I really enjoy mine. I haven't killed anything with it yet, but maybe someday. The season's still young. It's sweet. We took it out of the range, what, three or four times before we went to Alaska, and I mean, it's just a shooting sucker. It is. Yep. Redrockprecision.com, if you're interested. Well, one thing I think you were talking about, Devin, is the proof of the time, because on our invoices, my invoice, I have all of the build out. This is my load. This is the recipe. The whole recipe, in addition to all the details, just, and my recipe differs from yours, and they're all the same caliber. And there's a lot of companies out there that you have to buy their ammo, or they don't tell you what it is, right? Yeah.

Because they want you to keep coming back. Yeah. And they'll tell you what it is, and the thing that's interesting is all of these rifles that are the same caliber, it proves how much time goes into those recipes, because none of them are the same. Just like no rifle is the same. Yeah. So, they are truly dialed what that rifle loves. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. All right. Josh, take it away. Yeah. We just want to thank Zeiss for making some pretty awesome scopes. I think all of us had a Zeiss scope, haven't we? Multiple. Yeah. On our rifles that we took up there, and love them. They're pretty awesome. I love, the thing I love about their scopes is just the different reticles. You know, there's several of them, and they kind of are reticles that make sense. The options. I've been shooting some of those Conquest V4s, and I've got one that's got illumination on

it, and that was really nice just to kick it on. I don't know, sometimes it just really helps to just train your eye. You know, it kind of lines your eye up a little bit with where you're at. Sometimes those reticles can look a little busier. Well, I think, too, you had an incredible experience with that illumination. Yep. Yeah, it was the only reason I was able to kill that buck. So, you know, especially in some low light or some things like that, you know, they're awesome. It's hard when you have a dark reticle and a dark body on a dark evening. So, without, I mean, now, I don't want to buy another rifle scope without illumination of some kind. You don't have to always have it on. You can turn it on, turn it off, adjust the brightness of that. They're very affordable, very accurate. Try shooting a black bear in a shadow area. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Seriously.

I mean, try to get in a black car, sir, on a black bear in a shadow. Probably some of the scopes we sell the most of, and a lot of people like them. Very popular. So, if you're looking for a new scope or anything, you know, they just came out with those new HDX, Conquest HDX binos, and they're really awesome. Really good, affordable price, too. Gosh, you bought into those. The what? Those HDXs. No, that was Logan. Oh, Logan. I've got one. Logan did, yeah. Oh. A pair binoculars? You like them? 10x42 HDX. They're legit, aren't they? Yeah. They're putting abuse. Good. Yeah, used them hard over the last month, and I love them, for sure. That's awesome. And Snoop Dogg would say, you know, if you join our membership, you know, you pay for it three times, you know, in your discounts. Yeah. What was the word he used? Save some cheddar. Save some cheddar. That's right. Save you cheddar.

When it comes to Epic Outdoors, it's on another level, baby, straight up. And the illest part? That member discount when you scoop up some optics, man, it's off the charts. Faux real. Now, that member discount? Bruh, it's massive. We talking crazy. Blow your mind savings. You get yourself a fresh pair of binoculars, and bam. You stack in enough cheddar to cover your epic membership like three times over easy. You feel me? It's that kind of deal. I don't know how you guys did. Did you guys come up with the little whatever and then run it through? Did you, like, write it out? Script. I'm not going to give the secrets, but... Yeah. That was authentic Snoop. No, no. Jason, I think... If you just use... At some point, if we ever... If Jason ever had a down day, we might come up with a little something, something. All I can think of is da-da-da-da. That's what's up. And you fill in the blank.

You know, I'm not going to say it.

Yeah. No, there was some talent, I think, that went into the production as well. You know, the normal... You just wouldn't have got as good a product. I don't know. I appreciate it. So where are we at on the kill spectrum? I think... Was there an elk or two that died? Maybe Joshua? Let's get to a hunt that we talk about death. All right. Josh, take it over. Okay. Let's... Let's... We just covered right there about 45 days or 50 in those two hunts. Nothing died. Okay? Well, I mean, we had another podcast where Josh, John, Cash... But that was before these. Maybe John wasn't, I guess. He was in the middle. But I mean, these two hunts we just talked about... Did you guys think about eating the porcupine or anything? No. Geez. Jason? They're just... Did you fish? Wait. There was no fish. Devin killed a squirrel with a slingshot. Well... What? We were... It's unconfirmed.

He was getting in our food. And I brought a slingshot in case we needed grouse meat. A grouse. Had to survive. Yes. Grouse were spooked. They were hunted by... They would literally fly, I mean, across the river and in the trees. And this owl was trying to kill them every morning. So they weren't the dumb ones that you just want to... Yeah. I just winged it to the squirrel, you know? Yeah. Quit eating our... Yeah. Quit eating our cheddar.

It wasn't a success story. All right. All right. Let's move along. Josh, you had a success story after you got home within, I guess, days. So, yeah. We were pushing... That was one of the things we were trying to get home for, too. You know, I had an elk tag here in Utah that I'd found out about. And so we were pushing to get home for that because, basically, we got home. I mean, by the time we got to the airport, we flew to Salt Lake, drove home. It was late Friday night. And then I had Saturday, Sunday. My hunt started Monday. So, obviously, I had to get some things put together and stuff done. I mean, I was doing laundry. Introduce yourself to your kids. Yep. Yep. Wife again. Just, like, getting gear. Like, it was not... There was no relaxing. I don't know what you've heard, but my name's Dad. Yeah. I don't know who that other guy was, but I'm Dad. I'm Dad.

Get the other guy out of your minds. Give me some mac and cheese. So, anyway, yeah, it was kind of a whirlwind, I'd say, day and a half. I had to do a bunch of shopping. Anyway, it was nice to be back in... Tweaking a muzzleloader, probably. Yeah. Yep. I had to... I went and double-shot or double-checked the muzzleloader in the process. And it was nice to be sleeping back in a bed with a wood stove and some of those kind of things that you miss. Running water, sitting on a toilet. Your own toilet. Yeah. I didn't have to put a pistol on to go out to the toilet. But that was a story. I forgot about that story. You slept walked out in the night. No. So, he goes out there and... Pretty much. I don't want to go back. Actidental discharge. I don't want to go back because we were there. But it actually does... Kind of goes in with another moose we potentially had in the county with.

There's a bathroom story. No wonder Wyatt has problems. Wyatt, I don't blame you. It always... It's always raining there. So, when you're sitting there in the tent, no matter what time it is, if it's raining, you're like, ah, trying to plan like a bathroom break. Okay. It sounds like it's kind of letting up. So, this is... Josh has... This is twice a night sometimes. Josh's bathroom breaks. I'm the old guy. Like, I'm the old guy, but I'm trying to drink like twice the amount of water to soak up, to push peak refuels through your body faster. So, I'm drinking a lot of water, and I'm an old dude, so I have to now get up several times during the night. I never have to at home. But I do there. There's a whole system to this. Evan's thinking you need a prostate check. There's a whole... There is a whole system to this. Like, hey... It was only one time, and I said, dude, are you all right?

I was worried about him. Yeah. But that was one time. I mean, if he needs to be checked, he needs to go to town. I didn't even hear him leave the tent this night. I had earplugs in. I was asleep. So, we got to the new spot. Once again, Wyatt. One of the first night in our new spot. So, and we got there fairly... Like, it was... The sun was about to go down by the time we got there, got set up. It was... We didn't have much time. And we didn't have time to establish where we were going to... The bathroom. The bathroom. The new enchanted forest. Yes. At another spot, we had an enchanted forest. We all had our stud piles we went to, and... Oh, my gosh. Wow. It looked like the Southwest Desert walking back there. We started. Wow. Wow. There are a lot of stud piles out there. So, we're at this new place. So, I'm just like, I've got to just get away from camp.

But I'm not walking into the trees. Because this is at 1 o'clock in the morning, and there's stuff that needs to happen. And it's something that I have to walk farther than just, you know, 20 feet out of the tent for. And you know this is an emergency. It's misting rain. It's 1 in the morning, and Josh goes outside. And you feel bad for him. I feel terrible for him. I'm not teasing him anymore. I had to get... His prostate's got problems. No, this is not that. It's mouths. He had the chili. He's running somewhere. He had the chili made on a bad day. And that peak refuel's coming out. He had chicken curry that day. So, it's like 1 in the morning. I wait until about 1 in the morning, because it sounds like the rain's finally letting up. Then I'm like, I just have to do it. So, I get fully clothed, rain gear and everything, just to walk. What are you thinking all this time? Me? I'm sleeping.

You're doing fine. Me? I'll do fine. So, I put on my headlamp and my pistol, which at that point, I just had my bino harness. So, I'm at 1 o'clock in the morning putting on a bino harness to go out to the bathroom. Do you keep one in the pipe? Oh, absolutely. He's a law enforcement guy, Jason. I can just picture him. They wake up. It falls out. You go to grab it. If I'm wet, I'm worried. It is locked in tight. It never came out. It never came out. That's a pop. And so, I get out of the tent, and I go just down the beach, probably 200 yards. I'm like, this is probably far enough, whatever. And I just, like I always do. You turn, look around. Yes. As if there's any eyes staring at me. I do a 360. I'd almost be going in the water. Like, put your feet at the edge. Well, I would drink the water. Yep, the water's flowing.

So, that's why I went downstream a ways at the edge, and I stop and just do a 360. Looking for eyes. As I turn this way, there's something glowing. What? Eyes. Eyes? I wasn't sure, because, like I said, your minds do weird things. And I'm like, is that a light from a camp, like a long ways away? And then you're like, in the middle of nowhere. Pine trees. I'm going to shoot. I'm going to shoot. You think you're alone. Yes. But you're wondering, is this? And I'm like, is it a star? I just, I didn't know what I was looking into, because I had never walked down there yet. Can I interrupt you real quick? Go ahead. Wyatt also told Josh. I can't believe we can't get past this experience. Didn't you say that the moose eyes do not glow or something? I did. I'd heard that. Yeah. That's what we have Googled. We have Googled it since. It's been Googled. Is it true? Why are you Googled it?

And it's, they do not glow in headlights, because they're so high up that your vehicle headlights won't hit them. And that's why so many boos get in. That's what Wyatt was thinking of. Spread apart. Yeah. And so Josh, in his mind, is like, moose eyes don't glow. So I'm turning, and we've had, and there's grizzly tracks everywhere you go. Every beach you go to, there's grizzly tracks. So I'm like, okay. I'm sitting there staring at it. It's maybe 75 yards. And I don't know if it's on a little bit of a hill. I could tell it's tall or it's up on a hill. And I'm just like, I don't know. And they were unlike any other kind of eyes I'd ever seen. They weren't like a green, like a deer. But they weren't really red, like sometimes a coyote or a dog or something like that, kind of pinkish color. So I'm like. What were they? It was like this weird yellow kind of color. Yellow eyes?

And they were really bright. Can you Google them? That's a feeling. That's a feeling. I don't remember the book Yellow Eyes? No. All right. Yeah. They were really bright. And they were wide. Spread wide. They were big. I mean, they were big. And I was just like, well, I've got decisions to make here. And then I'm like, are they eyes? And then all of a sudden, you can tell it like turns. And they kind of like disappear for a second. So I'm like. And you're like. Sasquatch. And then I was like, okay, where'd it go? And it's coming to me in the brush. So, yeah. This is like 50 yards. And you're at 1.30 in the morning. Yes. Wyatt's sleeping. Devin's got air plugs in. Yes. Wyatt isn't armed. Devin won't even hear the gun go off. You're the low-range speaker in the tent to alarm them. Something may be happening. And all of a sudden, your prostate's fine. Just like that.

All of a sudden, chicken curry. I feel a lot better. I don't have to go anymore.

Chili Mac, it's doing fine. Anyway, I take a step back. And it turns back to me. So I'm like, okay, it's still there, whatever it is. But I was like, whether it's a bull moose or a grizzly, either one. I don't want to bump it, whatever it is. So I go back the other way, get it taken care of. Closer to the tent. And so I'm like, I kind of wanted to tell these guys. Walk tracks. But they're sleeping because it's 1 in the morning. But did you go closer to the tent? Like, was there safety in the tent? No, I just, well, I went back the other, just the other side of the tent. So did you go verify tracks like the next morning? Well, no. So then the next morning, it was like barely starting to crack light. And Wyatt gets up to go out of the tent. We always had like a fog check every morning because there's just like, you know. There's like. Wyatt's the meteorologist. Yeah.

I think it's going to rain today. Oh, wow. Devin's getting weather updates every 15 minutes at a buck a piece or two bucks a piece. That's true. You can only play solitaire so long. So what do you do? You update the weather. Well, come to find out, I had the premium button on. A dollar every time. I paid $104. And that was only through the first week. Miranda texted you. He was like, hey, why are we getting this charge? Yeah. Anyways, we'll see what happens on the next one. But yeah. That's funny. So Wyatt goes out and we're like, well, Wyatt, what did you see out here? There's a bull out here. How many times did we hear? What are you seeing out there, Wyatt? Oh, just a couple of bulls fighting. But if you guys want to just sit there. So he's crying wolf totally. Yeah. Never believe Wyatt. Dude, we're sitting there BSing in the tent, like putting our socks on nice and slow. You know?

Well, the first time I whispered, like, guys, there's a bull out here. I can hear it. And then nobody moved. And then I said, guys, there's a bull out here. Look at your butt. Yeah. The first time you said, guys, there's a bull out here. Yeah. Just like you've done 400 times previous. Every time you left the tent. This is the whole cry wolf situation. Then he said, you guys, I heard a bull out here. Listen to me. Here's something. Look at me in my eyes. And that's when we were like, we better get ready. So, yeah, anyway. So do you think what you saw was a bull? It was. Did Wyatt actually see a bull? We tracked it back. There was a big bull track there. You saw a bull? Or heard it? No, I heard it. Going up through the pines, what, 60 yards? It was 60 yards. I kept just breaking stuff. Yeah. You guys called. Couldn't get it to come in, right?

Yeah, so we went and called and tried to get it to come in, and we just couldn't get it to come out of the box. Yeah, it just didn't work. So then you went back to where you encountered it in the dark, and it was. It's tracks. There were moose tracks. Yeah, there was a bull track that came off the ridge and actually came right to our tent. Probably saw the tent and turned up. Just be in the dark. Jeez. Yeah. Anyway. All right, so back to Utah. Yeah. The Wapiti. Yeah. So anyway, I got back, and just so I didn't have for a whole month, obviously, I was gone. So I didn't have a whole lot of time to scout before. Obviously, trail cameras I did have for about a month. Josh, you scouted like crazy all summer. Every day to work. Well, I did. Well, I did every day, but I just mean, then you up and leave for a month, and I scouted

bulls in July and August, and that's about the time they start leaving. So who knows where any of these bulls were going to be. So all of that work was for nothing? Well. You got to judge the size. That's what it gauged me was like, okay, this is kind of the top end. This is the middle end. This is what it's good. And it was looking good. Like, honestly, the bulls looked really good this year. And so that gave me an idea of, and there were a couple bulls that I had set saying, if I see that bull, I'm just going to shoot it outright and not even ask questions, you know, kind of thing. So. This is coming from a guy that's killed a four, what is it? 16 or 18. Yeah. Big. Big. Big. Slobby. So, but I, you know, I was also wanting to be realistic with it. So, I mean, obviously everybody wants to kill a bull that big, but I had never found a bull that big during scouting.

I'd heard that maybe there might be some, but I never did see one, didn't know where it was at. So I knew where kind of what my top end was for what I'd seen. And that was what I said. So I don't know. Which was? 380. 380. Okay. Yeah. And that was my goal. Grosser, grosser. I said, yes. Yeah. I was like, if I could kill a 380 bull, that'd be, that'd be great for me. Anyway, I don't know. I don't. We found some bulls. Just the lucky, the good thing about it is I've hunted this unit a lot for deer. Spike hunted it, you know, general season. I think that's why we talk a lot about. It's your backyard. Yeah. Talk a lot about going to a unit and just learning it. Even if different seasons, if you go, think you're going to be drawing an elk tag, go general season hunt it. Never know when they're going to call you for a turn back. Yeah, exactly.

So you just go, go hunt it when you can and learn it if you think you're wanting to go. And because of that, I was able to have some knowledge of where bulls are going to be and some of that kind of stuff. Let's face it. You're the king of that unit, dude. Nope. But I knew where right to start. And so we got out Sunday night, got to go out and look and started finding some bulls. And I got, this is perfect. They were just starting to get going pretty good. Sounded like the archery hunt and the early rifle hunt was a struggle for a lot of guys. Just stuff not rutting too great. But by the muzzleloader hunt, which is pretty awesome. They were rutting good. So for the first two days, just tried to weed through bugles and find bulls. Actually, I found one of the bulls that I'd said in my mind, yeah, that's the one I'm going to kill. And I didn't kill him. I attempted it.

Define attempt. It was as close to killing an elk as you could get without killing an elk. I guess you could say. Because I know, I know legally, attempt to take. Adam was pretty transparent with Nick. I shot twice. So what did you do, Wyatt? Or what did you do? There might be a bull called Nick as well. Josh. A lot of Nicks. Nobody's getting away without full transparency on this here podcast. Going to the one power thing was a significant change. And so I'm shooting that loophole. He's setting everybody up for it. That loophole red dot scope. And it was confusing. Oh, no. It's simple. You range, you dial, you pull the trigger.

But you're just, yeah, you don't have a variable. Is there such a thing called bull fever? Oh, there is. But the first shot, I'll say, I got down on this bull. He did not what I thought he was going to do to the point where I ended up, I was waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, and he never came out. So I made the decision to move out to the side a little bit. And as I did, he was standing there looking at me. He barked at me. I don't think he knew what I was because I was trying to stay low to the ground. And he barked at me and then bugled. But all I could see was like the top of his head and his antlers. He had gone over this little rise that I hadn't seen. I tried to range him, but I was hitting either his face or the ridge in front of him and then the ridge behind him. So it was like anywhere from 130 to 190. Normally, you would just, with a rifle, you'd hold on him.

It's not that big a deal. But 190, you need to start dialing. So he started to walk up that ridge. And I didn't really know exactly where I was hitting. But anyway, he walked up broadside right there. So I'm like, okay, that ridge was 190. So I dialed for 190. And I'm guessing, say, right over the top of it. And obviously, you can't tell because there's so much smoke. But he just turned and started walking like it was nothing. So I hurried and reloaded. By the time I got reloaded, he'd walked up the ridge. He was quartering away. I ranged him at just under 290. And when you would go to put that red dot on a bull at 290, I'd practiced out to even four. I'd shot that gun at four. But at about 300 yards, honestly, that's about the max as far as I was literally holding right behind the shoulder. He was quartered away. So I was holding rib cage right behind the shoulder.

And it was covering up the whole thing. You almost need to use top of dot like what I'm doing with open sight. But it's hard to do that. Yep. It's hard to do that like you've never done that with a skull your whole life. Then you're turning your brightness down so it's barely showing because it's not star bursting. Yeah. And that's all. I don't have time to do that. I'm just going to send one. Yeah. Right? Send it. And what'd you do? I send it. I like it. And freaking whopped him. Boom. He like takes two steps back. Oh, the video is impressive. Yeah. His butt end kind of like goes down. And I was like, oh, he's hammered him. And I wasn't. And this was one of the bulls, like I said, that I'd said. Everybody, we're going to pause for a break. We've got the V8 plus energy drain. Okay, go ahead. So I'm like, I'm going to shoot him.

So, but it, what it did was as I go to reload the second time, as I go to reload the second time, I look up and he's at about 500 yards just on a slow walk. He's fine. Slow walk away from me. He's looking for a cow. Like it was, oh yeah. Stop. He even bugled. He's looking around back where the bugles are coming from. So this happened to get videoed. And we look at it. A little ruffled hair. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. My brother was doing awesome video on the whole time and stayed right on it. He was not hurt. And it just, what it did was, you don't realize how much of a hump those elk have in their back. Above their spine. Yes. Above their spine. Right behind the shoulder. And that's where it hit him. Was right behind the shoulder, above the spine. You know, those vertebrae sticking up off the back. Yeah. They're huge. You know. Buffalo is like a foot and a half. Those are amazing.

But anyway. So what it did, looking at the video, I was shooting a pill at him and I think it just clipped right off the top of his back. Maybe shocked him. There was no blood. Shock. Yeah. There was no blood. I got up there. I followed him. It about knocked him to the ground. Then he gets up and walks off like, that was kind of awkward. Yeah. It was the weirdest thing. That was a weird itch I had. I didn't see it, obviously, because I had my head down reloading. But watching the video, I was like, that's just unbelievable. I followed him for quite a ways. I think you guys talked about it on the last podcast, trying to keep up to an elk. Oh, you can't do it. I was trying to kill him and I just couldn't get 200 yards. I couldn't close it and it's thick trees. And anyway, finally, he went kind of down and around this ridge and I lost him.

So I went back, tried to follow blood, followed his tracks. He never even bled. Like, it was pretty weird. So I was confident that he was still good to go. And then a couple days later, my brother found these two other bulls that we were kind of trying to decide. Like, if I see either one of those bulls, I'll probably kill them. And we went in that morning and going along. And it's just burnt trees mixed with a few live trees, ponderosa, some spruce fir, and then a lot of baby aspen and stuff. Saw the one, the bull I shot, saw him pretty soon right off the back, kind of at the back of this meadow. And I looked at him. I'm like, man, he looks good from the video. I'd only seen the video that my brother had taken. And so I wanted to see him in person because I guess the day before there was a bull that from 1,000 yards we'd seen. Well, I sent you guys a video.

He had that big, like, split cheater off the side. I mean, he looked big. Yeah. I mean, he looked like a great bull. But then in real life. Had that big split cheater. As I actually tried to get in on him, he actually got into a fight with another bull and broke his fifth and sixth off the side with the cheater. He did. And I was a couple hundred yards from it when it happened. But anyway, I got in there close to him just to double check. And he was less than 100 yards. And no, I was like, wow, he looks young. It was pretty weird. I got some good video out to show you it, too, because it was pretty surprising. Like that deer I saw, same thing. It was like, you wouldn't believe you're looking at the same deer, but it's 100% identical. Two cheaters out both sides. Same location. The buck you went to find. Yeah, the one that we talked about earlier. And you were just like, oh, I'm not.

I can't shoot that. We didn't even put the buck in our binos. Just put their naked eye. I mean, you're like, well, that's not. And he's like a 7x9 or whatever he was. I don't know. You know? Yep. So I wanted to make sure I put some eyes on everything that I shot before. And I was obviously wanting to be a little bit selective. Knowing I'd probably have to make some hard decisions, too, with some great bulls. Because there were a lot of great bulls this year that most, you know, you just shoot on most units. So I saw him. And then about that same time, this other bull that I wanted to get a look at is like running around up on this upper edge. And so I'm like, well, geez, they're right here. And the bull that I shot, he was kind of funny. The fact that he never, he would bugle. He was wallowing. But he never was getting crazy chasing.

There was some other bulls that were chasing all the cows around. And he never really, like, got in there and mixed it up, per se. He's going to wait. When I walk down there, there's going to be one in heat. Yeah. And so he was just always at the backside that night before my brother saw him. And then that morning, they were getting up into the trees because it was pretty hot. So they were getting up into the trees. And we get up on that other bull. And I'm like, these are roughly, like, similar size bulls. You know? So that other bull, that other bull broke his second off. And so I was like, well, that other bull, the bull I shot, ended up shooting. I was like, he's a pretty bull. You're starting to realize things are breaking on a daily basis. Yes. We got the big hooker. Yes. I call him whatever. The kickstand bull. Yes. Right? He's starting to break. He breaks his beam halfway off.

Then you got a second coming off. Then pretty soon, you're just like, okay, there's a lot of bulls. Every bull was breaking. Even some of the heavier bulls. There was another bull that literally, and they were breaking before your eyes. Like, they'd get into the trees, come out, and one's missing a fourth. So I'm like, man, this is going to happen. And so, anyway, I was like. You're watching a .380 go to a .320. Yes. Yeah. And you're like, I'm not going to shoot that one. But it was a .380 bull. We can build that back. You're kind of a taxidermist. We can do that. And that's what I thought. I was seriously like. I know a good taxidermist. I'm going to shoot this other bull. He's got stuff. I can fix his second. I know what he was. He had a split kicker. It's not the same, guy. I got proof. It's not the same. Yeah. And so I almost went to shoot him. Another bull came off the hill.

He ran him up the hill. So I'm like, gosh, dang it. I'm just going to go kill this other bull. Like, he was. Josh is kind of sending us texts, and we're like, this guy's going to kill somebody. Get out of his way. Yes. Yeah. Well, he just spent three weeks in a while. I don't want to say you're trigger happy, but Adam told me. He says, just spent. Them guys have been in a tent for three and a half weeks. Just spent three weeks in Alaska. In a tent. And now you're back, and you're on your home turf with some familiar bulls. Yeah. And it's another 12-day season. Adam's like, he'll be done in nothing. Flat. Let's just say, I went back up. I met with my brother, and his words were, because I just left, and I said, I'm going to go kill that other bull. And he's like, in his words, where he's like. This is a family podcast. Something. He was like, no.

He's just like, I could tell when you left something was going to die. Like, I was pissed. I was pissed. Like, I was pissed, because I had, like, probably passed up a bull. Dog these others. I shouldn't. Yeah. And then now I was indecisive a little bit. And then that bull got us. You were a mess. I was not happy. No, you were just a straight-up mess. I was not happy. And so he's like, I could tell. Something bad could have happened. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You could have flushed a bull, and. Yeah. And no. Whoa. I was grateful that the other bull walked away. I don't know why. I don't even remember the video clip. I mean, I still think he was a big bull. Yeah. But it just felt like it was rushed. It felt like you were rushed. Yeah. He was like, anyway, he was like, something's going to die. So I got up in there.

I went to try and cut him off, because they were going up through, and I knew that bull was behind. So I said, try and get back around to see if you can see up that canyon, see if he's still there, if he's gone. He hurried and got back around, called me on the radio, and said, no, he's in the trees. So then I was even more mad. So I got up in there, and the last bull that was bugling, because like I said, he was always in the last. The last bull that was bugling was behind some trees, and there was a lone cow. And I was like, okay, this makes sense. Probably. This is what he's doing. A hot cow? But she had me pegged. She's just sitting there staring at me. The lead cow. I hate her. I hate the lead cow. Yeah. It felt like 10 minutes, and she just had me pegged. But this bull, I tried cow calling a couple times. Just to get him to- It's Utah.

Every single one of these knows what a Utahard sounds like. You're not calling this big bull in. All these bulls know what a 43-year-old Utah guy with a cow call sounds like. You better buy a cow call. With a large prostate.

He could hear my nasally moan. But he was just like, he was not coming. So finally, I thought, you know what? To heck with it. Most of those bulls, like if a cow bumps, it's not like they leave the country. And the second that they do, they're going to come try and round them up, because there's a cow that's running. So I was like, to heck with it. So I just walked right at her, and she whirls and goes to run behind him. And right at that time, a bull bugled. I think he heard or saw her kind of bust. And down below me, like 150 yards, I heard a bull bugle. And instantly, I'm like, oh, that's his bugle. That's him. He's still back there. And I made it up enough, just far enough, I could see that that other bull was just like a small six-point. So I'm like, okay, that's got to be him. So I just worked down the ridge, 50 yards or so, and then I could see some elk legs coming

up through the bottom. He's coming. And so I just kind of got down to get ready, and he poked his head out around the tree, I think, looking for her. He was looking up the ridge. And as he did, I could just see, well, he had big swooping fronts. Like they were, like wheat fronts. Big swooping fronts. Yeah. And very recognizable. Like there wasn't another bull that had fronts like that. So I'm like, yeah, that's him. He just stayed there for several minutes looking up the ridge at her, kept bugling, bugling, bugling. And at this point, he was probably 100 yards. Did you finally see everything? Did you see everything he had? Not yet. Okay. But I had seen him like in the video before. You knew he had a big backhand? Yes. From the video? Yes. Because he did. I mean, he does. And I got a quick look at him that morning, but enough that I was like, yeah, that's probably a bull I'd shoot.

But did you identify the extra? Yeah. Keep telling the story, because that was a pretty identifiable point. Yep. He had that kind of crotch point on the one side behind his fourth. And so he was actually going up and he would bugle, then he'd put his head down and just eat. And then he'd bugle, put his head down and eat. And he was kind of feeding uphill. And then he'd kind of turn. Pretty deep September to be that casual. Yeah. He's just like, when she's in heat, I'll engage. Yeah. But that bull I'd hit had done the same thing. Like he was just out. There was a pile of cows around and he was just out on the edges. And I think sometimes there's some of those older bulls that they're like, it's not worth getting in there and mixing it up. Well, and I'm not ready yet. I'm wasting energy. So yeah, he just turned and actually started feeding away from him. It was weird.

He turned and kind of came down the hill. And at that point, I got a good glimpse of him. And I glassed him. I had my muzzle already bipod up. I mean, it's him on the shoot. Saw the crotch point. His head started to come. I had about a three foot gap in a couple of trees where I couldn't see anything on either side other than. And so he came through and I, yeah, I saw that extra right there. And he had a hundred yards. He looked really good. And so I was like, yeah, I guess if I get his shoulder, I'm going to shoot him. So anyway, no need to dial anything. That's where I had my muzzleloader dialed. Yeah. That was a hundred yards. And he came through and he gave me a shoulder. I almost shot. He kind of stepped and then waited for him to like extend it just a little farther and hit him or I shot. And all of a sudden, no smoke. I couldn't tell. Oh, you start coughing. And you can't.

I was, I shot mine the other day. I started coughing. Yeah. It's like 122 weighted grains. Yes. What? Yeah. Yeah. I thought I'm a hundred. I thought you're lighting up. I shoot 105 and I thought that was pop. Yeah. I was one of five. I started coughing. Those muzzle brakes. That's just it knocking the air out of you when you shoot it. Yeah. I know. It wasn't. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. Jeez. All right. You just saw some legs. I saw legs and him running. Run down. Yeah. Run. Run. And so I just stopped for a second. The smoke cleared. I couldn't see anything because he ran into this thick tree. You know what I think is interesting is when, how long does it take to reload a muzzleload? Let's call it 33 seconds. Yeah. 45 seconds, maybe a full minute. I mean, when you're in a rush, you can't get it reloaded. Yeah. Well, you're also trying to watch the animal. Yeah.

See if he's hit. And you don't want to. And you're over here doing this and you get powder going everywhere. And honestly, so we bought, remember those loads we got last year? Yeah. The speed loaders. They're kind of handy. They're phenomenal. Yeah. Like, it was fast. You poured it down. Because I had, it's got that little funnel type tube on it. So I like, you could literally, I kind of had, I was looking for him and I just had my peripheral, put that tube in there, got it, put the bullet in. It was pretty fast. Jam it. Go. And so, but about the time I went to go put the bullet down, I heard. Did you? Crashing. And I'm like, and I thought I could see. You want to think it's him, but you're still not. Yeah. But it's rut. Like there's bulls crashing everywhere. So I didn't know if there was another elk down there. But you already got a bullet partially. Yeah. So I got it down there.

And then, then I heard. Just kind of a big, like, breath. I'm like, oh, the death moan. I did kill him. Went down there. So I, well, I just walked up. I just walked up far enough to look down and I could see he was laying there. I walked up to where I'd shot him from. He only went like 30 yards. I put it right through both shoulders. It almost came out the opposite shoulder on the other side. Performed well. So what bullet was it? Yeah. Flattened it. I'll have to bring it in and shoot it. What is it? Because I was impressed. It was a CVA bullet. It was one of their power belts, the ELR that you shoot out of Paramount. Because I was shooting that CVA Paramount. What caliber? 45. Yeah. But it went. Yeah. It pushed all the way through. I mean, I. How heavy is that bullet? 285. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's. I don't know. Awesome. It did well. Performed great. It did great.

Cash and I talked about, like, shot placement stuff. Just a few days. Well, I came around the house. It was like right before you left. Yeah. We were talking about just. Yeah. Like going straight up the leg because everybody always tries to go back and all that stuff. Yeah. It needs to be taught different. Anatomy stuff and looked at it. And that's why I just went straight up his leg, mid-body shot. And it hammered him. And you're not hitting shoulder blades. Everybody thinks that's where the shoulder blade's at. Just muscles. Just meat. Yep. It went right through him. It's all it is. Smacked him. It goes forward. So I was impressed with that. It actually worked really well. But I was 100 yards. So anyway, I could just see him laying there. And I still wasn't sure quite how big he was. I'm like, he was a dang pretty bullet. He's big. Like score-wise, I don't know.

Anyway, I waited for my brother and my dad. I actually had to go down and get them to have them come up there with me. And so we didn't actually walk up to it until they were there together. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. So it was cool. It was a pleasant surprise. Even like laying there on the ground, I wasn't quite sure how big he was. But then you start looking. And I'm like, man, I thought those fronts were, you know, 14 inches with a couple inches of kick-up on them. And then you're like, no, those are like 16, 17 with a couple inches of hook. So were they like 18 or 19? Josh, what were they? Yeah. His first were just under 19. His second, the one second on the one side is like 20 inches. Like it was a big surprise. So, yeah, anyway, it was pretty dang awesome. It was awesome having my family there with me. My brother helped me out significantly being there.

And he was, you know, trying to video and glass and send stuff and just get everything he could there. So that was great. And, yeah, just kind of spent most of the morning. Soaking it in. Yeah. Enjoying a beverage on the mountain over. Yeah. Latest kill. Yeah. Yep. My brother had a monster there. He had one in his back. So that was kind of fun. But, yeah, we just kind of hung out. It was awesome. So it was good to get a little room. You better tell people, I mean, what he is. 7'6". And what is he? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a 7'6". 382, right? Yeah. I got him at 382. Wyatt, do you really believe that? Let's put the tape. He looks like an awesome bull. He looks like a sweet bull. Like I said, I don't – every measurement kind of surprised me. Like it didn't look that big. Well, he just has some curve on his tips and stuff.

Once you cape him and you got the head there, sometimes you look at a bull and you're like, holy cow. Yeah. Yeah. Because the body size or the head size, you know. That was when I started noticing. I'm like, man, maybe he's better than I thought. Yeah. Once you got the whole body off and it's just like the head sitting there with the cape. And then once you get the cape off and it's like, man, he's still growing. He's just got – and a lot of his points are really curvy and wavy. So he's got extra inches. Well, those first three all hook. And those first three, they're six points. A lot of people – back end catches your eye. How big back end? Yeah. That's a fifth point instead of – It's a fifth point and a beam, but really – These six tines up front, you know, add up. Yeah. Score away. He's got big front – big back too, though. Big swords. Big fronts outscored back.

Swords look like they were 20 plus. Yeah. They were. He's just a pretty bull. Like, he was just awesome. Even his fifths were not small. Like, the one was 15. Yeah. Well, those are big. Exactly. Yeah. And then add some extras on there. I think the extra on the one side was seven inches. There you go. It adds up. It adds up. It's a 375 with a seven-inch extra. Or a three – Yeah. A couple-inch devil time on the one side. Did he? Oh. Yeah. Was he a 7x7 or does that make it 8x6? What side was that? They would have made him a 7x7. He had a little devil time on the other side. One ocho. I don't think they call a 7x7 like a royal or something. Well, if they – Technically, you've probably got to be in line 7 to be that imperial, royal. Yep. Typical. Titan. Devil times aren't typical. Yeah. That's a teaser. So, no, it was awesome. It was great. I was happy, completely happy, blessed.

Like, it was a good experience and very lucky. I like it. Well – That's awesome. It is. All right. So, were we going to tell any other stories? Because it's an hour and 51 minutes. Well, and we – I think it's partly – I mean, we literally – We just got that together today, too. It's been a great elk year for Epic, really. Oh, yeah. I think that's – I mean – That's the fourth – Is that the fourth elk in the office? It's pretty awesome. I guess, of the guys? Yep. Yeah. You guys talked about the other three last podcast. I was not here, but – Just awesome. Cash is John's. Big bulls. Cash. Yeah, Justin's bull. I mean, it's just, you know, 19-year-old kid killing a big bull like that. That was a pleasant surprise, just like what you're talking about. Yeah. All of a sudden, everything's adding up, 22-inch four on one side or 20-inch front. I mean, just – Yep. It is what it is.

Cash, you're just awesome experience. John, awesome experience. I didn't know, John, you said something like you didn't have photos. All of a sudden, there's a photo. What do you mean? That's what I thought. What do you mean? I had photos. Well, he had to go grab the bull the next day or something. He goes, no, those photos are terrible. It didn't turn out. Then all of a sudden, the gram comes up, and there's a great photo of it. Yeah. It was good. It was awesome. Anyway. All right. So, what else we got? We're going to – what are we talking about here on the end? How about some epic tripods and gear? John, you're into it. Yeah, baby. Dive in. Yeah. We've got – we're stocked up, and we are hearing, you know, rave reviews. Everybody that we're selling them to is just loving the tripod, and it's smoother than butter, man.

The pin and the tilt, and it's just – that's what I'm happy about because that's what we worked on on the R&D for so long was just making sure that you get a spotting scope on this tripod, and the head's smooth. It's not jumping all over the place. And you can keep, you know, keep game in your scope. And, man, it's just amazing. So – No sag. Yeah. It's great. And as well, when you're phone scoping, when you tighten it down, it doesn't move way up or way down. You know, you're pretty much on the animal, and you tighten it down, and it stays there. It's just – It's awesome. Sweet. It's awesome. So, call and get one. Call and get one. Go on our website, epicoutdoors.com. Anybody that's interested, of course, you want to be a member, $150 a year. Get you a monthly magazine December through June. It's a research publication. Then the remaining parts of the year is bimonthly.

We're talking nine issues a year total. We book hunts. We sell landowner tags. We help guys in the draw process. Just visit about hunts, whatever. You can bounce things off us. We also have the member experience program where we'll send you a list of members who've drawn your tag in the past. So, there's a lot of different benefits of being a member here at Epic Outdoors. If you buy any gear at all, we're talking optics, you'll pay for your membership in probably the first purchase. So, anyway, we sell all the major brands, and we can order about anything you want to order. So, that's what we do here at Epic Outdoors. You can check us out, again, epicoutdoors.com, or call us, 435-263-0777. What's that sound? There's an extra seven in there. Just four sevens. Do five. I don't care. It'll still get you here. There are three of them. There's three sevens. Do four. Do five. Zero. Seven.

Seven. Seven. Seven. Zero, and then hit sevens until you want to stop. Hey, and shout out to the people that if we referred you to an outfitter, and you killed something, and you hit us back, let us know how it goes. Thank you. We've been getting a lot of reports, too. Those make my day. I love seeing them. We love to see. You always hear the negative. Once in a while, you hear the positive. Send all the positive, too. Right, Devin? Well, all of it. Like, if we helped you somewhere, we really, truly appreciate the feedback. Well, we talked to so many people back when the draws come out. Whether you do self-guided or whether you go with the guide, hundreds of people. Yeah. We want to hear from you. It feels like sometimes we hear back from a fraction, and we get kind of a highlight reel, but it feels like we're getting tons of feedback this year. Love to see your success, hear about it.

Good stuff. Good, bad. A little bit ugly here and there. Hit us at photos at epicoutdoors.com with your photos, stories, or whatever. Devin, if he booked you on a hunt or we booked you here at Epic Outdoors, referred you to an outfitter, of course. Devin at epicoutdoors.com. Devin kind of heads up that division, the outfitting division, but we all work on everybody's stuff. Here at Epic Outdoors, we wear multiple hats, and we just work as a team. We have the best team out there. I think you'll figure that out if you give us a try here at Epic Outdoors. I don't have anything else to say. I'm over it. We're freaking done. I mean, it's a Friday for us, even though it's a Thursday. We're out. We'll see you on Monday. All right, folks. Buckle up, because this is big. Let's talk about the Epic Outdoors licensed application service. It's not just good. It's perfect.

Perfect for anyone who wants to draw tags like a true champion. You just sit back and let the pros handle the heavy lifting. But let's face it, when you do your own applications, you walk in a tightrope. If you haven't messed it up yet, believe me, you will. You're going to forget a deadline and lose all your points, then end up looking like a total loser. Or worse, you'll apply for a cow tag with your precious help points. That, my friends, is a disaster. When that happens, and trust me, well, you're going to be kicking yourself, wishing you'd go out with the Epic team. But you don't have to go down that road. They're here to save you from that nightmare. When you have the professionals at Epic Outdoors doing your applications, you'll be out there making deals, making money, living large while they're doing all the tedious stuff for you.

You're going to be raking in so much cash, it'll be insane. You'll be almost as rich as me. Almost, folks, nobody's as rich as me. Let's be honest, but you'll be close. When Epic Outdoors handles everything, the only thing you think about all year are those glorious draw results, not those annoying deadlines. No more stress, no more guesswork. It's going to be huge.

Let's face it. If your goal is to kill big stuff, you need to draw quality tags. Quality tags are typically hard to draw. To increase your odds of drawing good tags, you need to apply in multiple states. That's where an Epic Outdoors membership can help. For only $150 a year, you get access to our consultants, our online tools, and to Epic-approved outfitters and members-only optics discounts. With unlimited access to our team of consultants and access to the Epic Outdoors magazines, applying in multiple states is easy. No more worrying if you're applying for the best areas, no more applying for a unit where there has been a die-off, and no more missing opportunities where you could be in the field and not sitting at home. Go online at EpicOutdoors.com or call us today at 435-263-0777 to find out how you can become a member today. Kuyu is the most uncompromising camo on the market.

Their new Guide Pro Series is the toughest, most comfortable camo you will ever own. Check out their new additions and shop men and women's camo now at Kuyu.com. That's K-U-I-U.com. Kena Trek makes boots for every hunt. Whether you're hunting sheep in the high, rocky altitudes or low-crawling sagebrush for those desert muleys, Kena Trek has you covered. Check out their world-class Mountain Extreme line and their brand new Bridger High boots at Kena Trek.com. K-E-N-E-T-R-E-K.com. Applying for tags in multiple western states can be time-consuming. At Epic Outdoors, we have you covered. Whether you want to expand your hunting portfolio or simply ensure that you never miss a deadline again, the Epic Outdoors License Application Service is exactly what you need. It's like having the best CPAs in the finance world do your taxes.

Let the best hunting application gurus in the world do your tag applications. You'll never miss a deadline, you'll never apply for the wrong unit, and you'll never apply for a unit that's having a die-off. Your time is valuable. We do the work. You draw the tags. Epic Outdoors License App. 435-263-0777. With fierce rifles, every detail matters. They are hands down one of the best rifle manufacturers in the industry, and they never seem to stop making new innovations. If you want to get serious about your long-range shooting, call us to talk over your options for your next fierce rifle.

Epic Outdoors is an official fierce rifle dealer. Our consultants know their whole line of rifles inside and out. 435-263-0777. Epic Optics is an authorized dealer for Swarovski, Leica, Zeiss, Vortex, Leopold, Kawa, Sig Sauer, and more. Here at Epic Optics, we are committed to getting you the best deal for the glass that fits your needs. Go to epicoptics.com or call in to speak with our consultants who will fit you with the perfect optics for your next hunt. If you're looking for your next hunting property, look no further than St. James. St. James are the experts at all sporting properties across the West. Their team of agents will spend the time getting to know you personally and find out which property out of the hundreds they have listed is perfect for you.

If you've always wanted a property where you could hunt and fish, go online to stjamesportingproperties.com or give them a call at 855-711-7577 to learn more. Red Rock Precision Rifles are at the pinnacle of custom rifles. They make no compromises in terms of quality, accuracy, and reliability. They will build the perfect rifle for you in both feel and performance. Epic Outdoors is an official Red Rock dealer. Call us to talk over your options for your next Red Rock rifle or go to redrockprecision.com to learn more. Vortex makes optics for every occasion. Whether you're a long-range shooter dialing in that perfect shot or an archery hunter in need of an easy-to-carry optic without sacrificing quality, Vortex has you covered. Head over to epicoptics.com or call us to learn more about your Vortex options today at 435-263-0777.

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When it comes to top-tier quality, Zeiss has been a leader in the industry for generations. If you're in the market for new optics, give us a call for unbelievable deals on Zeiss products. Giving you the highest quality and durability out there without breaking the bank is what makes Zeiss so good. Check out our website, EpicOptics.com or call us at 435-263-0777 to find out which Zeiss Optic is perfect for you. Epic Outdoors is now an official CVA muzzleloader dealer. If you're in the market for a new muzzleloader, our staff can go over the different options that you should consider. CVA muzzleloaders are the go-to muzzleloader for Epic Outdoors and crew. We've definitely got our favorite setups for Western big game hunting in stock. Call us today at 435-263-0777 to find out which CVA is perfect for your next hunt.