EP 342: The Utah 2025 Overview and Our View on Mule Deer Management

You're listening to the Epic Outdoors podcast brought to you by Fierce Firearms, Epic Outdoors choice for custom hunting rifles.

Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, the entire Epic Outdoors crew with the exception of John. He didn't feel invited at the table because this table needs to be bigger. We need to put leaves. We need to cut it and put leaves in this. Oh, Messerly, you can do this. We don't have that. We need a bigger table. Don't you think? I don't know. We're about there. But anyway, here we are. What day is today? It's Wednesday. It's a Wednesday, right, Logan? It is. All right. Magazine's at the printer, so we all, we all little, I don't know, what's the word, why, around here this week. This is a good week. How would you characterize this week, the week after? Expo's over, magazines over, there's nothing new. We're all having a good week. Are you having a good week? I get deadlines coming up still, too. What? What? We got New Mexico. Okay, that's not

till March. March 19th, no less. Yes, March 19th is correct. What else? This is a good week. You've been doing stuff you don't want to talk about, though, like claws and paws and apps for weird stuff. Yeah, we don't want to talk about that. I mean, it's... Yeah, we got Guide Draw in Nevada coming up. We've been working on. Bear results in Utah come back this week sometime. Be exciting. You excited? Yes, we're excited. Anyway, as we get started, we want to thank Fierce for sponsoring this podcast and all podcasts that we're doing. Fierce Firearms, we sell them. Of course, you can go to their website, check them out. They've got a lot of new products, and again, appreciate them and their support and the awesome products they build. We're shooting stuff dang near every day with some of their rifles, right, Devin?

Pretty much. Every day. I haven't killed anything for quite some time. You haven't? No. You need to get out. I do. I need to get out. But you have a short leash. Wyatt, Wyatt, have you killed anything recently? Have not. Tried? Tried, maybe. No. You had a coyote get away, broad daylight, freaking out in the brush. Those don't count when you're just shooting at one run. No, but they make you mad. I hit a rabbit on the way to work this morning. You did? Does that count? Yeah. Did it wipe out your car? No. Take out the corner battle? No. I swear, just enough. Did you? Got it with the back tire. Well, I know a guy with cars and parts and engines, John. So if you need anything, he's got it. Oh, he's already put his spin on that car. Remember when he backed into the door? Oh, yeah. What did you do? Did you end up

getting that fixed? Yeah. Yeah. What do you do? Plus or minus? Clean his whistle. Yeah. And a whole new door put on it. I can't whistle. I can either do it loud or nothing at all. All right. So, Bronson, we're going to get cranked. First off, I guess we've got to do a muzzle or giveaway. We promised the people a muzzle. We do. And we've been getting asked on Instagram about it. When are we going to do it? Okay. We're going to do it right now. We're going to deliver within the first, you know, two days after we said we'd do it. That's right. Kind of like Trump. Kind of like Trump. Like within. Yeah. Dude. Just, he's going to. All right. He's doing some crazy stuff. What were the, for everybody that maybe didn't hear that, what was this giveaway? What did we, what did we do? A couple podcasts ago, we were giving away a muzzleloader. All you had to do is

post on your Instagram with hashtag epic muzzle and that got you entered. So these are the people that did that. What are they going to win, Devin? Or who, what did we decide? Is it an Optima? Optima? V2. All right. Thumb hole. Thumb hole. What else? I don't know. They can do whatever. There's a lot of things. The most amazing shootingest muzzleloader ever. Free shipping. Oh, I like it. Free shipping. Free shipping. No FFL. We'll skip the background check. And pay tax on your own court. Okay. Let's spin this thing, Logan. Okay. There it is. It's spinning on the big screen. Boom. Herman B01. Right? That's right. Herman B01. You can look up that. Even if you're a fellow, Herman, you can have this muzzleloader. That's right. Right? It's true. Is it true? It's amazing. It's kind of, it's, this is America. So anyway, Herman B01, you're the winner.

Logan, we'll reach out to him and we'll get that shipped, shipped out of here. Herman Barry. Yep. Congratulations. Awesome. Pretty awesome. We'll get your shipping information. Thanks for playing. We'll do something again soon. We like to give stuff away. I do. This next week. Well, later this, next week, we'll be giving away some big hunts. Yeah, that's awesome. We are going to be giving away some big hunts. This is coming up March 3rd is the deadline. What's that, a Monday? That's next Monday. Yeah. Mondays are big days. So anyway, giving away, what, $200,000 in hunts or dang near close between dull sheep, Alaska, Yukon moose, Alaska, Yukon moose, elk in Utah, elk in New Mexico, deer in Utah, deer in Nevada, antelope in New Mexico, gear packages, $10,000 toward your choice of a hunt. Just, just incredible, incredible

opportunity. Get your tickets at epicoutdoors.com or call us 435-263-0777. Coming down to the final days, get your members in. It's a membership drive. Get your, get your buddies in as members. You'll get your name in for every friend that you sign up or get to sign up and they'll get a ticket as well as for being a new member. And of course you can buy the ticket packages and that helps pay for the hunts. We're super excited for this and just, just awesome to give away these world-class hunts. It'll be fun calls to make next week. So. All right. So Bronson, why don't you start? Well, I mean, let's talk about the state of the nation in Utah. 60 seconds. Everybody gets 60 seconds. For the unguarded version? Well, 60 seconds unguarded, what you're really thinking, what you're really going to do. Let's start with Logan. 60 seconds on Utah. We're

talking, you can't, don't deviate. I'm happy as a clam. I love, I like, you know, three, four year old bucks. I think those are real monsters. And this is the problem with the state. Do we get to be unguarded right now? No. Yes. You can counter anything anybody else says, but let's let him have a 60 seconds. Go. No, of course I don't think that. That was sarcastic. I don't know. He's already started off on the wrong foot. On the wrong foot? No, I'm just teasing. I think that's the right foot. It's your 60 seconds. My home unit got, got a little bit torn apart this year. I wasn't very happy with it at first. I'm trying to be optimistic. I like it. I don't really enjoy super restrictive weapon types, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with it. My only worry is that oftentimes restricted weapons lead to lower success rates, which is fine, which leads to

largely increased tag numbers, which is not fine. So it would be fine if we left tag numbers the same, restricted the weapons and said, all right, now let's enjoy. I think any general unit has a lot to grow with if they didn't increase tag numbers and they restricted the weapons. I think it could be good, but I just, I can see what's coming down the line. Make we're all fearful of that. Yeah. Do you want me to be the devil's advocate? Yeah. No, no, no. Just the devil's advocate. This is part of your 60 seconds. No, no, no, no. But I'm just saying if I'm DWR, Bronson, you're DWR, what's your reply? Well, we got to be within management objective and now we're dealing with certain success rates and if the success isn't high and we're not have the take that we want to have, then we've got no choice. We are handcuffed. We have to increase tags. We're sitting at 18 to

19 bucks for a hundred dollars. We're wasting. And our objective is 15, Logan. Maybe this is something I need to be educated on, but is success rate indicative of tag numbers or is it only buck to doe ratio and age class? This is where the science comes in. Because if success rate helps with tag numbers, then that changes my opinion a little because now I understand a little, but if it's just numbers, then I don't think it's worth tag numbers. It only counts at the rock level, board level. That's what they could do what they want with. The success rates, the division doesn't take that into effect at all because it doesn't. It's that's it's buck to doe ratio. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what they look at. So if, if you're at, to answer your question, if by going to the restricted weapons on, you know, cash, boulder, beaver west, wherever else that happened on those,

right. They limit harvest dramatically. The buck to doe ratio comes up. You're going to see more tags, right? Plain and simple. So indirectly it affects the buck to doe ratio, which would affect tag numbers. Yeah. But does a 20% less success rate really have that big of an effect on a buck to doe ratio of a whole unit? It might. Yeah. 20%. I mean, you're talking 20% less, let's say most, most generals run between what? 30 to 40%. Pollock, I guess that depends on the weapon type. But when we look at those for archery, muzzle and rifle, I'd say it's 25 to 40%. 50 is exceptionally high. But so yeah, you take, you know, 40% and you take, you know, you're talking most cases, hundreds and thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but thousands of deer on a unit. So, you know, saving 20% of the quote, saving 27, 20% of the bucks that would have got shot. Yeah. It can make a pretty big increase on

buck to doe ratio on a, on a unit with, you know, three, 5,000 deer plus. Cause I'm all for doing whatever it takes to let a few mature deer and future mature deer walk. But I just don't want to see a thousand hunters out there slinging bullets every day and making it worse after five years.

Okay. Well, that's my 60 seconds. We've got to go around the table. So yeah. Who's next? I mean, Devin, you've been kind of quiet over there. Time to... I'm going to stay positive. I get to apply for moose here in a few weeks. With what? Yeah. What? Rewind. Great thing. We're in Utah. I know. That's what he's got points for. And you've got points for moose. Yeah. And you're excited about that. Yep. Do you have enough to draw anything? Nope. Okay. What's your odds? You can't win it if you're not in, Jason. Epicoutdoors.com with your point level, what's your odds? I don't... I'm going to apply once again. Apply, apply, apply. You can't win if you're not in. I want to hunt deer that are over the age of three. That would be nice. Okay. What's mature to you? Five plus. Yeah. Five and a half plus. All right. So expound upon that. I mean,

what's your other plans for Utah? What's the state of the nation? Well, if you do the statistics, if there's 20 bucks per 100 does, 16 of those are two points in spikes. Yeah. The odds aren't good on the other four. Maybe one or two every... Maybe one or two out of every two to three, four hundred or what? Four plus. So that's what we're dealing with. That's the ones we're looking for. So... Start looking. Start looking. You should have... Did you look this morning? Nope. They're shedding. That's hard. Deer also need water and feed and shelter. And if you like the desert, it's going to be a fun one. So what do you mean fun, Devin? It's pretty dry out there. Yeah. I worry about that. Yeah. It's going to be tough. Adam, what are... In the southern part of the state. Speaking of dry, what were your percentages you were rattling

off yesterday? Wasn't it 5%? It's somewhere. A couple of... A couple of... All Henry's. If you call Bryce Canyon, Snowtail, I think that's what... There'd be Ponce going on. 12%. Henry's was 5%. What was this other grass? Something down this corner had a zero. Zero. Yeah. Was that on the west slope of Pine Valley? Most everything's 20, 30. There's a couple 40s, but they were more like probably Beaver or even LaSalle was a little better. That corner did get a good storm a couple weeks ago, but literally one storm brought it up from 20% to 40. But it's incredibly dry. The other stuff you guys were saying wasn't the Snowtail sites are some of the driest in 40-something years. I mean, you can't spin it any other way. But yet, tags or mule deer tags across Utah are selling like it's going to be a banner year, Wyatt. That's true. I mean, no...

Wasn't a deal at the expo. There's no foot off the gas pedal on mule deer tags. This is crazy. All in. Few of the bigger tags broke records. Yeah. 370 for Utah. 250 wasn't it for Nevada. I mean, the dry... I think Nevada was three even. Three even. Was it three even? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, anyway, kind of wild, quite frankly. But, I mean, maybe northern Nevada's, you know, not necessarily drought stricken like maybe southern Nevada. But southern Nevada's where the big deer have been traditionally coming from. Same thing with northern Utah. Maybe somebody knows something on a good old northern Utah buck. Go north. That'd be my recommendation. Go north. Yeah. Go to Canada. That's what you're doing. Go to Canada. Canada. Right? The 51st state. I just mean northern Utah. We're going to the 51st state. Apply it to northern Utah. Go hunt up there for a change. Pretty wild. So, anyway. Yeah. And

weren't they... Who was it? Was it you, Pollock, or Adam talking about like the doe weights, mature deer weights, are some of the worst they've seen on the Pine Valley? Yeah, on the Pine Valley. I've heard that. On the Pine Valley? They were, yeah, as bad as they've ever seen. So, just, I mean, a lot of those deer down there, they don't obviously have to walk through snow or compete with snow and that kind of thing. But there's actually feed that'll grow in some of that stuff. You know, some of that country down there will actually... No winter. It does green up, despite what you guys may think. Talking about Taqua and Utah Hill. Yeah. It does green up. In February, on occasion. It could maintain some greenness. And those deer, I think, rely on that to... Because there's really nothing else out there. So, they're probably... The drought's not just

winter, or excuse me, summer and antler growth and body condition, that kind of stuff. I mean, it's even... Even cheatgrass in the winter. Yeah. Just stuff, something for them to eat out there. Jeez. And there's nothing, sounds like. Keep taking the mic. You've got about 20 seconds in, but give us another 40 seconds into your mind of the state of Utah, Josh. I don't know. It's going to be, it's going to be interesting this year just to see, because if we don't get any spring moisture at all, it's going to be really bad. The only thing could be is if you could say in some areas, maybe our deer, mountain-type deer or whatever, where our deer are wintering in mountain areas, they haven't been trudging through snow and stuff. So, they're obviously losing fat every day in the winter, but maybe they haven't been losing it as much as they did or have it in the past. So,

there is still some potential for things to be okay. But if we don't get any moisture and stuff doesn't green up very much, it's not going to be that great for antler growth or body conditions or stuff like that. So, what about elk? What's your thoughts on elk in southern Utah? I think elk could still be good. You know, there's still some snow on the mountain and that'll melt off and green up. And so, elk antler growth, I could see it if there's good feed on the mountain. A few of these units that have had some burns, the panguished beaver, some of these that, you know, maybe some that don't have that kind of component to them, but like a panguished beaver, something that's got some fresh feed that'll green up and do good, they could still see good antler growth. But at the same time, I know trout years, oftentimes they're kind of brittle too

and they break up. So, that's all I got. All that. That's all. I don't think it's true. I think you got more. What's your real Pollock point? Jason, he had 60 seconds. Do we all get a million 20? Yes, we do. If you want it, I want you to have it. I've got nothing. Like, I'm not really excited about anything. Yeah, you are too. We're all excited every morning. We're excited. Oh, yeah. We are excited. I just mean there's nothing that's crazy exciting. I mean, yeah, hopefully we can get some tags and go hunt. I still want to do that, but yeah, I don't know. All right. Okay. I like it. What? What do you got? You guys kind of stole my talking point right there. Which one? The last four guys? I was kind of excited that I am a guy that gets to go in for elk for this year for the, I guess second time in my life, but first time I've kind of been excited about it. Really?

Just because of the state of the mule deer situation here in Utah. So you're glad you don't have your 21 or two deer points this year. Yeah, I'm glad I cashed those in. So, I mean, it looks better and better all the time. So having said that, what's your mind contemplating at night when you put your head on the pillow as far as an elk application? The late, we know how much you've... I'm just glad that elkers seem to be doing good in Utah. They seem to do good on drought years. I mean, later in the hunts, they might break up as Pollock mentioned there, but I think it'll be overall a pretty good year for elk here in Utah. Does that worry you as somebody that's eyeing the late December archery elk that they might be broken up by that time of year? Yeah. Elk hunting in December, I think I'll just

write out my five years here applying for elk and go right back in for deer if things change around. Listen, if you're not excited, you could put in for antelope this year. Yeah, I guess, how do pronghorn do on drought years? We have choices. Jason. I'll be your spotter. They seem to be fine. They seem to... Maybe. What do we say? Stags and horn game. Throw in for poncegant archery? Pronghorn? Drought, you hunt moose, like Devin said. You hunt antelope here and there. Some of the antelope do better. I feel like we're being so negative. Maybe we'll get some good spring rain and everything will be okay and we'll have giant mule deer for all. That's what happens. I don't know about you guys, but I feel like Wyatt stripped his velvet last night, comes back in with a fresh face. He shaved his beard for all you that can't see. He looks totally different. Baby face. Yeah.

Lost a little mask. I like it. Still, you know, I can recognize him. That's Wyatt, but yeah. I don't know. That's Wyatt, but I'm ready to spar now. He doesn't look so scary. Yeah, exactly.

I just haven't recognized him yet. You know, when you see a buck for the first time out of velvet, they just look a little different. Be like Josh, shaving his mustache. He'd lose your identity. It's true. Are you going to shave your mustache someday? I don't know. We'll probably just grow it back into a beard at some point. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I think you should do like long, like six inch chops. Just let it go. There's a line there. It's starting to look white trash. Your brothers go up, get yours that go down. Yeah. Droppers. Droppers. Yeah. Droppers. Those wax. Well, Wyatt's kind of thinking elk might be surprisingly good. Is that generally? Yeah, I think it'll be a fair year. I think we have good numbers of elk, good age class of bulls. I mean, we had phenomenal years on some of the units here in Utah last year. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of leftover too.

And some years if there's enough feed, like we've been talking about, just sitting on the mountain all winter, that they're, you know, not stressed at all, and they do eke out any kind of green. You know, on some of our mountain units that go from 10,000 to 13,000 feet, there's going to be gradual green up there that there isn't in some of these high desert units, you know, like northern Arizona or maybe an out west of here. So it's going to be interesting to see. I don't know many of us are in the elk game other than you, Wyatt. Yeah. What do you do, Cash? Do you do deer? I'm in deer. Yeah. Logan, limit entry deer? Deer. Yeah, so you're our only OB one. Somebody's got to do residency in Arizona so you're non-resident, you get to do points and apply everything in Utah. You know what I mean? We've got to figure that out. You daring somebody to do that? Yeah.

I would love it for you guys to do that. Well, you just announced that on a live podcast. Well, I mean, then I would get poaching reward permits and stuff. Oh, wow. Who's first? Wow. How does that feel that your co-worker's trying to entrap you? Who's first? Okay, here's a would you rather. You're going to live in Littlefield or Fredonia?

Fredonia. Really? Yes. Littlefield's closer to golf courses. Yeah, but Fredonia's closer to Big Deer where you can at least do something when I get home from work. From driving. When I envisioned Fredonia, I just imagined driving that road and there's just bars on both sides. Bars? Bars and liquor stores. And then you hook a right and you're in the little town and then it's gone. The world's longest bar right there, I believe, still, right? At the Buckskin? Is it the longest bar? I've never been there. I think it's the longest bar in the world. It is? It says something on the billboard. It says something on the billboard or something. What does longest bar mean? Oh, the inside. The actual bar inside. It's in Shelbyville, Tennessee, Wyatt. Well, maybe it's been beat, but I swear it says something like that. In northern Arizona. How about that? Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of.

Longest bar in Arizona. There you go. Okay. Wyatt knows some statistics that he shouldn't know. I just look at billboards as I drive by. You could almost fit like 60% of the population at that bar of Fredonia. That's probably what it was designed for. Canab and Fredonia. Yeah. Wow. That's why it does so well. The Buckskin Tavern. Wow. Interesting. Been a favorite since 1934. So you're going to Fredonia and you're going to do residency in Arizona. You're not going to move for a special purpose. Anything else? I never said anything about doing any of that. It was would you rather choose between these two cities. You don't have a choice, Wyatt. Which place do you want to live? Which place do you and Carly and Kay want to live? You're fine where you're at right now. Yeah. I'm content where I'm at right now. You're content only having to choose elk or deer, not doing both.

I'm kind of like Wyatt's. I'm content not having wildlife violations. I'm just going to say I'm kind of like Wyatt's lawyer. I'm coaching you what to say. Tell everybody you love where you're at now and you never have any intention of leaving. Content is what I'm going to say. Content and no intent to change. All right. So moving along. Let's see, Wyatt. Are we good? You're happy with Utah. Yeah. I mean, the only other thing we can touch on. Elk are good. You're good. General deer, you're happy with? Elk are good. I got general deer points that may stay points.

Planning for a better day? Wyatt can draw anything he wants in the general deer. Dedicated or general, right? Watch and see what happens, maybe. Yeah. And new SKUs, too, in Utah, I guess, is the other thing we can touch on. We'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah. We'll do some would you rather on the new SKUs. Okay. There you go. Well, whose turn is it? We've got until April 24th to have some weather set in. You guys have stolen a lot of my thunder, too. But just regarding deer, I am excited, I guess, in one sense. My boy gets home this summer. Looking forward to hunting with him again on the mountain. We'll have dedicated hunter deer tags and a lot of time to try to find something good. But looking forward to that more than anything. That's got me more excited than probably I am about maybe what I'm expecting to find. But that doesn't matter. Yeah.

I guess, in general, we get a lot of calls from people about the general, which we tout as, hey, the only hunt you can ever really plan on drawing in Utah in a short interval, short time frame. I would just say it's probably not the time for non-residents. I mean, get a lot of calls from non-residents, don't we, Wyatt, that say, hey, I got these points. Should I come? And I'm like, well, yeah, you can come anytime you want. But is it kind of the upswing or whatnot? I really can't say that right now. Hopefully, it's not any worse in a couple years. You know, obviously, weather drives that a lot. But also, some management that we're talking about, lowering butt-to-do ratios. I'm a bit disheartened about that. And I'm actually, to take that to the next level, nobody's brought this up. I'm actually maybe equally as bummed about the premium limit entry reduction.

Like, if we're going to have the generals become even more vanilla, more general, more, you know, lowered, why do we have to touch the other end? We only have 1,000 or 1,500 tags in the state for limited entry, dear. And of those, we only got about, what, 150 premium limit entry? Why do we have to lower butt-to-do ratio on those to give more tags? Why can't we have a few units? We are wasting a few bucks. That's what those units are for. We need something on one end if you're going to reduce it on the other end. That's my two cents on that. I don't, and of course, you know. Well, it's not fair, Adam. You don't get your chance to hunt? It's just not fair. Everyone doesn't get Henry's tags every year. It's just not fair. I want my turn, too. It's not fair. But, I mean, yeah.

To me, the amount of tags that they're going to be able to increase there may seem insignificant on each of the units, Poncegant and Henry's. But there are already units that, right now, most, a lot of people, Wyatt, are not that, like, not everybody kills the buck that they want on those units right now by any stretch. You know, there's not a lot of 200-inch deer killed on the Poncegant last year. I mean, how many? Very few. Very few. And how many were killed by rifle hunters? Zero. Yeah. Maybe one or two on private down low, but late. But, you know what I mean. One after the season on the extended. And the same thing on the Henry's. So, not that everybody needs 200-inchers, but, yeah. You start giving 10 extra tags on one and maybe 20 or something on the Ponce. That doesn't seem like a lot until the cream now just gets skimmed a little bit more.

After five years, there's an extra 100 bucks gone. And now we're doing management bucks on both units, too, again, or on the Henry's again. So, been doing it on the Ponce. So, I just leave some of those alone. You know, don't take everything from us when it comes to, you know, just making our deer vanilla. Our deer are vanilla. Yeah, I feel like Utah does a really good job of wiping out the top end every year. It doesn't seem like very often does a wow, look at me buck make it to the winter grounds anymore. I haven't seen a wow, look at me buck. And how long? Well, it comes down to that, like I was saying, even unlimited entry of how many of those deer that make it or that age. Or even capable. Look at the Ponce got big deer, you know, whether it's age or not. People used to go out on Thanksgiving and go look at big deer.

Are you going to go out on, where are you going to go when you go out on Thanksgiving to look at a big deer? Like, where would you go? Arizona. I mean, maybe the Oak Creek, some of the hay fields, people going out looking around, whatever, maybe you see. And we're talking big deer being 180s. Like 180s. Ooh, they're up and comers. They'll be shooters. Three-year-olds. Well, and the way I look at that buck to doe ratio kind of stuff is not every deer is going to be 200. You know, in fact, there's probably a smaller percentage of them that are going to be 200. But you need more of those bucks to get the possibility of more of those deer getting that big. So, yeah, there's going to be a bunch of bucks that are just going to be big, you know, 10-year-old three points and never die. They'll get killed at some point.

And so you're just reducing the number of bucks that are going to have the re-their genetic potential. So you're going to see less than that. So, yeah, some of that stuff is not even like an age type thing in a way because there's a lot of deer. It's the numbers game. Yes, it's just numbers. So you need a higher buck-to-doe ratio to have more bucks to potentially reach. I think it's – Premium. I think it's important, too, to bring up the – Adam, you're not bringing this up so you can personally kill another big buck. Like you're not even in the running to kill another big buck. No, I'm not even – no. Like you're not even going to draw another tag. You're not even going to guide another guy on Poncigant. Like this – talking about the Poncigant and the quality of bucks does nothing for you personally. No. It does – It's strictly about having something that you really want.

And we have limited entry units in the state. We have a couple premiums. Why do we have to mess it? And did they cut the regular general, too? Are there regular limited entries? Yeah. By five as well. Oh, yeah. So the regular limited entry and the premiums both get cut. So it's just like we're vanilla-ing everything when it comes to deer. When you say cut, you're talking the buck-to-doe ratio. Cut the buck-to-doe ratio, which means they're going to be able to increase tags. That's what I'm talking about. So it's like they're just vanilla. It's just having pride of having good quality deer management and having deer out on the landscape. And having some options. And when you do apply, even if you are a .0001% or whatever, the people that get that tag can actually have something. Yeah. Actually have something. And I don't even have family members. I have no skin in that game.

No family members looking to draw premium deer or limited entry deer that have points to draw. But I think part of that, too, is like why fight that fight? Like you're bringing it up and we all think it. But then there's a lot of guys out there that are like, it just doesn't pertain to me. I'm doing elk like Wyatt. I'm doing elk over here, although Wyatt's passionate about deer. But he's doing elk but doesn't have any plans for his general because there's no general to go hunt necessarily. But that guy got his, you know, when the elk plan goes through and they lower age objectives on elk and they do stuff. He has, they're going over elk at some point. This last year was the time the deer plan got amended. So the elk has their turn and it may come again. It may. It's the same thing when you have two decades plus worth of elk.

And now they're going to lower age objectives on elk and increase tags and spread out all your seasons. Change season dates and all that. So there's a lot of hard work. Now you can never hardly draw an early rifle tag. So there's changes. And some of that was, I'm not against in the elk world. I think we were set up from elk from the start kind of to be pigeonholed into a corner. Every unit started with early rifle hunts. And then maybe an archery got added. And then the muzzles. And then the lates. But the early rifles were already always in the rut. So we were kind of, we're broken from the start in terms of maximizing opportunity and maintaining quality. But deer is a different story. Deer is just, let's have some, let's let our limited entry units. We're only talking limited entry and premium together around 1,500 deer tags in the state. And some might say, well, that's way too few.

Nobody can never get a chance. Okay. Yeah. When you get your chance, if it totally underwhelms you with what you have, you're going to say, that was a waste of my 15, 20, 25 points. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. So, and I think on, yeah, I think on top of that, like we could go, this is a bigger conversation, but we got to give Cash his 60 seconds at some point. Yeah, I took more. I'm sorry. But as far as all of these states have buck to doe ratios that are 30 plus, 30 to 35 bucks per hundred does. 25 to 30. Wyoming on post-season Wyoming general, and they got OTC tags. And their goals are 30 bucks per hundred does. Arizona, 30 bucks per hundred does. Nevada, 30 to 35 bucks per hundred does. But for some reason in Utah, if they can be bred at five, we're going to shoot as close to five as we can on the generals. You know what I mean? And where does that come from?

Is it coming from the Southern RAC? I don't know. Regional Advisory Council? No. 90% of the guys didn't want the tags increased and whatnot. And so, but they went ahead and voted for that, and we ended up getting tag increases. And so I just think, I think there's a lot of challenges on that. So, right?

I'm letting Cash out. Head nods. Oh, we are? Well, I have to. Cash? I have to. Yeah. Bronson took 60 seconds. How about you take 60 seconds? No, I'm depressed. Oh, come on. I'll say that. Well, you and Logan are, how old are you? 27. Logan, how old? 24. That's not why I'm depressed. I am, I would say I'm sad, but I'm also like, okay, this is the perfect year to not be able to draw something for me. Yeah. There was deer that I left last year that I would love to chase this year, but at the same time, they're not going to be what they should be like on a good moisture year this year. So it's going to be terrible. And so I'm like in the mindset of like, I'm perfectly happy not hunting Utah this year with how crappy the moisture has been because I don't want to go up and hunt the crowds up north. And so I'm going to go further north and hunt different states. Really? I didn't know that.

You did. We're going to give you an extension on your 60 seconds. Fascinating. Well, it's nothing special. You know that. So we'll try to make good on something up there. Then outside of that, just hunt, do some guiding, do that. Nothing too crazy for me this year. So just sad that it's so crappy of a winter. Yeah. I like snowmobiling, and I haven't been able to snowmobile on Cedar Mountain at all this year. A few weeks ago, where did you have to go? I forgot to ask you when you went. You took a Saturday or Friday off. Did you have to go to like northern Montana? Like did you drive to the Yukon? Went to Alaska. No, I'm just kidding. No, I went up by Heber. It was good snow though, right? It was good snow. This last storm, I had relatives that were in like four foot. Yeah. You get like past like north of Payson, and it's significantly better. You go down here, you're riding on dirt.

Yeah, you're riding four-wheaters and side-by-side. Yeah, exactly. But you know, what do you expect? We have sandstone here. Exactly. Or meat, which is cash. No, it's true. It's true. But even on the mountain, like there's not enough snow. You would hit rocks. You can't even go to midway. You can't even go across the flat. 10,000 feet. We like going up there, you drive across. Raw boulders. It might as well be May. Yeah. Like it's ridiculous. And so, no, I don't know. I'm, I kind of like what Adam was saying. I wish we would kind of leave some leftover bucks, have a chance at stuff. Similar to Adam, like I have no chance at drawing something, forcing to draw on something for a long time anyway. But I would really like to be able to chase something that's worth, you know, 20 some odd points when I get to that point.

But I'm afraid by the time I get to that point, it's not going to be there the way it's going. So something's got to change for the better. But you say you have no opportunity at drawing. There's opportunity to draw. I mean, there's late muzzle order limited entry hunts. There is. There's book cliffs. There's Vernon's. There's plenty of opportunity. To kill big bucks on them. Ham's. Ham's. There's plenty of opportunities for guys to draw tags that aren't necessarily saying, hey, I want the best of the best. Right. A lot of skews. I'd have to rephrase that. The couple tags that I would want. Yeah. I'm not going to force it for a while. There's other ones that I could do that maybe I will one of these days if it just is. When you lose all hope. When I lose all hope. Kind of deal. But, no, there is. There's some good opportunity. I've spent a lot of time. I guess I should say a lot of time.

I've spent a few days every year on a couple or one unit for the last, like, 15 years. And I'd really like to hunt it. But I'm just afraid it's just too far gone. And unless something changes from now and the next 10 years, then we'll do what we can. But other than that, just going to have to start looking at new skews, things like that. Something outside of the box. In the meantime, if you get a good moisture year, probably have to go on something outside of the box and ditch the idea of the long game. And, you know, I'm not opposed to that. But right now, just not the year to hunt Utah for me. Well, you burn general points like you, Wyatt, or some. Right. I mean, they're gone for three to four years before you can get that unit you want again. So it becomes, you want to hedge your bets on burn them in what at least looks maybe

on an upswing or a good moisture year, back-to-back moisture, whatever. It turns into that a little bit. Right. As much as you want to tag every year. Right. Yep. Yep. Yep. Like, I don't have the points to force anything to hunt the general. So I'm on a year like this, I'm okay with that. Okay. Let the deer have their time. Let them not have cash. Not bother them. Let them not have cash after them this year is what you're saying. I'm not that big of a threat. I don't know. You're on it, Cash. You're aggressive. Well, I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm kind of excited. Okay. I am excited. This is why. I love the challenge and the harder it gets, the more I love the challenge. What I don't like is I haven't killed a deer since 2019. Because, and you feel like, I feel like I'm too picky for these times. And I know I am.

If you're going to kill deer, you're going to have to, you know, not go for giants because there's just not a lot of them out there on the landscape. But I still am excited. I love having a clean slate. I love all the SKUs in Utah. I think it's, personally, I think it's a band-aid. I think there's no substitute for cutting tags if you're going to want quality. Plain and simple. I was watching Idaho's proposals and they simply said it. If you're going to have tags, have tags. If you're not going to have tags, you'll have quality. But then nobody can go hunt the quality that's there because there's no tags. It's like they just went through it all and what do we want as hunters, you know? And so, I mean, it's so, here we do. So you're talking the band-aid meaning like the experiment weapon stuff. Yeah, the weapon restrictions and things like that.

And are we not all a little bit hopeful that there'll be a little change? Like we're all just a little hopeful that some deer slide through and make it. New Mexico doing the iron sights. Yeah, success rates didn't change in some cases. Some cases like antelope with open sight muzzle orders. Yeah, the success was less. But the wound loss and all these other factors come in that are intangibles because, you know, you don't have exact figures on what that means and what that looked like. So I just, so who knows if that really helps quality. But somewhat of a band-aid to appease the public and continue to issue tags. That's what it feels like the DWR is trying to do. And I don't blame them. They want their objective to happen. We want our objective to happen. And then there's guys downtown that we eat lunch with or whatever that have a whole different perspective.

But as far as, you know, that, I like the different SKUs. What does this mean? We've talked a lot about hams or these new kind of couple new opportunities.

And it does give you, one thing it does is it hones pressure in on a specific finite area at a specific time of year that's never had that. And so that will, in the long term, hurt the quality that once was there. But we all don't know what was there because we were, you know, whatever, Henry's Little Rockies or whatever we're talking about. So it's interesting. I think it's interesting. I think, too, we're in this long-term drought era. And we kind of got to learn how to hunt in it and accept it a little bit is, you know, we had a lot of deer showing up on the winter range. And so there were some things like off penguins or whatever. There were some positives that we saw that was kind of like, yeah, they're all little tiny bucks. Yeah. But there was some, like, there was a little breath of fresh air for a minute. There's plenty of bucks out there to shoot.

You know, a lot of them are just young deer. They're just young deer. And that's what we're all disgusted about and continue to be disgusted about. I think when, like, when you said that we're too far gone, Cash, when Cash made the comment is too far gone. Remember, Bronson, how far gone Colorado was before they went to a draw system and how fast it can turn around. It actually can turn around really fast. We just have to decide. The DWR, whatever, the state management has to decide to make it change. And it will change. We can't fix the weather. I get that. You pray for rain. But anyway, I don't ever believe, I don't ever want to believe that anything's too far gone. I just think maybe the perception, sometimes it feels like it's too far gone because the new biologist didn't see the heyday. Like, Cash, you didn't see what we saw. You know what I mean?

Or Logan, he didn't see what his dad saw. You know, and when you see it and it's tangible of, I'll bet you from now till the day I die, I don't see a tenth of the bucks I didn't even harvest. Remember all the bucks we were seeing, Wyatt? Remember, Adam? The ones that got away. I mean, I have specific, we all have specific name bucks that got away. I haven't seen one of that caliber since 2020 or something. You know what I mean? And so, what do we got from now till the time we're dead compared to what we lived through from 2005 to 2019 or 17? You know, and so, anyway, how do we get back to those times? But I think the challenge is fun. I think New Mexico people are like, oh, I don't know about the drought and this and that. And I feel the same way. I don't want it to be a drought in New Mexico. But there's no point. So, let's go hunt, learn a unit, and then go back if we can.

You know what I mean? It's kind of, I don't know. Is that too much of a positive spin for everybody? No, I know what you mean. I guess you could liken it switching states to, I mean, I got lucky in Drew and Elk Tag in Arizona. And it's not supposed to be a great year at all. And I have a lot of people saying, why'd you do that? Well, I don't know. Because I have minimal points. And I'm not going to not put in for a random RG Elk Tag in a quality unit. I'm not going to sit it out when you have random points. So, I'm kind of fired up to go down there and dig something up. I mean, I may get my butt kicked for 14 days. But it's a little bit of a challenge and a little bit of a, see what maybe could happen. You know, there is that component. I go back to that auction buck that was killed out here in Nevada years ago. We all know the buck. Ends up at 240s. And how cool is that?

That there was an absolute giant on such a tough year. And it kind of shocked everybody. Like, where did he come from? What riparian area did he live? You know, where he was sheltered from this drought that was going on. And so, things are. There are exceptions. There's always exceptions. Your Arizona buck was in a dry year. Your goofy bull we've talked about 15 times was in 2002. Yeah. Well, we killed him in 03. But 2002, he was bigger. Yeah. And it was like the worst year. Other than this winter we're living through right now, 2002 is the last one like this that I personally remember. Yeah. And then prior to that was 96. And, you know, and so anyway. But he was bigger. And I think it goes back to what Wyatt was saying is the bigger bulls. Well, we were all talking about it. Bigger bulls. Dry years aren't so bad for big elk. You know, and that proved it. I mean, that was.

It's possible in some of these units, like I said, that have more of a mountain component that. And we will get a lot of like heavy moisture storms in March, April, that time. If we get some of that moisture, that would say a normal moisture even. It could be amazing, really, because some of these deer, they've maintained some body condition better than what they have in a heavy winter with lots of snow. Which we kind of generally like to see or talk about. So it could be, still be exceptional. It's just at the moment, it doesn't look that amazing. I think there's some cycles, too, that happen that we don't understand all the variables. You know, fawns born on certain wet years. And now all of a sudden, they're awesome. Out in that sand country, I mean, on drought years, there's still giant bucks. You know what I mean? And so. Well, the deer densities are so low. Like there's enough.

They can still all go out and eat ice cream. Plants, you know, out in that country. So somehow they eke it out. It looks like this would be a terrible place to live. But a lot of years, it looks like that in a good year. Sure. And it would be interesting to see like elk ages. But that's one thing that I think why, you know, last year there was a lot of really good bulls on some of these units. But you go back and look and say, okay, what age were those bulls? Were they six, seven, eight-year-old bulls? Which a lot of them were. And they were born in 2017 to 2019 time frame. And a couple of really good years that year. So bulls born that year are going to reach a little better potential at a younger age. And so that could have been why a lot of those bulls were that size on some of these units. These mandatory, you know, harvest reports and tooth data and things like that.

Like Justin's bull came back, he's 13 years old. You know, but if we're managing off of age structure, which, you know, for elk, we kind of consider that. Yeah. You know, you could possibly see some tag increases on some of that stuff now that all this, when all this data comes back. Oh, yeah. And there's a lot of data and it's interesting. But, you know, anyway, sometimes it was nice. Game and Fish is really good at managing right to the exact line of what they want nowadays with all of the new age management tactics, strategies, collar data, survey data, teeth cutting, yada, yada. And sometimes it was nice when they didn't know what was out on the landscape and they didn't give as many tags as the formula said they could. Like Colorado when they cut tags and went to a draw and they under harvested for about five years. Yeah. What's wrong with that?

Or some of these desert units in Nevada, it's like we did an aerial survey. We saw four deer. There's no deer. And there's deer. They're just not. You just can't go see them in helicopters. Sometimes the biological accidents are good. Yeah. That's exactly. That's what you hope for is biological accidents. Yes. And if we're in that day and age, it's sad. Yeah. But as trophy hunters, to see a little bit of quality, you're just praying that something gets overlooked. No one else saw it too. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, I'm excited. I'm excited. But we also hunt multiple states. And here at Epic Outdoors, we cover multiple states. So we could always like, okay, this isn't so good. Let's go to Wyoming. Let's go to Idaho. Let's go to somewhere else. Yeah. Which cash? Like his tag he's talking about this year. I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't either.

I wish I could feel the vibe. You, Wyatt. You reigned me into it. There was three people in this office. Oh. Yeah. The gem state. I didn't know you. I thought that. We were just throwing that out on an early morning. It wasn't even something I figured you would capitalize on. No. Yeah. Capitalize on. There's the one that you reigned me into that I do have a tag for. And then there's an idea that if I can convince a buddy enough that it could go through and happen. You could point boost off that sucker? I could. Potentially. You're talking Wyoming. If he's really kind and wants to do it, I would really willingly go with him. Well, anyway. That's my plan, too. But I might just hunt elk this year. But it's been getting good moisture up there. It has. That's why I'm like, I'm going to go. Like, if I could go, I would go. Yeah.

No, kind of retracting back to what I said, not retracting anything I said, the thing that made me sad this year is just no snow. Like, you just hope for a good year every year, and that just makes me sad. That's the snowmobiler in you, more than the hunter in the outdoorsman. Like, I don't think you care about wildlife that much. I do. I think it's the snowmobiler. No. No. I'm talking. I love to chase them with my snowmobiler. I like to chase bucks with horns that are about to fall off. Do you do that, Cash? No, absolutely not. Have you taken the shed hunting course? Do you realize that causes stress? Yeah. I don't do that. I haven't done it. I can honestly say that. No. Unequivocally. Unequivocally, I have not done that. But, no, it's just, yeah. What? Do we frustrate you or do we fluster you a little bit? No, not at all. Lose your train of thought? No, I did lose my train of thought.

A normal moisture year is always just healthy for the soil. Oh, you have more optimism. Yeah. Healthier for the soil. For the soil. Those plant roots get a little deeper, so when you run them over, it's not as bad. I'm just kidding. Jeez. Well, what about it? I like we could have something on Cash. We keep him going. That's okay. Try me. Let's talk about the rest of Utah so we can actually cover the state. We've hammered deer over, which that's what we all like and love. But, I mean, let's do it. What are the highlights, Wyatt? When can we apply? We got to apply by April 24th. It opens up March 23rd. Can't even hunt or apply for three weeks more. But, yeah, people are talking about it like crazy. Well, people are trained. Utah was always in February, right, with like a March 1st-ish deadline, and people are still, I don't know, that's ingrained in them.

The good thing is now, though, you get an idea of permit numbers and that kind of thing, too. There's a reason for it. Which does help a lot. And you got two more months from today or yesterday, whenever, two more months to wait to see what moisture is going to be like. Yep. But, like you said, usually about the 5th to the 10th of April now, they'll have permit numbers out. And, you know, generally, you know, like we've been talking here, those are based on management plan objectives, where they'd be, you know, teeth, ages with elk, and that kind of drives permit numbers, buck-to-doe ratio on deer. You know, when it comes to once-a-lifetime species, I almost never see those change from the time they're proposed to the time you apply. And so, yeah, that's a good thing. We put that off a lot, especially if you're a high-point holder in Utah, and you are looking at a maximum point tag,

or you're looking at a tag that's going to go from a one-hunt that's going to go from a one-tag non-resident year to a two, that's a pretty big deal. So look for that in April. We'll see those in April. Yeah. Then you can look for that in April. You can amend if you've already applied, or you can just apply once you see some of that. Depending on when you've got your license. Some people like to apply, get a twofer on their license, you know, and then, you know, I guess you could amend it. If you amend, you'd have to buy a new license. We've had to run people into that. I remember if you amend the last day, your license expired, you're going to pay, what, $120? $120. $120 just to amend. Better be it. But you're good for the next year, so whatever. Yeah, that's right. You're good for next year.

But as far as once-a-lifetime species, breezing over those, I mean, the biggest thing that I saw was they had a dramatic reduction in goat and bison tags this year. Mostly bison tags were reduced in the book cliffs. Goat tags in some units as well. So, skews for those, for non-resin especially, got cut way back. We had like two pages of bison hunts last year. This year, we didn't take up half of the fish. Kind of nice. It was a present fresh air. I'm going to predict something, though, potentially. Whoa. Oh. So, if we do not get the spring moisture and such. Oh, yes. I know where you're going. Those tags could be put back in and added. The gnashing of teeth from cattlemen throughout the book cliffs and Henry's is going to be so loud. Is this an educated guess, Josh? It's happened before. I know. Have you been hearing rumblings? No, no, no. He's lived through the same thing.

He's just trying to basically cut the, you know. I could see there will be a charge. Cut the animal usage off of these units that are dry. There will probably, whether we get spring moisture or not, there will be a charge to the racks and the board to increase elk tags, bison tags, any of those kind of large ungulate tags. In the name of drought. Or in the name of drought. Yeah. You couldn't see tag increases due to that. Like non-residents. They're not going to like say, hey, we'll give non-residents now tags. So that won't change. It'll just incidentally. But the resident tags are going to go up. There's non-resident tags. It could affect non-resident too at 10%. In the five, four, five units that they were, so they could apply. But yeah, that's a good point. Sheep are doing good. Rockies aren't doing as good as deserts. Goats are doing okay to good. But yeah, elk. I don't know.

We've talked a little bit about elk, but man, how many hunts do we got right there? Count that one on the beaver. How many hunts do we got on beaver? Like almost every guy has that. You've got archery, early rifle, muzzle, mid, late, and then the late rifle, late archery, which is Wyatt's favorite. Six archery hunts on there. And here you've got states like Arizona. It's actually, we should clarify, it's not Wyatt's favorite. No, it's not. But it gives him an opportunity to go out. No, we've been teasing because Wyatt is more of a deer guy, and he's got five years to draw an elk tag. And the reality of that is it's going to have to be something less desirable. Go where the odds are easy, but the bulls are big. Hey, I do have to say, though, you know, last year, you look at it last year to this year, the conditions were significantly different on that hunt. Oh, yeah.

And harvest was, there was harvest this year. There was harvest. A, there was harvest. B, there was a couple big bulls. Yes, there were some big bulls. So, really, if you get lucky with weather and such, it can be. And a lot of times these guys, they're actually, I haven't talked to guys that have really hated them. They actually kind of like them. They get out. They glass bulls. Drought years go late. Yes. They glass bulls. They're on big bulls and hunting big bulls with those tags. It's just when you're trying to get into 50 yards in thick mahogany that you can't see through, it's hard to close that. Any little crunchy snow on the ground. But, yeah, there were bulls harvested this year. A lot of bare ground. We had the Monroe Lake kid kill that big old archery bull, too. You know, beaver late, whatever. Yeah. So, anyway, that's something to keep in mind with that hunt, I guess.

It was fun. Trying to sell Wyatt on that, I guess. Wyatt doesn't hunt elk post-October 1st. That's right. We've heard that. Retired. Just saying. Why did he apply? I haven't applied. He could do antelope. You promised. He could do antelope. I'll eat the tag. Jeez. Although, I don't care to save an elk too badly, either, though. He can't mentor it to cage. You're going to wound four and kill one.

Why don't you like elk, Wyatt? I don't know. They just never really fascinated me like a mule deer has kind of deal. They just, I mean, when I'm back guiding days, they were just easy money kind of deal. Big yellow school bus. Big yellow school bus. I love it. They were easy money. They were. You pack a couple out of a few canyons, it makes you hate them too, right? Canyons, knee-deep snow, things like that. I feel like that one time we killed one in January was it for you. Yes. Was that a Dutton-ish country? Rugged, gnarly. It was rugged, gnarly, nasty country. And it was January. It was cold. Weren't you guys in town a fair bit? I failed out of three classes because of that hunt. College. Before it even started. I know that's probably the hunt I hear the most about. It is. So there's some deep-rooted hate. Let's not go there. Sounds like my grandpa's going to school story.

Knee-deep snow both ways. Oh, yeah. Yellow school bus. To the bus stop. A yellow bus. Yeah, exactly. Yellow school bus. The bus broke down. Had to pack it out. It was terrible. This was terrible. What are you guys' thoughts on some of these outcomes? I mean, the archery, early rifle, muzzleloaders, late rifles have been around a long time. We got this new, I mean, the late archery is what it is. It's purity and opportunity hunt. There's a few tags in Arizona and units like that that have it just for some low-point opportunity. That's what those December archeries are in Utah. And like we said, like Josh said, two years ago it was like Antarctica in Utah, even on the late rifle hunt. And then in December it was even worse. It was rough. Last year we had bare ground pretty much everywhere. But what about the new mid-season hunt? Because that's where the bulk of the tags are.

That's where the odds are the best if you look at random odds. But what do you got to be careful about? I tell that to non-residents all the time that it's not a bad option for a non-resident. I just tell them your hunt is like the three to five days before the hunt. That's the way I would treat it and kill that sucker at first line opening day. Why is that? Educate the people. Because if you don't, when the spiker hunters show up. Spiker hunters. Yeah. It's not going to be the experience you envision. Your hunt is the hunt before the hunt. That's what I tell guys. And it is a good opportunity if it's to watch the season dates on it. You could get some rutting still. Oh, Southwest Desert. It was actually an awesome hunt. Yeah. You could still get. So if you're wanting a rut hunt. It's not even till. Consider that one still. It's going to be full blown.

I think I'm going to switch from deer to elk. That's what I think. And there are some units. I like the elk. I'm like, what? I need a big bull. Two things that I've noticed with that hunt, and I guess sometimes it could be unit specific, but you have to deal with spike hunters no matter what. Yeah. That's a general season over the counter tag for guys here. Yeah. And so guys, and there's a lot of people that do it. It's the only elk tag in Utah that you can buy a tag. There's family reunions based around that. It's replaced that. But it's a long hunt. It's the fourth to the 16th. Correct. And I would contend that opening three days is a flurry. Yes. And then probably the next weekend's a flurry. Weekends. The middle of the week, you're probably going to have a relaxation. I feel like flurry is a soft word. I think I'd use like war zone. Something more extreme.

But you would rather have that than a late archery. I agree. I'm just saying. It is. There's a lot of people. It's just not a limited early rifle experience. No. There will be a lot of people on the landscape. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing would be you'll get bulls move, which can be going to your favor. You show up. Last year, that early archery was legit. You know, guys really like that one. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know I'd passed up a bull on my hunt and it was just a week later and it was killed eight miles north. Eight miles north of there. On the mid hunt. Yeah. On the mid hunt. So. It is true. It is a mixing. And I think it's partly just later rut and they're moving more. And then maybe pressure from the spikers. Yeah. You just got an onslaught. Rather than a flurry, it's an onslaught of hunting pressure. Is that a better word, Devin? Yeah. I like that. An onslaught. Yeah.

Of, I guess you can't even call it an orange army. You only have to have a hat in Utah now. So it's just. Just. Just an army. It's not the orange army. I would be dressed head to toe. Yeah. Most. It's like Colorado. I'm grateful. Oh, yeah. When I go to Colorado, I'm grateful to drape orange head to toe. I look back at Trevor's mid hunt. I'm going to do it. The sticker guy that wraps trucks, I'm going to wrap mine in orange right here. We had, yeah, like hordes of. Crossfires. Hordes of people. Helicopters hauling out guys that were having medical emergencies. Like it was. Oh, it was no joke. It was crazy. It can't be insane. Depending on where you're at. But some of those guys didn't really belong where they were. No. Well, and I would say there are some units that do have a lot. Certain elk units that have really concentrated elk on summer range.

And that's where everybody's going to be for big bulls and spikers and everything. And then there's other units like Southwest Desert. I'm just throwing. Maybe even a San Juan. There's some units that are so giant that there are fringe areas you can go. You can get away. But there's some units. Panguitch is not really one of those. I love the fringes. And you could use that to your advantage. Find a rogue bull that's left cows generally. Probably he's going to be a bigger bull if he's doing that. Probably left the cows. And you could find him just out feeding by himself and smoke a giant on that hunt still. Yeah, exactly. All right. Wyatt, you're perusing some stats there. Well, he's getting excited about the school buses. Well, he notices a 40% kill rate on the boulder-laid archery. He's pointing it out to me. Maybe I shouldn't have said that with a hot mic.

Maybe that was what you were going to apply for. Some of them were kind of surprising, honestly. That also means two out of five people. Panguitch Lake, you're looking 60. Let's keep in mind what that really means. It's a pair of hardcore dudes. Guys are getting it done with those bows at late season. Okay. Good drawing on. But maybe they had crossbow permits. Yeah, possibly. Is that 60? That's 60. So that's three out of five. Yeah, Panguitch Lake. Jeez. We had a member come and kill a bull on there. I remember talking to him. He came and he killed in the first three days. On the Penguins Lake? Yeah. Late archery? Put it in a plane and flew home. So, I mean, it's... Well, anyway. And we're saying this because of skews because Utah's a very tough state to draw. That was a very deliberate comment. What do you mean? Put it in a plane and flew home?

Three days later, he was home after killing a bull. I mean, good grief. Okay. Keep going, Bronson. No, I'm just saying. Pollock. Or skews. Skews. If your low point totals... Skews create opportunity. What I like about... What I do like about Utah... Spreads out the applicants, too. One choice counts. If you could do five choices like Nevada and Utah... It wouldn't even be the same. No. So one choice counts. Even two choices. Even three choices like New Mexico kind of ruins it. But two choices like Arizona, no thanks. I think the one choice makes a guy do what he really wants to do. I like it. For Wyatt, it'd be late archery elk. I mean, he really wants to do it. He's going to apply for it. He's going to pray he gets it. Maybe we should... And then he's going to burn the tag or shoot five of them.

We should play... Maybe shoot five and burn the tag. Maybe he'll shoot five and not tag one. I don't know. I would never shoot five of them. We've got to have disclaimers on here. People, we're not serious. He's never going to shoot five, but he hates elk because it takes away from deer habitat and everything else. Whatever it is. Three is an allowable wounding loss amount. Let's go... Let's play the... But I love the skews. There's... I want to play the would you rather game with Wyatt on... Because we're talking of skews. Let's do it. Would you rather. Okay. Wyatt. I'm just going to pick beaver because everybody knows it's a big... Pick something he really has an affection for. Monroe. Okay. Monroe elk versus Henry's or ponds. Well, that's a... Are you talking... I'm talking about... Henry's, OTC elk, aren't you? No. No. I'm talking about elk versus deer. Okay. But let's go...

Whatever laid our tree nut you would put on your top of your list. For elk? Whatever that is. Or... Wait. What is that? I want to know. There's a lot of people that want to know. Okay. Beaver, Monroe. Probably not boulder, even though we pointed out 40%. That's a thick... Probably something closer to home if I could stay in my house and... What? Penguich? Let's see. Let's see. Monroe, beaver... Penguich. Penguich. Or boulder. Let's do any of those three or... Or San Juan. An early rifle hunt. Your roots. Your elk roots. Early rifle hunt on Wasatch. Probably the early rifle hunt on Wasatch. You really want that? No. But... I love this game. He doesn't hunt elk after October 1st. He won't. Wyatt. It's a hard date. Testing that theory and that is probably true. If he said that, it's true. You would not go to Wasatch. I don't really want to go chase him in knee-deep snow with my bow.

I thought we had an aggressive discussion about your late plan. This is why I love these deals. I think he's straight up lying. Into his head. No, I don't think he is. You don't? Devin, you don't think he is either. He's serious. Give him another one. Wyatt tells the truth most of the time.

Most of the time. Now, there's some college stories. No, but I believe him. I really do. You do? I believe it. Well, I had to pick a pretty... You guys were there. I would call it marginal early rifle hunt, like a Wasatch. Marginal from a trophy expectation. What if it was mid-season? Hit him with one, Devin. Come up with a unit. I know. Same thing. Mid-season instead of early rifle. Mid-season. Mid-season. Wyatt out there with the Spikers. With the Spikers or you're going to do late archery elk. Okay. What would you do then? Mid-season on the Wasatch. Mid-season Wasatch or late archery. Either way, I'm at, what, $65? I mean, what's the cost? $200 and something. Oh, $265? $280 to $300? Where is that? He's wondering how much it's going to cost. Who cares about the money, Wyatt? I'll tell you what, Wyatt. If you take the tag, we'll buy it. We'll pay your tag fee. Okay.

Let's have that on the table. Epic will buy the tag. We don't care about the cost. I don't have to go, right? Why are you looking at the cost? This means nothing to you. Well, I'm just saying that that's what I'd be out. So, elk, if it's reduced to the cost, it really do mean nothing. Yeah. So, answer here, Devin's question. That same thing, one of those top, call it four, late archery hunts in December, or a Wasatch mid-season rifle? Oh, jeez. You have to go and hunt five days. I have to go hunt five days. Well, you just have to hunt. If you kill a bull the first day, you kill a bull. Yeah. Which one of those would you sign up for? There's tags on the table. Willingway. If you're on. Yeah. It's tough. I mean, still hunting elk in October. It's early. They're still whistling. There was serious concerns. The flange is frozen off. Is it a dry year like this?

I mean, it probably wasn't that bad in December of this year. I mean, man. He's like a guy standing in a wake on two boogie boards. A heater bodysuit. Can't go either way. We'll buy you a heater bodysuit. Put it in a blind. A ground blind. Are you not a blind hunter? I'll take Beaver and I'll just sit there off I-70. Not I-70. Highway 20. Okay. Now we know. Hope something comes out in the flats. Hey, I glassed him up last night. I can get you. At least you got some snacks and drinks in your truck. Wow. Well, so basically the early rifles are interesting. Wyatt says he hates elk. What's in his office? That's why it's in my office. Where are my mule deer? I don't know. Where are they? They're in my living room. Why are they not there? Because you also have a moose there and a moose on and out puts wives over the edge sometimes. You look at your bull 10 to 12 hours a day. In the eyes.

I think. In the eye. Square in the eye. I'm glad I did that one time. And you even paid to get it mounted. So I don't have to go after another. Regardless of the tag cost. You paid to get it mounted. You paid good money. I'm glad I did that one time. I don't. Mitt Wright wasn't the guy to play would you rather with. No. I'm kind of over that one. But I've kind of no. All right. Early rifle on Wasatch. That would surprise me. I would. I'd take my chances on this late archery and fail. But I know there's big bulls. There's guys that are hunting big bulls on Wasatch that aren't talking. It's better than we think it is. The achievement behind hunting elk is screaming bulls. That's one time when I say elk might be cool. Yeah. When you're screaming, you're chasing rutting bulls. I mean, there's just something cool about that. We had a blast hunting this last year. I like hunting elk, too. Yeah.

So. That reason I'm in on this year. For that reason, Adam's going to Arizona. Well, we had last year, we had Cash and Josh flirt with a trifecta. They killed bulls in two states, each of them. Yeah. But by the time you pack the second one out, you're done. Yeah. The family experience got old. The fun went down. The fun was over. Yeah. By the time you get that second one in the truck. Buy a new freezers. It's ready to be back at the office. But, Pollock, yours were like 10 days apart. Cash, at least, he had an archery and a rifle. So we were a month or so apart, right? My fun ended when the thought occurred to me, I might have to pack Logan off the mountain. Whoa. Come on. You guys had some pretty good bonding. That's about when the fun ended for me, too. Yeah, probably. And that wasn't because Logan was out of shape. No. It was because I got him up to like 11,000 feet. Really?

I've been doing research. I found ways to circumvent that from now on. He's good now. You had altitude sickness? Oh, man. Were you not here for that podcast? No. Apparently not. Oh, he was gone. That's right. What happened? That's right. Did you? I got altitude sickness real bad in Colorado. Did you? I was having a hard time staying alive. Alive? Probably not. Breathing? Yeah. It was tough. I was like wheezing when I got- He dropped a mile down the hill. I heaved a few times. You need an albuterol inhaler. He was just about passed out. Yeah. Yeah. I got some oxygen cans. I know to drink a lot of water from now on. It's- We're good. And he went back like two weeks later and was just fine. On your deer? On your deer hunt. Were you not quite that high or almost? I was not quite as high, but I was past my limit on caches hunting.

Then I just had some boost oxygen and drank a ton of water before I went down, and we were good. You're like one of those football players playing in Florida that they do a hard run. Yeah. Exactly. Where were we when we tried that? He calls a boost oxygen. It was some of this canned air we had out here. Yeah. Canned air that you clean your keyboard off. Keyboard tester? Did you take the office canned air? No. Did it turn it upside down and then hit it? Yep. Put the red nozzle up your nose? You never know with these young kids. Exactly. You never know. I was feeling real good. I did not know that huffing canned air. I got a top so fast. It was crazy. That was amazing.

Well, I think there's also – well, anyway. Keep going. All right. Let's move on. I think – What is there? What's that? Paul? Yeah. You think – Devin needs an antelope. Which one on an antelope? There you go. Do a would-you rather? I'll take either one. What do you mean? I'll just kill one. Yeah, Devin. I'll just kill one. He'll take whatever steps in front of him. Right here. I want to both. Go home. Nobody in here is putting in for antelope. We as residents have to choose. But is there anything, Jason, that stood out to you in this year's antelope section of the magazine that you might highlight for non-residents? I like – Which is a shame. I'm like Wyatt. Where can I go and spend the same night in my bed? I'd be Southwest Desert. And where's the best roads that won't spill my green? Southwest Desert's not bad. Which is a shame. I could take a one-ton truck on those roads.

I wish we could all hunt antelope more often here. I like it. They're fun. They're fun to hunt. I want a giant of those, too. Yeah, I want that. When you see like a big, big buck, it does get you a little excited. I saw one last year. Black ABS, Jason. Black ABS, man. Straight up Northern Nevada, Black ABS, no joke. I love Nevada for antelope. I'm going this year. Done.

Everybody's quiet. Really? We were waiting for you to say something else. Do an antelope tag. What? We're going this year. Yeah, I'm going to go. We've heard that before, though. No, I'm going. It's true. Quality tags, and they all go by the wayside. I've got it. You guys are mean. Well, it is. I get excited about the kill, and then you've got to let some of them go. You know what I mean? Some of them just sit in the filing cabinet. Yeah, like all of them. You can only do so much. I'm Idaho. It's 75% that back. I've got an Idaho tag. I've got an Arizona tag. OTCs. How about there's a couple new deer skews? Where are you going to go on those? Yeah, let's throw you a would-you-rather on those. Some of them didn't even make the magazine, those Moab and Castle Valley layhounds. Well, like the Moab and Castle Valley, Adam, we talked about it.

New skews create opportunities that we don't know exist because nobody's in the field during that time frame. So there could be a giant pull in. And it's a general season unit. It gets hunted early. It's not like it's a standalone unit. But they are prescribing that for CWD purposes. Those later congregating valleys there. The name of CWD because there was once upon a time they found one. I think part of that, too, is you've got to look at the genetic potential of the general unit that they're coming from. And you grew up on that. Yeah. And I remember vividly an absolute Josh Pollock's dad's type deer up on Zachary's. It's unbelievable. The LaSalle Mountains. The LaSalle Mountains. And it just is in my mind. Out by that Taylor Flat country. It's in my mind. I will never forget it. But I don't know. Maybe it was a Colorado runaway. I don't know. It's not characteristic of the unit.

Well, and those valleys are, Castle Valley and Moab, are very low end wind range. You know what I mean? Yeah. And they are November hunts, much like the ones on Mancus and or the Little Rockies, which I'm going to talk about here in a minute. But see how much time he spent out there. I think the new SKUs give an opportunity for the first few years. And then we're back to remedial. Some of them are going to stick. Some of them I could see being dropped. Or even if they stick, the ones that do stick, I just feel like the cream will be creamed. People learn them. But the exciting part about a new SKU is being the first or second. You know what I mean? The first year, second year, something like that. When it's just like, man, there really could be something here. What is here? You know? Well, in the case of all these that we're talking about here, none of them are non-hunted areas.

They're all hunted earlier in the years on all of their tags. You know, the Mancus one on San Juan's all getting hunted on the regular San Juan Elk Ridge tag. Same with those, I guess, LaSalle areas. Those are more migratory, lower elevation wind range. But the Little Rockies subunit of the Henry's, you can hunt that with the regular Henry's tags. I don't know. How many people do you know have killed bucks out there on regular Henry's tags in your lifetime? I do not know one. But now, I contend now that we have concerted pressure in a certain area with a certain tag people are using points to get, now they're going to put more emphasis than they ever have there. And it's exciting for the first couple years. And then after that, people know what's there. They've killed them. Or they realize there's nothing there and don't want to go back. And it is a slight opportunity.

And it is a late season hunt. So, you can get some, if you get some snow, we know those heavy, heavy winters. Get some movement. Deer can move off those southern, you know, pineal inhalers and drift across the highway. But, I mean, we had one of those by November. Almost never. One of my few mistakes, well, I'm not going to say that. I've got a few antelope or a few bison on the Henry's in my life. I don't really want to call them mistakes. They ended all well. But I remember being down there late, late. I remember calling you. Like, what am I doing down here? It's like. I said, I don't know. The end of December. Yeah. You have a four-wheeler with no fenders. Exactly. You know. So brittle. It does. It gets so cold and whatnot. And you wonder what you're doing and why it would have died. No. Straight up. There's no hospital in Hanksville. But I remember. Is there a medical facility?

There's not that I'm aware of. There might be a vet. I mean, you're going to go to Tikaboo? I mean, what are you going to do? Yeah. Anyway. Long story short. That year, there was a lot of snow. And there were deer. There were deer. Some of those years, there were deer cleared down by Tikaboo and drifting across the road. But I mean, that almost never happens by November either. So I just. So I just. You're going to be interesting. Same thing with the. I'd be cautious on that one. I'd be cautious on that one. I'd be cautious on that one. You know. What they're calling mancus. But it's much more than that. All it's going to do is hurt San Juan. The San Juan proper. Let's call it the San Juan proper. You know. The normal hunts because you're hunting those deer that come off and then they get hunted again down on the winter range where. They didn't before. Yeah.

They made it at the end of October there. They had it. They made it for the year. Just like some of the late auction bucks or something that get killed down there. Those are bucks that people knew about up on the mountain. So I think there is a chance you're going to bring something out of the woodwork that people didn't know about. The unit's giant. I mean. Well. Because some obscure spring held deer that people don't know about. I guess we'll see. How many permits they give. If it's five or something I guess they probably can't ruin it too bad. Like you know somebody's hands. And it's like everything. It starts out with good intentions and then pretty soon they pour tags to it because it doesn't match the ratios or whatever. And then there you are again. You know. So yeah. Anyway. The first year. First few years these skews come out. I think it's exciting. Is that what you're doing?

Probably. Oh wow. I mean. You heard it here. No. It's not true. I'm not. I'm actually not doing it. I'm saving my points for good wet years even though I'm excited. But I am going to do the general. And like some people I mean you got to at least have a tag in your pocket. The tricky thing with the general though. Something we need to probably bring up is now they switch to where with general season. Which it's going to change. Which I guess is going to be a hard decision for me. Is do you do you know general season just a weapon? Or do you use your dedicated hunter? Because you can no longer apply for dedicated hunter and general season. I think that comes into what you want for the next three years. So like you could do dedicated this year knowing it's not that good a year. But you've locked in and make good on the second and third year. Right. Or hopeful. Or whatever. Right.

But I think this comes into hunting science. What we were coining. We had a member coining. You know have a buddy that says hey how do you like that hunting magazine. He goes much more than a hunting magazine. This is hunting science. And I think all of these variables we're talking about. The spikers. The droughts. The new skews. The late archeries. Would you rather's. All of the all of these things I think go into why would we choose that. Well there's like 15 or 20 variables that go into making a choice. You know what I mean. And Wyatt may say well it's okay that's the only variable I need to know. Or me for antelope. How close to the house can I be so all my kids can enjoy it or my family. And you know or whatever. But I think generally if you want to make the most of these tags and the opportunity and the points that you have. New Mexico we've talked about.

Maybe Arizona we've talked about. You're using 15, 20 points in some of these. You want to make a good choice. An educated guess on what, why and where and when that next awesome animal will be. Based off of your hunting preferences and your style and your ability and your time off and all of those things. So I think it's hunting science. Yeah. Because I have enough general season points that I could draw basically any weapon or general season tag in the state. Because I was able to. I've drawn dedicated hunter. I've applied for both. I would get a general season point. So I have enough of those points. If I wanted to go hunt general season somewhere with a particular weapon I could do it. Yeah. This year. Or do I take that chance and say yeah I'm optimistic that you know maybe the next couple years. And I'd like to have a tag in the next couple years. Do I go that route.

But I don't have any of those points. But take the chance of doing that.

Yeah. It's just. Why it's in that position. But I think also. You've got points for general and dedicated. Yeah. But I think. Also it depends on the mountain units. Let's face it. Some of these mountain units just aren't going to. Zion. Penguich. Or whatever. You know. I guess you'd say beaver. But it's been down. Quality wise. But you could just say these aren't going to be affected by drought as much. You know. They aren't. Usually. And so. Anyway. A lot of it depends on where you like to go. Like some of the stuff Devin started off with is I like to hunt the desert. Yeah. Yeah. Not going to be great. Probably. You know. It would change how you're going to scout for sure. Yeah. Where you're going to put your time. Where I'll put my time. Elevation wise. Yes. Yeah. Parts of the unit. Because you've got a lot of desert stuff. Different parts of the unit. The whole deer year round.

But those. And then you've got summer. Traditional summer range too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But I think. I'm excited for the year. Yeah. What I think too. We get down. We get worried about water tables and all of those things. You know. You just get worried. Like I walk on my grass. It's crunchy. Like really hard. Crunchy. Like it's dead. And now we're starting to beat. Like going to feed the dog alone. Is creating this path. Because there's no water. There's nothing. It's just old. Dry. Decadent grass. Have we scraped one. No. An ounce of snow. No. No. Don't even have the snow plow on the skid. For the parking lot here at the office. Didn't even put it on my place this year. Yeah. So I worry about that kind of stuff. But then you find out that only a few states away we're dealing with moisture levels that are off the charts. You know. So anyway. When you're dealing with those water levels.

Only a few states away. They're having more water than they know what to do with. Texas and all these places. Well like you said. This podcast is directed at Utah. So there does sound like a lot of. Yes. But there's good things happening. Negative and all that. And all that. But I mean. There was some good moisture in some weird spots this last time when we were all at the expo. We missed it a little bit. But some of this stuff I hear down on Poncagon. A couple of spots down there. Some of that out in the country. And Elk Ridge. Some of that stuff got two feet of snow. I mean. I know that's not like a winner saver by any means. But that's a sizable storm. Yeah. You know. What about. Even up here at Todd's or whatever. Yes. That's what I mean. I mean. How many feet were we talking about? Yeah. There's two feet there. Cedar. Nothing. A lot of snow. How much snow do we have there? I mean.

A load. Yeah. So I'm excited generally. And I think. Don't be worried about going into Mexico. There's no points there. Go to New Mexico. That one doesn't bother. And like you said. There's a lot of. There's a lot of truth to that. Go learn a unit. If you got lucky. And went down there. I drew a tag. Go down there. Learn it. And you know. Gain that knowledge base. Even your tag Adam. Like you're saying. You know. You have a tag in Arizona. You've got it in a. In a great unit down there. And they manage it for. For good. Good. Good size of bulls there. And I think. And I've been there. So it's like. Yeah. I don't. I mean. It's a no brainer. I think you're going to go down there. Still hunt big bulls. Even if I hunt one. Yeah. I'm okay. One or two. You get a gift tag. Just like a New Mexico tag. They're gifts. You draw something over there. Just like an Arizona random tag.

Or even somewhere. Even if you pulled. A late archery tag in Utah. With elk. For two. With two points. That's a gift. It may be only a one in four gift. But it's a gift. Yeah. Odds wise. All righty. Okay. Take it. Okay. Take it. And make something of it. Don't be scared to apply. I mean. This is fun. The other thing. I guess we strap up with Adam. You know. We were talking like. How many more years. Do you have. To really hunt aggressively. In your life. Let's just say. 30. If you're 30 years old. You have a certain amount of years. If you're 40. If you're 50. You have a certain amount of years. Are you going to let the. Long term drought. Eat five years of tags. Of not going out. And enjoying being in the hills. And trying. Maybe. Maybe that's why. You know. Certain individuals. That have the means. To buy big deer tags. And all that. Like we were talking earlier. They don't care.

I don't. I don't have that many. Great deer hunting years left. I'm just hunting deer. I'm hunting deer. And it may be an off year. But I'm still going to spend money. To buy a big deer tag. Yeah. These guys are spending off the chart money. Because. What else are you going to do? They've got a certain amount of time left. In their life too. Well. And they can afford it. What else are you going to do? It's tough in every state right now. So you just. You can't just say. I'm not hunting mule deer. These people love mule deer. We love mule deer. And you know. We're going to put in for mule deer hunts. Maybe. Maybe tweak our choices a little bit here and there. Or like I said. Fortunately. Up north. You know. Idaho. Wyoming. Stuff like that. Maybe that's the place you focus. Or elk. Elk. Stag. Sheep. Goats. Moose. Elk. Things like that on drought years. Right. Right Wyatt. Give me a sheep.

You're right. Give me a sheep. Wyatt. Yeah. Sheep tag. Give it to me. Give you a sheep tag. Is she right? They'll make your. Haunt them in September. Yeah. When you're sweating your guts out. You don't even have to layer up. Right during the middle of the elk rut. Don't even have to layer up. When the elk rut. I go for sheep. Right. All right. I like it. Somebody's due for something like that. We haven't had one of those in the office. All right. Should we call it a day? Do you have anything else for your 60 seconds cash? Me? Yeah. No. I'm good. Did this cause you to think? Did this podcast cause you to think or change or. No. Any other plans? I mean not in particular. Like I am optimistic. Yeah. Like kind of like Josh was saying. Yeah. Like the deer came into this winter healthy. Yeah. So that's going to help. But cautiously optimistic. All right. Okay. There you go.

Devin, you're not buying it. You're not cautiously optimistic. Well, he's. I'll tell you guys in here in about two minutes what I. Some thoughts. Unguarded. No, I can't. Oh. Wow. Not happening. Okay. Oh. Moving along. On to the next. Give the people what they want, Devin. I will say this. When it comes to deer, a lot of bucks that made it because of certain skews and rules and opportunities get killed. That kind of sucks. With the new stuff and the changes. Yes. Yeah. No, with just statewide classic the way they've been doing it. And you can read into that a lot of different ways, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So, yeah. Deer that otherwise would. I'm not going to expound upon that. Otherwise make it. Don't. They die. But they deserve to live because they made it. They made it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I feel this. I think the hunting public feels the same way.

Even if it's five on a unit or ten. Oh, it's significant. Get them. Let them. Let them. And it happens everywhere. I'll see it on the late muzzleloader skews on these generals. You're like, man. You know, that deer, we had to hunt them through heavy tag numbers and they made it through all the regular seasons. And then we've got this special skew that smashed the last remaining. Or auction tags or whatever. So. All right. Well, anyway, on a positive note, we should all be applying. We should all be hunting, Wyatt. Whether it be late, early mids, elk, deer, antelope, right? Right. Yeah. Swing for the fence. I mean, this year, Wyatt won addition for non-residents. If you don't. They made the multi-season deer tag on the ponds available for non-residents this year. If you want to really swing for the fence, put in for that multi-season tag. An archery, muzzleloader rifle.

They call that the divorce tag. The divorce tag. I like it. Especially for not. Non-resident, you got like what? Yeah. 40, 50 days. Non-resident, 50 days. In a drought year. Okay. All right. We'll just end it. We're good. Let's go to work. 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 dot com. Kennetrek makes boots for every hunt. 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.

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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. 435-263-0777 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.

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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.