EP 377: Wyoming and Arizona Big Game Breakdown, Q&A Part 3, a BC Stone Sheep and a 400" Arizona Bull

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Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, John Peterson, Logan, Logan Marshall, how are you? I'm doing good. I don't think I've ever said your last name on the podcast. I don't think so. You blew my identity. Wow. Everybody's going to know. Logan Marshall. Geez. I mean, for all those potential fillies out there that want to look up who you are. Now you can search me up on Facebook. You can stalk me if you would like. Anybody want to stalk me? Sounds like he's aura farming right now. He's manifesting. He's the most eligible bachelor at Epic Outdoors. Adam is three for three on Gen C slang for these podcasts. He's not letting up his aura. All right. Tell us what the other auras are or whatever. No, or a farming is just kind of trying to get your name out there and build yourself up and make yourself look good. You're building up your aura. Do they call it that? Yeah. Or a farming.

They call it that. I mean, that's the most. He laughs. I don't know what it means. Stupidest thing I've ever heard. What was on the last episode? Don't sell your bag? Oh, yeah. What was that one? Is that what it was? I mean, stay true. Don't give up. You know, those dates might come. Don't sell your bag. Don't sell your bag. Is that the same? Yeah. And then the other one. I don't know. That's been your cook chat. Oh, yeah. Your cook chat. That was Instagram special. That's right. That one's everybody talking. Whatever. I mean. Stuff you can learn from a Gen Z, Gen Alpha. I don't know where we are now, but that's where we're at. Logan, I would like to know what you guys would do without spell check. Be toast. We'd be cooked. You'd be cooked. Chat. Chat. I have to, yeah, I have to run everything through AI so I make sure I got my grammar right, my spelling right. Grammar. Remember.

And remove the Gen Z freezers. What don't you run through AI? Very few things. It's a good double check.

It's a good first check. It's a good initiating thing. It's a good do your job for you. Yes. It's the 90%. Yes. And then the check is his own eyes later. That reads weird. He's talking like a robot. He sounds educated. I am. I got to tone this down to make it layman's terms. Make it dumber. Make this dumber. Making it dumber, hold the phone.

Dummy down, please. So did you guys see where I guess his AI talks to you? Like you can have conversations. People are losing their families over this thing. I do that all day. Yeah, they're having a relationship with this gal that's AI. Like a fake girlfriend? Seriously. It's just whatever you call her or him. Yeah. We started talking to it and had it talking back to us the other night. Like I was like, oh, we were trying it out. Guy was literally talking all day long out there in the hills. He's had this person. Yeah. Girl's voice. If you got no friends, that's. Turns out Jana did a little research on some of that stuff and people are leaving their families over this. Oh, yeah. What? They've got like apps. Because they learn what you like and how you like to be spoken to. Coddled. And all of the things that you're interested in and they act like they're interested.

They're farming your aura. They're not aura farming. They're farming your aura. They're farming your life. Have you heard of what I'm saying? I talk to ChatGPT every once in a while. Oh, my gosh. But I've never had a relationship with it. I want that on air. Okay. Define relationship. Is it like Siri? I don't even consider it a friend. Is it like Siri basically, but they keep going, building on. They just keep going. It's like, tell me about this. Tell me about what's happening with Greenland. I mean, yeah. Tell me what's happening with Venezuela. Tell me the difference between a 6.5 PRC and a 6.5 Greenland. Wow. Oh, yeah. And they go off. That's a very interesting question. While many people like the 6.5 for deer and smaller game, the 7 is more popular for elk. And, you know, Jason, considering that you have a couple of 7s and that you really like them.

It might be a popular addition to your gun save. You know, the .300 rum knocks you on your butt once in a while. It would list off the serial numbers you got in your gun. Knowing what's in your gun safe right now and the fact that I've heard you under your breath say, geez, I got too many guns. I wouldn't think that you need this gun. And that you're trying to keep them from down on. We won't. Neither of us will tell her. This will be between us. This whole relationship. Wink, wink. Hey.

I mean, geez. Yeah. Leave it to your family for a phone? Seriously. There's been. What's this word? That's been the subject matter of a lot of religious talk. I mean, seriously. Like, don't leave your families over this talk. Holy crap. AI's not worth it. Don't sell your bag for AI. Jeez. I guess. Oh, you got to. Nothing's. Nothing's off the table nowadays. So, anyway. Bronson, let's get back to hunting because that's what we really care about. By the way, I guess rifles is on our mind because, what, we built like five of them this morning? Did you? I mean, not building them, but. What'd you do? Did you? Taking six, five, sevens and a 300 rum and topping them with scopes for customers. Scopes, rings. Yeah. Balance level and you're just ready to shoot them. Yeah. Devin and I, you, we're headed out to the range here not too long. Going to freaking sight them in. It's going to be amazing.

It's awesome. Well, it was pretty awesome to hear the guy that you sent one to that, what was it, next morning in Kildan Oak. Yeah, that's okay and ethical or not, I don't know. It was 1100 and 87 yards or something. But, anyway, they were shooting, I mean, they were tapped out. So, it had a 20 MOA rail on it and they were tapped out. I think they were shooting 1400 yards at like an 18-inch rocket smash every time. Anyway, shot a cowl, good clean kill. It was amazing. Anyway, kind of fun, you know. Yeah. So, we like doing that kind of stuff. So, anyway, if you're in the market, some of these combination packages are well under $5,000, like $4,500. Yeah. And we're ordering up ammo and things like that. Or we're talking a Fierce Carbon with a Night Force scope. We're not talking janky equipment. Yes. I mean, really good setup, 300 rum. Yeah.

If that's not gone before the Expo, we might bring it there. Yeah. We're putting Zyce on, you know, anybody that wants, whatever you want, we can put on it. Yeah. This morning, I think we did a lot of Swarro. A couple Zyce, Night Force. That's right. Yeah. And Night Force, yeah. Anyway, Z5Is, I mean, just, it's fun to do it. It's kind of fun to do it. I don't ever want to deal in, like, used guns. Like, could you imagine? Like, you know, like, okay, what am I going to do with this? I just, you know. I just struck a screw. I just twisted one off and hit the action. The screws broke down in the action. Yes, exactly. Get out the JB Weld. No. No. I'm just saying, we've seen guns. Yes. It has been done. But anyway, kind of fun to talk about. But nevertheless, headed to SHOT Show. That's kind of fun. A lot of new products down there. We'll be, you know, showcasing a lot of that kind of stuff.

Looking at it, whatnot. Working with a lot of the different companies. It's a fun place to go. Talk about hunting. So, all right, Bronson. Well, you and I and the consultants, John, all of us, Logan, we're talking about what we're going to do this upcoming year. Constantly evaluating the weather. Why is it? It feels like I'm happy because it's springtime's coming. It's 51 degrees today. January 21st. It's just a spring. I'm happy. That also could be a red flag. It is a red flag. It's spring and it's January 21st. I don't know why I'm happy because it is kind of dry. It should be like winter for at least two more months. I mean, we took the snowplow off for our parking lot here. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Maybe. And sometimes you do that to basically try to get slammed by snow, saying we should have took it off. Well, and you've got to start it once in a while. You've got to start.

Tempting. Anyway, so there we are doing yard work, Kevin. At least friends of ours doing. I mean, it's just kind of that time of year. It's kind of wild. Normally we're supposed to be huddled in under a foot of snow. That'd be great. Things like that. But nevertheless, off we go. We still have hunts to apply for, decisions to make, and things like that. It's interesting, Adam. We talk a lot about rain, timing, rain, timing, rain, snow, timing, snow, you know, and the lack thereof or whatever. But it's going to be an interesting year. I don't know that we've seen kind of a wet fall, winter, followed by warm and beautiful and green shoots everywhere. And then potential rain coming, right? Like the month, two month out forecast. Yeah. I mean, snowpack's pitiful. That's a fact. But we did go into the winter as wet as you could go into.

You know, I think Salt Lake, I remember, you know, had the most rain ever in October by like October 14th. And I don't know how it finished, but we got more. I mean, they had inches and inches. We had a lot of it all across Utah. And we've talked about it before how a lot of the desert country, low country, winter range deer country just greened up like crazy. It still is everywhere. Down the gorge. I mean, lots of places down low. But, and that really helps animals going into winter. I mean, we saw it in Colorado. It was the same way. Everything's eating green feed and winter and easy. But at some point, yeah, we're going to need some more to sustain it through the real critical antler growth periods. You know, can't just not do anything between now and April, May, June. It's kind of wild. Remember, I was driving by Eagle, Colorado, and we're going by that golf course.

Remember, it's green. Golf weather. Yeah, it's golf weather. And literally, doesn't it feel like, I mean, it's the same, right? I don't know that we've changed anything. I know guys in Idaho, they're saying, no joke, we're, I mean, it is spring weather. There is no snow. Montana, Wyoming, same thing. Talked to guys in Montana, Missoula today. Talked to guys in Cody area last week. Same thing, 60 degrees, no weather to speak of. I guess we could talk a little bit about some of the things that we're thinking about. Obviously, there's, I don't know, like Wyoming elk, we could talk a little bit about that. We did talk about Utah elk a little bit, having the story last week. And some of the things that we had talked about, like deer wise and the little Rockies hunt. Some of these things that are just, just, just things that we talk about on the daily basis. You know what I mean?

And, and, and so I don't know, where should we go with it? I don't, well, you start us off, Jason. Where are you going? Well. Where are you going? There was, so in Wyoming, in Wyoming, there's a lot of guys talking about Wyoming. Wyoming is due, coming up here shortly. Second of February. Yeah, second of February. Arizona's due February 3rd. So everybody's kind of in that mode of thinking about what to do. The nice thing is you can apply for the regular or special license fee and choose something. Like if you're, if you got stupor of thought, just choose something and then you can amend between now and May 8th. Yeah. Right? Yep. Exactly. Or withdraw completely. If you decide, I don't want to, you draw something between now and then and decide, I don't want to go. I don't want to go home with a trad bow in grizzly country. Okay. Yeah. That kind of makes me laugh.

I don't want to go to grizzly country at all. Although if I'm with a guy or two, I'm like, all of a sudden I'm bold. You know, I'm good with that. Yeah. A couple of our Wyoming buddies, I'd like to go, I'd like to see them and their dogs in action around camp just yelling and screaming. See, they live amongst them. Be like us with rattlesnakes. I don't even think about rattlesnakes. I don't either. Our grizzly podcast editions changed my life. Really? I think about that a lot. What does your daily life look like, John? John doesn't even put it in Wyoming anymore. No, I'm serious. John's got foxes as prisoners. I mean, what did it do? What did it change? It's just like the number of people who had lead in the bears and they didn't stop. Like, it was shocking. Carrying aside arms is not enough. You better get them good. You got it. And you got to have a big caliber in it.

You got to hit them a lot. It was impressive. That episode. That's one of those things you can't prepare for. Yeah. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Right? Like, you're either going to shoot them well, you're not going to shoot them well. You're going to make them mad. They're going to take their last death run and mow you over. You're going to find out how you work under extreme amounts of adrenaline. It's just going to be one of those things like, well, it's my turn to go. It's my turn to go. There's worse places to die. Is that what you're going to say, John? I think about that. I died in the mountains. But I got ripped the cubs by an earthly bear. And I got cashed up and brought the cubs back to my carcass for three or four days. I fed some cubs. But I died with a smile on my face because I was in the mountains. And that's a lie. It's such a lie. Nobody does that.

Nobody does that. You were spread over two, three, four acres. They found a femur 1,400 yards over here.

Yeah. Died in the mountains is overrated in some cases. It is. It is. Anyway. Love it. Whatever. No, it's not that. But anyway, there's a lot of those. Wyoming elk is on our front burner. It is. And we always put in for stuff. I would say 80% or 90% of the time I amend to a different unit. I always. I'd say 100% of the time. I'm so gung-ho at the first. And then, you know, you draw a tag or a family member draws any tag over the next three and a half months. And it slightly alters it. Or you just realize I'm not as hungry as I thought I was in January 10th. I do not need to feed my family this bad. I think part of it, too, is like first apps get the most love. And that's why they don't want to move it, frankly, in Wyoming. They always like to be the first one. And somehow Idaho figured it out with their general.

And everybody thought this was the most amazing, controlled, limited process there ever was. And it did cause them to buy a hunting license. Now they're going, okay, I'm going to have this hunting license. I might as well put in for deer and elk and elk later. Yes. Those are getting worse. Yes. Not going to be easier, right? No. Got to make good use on this hunting license. Yeah. And so, anyway, there you have it. I'm going to be coming asking for antelope advice. Are you? Every one of my kids all of a sudden really wants to hunt antelope. Do they have points? Yeah. You've been getting a point? Yeah, some points. Dude, you should. Yeah. But even the ones who didn't have points, they were like, yeah, I really want to go. I might be able to split them a little bit up there. Yeah. Jason, you went up there last year with at least one. No, I did. We had an amazing hunt. Yeah. It was.

It was just a fun hunt. The older you get, okay, I don't know what it is, but like, I used to laugh when I was young. Logan, when I was your age, like, somebody would talk about kid hunts, I'd be like, poor old feller. He's on his last leg, blaming it on the kids. He loves the kids. That's why he's not killing anything. He just wants to go out and hunt with his kids. And it's the truth. You get to my age, it is true. Yeah. It is true. It is pretty dang fun. So fun. I mean, even you, you could have had a tag that basically Ty utilized last year. Yeah. It had a goodness of your heart, which, I mean, you know, as dads, we want to kill big stuff too. You know what I mean? You don't want kids to have all the fun. But then you find out they had all the fun. You know? And you're still there and you had fun. And you did. Yeah. And he killed a great buck. It is fun. So it is true, John.

I would make it happen. You know, we've got three, four months to make decisions on that one. But antelope, they can't winter any easier than they are in Wyoming this year. No. And we went up there and everybody's like, I don't know how to winter last. There was antelope everywhere. Yeah. Okay. Everywhere. They come back way faster than deer. And I'm not, and the unit I went to was hit. But, I mean, it's not rocket science up there. It was built for antelope. The place was, I mean, antelope was the first, the first big game species we're father in heaven put in that state. And he's like. But I'm just, I'm just saying, Wyoming was built for antelope. Antelope were built for Wyoming. Having said that, Bronson, the elk are amazing. We had, there was a number of big, big bulls on those late season, early season, late, let's call them the late type hunts, units.

And that's the 55s, 59s, 56s, 60s. A lot of big bulls. There's so diverse of options up there. You've got high prairie, easy track hunts, easy walking around, public land. Those are generally really hard to draw because everybody wants those. Let's call it, you don't want hunter. Don't have to deal with grizzlies. 31, 32. Yeah. Don't have to deal with grizzlies. Don't have to deal with outfitter if you don't want to. And then there's all the rough mountain stuff. Horses, bears, backcountry. Big bulls. Saddlesore. Saddlesore. Big bulls. Even general. Savsores. General equates to general guided wilderness. That could happen. Even big bulls, again with savsore. Whatever else you said. Savsore. All that. Hobbles. Yeah. Lot of blood. Those are good experiences though. We've had families, we've had grown men take their grown adult children. You know what I mean? Like groups of them up there.

Backcountry. And doing, even those generals or something like that. And we've got outfitters. So if you want to, you want somebody to go with, why let us know. Anyway, a lot of, a lot of different options. Even the general or DIY, relatively good access. Anybody can do it on the western, southern, things like that. So go to our website. You can check out. Members can look at our odds of drawing online. Very easy. I feel like that's a huge, awesome part of the Epic Outdoors membership. Is being able to go online. We're consulting from it non-stop. Doing point queries. Minimum point queries. If you had six points, I would throw in three to seven. And look at all the options from three to seven. Right? Just get, and then you can say, all right. This is what I really got. And it just narrows it down so fast. Compare it with the magazine. Our write-ups in the publication. And go from there.

And it's an e-mag online, too. So if you don't have the paper copy, that's okay. In front of you, then fine. All right. Well, and I would say just. What, Bronson? I just, you got to go read Genesis to see in the order of the creation. What really came first? It was antelope on my own. Okay, I just, I got to go reread it. Guy, you had, they had to. When you, everything needed. Anything can eat antelope meat. You put antelope meat on the face of the earth. I'm pretty sure it was a coyote, bro. I think a coyote and elk. The flea on its back is the last thing to leave. I mean, they can live anywhere. Coyotes can live anywhere. They're going to be one of the last critters alive. Maybe they're going to be the last. The first? Yeah. I don't know. Anyway. Coyotes need something to eat. There's a theory for everything, I guess. Well, anyway. Off we go. What else are we talking about here?

So, there's options there, Bronson. And then you and I are constantly. So, there you go. Apply. A man to pull. A man. Pull it out completely. If you don't like where you're at or what your schedule's turned into or whatever. But it's kind of. It's good and bad. It's good that you have so much time. The only bad part is if you pay special or regular, either one, you got to pay your card off or else you're going to have that on there for like four months. That's so frustrating in Wyoming. It is. In this day and age when everybody's flipping a draw in two to three weeks in most every other case. That's right. But, you know, if we could have states require us to front the fees, we would go back to that. You know what I mean? And so, while it's frustrating. It would. It would. It would help odds. It would. It would. And I'm not saying. I want to go back to writing.

I mean, there have been guys that wanted 10 gallon per gallon of gas, $10 per gallon of gas so that nobody else can afford to go to the hills. I think that's a pretty short sign. I want to go back to the little extreme there. Colorado paper Scantron thing, black ink capital letters and send it in those paper apps and sign it. Remember those? I want those days. I do. You did it in blue ink. You're cooked. Oh, I know. Come on. Come on. You did it in blue ink. You think, what do I do wrong? Yeah, but front in the $1,965 or $707 or whatever, it gets. Come on. Do that for three or four of you. Yeah. Got eight grand for four months. And you can apply early on the other species. You going to do that? Front those ones? She just go by. You know? No. Come on. So, anyway. Then we also have Arizona. Arizona elk and antelope. We covered that heavily. There's a lot of options. Even lower point guys.

Even like seven, eight point. Seven to nine, really. Eight to nine. Late rifle. Yeah. Kind of a sweet spot for a late rifle. Decent. Actually, decent hunts there for being late rifle. I'm not saying this is your next 400 injury. But if you're a rifle hunter, gun hunter, that's realistically all you're ever going to draw in Arizona. Yeah. If you have middle of the road points. Yeah. And there's a random chance. Half the tags go to people. Up to half. You know. Depending. I mean, we're in the same pool with the residents as they pull out the first 20%. Max point tier. And then up to half of ours can go to the max. And then half go on a random. But most of those early rifle and muzzle loaders have one to two or three. One to two random tags max for a non-resident. Maybe one to two go to max. Like a 40 tag unit. We got the split. So you got one or two random.

You're not going to draw that in your life. More than likely. At some point, you're going to have to drop back. If you're a rifle hunter, you're going to have to drop back to a rifle November hunt. Or switch to hunt with a bow. And that's just being realistic. Like most guys want to go hunting. Like that's fine. Yep. You've got options. And you could go do that. These are self-guided. You totally could be done self-guided. Good access. Lots of public in most cases. Yeah. Yeah. And then if you want to go guided, that's fine too. We've got plenty of great outfitters that do great. I can't believe some of our guys, even on like say the five units, seven. Five through eight. They did good in those units. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't played there yet. That's a stack of applications I got to do too, Jason, for the family. And that gets expensive too. Yeah. Now that all your kids are adults. Yeah.

$160 a pop, you know. Well. Plus that piece. And I mean, you do that. Plus the deer and sheep. Seven in places, you know, which is what we're doing. I'd rather not add it up. Well. You just, you do in some cases, you want to tell the wife what you're doing for the family. Well, okay. Do they really understand? Do they appreciate that? Or would they rather just say, let's go on vacation? Why don't you be a dad on the daily and go out to movies with our kids? Let's just go on vacation for what you're spending on us all. Yeah. We could have a heck of a time in Hawaii for two weeks. You know. I get it. So, you know, you don't talk about it. I guess we do that too. But anyway. So, yeah. Some of them are educated enough to be like, that's just your future point boosters.

May or may not be. Some of our kids aren't letting us get away with that. No, mine aren't. They like to draw tags. And I like them to draw tags. If they find out you did that. You mean to tell me, Dad, I had 20 oak points at once in my life? Yeah. Yeah, you did. You did. Yeah. When was that? The year before last when I went down to hunt myself. Yeah. Okay. Let's move on. Let's not. It's just hypothetical. That's just like their kids would disown us. That's why I changed my Arizona password as soon as I moved out of the house. Really? Did you figure your dad would rob him? Well, you know, it's just not a risk you want to take. Even though he's paid for all the points. A lot of them, right? Yeah. Out of all my points, he's paid for about 97% of them. But he doesn't deserve them. I do. That's right. Hey, I'm the one. It's your social security number and birthday they're attached to, right?

I'm going to have to go change my whole identity. Oh, geez. I like that. Well, there's a lot on the table right now. I think we're all praying that we get more moisture from a deer standpoint. We've seen southern Utah, Nevada be really rough for a couple years. 2023 was really good, but that feels like forever ago. Yeah. Let's keep it real. You know, Wyatt had the Henry's tag and everywhere else was really pretty good that year. Yeah. But so still pretty early. I guess jury's out on what it's going to turn into. If anything, it could get really, really bad. Or it could turn around and be really, really good if we just get normal precip in the latter part of spring. So waiting on that. But first me, I think, yeah, I'm thinking those northern states kind of like you. Well, and you've talked about every day we come in. Every day, Adam.

Every day, what, you and I's office are about 12 inches apart. 18 inches apart? Yeah. I'm just saying. Like, every day we're like, man, we need to be hunting elk. Like, we need to be hunting elk. We've been guilty of not putting them as high on our priority list at times. We have a lot of points for them, but just, you know, we can go fill on three or four deer hunts a year in different states. And it feels like we still needed two more deer tags to try to make it happen. Yes, exactly. And elk, we didn't even hunt them once that year. Yes. And we're looking back to seeing some phenomenally great elk years when we thought we just needed more deer tags to make it happen. And that might have to change. Okay. Well, we're going to call an epic hunt winner. Really? Yes. But, Bronson, why don't you start it off by talking about the sheep hunt that we're giving away. Oh.

This would be an epic hunt winner that has been on this one. This is for the stone hunt we're going to call. Yes. Okay. Well, yeah. So, we, you know, customarily we have at least two bigger drives. We've introduced in the last year a couple of shorter monthly drives randomly throughout the year. But this is our time frame right now. We're in the epic winter 2026 membership drive and gear hunt giveaway. The deadline for these entries, either by joining our service and getting in or referring somebody and getting in or buying some entries, is February 25th. So, got just about a month. So, right around the corner. Yeah. One of those is a Yukon stone sheep hunt. No joke. We've given this hunt away several different times. And, you know, these hunts are 80 grand plus in the Yukon. That's just what they are. Find one cheaper. You know, I dare you.

It's going to have to be a last minute cancellation. Well, these aren't ones that we're making deals with the outfitter to give us half price and we're booking X amount of clients to, you know, in trade. These are like we are writing the check for this. Yeah. So, this is actually going to be a 10-day hunt. It's opening day in Yukon is August 1st. This is for the first hunt. You can't get better dates than that. It's the very first crack at everything. 2026. 2026. So, yeah, let's call and talk to somebody about better than that. We're going to get AW on the phone. But we also have, just really quick, before we do that, we have the caribou hunt for two hunters. We've got a Utah elk right here with a landowner tag, Southwest Desert. Incredible hunt. Nevada 231 deer. Utah mule deer. New Mexico antelope for two hunters. And it's, I guess we're pulling one name and giving it away to a friend.

A guy that draws it and a buddy. Then we've got a Texas Barbary sheep gear package. And then, of course, you know, a winner's choice type hunt where we give $15,000 toward the hunt of your choice. So, pretty awesome. A lot. But anyway, and it's right around the corner. So, let's get AW on the phone, visit with him a little bit, and kind of get his story on this particular sheep hunt that he won.

Hello? AW, it's Jason and Adam. How are you? Good. How are you guys? Good. We catch you inside. How's the weather? Are you in Wyoming? Are you on the travel, on the way to the sheep shore somewhere? Not getting ready to go. I'm going to leave tonight to head over for the airport. We leave early in the morning. Oh. Nice. Gotcha. We've been talking about our crazy mild winter. You guys have been pretty mild up there in eastern Wyoming? Even really mild. The biggest thing we've had to fight is the wind. It's been treacherous. Terrible. But isn't that like yearly for the last hundred years ever in Wyoming? Yeah. It seems like it's been worse this year. Really? Really? Atrocious, yeah. You have any rain earlier on? We've got a lot of rain early going into the winter. It's been drier since. But what's your precip been like? I know you don't have snow, but you've been pretty dry. Really dry.

Yeah, really dry since November. Wow. What do you think that means? Wyoming might be okay. Like, Wyoming seems okay. But like down here, it's hard on us. Like, we need the water. Yeah. And if we could get some, because it's been so warm, there's not even any frost in the ground. It would go in and do some good, you know. But we just haven't got any yet. I'm hoping maybe this next month we'll start to catch some snow, rain or something. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, we appreciate you taking a few minutes with us today. We've teed this up by just saying we've got our epic membership drive going on right now, as we do a few times a year. And one of the hunts that we're giving away is a Yukon stone sheep hunt. And again, the very hunt that you won, I think it, well, you might have won it, but you won about three years ago, two or three years ago, but you won it a year or two prior to that.

So just thought we'd call you and visit with you about that experience and what that did for you. I think you took your son up with you and yeah. Tell us how that all started. What year did you hunt first off? 23. Yeah. That's what I thought. So yeah, it was fantastic. Anybody that has a chance to win it is going to be very fortunate. You can't ask for better place, better guys, beautiful country. It was absolutely awesome. Yeah. You killed a great round too. Yeah. We got a picture of it. Is that the January magazine? We did a little showcase of it, Jason. I think January, 2026. Page 22 on there. It's pretty awesome. I just saw it. Just saw it. I got it in our mail here a couple, three, four days ago. I saw it. Yeah. That turned out pretty good. Well, maybe just tell us the story if you got a minute. Everyone likes a good hunting story.

So just kind of tell us about it a little bit and give us the details on it. It was great. It's a pretty intense hunt. Like you don't want to go up there and be terrible out of shape. I can tell you that if you want any success. Yeah. But, no, it was – we saw a lot of game. You know, we've seen several moose. We saw several sheep. It was just outstanding, really. Every day we didn't really have a slow day when we were there. Weather was pretty cooperative. It was actually relatively warm. There were several fires in that area. The biggest thing we had issues with instead of rain or fog or anything like that was the darn smoke was pretty tough. Visibility. The sun. Yeah. The visibility was a little bit tough there a couple days. But, like I said, it was great. The weather and everything was. It was a lot warmer than I anticipated. I don't even remember.

I think we looked at several rams before we decided to take the – try to get the one that I ended up taking. Oh, yeah. And it was an all-day adventure. We got to the top of the mountain kind of behind where we were camping, our glassing spot, and it just got up to the very top. And, of course, we looked back and clear across the valley is where we found that ram at. So, I don't remember. 8.30 in the morning we started our trek, and I think we finally got over to him about 3 o'clock that afternoon. Wow. And, yeah, it was several miles and a lot of hiking that day, but it was well worth it in the end. I can tell you that. Did he have a – was he a band of rams or by himself, or what was that story like? No, there was a slug of rams. He was actually by himself – he was with another ram when we first saw him in the morning.

But by the time we got that distance closed, he had moved probably a mile and a half into another drainage. And in that drainage, there was, I believe, 14 rams in that drainage. Yeah, and it was – I'm glad that I had to wait – They need to send a few of them out. I was glad I had to wait quite a while because when I saw that many, I was pretty excited. I'm not sure I would have made that great a shot instantly because that was a lot of rams all at once. Wow. Yeah, and we were actually looking at them others and had got set up in a good spot and hadn't seen him yet again since early. And then, lo and behold, I don't know, after probably 20 minutes, he come out of the bottom. He was by himself down in the bottom away from them other rams, I don't know, 300 yards probably. And come out and stood there too long. Yeah. Didn't get away.

Sometimes it's hard to get – I don't know what they were – when you get that many rams and you're trying to kill one of them, it can be stressful because, you know, they get bedded down and there's three of them bedded in every direction. So, you got – you know, and you got to make – you know, get in on them. And if they're feeding, they're all doing the same thing. And I don't know. We actually had a – Yeah, I've killed a couple rams when there's one or two. And then you get a big group and it's like literally can turn into an all-day thing just to close it from 700, 800 yards into that, you know, 200, 300 sweet range you want to kill from. So – When we come around to the drainage that he had moved to throughout the day, we actually got pinned down by two young rams. And they kept us there for almost an hour.

We were less than 30 yards and they just were staring at us when they just caught us in the open. Yeah. And luckily they're youngsters and were just kind of dumb enough to stick around and not sure if they should run or not. And they end up instead of going around and getting the wind, they just finally eased off and went up over the mountain and give us a chance to finish the stock. Yeah. Do you remember what day it was when you killed your ram? And that's – you know, you do a 10-day hunt. Remember what day it was? I believe it was the fourth day. Pretty early. Wow, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. And took your son, right? Took your son up there with you? Yes. Yeah. And did you do – was it – you know, Jarrett's got a combination. He'll use horses in certain places.

Other places they'll drop you off and it's pretty much hike from there, you know, drop you off on a lake and start hiking from there. Did you have a combination of it or what's your style of hunt? He had a combination. They packed – we didn't ride in or anything. We hiked in. But they took a string of horses that took the majority of our stuff, which was fantastic. From the base camp in there, I don't – I think it was eight miles. Maybe it was 10. I can't remember. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Stay in another cabin or just do backpacking style tents in the spike camp? Back from then out. And then once the ram was down, the horses come back in and help carry camp back out. Yeah. Yeah. It was really nice. Can't beat that. That's awesome. Yeah. Did your boy have a good time there? Oh, outstanding. He – I wasn't sure I was going to get to bring him home.

They got along really well and he liked it up there. Well, you grew up on a – he grew up on a ranch and farm, so, you know, he probably fit in good with some of the horse stranglers and a lot of that that they got up there. Yeah. I was not real sure he was going to get on the plane to come back with me. He liked it so much. How old is he? How old? Yeah. 16. 16 when you took him? Yep. That's awesome. Old enough to really – to really remember it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And appreciate it too. That's an awesome trip for sure. Yeah, he really enjoyed it. You know, not many – I sure as heck didn't have that opportunity when I was his age. No. Yeah, it was pretty incredible. That's a good trip to remember for sure. What have you got planned for this upcoming year? I don't have anything this year yet, but like I said, I'm leaving for a sheep show tonight. Yeah. You got a checkbook or –

You're right. You're right. You never know. We'll just have to see what happens. That's a guy that's got plans. He says he doesn't have plans, but he's got plans. That's right. He's got hopes and dreams. I do know that. I'm going to go to Reno and then I'm going to come over to Salt Lake for the expo. Awesome. That's great. Plans for here this spring. Awesome. Bunch of tags there too to get your name in for and whatnot. Well, that's awesome. Well – Yeah, it worked out pretty good last time I did it. Yeah, exactly. So, well, I appreciate you taking some time with CW and it's an awesome trip. It's an exact hunt for you listeners. This is the exact trip that we're giving away again. This is an opening day hunt. You know, we arrived last couple days in July. Opening day is August 1st in the Yukon. So, this same spot, same outfit or everything.

We've had multiple winners on this and they've all brought rams home. We know a lot of people over the last 15 plus years have sent sheep hunting there. Yeah, pretty awesome. Anyway, so – Yeah, it's a great place. I had two thumbs up all the way around. It is fantastic. Nice. All right. Okay, well, we sure appreciate it. Okay. Appreciate the call. Thank you guys. Travel safe. Yep, we'll see you. Talk soon. Bye. You bet. Bye. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Take your boy on a hunt like that. Oh, it is. It's literally like a once-in-lifetime opportunity. You want a stone sheep hunt? He's old enough and pretty fun. It's awesome. I talked to him, you know, after the hunt and he just went on and on about how great they were with his kid. So, memory he'll just be with him forever. Just great. Yep. All right. What are we talking about next, Bronson? I don't know.

I've got a couple questions if we want. Oh, let's – Not me. I don't have a couple. I can read some from members. Question reader guy? Well, if we want to do a few of those. Let me – Yeah. What? You want to prep? You want to steer the questioning? No, I just think if I read them, then you get – then I pin you a little more. If you read them, you pin me a little more. These will be a little bit light for a minute. Some of these are easy. I had a question here from a guy, John. Maybe this is for John. Well, Jason, any of us. But when can we expect to get more outdoor edge knives with the Epic logo? Oh. We did run low on those, didn't we? Yes. We do have some. The solid blade. Yeah, the solid blade knives. So you can get those on our website. And the other ones, we'll see. But the replaceable blade knives, we're – Got stuff in the works. Yeah. We'll leave it at that. Let's make that happen.

Yeah. Yeah. We like them too. Yeah. I've got it. Let's make that happen. We'll make it happen. We like it. We use them too. We've gotten – The problem we have is we buy thousands. Yeah. And it's like we're kind of married to it for a minute. Yeah. But – Yeah. You never know when people are sick of it. Sick of it. Yeah. You've got too many. Everybody's got one. I'm telling you, every door panel needs them. Yeah. You can never have too many knives. That and headlamps. It seems like I lose a headlamp before the batteries go dead. It's true.

I don't know. Yeah. It's true. You know what I like about our headlamps? I mean, this is a total deviation. But you can turn on the red light, which I don't know. Does it really work? We should talk to somebody. I have no idea if it really works. But I use it. It makes you feel better, right? Yeah. It makes you feel a lot better. So we turn on the red light so you don't have – but I mean, we drive up in a truck with the big white lights on, right? So whatever. Yeah. But anyway, you're walking around with this headlamp that's got the red light on. And if you hold the button down, it'll turn off. And if you turn it back on, it's automatically back to the red. I like that. It's awesome. Or even the dimmest. It comes back on to the mode you're using. Yeah, there's three settings of white light. And I haven't found one other one that does it.

And you can do the dim one, which is kind of what you want. And you can turn it – if you have it on the dim setting and you do a long press and turn it off, you turn it back on, it's on the dim again. Yeah. Like it's so nice. It's so nice. How does that muscle memory thing work for flashlights, Logan? A little computer chip in there. AI probably. Probably hooked through Elon Musk, Starlink. Yep. Every time you turn on that headlamp, it sends your location to chat GPT. It sends the location out. And then Utah DWR gets your location. Yep. Or end out or whatever. It tracks poaching activity. Pretty soon you're busted for spotlighting tonight. Yeah. Pretty soon. Somebody's getting a free tag. It's Pete.

It's us because we made the headlamps. This is a good segue. Let's see. No. Good segue to the next question. Those things do bother me, though. Oh, yeah. The information age, this new technology stuff. You can't keep up with it. No, for the record, our headlamps don't do any of that. No. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Did we need to put that on there? Yeah. Yeah. Logan, you said it. You believed anything I said just now. Your generation are the ones that would believe. They're the believers. No. They eat Tide pots. No. Your generation has a rougher time with sarcasm than mine does. I would contend. No. No way. Come on. No way. They don't. You guys take things too literal. You guys have relationships with AI chicks. Yeah. Don't generalize that. That's a very select few. I've never participated in that. I bet you're lying. Take it. Got my phone. Take it.

Give me your password. You probably give yours a British or an Australian accent in the phone. Yeah. What's your favorite accent? If I'm going to date a fake girl, it's going to be an Australian. I told you. Come on. I told you. Are you serious? You're weird. I'm the only single guy, so I'm the only one that can comment on this, but it's fine. And that's why you're single. All right. Moving on. I married a girl with an accent. I get it. Yeah. Don't. Anyway, it's just kind of one of those things that's a pet peeve of mine. I don't like watching sports in the United States, and the announcers are British. It bothers me. I'm over it. I don't like watching. It'd be like if you're in Britain, I wouldn't want an American over there talking about your rugby games. I don't like listening to the U.S. news with those kind of accents. It bothers me. It's just I'm America.

I think what it is, they hire them with those accents because they sound smart. Oh, yeah. It's a little exotic. Don't talk about American football and being from a Britain accent. Come on. Don't do it. Come on. Stick to rugby. Just don't talk about American sports. Just don't. And I'm not talking about rugby and cricket. Newsfeeds. I'm talking about everything newsfeeds. All right. Who would win a monster chugging contest in the office? Who would win that? Jason. Done. Moving right along. No. Moving right along. No, no. Adam, I can hear you gulping when you drink those. Okay. I sip on them. I sip for like long periods of time. And Adam's like, Adam, this is like, Adam will look at this monster right here. Like, here's one. And he'll be like, I've got a job to do, and I'm going to drink that as fast as I can. Okay. Literally.

And I usually drink these little V8s now, and there's not much to them. And if you want to get the most bang for the buck, get it in your gut fast. If you let that trickle in over two, three hours, what good is that going to do to you? I have never seen somebody that can guzzle hard drinks like a lot. Hard drinks? Hard drinks. Come on. That's a V8 juice. No, I'm talking monsters or, you know. I'm just talking anything other than a normal little soda pop. You can guzzle them, boss. It's impressive. I haven't done it for a year and a half, but I could in my day. How about we'll leave it at that. I mean, I would have. I mean, not knowing anything, I would think they're apple flavored. That was the theory. No. No. No. I tried the green apple once, and I could drink a second one. Remember those green apples? I tried one. Yeah. Just too much. Too many. You and apples. Too much trauma.

Too much childhood trauma right there. All right. Brackens asked, which state produced the best trophy quality mule deer this last year? What's your thoughts there, everybody? Oh, man. I want to say, you know what? You're going to laugh.

You're going to laugh. I've got to qualify it a little bit. Yeah. I'm interested in this answer, too. Well, I mean, this is just a, okay. So there was, let's do this. Let's have a discussion. There was more Colorado bucks than we ever got submitted. That's what I would have said. That are just floating out there, okay? Yes. Yes. That are big, okay? Big. But what about Idaho? There's so many big deer that we're just now hearing of. Wyoming, yeah. And Wyoming. Yeah. I would have said Idaho and Wyoming, and we're talking general, right? But the population base of residents is slim, a lot less than what we'd have here. Could you imagine an over-the-counter Utah hunt for deer over the counter? I mean, could you imagine? No. Just stand it. I mean, they would be on the endangered species list within three years. Pine Valley Unlimited. Yeah. Holy. You'd be hunting? Beaver C. Beaver West. A deer.

But when we have a region G or H or the entire state. They still live and produce good bucks and come to the winter range. And a guy can hunt G, and then he can go hunt H, and then he can go hunt C, and then he can go hunt. He can do whatever he wants. W. Right? Yep. Tell me I'm wrong. I would say that was. Like, let's say we did a statewide general, and Pine Valley was open to that, too. You could get, yeah. Unlimited tags. You'd get shot. You'd better have a lot of orange on. Oh. That's where the cover is. One little hat is not going to come. No. No. No. That's legal in Utah now, but I wouldn't. Yeah. We've got the Wyoming rule now, which I love. I do, too. But I wouldn't do it in that scenario. So, anyway. Colorado, I like to orange up, too. But I would say, yeah, I would say Colorado, which it was pretty impressive on the second, especially. But then, but now.

Then it just stopped, though. When everything's kind of surfacing, it's pretty impressive. Idaho and Wyoming. Yeah. I agree. And I know people in your state think, don't send everybody to our state. But, hey, that's how bad some of the other states were. Nevada and Utah. And we're not sending. That's exactly right. They were terrible. New Mexico. That's exactly right. Those four states were rough. So. We couldn't even tow. Part of that. Part of that now that we're limited with quotas and whatever, draws, so to speak, is we can't inundate it. You can only hurt our own odds. Like, it's not like we're going to send more non-residents there. Right. Or ruin the residents, you know. So, anyway. I will say that there still were a few. We just got done, you know, doing the Utah magazine. It made it look like Utah was pretty good. Yeah, it did. There were some big box killed.

But keep in mind, too, the photography's different than it was. Yeah. But still, I'm just saying. There were. There were some good bucks. There was. But compared to the other states, it wasn't as good. But. Numbers of them. I mean, there were some good. We got. Feels like we got every one of them in our magazine. Yeah. What did we ride in there, Bronson? It was 154 limited entry deer tags in the state of Utah or something. For non-residents. Yeah. I mean, there's under 2,000 total. Total. So, yeah. 10% of that roughly is going to non-residents. I mean, there's been single units in New Mexico. I shoot 2,000. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Look at Colorado. Not all the seasons. Look at Colorado. There's a lot of units that draw 200 or 300 non-residents in one unit. Yeah. In one season. Yeah. All right. This is kind of one that we were talking about earlier. I can.

We were talking about guns and setups and scopes and things like that. So, two different questions. One question is best long-range hunting rifle and scope setup. Oh. And then another one is kind of a good entry-level rifle scope that won't break the bank, which that was maybe a little bit harder because that's a little bit interpretive for each person. Yeah. Won't break the bank because they're talking about like a $500 or $600 gun and a $200 or $300 scope. I don't know if that's what they're talking about. But anyway, let's talk about a great long-range hunting rifle caliber setup scope combination. I really like that. The 7PRC and the .300 RUM. The .300 RUM hits like a freaking freight train. I like that. You know? And I've got a few of them. I love them. But I'm also shooting the 7PRC and they're no joke. And they fly great.

And they maintain that energy in comparison to others very well. Yeah. What do you think, Bronson? Yeah, breaks. So in the old days, we used to judge recoil a lot more because most of our guns didn't have brakes. So you'd say, yeah, I'd go with the 7. The brake, I don't. I'd go with the 7 over the RUM because you're going to save a few teeth. Yeah. But now it doesn't really matter. Most of them have brakes. I like that too for an all-around 7 or 300 RUM. Probably the same. We're very similar in that regard. I personally don't hunt elk that much with a rifle, personally. So I usually hunt with a bow. So like a 7 or something when I do need it, it's fine. Plenty fine. You know, there's other people that are only rifle hunters. And if you're only rifle hunter in Mope and Mountain Country, a bigger caliber, a little bit heavier bullet, even 180 to 200 plus with a 30,

I'd probably lean that way if you're a diehard rifle elk hunter. But as far as the scope, I talked about this before on our – How many different brands do you have on rifles? Brands. Scope? Three. Only like – Zeiss, Swarov, and Lupul. I have their VS6s. And we're selling all three. Yeah. And then I've also got to call us. But yes, keep going. Yeah, and we've talked about this before. And Jason and I, probably John too, I don't remember. But just how – when you're longer, you're longer just like our eyes. We didn't need readers, all that. You can focus. You can make everything look good and clear and all that. And as I've gotten older, I noticed – I never noticed the difference in glass from a lower end – one company's lower end glass, call it a V3, 4, whatever in that end, to the V6s and 8s. And I say it's dramatic to me now. How much crisper is it?

I used to say, am I glassing with my rifle scope? No, I just kill some. I just kill something, so is it going to cost me a game animal? No. Well, now at our age, when it isn't excessive, let's just say – Fifties. Fifties. Forty. Forty plus. Yeah, 40 plus. You appreciate fine glass. You want it crisp. And there's a difference. Your eye – maybe it's my eye not being able to make up the difference like it did when I was in my 20s and 30s. When your eye could focus and everything's good, just shoot and kill. But a little cheaper glass is fine. It's fine if you can see well. Yeah. Save a few bucks. We all did. The mechanics still work great. I just feel in my – my eyes are not that way anymore. And I've made that switch. I've ripped some – I call them lower end. They're still great glass. V4s and both – They are affordable. And they shoot well. Zeiss. That's a great scope. V4s.

I mean, we had those on a lot of our guns for a lot of years. And they have illuminated reticol on them. Yeah. Then they went to a 6 and now they got 8s. And that's just kind of – 8s have all the bells and whistles. And I like that now. And they're fine glass. And they're crisper glass for me. So – But then also the Z8i and a Suaro. Same thing. And that Z5i is a great – kind of somewhat affordable but expensive. But it's affordable. It's more like a, you know, a Zeiss V6. It is. It is. Yeah. Z5i. And then the Z8i was kind of – I love it. It's, you know, like a 3.5 to 28. So you get a very low end and a very upper end. And I've got multiple guns with that scope on it. That type of scope. I like a scope that bottoms out on like a 4. Not as much on 6. If you're going to hunt timber and all that, sometimes you want it below 6. That's just a personal opinion.

I like the ones that bottom out on a 3 or 4 power. Yeah, personally. But then a very upper end, like it's no joke. Well, now we're selling Night Force. Yeah. And I've got a Night Force and all my 338 ROM. And shot Justin's deer with it, which is recently thrown out on social or YouTube or whatever. No joke. Amazing. And this Coloss, this Coloss scope. I mean, the Olympic shooting teams using Coloss and explained why. And just unbelievable. So anyway, I've got – that one's headed on a rifle. And excited about that. So if you want a very upper end, Coloss, we have them. If you want mid-tier or lower tier, Coloss, we have them. And all of which will do a great job. We're not going to sell something that's not going to do a great job. That was what I was thinking. We're pretty particular with what we'll recommend and put on our store. We like to sell stuff that we would use ourselves.

And so if you're on our store and you're looking at rifle scopes, any of them are going to do great. Some of them might do better in different situations. Or if you're an old guy like Jason or Adam, it might be better for you. But a young guy like Logan, I mean, you're going to – You're using open size. Throw a Coke bottle on there. You would rather go on another hunt than have an upper end scope. You would take maybe even a more affordable scope, but still the mechanics are amazing and it does a great job. I shoot a Zeiss V4 on my 7. And on all my other guns, I run the Leopold VH5s or VX5s. Oh, my mid-range. Those mid-range. Mid-dupper. I love them. They're great. I've never had a single complaint about either of those scopes. I have a V4 on one of my muzzleloaders back when muzzleloader – And I didn't either until I got a little older. Those are all the same thing with my eyes.

I would say 45. When you hit 45, then it makes a difference. And you're just – you're willing to spend a little bit more money. Partly, but also it's the focusing. I just think your eyes are not able to make up a difference. It's kind of like glasses you pick up that were from 10 years ago that you wore and you have the same prescription. I don't know if you found those. You find them like – now my eyes cannot focus through those anymore. Your brain and your eye can't make up the difference. I don't know how to word it. If you have a very – yeah, that's exactly right. But if you have a very upper-end rifle, you should put a quality scope on it. Absolutely. If you have a lower to mid-tier rifle or something, you want to put a very high-quality scope on it. But you don't necessarily probably need the absolute best. It's just nice.

Sometimes I'll look at a scope that I've got and I'll be like, that belongs on that rifle. And I look at another scope and I'm like, all right, now this one will belong on this rifle. And part of it, too, is caliber and the range of adjustability. Some of these have amazing amount of adjustability, meaning you can shoot over a mile. You can dial for over a mile because the scope is able to do that. And then some scopes just are more limited. And who's going to be shooting much over 1,100 yards anyway? Like, you know what I mean? All of these scopes will do that with a little bit of help, maybe a 20mm or a rail or whatever. All right, let's get another story. Let's get a story. I'm just wondering about this, our cover bowl, this Arizona cover bowl. Absolute giant in a tough year. Connor smashed it. Of course, gave us the story. We surely appreciate it.

Did it with a good friend of ours, an outfitter, Eric Hunt. Let's call him. Let's get the story, see if we can get him on the phone. Hello?

Hey, Connor. Jason Carter here. Adam Bronson, how are you? I'm doing good. How are you today? Doing good. Doing good. We want to hear an amazing bull elk story from the state of Arizona. That's what we want to hear. Oh, yeah. Well, I got one for you today. Yeah, you do. Yeah, we teed it up a little bit about how it's on our January cover. And, you know, coming in a really rough year collectively across Arizona, a bull like that in any year is like one of the biggest in the state. Like, where did your bull come from? Like, seriously. Yeah. What hole was he living in? Yeah. Is that not many like he last year in Arizona? That's for sure. Yeah, he was a gift from God for sure. That's awesome. So tell us about, you know, applying, why you chose the year you chose, and any little background, and then maybe even some history on the bull. We'll just let you kind of take the floor for a minute.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. I applied for the tag a while back. My mom actually was the one who got put in for this tag. Okay. We call it our pie in the sky tag. So it's kind of a tag that there's only 40 of them in the state. So if you get drawn, it's like a really big deal. And my mom happened to get drawn. She doesn't hunt personally. So she decided to sign it over to me. Wow. Dude, you got an amazing mom. Oh, yeah. She's a great mom. Not just for the tag, of course. How old are you? I'm 17. Wow. So you got it kind of just in time. I'm a senior in high school this year. The last year or two that you could have done this on the mentor program. Yeah. Yes, sir. And every time you look at the bull, she loves it, too, because every time you look at the bull, you're thinking of her, too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. That's awesome. That's awesome. So she gifted you the tag.

You knew right away she was going to give it to you. Then the planning starts between family, friends, and getting somebody to help you out, I guess, huh? Oh, yeah. We have our neighbor is Dark Holborn. He's a guide down here in Mexico. Yeah, just a great guy. Oh, yeah. He's an amazing guy. Him and his son, Parker, we both – I grew up with Parker and Paul, Dar's two sons. Started out hunting rabbits in the creek bed out by the house. No kidding. Wow. And then it leads up to getting to go out and shoot this bull with them. Wow. But we told Dar and Parker, we were like, hey, we got drawn for this tag. We'd love for you guys to come up with us, kind of help guide if you'd like. And they were all in on it, 100% in. And said, yeah, we'd love to help you. Parker even offered to let me use his 7mm PRC. Wow. A rifle for the hunt. And Dar's got, like, years and years and years.

Like, Adam and I have known Dar and, you know, just – For a long time. I don't know how many – like, it feels like decades. Yeah. Yeah. Roughly age, you know. So, 20, 30 years or 25, 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's well-versed in all this stuff, so.

Yeah. So, we talked to them, and they were all on board. And then Dar happened to run into one of his buddies, who's a guide for Arizona Desert Outfitters, Eric Hunt, at the grocery store. Wow. And he was talking to him. Yeah, it is. Yeah. He mentioned that I had gotten drawn for this tag, and he was talking to Eric, and then he calls my dad. And my dad, he says, hey, Keith, listen, I ran into Eric at the grocery store, and I want you to call him. And whatever he says, just say yes. Okay. And my dad and Eric actually go way back. My dad and him worked in the fire department together, so they knew each other. And so, my dad was on a fire scene. He's a fire investigator here in Arizona. And so, he calls up Eric. He's like, hey, like, how you doing, buddy? And they're talking. And Eric says, hey, like, I want to help guide this hunt. I want to go out with y'all.

I've got a great spot up in Unit 10 where we can go out and we can hunt for a bull for you. And so, my dad listened. He just said yes. Good. And so, we... The plan was formulated right there. Right there. That's when the planning began. So, then me and dad, Parker, all went to the range a couple times a week, going out shooting the 7PRC. Just getting me behind the gun in all the positions, whether prone, kneeling, standing, wherever I needed to be for the hunt.

Just to get prepared so that I could be ready for any situation that I ended up being in to shoot any bull that came along. Because this was my first harvesting of a bull. I haven't harvested it before. Have you killed other animals, deer, antelope, anything else like that? Yes, sir. I've harvested two deer before. Okay. First elk hunt, though. All right. This is my first successful elk hunt. Yeah.

So, we went out to the range bunch, just got ready. And then the day before, I was at school, and I could not sit still. So, I'm going to tell you, all I had in my brain was this hunt. Wow. I'd been prepping for months now, and I was ready for this hunt. I couldn't focus and just daydreaming of being out there, getting to shoot a massive bull that I was hoping to find.

And by the time I got home from school, we'd already had everything loaded in our trailer that we were bringing up. So, I just changed, grabbed some stuff, and we left as fast as we could. And we all drove up there. Eric had already been up there for a while because he was on an archery hunt just prior. So, that's perfect. He got to spend the entire season basically just kind of scouting. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was up there scouting, but he actually saw this bull. We named him Ping Pong. We'll get to that part a little later. But he saw this bull Ping Pong during the archery hunt right after they had tagged out for the archery hunt and was like, hey, like, when you come up here, this is the bull we're shooting. I don't care what it takes. We are shooting this bull. We're going to find him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're going to find him. We're going to – he's going to be the one.

And so, we got up there. It's the night before opening day. It's Thursday night. And we're driving up. We get up there. And Eric had us stop to make sure that we could get a couple rounds in just some targets, make sure the gun was still sighted in and everything was right with the gun. Nothing was going to go wrong when we went out. So, we did. And the two shots that I fired ended up actually being a little off to the right. We were a little concerned, just making sure that nothing had happened. But we adjusted it and then went on with it. Ate dinner that night, and it was Thursday night. So, we pulled up some Thursday night football. Happened to be Cardinal Seahawks. Is this on Starlink? Good old Starlink, huh? Yeah. Yeah, we had the game pulled up, and we were just watching, watching the Cardinals lose as usual. Again? Dang it. Yeah, again. Thankfully, I'm not a Cardinals fan.

I'm a Cowboys fan, but that might be worse. Oh, yeah. It's not better. Yeah, no. It's unfortunately not. But we all enjoyed the night and then hit the hay ready for the next day, opening day.

So, opening morning, we all got up. It was around 4.30 in the morning. It's not too early. Did he know, did he have a feel for this ping pong bull? Did he have a feel? How big he's been? Already been MIA for a few days or a while. Yeah, he hadn't seen him in a couple days, but he knew he was pretty big. He knew he was big. He felt like he was over 4. Yeah. Yeah, he was telling us it was probably a 400, 405 bull, something like that. We weren't exactly sure, but he was definitely bigger than we thought. So, around 5.15, we headed up. There was a point that he had found just to glass and see what we could find. And on that day, we actually spotted him immediately. He was on a ridge with a couple cows just hanging out with them. And he would go back and forth on either side of the ridge, east and west side of this ridge. So, we named him ping pong, like a ping pong ball, just back and forth.

And he was pretty far out, so we couldn't really tell just how big he was. We knew he was a pretty good-sized bull, but just had no idea truly how big he was. And we made our first attempts to get over there and get to a shooting position. And unfortunately, there were some pretty dark clouds that day. And a storm came in while we were going over there. And it started to rain, but we were going to keep going just because it was some light rain. And it started to get worse, started to hail. So, we just took shelter under a little juniper tree and tried to wait it out for a while. Ended up not working out. It was too, just pouring rain. Couldn't stay down there. Ran back to camp to get dry and wait it out.

And so, got back to camp, waited it out, and took basically all day. It was about 3, 3.30 when the rain finally stops. We went back up to that point that we started at in the morning. We were just sitting up there looking for him, and we never saw him again that day. But we did notice another bull who was covered in mud. It looked like he had been rolling in mud for days.

He looked like he was all brown. I was surprised we were able to see him through everything. But we nicknamed him Dirty just because he was covered in mud. So, then we went back to camp and finished off day one. And then day two started about the same. We got up, grabbed everything, went up to that same spot, spotted him again, same ridge, going back and forth again. And we made our second attempt to get over there. We began to hike in, checking the wind a bunch. We had to make sure we weren't getting our scent blown over his way. I'm sure we all smelled already. Then we got to a spot. It was about 400 yards or so away. Got set up. I got behind the rifle. We had everything set up on a tripod. We were watching him. He was about 20 yards down from the top of the ridge with a couple cows.

But there was also a little spike that had been up there with him who he ran off from these cows because he's protecting his girls. So, we got all set up. We got behind the rifle. And I'm staring at this guy. And I can see he's pretty big. I'm seeing him for the first time through the scope of the rifle. I'm like, man, this guy is huge. I know an elk is huge. I've seen him before. My dad's shot before. But I never truly expected him to be this big. Looks so heavy. Beans are crazy. No, he was amazing. And you don't have a shot or you're waiting for Eric or somebody or the bull to separate enough to get a shot at this point? You're on the gun watching him through the scope. Yeah, I'm on the gun watching him through the scope. And he's sitting behind a tree and a bunch of branches.

And I'm just waiting for him to take a couple steps out so I can get a shot off without any branches in the way. And finally, he starts to walk. But he doesn't stop. He just keeps walking and stops behind another tree. And then again, behind another tree. I mean, we were talking a bull this big doesn't live this long without being pretty smart. Pretty smart. We knew we weren't going to get him easily. But he kept stopping behind the trees. And I was ready. I was willing to take a shot while he was walking. I was confident. But we didn't want to risk it just in case we scared him off. And it was about 20 minutes of him just walking through the trees and not stopping. And then eventually the wind turned and he caught our scent and finally took off back over the ridge. So disappointing on the second attempt there. We waited to see if he would come back over.

But because he smelled us, we knew he wasn't coming back anytime soon. So we grabbed our gear. Went to the vehicles and just regrouped. Decided we were going to see if we could figure out what we wanted to do from there. Whether we wanted to go to the other side of the ridge. See if we could get a shot off on that side. Or wait for him to come back. So we decided we were just going to wait it out. Go back up to the point. And just hang out. Dar and I went back up there with my dad. We were sitting up there and we spotted the other bull dirty. Who we knew he was pretty big too. But he just kept getting closer and closer to us. Uh oh. Temptation. He was about 800 yards at this point. And so me and my dad were begging Dar to let us shoot him. Because he was big. He was about a .370, .380 bull. He was probably a 7x. So being my first elk, me and my dad were like, It's his first elk.

Like we don't want to risk losing out on this other bull ping pong. And not be able to get a bull at all. But Dar was like, Dude, it's worth the wait. Just trust us. We can do it. And so we finally decided we would wait. We didn't shoot him that night. And then finally shooting light died and hadn't had anything that day. So we went back home. Back to camp. Ate dinner. Hit the hay. Got ready for the next day. Which none of us knew that the next day would be the day. Okay. Wow. There we go. So we woke up. Day three. Everything the same. Went up. Other hunters? Any other hunters or headlights or anything in the area? No, we weren't. We didn't see anybody else there. It was just us, thankfully. Yeah. Just there. Not at all busy. That's a gift. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't have to worry about anyone stealing our spots up on this ridge. Wow. Or scaring our bulls. But...

And we're talking miles from where this bull was seen weeks prior. Yeah. Miles and miles. He had been spotted about 20 miles away a couple weeks before. During the archery hunt. Yeah. It's unbelievable. Almost luck to relocate him that far. That far away. Yeah. Yeah. So day three began. And Eric and one of his buddies from Arizona Desert Outfitters, Tony, all three of us went up to the opposite side of the ridge to glass the side that he had gone on to the day before. And then Parker and his buddy Christian, who was out there with us, they spotted him. They radioed us like, hey, we spotted him. We want... Like, we know where he is. And so me and Eric went up, met with Darn, and then went to try and find him again. And Parker and Christian lost the side of him inside a little cut. And we were never able to find him, never able to figure out where he was in this cut.

And so we went back to the vehicles, trying to regroup, figure out what we could do. Day... Time kept ticking, so we wanted to try and get another spot on him. And Parker hit us up again, said, hey, we found him again. He's holding steady up on this ridge. We got him here. Come try and make a shot here. So we get up there. We hiked from the vehicles to another little point. It was almost like a little canyon that he was up above.

And Eric waved down Parker and Christian, because they could see where we were on this point, making sure we were in the right spot across from them. And so Dar was glassing the ridge while Eric was waving down Parker and Christian to make sure we're at the right spot. And he spots this bull ping pong. He spots him behind a tree, bedded down. So he's bedded down behind this tree. And I get behind the gun, looking through the scope so I can get him, so that when he stands up and starts to walk, we can take the shot. You're in range. How far? 400 yards. Wow.

He's 400 yards across this little canyon that we're looking at. And I'm looking at him through the scope, and he's bedded down behind this tree, but his head's up still. And there's a little hole in the branches, and his eye is staring right at us. Like, it felt like he's just looking at us. Staring holes into you. Yeah, I felt I could feel it burning a hole in my eyes. And I was like, ooh, he's ready for it. So we're waiting there, and it's about 15 minutes of a standoff of just staring at him and him staring back at us. And so finally he decides to stand up and begin to move. So we are all kind of, like, frantic here. We're like, all right, he's moving. Now we've got to get ready, like, ready, ready. So he stood up, starts to move. And I follow him through the scope as he walks out, keeps going, and pauses again. Still behind cover, right behind a branch.

And at this point, we're debating. We're like, should we shoot anyways just to at least get a shot out at him? Maybe we hit him, and hopefully we hit him. The branch could affect it. But at this point, we're like, we've been out here a couple days, and we want to get a shot out. But we decided against it, decided to wait just a little bit to make sure that he's clear and we can get the shot off without any worries. And so he stepped out from behind this bush, and Eric decides to try and get him to pause the cow call. And does it just probably a second too early, and he stopped just before getting out of there. I've done that before myself. You think you're trying to judge the cow call, how long the sound takes to get to him before they hear it and actually stop, and you're like, oh, I heard it too quick. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, so. Yeah, he's standing there looking around. He's trying to figure out where this is coming from. So we're all like, ah, crap. He's still behind cover. We can't get a shot off. So we wait, and we decide that next time he steps out, the moment he's fully exposed, we're going with another cow call so that we can try and get another shot off. So he stepped out, fully exposed, broadside, and Eric went for a cow call again. And we were all joking afterwards. The cow call sounded a lot less like a cow call and more of like horn tooting. Just a frantic. Sometimes they don't care. You start moaning, groaning. You've got to do whatever you can to get it just to stop. Yeah, we all joke that the bull was more confused than he was attracted. He was kind of looking around like, what was that? Yeah. But it stopped him, huh? It stopped him for sure.

And half a second later, I squeezed off my first shot. It was 400 yards right behind his left shoulder. And he dropped, rolled about 20 yards closer, threw some rocks, a dart right next to us. The whole time he's rolling, he's like, don't break, don't break, don't break. Yeah. Because he's rolling, and we're worried he's going to snap some of those points off. Flyers. He rolls down. So I get back in, chamber another round, and within less than 20 seconds, I'm back on him, and he's down. He probably would have been down after that shot. We wanted to put one more in him just to make sure. So I squeezed off another shot, and there's just a brief moment of pause where all three of us are like, he's down. And we all kind of had to wrap our minds around it for a second, and then it explodes into noise. We're all screaming. Screaming. Have to be. Oh, yeah. We're screaming, laughing, crying.

Joyous tears. Yes. And this is. World class. Oh, yeah. It's one of the most emotional moments that I've had in a long time. Yeah. You just won the Super Bowl, like we say. Yeah. That's a moment. I felt like Tom Brady. Yeah. Okay. Maybe pick somebody up. I would just do that. That's pretty awesome. It was a beautiful hunt, and I got to call my dad on the radio, be the one to tell him. Yeah. Go on the radio, say, hey, big bull down, big bull down. And we all met up, and then we got the pictures. So it was truly an amazing hunt. And, again, a big thanks to everybody that was involved. Mom, obviously, for giving me this tag. Dad, for coming along and supporting me. Dar, Parker, and Christian, all for helping come out, just guiding and everything that they did. Tony and Eric and Arizona Desert Outfitters for the job that they did with me. So grateful for everybody involved. Yeah.

It takes a good team. When you're chasing a bull like that. When you're hunting one elk. Basically. And it gives you the confidence when they say, pass this 370, 380 bull or whatever. You're like, all right. You know. I don't know. It just gives you a little more reassurance to take those chances. You know. Yeah. They know what they're doing, so we trust them. Yeah. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's so many questions. I mean, that thing is so massive. It's like a bull of a lifetime. Heavy. He's beautiful. He's got beautiful, and he's got mass, and then he's got gnarly flyers. I mean, matching. Kind of got everything. Big, typical frame with gnarly trash. And mass. Yeah. Just everything, Connor. I mean, you kill the heck of a first bull. Good luck trying to ever, ever even come close to that bull. You savor those memories because you, I mean, you'll have a few more of those,

but there's not going to be a ton of them. That are bulls that are of that kind of work. Yeah, animals, whether they be another elk even or a deer or something. And dad's with you. Really good friends. I mean, it's just, those are special.

Yeah, those memories will forever be with me. I am enlisting in the United States Navy, so these are going to be some of my last memories before going off with the Navy. Good for you. That's awesome. We're proud of you. Yeah, it's an amazing experience to carry along with me. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you're super appreciative, especially, I mean, you're young. Very articulate. Good storyteller. You replayed that good. You don't sound 17. No, I'm just wondering, like, have you killed some deer? And obviously you're raised in an intense hunting environment with the people you're running with. Yeah, my dad hunts. My sister hunts. So we've got a family of hunters, for sure. Yeah, pretty awesome. Well, he's the bull of a lifetime. Yeah, congratulations. And thanks to you guys, the Colburns and Eric and his crew, and everybody for helping you put the store together.

We appreciate you sending it to us here at Epic Outdoors. He's a fantastic centerpiece or cover for our January magazine. So thanks for doing that. Thank you so much. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Yeah. Bull of five lifetimes, if not more. Oh, yeah. So, well, hopefully you get a good tag this year. Let us know about it if you do. I will. All right. Sounds good. All right, y'all. Thanks, Connor. Thanks, Connor. Have a good day. You bet. You too. Bye. That's wild. He's a bull of a guy. I don't even want a deer tag right now. No, I don't. Seriously. That is an awesome book. Well, and when you put your hands on a good one once in a while, you're just like, you kind of forget. And then when you forget, you just don't realize how bad you need one in your life again. I need one of those in my life.

We're done in this podcast. I'm wore out. Yeah. That was crazy. That's a good way to end it. The stories were great. Yep. Questions were great. Yeah, the Navy's getting a good one there. He's a very well-spoken kid. Well-spoken kid. I mean, yeah. Yeah. You know what I like? It just feels like the kids that grow up hunting are pretty cool dudes. Yeah. They become good men. I don't know. Is it just, it feels like he's going to be a solid. Yes. You know what I mean? Yeah. They can have a little bit more that life throws at him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm proud of him. It just, that was, that was, that was worth, that was worth the effort. Good call. Getting in touch with him. So. Yeah. All right. Okay. Well, let's have a good weekend. How about that? Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. Let's face it. If your goal is to kill big stuff, you need to draw quality tags.

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