EP 38: Summer Scouting with Epic Outdoors

I'm in Southern Nevada, archery hunting on the 10th. I've high centered the truck a couple of times. It's a tough year actually and I'm just hoping for a giant bull. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey, how we all doing out there today? It's Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, Chris Peterson, Jeffrey, John. And John Peterson and my ex-brother-in-law. So anyway, we're all jammed here in the studio today. We wanted to kind of visit with everybody. Before we do, I want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring all these Epic Outdoors podcasts and some of the different things we do. We've got a great partnership with them as well as multiple other partners with the magazine and a lot of other things that we're doing. So anyway, appreciate them. This particular episode is pretty exciting. We're going to give away some gear for the first time. We're going to do it pretty much every episode. Of course, I don't want to be held to it, but maybe 95% of the time we'll give away some stuff. But this is pretty awesome.

So anyway, this particular episode, we're going to give away a pair of fat tire boots. They're made by Under Armour. Super appreciative of them. Of course, they sponsor these podcasts. And anyway, as these go along, we're going to give away other things too other than Under Armour. But to kick it off, we're going to give away a pair of fat tire boots. These are Gore-Tex boots. They're like walking on pillows. I love them. Early season, they're amazing. Adam and I both use them heavily. And anyway, they're a pair of $200 boots. They're $199.99 on their website. Or you can just enter to win and get them free. So this particular episode, I'm going to explain it. To enter to win, you go to epicoutdoors.com backslash podcasts. And then on the right-hand side, there's a podcast code. Let's enter fat tire. No spaces. Just put F-A-T-T-I-R-E. No spaces. Capitalized or not. Doesn't matter.

Put your name, your email, and your phone number. Hit submit. Be one entry per person. And we're going to give them away here in a week. So anyway, we're super excited. It's kind of fun. Give away some legit gear. We're going to do Epic Outdoors memberships and phone scopes and all kinds of different things that's coming out. So a little bit of Epic swag here and there. But this particular one, we're going to do a UA fat tire boot and a lot more to come. So anyway, again, epicoutdoors.com backslash podcasts. Go to the podcast code. Enter fat tire. Your name, email, phone number. Hit submit. Anyway, but that's how you do it. Epicoutdoors.com. And then, of course, you can see all kinds of different things. You can buy some swag on our website or whatever. Learn a little bit more about our services. So anyway, appreciate all you loyal listeners out there, hardcore Western big game hunters.

A little something something for this particular episode. Here we are. August 1st today. What does August mean to you when you hear the words August, Jason? Archery, dear honey. Hey, well, first, first, Jan and I's anniversary. Come on. Ooh, that was a safe, safe cover up right there. Is it literally today or tomorrow? It's tomorrow. Well, you did that about a week early enough because, as we all know, Nevada's the 10th. Yes. So you have a week of festivities. Yes. And then you're gone for about four months. I know it. I know it. I had to take her out to dinner for the next four or five nights. Make up for that. We're good. Yeah, we got married and took off on a doll sheep hunt. So 1996. How long ago is that? Hold on. You took off or we took off?

I took off. That's what I thought. I thought it.

That's what I thought. I just didn't want to get too much. We just wanted to be transparent here and know what you meant by we or I. We're going to flesh some things out on this podcast. We're going to get right down to the nitty gritty, it sounds like. So, yeah, we're all about ready to hit the hills and we figured it'd be a good time to just get together and go through our schedules and whatever else. See where this goes today. Drink a few monsters. Looks like Jeff's got an ass. That's not good for you, Jeff. They run hot rod cars on that stuff. There's no question. It ain't good for you. I mean, I'm not your mom or anything, but don't do what I do. All right. Anyway, yeah, August 10th's coming up. So, I know we've been hitting the hills really hard. Janet thinks it's been hunting season since basically June 15th and it does feel that way. So, anyway, we've all got a ton of tags.

I just kind of want to flesh that out a little bit and see, Jeff, maybe start with you. Like, how's your scouting going, Jeff?

Of course, of course. So, yeah, I'm in southern Nevada archery hunting on the 10th.

It's looking rough. There is a possibility of turning the tag back in right now because there's just, I haven't been able to pull anything up that I really want to chase. Yeah, but, you know, you just don't have any points. So, it's like at some point, what's the use? You're going to gain a point. Yeah, and so I've had Nevada tags the last two years. And so, this is like the third year in a row as a non-resident, kind of lucky. But I really don't know if I want to keep it. Also, my dad, he's taking tags nobody wants. I know. That's what I said. Don't want to make it seem like he is the draw expert. No, no, no. That's definitely true. Like, they are. He's drawn tags, I mean, people don't apply for. That's right. Not actually, you know, when I was looking at the odds, not a single person applied first choice for the tag I got. So, not one. Not one.

You know what's funny is he goes back and he's like, there are no trail cameras out there. No, there's not. No, there's not. Because you're going to get burrows. You're going to get wild cattle. Quail. Water holes. You know, the bird hunting probably is really good. The deer hunting, not so great. If you're interested in looking for desert tortoise and stuff like that, you're probably going to have a good hunt. Yeah, you know, call me. We can put together a hunt on that one. So, what have you been seeing? A few stags, a couple of... Yeah, a lot of goofy deer, an amazing amount of three points. You know, I mean, 22-inch three-point, tall, no eye guards. I mean, just garbage. Just nothing good that really, you know, that I'm really excited about at all.

So, I thought it was pretty funny, Adam and John, when we were sitting in the office yesterday and flipping through some trail camera pictures. And here's a 24-inch, not deep-forked buck. And Jeff's like, ooh. One of Jason's. Yeah. That would be dying in my unit. That's one of Jason's 160 bucks. It is so true. It is so true. We're flipping through pictures as fast as we can flip through them. And Jeff's like, whoa. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Whoa, whoa. Go back. How close is that to Mesquite? Well, there's been a couple times. I know we were wondering if you're going to make it back to the office because these monsoons have hit. It's been 118. And then all of a sudden, the monsoon started hitting. 118. And you can get washed into Lake Mead in a hurry in one of those floods. So, kind of dicey. Yeah. And a couple trips I've spent down there. I've high-centered the truck a couple times.

Had to jack it up with the jack and put rocks under the tires to get over the boulders. And then on the last trip, I was heading out at about midnight and was driving through a creek out in the desert on the road. How did it do 10 degrees? Well, driving through the water just because flash floods hit and it was coming down. And I was getting out of there. So, it was. Looking for a place to set a trail camera on water. Driving through a creek. That's my brother-in-law, everybody. That's my brother-in-law.

Mead there extraordinaire. Yeah. Oh, man. It's tough. Well, right on. Well, you're not going to turn it back, are you? We're going to make you grind this one out. I don't know. You're going to kill a deer where man has never killed a deer. I tell you, that's about what it feels like. I mean, there's no pressure. I haven't seen a single, not another human out there, actually, the whole time I've been scouting. No trail cameras. I mean, it's pretty wide open. You just got to have a deer to hunt, though. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. Well, you've been trying to, of course, we've got you hired here at Epic. You're not going anywhere. But you've also been trying to get your family here in Cedar. And so you've been doing 100 different things. Oh, yeah. And wearing 100 different hats. And Adam and I and John aren't going to let you slack off here at the office.

So pretty much when we're scouting, you can't be. So anyway. Well, yeah, you've been doing a lot of different things. And so, well, that brings us to Christopher. Christopher Peterson. What's up? What's up, fella? We're big on the formalities today, Carter. Jeffrey, Christopher. I mean, geez. I can't. Everybody's in trouble today or something. No, nobody's in trouble. I'm just over here in the corner working, recording stuff, you know. Yeah. What do you got coming up, Chris? So you got archery deer, don't you? How's the scouting? Dedicated, Hunter? Scouting? Oh, I've been going on a lot of horse rides.

Okay. Chris is a man of many talents. You never know what you're going to get. Are you going to get the singer, Chris? Are you going to get the artist, Chris? Are you going to get the recorder, Chris? Or the Casanova, Chris? Oh, yeah. He's the singer, though. Oh, geez. Oh, he's the one we rely on for all the fun stories. I should have known this is a bad idea. Well. He keeps it light in the office. Pretty sad when we're all on pins and needles waiting for him to walk in the front door. What happened last night? That's really not that exciting.

Oh, shoot. So, yeah, Chris, he's got tons of talents. You got some good tags, though, Chris. Starting off, I guess, dedicated. Archery deer. You got a deer you're going to go after? I thought I did. That's why I say I've been out riding my horse. I had a good deer. I actually had two good deer. I have not turned them up this year yet. They did show up a little late last year, but I'm still kind of waiting on them. Well, it didn't help that half my cards didn't work either on my cameras.

No bucks? No other bucks? I mean, there's a bunch of, like, little, they might be good on Jeff's unit in Nevada. Yeah.

Just call them Jeff bucks. There you go. Just be careful. They're not good enough for a general unit. Jeff will be shooting one and then hauling it down there and be like, well, that's a half-built buck. It didn't come from there. That thing's got four points on both sides. It's normal. It didn't come from where I'm hunting. That's got a four-point frame as a two-year-old. Yeah, it's got some eye cards, two and a half inches. It didn't come from there. It did not come from the desert. Who else is hunting deer on the opener? Archery. Not I. I am, too. I've got a tag. John, dedicated. You been out? Yeah. Dedicated. Last year, I didn't draw. I had to have a point to redraw. Is your boy got a Utah General? Yep, Utah General. My boy's got one, too. Has he? Yep. That's awesome. Well, you guys have been scouting out some big deer last year.

Yeah, well, it's nice to have something close to home as well. It's nice to live in the west, you know, southern Utah, kind of central to all these states. And so, it makes it nice. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, good. What have you been seeing out there?

Nothing. Nothing? Nothing he wants to say on the live podcast. Have you ever heard of? Oh, really? Are we keeping secrets? No, I'm just trying to read between the lines. John, don't keep in secrets. Before, we're all saying, all right, what are we going to say? Because this is before the season.

Oh, no. We're not giving that a lot. You're asking him to call. It's kind of like calling a shot from half court. You're kind of asking John, tell me what you're going to kill opening day. How's he built? Hey. What's he scoring? How wide is he? Hey, just wondering what the goals are and then what you're doing to achieve those goals. You've got to have an action plan, John. There's no action plan. All right. Well, you need to hire an outfitter. Have you ever heard of Bronson Outfitting? Hey, I have. I'm booked. You don't want to do a general one? Sorry. You have any subguides that need work? Speaking of subguides, speaking of subguides, who's your newest subguide? Jeffrey? Sounds like it. John. That's right. Glad to have him on board. Right on. Welcome, Jeff. Yeah. Assuming he passes the test. Which he probably will. I mean, he's...

Well, he's got nothing to do out there in 118 Degrees but read some books and maybe the proclamation. Jeff, you got a proclamation? Yeah. In many states, yeah. Covered that way. Good. Well, there you go, John. See what you can work out. So, John, for those of you who don't know, John basically is responsible for the publishing of Epic Outdoors magazine. And does a great job at it. Of course, he wears many different hats. A lot of the member draw experience. A lot of that kind of stuff. Databases. He just manages a lot of the back end stuff that we don't, you know, a lot of people don't see. And so, he does a fantastic job at it. Speaking of which, John, you just sent a magazine to the printer. Yeah, we did. Just barely. August, September. Yeah. Got another one down. Should be receiving it soon. That's awesome. EMAGs online. EMAGs online. Yep. Good. And, yeah.

And for the membership, just for guys that don't know them, the EMAG's free. So, you get the membership. Of course, you get the paper magazine. Then the online version, which comes out right as soon as, basically as soon as it goes to the printer. So, you get a little bit of a jump on that and helps, especially during the draw type time of year when... Speaking of that, I got to do a plug. You guys got to take a camera besides your cell phone out there. Pictures with it that we're getting back now are just not as good as they were even five years ago. More people using their phones and just not taking a real camera, huh? And if you look, like the lens size, you know, your lens size on your camera is the size of an eraser, you know, compared to even a cheap, you know, $100, $150. I thought it did a great job. This is for you, Jason. Those Instagram filters, they make them look great.

But for Instagram, you know, you only need the picture to be as big as your phone. But for print or anything else, you ever want to blow one up, you'll see the difference. All right. Clarity is just not there. I guess, I guess. Let's just talk about that. Do you know what kind of camera you are promoting or telling people to buy? Well, you know, anything. I would take two. I'd take your cell phone as a backup. Take pictures with your cell phone and your regular camera. But basically, it's kind of like Ford, Chevy, Dodge. If you buy a Nikon, a Canon, or a Sony, you're pretty much safe. Yeah. Anything that's in the... Point shooter. Yeah. In the last five years, even the lower ends, you know, if you look at... Just look at the lens, you know, they're at least an inch wide. You can see the difference between a pencil and an inch wide lens. It's just letting that much more light in.

So, anything that your phone is doing to make the pictures better is usually digital. It usually takes away from the quality of the photo. When you expand it. Yeah. Just, I mean, for a hundred bucks, throw in a point and shoot camera. Is that all there? Yeah. A hundred, a hundred fifty. You can throw one in. And they're tiny. I've got like five of them. I think the cheapest one I pay is like two fifty. Oh, I know. I mean, you can get a good one for two hundred. It's like every two years, you've got to buy a new one because they're outdated. All right. Well, you know, I could see we could have an epic gear store start selling cameras. You know, if you buy a camera from us, you're going to get a cover. A cover shop. You know what I mean? Maybe. We can arrange that. No. All right. I have to come up with a few more covers. All right. All right. Well, that's enough. Talking about boring stuff.

Pitchers and stuff. Let's talk about more hunting. Adam. I think we skipped Nevada muzzle.

I'd like to hear about your plans over there, Jason.

Who's the host here? I don't know. Just we're here. We're a crew right here. So it's just kind of going around whoever talks first. Let's have a vote. I want to hear about Jason's Nevada. Yeah. There you go. Let's crush Nevada. It's terrible. From what I'm hearing, it's never been better over there. No. That's not right. That's not true. Really? I thought it might be pretty good this year. And then there's a good deer or two out there. But it's a tough year, actually. Not like 2016, which is arguably the best year in 20 years. Yeah. Between 2016, 2011. I mean, those are years that were just pretty bannerish, so to speak. But anyway, yeah, it's a little bit tough out there. Been out there, you know, running it hard, hard, hard. And a lot of different units. So anyway, there's some good deer. It's just not the same.

But I did draw a muzzleloader tag out there in kind of one of those Jeffrey units. Yeah, I was going to say that. Well, that tag rivals Jeff. That rivals Jeff. Yeah. That rivals Jeff. But I got four points that he's licking his chops over. So I do. It's a little better. You could get five if you turn it in. But having said that, I've worked it a little harder than Jeff is. Oh, that's no doubt. We got Jeff in the office. And of course, he's trying to get his family. God has family moved down here. They're here in the new home. Now maybe he can engage. I'm sure he'll find something good. We're not going to let him turn that tag back. But anyway. Are we?

Jeff, you've already. You've already got it sent back. Is it in the mailbox or what? Oh, man. I don't know. It's sitting in the envelope. No, it hasn't been mailed out yet. But it's sitting in the envelope. All right. Well, anyway. Yeah. So it's a little rough seeing some deer. You know. Mine's the same way. I may turn that one back. It just forced me to learn that area. It's the 250s. You know. Of course, everybody can see that on HuntNevada.com. But anyway. I drew the muzzle tag in the 250s. And never. Just for basically. And knowing that I could turn it back and get my points back. Just forces me to learn a unit that I've kind of wanted to learn. And, you know. It's easy to just ignore it. And not get up in the morning. You know. Day after day after day. And run trail cameras and glass. If you don't have a tag. So by having a tag.

At least forced me to get out there and see what's out there. And there's a few good bucks. You know. I've shown you guys a few. And there's a couple there that a guy would probably have to shoot. It's just. It's a four hour drive from our house. And so it's each way. That's work. Yeah. It's work. It's been work. The people in Wisconsin right now are crying for you, Jason. Because that's about 34 hours from there. I'm sorry for you fellas in Wisconsin. Yeah. It's so far away. It's four hours from my house.

So I just had to say that. Because these guys that are listening from Florida are like boo hoo, Jason. Yeah. It's four hours. You can get over there. Back. And kiss your kids. You know. At night. Sleep at night. Yeah. Or Michigan. You know. You talk to these guys. They want to get out here. Out west hunting. You know. I talk to them a lot. We all do. And they're buying antelope tags. Out here. Just to come out and hunt. Leftover antelope tags in Wyoming. You're like. That's a long ways to come for an antelope buddy. But. They just. They just want to get out here. I don't blame anybody. If you're back east. And you. I mean. Nothing against white tails. They're fun to hunt. But if that's more or less all the big game you have. Other than bears. You're. You're begging. Clawing to get out west. For some other opportunity. I know. But antelopes too. Is it really worth it? Yeah. You're.

You've got to let it age for four weeks before you can touch it. And you boil anything long enough it tenders up. Yeah. That's right. All right. So that brings. How's the lion population? Oh my gosh. Even in that crazy desert unit. I've got. The lions are well in Nevada. Three different lions. They're. They're healthy and happy. Yeah. I've got a lion tag. And every time I trade trucks. I put the tag in the new truck. Just because I'm convinced. I'm going to see one. I'm convinced. Yeah. And I'm not. But they are loaded up. They're less than. I mean. They are loaded up. We've got one. One group of lions. Mama and some kittens. A pride. Ruined the water. I think that's technically called the pride. A pride. A pride of lying. Lions. Ruin the water. Killed a deer. You know. 50 yards from the water. And pretty much. Another deer. Never. Never came back. So. Anyway. We're having that kind of.

I've got a place like that on the Henry's. Last year. We got a pride of five. On trail camera. You may remember that picture. Oh. I remember it. I don't know if it's. I don't know what it is. I didn't know. They could have. Four kittens. To adulthood. Because they're all big. But. This year. There's a void of deer there. Yeah. And I don't know if they're. They're just screeching. How many deer did you see? Normally. That's a. That's a spot. That we will go. In July. Mid July. Early August. Before. Kind of gets burned up. You know. It's kind of south facing. And so it can get burned up. You know. Cured up feed. But normally. We'll see 30. To as high as. 60 bucks. In that canyon. Wow. This year we saw. Three. Well and I know. That one night. You were like. Wow. Let's go back in the morning. Yeah. I'm like. Oh that was a bad night. Something happened. Full moon. You know. Whatever.

Next morning. Went back. Saw one new buck. That we didn't see. The night.

Note to self. Don't go back. And it's a spot. We've heard. We've glassed them. We've got them on trail camera. We've heard them. We've been up there glassing. You can hear lions screeching at each other. Across the canyon. Come on. Oh yeah. We have. And. I don't know if it's just. They've been running rampant. I want to feel like I want to blame it on them. Don't. I obviously can't say that with certainty. But. I will go back again. But no. And that many. Lion. That much lion activity. Is going to change some habits. Just like. These Nevada areas you're talking about. If you've got. Three lions working a water. And. Everything's keying on that water. Yeah. Because it's 115 degrees. It's not going to take long. Yeah. They're very vulnerable. And they're going to get chased. Yeah. At some point in the summer. And they're going to get killed. Or they're going to say.

I want to get out of here. Yeah. Even if they know. You know. You got their home range. And then you got a certain water. You know. And then you got miles between waters. Even if they know there's a lion there. They still. They still drink there. Until there's just. Guts at the water hole basically. I mean. Because they have to. I've been sitting there. Setting up trail cameras. Pounding a T post. And have a doe walk in and water. 20 yards from us. Like. They have to water. They have to water. Yeah. Had a turkey do that the other day. I'm sitting there. And my daughter's like. Dad. There's a turkey. I'm like. Oh. She's so full of it. You know. Anyway. And sure enough. This turkey comes in. And I mean. 15 yards from us. Drinking. Drinking. A turkey. You know. And I'm like. I guess a guy could set a blind here for turkey. I don't know. You know. Sounds like a good. Father daughter hunt.

Yeah. That's right. Might happen. But that's how vulnerable. These. These animals are. In some of this desert country. So. Anyway. It doesn't take much for a lion. And they. They want to eat too. I have heard. You know. That you think. You think you could just go in. And wipe out a lion. And you fix your problems. But. They'll. They move in. It's like coyotes. You kill them. They move in. And. Territories. Yeah. You kill a big tom. Sometimes. It allows the female. And all their kittens to live. Yes. Because. Now there's no. Yes. Regulator. There's no. And some of them may like sheep. And some of them may have a diet for deer. And some may. And just be careful. You think you're going to go in and whack one. Maybe he's. Maybe he's eating a lot of small game. Instead of your deer. You just don't know. And by killing them. Doesn't mean you're just saving all your deer. But it's so hard.

Sure feels good. Just like every coyote. It's a dead coyote. Yeah. And every lion. It's a good dead lion. It's what we. It's. It's so hard to not. To not. You know. Go get some. Warm weather. Drag around dogs. And take. You know. Take charge of it. Because it's hard. But anyway. So. I know. You've been avoiding this Adam. No. I've just been trying to facilitate here. We've had a couple lulls. So. But. Hey. What do you got? So. So. Talk to us about your season. We've got. You've got. You know. The big tag that's coming up. Is this elk tag. At least in my mind. I know you've got. You know. A few other options. You know. In and around that. But that's kind of the big tag. That's at least looming. Yeah. That's my big one for the year. I had 15 points in Arizona. Kind of been eyeing this year. When we knew the archery dates. We're fall. Six or so days later. Into September.

15 to 28th of September. Great archery dates. I drew an archery tag. Unit 27. In. Arizona. Arizona. With no moon. This. Good moon. Should be good day. And so. You know. I'm just hoping for. Giant bull. Just to soon hunt for a big bull. Or don't shoot one. On hunt like that. Hopefully the rut gets cranking. Midway. Or towards the end of that hunt. Big unit. A lot of. Semi rugged. And even roadless country. And. You know. Other country that's. You know. More day huntable. Things like that. But good elk numbers. Borders New Mexico. Borders. Reservations. On the. On the west side of it. So. Just in the. In a good zip code. For giant bulls. And. Well. And it's with that burn. And everything. It just feels like the stars are aligned. For giant bulls in there. We've heard of some big bulls. You know. Some big bulls. And. You know. For all intents and purposes. You know. A lot of residents.

Think that might be the number one unit. You know. In the state right now. I don't. I don't know that necessarily it is. But. It does have. Good enough. Good enough for me. Yeah. Yeah. Good enough for you. You know. 15 points with this new non-resident. I guess. Shift they did to the draw. To where now. Not all the non-resident quota. Can go to the max. You're talking about. You know. 10 tags versus all 20 tags. That can go to the max. So. Yeah. It lengthened the weight. For the max point holders. It did. On 9 and 10. No question. You know. Of course. You can't even draw 23 north or south. Right. But there being only one tag. It's going to go random. It's going to go random. Yeah. So. This is a unit. This. A 3C. Unit 1. Units that I pretty much looked at this year. But I settled on 27. Figuring. Well. It's got a lot of wilderness. Yeah. Escapement. Thick trees. But burn as well. Yeah.

Great feed. Like. Diversity habitat. Yeah. Figured I could. You know. Young enough still to hopefully hike. Hike into some of that stuff. Maybe get away from some people if I need to. But. Hey. I'll. I'll shoot a 380 bull if he's close to a road. I don't care. You know what I mean. I don't need to go to. If he's a 365 bull. Yeah. I want a little bigger. Initially. Yeah. So I'm going to hold out for something like that. So I just got a big question. That me and many other people are wondering. Out there. Like. Did you point guard this? Oh yeah. I do that. But. Turn it back. No. I can't see any reason that's going to happen. I mean. Too many. The dates are too good. Moon's too good. And I've. I've literally looked at this for a couple years. Yeah. Knowing I'd have about the points to draw this year. Yeah. Also looked at unit 10. Did put that as my first choice. Didn't think I'd get it.

Which I didn't. So. I'm glad to be going. 15 years. A lot of. Long time to wait. Between elk tags down there. Absolutely. So. So you've been. I know you've been shooting your bow. Yeah. Feeling good. Feeling good about that. You know. Haven't. Haven't had a. What I'd call a big archery tag the last couple years. So. We don't always. You know. We. We all here. Put in for whatever. Archery. Muzzle. Or rifle. To get the best hunt. With the best draw. With the draw. With the draw. With the draw. Angle. How we can. With the points we have. And our schedule. You know. Don't. I don't really. I'm not a. You know. But elk is naturally. Where we tend to. In the states that have. Archery elk hunts. You know. That are great quality. Like Arizona. We tend to favor those hunts. They're made to kill with a bow. You know. Other states. They're screaming at you. And they're usually a rut hunt.

Colorado last year. Just because I had. Had the points. You know. In no man's land. So to speak. New Mexico. Sometimes. And you killed a great bull. In Colorado. Yeah. I mean. You killed a 360 inch bull. Yeah. In Colorado. Yeah. I was very happy. I mean. You maxed the tag. There's governor tag. Colorado governor tags. Shoot for that. Sometimes. Yeah. No. I feel very happy. So. You know. Yeah. Looking forward to it. Should be. Hopefully a great hunt. I have pretty much the whole hunt. May have. May take the first few days. And. Guide some sheep hunters. Backs here in Utah. It's the same weekend. Our desert sheep season opened. We got a bunch of hunters. So. May get on on that. Yeah. Frenzy for the first few days. Knock some rams down. And then head south to Arizona. So I got a question for you Jeff. I'm ready. I'm ready.

Do you got the right meat hauler pack? Because Adam's going to need a meat hauler. Adam's going to need a meat hauler. Yeah. Well. I'll get it. I'll have it. Okay. All right. Well. We'll give you a company issued one. If you don't have one. So. Just let us know where to go with that. Maybe we'll use some of your clothing allowance. Epic clothing allowance. Do we have an epic clothing allowance? Well. That's news to me. Some of us have it. Hey John. How do we make that work? Talk to the HR department.

Let's see. Yeah. Yeah. We ought to hire the HR department first. That's right. Oh. Geez. All right. Well that's. I'm wondering. Have you been hearing anything Adam. On that. Quality this year in Arizona. Down on your elk stuff. I mean. Yeah. Where Nevada's a little down. How's. How's Arizona looking? Yeah. You know. From an elk standpoint. Especially. Especially. The moisture. The elk get a much earlier head start growing than deer do. Generally. You know. They drop their antlers in March. First of March. And they start crushing their growth fast. And so. You know. By the first of July. Or. I mean. These elk are done. Even though they're still in velvet. They're. They're done. And so. Not hearing anything. I mean. Hearing some great stuff. They killed the governor bull the other day. It was over 420. In a different unit. Not mine. But I mean. I'm just saying. Elk. It takes.

A really severe drought. It seems like. To. To. To set them back. And I don't really know. Jason. If the Nevada thing is drought related. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it should be. Off. You know. But. But it seems like it. But deer a lot more. They fluctuate more. Definitely than elk. Elk get going. And they grow. In four months. They're done. And so. They had a good winter and spring down there. So yeah. Antler growth should not be that compromised. And they've had a heavy monsoon season in the last month. So anything that needed to finish off. Would have had what it needed to. So. Anyway. Looking forward to it. Yeah. Should be awesome. That. That's right. We've got a lot of good antler growth. The. You know. I know. Like here on the Ponts I got for deer. You know. Switching gears to deer. Of course. Because I try to switch gears to deer every time we can. The. Ponts I got.

Looks really good. I'm hearing great things on the Kaiba. Great things on the Arizona Strip. Not so great things in Nevada. From particular people in this room. And. And then. You know. Like Southwest. Some of our general stuff is just average. You know. I don't know about Pine Valley. Chris. You'd know about that a little more. But. Seems. Seems good. Maybe not quite what it was last year. But it seems good. Yeah. Just kind of an odd year. We had a lot. A great winter. And then it just turned off dry for two months. You know. For April. May. Just brutal. Brutal dry. Never. Never get a storm. Clear days every day. And. June. Anyway. Brutally hot. Dry too. Feet out. I mean. The leaders are on the bitter brush. But it's just like. Dried out. Brittle. I don't know what it is. It's just a different year. But. Anyway. So. Lots going on. You know. We've got. Of course. Jeff.

You've got some kids. I've got kids. No. We've got kids. Kids got tags. In general. In Utah. My kids got more tags than I ever thought of having when I was their age. Oh. Absolutely. Colorado. New Mexico. Utah. Your kids. You've got Idaho tags. Idaho tags. I mean. Last year. We. My kid had a. Last year. My kid had a tag in Utah. Idaho. And Colorado. I mean. I think between the two of us. We had seven tags all together. Of course. Some of them we didn't hunt. Because we had other hunts going. That we were helping other people on. Brother had a sheep tag. So we. You know. Took one for the team. Took one for the team on that one. You know. We just avoided Colorado. Because there's no sense in. You know. Going and hunting deer on. And.

In all reality. Below average unit. You know. When you can be hunting sheep. Yeah. In Utah. So. You know. We focused on that. But. It was okay. He was still able to harvest a. A good buck in Utah. Yeah. And. As a. You know. As a 12 year old. You know. Yeah. You kill a four point buck. You know. And you kill a couple of them. Yeah. You're doing pretty good. You know. So by the time he was 12. He killed a couple decent bucks. And. We did a lot of hunting. It was fun. We were able to go with. Your boys. Jason. Yeah. And. It was awesome. Have a fun hunt up there too. In Idaho. It was awesome. The only thing. What's. What's killing me about these kids. Is they're so. They're so in tune. To what's going around. You know. And what we're doing. And what we've killed. And put. And I mean. All we want to know. What is it scoring at. You know. What is it scoring. I'm like. Really. Really.

It's got four points on both sides. Shoot it. Get out on your bipod. Yeah. Right now. You know. It was impressive. Watching. Watching Justin. Get down on that deer last year though. Yeah. A group of bucks. Yeah. And watching him. He chose. Which one he wanted to shoot. Which one are you going to shoot. The one facing us. And I'm like. Okay. That's the toughest angle. Well. It's a tough one. Right. Seven to nine bucks right there. Oh I know. They were all jammed together. Justin. So he gets down on his bipod. And it's not the biggest deer in the group. It's not. No. You know. I'm like. Which one are you going to shoot. He says the one facing us. And I'm like. Oh my gosh. A. You know. Which one. There's three of them. Do you. Do you. Do you. Do you. Do you. Take a. Yeah. Do you take a. Ten year old kid. Or. You know. Yeah. He's. He was. Ten. Right. Eleven. He was. Eleven.

He just turned eleven. Do you take an eleven year old kid. Pull him off the deer that he's focused on. To shoot one of the other deer. Yeah. And you got deer standing behind deer. You know what I mean. And so you got. I got a potential situation here. You know. Potential. He's on the deer facing us. It's definitely a kill shot. Especially with the rifle. He's using a 300 ultramag. You know. And of course it's all wazooed out. He's. He's got. Everything's set up. He's got a brake on it. It's not going to pound it. He. He knows the gun. I know the gun will just crush this deer. And. Yeah. He went out and shot at 700 yards. Yeah. The day before he came up. Yeah. Yep. He did. And so. And he. And he's just that kind of kid. He's. He doesn't get buck fever. He's very focused. He was ice dude. He. Yeah. I can't believe it. And so I'm like. Okay. There's no other deer. Probably not deer.

Two feet on each side of this deer. Right. And nothing behind him. And so I'm like. All right. That sounds good. You know. Yeah. It's not the biggest deer. But it's kind of isolated enough. That I don't think you'll kill three or four of them. Yeah.

He's not going to go to jail with a Laciak violation. Right. Yeah. And so. Anyway. And so. He's on that deer. And he. And he. And I just let him do his thing. And he touches it off. And I mean. He wasn't an inch off. It was amazing. Center punch that deer. Tips over in 10 yards. Amazing. And the look on his face. And going up. It was just priceless. That was his first buck. It was priceless. First buck. That's awesome. First buck. And he. I mean. I was shocked. At how calm. Cool. Collected. Like. Yeah. Coming up to the shot. I mean. You had him set up. I mean. If you have kids. It's good to have. Like. You had him in the claw. Right. Yeah. Oh yeah. The. Yeah. It's the claw. It's basically a claw. That clamps onto your gun. Puts it onto your tripod. And so it's just a real solid rest. Yeah. You know. For adults too. How far was it? Two. It was like 270 or 80 yards or something. 250 plus.

It felt like 14 miles. You know. I mean. I'm looking at it going. Please go down. Come on. Please go down. Please. You know. Because it was like the last day. Well. That you could hunt. It was like weekends. Yeah. That's the struggle with kids. We all have them. That was opening morning. With school. Oh was it? It was. It was Sean. But. But. Keep in mind. I mean. You know. We try not to hunt on Sundays. We got all week of school. You leave Friday night. And you hunt Saturday. And drive home. That's what you got. Yeah. So that's what I meant. And so the next weekend. I'm promising Sean. It's his turn. So hopefully. If Justin kills a buck. Then I go home. Sean goes throughout the whole week of school. We come up. On a Saturday morning. Get Sean a buck. Like we're messing with hockey practice. I can't remember. Yeah. You had something going in Salt Lake. Yeah. And we're like.

They had ice hockey. Let's just go up and see if we can. I know. So anyway. Those kids. There's nothing like it. Of course. You had your kids. And. And thanks to you Jeff. You did a lot of the scouting. And. And homework. And. And that's kind of your backyard. Yeah. That's southern Idaho. Yeah. You know. And you. And we talk about places being marginal. I know we mentioned. You know. Utah General. And some of these. And like. You know. You were talking about your sheep hunt. In relation to the sheep tag and stuff. But. You had a 200 inch plus deer found. On that particular unit. It was good. You know. We found him. Oh. What. I saw him about 10 days before the hunt. I think started. Went back. And I didn't actually see the buck again. Until opening day. And we saw him. Yeah. And you've talked about it a hundred times. Little things. Little things make or break you. Make or break you.

And you know. We have. On a heavily hunted general season type unit like that. You know you have one opportunity. Yeah. And I. And I didn't. I. You know. I had a couple little things that screwed us up. Like what? Well. We had to go track down an issue with. You know. The reason why my kid didn't have a gun that opening morning was. Was. You know. When opening morning. We were sitting there. And we're going through tags just double checking everything. And. We didn't have a license with us or something. Yeah. I can't remember. You didn't have the tag. And so we just. You know. We just basically. And you can't print out a duplicate. You have to go to an office. Yes. To get a duplicate. Where normally. If you didn't print one out. You can go to any vendor. Yes. And have it printed out. Yep. So it was. You know. We were just double checking everything.

And I should have double checked that before. Beforehand. And so we ended up. Even though we had seen the bucks bedded. We thought. Okay. They're fine there. Let's go. We'll straighten out the stuff with the tag. And we'll come back. Well we leave. And next thing we know. There's five hunters. Yeah. Just randomly. Out of all the places in the world. They're going to make a deer drive. They're going to make a deer drive. They made a deer drive. Driving Quaker patches. No. There's no Quaker patches. There's like four trees. This is just sagebrush. I mean it's tall. They're driving. They call it. What do they call it. What do you guys call it. Brush busting. Brush. Brushing. Brush pop. Yeah. Brushing. They were brushing deer. Yeah. He's like. They're brushing deer. I'm like. What's brushing. That's a northern Utah term. Yeah. It must be a northern. Yeah. We call them drives down there.

But the sagebrush. For all intents and purposes. Sagebrush is like. Six feet tall. It is so tall. It was tall. And they had deep beds dug in. I mean. Out of three or four bucks that were in there. We could see the butt of one of them. You know what I mean. Yeah. You just couldn't see them. And you know. And as usual. These guys had no idea the deer were there. And they walked through and blew everything out. I mean. They were gone. You know. They get down. And I'm like. Oh my gosh. They're like. Yeah. Did you see that book? I'm like. No. I didn't see it. You blew him out. You ruined it for us. We had embedded it. And I. You know. It was. It's little things. Little things kill big deer. Yeah. You got to have it straightened out. Yeah. And if your mind would have been geared up. And you'd have been there on. You know. No. Yeah. You'd have been there. You know. Ready and kill them all.

We knew where they were at. Yeah. We knew where they were at. Yeah. And I think there's also. You know. There's an aggressiveness. You need to know when to be aggressive. And when. When it's okay to be passive. Yeah. You know. And that particular situation. Like we need to take control. Yeah. We. We should have just. You needed to take control. Yeah. It's true. It's true. You know. So anyway. I had a. Happened to have a super tag. Oh yeah. And I'm like. If Jeff so much as freaking trips. I'm killing this deer. Yeah.

We had video of the deer. With a mentor tag. You gotta. The adult has to have a tag. With this kid. And so luckily. You know. I'd had a super tag. So I'm legal to be in the field. With a gun. Can kill a deer. You know. So Justin and I are both packing rifles. Anyway. And if the 220 inch deer. Happens to get out of Jeffrey's sights. I'm going to crush this thing. Yeah. So anyway. I wouldn't blame the guy for doing that. Gets a windmill front leg. It's fair game. Oh jeez. Final bullet. Tags the animal. Right? Well. Yeah. That's about right. We'll find out. If we're still going to be brother-in-law. Find out how close you two really are. Yeah. That's right. Find out who your friends are. That's right. So anyway. Yeah. That was awesome. So great opportunity. So you head back up there again. To Idaho. Jeff. Yeah. We're going to be hunting.

This time it'll be double triple check before opening day. Yeah. Oh I've already done it. I've gone through. My younger boy actually he passed hunter safety. So we'll have three of us. Two of them plus you. That's awesome. Holy cow. It's going to be fun. And I got a boy who's 12. Of course we went down to New Mexico a few years Jason with our boys. Yeah. He shot a little buck down there. But it's kind of fun. That first year when they turned 12 it kind of opens up. It does. You know Utah first hunt. Even though they've hunted before. It's still your home state. Your first year in your home state is pretty neat. I've got a son and a daughter both this year. That daughter didn't draw last year. And the son drew the first year. So looking forward to that. Kids hunts are fun. Less pressure in ways. More pressure in other ways. Because it's you know they have tight windows.

Utah gives them a Monday off to hunt. Unfortunately on the rifle hunt at least. So you know we're usually getting out of the field from what we're doing. And you want to you got 24 to 48 hours to hopefully get a buck on the ground for them. And then they got school. And we can miss some school. But like we said this day and age between that and sports and stuff they're in. It's harder than I remember us. You get a day and a half window to make it happen. And I'm thinking the whole time it's like it's the most pressure. It's worse than guiding clients. I mean. Oh it is. It's hard on you. Well and you're dealing with you know emotions of kids not being able to balance. If deer getting away they let it affect them. Like you know it ruins their day. Yeah. Yeah. And it kind of ruins my day. Yeah it kind of ruins yours.

But it's like they they're not used to the ups and downs of hunting as much. They want to go and just like when they go fishing they want to be rolling fishing one after another. And you want them to too because you know you've got a day and a half. Right. And you're across state boundaries or something you've got a day and a half let's say or whatever two and a half. And so you've got this fine window. Got to make it happen. By the way we've got to enjoy the experience as fast as we can. Don't feel rushed. And that's a by the way. We're going to enjoy this right now. Are you having fun? You know. Good. All right. Let's go. There's a buck. Let's enjoy watching him. All right. Let's kill it. You know. It got away. Oh. Are you kidding me? You know.

And so there's it's like it's that fine balance of we're going to have this wonderful experience and see all this wildlife and and tastefully take the life of an animal. Take you know package it. Take it home. Turn it into jerky. Everything that the kids are looking forward to in a day and a half. Yeah. Well and if you want to know pressure try having Jason Carter as your brother-in-law. So every buck that you see you I mean they're they're comparing it to what Jason kills. I mean it's terrible. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You know and dad comes home with 180 inch buck and your boys looking at you like what's wrong with you dad. My own boys. Way bigger. My own boys do it to me. I brought home like a 200 incher and Sean's like really dad. That's the best you could do. I said Sean do you know what that is. He's like well you know it's a nice buck you know and I'm like no that's a 200 inch deer Sean.

And Sean's like well it just doesn't seem that wide. This is a kid. This is the kid that's growing up with mounted bucks that are 270. I know. 270. 250. And he sees these every day while he eats his Captain Crunch. He's looking at these bucks. Yeah. And so he's asking me like dad do you think we can kill a 200 incher on my hunt. And I'm like well you got a day and a half.

I don't know what to tell you. Let's just say no. Yeah. Okay. We're going to enjoy this one. Let's keep things real. You know these kids pay attention to these numbers. I mean they really do. Like four years ago my kid was taking. I mean he was. He learned how to measure deer. We were pulling the deer off the wall and he was measuring the bucks. He was taping them out. As soon as we got that Boone and Crockett sheet printed out he's like all right well. You know and you know I made a post on Instagram forever ago and I'm like no more fish stories. Like you can't you can't lie to your kids until that buck scores this because well he's going to pull them down. He's going to measure. Hey dad you said this was 182 inches and I got 168.

Now either my calculator. Either my calculator is wrong or you're wrong dad. No he shrunk 14 inches in the last two years. Hey have you ever heard of the drying period? They have that for a reason son. Now shut up.

These kids are just more educated than they used to be. Well and it's kind of got to be a proud moment. Your kids enter into it wanting to measure deer. And then it's also one of those times where it's like. Just get a few on your belly. How much value is he placing on score? And you go through that whole emotion as a dad like what have I really taught this kid? Goes back to just you know find if it's got four points put it down. Yeah and enjoy the hunt. Enjoy the kill. Enjoy the meat. My kids love the jerky. They love it. Hey dad we're eating that elk right? Yeah. I'm like oh yeah this is the elk we killed and such and such. And I mean you know but anyway the emphasis on score is always a fine balance. You know we want to take mature animals. We want to it's there's something about hunting the biggest thing that walks. Not going to lie.

But at the same time these kids I mean it's just different than when we grew up. It's just different. I used to take a week off school just to go state to state turkey hunting. You know maybe that's why I hate it so much because we ground it out. But you know nowadays you don't take a week off school even if it's deer hunting. Here in Utah we have a few days that they allow them there in October by tradition. But anyway what does that bring us to boys? End of October what have we already got going? Usually that's a Colorado. General deer and Utah we kind of talked about that. But then maybe a few of us head to Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. My kids got you know leftover basically second choice type tags their Colorado second season that October 21st. Which you know second season. What? We just got done talking about trying to make something out of nothing.

And now we're talking about one of those hunts. I know. It's every hunts. A second season left over. We go from Jeffrey's awesome Nevada tag to my awesome Nevada tag to now second choice. Utah Generals. Utah Generals and then second choice here in Colorado. But you know honestly. Honestly. So in normal weather years the second season can produce the biggest deer of the year. And when you have that snowstorm usually you have one or two snowstorms. And you got first dibs. Basically. And you got first dibs. And you'll see a little bit of rut there at the end of that hunt. And by the 29th the last of the nine day season a lot of times you're by yourself those last two or three days. And so we've had some great hunts on the second. And kind of looking forward to that one with my kids. Yeah. Well like you said you got to when we apply many of these states are opening up the same time.

It's not a lock they're going to get a Utah General tag. So you got to put them in for that. Right. You got to put them in for Colorado. Either burn their points with one or two which I think you did with one of your boys this year. Or put them in for second choice tag. You want your kids to have one or two hunts. You do. That year. You know a couple of your kids ended up with like three Jason. Yeah. New Mexico. Colorado. Remember we only have a day and a half apiece. That's right. So you know but but you know none of us have a crystal ball. And these aren't stuff we're burning 10 points on. And you got four of them and you're like I can't do any of them justice. New Mexico tags. They're just opportunity hunts. You know we have a few of those worked in. You know my elk and maybe a couple of these others. The others we have to make stuff out of stuff like probably all of us do.

We don't all draw three or four awesome trophy tags a year that fills up our whole schedule. We have to get breaks, luck, weather, all things like that. But to have something go our way. That's right. At least be out in the field. But if a guy wants to hunt there's tags out there. There it is. And our kids are proving it. Yeah. I mean there's unlimited draws there in Idaho. There's easy draws on some of these general in Utah. And then like we did in Colorado there's second choices. You know we got four season tags with two points. You know what I mean. And so they're in Colorado. And so there's some opportunity out there. Jeff's proven you can draw with zero points. You can draw one of the most premier units in the state of Nevada. Archery. Archery. Archery. Archery. That word premier is being thrown around like a wet cat.

That's all I know. And I've never set foot in his unit looking for a deer. No. We only go down there. I've guided desert sheep there. Have you ever seen a deer while you're guiding desert sheep? No.

Oh nice. Nice. That's where we're at. As Jeff licks the stamp to send the tag back. All right. So anyway. Yeah. So that. John you're going to have deer hunt here in Utah. Yep. Looks like. And that's another one. Under that dedicated program John. Tell us about that. You know. For people that. Yeah. The dedicated program is really kind of nice. Especially if. You know. If you've got a little bit of time. And you want to hunt multiple seasons. And since they've changed the structure of the Utah general hunts. The qualities really come back. And. It gives you the chance to be in the field a lot. Unlike Jeff. I struck out this year on drawing great tags. So. I'm really relying on. You know. That Utah general. I did draw the dedicated. Which last year I didn't. You know. I had to skip last year. Because. I didn't have a point. It took a point this year. Which. You know.

Traditionally in the past. It was pretty easy to get those tags. But now the quality is coming on. They've cut tags back. Then it's a lot harder to get. Yeah. Some of those tags. But I can hunt. Archery. Muzzle loader rifle. On those. And. Again. You know. That's. I've got kids that are coming up on that age. You know. Where they're hunting. And. And. It's another good opportunity to get in the. In the hills with my kids too. Yeah. It's awesome. I think it's great man. Well good. And then. What do we got here. Looks like we're going to have some Colorado deer. And. And elk. And different things. Bronson. It brings us back to you buddy. Well. Of course. By this time. You've guided 14 desert sheep hunters. And made everybody's dreams come true. I hope so. So. Because these November hunts. The first thing to give in my schedule. Is your own personal hunting. Is my own personal hunting.

I know. When it comes to guiding. We've got a busy year. A bunch of sheep hunters. Most of them desert sheep. Rocky as well. Have some big deer to kill the end of October. And the Henry's and what not. Excited about that. As always. But obviously. When you sign up to. To be a guide. And. You book hunters. You. You owe that to them. And so. If. If we're not quite done. By. The 4th or 5th of November. When the third season opens up. Then. I'm going to be still here in Utah. And I'll have to just break free. And go to Colorado. I picked up. A very marginal. Landowner tag. In a unit. I've never hunted before. So. I don't have that high of expectations. But it is a third season. Landowner deer tag. I'll be going over there this year. As soon as I'm done. With. My obligations. With my. With my sheep hunters. But. Looking forward to that. You know. As we kind of talked about. You just.

Colorado is one of those places that. Genetics are too good. And the potential is so good. If you get some weather. To not be there. And so. I couldn't forego the opportunity. At least. To secure a tag. Don't really have. You know. 200 inch aspiration. I have aspirations. But. I don't have that. I think that that's going to happen. Yeah. But. You know. You know. See what happens. Last year was terrible. Those are the season dates. That it makes. With very little scouting. You can. You can kill. That's kind of why I did that. You know. Well. And you've done it twice. Yeah. I've done it. You killed two bucks over 200. So. Yeah. And. And sometimes. On a leftover. Sometimes on a tag. I burned eight or nine points to draw. So. And. And I've been there many other times. And haven't. I've killed bucks. Or not. Just decided not to shoot them. But you just got to be in Colorado. Yeah. Yeah.

You've had. You've had. You've gone from. Well last year. Well I was there last year. Having basically 70 degree weather. In the fourth. In the fourth season. Killing deer at over 10,000 feet. In the fourth season. And was it the year prior you had. Oh. Two years prior. Two years prior. You had a blizzard. It was phenomenal. For three days. Yeah. So let's choose through three to five days a year. Three. On the fourth. Yeah. You only had two days left. That's right. So. I mean. You can beg for snow. And then it can be too much. I mean. But the bottom line. Colorado. As often as I can be there. We're obviously a little bit of a luxury. It's a state away. We can be there in five to seven hours. In most of the units. And so. It's a long drive by Nevada standards. Yeah. Once again. We're going to get blasted by everybody else across the U.S. For having to only drive five hours. That's right.

To hunt mule deer. That's right. But looking forward to that. And see where it goes. Then we kind of get into mid-November. And Chris. Going to be heading to Arizona with you. You drew a muzzleloader elk tag. I did. Yeah. For the last ten years. I've been following other people around. Chasing big bulls. And watching big bulls fall. And I've always had that bug. But just. I've been waiting for a good tag. And finally my turn come up. Yeah. So. I'll be heading down there. Tell us a little bit about it. Where we're going. I decided to go. Well. After talking to Jason this year applying. I went for a season. And a tag. That was a little easier to draw. It's a late season. Muzzleloader. And so. You know. I just. I'm ready. I want to go. And this seemed like a good year. Things are looking good down there. So I thought. You know what. I'm going to. I'm going to burn some points. And go down.

It's maybe. Maybe not the best season dates. But. Like I said. Like I said. It was easier. There's guys killing 380 bulls. This is a very unique season. That's the other thing. I mean. It is better than the. December 1st to 7. Rifle hunt. No question. And so it's a late but early early season. And it's a glassable. Very glassable unit. So you do get first crack at these. First crack. These bulls with the fire. After the archery. But before the rifle hunters just crush them. Yeah. And you have less than 100 tags. I want to say there's like 75. Compared to. Yes. 400 to 500. I can't remember how there is on the rifle. But a lot. So. And obviously. You get to use a scope in Arizona. So. Not that primitive of a weapon. Really. And so. I think you got. You got a. Remington. What do you got? Basically. What are you working on? Basically. Basically. Bronson's keying it up.

That you better not miss. For all intents and purposes. Chris. You've got a rifle. Yeah. Pretty much. Pretty much. You got a 400 yard single shot. Yeah. Yeah. I did. I did just. Get a new muzzleloader set up. And so. I'm hoping that's. Good. Going to work out for me. Well. And that same gun's. Legal in Utah now. Yeah. So. I think you're dedicated here in Utah. So if you don't kill a deer in the bow hunt. You can use. You know. Utah. You can use magnified scopes now too. Just like Arizona. New Mexico. So. Well. That's good. You know. Elk tags are kind of a premium here in the office. We actually. You know. We hunt a lot of deer. We hunt elk when we can. The tags are somewhat tough to draw. But. You know. I've got a New Mexico elk tag there. At the first part of October. Chris has got this elk tag. And. Anyway. We just try to make the most of them when they come. And we've done.

Not too bad. With a few elk tags. It's not like we made it a huge emphasis to. Yeah. Kill giant bulls. We all like elk. It seems like. Oh yeah. And we hunt them. And we're aggressive about applying for them. But. Between Adam's tag. And my tag. And Chris's tag. I don't know. Who else. You guys got any elk tags? Jeff. Huh? Your boys. Yeah. My boys got that 52. In Idaho. Oh. That's right. He drew that. That's right. That's right. So Idaho does have some new seasons that are pretty awesome. In 52. They've got some of these depredation seasons. They've got one that opens August 1st. Today. Yeah. They're hunting today. Today. Velvet bulls. Velvet bulls. Velvet bulls. It just doesn't happen unless you're on Indian reservations to be able to kill velvet bulls. So it's pretty. With a rifle. They hit trophy bulls. And I mean even though it's technically a depredation season as of last year.

This year they've got enough elk out there. They actually need to manage them and do it on a consistent basis. So they've opened up seasons there. And then Jeff draws. Jeff's boy draws. Was it the mid season? The mid season. So the October 1st or 30th is what he's going to be hunting. Yeah. And you've been up there. You've seen some. You've seen some signs. We've only had a day or two. You know. We realize that things are going to change around the rut. And that's going to be the game changer. And then a lot of the elk in that unit I think do migrate down into there. Yeah. So you know we're going to hit it hard probably right around the rut. Because I want my boy to get out and see some. You know that's something that every kid needs to see. You want to give him eight hours of quality experience. And then eight hours of hunting and you kill a bull and go. There you go.

That would be great. And you have the most phenomenal father-son outing there is. Yeah. So we'll probably go up and scout it hard a little bit in September. Just to you know see the dynamic change. You know the rut's here. You know these bulls are bugling. And they said that you know most places you do get a little bit. You can get a little bit of rut that first of October. So we'll probably go hit it the first of October. And then we'll probably pull off until the end of the hunt. How long does that hunt go? Do you remember? It goes a full 30 days. It's the month of October. Yep. Yeah. And we talked. Actually talk. I talked to a member yesterday that has a cousin that owns property within that unit that knows the bulls we're talking about. And he's like dude that's a great experience. That's going to be an awesome one. We're going to give it a shot and see how it goes.

We've got a gun ready to go so he can go whack a bull. It'll be fun. And he says dad I want to shoot the one facing us. You're like that's a rag horn. Nope. We're going to put a stop for that if that happens. Anyway. No. He shoots whatever he wants. I forgot about that. That's awesome. I forgot about him drawing that. And that's your 12, 13 year old? He's 13. Yeah. He's 13. He's the perfect age man. These kids are just. They just want something brown in front of them. Do you remember Adam when we were young? Like we didn't hunt at 12 years old. We didn't hunt big game. Oh yeah. 14 was the old. I think it was 16. They changed it in my year. When I was 14. It was 16. The year I could hunt they changed it to 14 and I felt like I was in heaven. And I had to wait until I was. I think it was when they changed it was 15. You had to wait one more year. Yes. And it just. I mean. But yeah.

You went from 16 to 14 and then to 12. And so yeah. It's changed a lot. Yeah. It's helped a lot. Because you get these kids going earlier in life. You know. And back then. I mean. We didn't have everything else. We didn't go state to state per se. No. You know what I mean. You didn't have to. We had over the counter tags in Utah. Yeah. You just hunted here. And maybe went out of state. I went out of state my first time when I was probably 16 or 17 to Colorado. Yeah. Some friends of mine. He owned actually a private ranch in southwest Colorado. Went there back to back years. Shot five point bulls on his place. Yeah. It was awesome. But I wouldn't have never gone if it wasn't had that connection. But yeah. You made the most of your general season tag. And that was about it. You did. Maybe. You did. You know. Maybe an over the counter elk too. But yeah. There's a lot that's changed.

And overall. You know. From an age standpoint. It's a good thing. There's a lot more things to take kids time. Now. It feels like. It feels like when we were kids. All there was to do. Was walk out your back door with your BB gun. And go on. The electronics. There wasn't any. Right. We had Atari. There was no internet. We had Atari. That's right. And that guy. Frogger got old. You didn't have frogs or that. Pac-Man came sometime later than that. I don't even remember. So. The pressure in school. And there was no internet. The school. You had school. And maybe some athletics. And that was really. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. And then hunting. Yeah. And people expected you to. Like. People expected you not to be there during the deer hunt. Like. That was a thing. Yeah. Now. It's like. They really ignore that. Especially. You know. We're from northern Utah. But. I mean. There's no. You know.

Like. We got out on Thursday. Just so we could prep to go. On Saturday. Miss Friday. Just so we could prep for the deer hunt. You know what I mean? Yeah. That does not happen anymore. Back then it was called the deer hunt. That you got off of school. Yeah. And that does not exist anymore. It's called harvest holidays. Harvest holidays. You could be doing your garden. Gotta be proper. You could be cleaning off your garden that day. Yeah. This isn't the kill holiday. It's down to one day too. Off school. Is that all it is? Yeah. It's only one day. Just Monday. Yeah. Monday. It's better than nothing. We call it a Friday through Monday.

So just to wrap up our thoughts here. Chris you're going to kill a giant bull in Arizona. That's right. Let's move on.

November is for deer hunting. And so I know. That's right. You know. Colton and I drew tags there in New Mexico. Maybe the toughest tags in the world. To kill something on. Once again. Opportunity tags. But no points. Very similar. So you can gamble in New Mexico. Yeah. And draw a tag. There's no point. Yeah. Yeah. So. But very similar to Jeff's. You know. Nevada tag. I just. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure it out. Helps you maybe learn something. Turn this back. Or what. You know. But there's no points. Yeah. You're done. Your points. Your. I know. Your permit fees paid. I know. You might as well go down there and hunt. I know. Just go hunt. Right. So. Anyway. And so. Anyway. Got that tag. It's only a five day season. In the desert with no deer. But there's a couple of giants. So hopefully we do something on that. Which brings me to another point. Adam. Yeah.

Being the tag junkie. And he is. Drew a phenomenal deer tag. I don't know. Up there in Wyoming. Huh. You're using adjectives today. That's probably a little overdone. But phenomenal. And you used something else earlier with Chris. Dude. You got a rifle rut hunt. It's a rifle rut hunt. I had max points. Obviously been applying since they started the point system in Wyoming. In all truthfulness. I should have been up there two or three times by now and hunting G or H. Yes. If you had to do it again. Oh, I would have. You would burn your points more often. I would have hunted more often. The only reason I haven't is we guide a lot of sheep hunters. And about the 15th, that Saturday closest to about the 15th of September is when it opens here in Utah. Which is when G and H open. And we've long touted and said that those are the best areas in Wyoming to have a chance to kill 200-inch deer.

Even though they're general season. You know, G will take, you know, three to six points over the years to draw. Regular versus special. Things like that. But, so I should have gone and done that. I hadn't. This year, after the hard winter that they had, again, my September, I knew I was probably going to be going to Arizona. But I'm just like, you know, that's going to be a little bit of a rebuilding probably. It's going to be a little bit off. I didn't feel like burning them on a G this year because I knew I was going to be going down to Arizona. So I threw in for a unit 128 tag. That Du Bois late season hunt. Yeah. Still had 9 or 10% drawing odds. I didn't do the special because I thought, well, if I get it, it goes until November 20th. I plan on hunting third season in Colorado. That gives me, you know, a week to 10 days at the end of that to go up there. It's not a.

And by that time of year, your wife is ready for you to leave again.

The only saving grace to this is that if everything goes well. It'll be a short hunt. It'll be a short hunt. That's right. And I'll get up there. It's a rut hunt. I don't have time to go. So it's not going to be one I have to go scout and learn ahead of time. No, you can't scout it. So I can show up and literally hunt five days, take it however it is and come home. That's right. So that's the saving grace to something like this. But, you know. Seems like about 10% of them from what we're seeing and the results and the pictures and the reports, about 10% are going 190 plus-ish. It seems like it's gotten a little better if we can say that. There's a few more 190 deer getting killed. Well, having said that, you know, there's not a lot of those deer. I expect to look over a lot of deer, which is, you know. And, you know, fun hunt.

Maybe if I can take my boy up there, send around a weekend just so he can see some stuff like that. He'll probably talk me into whacking something just because he's there with me. So, which will be fine. But, anyway, I did burn points and draw that. I hope he'll find something really good on that. Nothing wrong hunting deer in mid-November, like we said. Nothing's wrong with it. It's like hunting elk in September. That's right. That's when you're supposed to hunt them. So, anyway, points are gone. I don't really feel that bad, or I don't really feel that much pressure on that hunt because I don't, as we've said as well, Wyoming deer, they don't really manage even this unit. We've been waiting for Wyoming to be good. For 12 years? For 20 years. For 12. And it was just time for me, I'm thinking, you know. 12 points, but 12 years. Nothing's come up in 12 years to change my mind.

You know, if I draw it good, and that's kind of the way I'm looking at it. Go make the best of it. Maybe kill a great buck. If not, then I'll be putting in for G&H whenever my schedule lasts. Yes. I'll make that happen. Well, and with what we've got going on and future plans and whatnot, like, you'll be guiding less, hopefully. Oh, yeah. And we'll have time to make good on some of these earlier season hunts. Yeah, that's been my biggest problem. September, the whole world's on, you know, opened up. Elk hunting, sheep hunting in Utah. And so, it's hard for me to go away to hunt rifle deer in September. Well, it's nice. The guiding thing's nice. And I take a couple of clients, too. But it's one of those things, you know, it allows us to be in the field nonstop. It gives us a separate checkbook for gas money. And a separate checkbook for, you know, applying and doing all the things.

And so, it's one of those love-hate situations. It allows us to continue with the knowledge, to continue learning all this different stuff and working hard out there. But then it also takes away from our personal hunting as well. It's just one of those love-hate deals. Something's going to give. But it's fun. It's, you know, to be able to take sheep hunters, which we predominantly take, or deer hunters on the Henrys, which is, those are the majority of what I personally guide. I do have some elk hunters that we have and things like that that I don't always have the time to guide myself. But that's pretty dang fun because, you know. Kill them a spike and their dreams come true. Yeah, curly spike. That's right. You know, it's fun. Big spikes. It's experience. Big spikes. I fortunately have the body to still keep doing it. Yeah. And that's fun.

And I haven't hunted a digit sheep for myself yet. So, hopefully, by the time, you know, I draw a tag, I figure out how to kill them. Yeah, that's right. Well, you've got to make good on them, and I think you've got the right tag. I'm looking forward to it, actually. But anyway, what else we've got going on? Anything else? Well, we're going to do Mexico again. You know, of course, got my good buddy Mario down there. And big box, big box. He's all excited, showing me pictures of the reservoirs that are full of water. It's incredible moisture. It should be just another great year down there. Looking forward to that. And anyway, anything else anybody's got going on? Nada. Nada, nada. Just, it's here. It starts coming at us pretty fast here, week by week from here on out. Yeah, there's a few governor seasons that are opening up today. Nevada and a few different things.

A few different sheep in Oregon, Nevada, and different elk like we've talked about. It's August 10th, the Nevada Deer Opener Cranks. We're going to see the first velvet bucks of the year always come from Nevada because they've got the earliest season dates, and that's what's fun about it. So wish everybody luck. It's coming fast not only for us but for everybody else. So everybody hopefully has a great season. Yeah. Most of the tags they've got, share us, your success with us, send us photos. We love getting them as we're always looking for content for the magazine for the issues coming up next year. Again, for those of you who don't know what we do here at Epic Outdoors, we have a monthly publication December through June, bi-monthly the rest of the year with nine total issues. We cover all the western states before it's time to apply, give you all the drawing odds,

kill percentages, and our comments on those units. With your membership, it's $100 a year, but with your membership, you can also call in and visit with this. We're happy to help you go over your strategies, both short-term, mid-term, long-term strategies, and try to get you drawn and actually gain points in the states that make sense. There's some states that just don't make sense, but there's a lot of states that do. Adam and I are always willing to visit with you guys and kind of develop some of those plans and help you strategize. Jeff, here on this podcast, he's largely responsible for keeping track of all the guaranteed tags, all of our guided hunt situations where guys can just buy hunts. And so if you didn't draw a tag and you want to, you know, still looking to get a hunt, no matter what time of year it is, you can call in right now and Jeff's here to visit with

you, at least in and around his scouting. And so super appreciative of him and the relationships that he's building, you know, across the west here with some of the different outfitters. And so anyway, feel free to call us with that. We also sell landowner tags and help guys get tags. That's our number one goal here is to help guys obtain tags across the west. That's the goal is to help you get on world-class hunts one way or another. And so sometimes it takes a lot of planning and preparation to get those. They don't just happen, you know, in random draws. And in some cases they do and we take them when they happen. So anyway, that's basically what we do. We also have a separate service where we apply guys. We actually take your information and apply you as if you were doing it yourself. And you'll get your own tags and refunds as well.

Even though we do it for you, we just basically process the applications and choose the units where guys, you know, need help on that and just want to trust that we'll do it for them. So anyway, in a nutshell, that's who we are. Just wanted to kind of visit with everybody before we kick off the hunting season here in 2017. Looking to be awesome. And again, like the guys have said, we encourage you to send in your photos. Email us, info at epicoutdoors.com. You can join. It's www.epicoutdoors.com. You can join on the web. And we'll go from there. Anything else, fellas?

Nada. All right. Get out there. Find a big deer. Find a big deer, Jeff. I'll give it a shot. All right, guys.