EP 399: A Long Odds Desert Sheep Story and Epic Crew Update

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Hey everybody, John here, kicking off the podcast, minus Jason Carter who's in the field. But we've got Adam, Devin, Wyatt, and Logan today. So it's the first time we've had five of us in the office at the same time in a long time. So we're getting started and I wanted to just make a big announcement. We've got our fall hunt giveaway that is just starting, kicking off. And so we've got three awesome hunts and it's a really short giveaway. But we've got a $60,000 Alaska doll sheep hunt, a $34,000 Alaska grizzly hunt, and a $9,000 Texas barbary sheep hunt. Those are available on the website. Go to epicoutdoors.com and you can get your tickets. You can also buy your tickets or enter on the app. So if you download the Epic Outdoors app, you can get those right on the app. So how's everybody? Awesome. Lots been going on. It's been a while. All you listeners, we know it. We apologize.

But we've been busy. It's false. I've been hearing, where's the podcast? You know, it's like, I'm sorry. I don't know how many states we've been since we've been at this table last. And provinces, I don't know. Somebody's probably been to Canada, but I don't know. But a lot. It's a lot of death and destruction and chasing and things like that going on. So probably ought to lead off with that a little bit. Logan, what have you been up to, first and foremost? Been up to nothing. Trying to find a deer. Nothing too crazy. Really? I was just looking at it. You hit it out this week with the old school muzzle? Yeah, the muzzleloader. Yep. Got that dialed in. That's always a fun experience. Yeah, define dialed in with that. With an iron sight and triple seven. Yeah, you're hitting paper at 100 and you feel pretty good. You can actually, with those Williams peep sights we sell,

I feel like you can get them pretty dialed in and they've got a little notching underneath them that you can use to, I guess, estimate your next distance. But I probably will not pull the trigger on anything over 100 yards. It's just too sketchy. Okay. But I was just looking at the last time we were in here. Are you shooting a 50 or a 45? What are you shooting? 45. Yeah, 45 MRX. Got the whole family on that. Geez. Devin, might as well talk about CVA. We've been flying out the last two weeks. You can definitely tell muzzleloader season. Yeah. The last two weeks. In case you don't have one where you've got like a day and a half left. You better hurry. And we all know muzzleloaders, they just shoot great right out of the box, everything you throw at them. Oh, it's amazing. I mean, they do better than they used to, but, man, it's not a last-minute project. For some people it was. Yes. Well.

But we, Logan put sights on a few of them. Like, they were pretty well. I feel like an expert, yeah. Yeah. Do you? I don't know. I probably put together seven-way run out of all the sights. Yeah. I mean, pretty well. Yeah. Emptied us right out. Muzzle brakes, sights, a lot of the different models. But, yeah, we got a few in today, actually. Some MRXs, just in case you're still looking. Yeah, there are some later season deer and elk stuff later on. I shot mine, like, last week or within the last two weeks.

Happy? It's still loaded, ready to go. You got a red dot on that. You're not in a throwback unit like Logan. Not in a forbidden zone. No, I got a red dot. It's fancy. You did the Williams, though, out there in Nevada. I did. Handled it just fine. I was shooting milk jugs at 200 with that thing, Logan. Do you have the adjustable or the non-adjustable? Non-adjustable. Really? Was this before or after LASIK? This is before LASIK. I had my glasses. What reticle do you use? The same. You got the one little line. The step down? The 100, 150, and then the post was 200. The post was money. Huh. Because it's bigger. Interesting. Yeah, it worked. I might try out. Step it out. 45. Yeah. Was that a 45? 50. Yeah. It's a 50. It doesn't translate. I shot that. Those 45s don't drop like you'd expect. I'm just telling you. My LRX, I shot it the other day, and I think I was like four or something MOA.

It's like 11 inches at 200. That's on a 50? Mm-hmm. But, yeah, and the 45, it's not even that. I mean, it's. No. Like open sight, it's hard to say, hey, I'm going to aim six or eight inches high for 200. That's hard to do. So, that's what you should do. But doing it, it's kind of like golf. I need to start this putt a foot to the right so it's going to break. Well, that's your intention. But when you hit it, it only starts six inches, and you miss it by six inches on the low side. So, same thing. You know what you should do open sight, but doing it on a real animal at that distance with your wrist. With that red dot, without the turret, it would be difficult. Yeah. I think. Yeah. 200. Just because your eye is salinity. And open sight's a whole other ball game, trying to aim eight inches high for 200. What are you doing? I mean, it's plus or minus a foot, right? Yeah, it's tough.

Hope and a prayer. Yeah. Well, that starts this week, speaking of. Yeah, two days. Yeah, Utah. Utah. Nevada's already rolling. Nevada's been rolling. Well, elk started today. Utah elk. That's a lot more tags than the early rifle that just ended last night. Yeah. So, yeah. A lot going on right now around the west. A lot of archery elk hunts about to wind up. Utah's winding up. New Mexico will be up in a few days. Yeah. Another one that's rolling right now is Wyoming antelope. We're getting updates on that, but that was with a rifle.

How'd that go, Devin? Yeah. You guys are looking. Oh, Devin? I've got three states since you heard that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We know, but tell the listeners, Devin. I wasn't going to go for. This is after you killed some booner-type goats in Nevada with hunters. Was in Nevada with clients and killed one really, really nice buck. Another one was just a tall, pretty. I've never scored that one, but like the tallest one I'd seen in five days between two hunts. Really nice buck. Her first antelope hunt. A lot of fun. That's awesome. We're hunting elk in between, kind of, and we killed a big bull. So, yeah, I was there for almost two weeks. And then a muzzleloader elk hunt. And then came back.

I can't even remember. I was here for probably a week. And then that weekend, that Thursday. Last time I saw you, I was like, I have an antelope tag. It's open. It opened tomorrow. But I'm not thinking of going, Adam. I'm thinking about what you said last time, and you went up all by yourself. And that was, I'm not going back alone on an antelope hunt. It's just not as fun. And Wyatt was going to go with me that later in the week. But then it's like, yeah, we might get there in the middle of the night or whatever. And I was like, oh, we'll figure it out. You know what I mean? So what happened? What happened to trigger you to head north? My dad and two of my brothers were hunting elk up there. They kind of threw in the towel after about six, seven days. So they started driving back west through the state and just said, hey, get up here.

Well, they texted me and said, hey, like, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm at work. And, yeah, we met halfway. They were actually farther away from Rock Springs than I was here in Cedar City. Really? Wow. Yeah. Yes, we got there. They got there after I did. So I bailed. I took off and just threw stuff in. Yeah. Well, how'd that go? It was good. It was fun. Oh, man, there's bucks everywhere. I think, I mean, we had two different trucks. And, like, I told my brother, Bracken, I said, count. Like, let's count bucks. Within, like, verifiable or rifle range, how many. And I know the first day we were over 100. Bucks. Same with my dad and brother. I figure we looked at 250 plus. Easy. Jeez. Wow. And this is only, I want to say, three years after you were here last time in Wyoming? Four. Three or four. So, yeah, you drew a random tag this year and just back for a good time. Yeah.

And then after 250, you're like. Yeah, that was, we covered some other parts of the unit and it was just very low density. Which was okay. But, like, it's kind of just, man, you're thinking. You're looking for some weird buck that's been out here in a weird little spot. Yeah. And those guys were leaving that next day at, like, 1 o'clock. And it was, like, 11. And I found the buck. It was the best buck I'd seen the whole time. Well, that, so. After a day and a half or two days, whatever it had been. Yeah, and everybody was there. So, it's like. That's about how long I last. It's, yeah, it's fine. And I called them over. My dad got there and I was like, we're going to walk out this. It's kind of on this big rim. And there's this big, long, flat finger. Like the most, like, what did I tell you, John? The Lion King rock. Yeah. The most flat, perfect shooting platform you could even ask for.

The buck is. Elevated above the valley. Oh, yeah. We're way. We're 100 feet, 200 feet high, probably. Yeah. Perfect. Commanding view. And the buck was already kind of working to us. And then he actually bedded, facing away, looking at a clay hill. Like this clay shelf. Like, why is he facing that way? Wouldn't you face the valley? So, I'm like, this is perfect. So, we walk out there and I tell him, like, let's just single file. Get out there. Sit down. And, like, we're not going to move because I'd like him to get closer. And we get out there and I look and he's still bedded. I kind of got my gun set up and I look again and his head was turned just a little bit. And next thing you know, I kind of look back and my dad was setting up a camp chair. He's going to be in style, man. Yeah. He's like, if I'm here, I'm going to be comfortable.

But that thing caught movement because I lay down and I look to focus my scope and he's standing there looking at us. I mean, looking right into my scope. Right after you looked over your shoulder. Like, okay, well, we're shooting for a minute. Like, we're shooting right there. It was like 640. But hardly any wind. I only held for a little bit of wind, which is rare up there. The day before it was like whipping. I was worried about that. But, yeah, it was a nice buck. It was fun. He was in the freezer the next day. Cutting wrapped? Oh, yeah. You just throw whole quarters in there. No. Do a slow age. Yeah. My wife's pretty – we're getting pretty efficient.

There's anybody I know that treats your antelope meat with the utmost respect. It's Archibald. All 30 pounds of it. Yeah. Meanwhile, we're trying to do the math. What was it, Wyatt? What did we figure? I don't even know. Per pound. The cost per pound. That's the Jeff Foxworthy math right there. Yeah. The purest, most expensive meat on planet Earth that you feed your women and child. And antelope definitely could be at today's gas prices. Yeah. Exactly. And then I'm coming home, and I hit Provo Canyon. Did I tell you this? I hit Provo Canyon, and, like, you can, like, hit that split that goes to Orem. Yeah. Or if you're in the left lane, you're going to Provo. Down through all the construction. And I'm, like, three miles from that split. Yeah. And it's just a wall of cars. I'm like, well, I'm not going that way.

I end up in Provo, and the BYU game just got out, like, 30 minutes before that. Oh, ouch. It took me two hours to get out of the tank. Oh. It was awful. That's a minor planning glitch. Yeah. Just praying my dry ice is still good, you know? Like, I'm like, I got places to go. Do you see him sweating about the L.A. I mean, he probably thought about pulling over, getting a motel, and getting a freezer. Something. Yeah, it was fun. And those are fun trips just to go out. They are. We've heard from a lot of people, some more even today. You know, antelope around the west, you know. Utah just ended. Nevada, I'm calling it ended, you know, for the most part. There might be some later stuff. And then Wyoming. Yeah, a lot of people killing antelope around right now. Having fun doing it. It got me thinking, too. Like, an 80-inch buck is, that's a big buck.

I mean, between Nevada and all those Wyoming bucks. I mean, I was in Nevada for hunting antelope for three, four, five days, maybe, off and on. And, I mean, you're talking hundreds of bucks. I bet I looked over five, six, seven hundred bucks. Wow. And we killed one 82-incher. That was it. One other buck we missed maybe was probably right at 80, I would think. Yeah. Maybe slightly better, but not as big as the one we killed. So, yeah. Yeah, it's just. It's tough. And even in the better units, the better zones, you know, Red Desert, wherever, wherever in Wyoming, it's, sometimes there's not, not some there. Have we been two years since the big storms? Three. Three. Three since the dial. Numbers. Interesting. Numbers tend to be improving, everybody's saying. Definitely, yeah. And they bounce back faster than deer.

Well, you're just driving an I-80 the last few years, and you just kind of can tell, like, it's off. And this year, I was like, wow, there is a lot more on the landscape than there was. Yeah, it seems like the consensus. I mean, I've had guys hit me with emails, just kind of updates on their hunts, different things. I mean, a lot of them are seeing a lot of antelope right now, it seems. So, a lot of bucks. Might need to plan a group trip next year or something. We've threatened to do that. You know, maybe Montaigne or something like that. That's where the gas prices are at, by the way. Which way the wind is blowing. You carpool when you do that. Yeah, that's true. Instead of driving by yourself, we get four or five of us up there. A whole bunch of freezers and ice. Devin, I will commit to here right now. If you want my antelope meat, you can have it. I mean, if that gives you.

I'd probably have to see how it died. Well, you can be over the shoulder, and you decide. Yeah, I'll shoot. Yeah. Adam, that was a non-startled buck. He didn't even know I hit him. I'll take him. Yeah, if we're running the meat grinder, we might as well just add to it. Exactly. All right. That was fun. Welcome. Wyatt, what have you been up to? I don't know when we were on here last, so I don't want to get redundant, but it feels like a month. Yeah. I started off, you know, August had, you know, just traditional pond scum archery type stuff. I was over there with hunters. Did really well over there. And then I had a Nevada deer tag. I ended up turning back. So it kind of created a gap in my schedule right now. So you've been playing, you've been earning dad of the year points is what you've been doing. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. It's what I've been gathering.

Spent a lot of time with the little boy, then just here at the office, staying caught up. It's kind of good to be on top of things. Well, just make sure, like Jason and I always say, make sure it's written down, written on the calendar, what you did, and when you did it, all the, all the. For future receipts. During the hunting season, the stuff that you were there for. Well, yeah, exactly. Come February next year when you're back-to-back trips, you know. Yeah, in case it ever comes up in conversation. Exactly. Well, September 17th.

That day probably doesn't count, but. Oh. Is that your boy's birthday? That was his birthday. Yeah, we had a birthday party. Maybe some front-end and back-end of those. That just shows you I'm a terrible planner. Well, the funny or not funny thing about that is, didn't you miss it one or two times in the first three years? Yeah. At least once. I've missed it, yeah. Some of that was out of your control. There was tsunamis and other things involved. Yeah. Or, I don't know. Or moose. Moose. I thought you made it that year. Didn't you make it? Not to the actual birthday, the birthday party. Ah. Yeah, so I've made the birthday party, but they can be the same day. He was also one. He didn't know. They should be, but I guess in this case, if you made one and not the other, it worked out in your favor. And really, are you making it for him or the wife? You know, the wife's going to remember.

One or two years old, they don't even know. Now he's getting fun, and he remembers everything. So we had a good time. That's good. Yeah, it is fun. John, what have you been doing? You hunted archery deer? Yeah, hunted archery deer. Are you ready for a little redemption on the muzzleloader? I don't tie us. Let's see. Yeah, the archery deer was pretty rough, but fun. I just decided, hey, if I see a buck, let's stock it. Did you get a bunch of stocks? Yeah, I got a bunch of stocks. Did you? It was fun, yeah. Any knock-up on anything? Oh, yeah, I just, you know. Did you cut any loose? No, no. Okay. But they surprised me, you know, closer. Oh, yeah. If you don't have a spotter there sometimes, yeah, you leave them. You're going around, no. If you don't have a spotter, you're like taking pictures, guessing where things are, and you

get to a stump, and it's 30 yards closer than you think, you know. Deer blows, right? Yeah, deer blows. When you're barely putting on your wool socks. Trap your pants. Yeah. Yeah. But, no, lots of fun, and then- You heading out this week? We got it. Yeah, we got a magazine out, though, and so you should be getting that in your mailboxes very soon. Yeah. We got the one in the office today. Yeah. So, that just covers kind of the October, November. A lot of alerts. What did we cover in there as far as alerts? We got Arizona bison, turkey, and javelina. Yeah, if you do some of the havies. Looking for those ghouled turkeys down there. We have Wyoming points, all species, and then Montana bonus points. The preference point you can still buy until the end of December, but the bonus point deadline. Got a couple more days. So, that's September on the bonus, right? End of September.

End of September on Montana, end of October for, or I guess it's the first part of November this year for Wyoming. Yeah. They've bumped it because of the weekender. Yeah. I always said it's a Monday. Maybe, I think we threw an Oregon alert in there, which you can buy Oregon points early on. So, it's not as big. Most people just do that then. And then, what, a Texas sheep alert, which is a little bit different. Yeah, they're not doing a regular draw tag this year. Counts were low, but they are giving one in that Texas Grand Slam, big time Texas hunt Grand Slam package. Yep. The raffle. That's a November 1 deadline, I believe, right now. So, it's all in this magazine that's coming out if you're interested in any of those. So, but, anyway, it's just, you know, it's hunting season. That's what it is. But there's a few of those loose ends you've got to take care of.

You know, Montana and Wyoming are pretty important ones, you know, to plan ahead and get that one preference point in Montana and have a really good chance to get a general combo of some kind next year going in to draw two. So, anyway, keep that in mind. And then, obviously, you've got to buy your deer oak and add little points in Wyoming even if you applied. Even if you applied. Yeah, and let's give a shout out. If you don't have time to do your apps, then give us a call. We can do them for you. You know, you don't want to miss points, put you back years. So, give us a call. Yep. We're willing to do that and whatnot. But lots of hunting in front of us. So, Logan, you're hunting deer this week. Yep. Devin. I'll be out there. Don. Yep. I'll probably go for a day.

But we'll see how it goes. Get back to hunting sheep and things like that. It's just coming fast. I've got to go to Wyoming the next week. Take my daughter up there. My boy's in New Mexico right now. Luckily, he has a good friend down there with him. Because I was really busy and I would have been down there Saturday or Sunday night. They said they were good. They're having a good time. A little slow. You know, picks up and then it's dead slow again. But, you know, they're hunting a decent unit. Not a high-density elk unit. But they were having a good time. And he's also being picky. And I told him, you don't need to be that picky. You're going to kill a first elk with a bow. But he's like, Dad, there's just a lot of work when we're hunting them. He's thinking ahead. Smart. All right. Whatever. Don't. Whatever. But he did see one good bull.

Came in like 55 yards and then just knew something was wrong. Close. So he had a big, big back end. And he said, but then, you know, in trees you see parts of it. And then it just kind of turned and fed off. Or not fed off, but moseyed back. And I knew something was up. Said, I don't know if he smelled this or what. But got him excited. But anyway, so that's still going on. So, yeah. A lot of luck coming up. With the bow, it just seems like your percentages of when it works out are so low. That's why this year I just decided, ah, I'm going to try it more often. Because if you just sit and be like, ah, it's not good. It's not quite what I want. I mean, I don't know. I learn something every time. So that's good. Yep. Absolutely. You just got back from sheep. Yeah. So our desert sheep season started the 12th. That was last Saturday or so. And we had a bunch to do there.

It was down there, you know, a couple weekends before there. And fortunately had some rams found. And killed three rams the first two days. It was really, really good. That went great. Couldn't have gone really better. And then, you know, you're just, you know, looking at that, you know, trying to maybe get another hunter mobilized there. But that, you know, some of these that are coming from a ways away, you can't just hand on standby. They've got to plan them a little more firmly. So we'll be back at it this weekend. But I was able to also then, my mom ended up being over on this side of the state anyway. And I told her, I said, well, just throw all your pack and your stuff. She drew a tag, by the way. So just a little back story on that. My mom, obviously, you know, dad and brother, we hunted a lot. But she hunted pretty casually.

You know, we did enough of that, I guess, for the family. She figured to keep it going. But anyway, so, but, you know, 10, 12, I guess 12, 13 years ago, I know I was doing her app just because I didn't. She had, we had a crewed a bunch of elk points for, you know, putting in for San Juan and whatnot over the years. And I just didn't want her to, didn't want her to forget because I'm like, all right, mom, do you? No, I'm not really that excited to use these. So I'm like, well, we'll put you in. And they have a mentor program in the state. Long story short. So I started putting her in for sheep back when I did that. She finally drew the elk tag. My son got to hunt that on a mentor tag. And that was six, seven, eight years ago, whatever it was. And, and then I drew a tag in 2019 for desert sheep. And she came in with me and my brother a few different times on that. Had a great time.

Loved it. Blah, blah, blah. And just was raving about that. I want to do this. I'm like, okay, you have like six points. Yeah, we're trying. We're doing all we can, mom. Well, that's, that's kind of the only thing I want to do. I'm going to hunt a desert sheep with you guys someday. And about every year, when am I going to drown my mom? You know, you don't want to tell her. You don't want to lay out all the numbers. But it's mom, it's, but Erin and I are just like, it's probably not going to happen. But no, I don't know, mom, just got to get lucky. And I remember this year she even asked, when am I going to draw that tag? You know, I'm getting older. I'm getting old. I got to do that. I'm like, mom, there's nothing you can force. You got 12 or 13 points. Anyway. Lo and behold, she drew a tag this year. So that was, that was the backstory of that.

And anyway, so knowing that we had some hunters that we had already had, you know, commitment to that first, roughly that first week, you got to kind of line three or four of them up. And if all goes well, you, it takes you five days or a week to take care of them. So I said, hey, if you're going to be on over on this side of the state, semi-close anyway, yeah, bring all your stuff. Don't forget your tag. Bring all your pack. Bring all your, you know, boots, all that stuff. And so we were able, we, we got done and, and, uh, with, with the hunters quickly. And so we're like, yeah, let's, let's go give it a shot. So we went out there for a couple of days and first day didn't see much and group of use and things like that. Dodging all these days, these thunderstorms we've been having in Southern Utah. It's been crazy during the last two and a half weeks.

A lot of, a lot of flash flood and things like that. So it was dodging some of those. Got lucky, frankly. And then, anyway, the second morning we ended up seeing a couple of dink ram and chasing some ewes. And then we ended up seeing this ram and it had two ewes. And it was in a really good spot in a kind of a tight canyon that we figured, all right, they're, they're probably going to stay there. It's getting later morning, you know, mid to late morning. And so we stayed there for a bit. And I tell it was really heavy, but broomed a little bit shorter, but really heavy ram. Watched them go up in there, lay down. And we decided to go, well, let's just, you know, let's go look at a few other places here for, you know, it's 10 o'clock or something like that. Let's go check some other stuff out, which we did all the rest of the day.

And about four o'clock we just said, all right, we maybe ought to go back and try to get back on that. I think it's a ram we should take. I figured it was an older ram. We weren't close enough to really count rings. But anyway, you know, and mom's like, well, you sure it's good enough? I want a good one. I'm like, mom, we're not going to have you just shoot a sheep, you know. I know, I know. And we got a long season. But anyway, got back on there and decided we snuck in on it. Had one of our guiding buddies there, Wayne, he stayed back and watched. And, well, Erin and I took her in on it and closed the distance to about, no, 300, 298 or 299, 300 yards. And, you know, keeping in mind, I mean, she hadn't shot something. We talked about it down there 35 to 40 years, but more like probably, yeah, closer to 40. Wow.

So, I mean, Erin and I were, I know I couldn't drive, but when she killed her last deer. So, I was called 12 or 14. And Erin would have been 9 to 11 or something like that. That's a long time ago. Erin turns 50 this year, and I'm already 50 plus. So, anyway, that's why we're doing the math. So, like, it's not, and we intended, we had good intentions. We had a family reunion this summer. I had good intentions to take the gun over there and shoot the gun, get it reoriented and all that. You know, and it didn't happen. We were pressed for time. So, literally, the first time she showed the gun again was looking at the shooting. When she was shooting. Yep. Wow. And there was the anxiety. I'm not going to lie. It was not how it should have happened. Dry fire, fill the trigger. Oh, yeah. We told ourselves to do that. So, we had her do that about five times. Wow. Wow.

And in the course of that, the ram then beds down with a boulder covering. It's two-thirds of its body. Oh. And it's, you know, now pushing 645, 7. I told Aaron, if it gets 7 o'clock, I says, I'm going to have to walk down, not walk towards it, but I'm going to have to get them to stand up. Because they know we're here now because all that. You're only 300 yards. And the youth's seen us. And then pretty soon he's locked on and he's, you know, so they could literally lay there till dark, you know, because if a deer saw you do that and they think they're hidden, they're not going to get it a lot of times. Yeah. But she's comfortable. We had it up on a tripod, you know, so it had it up on an Arca Swiss. It's locked in as much as you want, but she's having a hard time with the eye relief. You know, that's what people that don't shoot a lot, you know, you have to solve that yourself.

If you say it's black, there's nothing Aaron or I can do about that. You've got to move your head and find that full sight picture yourself. Anyway, so she got that figured out. So we had literally 45 minutes or maybe an hour on the gun. Part of it was bedded. And anyway, fortunately, the youth that was bedded closest to him, there's one you had got up already and kind of went up higher and bedded down 100 yards above him. And now the second one got up and I said, get ready. I said, he's not going to want to stay down there alone. As soon as it started, well, I got five yards ahead of him. He stood up and, you know, yeah, she all the time. I mean, she probably wouldn't have been nervous anyway. But, you know, most women don't get nervous like guys do. But, yeah, she hammered him the first time. And he was hurting hard and, you know, lifting that offside shoulder.

And anyway, she put another one in, put another one right there. And so she hit him both times hard. And that was it. And it was pretty fun. We had to kind of scramble to get to it, take some pictures before dark. I didn't really want dark pictures. I don't know. Yeah. You don't kill a lot of sheep after dark. During elk, you're there a lot of times, it seems like, right at dusk. And they come at night, but not sheep. That's just personal preference. It would have been fine. But it was cool. Yeah, it was really, really neat. You'd end up being a, you know, 10-year-old ram, really, really heavy, heavy ram, you know, over 15 on both the bases and the first quarter of both. So it was really heavy, broomed, broomed heavy. But old ram, teeth and worn, just everything you'd want. It was awesome. And she had a great time.

We end up taking care of him, packing him out, spending the night more or less right there at the bottom of the canyon. And heading out the next day, it was awesome. It was, I don't know, it's kind of, I don't know, it reminds me, like, how much can happen in, like, a two-and-a-half-day period. You can go from the last thing you're thinking about is even taking her to, yeah, get down here, let's go. We got a couple, two, three days max, and it happens. I mean, really, we weren't expecting to hunt her maybe until October or something like that. But it was really, really cool, really fun, and she's happy. And, yeah, so I don't know. Maybe we'll put her in for Rockies next year and see if she gets lucky again. She'll be asking, it sounds like. When am I going to get the Green River tag? That's awesome. It's like she spoke it into fruition drawing it. It manifested, I guess.

Manifest that, yeah. I don't know. It was, she asked every year, when am I going to draw that? And you're just like, I don't know, Mom. Hopefully this year. You know, you just, I mean, John, I know you got 20-something. Yeah. Probably do. It's like mid-20s. The random draw just happens. We took a non-resident this year that he drew with four or five points, I don't remember. Desert sheep. So, I mean, those odds are terrible, one in three, four thousands or whatever, you know. So, there's always living, breathing people at the end of a statistic. I say that to people a lot, both here at Epic Outdoors and people applying for sheep, you know, don't just do points only for 10 or 15 or 20 years for certain things. Yeah. Just 10 or 15 or 20 years, you couldn't get lucky. Yeah. I mean, points only is for years you're too busy.

Maybe you got weddings or big family events or, yeah, you have surgery, knee replacement, whatever. You have things that you're like, I don't need to do that this year. But it's not a long-term plan, strategy. I can't overemphasize that enough. And there's just, I mean, got to have your name in the hat to get pulled for stuff. So, yeah, I think the more you have your name in the hat, the more your chances go up. I think all of us have drawn tags that we had no business drawn. We just got lucky and got one. Yeah. Random tags. Yeah. That's actually a guy I talked to today. He had enough points there in Wyoming to earn a Wyoming sheep tag kind of the hard way. I remember that. Before they made the changes and moved it to the 90-10 split. And then it pushed him back years. Because not taking as many out off the top. Yeah.

And he thought that was going to be the way to get his Rocky for a slam. And just this year we got to call him and he hit Colorado completely random. Yeah. Finished his slam with a 14-year-old ram. Wow. Oh, so awesome. I mean, they don't get better, really, that ram he killed in Colorado. As far as, you know, as far as the units we can draw as non-res, most of them are not like, you know, we were going to hunt 180-plus rams. But they're big. That was a big ram. Heavy, massy. Massy ram. So, yeah, we've had a fun time. Got a bunch more sheep to kill and some elk for maybe kids, see how that goes. And some general deer. But a lot of sheep for me. That's really what's on the front burner. Yep. And I would say even, you know, it goes against John's rule of nobody under 30 should draw a sheep tag. But even if you're under 30, you should be putting in. You should be getting lucky.

I mean, it's funny because it's mostly a joke. But we have so many people who call in that are under 30 that draw a tag and say, don't tell John. I drew a tag. John. You'll be mad. I got a question. Yeah. After you draw a sheep tag, is that rule going to go away? No. It's not just for you? It's all on principle. John's 50 plus. I just thought it was for. Well, I just thought that John wanted the rule to be in place while he was waiting to draw a tag. It's mostly just for fun to get people riled up. If I draw a sheep tag, I'm not coming into work. But if Logan drew a tag next year, let's say he puts the same in as you. Logan should never have had this tag. I'm not coming into work the day I draw a sheep tag. I can tell you that.

It's all in fun. But really, man, applying is the name of the game. And if you're not doing it, I'm shocked at how many people I talk to that are avid elk and deer hunters. And all they do is around our house. Their home state. Yeah, their home state. They're a general deer. That's all they do. And they don't put in for once in a lifetime species at all. And I'm like, I mean, you should be doing that. You got 20-something elk points trying to draw your elk tag. Yeah. You could have had 20-something. You could have drawn a sheep tag in your lifetime. Moves, go. Moves, go. Yeah. And I don't know. They just think, geez, seize the day. Carpe diem. Seize the day. Yeah. We're speaking Latin. Is that Latin? Yeah. Or is that French, Sean? No, that's Latin, I think. Carpe diem. I've heard it before. I'm just not sure. All the Gen Xers will get that.

Yep. I got it. You got it? I was there with you. Yeah, come on. All right. All right. What movie is it from? I have no idea. Okay. Newsies? Dead Poets Society. Okay. Wow. What? See, we know. The Gen Xers are, you know, knows what that is. Robin Williams. 40 to 55-year-old. It's a great movie if you want to be said. What was it called? He said Dead Poets Society. Dead what? Dead Poets. Oh, I thought you were saying something else. Dead Pope? Yeah. Dead Pope Society. I'm like, what kind of movies do you guys watch? Kind of right up there's Red Dawn, Devin. You ever seen The Last Samurai? You know? Yeah.

Last of the Dog Man? I've seen that. Yes. Yes.

Anyway. Well, the other guys are gone. I guess they're hunting in Wyoming. Boy, that's another place that you've seen a lot of action come out of the last, I guess, week. Wyoming. Yeah. Seems to be pretty hot right now. Kind of as predicted. Another, you know, three years off the big winter. It's kind of been building. The last couple years have been good and better. And this year's maybe even better. And not just for a couple of super elite deer, but a lot of really good, call it 185 to 200 inch deer. A lot of bucks in that range. For when you're talking about what it takes to draw those units compared to what it takes to draw the better Nevada, Utah, other places. I mean, great bucks for not that many points. Or if you're a resident, $40 over the counter, right? Walmart. Yeah. Walmart. Walmart and, you know, load up elk and deer and bear. I'll bet elk deer and bears probably under $100.

I don't have their totals here, but it's got to be close. Yeah. So anyway, that's where a couple of the other guys are at. I do love hearing the reports that it's good. Especially, it seems like we're always talking about all the negatives and winter kills and all of that and drought. And it's awesome to hear. Things are good. People are seeing animals. Things recover. Things recover after sometimes. Well, in the southwest, speaking of, yeah, the drought that we've had. I mean, Utah's been hit really good with rains. I know Arizona and New Mexico, eastern, or sorry, western New Mexico looks unbelievable. All the guides and everybody are having hunters show up. I thought you guys were in a drought. We were like, we were until July. And now we're literally. Yeah. And Ty's just like, you would not believe what it looks like down here. Yeah. And it rained while he's been there.

I mean, it's unbelievable. And, you know, most of Arizona, we'll call it central and eastern. I have, you know, had a lot of people there I've talked to. Plus, you know, the healing and all that. It's just the monsoon. The green feed is unbelievable. So that's great. And obviously, maybe slightly late to really benefit antler growth. But, I mean, as far as health and rangeline health and all that, and going into winter should be awesome. And if we get this winter, everybody should keep talking about the same pattern. It could be awesome next year. So we seem like we talk about rain and drought all the time. But you guys, eastern folk, when you live through what we do and see how dramatically different it is, like it's just we can't overemphasize it. Maybe you've been out here enough to see it. But we're just generally I'm excited.

You know, the rangeline looks really good out there right now. Everywhere I've been. Everywhere. Even the desert stuff, the ugly stuff, it looks pretty. Yeah. Like it's green all over. Anyway. So what else do we need to cover? Anything else we need to tee up on? We just thought we'd catch up a little bit today. But anything else? Logan? Yeah. Whoa. Take the mic. Something new that might be coming to the Epic Outdoors Optics Store. Pretty exciting. We're going to be partnering up with Outdoor Edge and selling their knives, blade replacements, whatever they've got going on our optics store. So if you want to get some really good deals, Epic pricing on Outdoor Edge products, you can check it out on your mobile app or on epicoutdoors.com in our store. So we're pretty excited about that. Outdoor Edge is pretty awesome for field knives. Yeah.

And another product you can get is Apex Next Evolution drinks, hydration products. Pretty awesome. And, you know, there's a 20% off on our app. So you just download the app. I think it's worth going over. You don't have to be a member to try our app or to even use that portion of it. I'd say there's tools available to non-members in the app. Yeah. Yep. Download the app. And you just sign up, you know, if you're emailing a password, that's all you need really. And you don't even necessarily have to pay. But you can get, yeah, some functionality, get some deals. And, yeah, go download it. Also, I love, like, we're getting some trophy room submissions through the app. I'm just going to tell you, John, to probably talk about it. It's that time of year. Yeah. Get stuff sent in and talk about how to do it and everything. And it's so awesome.

I just finished filling out my trophy, my personal trophy room. So it's just like there's one place, everything I've ever harvested, it's right there. Really? I can just see it. How far back did you go? 20 years? Far back. All right. So, well, and people probably don't know this, but I got started late in life. Yeah, but still, I mean, I know stuff just since I've known you for 20 years. Yeah. I feel like John had, like, a 2004 submission that came across you. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was 2004. Was that that deer with Conley? Yeah. Huh? No. Conley, yeah, Conley took that one home. No, there was one that you shot before that in the same unit, though. Yeah, it was before that in the same unit. Yeah. Yeah. So. When you decided you passed, you're going to pass that deer. Yes. Or maybe did. I did. I think Jason or me, but Jason mostly, because I didn't know it.

Jason's like, better go shoot that deer, John. This was in the heyday of Colorado. It was the heyday, but I had no idea what I was doing. I passed my hunter safety at 28. I was in the class. It was back when you had to have the class. I was in the class with a bunch of 12-year-olds, you know. But, I mean, I grew up going with my dad, and then just his work changed about when I was 14, and I could hunt, and we just couldn't go anymore. And so I missed out on that range. And then at 28, I finally figured, geez, it's time to start. So you've loaded your stuff up, and then just maybe briefly talk about how people can either do upload photos that we might consider for the magazine, or if you're going to consider doing a story, how they upload it through the app, or if they just prefer to email. Yeah. It's the same process, really.

If you put a deer in your trophy room, if it's in the past, like it might show up on our Spotlight of the Day or something like that inside the app for members. But if you do one that's this year, then that automatically submits it, you know, to be either published in the magazine or you write a story. It's pretty cool. You just fill it out right on your phone, and you attach the photos from your phone, and you can even do, you know, a little review of the hunt. You just, a really easy way to do it is click in there and do the dictate, and then just dictate whatever it was. It doesn't have to be perfect or anything like that. We don't publish anything without, you know, editing it and making sure it's okay. So you can submit it right there. So the pictures are really good quality. One of the struggles in the past we've had is every email program wants to shrink the heck out of pictures.

And so pictures are low resolution, low quality, and you can just attach them right from your phone. It stays the same as you took it. And then another thing that's available to you is kind of like we've had this members helping members for a long time with our member experience databases, and there's been so many people that have gotten just really valuable information from other members once they draw a tag. And there's a way for you to give information on any unit you've been to. You know, it's a short little survey, and it'll go in. And so when people are searching for odds and things like that, then terrain types and, you know, type of things people hunted. And you answer what you want on that survey. Like you don't have to – it's pretty detailed. You can get as detailed as you want.

But if there's just a few things that you wish you'd have known going into it, just go say those couple of things, too. You don't have to do the whole thing if you don't want. But we appreciate any information that people are willing to share with other members about the hunts they've been on. And some of it's been pretty detailed. Yeah. Super helpful. Like, you know, there's a private ranch, and this is the name of it, and there's really great public land around it. There's just tons of great information in there for members. So, yeah, go submit a unit survey. Well, easy to do. And I guess if you don't want to do it through the app, you can still always email it to photos at epicoutdoors.com. That's always kind of been our funnel for receiving your submissions on either photos for the trophy room or state sections.

Or if you want to send something to us and then ask our opinion, hey, would you guys want me to write a story for this? I mean, some people do that. Generally, the answer is probably going to be yes. I mean, you know, definitely depending on the state, too, there are some states that we, you know, don't have as many, you know, submissions than others. You know, say sheep, moose, or goat in Washington or, you know, Oregon sheep or goat, things like that, you know, that are very low number of non-resident tags. Anyway, and not limited to that, but just keep that in mind. We'd love to have it. It's the time of year. We know everybody's out there busy. We love seeing the photos coming in. And Logan's usually good about doing stuff, you know, I don't know, four to five days a week at least in the pick of the day on there. It's kind of nice to see those. Yeah.

Every day is a new pick on the app, and we're highlighting older stuff on Instagram from members that have submitted to us, which we really appreciate. Throwbacks. Yeah, throwbacks are always fun to see what happened a while ago. Yeah, and a lot of those have some details in there, too, so you can learn something. You know, you see an awesome Colorado deer, you're interested in that. You know, you can read through a summary of their hunt, and just, it's a great resource. All right, so before we go, let's make some predictions real quick. I think we need to do that. By the time we're on a podcast next, and I realize we don't know when that's going to be, but it's at least, we'll say at least seven days, because that's a safe bet. Maybe longer. Maybe longer.

I don't want to discourage anybody, but it's based on the past three weeks, I'm going to say it's going to be at least another seven days. What, Logan, what are you going to be a part of? What's going to die at your fingertips or within your group? Well, I've got a sister-in-law who's got a very first deer tag ever this muzzleloader hunt. Really? So there will be carnage. Okay. All right. We're excited. This is the same area, but you're all hunting the same area. Yeah, so we've all got tags. She's probably the most, I mean, least picky, if you want to call it that. Yeah, so she's got a muzzleloader tag. We're all dedicated, and yeah, she's pretty excited. She's never hunted. Got her hunter safety when they got married. That was her fun. I like that. We're all really excited, because we've all been hunting a long time, and so we all got a little picky, and she's just excited.

That's how my kids used to be, and now I'm like Jason's kid, too. It's like, sometimes when you go through kids, you're like, we're not going to kill anything. Yeah. I'm starting to feel more like that way, and I'm like, this is the, I want little kids again. Yeah. Anyway, all right. So that's what you got. That'll be my prediction. Devin, you got general muzzle? You got family members coming down, or just solo? Just me. How, what's your vibe? Like, how? I hope I see some deers. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I know most of us here are pretty selective, so. Yeah, that's. All right. This is kind of like, you know, sports betting time of year, sports betting's out there. What's the, you know, over, under, over, and under? You know, I never really understand the under, over, under kind of things. On a deer, punching your tag on the muzzle of deer, what would you say?

What's the percentage? Is it 50-50 or worse than that? 50-50. I'm either going to kill one or I won't. Well, that's, that's okay. Hey, 50, that's pretty high. Mine is like 10, maybe. Oh, I'm thinking I'm five, 5% at last. Yeah. 50-50 if I kill one or not. I'm saying mine's low. But for me. Very, very, very, very low for me. For me, muzzleloader is, is different. I, I would go after a deer that's a lot different, you know, with a bow than I would with a, I could be in the same place hunting the same deer, but it's just, you know. I think the level goes up a little bit for me on what I, what I'm going to chase with a muzzleloader. But. Yeah. So. Same thing to you. What do you think? Really low. Like 10%? Jeez. Yeah. I don't know. We got to have something to talk about when we reconvene here, guys. I mean, and I mean, I know Cash and Jason, maybe they'll bail us, maybe they'll bail us out.

Maybe. They'll have, they'll have grip and grins both when they come back. Yeah. You know, from Wyoming. Hopefully. Hopefully. Begging for that. Me, I, yeah, limited. My boy and I have the same general tag. And if there's a deer, unless we find some surprise deer that game on, I'll be packing a gun. But I didn't pack a bow one day. But had a lot of fun hunting with him. Yeah. So I think that's limited. But should hopefully kill another sheep or two. And then maybe a Wyoming elk for my daughter. I don't know when we'll be that cure. But that would be a good, that'd be a good stretch for me. Because then, I've said this too many times on the podcast, but this is the daughter that's always wanted elk. So it's like, it better happen. Yeah. Or I'm going to be. Because I finally got her the tag, Wyatt. So she thinks it's victory already. And it's not. Elk don't jump in the back of a pickup. No.

So. And you've done really well with your other daughter. The bar is up there. Yeah. The bar is high. So my other daughter killed an elk in Wyoming. This one, this is her different place. Place I haven't been. So it's like, yeah, hopefully. I'll just kill a bull. Nice bull. And then I'm a hero. I'll be logging those points like Wyatt's been the last two weeks. That one gets a spot on the calendar, huh? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Wyatt, what do you. I got a slow next seven days. Do you? Yeah. I'm kind of tagless until Colorado. So it might be a minute. Yeah. Yeah. October's. October for me is, yeah, pretty. I mean, a bunch of sheep to guide, but. And some family and stuff like that, but not. Nothing until even end of October, November. I guess we got general deer tag. We'd have dedicated two. So we could go to that, but. Then it even goes lower. Like it even goes lower.

But I say that, but then it feels like then if you just glass a buck up. On that hunt. Like. And you want to kill it. There's a much better chance you're going to kill it. It's going to happen. Yeah. Chasing it with a bow. You chase a lot of the bow. Muzzle loader. If they aren't getting played, played with by other people, you know, you get within 100, 125. That's a really, really good possibility because that range easy to get with that range in bow season of them or even 100 to 75 yards. It's just the 75 and in where stuff gets real with a bow. Yeah. Anyway. So anyway, hopefully we got some stuff to talk about. I just want to go through that. I don't want to. But hey, I hope some of our predictions are wrong. How about that? Yeah. There we go. I hope we got, I thought we have to have a part A, B, and C on the next podcast because the stories are too long. Yeah. Success.

Each one warrants its own 30-minute podcast. They're that great. That'd be all right. And Wyatt gets a turn back cog in some. Yeah. He'll be hunting. Yeah. Wyatt has a story he didn't even know about today. That'd be good. Happened before. So. Well, all right. Well, be safe out there, buddy. Anything else we need to cover, John? No. I think that's it. Everybody be safe. Yeah. Good luck to everybody. I want to see your pictures. I want to see your success pictures. Put some good juju out there. Yeah. You all are going to be successful. You listen to this podcast, you're successful. All right. Good luck. Let's face it. If your goal is to kill big stuff, you need to draw quality tags. Quality tags are typically hard to draw. To increase your odds of drawing good tags, you need to apply in multiple states. That's where an Epic Outdoors membership can help.

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