EP 54: Our History. Past, Present, Future, of the Epic Outdoors Crew

There's a lot of people out there that are listening that maybe, you know, don't know where we came from or what we're doing or didn't work out. So we parted ways. Just wasn't in the cards. A guy cannot just jump into a business like that. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter here along with the Epic Outdoors crew. Got everybody in the room here. So anyway, it'll be kind of an interesting morning. We're running on a little sleep, a lot of monster, and we'll just see where we go with it. But before we get started, we do want to tell Under Armour how much we appreciate them for the support they give us. We'll do these podcasts. They sponsor our podcast as well as the YouTube channel that we have here at Epic Outdoors. And they also do run a back cover ad on our magazine. Yes, we do a magazine. It's nine issues a year. Do $100 a year to get it. So anyway, it's research-based here in the West. But we do appreciate Under Armour and the support they give us. A little shout-out to them. And then also, we wanted to let everybody know that we're going to be at the Expo,

the Western Hunting Convention here in Utah, February 8th to the 11th. We'll have a booth up there. We've got a 20x50, booth number 2845. We wouldn't miss it for the world. It's one of our favorite conventions that we go to. Of course, you can validate for some tags, five bucks a tag, and it's kind of another application system, which we're all about applications. But anyway, you can go up there and validate. You've got to validate in person. And then you're in the draw for a bunch of tags. So huntexpo.com if they want more info on that. Yeah. And we've got the full Curl Society social on Saturday at that event. We'll all be there. We help sponsor that. Get to see, what is it, about 10 or 11 people win sheep hunts and yell and scream and act like little kids. It's pretty fun. Sorry. I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But the monsters are so good right now. Go ahead, Adam.

I'm sorry about that. I can't top that. There are some pretty sheep hunts. Somebody's going to win them. And you don't have to pay anything. You don't have to pay anything on any of those sheep hunts. Yeah. I just talked to one of our Epic Outdoors clients and licensed app clients yesterday. He's from Oklahoma. He won the Rocky Mountain Bighorn hunt there last year, and he's fired up. He's going there. He's coming again this year, of course, because somebody's going to win them. That was a hunt that anybody could win, and he won it last year. One of our clients from Oklahoma who came to the bank, or Full Curl Society Social last year, and won it. So the Full Curl little gathering happens during the expo, within the expo, in an offside room, right? That's right. What day? Saturday. All right. And we are a sponsor of that event. Seems like usually mid-afternoon. Yeah, midday or something.

Yeah. We're a sponsor of that. We'll be there. And fun time. It's a huge event. And, you know, have a few speakers there usually that talk sheep hunting. Basically to draw out the suspense until they draw the names. That's what we're all there for. It's just a room full of hardcore hunters. It's usually, it seems like a couple hundred, two or three hundred people in the room. Maybe even a little bit more, but it's awesome. Probably like 1,000, 1,500. No way. It's a giant. Really? Monster. Well, I lose track with the expo because there's like, what, 50,000 people who walk the show, and I'm just like, I always lose track of how many people can really fit in a room. Well, today we got an interesting topic. All right. Right. What are we going to talk about? Where we came from, why are we here, and where are we going? So, all right. Sounds good.

But, you know, to start this off, we do want to say hey to everybody, and we appreciate how everybody listens to the podcast. I've recently hunted out of northern New Mexico and had guys, you know, approach me at the gas station, and of course they're listening to the podcast, and it's just pretty amazing, all the awesome hunters out there and everybody that does give us a lot of love. And I did attend a hunter education course in Arizona to get that permanent bonus point for my kids and my wife and whatnot. Of course, I did that clear back when I was just a little kid. And anyway, there was quite a few guys in the room. There was like 30 total people in the room, and like five or six came up and said something about the podcast, and a couple of them didn't even know what we do. Like, we don't, we're not just a podcast company, you know.

So, and so anyway, they didn't know what we do, and so we just kind of wanted to talk about that, maybe give some people a little bit of our background. You know, we've talked to a lot of people that call in, and of course here at Epic Outdoors we do a lot of consulting, especially Adam and I and Jeff. Jeff John's my brother-in-law, so, and we'll get into a little more of that. We want to, you know, a lot of these guys are, kind of know where we've come from and followed us for the past 20 plus years, I guess. Jeez, it's almost, yeah, 20 plus years. And so, anyway, but there's a lot of people out there that are listening that maybe, you know, don't know where we came from or what we're doing, or, you know, or just a couple guys on the mic that talk about hunting. And so, anyway, just wanted to kind of give everybody a little bit of background of what we're doing.

Like Adam said, where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. And so, I guess I'll just start it out.

Everybody's here in the room, but anyway, you guys can all chime in when you want to. But, you know, after I graduated high school, I went to college, of course, and was going out into finance because I didn't know really what I wanted to be. And my dad was a game warden and biologist and whatnot for 20 years with the Game and Fish here in Utah. And so, anyway, he always convinced me I needed to go get a, quote, real job, you know, that you could afford to go hunting. I mean, they're definitely a modest pay that is associated with biologists and game wardens. And they also require a lot of time during the seasons. And so, it kind of hampers your hunting. And so, anyway, when he was, because he was a biologist, we always did a lot of research on where to hunt in other states that wouldn't conflict with the seasons here in Utah.

And so, that kind of started us off hunting, you know, across the West. And we'd travel, every time we traveled, we traveled overnight throughout the entire night and made the most of every waking hour and just grinded it out trying to, you know, not be gone too much but yet still get in a lot of hunting. Um, so, anyway, we hunted a lot of neighboring states, you know, especially Colorado, New Mexico, uh, Wyoming. And, uh, and those were kind of the main states that I remember as I was growing up. But, um, anyway, when I was in college, we, Garth came up with the idea to, um, start kind of a service to be able to, uh, service hunters and not just make money from booking hunts. Like, how do you, how do you live in the industry, make money, and make a, make a living in an industry where it seemed like the only way to make money was to either guide or book hunters and be a booking agent?

Well, and, you know, going back that 20, 25 years ago, it was kind of at the time when more states, it was the very first when the draws were becoming, they were always around. Sheep tags have always been a draw. But more and more deer and elk tags even started to go, you can draw them or you, or you don't go hunting. That's right. You know, it was kind of the, what was that? Early nineties, mid nineties. And so it was when the, hey, go to Walmart or every sporting goods store and buy your deer and elk tags and go hunting in every western state was starting to go away. And so there, more tags were being issued in the draw. And so people that didn't hunt their own state was like, how do you, how does New Mexico work or Colorado, right? Isn't that a little bit of help on some of your ideas? Yeah, it's 100%. Like there was a demand for information and how do you obtain information?

No internet. Had no internet really. Yeah, there was no, there was no internet. There was, there was fax machines. And for you kids out there that don't know what a fax machine is, it's basically like taking a picture with your cell phone and sending it. Ask your grandpa. Ask your grandpa. So anyway, um, information. And around there, 1995 was, you know, it just barely started. I mean, so, you know, Garth was, uh, which Garth is my father. For those of you who don't know out there, he, uh, struck a deal with Duns and, and became, uh, uh, Western representative booking agent for, for the Western U.S. for, for big game. And I worked under Garth. So I was booking hunters, you know, as basically a kid and, uh, off yellow sheets, you know, yellow pads and pins and, and that's about it. And just, uh, that was kind of how I got crank.

And of course we were always hunting since I was a little kid, but, but then the actual business side of the hunting industry, booking hunters. So we kind of started with that and then he realized, Hey, if a guy doesn't book a hunt, I don't make any money. And some of these guys just want to talk about hunting. Like they just want to talk. They want to talk about going to Colorado or they want to talk about going into Mexico or whatever. Or one of them tells you they drew a great tag and you're like, Oh great. Have fun. And you'd really had nothing else to do. Yeah. Yeah. And so on the back. Yeah. And so how do I, how do I feel good about talking to this guy for a half hour? Knowing I gave up phone calls that my, for guys that are paying clients that might book a hunt. And quite frankly, I like to talk about hunting.

I like to talk about the Western draws and stuff and not necessarily have to sell a guy a hunt to keep the lights on. And so anyway, there was, you know, he thought about a 900 number. He thought about all kinds of different things and, uh, came up with the idea. Let's do a membership. Let's do a membership. We'll send out some kind of a flyer. It talks about hunting and we'll go from there. And so that came about right when I was in college and, and it was a stapled in the corner and it said newsletter at the top and, uh, hadn't even named it on the hunt and fool at that point in time. We named that when I came to work and it was even after a few years after I came to work. So it was called the newsletter. Goes to show you. It wasn't even Western big game newsletter. It goes to show you a name doesn't always mean the company's destined for greatness or that it's going to fail.

It's just a name. Like Pepsi at one point was a dumb name. Well, at one point it still is. Yeah. I love it. But what does Pepsi mean? You know, Pepsi, like that's not that exciting. Right. So anyway, you know, it is a name is just a name, but so we, we got cranking, um, and he would, you know, they would first day air like the, this newsletter or fax me the copy of it to proofread, you know? So I proofread it and go through all the statistics stuff. I'm in a college dorm and I had all of them. You're in Logan. He's in. Yeah. Minersville? No, he's here in Cedar City. He's here in Cedar City. Utah State. You're. I'm in Utah State University. And, uh, anyway, he's working out of his house, you know, just had an office in the house. And then, uh, and then they would fax me up the copy of the newsletter and, and I would proof it and whatnot.

And then, and I would get all the regulations coming to my dorm. Um, you know what I mean? Like Oregon and all these places I'm starting to apply and just, and just learning stuff. Just, just reading the regulations. I mean, just started literally reading the regulations. It's not like we'd been to Oregon that many times. Um, and so anyway, just kind of got going that way. It got going. And then when I came to graduation time, Garst like, well, why don't you just come to work for us? Like, let's just work together basically. And so in August of 97 was, was full time here in Southern Utah working for Garth Carter Hunter Services, the hunting fool. Finally picked a name. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Garth Carter Hunter Services was the name of the business. The newsletter was called the new, the newsletter was named the newsletter.

And then we renamed the newsletter, the hunt and fool published by Garth Carter Hunter Services. So anyway, um, and so we just cranked forward and we needed help. We started a licensed application service. We started, of course, uh, selling landowner tags. All out of demand. I mean, these would all, you didn't sit down and say, this is all what we got to do. It was more or less. People would call you and say, Hey, I want to hunt New Mexico. It sounds like you guys have been there. How do we get one of those elk tags that I guess you don't have to draw? Yeah. And then you're like, well, we better buy some. Oh, all of that. Like, uh, you know, Garth liked to buy and sell landowner tags and whatnot. Of course, landowner tags became popular because you can't get over the counter tags anymore. Keep in mind, this is like what Adam was saying. There's becoming a demand for everything.

And, and I mean, you could buy Arizona strip tags over the counter in the eighties and he just slowly watched all these opportunities diminish, you know, with, with the, the hunting population, uh, growing and, and the resource being somewhat challenged to, to maintain trophy quality. And so people demanded trophy quality. They wanted to be able to hunt some good areas. And so states were being forced to look at the way they manage. We used to be able to do over the counter hunts with a muzzleloader. In Southern Utah, you know, and, uh, 10 days of November. Yeah, it was amazing. And you were killing book heads. I mean, I, I was, I watched Garth kill a book head with his muzzleloader on that particular hunt and, and, and driving around the pickup. Like it was amazing. It's unbelievable that those opportunities used to exist.

And so anyway, but having said that clear back in 96, I had a grundle of Colorado points. And back then the Eastern Plains was the only place to go. Like that's the place of the West was over the counter, was over the counter. And Colorado had a few places on the Eastern Plains. One 42 Pinion Canyon Army base was one of them. And I went in the worst drought year that I could ever remember when I was a kid and, uh, still, still hunted a 210 inch deer. I can picture the deer to this day, but, um, and that's a whole nother podcast. I mean, I'm a college truck, wore out tires, getting there, changed tie rods and broken glass in the parking lot of Napa. You know what I mean? And so anyway, that's a, that was a classic. Lost my alternator out in the hills. Uh, just classic. Shouldn't have been there. Your truck should not have left the Utah state line. Should not have crossed the state line.

And, and, and my bank account said I shouldn't have left town. Both of them. Bank account and your odometer on that truck. It was a very stressful hunt. And so, and I did it on my own course. Uh, well anyway, so any quite interesting, um, you know, building points, we built points before points were points. I mean, and that's my point of that was it took a lot of points to draw the Pinion Canyon Army base. And I had them like, you know, thankfully to Garth and bringing me up in that hunting environment and knowing what was, um, important or what was going to be important in my life. And that was being able to draw quality tags. And so, and so anyway, we ended up, uh, developing this business, um, you know, and, and, and anybody that knows my dad knows he's very aggressive and, and he's an entrepreneur and always thinking.

And, and we just, you know, together just kept working on fine or, uh, refining this new business. And, um, we did license applications. I remember filling them out by hand. Of course, anybody that knows me knows I have the worst penmanship in the world. But, uh, most states you didn't have an online. The internet was brand new. Paper. You, it's not like you did online apps and here's my credit card. No, that was. It was like mail it in, licking stamps and handwriting stuff. Cashier's checks. Very similar to the magazine. Very similar. Well, it wasn't a magazine. Very similar to the newsletter where we stapled it in the corner. I mean, down at Kinko's. And folded it. And folded it. And folded it. Yeah. So anyway, quite a fun history. Is that why when I, when I staple something in my office and I look at you, you kind of

twitch in your office because you hear that, you hear that sound and it's like, it elicits a certain response. Yeah.

So anyway, uh, yeah. So we got, we got cranking forward and, and we hired a few gals to help us with the license application service and, uh, to augment what we got going. And, and, um, anyway, uh, you were, you were also, you were also guiding hunts on the side. I mean, you're doing all things hunting still, but in the fall you were hunting for yourself, but also you'd, well, there wasn't enough. I mean, there wasn't enough. I mean, there wasn't enough money to pay a, somebody like me, you know, a normal, good wage to do that where you're always taking on side work and it's very, the business is in its infancy. I'm freshly out of college and, and I'm trying to, and I want to get my hands on these hunting opportunities, but I can't, I only have so many points in so many States and I can only afford so much. You're newlywed and, uh, don't even have our first house at this point.

We're renting and, and, uh, lived in the basement of my folks home there for a little while. And so anyway, just, uh, just starting out on life and, and, uh, trying to get it all figured out and how we'd make ends meet. Of course, my wife was working too. She did, uh, teaching there in Minersville and, and whatnot. And so anyway, between us and the guiding and the guiding, I got started guiding a little bit. I wanted to kind of pave my own way and just really, you know, just my own, my, do my own thing a little bit and be able to, um, put my hands on some of these giants when I didn't, couldn't afford to a buy the tags or have enough points to draw the tags and being able to hunt them often enough. Or buy the gas. Or buy the gas. Even go downtown and get a Coke. Or if they had monsters, I'd have probably went bankrupt. But, but anyway, um, we did that. I started guiding a little bit.

I guided San Juan elk, Southwest desert elk, um, started dabbling in, in Nevada deer clear back early 2000. And, um, some of those early bulls you guys killed. Yeah. That's, that's what really set it off. 2003 when we killed Goofy and Joshua together, same client. Yeah. One was on a landowner tag in Southwest desert. Goofy was 434 inches as a five by eight, uh, five point on one side. And, uh, had, uh, 28 inch thirds. And it was just kind of a crazy, crazy story there. 26 inch fours. Like, it's, it's a crazy bull. But, and then Joshua was a prominent Nevada bull. And we actually had a governor's tag and we hunted him. And, uh, and we ended up killing him like December 29th. It was after Christmas. The governor tag ended on December 31st. It was one of the most stressful years of my life. It ended up killing him. He had a 10, 10 inches broke off of one third.

And if that would have been back, he'd have been a 424 inch gross bull. So anyway, and that's just, you can't get enough of those experiences. You just, well, you're hungry. You, I mean, you're hungry now, but you, like you said a minute ago, you had kind of had something to prove, but more to yourself. You just, I want to go hunt something big that I can't do it, but I, I'm, I got to do something with these giant bulls I found. So who wants to find a couple of guys that could buy a tag, go do it. And it all helped, you know, help you learn some of these areas that you're still hunting today. My portfolio. Yeah, exactly. Some of these deer areas you're in Nevada, like that's the only elk you've ever seen really in that area. But now you hunt deer there. It's that, yes. Of that caliber. Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know another bull that's been killed there ever since.

I mean, it's just, you know, and there might've been one, but it's still a very struggling herd down there in the desert. But, uh, and I started with finding his sheds like that, that's a whole nother podcast, but you know, started with finding his sheds and putting a set of 420 inch sheds over my shoulder and hiking out and realizing, you know what? You got some, if you have to put them on your shoulder to hike out, those are a set of sheds. They're pretty good. That's what you want. Yeah. And, uh, and so it just starts that addiction and, and, uh, anyway, as we're moving forward, um, the business is growing, people are printing in color, you know, we're starting to grow. We're thinking, okay, now we've blown through 300 members. We're blown through a thousand members. Maybe we're blown through 3000 members and we're like, you know, the, the, the industry

of magazines and we're not just a magazine at that point. I mean, we're research based, but, uh, the industry demands color. They demanded better and we demanded better of ourselves and, and wanted to be the best. And so then we realized, and my mom can't just do this on a little word document and hit print and go to Kinko's anymore. We're going to need to hire a graphic designer. And I think that was roughly 2004 ish. Yeah. Well, and, and, uh, for those of you don't know, I married Jason's sister. And so I met you guys. So John, this is John Peterson. Yeah. You met us in 1998. 98. And one of the first dates that I had with your sister, we went and stuffed the magazine. Well, the newsletter, which was about 16 pages at the time, black and white. Okay. How romantic. Yeah. We went to. It was wonderful. How romantic. Good times. Yeah. Good times.

And so then we decided, so you're working for Franklin Covey. I was a graphic designer. I went to Utah state as well. And, uh, went in graphic design, was working for Franklin Covey. And at the time I was a graphic designer and art director there. We were, um, doing leadership training for fortune 500 companies. So like Pepsi, Microsoft, you know, stuff like that. Like what kind of names Microsoft? I mean, really Microsoft. Dumb. I should just say computer software. Like newsletter. Yeah. Yeah. Computer software company. Inc. Anyway. Sorry. Sorry. Your ADD is kicking in this morning. So anyway. So then, uh, you know, we were talking at a probably Christmas or something like that. And just about, Hey, can we go to color? So I was like, yeah, I could help you go to color. You know, we could do that. So again, Cheryl didn't want to make this change.

My mom, she's, you know, any change tilts you. You know what I mean? You're doing monthly. It's a little unknown. Anything you're going to do is like, how's that going to look or do? And it's out of the normal control of Garth and Cheryl and you. It's like, you got to rely on someone else to kind of turn it into something. Well, keep in mind, it's timely. Like this is a monthly publication. It's supposed to be out before the draw. Well, it's fairly stressful for her. I mean, she, she wasn't into publishing or, you know, trained in any of that. And so she's basically publishing a newsletter every month. It's pretty high stress with getting it out on deadlines. And then the thought of going to color and doing an actual magazine, you know, it was probably pretty overwhelming. Yeah. And so then we brought you on and, and all of our dreams came true. Yep. I fulfilled them all.

And so anyway, John, John helps us. We start cranking full color mag in, I believe it's 04. I could go back. I think it was 03 that we started color. Was it 03? And then 04, it was really starting to get, you know, magazine. Goofy was on the color, was on the cover. Yeah. Would have been fresh in 04. You killed him in 03? 03. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So 03, 04, somewhere around there. Okay. And so anyway, we, yeah, at that time, no advertising. We didn't have, I mean, it was bare bones. Yep. Yep. And so anyway, so we just, we started progressing. Of course you moved to color, then you, it opens up your options to advertising. It opens up. Stories. Stories. Yeah. Came with it. Which augments some of that. And, and so anyway, there was just a lot of good that came from going to color and a lot of growth. It was just a heavy growth time in that business and, and we just kept motoring forward.

And so anyway, we added services and whatnot to a degree and, and just kept kind of growing and, and basically to, to a membership that, you know, would sustain the livelihoods of several families. And so it, it was, it was great. With growth becomes a little bit of change. I'm, I'm getting older. You're getting older, John. Everybody that's working for us. We brought on Adam. What year was that, Adam? I started the part-time in 2005. Okay. Move, move over full-time in 2006. And I think as, as I remember, you know, it was like, you know, Garth loved Adam because he was a wildlife biologist. Not only a wildlife biologist, but had a master's, well-spoken, loved hunting and, and was heavy into research and spoke his language. Garth was a biologist slash game warden. They spoke his language and he's like, this is the guy for us. He didn't see at the RAC meetings.

I didn't, honestly, didn't really know you. I knew more of you guys and who you were and what you did, but I didn't, we didn't know each other. I think the first time you and I actually met might've been face-to-face in the office. I remember coming over, like, you know, Garth would go to a banquet or I'd be at a banquet somewhere. Maybe he was there to, you know, bid on a tag or just, just a Southern Utah banquet. I think that was the only real association face-to-face. There was nothing. And I don't think ever with you I'd had any. Yeah. Um, I was, so yeah, I was working for the Utah division of wildlife at the time, 2005. I was a wildlife biologist, Southern Utah. I also went to Utah state. I guess I didn't realize we were all Aggies here. Jeff, did you go there? True. A couple of years. Yeah. True. Did you? Yeah. Are you crapping me? No. A five pack of Aggies right here. Okay. Anyway.

So. Destiny. I guess. Yeah. So anyway, so yeah, it was, uh, initially you, you contact, it was like, it was a, it was the phase one. Garth was the magazine had gotten to this, the stage that you were going to be doing either all of, or the majority of the writing of the states. Yes. And Garth was going to hand over. Garth was going to hand over. Research or the writing. That part to you more. And you, that's when he approached me about, Hey, would you conduct research? I still work for the division of wildlife. I did that for a year. Research and give your stuff to Jason. And so I would do that independently, email it over and, uh, you'd use that, incorporate that however you felt into the magazine. And then after, I guess it was about nine months or a year, then you guys approached me about, Hey, we want you to come over full time, which, you know, initially was, I had a great job.

I, you know, liked where I lived. We'd just build a new house. You just, the timing of all that was like, no, I don't think so. Just, but the more, I guess, persistence. I remember that first meeting you were like, no way. I'm not leaving my job. It was pretty, it was pretty firm. But we don't take no for an answer. No. I don't know. And, and I don't know. You know, we thought a lot more about it and just about, not just the one or two years in front of us, but the five or 10 years down the road. My wife had some, some ties over here to Cedar City, which we were living only an hour from here. So it wasn't like we were moving across state or across from another state. Ultimately decide, yep, let's do it. So yeah, I came on board full time in 2006 after that year of, you know, helping on. And basically, I guess my job initially was to continue helping Jason with research, but

then also I would, I would, I helped do the landowner tags, bookings a little bit. And now it just, it was all, it was kind of getting learned. I mean, I was fluent in, in the areas in Utah and the states around us that I was familiar hunting with, but had never done it from a, Hey, I got it, got to deepen this because now I've got to consult on the phone about it. You know, cause I never had to consult people outside of Utah, you know, and the hunters would call me nonstop about all my stuff in Utah. So it was that, but extrapolated all the other states. And so I would apply for all the Western states, but it was really, that's the unit I want. And that's all I cared about. Now I had to broaden that. So yeah. And us knowing it was our way of, of feeling you out, knowing like, let's test. One of the first assignments we gave Adam was that we want to know all of the zero point

antelope units in Wyoming that are public land that a guy can do it on his own because there was so much demand for it. We should assign you like 30 inch bucks for five grand now, nowadays, because there's so much demand for 30 inch bucks cheap, but that would not, that'd be a short list. I know. 30 inch bucks for five grand. So anyway, but, but anyway, so we did that and then we just kind of worked with Adam and then he would give us his hours, so to speak. And then, and his research in the, and what he all, what he had learned and stuff. And it was our way of a, he would, he could broaden his knowledge and we could see how he, how he would perform in that particular environment. And then knowing like, Hey, this guy had worked, work with us. Like we, and we need him, by the way, we keep growing at this point. And we were impressed. And we were impressed. And it was like, all right.

And then, and so you made the plunge. Made the plunge. Uh, you know, moved to Cedar city. That was, uh, 2006. Been here ever since. Like I said, my wife and I had gone, we met in school here. So, you know, wasn't a foreign place or anything like that to us. So, um, but yeah, been here ever since, um, joined the company there and, you know, it continued to grow, uh, eventually once I got kind of the system down and deepened my, um, knowledge of some of the States, at least the, the depth of certain States that maybe I wasn't as familiar with pretty much got to the point after a couple of years, I could consult and talk with anybody anywhere, much like kind of we are today. And, uh, um, saw the, saw the continued growth. But with that obviously was, um, you know, we brought other people on, you know, brought us to, um, you know, Chris, Chris. Uh, I guess he was finishing Utah state.

Like that's a broken record by now in this podcast. Anyway, he was finishing up there and, uh, he had some, um, you know, background or some of his training was also to help, help John and graphic design and whatnot. So as the magazine, you know, in a monthly publication, particularly in those state issues, when you're, you're getting timely information from the state and timely is meaning you get it and you've got to go to print in a couple hours, meaning you have stuff written. And you verify changes for what you anticipate the regs are going to be sometimes. Yes. You need help. Like Chris, in some cases, helping John do the stories, putting it together, boom, getting it out because now you're into print. Now you've got to go to print. You don't photocopy them and staple them. The cake goes and get them out that day. You got to send them to a third party printer.

Then it goes out shipped. So everything's adding slight delays for very sought after timely information. We were like, you know, we were begging secretaries to fax the Montana sheep and goat and moose units that we could apply for. Things like that, you know, as non-residents, the non-resident units we could apply for. And they came in on fax. It wasn't necessarily email and things that we use today or just flat out mail or, or online. And so everything was time sensitive. We were just cranking. Adam's cranking through, doing research, working with client owner tags, dealing with clients. I'm basically writing the magazine, doing all of those things as well with Adam. And we're working together really heavily. And then John needed an assistant. So he's like, well, there's nobody better than Chris, like Adam alluded to. Might as well have my brother here with me.

And, and it just kind of kept growing that way. And back in the day, remember we, we, it wasn't, you send the magazine to the printer through the internet. But yeah, email was, it's in its infancy. I forgot that. The internet was in its infancy. You drove it up. And I drove, I didn't even have a laptop. I had a big tower and I would unplug the tower. Drive to Salt Lake. Proof it. Proof it. Plug it in. There, plug it in. And, and this was all, we were waiting for the, you know, sometimes them to fax us the final changes and regulations from the state. And so as soon as we got that, we would jump in the car, drive to Salt Lake, which was four hour drive. And we would write the magazine. Like Adam said, we would write the magazine and as if there was no changes, just what they proposed. And then we would attend the Arizona game and fish meeting, get 10 Nevada game and fish,

and then call in the changes. Yeah. There was no. And John would go to the printer. There was no. Now you can audio listen to them or YouTube, listen to them live. You don't have to drive to Phoenix. You don't have to drive to Denver. You don't have to drive to Reno. Right. Which we were, we were running ragged. Yes. Because we couldn't afford to miss one of those because oftentimes you couldn't just call the guy up right afterwards or the week after and say, give me all the changes. Sometimes it's on vacation. You could not afford to miss what happened right there before your eyes. Because in the stroke of a pen, a unit that got proposed with a season X or print numbers X could get changed to either delete it altogether, changed entirely. And you wanted to be on, you didn't want to not know that and not print it because that's what people were paying you to do. That's right.

It was crazy. I remember, yeah, you'd be in, I remember going to Denver the same time I'm there by myself and you were at another state, maybe Nevada. I don't remember. Yeah. At the same time, we're opposite direction just to get stuff. Yes. First hand. Yes. And now, now we get a little bit of benefit. You can watch them live, but we still attend some that we have to go to. Yeah. And you learn so much by doing that and having the hands on. And so, so this, all of this research and all of the work that we put into it just helped us to where we could actually talk to our customers. When guys wanted help, who better than the guys that did the research? Like you've got to, I mean, we knew it. We were intimately familiar, just like we are today here at Epic Outdoors, intimately familiar with the states that we're riding. We're right in the middle of it. Adam's got an office next to mine.

Jeff John's across the hall, but basically next. And we're all jammed together and, and gleaning information off of each other and what we're learning as we do the research, as we write the publication. And then as we talk to hunters on the phone and, and of course we're taking, you know, 50 to a hundred calls a day on, on all kinds of crazy stuff. And, and we continue to learn to this day. Of course, you know, fast forward to 2018. We're fast forwarding from 05, you know, 03 when John started, 04, 05 when Adam started basically as part-time. And then, and we've been together ever since. And, and, and, and as we're in those trenches and they are deep trenches because we relied on each other. You've got deadlines. We're working hand in hand with each other. We're cranking this thing out. Early morning. I mean, I mean, early morning. Yeah. One and two in the morning type things.

And, and, and we just, we're just cranking and we've got, now we're building this well-oiled machine. It's, it's extremely well-oiled and we brought on Jeff Warren at the time. What, what year did Chris come on? 2007. Seven. I started at the Expo in 2007. So January of 2007. Okay. And so, yeah. Were we doing video at the time? No, we hadn't started that. I started out in a closet. Oh, that's right. Next to the bathroom. Yeah. We didn't have an office for him. And it wasn't because he was the little man on the totem pole. We were out of space. Yeah. So there was one closet next to the bathroom in the back and you could open up the doors and we converted it into a desk. And so I would open up the closet. That was my desk. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. Yeah. It wasn't me, but I'm sorry. That's all right. It was, it was fun. It was a good, good memory. Yeah.

At the time I started out doing just graphic design stuff. And for some reason, all of a sudden we decided to get a video camera and I started going on some hunts and realized I really enjoyed editing the hunts and turning it into something. And then that's when we started filming a little bit. Doing DVDs. Doing a lot of self-taught. You were a lot of self-taught. We had Ray Lynch of Realtree offered to get you a spot into the video school, which is the only formal schooling you had. And that was about a week. Yeah. You know, whatever. Two days basically out in Georgia. And other than that, it was just something I wanted to learn. I wanted to do. So I taught myself how to use all the editing software and how to run the cameras over time. And just something I really loved. Well, and this was also at a time 2007. Fast forward from then until now, those cameras were good for one year.

And then the next year, something awesome would come out. Yeah. Every year. I mean, it was like you would learn it. And then like two years later, you're buying all new stuff. Yeah. I started out. Even you and I, Adam, we had these mini DVDs, right? Mini DVDs. Yeah. It was cassette. Well, it was high eight. They were cassette tapes that I started on. They were tape tapes. No chips. Yeah. We're sitting there and there's a deer, you know, and all of a sudden your tape runs out of space. And you're like, oh crap, I've got to change the tape. Or stop. Eject. Hit rewind for a little bit. That dates you, Chris. That dates you. Yeah. I mean, I know you're dating young gals, but that dates you. Do they call you grandpa? I just want to know. No, no, no. Not yet. How about daddy?

All right. All right. So, yeah. So, we get cranking. And anybody that knows the Petersons, which John and Chris both, the genetics are in them for anything artistic. And so, you know, Chris, you were doing, I don't know what you call it, but basically charcoal drawings, paintings. He designed some of our shirts and hats. Yeah. Designed the logo, you know. Did all kinds of stuff with the magazine. Of course, John is with Franklin Covey. He's doing graphic design. And then Chris decides he likes to sing, so he just decides he's going to self-teach himself and go singing. And then he learns a guitar on his own. And there's nothing these guys can't do artistically. And so, it was a natural, when Chris started to like videography, to say, hey, not only are you going to film some things, but you're going to produce them as well. And here's a limited budget to do that on.

So, Chris, next to the bathroom, went ahead and pumped out some DVDs. I remember getting those DVDs. They were, and you know, it was just kind of the right time too, because the hunting DVD thing was big. And that's how you did a little bit of your research too, you know. YouTube did not exist. There was no YouTube. They were awesome. At this point in time, Adam and I, as well as the guys, are like in our prime. We're freaking, we've kind of learned how to hunt. We're cranking. And all of a sudden, we're starting to get into some tags. We drew some, we had a bunch of points built up too. Yeah, we were in the driver's seat. You know, like 2008, you drew your desert sheep. You cast in your match points. You drew the elk. I drew elk in Utah. And I mean, it was just. In 2007, I ended up drawing the deer out there on Arizona in 12 feet. And we killed a giant.

And then in 2010, we hunted, well, in 2009, we hunted Pretty Boy, who was running with Brutus. 2010, we were hunting Brutus. By this time, Chris learned how to film. He was doing great. And we were capturing everything on film. And then, you know, of course, the Brutus story comes out. Some people, you're welcome to Google that. It still comes up. I love that. Actually, I don't. But supposedly, I shot over a guy, killed this giant 250-inch deer with a bow, and didn't deserve it. None of that was true. And luckily, we had it on film. Luckily, Chris filmed it. And so even. Over the shoulder. Yeah. Basically, yeah. I mean, from a distance and then over the shoulder. And same thing with Pretty Boy. He got the kill scene of Pretty Boy the year before on that. And so Chris is just coming of age, so to speak. He's in his groove. And he's on all these kill scenes.

Never missed a kill scene with us. So Garth and I are comfortable with him. Anybody that's hunted with a videographer knows it's a challenge. Hey, you want them to be able to jive and have, you know, be able to, your personalities match to a degree. And then also, comfortable that they're not going to screw up an animal and cost you an animal, but yet still get the kill scene. If Jason and Garth were comfortable with them, he could pretty much. Yeah. He could film anybody. I don't know how to take that, but I'm just saying Chris was good. But that's the takeaway message. Don't focus on you or your dad. Just focus on Chris's ability. So we are a challenge. I understand that. Type A, aggressive, red. I get all that. But we were nice, weren't we? And so anyway, thankfully Chris was there. He filmed it. And then it was awesome. People got to see, okay, that didn't really happen that way.

And there was a lot of value to video besides that as far as doing membership drives and here's free DVDs if you join and renew and all of these things. And so, you know, they came on the, we got to show the membership that we hunt, take them on some of the hunts with us, so to speak, because they're on DVD and they get to put it in their VCR and learn what we're all about. And then, you know, just enjoy having those memories sealed forever on tape. And it was awesome. And so as we're moving forward, we're hunting a ton. And I'm in my groove. Adam's in his groove. Adam's starting to guide sheep hunters a little bit. He's also getting tags of his own. And killed a 200-incher in 61, Colorado. 2007. Yeah. What about the 43 buck that was 200-incher? It was 2004, yeah. Four, about the time we were hiring you part-time. And so it's just in our blood. We're just cranking forward.

And anyway, where do we go from there, guys? Well, we had a couple, you know, Kurt Connelly started. That was, we started to get into the phase, I don't know exactly when it was, but let's just say 2009, 10. I don't remember when Jeff Warren started. Jeff came on to be primarily over the bookings. It became so much work. For you and I to write the magazine, consult the clients. And Garth as well. And Garth too. But Garth was also starting to get, and outwardly saying so, he was wanting to do less of that part and run and manage the business, work on the marketing and all that. And not as much. And he was awesome at marketing. Yes. And so we needed another person to help. You know, Kurt came along. We started the Drawing Odds. It was kind of that phase of the world where, you know, internet's picked up. Obviously, it's here to stay. It's not a fad, blah, blah, blah.

And Drawing Odds Online. Kurt and my brother Aaron started a business. So you and Garth approached them. Basically bought them out. Kurt came on. Kind of helped bring that dimension. Work on our website. The e-commerce. All that part of our website. Brought Kurt on full time. You know, he came on full time, but he could also consult about, he came from Wyoming, so he could be very knowledgeable about Wyoming, Utah. And Jeff Warren helped spread the load for the calls that you and I and Garth were having to take about people that wanted to book hunts. That was Jeff's dedicated job, you know. It's nice to have somebody who takes track, keeps track of all the openings, all the photographs, what's available, the prices, all of those kinds of things. Yeah, that's right. And on that, so pretty, you know, we grew and grew and grew.

And got to the phase that Garth got to the point that he wanted to start talking about slowing down, I guess. I don't know, I don't remember right when it was, but let's say 2010 or 11, somewhere in there, you know, like that. And so, you know, got to that point we had to have everybody in place to maintain doing that if Garth was going to start slowing down because he was integral from the very start, obviously. I mean, he was it, him and you. Yeah. So we got to that point and, you know, overall, then I believe the talk started, well, how much do you want to slow down, Dad? You know, and you know, it was a point, well, maybe it's time to sell out. You know, maybe you want to take this over or whatever. Yeah. And so we would just kind of keep working on those talks. I'm working towards ownership from the start and just kind of working toward that.

But at the same time, you know, you'd have to buy Garth out to own the place. And it was just that time. We're right. I mean, we're right in the heat of everything. We're cranking hard. And he's wanting to slow down and just be able to hunt and maybe do it in private to a degree, too. Like, I'd like to hunt and not have everybody know where I'm at. I'd like to hunt and not tell everybody, have to tell everybody what I'm doing. I just kind of love to hunt and go back to that. And it was just a natural time in his life for that. And so we kept working toward that. Like, how do we do it? Is it me and Jenny that works on buying him out? That's your sister. Which is my sister, yeah. Or John and I and Jenny or the entire group of us. And we worked on those combinations, you know, 20 or 30 times. I mean, a lot. Over years, yeah. Yeah. Tried to buy them out. Multiple years.

He announced to the membership he was going to retire. And we kind of brought in Adam to write a soapbox and a few things and just kind of worked toward that. Long story short, just wasn't in the cards. Just wasn't in the cards, weren't able to do it. And so we ended up just kind of doing our own things. John, you did Die Hard Creative. Adam started guiding a little bit more. His wife's got a great job as well. And then I went and started working with Ridge Repair, which was under armor. And Garth ended up selling to another group. Yeah, still Garth's intention to sell. It was just more or less. Yeah. Our negotiations never worked out, you know. You know, his vision of where we want to sell and what we wanted didn't work out. So we parted ways. We left. But that meant you got to do something. And we were so engrossed in the hunting world.

It was a little more complicated with my departure. But at the same time, at the end of the day, we did end up separating out. Yeah. And, you know, I went to work, working with Under Armour and thinking, well, I mean, this is a way I can still be in the hunting industry. I can hunt more than ever, which I did. They were going to start a TV show. And they wanted to start a TV show. And we were thinking, maybe we'd start a TV show. How do you tell the world? Again, the world's in a weird spot. TV's kind of hot. The social media's just getting started. And you just don't know. It was just in a weird spot. Like, now people are making livings on social media. Nobody made a living on social media when we started. And so TV was the natural thing. If we want to stay in the industry, but we don't want to necessarily do, you know, compete with cars, then we've got to do some other things.

And so we did. And I amped up a little bit of guiding, as well as working with Under Armour. Adam, you did what you were doing. And it also, the awesome opportunity it allowed us to do was hunt more than we'd ever hunted before. I mean, we were forced. We hunted. Some years I was hunting 15 different hunts. Adam was guiding that or more on clients, as well as doing his own personal hunts. Yeah. And so. It was busy. We didn't slow down, and we didn't stop researching. That's just, you can't do this for, in your case, Jason, about 20. And mine, I guess it was close to, you know, well, I guess 10 to 12. Professionally for 12 or 13. And you just can't shut it off. And you're, we're always looking for the next place to go ourselves. So our research for us and everybody else isn't going to stop. And naturally, we had clients right out of the gate when we left that got in contact

with us, you know, and said, hey, I want you to still take care of my applications and whatnot. So pretty shortly, within a year or so, we started a licensed application service. And we had people that basically would just, hey, wouldn't let us tell them no. That's basically how it started. Personal friends. You are, I want you to do my stuff. Take care of it. So we started that. And we're content doing that. You know, that kept us busy, you know, for the winter months. In the off season. Yeah. For all intents and purposes. We do some applications on the off season, in the winter months. And then in the summer, the draws are out. We were hunting, and I was guiding for my clients. Jason, you were taking some clients. John, you started your own, John and Chris, a diehard. Great. Kurt. Kurt at the time. Yeah, we started a design business and marketing. And still do that.

A little bit with websites and different things like that. But that's on your side job now. Full-time epic. Right. Right. Just kidding. Right. So anyway, yeah. Very big transition period. I mean, a lot of what we did didn't stop in terms of the drive to hunt and the drive to find the best. No. Be on top of it. And then you still had the clients that relied upon you to take care of their stuff. Research units. All the draw stuff didn't change. And then eventually, over two, three years, well, hunting foes ended up being sold. Probably two years or so after we were gone, Garth did find a private equity firm and bought the company. And so that was gone. And so that naturally probably had even more inquiries for people to try to get in contact to us. What are you guys doing now? Well, it also allowed us to think outside the box as like, well, you know, if he's not

involved in it and stuff, maybe there is something to that. And we weren't ready to be done. Like, this is all we knew. This is what we loved. We were 38 to 40 year olds. I mean, that's prior of your career. Well, and just, you're not, we're not retirement age, obviously. It's not like, hey, we'd had a good ride and we'll just go fish for the rest of our life. No. They don't pay you to wear a line. No, they don't. I wish they did. Certain past. Although some guys, if they wear the right clothes, they pay you to wear a line. Wear the right clothes and drive the right boat. So anyway, we just, so it was a natural. We started up a publication here, Epic Outdoors. We started Epic Outdoors. We were galvanized. We continue to be galvanized. And we're just one of those things where we went back to research and heavy. We're doing it anyway. And we love it. We love what we do.

And so we started up Epic Outdoors, except for not monthly. It's basically monthly, December through June. Well, we started a magazine. Yes. Yes. And so monthly. So it's been, what, a year now. A year. We've been putting out magazines for a year. Putting out volume three. And it was largely due to, as we were, as our licensed application service continued to grow because people knew we were doing it and trusted us, knew us by reputation, whatever. The natural question we kept getting overwhelming was, when are you guys going to be back? You know, I do my own applications on my own. I just, I want to be able to talk to somebody. I want to be able to get the information and bounce ideas. And so it just, it became too much for us to ignore. Yes. Basically. It's like, finally, all right, we're back. We're going to be back doing a magazine.

We're doing the research anyway for our app service clients and ourselves. Yes. Let's broaden that up. We're back doing it all. And within, you know, three or four months, just by our reputations, we're upwards of several thousand clients cranking with the magazine and research based. And so that was one of those times where it's like, holy cow. I guess. Even though it's been since 2012, there's a need for it. There's a need for personal attention and for the guys that are doing the research to actually deal with the customer and to get them what they want. And there's a need for accurate, hardcore, hard hitting information that's coming from trophy hunters. Not guys that just go out and hunt, but guys that research it and do it as if it's their last hunt. And so and that's what Adam and I do.

And as well as Jeff here in the office and Chris and John, even though the graphic designers, they're in the middle of it as well. And so and they and they love it. And all that experience allowed us. I mean, we're a year in and our last magazine is 136 pages. Yeah. I mean, with very little advertisements. No, no, the extra fluff. It's just non it's it's just hard information. And people are paying you. Yeah. People are services. This is one hundred dollars a year to get, you know, it's nine issues. And if you just look at that as a that's an expensive magazine subscription. I get them for nineteen ninety nine or twenty nine. Well, it's all the time in a duffel bag. Yeah. Well, we're not just that. We we realize we're not a we're not a newsstand here. You know, we do have stories. We do have stuff that we talk about gears and photo tips and different things like that.

And a lot of personal application strategy, which you really can't. You can't get in and off the off the newsstand. But but if you are charging one hundred dollars for a service, you it better be a better meet the expectations. And so, you know, granted, when you start from scratch, you start with new printers, you start with everything. There's going to be a slight adjustment getting back on track and on plane. And that didn't take more but a few months. And now we're in our second full year of doing the state write ups and magazine, which is really the first six months is really the guts of what most people would be interested in getting. It's research based. If you're not applying in the West, guys might get it because we do have a ton of stories. We rival pretty much any magazine that just does stories.

But but but for the most part, it's guys that are hardcore, you know, Western big game hunters. And I think that's another thing that sets us apart. And there's from this industry and there's a research based industry out there. I'm not talking one or two companies. We're talking multiple web based companies and and other magazines. But but I think what's a little bit different is we have one goal and that is well, I mean, all right. So we have a couple of goals. But one of our main goals that drives the whole place is to be the best at what we do. And it's Western big game. It's not fishing. It's not turkeys. It's not upland game. It's not Africa. It's not New Zealand. It's it's it's none of those things. It's Western big game, Canada, Alaska and a little bit Mexico. And we want to be the best consultants in that portion. And we're fine industry.

We're fine not to be in those other places. We don't want to own the world. Yeah, we don't. And you you try to know a little bit about everything and you'll all of a sudden know not enough about the things that are really good. That's right. So we don't want to do that. We want to we want to stay on top of what we are passionate about. It starts with what we really are most passionate about ourselves. Like I personally don't don't have an interest in Africa yet. I don't. Maybe when I'm 70. Everybody says if you go, you'll love it. I'm sure I will. I have no. But there's no that's that there's a need for a booking agent there, not research. The part of the addicting part of hunting in the West is all the research, all the trail cam pics or all the out scouting glassing. All of. By the way, we do have a set of cows for sale.

Sounds like a commercial. So we are going to sell. Adam and I have a set of cowas for sale. A 32 power. Highlander. Highlander 32. With the box. With the silver official cowa. Box. Box. Which is an expensive box. It's expensive. So anyway, first $3,000 takes it. And they're cherry. They're cherry. But anyway. I've got some boots that I like to. It's addicting. My point of it all. No, no boots. My point of it all. We give those away, by the way, on these podcasts. But my point of it is that that's the addicting part. And it's not just a booking agency. We want to know everything about how to get tags. And it doesn't matter what kind of tags. There's conservation tags. Landowner tags. Draw tags. Over the counter tags. Everything. And so, you know, people aren't going to pay you $100 just to know about general areas. They're not. No. They're not. Although you need to know about them.

And we hunt them. And some of our biggest animals have come from general areas. Yeah. And maybe less than perfect areas in New Mexico. I've killed, you know, a couple 380 bulls down there. I'm not the best unit down there. But we highlight that in the magazine. And so, anyway, there's just a lot of demand for research-based, the trophy quality, finding new stuff, learning about different areas and units that may not just be touted as the best. You mentioned minimal goals, and that's really what we're here in business for. We're not in business just to get the information, read it, and go have fun. It's really to help guys get on hunts that meet their expectations and criteria. Not everybody's different. Some people only want 375-plus bulls. Yeah. Or they just soon not leave North Carolina and come west. Other people just want to elk hunt.

Maybe it's the first time, or they're like, I'm getting older, and I realize I don't got a lot of elk hunts left there. I just want to hunt elk for a few more times. Whatever the spectrum, end of the spectrum you're on, we view or consult them when guys call us and tell us about what they're looking for, whether it's a general season elk in Wyoming or you've got 22 points in Utah and you're a resident and you finally want to make the most of your elk points. That's what we realize. We realize these are like money. They are money. They're the equivalent of money if you had to go out and buy these tags. But in addition to that, landowner tags is another way to get guys on a hunt that meets their needs if they've got the means to do it. And not all of them are expensive. That's right. There's $1,500 landowner tags in New Mexico for elk. We sold them last year. Yeah. We do it all the time.

And so for guys that want landowner tags, we do sick Jeff on them. Right, Jeff? Yeah. And so Jeff's our research guy for that. Of course, Adam and I deal heavily in other tags, Nevada, New Mexico as well, and help direct Jeff. But anyway, if you do want a New Mexico tag, feel free to call us. We take a $500 deposit and we get those cranking for you. But anyway, there's a variety of ways of obtaining tags and that is what our business does, help you get tags. And then with the stories, it gives you the confidence that they've got clients that have done these hunts and then we keep track of those clients, not just the story guys, but everybody that draws tags and keep that in a database. And give that to the guys that are drawing tags as long as you're willing to help the next guy. And that helps you on the tags that you draw as you're going forward.

And so this is very, very, you know, a community within Epic Outdoors that everybody works together and helps from A to Z. And speaking of that, there's a lot of guys that are intimidated about applying in the West. And we know that. It's hard to learn and it's hard to get a grasp of, which I think the magazine helps alleviate some of that. But our licensed application service is a great way, you know, to get started. And if after a few years you want to start doing it on your own and just kind of like that research side of it, then by all means, crank forward. But we are the cheapest. I don't like the word cheap. I see least expensive and most affordable. But at the same time, we feel like we're the best. Of course, we're biased. But we, Adam and I, choose the units we apply our guys in after we've done the research. After hours and hours and hours of writing the magazine.

You should not be paying somebody thousands of dollars to do your application. You should not. And if you're going to pay anybody to do it, you should pay somebody that does the work. You should. And if you're paying somebody that much, that's as much of a guided hunt in two to three years. Yes. That you're just paying for the service. Or landowner tags. Yeah. Or whatever. Or whatever. So. Diapers. You know, we feel strongly about, because we're doing the research, and even though Epic Outdoors magazine, you may be hearing about it for the first time. You may be hearing about it just from the last year and wondering, where did these guys come from? Or, geez, are they as good as everything else out there? Hopefully, everything we've tried to just call off gives you the perspective, at least, of where we came from. And why we're doing what we're doing now. Yeah.

It grew out of the demand and people, you know, hey, you guys get back. I want to call you. I want to pay you. How many years did we tell people, just call us, you know, if you've got a question last minute on a draw, no problem. But now I'm not going to take any money. And finally, it just became clear and evident. And largely out of us, I guess, having those hard discussions, you know, if somebody we felt was doing as good a personalized service and all of that and meeting the needs of what we felt we could meet, we wouldn't have done it. That's right. We wouldn't have jumped back in it. We wouldn't have. But there was a huge demand for it. And it was just like something we couldn't ignore. And it was something that we loved and would go hand in hand with exactly what we do. And we're going to be doing it anyway. We never flipped the switch off.

We didn't go away for five or six years in terms of not researching or caring about hunting and went off and became a plumber. Sorry, Jeff. You know, we didn't do that. Jeff came from the plumbing industry. Speaking of which, that's a whole other podcast, too. Oh, boy. Huh? Camp trailer fixing plumbing and camp trailers on the hills. On a hunt. Whatever. Anything. Anything. And everything. While hunting a 200-inch deer. But we haven't really talked maybe as much about that. But since we brought Jeff up, that's another dimension here. So here we're growing at Epic Outdoors. We're growing today. We know how to work. And that's the one thing I think Adam and I and John, you know, as we started Epic Outdoors, really had heavy discussions. We are not oblivious to how much work this business is. This is going to be. It's going to be a grind.

And like Adam and I coming in at 2.33, 3.34 in the morning for days on end, John, you're spending until 2 a night. Sleeping on the couch. Yeah. We all got couches in our office, and it's not to sit on. It's not for people to come visit.

We need a 30-minute power nap. They get used. So anyway, it's just anyway, we're growing, and we had those discussions, and we decided we're going to do it. But we're going to also hire good people as they come along. And so Jeffrey. Jeffrey comes along, my brother-in-law, on another dimension than John. He married my wife's sister, and he's heavy into hunting. He's got a great personality. He loves people, loves visiting, and loves the hunt. He's kind of an entrepreneur. He's always thinking and always forward thinking, and that's what I love about Jeff. And so it seemed like a natural, he would be awesome. We're going to need a booking agent type guy to keep track of all these openings. And we're dealing with hundreds and hundreds of outfitters. And so, Jeff, what do you think so far? You've been in the business for a year and a few months, full time, full door.

So outside looking in, you know, years. Other than your personal feelings about me. No. No, you know, when you look at the business from the outside and you really, you know, you just, you're going through the magazine. You're looking at numbers. You're like, you don't realize. That's the, I would say that's the biggest thing that's the shock to me. You don't realize how much work there is in between those columns. To get those numbers on. To get those numbers. I don't know how many times I've had to ask you guys, how did you get that number? Like, because, you know, I'll go through and just double check some stuff and look at things, you know. Well, you are a double checker. Yeah. That helps you research it. Adam, where did you get this number? Where did you get 67% from?

Well, now, you've got to remember, you've got to take the random, you've got to take the guys who drew out of this pool and put it in this. And I'm like, oh, shiz. Really? Okay. Now, you know what I mean? And I think a guy cannot just jump into a business like this. You cannot do it. I don't know how you guys began to do all that stuff. We told you that for the last hour. I don't even understand. We need to go over it again. Like, I know, but I just don't. Like, you can't. It's not something that you just jump into. Well, there's no college degree for it. And that's the one thing Adam and I and John have talked about, too, is we would like to bring somebody on. We would like to bring another Jason or Adam or John on. Or Chris or Jeff. But they're not out there. They don't make a college degree. It's like Chris learning as he goes. We've learned as we've gone.

I mean, they don't make a college degree for that. It's a very unique individual. And New Mexico Draw 101. They don't do that. Well, and we're fine. And we realize this company, we realize, and it's what we wanted to establish early on, is not about growing so big and just throwing magazines out into their whole world. You want to be able to service your client. Personal service, attention, credibility, being able to follow up. Make sure that they adhere to you. Make sure that they know, hey, how was your hunt with Outfitter X that you went on last year? Getting the feedback. All of those types of things. So we want customers for life. It's very important to realize we would not have jumped back into this full bore to do this for a few years before we decide what we're going to do next in life. It was such a big calculated decision. This is our final resting place.

It's our only thing we're doing the rest of our lives. So that's how big a decision it was for us. We would not have gone back if we didn't intend to do it for 20, 25 more years until we're done or whatever. That was our intention. Hopefully our kids take it over or whatever. Maybe we're going to, of course, as we keep growing, we'll add a guy or two. But you know what's interesting about our business, and I've often been told this from my own family too, is if you're not growing, you're going backwards. And you know, that is true in most industries. I just don't believe it in this industry. There is a number that would make this place go and go well, and just stick to that and be happy. Like, you know, the customer service is something you can't automate. Companies have tried to do it in our industry.

They've tried to automate service, automate service, or automate, you know, product or whatever it is, and just point and click, and we're going to point and click our way to a 200-inch tier. We're going to point and click our way to be able to draw with 12 points in Arizona and utilize our elk points in the best possible way by pointing and clicking. And that computer is going to spit out what unit I need to go to. What's the best. And how to hunt it. Yeah, whether you just extrapolate Boone and Crockett. Trophy search on top of that. And all right, you know, I know where to go and kill one. And thankfully, and now those are good tools. Boone and Crockett has a trophy search, by the way, since you mentioned that. Good tool. I love using that. We looked at it nine times, yeah. That's right. But there's nothing. And thankfully, Adam, you can't replace blue-collar work, right?

So, like, thankfully, otherwise we would work ourselves out of a job. Not in this industry. Not in this niche business. John would be hiring some robot to do our job and just say, hey, guys, by the way, go away. Go hunt and send me the pictures. I'm tired of the red personality. Leave. Which I know you say anyway. But anyway, and so it's just, it's very personalized. And, you know, again, they say service industry, you know, like the average length of time that a guy can stand to be in the service industry is like seven years and you're burnt out. Okay? That's true, except if you're doing what you love to do. And by talking to our clients, we learn a lot too. I'm learning, I'm talking to guys about crazy stuff that I'm like, holy cow, maybe I do want to shoot predators out of a sawed-off top of a van with a night vision or something, you know, in Texas, you know, where it's legal.

I mean, there's some cool things we're always learning. We're always learning about different ranches, experiences guys have had with, you know, units that may not have hunted. Having said that, we have hunted a lot of places in a lot of different states over the years. And so, but we love to learn and we love to keep going and that's kind of a side benefit of working here, you know, and owning Epic Outdoors. We get to be able to own ourselves, choose our direction, and learn as much as we can learn about the stuff that we love, which is deer, elk, antelope, sheep, goat, moose, buffalo. And then pass it on to you listeners. So that's... And just to tout it a little bit more, just, it's crazy and there's been so many different changes and stuff like that. But you think about the $100. Now, a lot of people say $100 for a subscription. That seems like a lot.

In this day and age, I'm sorry, that's less than a Subway a month. You know what I mean? A Subway sandwich a month will cost you more than that. Jeff, we take you to lunch about three times a week, it costs us $400. Yeah, there you go. You think about the $100 and the magazine's great. But the ability to, A, call in, chat with guys who, there's a good possibility you guys know something very particular about the unit a guy's looking at. The other thing is our member experience is unreal. Thousands of, I mean, we've already had thousands of submissions. And I think, like, what you're talking about, and you bring up a good point, is our current membership, this is guys that want to be affiliated with Epic. Hardcore hunters. Adam and I, you and John and Chris, they want to be affiliated with us, and they're extremely hardcore hunters. Yes. And so it's the trendsetters.

Our clients are the trendsetters. I mean, it's one thing to have magazine subscriptions. And let's say we're Outdoor Life and maybe you do a million magazines, or RMEF, you know, has 160,000 members. Their membership in clientele is a different membership than our membership. Our membership are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on gear, applications, landowner tags, hunts, whatever. And they live for the Western Big Game Hunt. They live for it. Now, I'm not saying these guys don't go to Africa. I'm not saying they don't go to New Zealand. They do. I'm not saying all of these things. Other than our membership, they're extremely hardcore. And I love that about them. They're the ones spending the money. They're the ones booking the hunts. And so by them doing that, they experience a lot of stuff in addition to what we in the office have.

And so we created that Epic Member Experience Database, which is a tool. It's voluntary. These members let us know, hey, this is where I've done. I'd be willing to talk to guys. Many times they realize they're never going to go back. They don't have the points to go back. Or they're never going to apply for that unit again because it's too long to draw. But if you draw a tag and you want some information on it that maybe Jason and I don't have firsthand, and you want to speak to somebody, we can share with you a phone number and email from one of our clients that's willingly gave us that information. Or multiple clients. A list of people that have been there. It's called the Epic Member Experience Program. Very good for the do-it-yourselfer that just wants another couple guys to talk to. Maybe it's about lodging. Maybe it's not even about finding the big bull or bucking the unit.

Maybe it's like, how much gas do I need to take to that unit? How remote is it from a gas pump? There's a lot of questions you may end up having about it that we're not going to know every single thing about every unit in the western U.S. But that's another tool that our members get in addition to, you know, it's all included in the $100 service, you know. So, you know, a monthly magazine, nine issues a year. But I want to reiterate, the first six months of the year, it's monthly. We cannot cover stuff timely and accurately without being monthly the first six months. And then we go every other month from then to the end of the year. Epic Member Experience is something, whether it's a sheep hunt that you'll never get again or it's a general season Wyoming elk hunt. There's probably somebody in the database for you to call and get information from.

Oh, I'll give you a shocking fact from last year. After one year, and I mean, we barely rolled it out in time for the draws. On average, I sent those letters out or those emails back to guys after they drew. Five to ten names was average. Yeah. There were a couple that we had less. An obscure unit here. Yeah, obscure units. Five to ten guys that you could call. And it's awesome to give you starting points. You know, not everybody has the same, you know, hunting styles and abilities and whatnot. But it gives you a good starting point of how to hunt units. We also, you know, we also obviously book hunts. We, you know, help guys get landowner tags. We help guys book hunts with guaranteed tags. You know, we have the License Application Service, which is in addition to the magazine. And the maximum you can spend with this is $500. You know, it's $50 per state. That includes up to two species.

And we jump to $100 if it's three or more. Could be five. Could be eight. Whatever it is. And then you can, once you reach $500, it's capped out. There's nothing more you can spend with us on that. It's on the regular state draws. And so, anyway, we apply guys from Kansas to Washington, California, Nevada, Wyoming. All of the different Western big game hunting opportunities. And we do a dang good job of it. You know, we love it. Our job is to get guys on hunts, whether they're in our app service or not. If they're just a $100 member, our job is to get guys clients. You know, if we didn't draw anybody, is that good for business? No. That ain't good for business. Now, if we draw guys that are in bad units or units that don't fit their needs or what they like, is that good for business? No. That ain't good for business. They want to match what they're looking for. That's right.

But you still want to take every angle you can into consideration to get them what they want. And some guys just want, I want the best two units. I understand that. And then there's a lot of guys that are like, I want better odds, good sheep. You know, I want good units for sheep, but I want to be able to draw. And by the way, these are my physical limitations. I'm 65. I've got this, this, this. There are units for you. And that's what we do. We tailor guys. And what that does for us and our clientele is it spreads them out. We're not applying multiple hundreds of guys for one or two units. We're applying them across the entire state. Yeah, it'd be easier to do that. It's definitely, you know, easier to just pick two units for everybody and get them done. Hey, wipe your hands and say, everybody's in the draw. Well, that's not our job. That's not good for business.

That's not good for business. The next year, you're in the same problem. They're all calling you back. They haven't been on the hunt in three years. And not that we have the magic wand and make you draw, but I guarantee we'll spend more time and put more thought into your application and meeting your needs and goals and expectations, whether it's weapon type, whether it's physical ability, whether it's size of deer, elk, antelope, sheep, moose, goat, whatever. I guarantee we'll put more thought into that than the other services. And in the long run, that will allow you to draw more tags that meet your expectations. Again, we're not going to burn your points on something that's mediocre if you only want the best. But, you know, we'll put the time into it. It's our job to help you go hunting. Yeah, it is. It's an unsuccessful year if we all sit home. That's right.

And so part of what brought this on, this podcast today, just a part of it. We've been talking about it. There's a lot of you guys out there, members included, that don't really understand where we came from or are somewhat new in the application game or whatever. And I was down there at the Arizona Game and Fish Hunter Education course with my family. And we were talking, and they were going over the parts of a gun or whatever. We're going over different ammo and whatnot. And I talked out loud. And a guy turns around and he goes, do you do podcasts? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we do. We do Epic Outdoors. I knew it. I knew it. Recognize your voice. Recognize my voice, but had no idea that I even had a background in the industry like we have. He'd heard you talk about. Had no idea that I helped build Hunt and Fool with my dad. Had no idea that we did Ridge Reaper TV with Under Armour.

Had no idea we do Epic Outdoors, although we've run a few 30-second ads on here once in a while. He just missed them or you were talking to whoever. Whatever. You know, we get boring. I get that. And sometimes you turn it off. I get that. You know, don't tell us about it, but I get that. And then, so it was like, you know what? Maybe guys need to know a little bit about our background. It's also the first of the year, too. So it's a natural. It's like, you know, it's kind of the calendar turns to a new year. And the application season's literally open. But it's also everybody's mind's thinking about hunting. What can I do and plan to next year? We figured this would be a good time to get out there, let you really know in detail what it is we do and where we came from. Who's on the other end of the mic?

When you get the magazine, who actually wrote that stuff and why do they think they can write it? And for years and years, we wrote Hunting Fools. It's not something we're new at. This is something we've done. We're well-versed and we know how these systems work. And so, anyway, that's a little bit about us here at Epic Outdoors. We're just, this is what we live for. It's what we do. Of course, you'd think we just live on monsters looking at this table. But anyway. It is a magazine deadline week, so it's not. It's a little brutal. Come in a week or 10 days, it'll be pure water on the table. That's right. Water. But water, like I tell my wife, that's the number one ingredient in these is water. It's true. How can you get mad at that? Carbonated water. It's carbonated, but it is water. Anybody, and you know, by the way, I want to talk about this a little bit more.

Anybody that says that pop and monsters dehydrate you, they're liars. Because some days I don't drink any water and I'm not dehydrated.

Jason. Some months. Your body can filter black water. Pepsi, Coke. It comes out clear, clear yellow, no matter what. No matter what color it goes in as. Oh, boy. So, anyway. All right. It is not good for you. I'm just going to say that out loud, and we don't drink as much as we say we do. Kids, don't drink monsters. You should not drink monsters. It will stop you from growing. So, anyway, other than that. Yeah, we appreciate you members that are members and invite you that aren't to give us a try. Epicoutdoors.com is our website. Or if you're interested in calling and just sign up over the phone. You're not around the computer right now. Our number is 435-263-0777. This is the busy application season. You're going to get somebody at the office. This is not September, October when we're out hunting. And so, we're here. We're here to take your calls.

We're here to fill your calls for application strategies and things like that. But we appreciate the support we've had at Epic. Wouldn't be here. Wouldn't be cranking forth, you know, without it. So, we really appreciate those that have, you know, jumped on board with this first year. Yeah, I agree and want to reiterate that from Adam. Just how much we do appreciate our membership and the support and the fans that we've got. And I just, I also want to say, you know, if you're coming from somewhere else, had somebody else doing your applications, it's not a problem. Your points stay with your social security number. They stay with your hunter ID number in a particular state. And it's easy to make the switch. And we're happy to work with you on that. And a lot of guys just send us in, you know, the old forms that they've got from somewhere else. And that gives us a shell.

We put you in the computer. And then we call you and finish things up. And so, anyway, that'll about do it for today, boys. Just appreciate everybody out there. Appreciate you guys. Get back to work. I'd like to thank guys for the reviews they left on the podcast, too. We've got some awesome reviews. By the way, should we give away something? Yeah, let's do it. What do you got, Chris? We've got a bunch of Under Armour gear. What kind of gear? What are we going to throw out there? I think, Jeff, what do you want to give away? I would say let's do some gloves and a beanie. Just kind of an accessory kit, maybe. Okay. Throw it out there, Jeff. What's the code they're going to put in at epicoutdoors.com backslash podcast? What are they going to put in? Epic gloves. Epic gloves. How about that? That's great. Okay. Put in epic gloves on epicoutdoors.com backslash podcast.

And we're going to pick a winner. Right, Chris? That's right. Can you really tell who puts their name in there and who puts that little code in there? Yes. So we have a whole database and all those entries go into that database and we can see all of them. So then we do a random number. Random gem. Random number. And we pick a name from that and send out the gear. What if I'm a little feller? Can I choose sizes? I don't know. Yeah, we have all kinds of sizes. All right. I mean, the last one we gave away a smaller jacket. Okay. It worked out well. All right. So it is wintertime. And so that kind of good for the season. Let's crank that out. Gloves, beanie, and maybe even a little decal. Yeah. Throw a little something something in there. How about that? Epic hat and a decal. Epic gloves. Yeah. Epic gloves. Promo code. Epic gloves. Epic gloves.

And anyway, just want to appreciate Under Armour and sponsoring this podcast again. And see us at the Expo. We are going to be walking some different shows. We're going to be walking SCI. We'll be at the Wild Sheep Show there in Reno. And then we will have a booth at the Utah Conservation, or is it a Conservation? Western Hunting and Conservation Expo. That's what it is. Thanks, John. Booth number 2845. Right? We'll be there all week. Yeah. We'll see a lot of you there. Be great to see you there. Very, very busy show. One of the funnest shows of the year. Yeah. By far. Yeah. So a lot of tags are going to sell. A lot of tags are going to be drawn. A lot of everything. And we've got a little surprise for some of the people that come by the booth and join up their buddies. So anyway, look forward to seeing you guys there. Thank you. So anyway, you're going to have to do that. Thank you.