EP 62: Mule Deer, and Elk, Management with Utah DWR

You're going to see some of our big bulls come back, I think. We're saving 500 deer a year on the Poncing Island just from vehicle collisions on that. EHD breakouts usually occur in these long Indian summers. The technology of GPS cars is going through the roof. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson here with the Epic Outdoors podcast. Coming at you from Cedar City, Utah. Got a couple guys in the office, Mr. Josh Pollock as well as Phillip Tuttle. Super excited to get into this podcast with these guys. They're super knowledgeable, great hunters as well, and really care about the resource. But before we do, we want to say thanks to Under Armour for sponsoring everything we're doing here at Epic Outdoors. They are involved to a degree on everything from print to podcasts to YouTubes to about anything we do. So anyway, thank you to Under Armour. Got a lot of great things coming out. I know they're even working on products for 2020. So anyway, they're definitely not going anywhere and looking to continue to revolutionize the hunting industry. So anyway, thanks to them.

And what else, Bronson? Am I missing anything? It's down to the wire here with our Epic Outdoors winter membership drive. Deadline to enter that is February 28th. You have to join our service by then or refer someone that joins our service, Epic Outdoors, by February 28th. Both the new member and the person that refers them will receive a name in the hat for that. There's no way to purchase tickets. The prizes are either an Alaska Doll Sheep Hunt or a Utah Deer Hunt or a Utah Elk Hunt. Both the Utah Deer and Elk Hunt will be guided by us, the Epic Outdoors crew. The Alaska Doll Sheep Hunt is fully guided and outfitted by one of our Epic Approved Outfitters, Litsen Guide Service. Great outfit. It's for August 2019. Fully paid for by us, as are the Utah Deer Hunt, Utah Elk Hunt, will be fully paid for by us. Whichever one you choose. Something kind of for everybody.

Whoever wins will get their choice. So one of those three hunts. Again, February 28th, coming down to the wire here. You cannot buy tickets. If you join online, just make sure in the Referred By box, you put the person's name that referred you. If you referred by somebody, we'll make somebody happy. Here shortly after the 28th, we'll get that drawn and out. Probably put it on a podcast or on YouTube or something like that. Get it out there for everybody to listen to. So don't miss it. Got a few days left. Should we say one more time who we got here? We got Mr. Josh Pollack. I'm not sure his title. Terrestrial biologist. Every time I hear terrestrial, I think of like, I don't know. I think of iguanas and stuff. I don't know what it is. As opposed to an extraterrestrial biologist. I'm thinking Nevada. We have those. Nevada. Non-game section. They might as well be extraterrestrial.

All right. And then we got Phil Tuttle, Phillip Tuttle. What's your title, Phillip? I'm the outreach manager for the Southern Region. The outreach. So what does an outreach guy do? We reach out. So anyway, you deal with a lot of information education stuff. Stuff that we're doing today. Yep. Exactly. All right. So anyway, they have been in our office here for a few hours. We've had a good time with them. And just going over a lot of the cool things here that are going on here in Utah. So anyway, really appreciate you guys spending a little time with us here today. So just a couple of days before the Utah deadline, March 1st coming up. So if you guys are listening to this, get your apps in. You do have until March 15th if you are just doing points only. But who wants to just do points only? There's no anticipation. You can turn your tag back in, get your money back.

There's no anticipation. Points and everything else. Get your apps in. So anyway, I guess maybe let's start off with, you know, what's new. We got some, any major changes, Josh, coming up with some tag stuff that you're foreseeing in Southern Utah in the areas you're overseeing? You know, not a whole lot this year. A few reductions. Trying to get some age on a couple of our elk units, the Dutton and Penguich Lake units. We adjusted those ages to seven-year-old bulls essentially back two years ago. So we've been trying to get those ages up. So we'll see a little bit of deduction in the permits there. But overall, not a lot of change from this year. I feel like a lot of things have leveled out for us in a lot of our management stuff. We've added a few new hunts this year. You know, we've got that early season rifle hunt now that we're calling. And that's going to be basically general.

Yeah, general season. It'll be a few of the units. 20% of the tags are going to go to that. So now you're going to see. We used to have a 20-20-60 split on the rifle to the muzzleloader and archery. Now it'll be a 20-20-20-40. So it should help with congestion. Yeah, congestion. And that's on Pine Valley.

Zion. Zion and Pine Valley. Is that the only two in this? No, I want to say the Fish Lake was in there as well with it. We had three or four. We'd recommended the Penguich, but it was taken off. But it's one of the units where we've had some crowding issues. So of the previous year's total rifle allocation, approximately 20% to 25%. So what's being proposed, it'll have to go through the public meeting process in April, ratified by the Wildlife Board. But there shouldn't be a whole lot of hunting pressure then. It does come off just a few days after the muzzleloader hunt ends. So it's not like there's bucks standing around ready to get shot for all intents and purposes. But it will be interesting to see.

They haven't really been shot at that time of year, except for like Adam said, right at the end of the year, you are coming on the heels of a muzzleloader season where you can use multiple power scopes. Yeah. You know, so basically you've got a rifle in your hands. The cool thing about it too is you could, if you want it, you can get a spike tag, a rifle spike tag. So you can hunt elk and deer at the same time if you wanted. You know, it's running during that same time frame for those five days. So even though there's only 20%, you're still going to have congestion with other. Yeah. And we see the weekends pretty busy with that spike hunt. Zion especially is a big, it's an any bull unit. Heavy private land. Most of the elk are tied to private land. But there's going to be, you won't be on the mountain alone. Pine Valley isn't any bull unit. It isn't any bull unit, if I'm not mistaken. No.

Is Pine Valley still? There's like no elk out there. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's a few. There's a few, but it's, yeah. It's not like the masses are going to go elk hunt there. So it'll be mainly just deer hunters. Yeah. And it's a Wednesday start. So it's not a weekend. It's going to be a five-day hunt, a Wednesday through Sunday. Dedicated hunters can hunt up that one as well as they can. Yeah, they can get four seasons now. Yeah. So just three. So it's a pretty significant change for deer. We've never done that before. It'll be awesome. And it should, when the regular rifle, I call the regular one the later October, when it comes around, it should be, there should be a little bit less under pressure. Less under pressure. It should be an overall better hunt there and maybe better for both. Yeah, that was kind of the goal between it. So that was.

I think it was one of the keys that we're talking, while we're talking about the general so much, and I kind of want to, this will lead into our, you know, a whole giant subject, is our general deer are doing better than they have in a long time, at least in our short lifetimes. We've seen a significant increase in quality. And I'll let you guys maybe dive into why you're seeing that and some of the different things and what that means, overall deer numbers, where we've been, you know, in the far past, where we've been in the recent past, and then where we're at today. And kind of what you're seeing as a biologist perspective. But, you know, the general people, you can get points for both. You can get the limited entry deer point. You can get the general preference point. And Adam and I encourage guys to do the general just because, you know, especially from a non-resident

perspective, they can hunt deer every two to three years. And you could actually put in for both. You know, a lot of guys are doing the dedicated hunter program. I do it myself, and I apply for dedicated hunter first. They draw the dedicated hunter tags first. But I also put in for a general season point, just in case. So now I've been doing that for a couple years, so I've got to reapply this year, hoping to draw dedicated. But if I don't, I'm sitting on three general season points. So hopefully I can at least pull a muzzleloader tag. So you can almost still hunt every year in between your dedicated hunter. And for non-residents that can apply for everything, we've told this to a lot of people, but they draw all of the limited entry and once-in-lifetimes first. So anything you're thinking about dedicated hunter deer-wise, which are available to

non-residents, or general season, doesn't affect that. They draw them last. So it's not like it's kicking you out of your ponsagunt hunt if you get a general. And to even take it back a little bit further, Adam, is what you're talking about is you can draw deer or the one-of-the-once-in-lifetimes. And you're just saying it doesn't kick you out of the draws for those. For general. Because you're not eligible to have more than one tag. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they don't do the general, and I'll put the general umbrella over the dedicated hunter and the general. Very last. Those two are done last. It's not going to affect your sheep draw. Yeah, that's right. Or it doesn't kick you out of the ponsagunt deer hunt if you put general stuff or dedicated. So definitely do it, or at least gain points. Now, for those of you who are going to go online, try to do dedicated hunter points only, there

is an 18-question hunter ethics, just kind of a general overview test you have to take. Don't jump on there last minute, think you're going to do it, and get caught off guard. It's not going to take you much time to do, but go do it. And if you want to gain a point, do it. It is somewhat expensive for non-residents only because most people can't come and do all their hours. So you've got to just read up on it, see if it's worth it for you to get a general deer tag for three straight years. That's right. So on this, you know, the dedicated hunter program, I guess, this podcast wasn't designed to go species by species, unit by unit, the whole, but since we're talking about it and we're kind of going to talk a lot about deer today, the dedicated hunter does allow guys to hunt all the seasons. You kill two deer in three years.

And in our opinion, I mean, there's only one other opportunity to do that, to hunt all seasons until you kill a deer. That's Nevada lantern attacks. Landon attacks. So it's kind of a cool opportunity to allow guys to, you know, hunt until they kill one and you can kind of be selective because you only kill two in three years. So anyway, great opportunity for guys, not that expensive in the realm of the non-resident price tag. So, all right. So, um, deer, yeah, should we talk deer? Let's talk. Yeah. Let's talk maybe historically just so we set the table a little bit about, because I would agree with Jason right now, 2018, I would feel that our general season deer are doing as good as they have been. I'd just say in 20 years, you know, since we were maybe in high school or, you know, since the heavy winter, 92, 93, things really. Before that, there were giants everywhere.

Well, it feels like it, but remember, we were 15 and 16 and any, any four point white buck. Any four point with an extra eye guard was a freaking giant. Yeah. We were all, you know, we were still hunting archery hunt until, and if we didn't kill one, we could hunt rifle. Yeah. And then muzzle late, late in November. Sure. So, uh, it was dedicated hunter without calling it anything back then. And so, but since in that 20 year period, I would totally agree. And a lot of things have happened. And I think maybe most notably, um, the amount of habitat you guys, Utah DWR has, has turned dirt statewide. Um, that, that is a big thing. We, we all know, um, we're all familiar hunting in Western U S of the chainings that have happened all throughout some of these Western States in the fifties and sixties. And a lot of good that that did removed a lot of the competition for pinion juniper, um, grew

deer. Um, at that same time we had 10 80 and other things working in our favor to help grow fawns and all that. Some of those things like 10 80 removed and over 30, 40 years, those chainings matured, grew in. And so you guys through a lot of different funding mechanisms within Utah DWR conservation permit program and others have turned so much more dirt. So that, that's number one. The other thing is I really believe, you know, for the first 16 or 18 years, cause after that heavy winter of 92, 93 is when the state went limited draw general season instead of buying them at Walmart, went to a draw and it was five, pick your region. Yeah. It was, you know, five regions in the state and roughly had 20 to 25,000 tags in a whole region. And so for those 16, 18 years, you kind of lack, you lack the control. As one unit started coming on within a region, people would go hunt there and just crush

it. So it wouldn't come on for very long until it was, it was kind of started the whole management idea of managing geographic locations. Yeah. But you had the polarization depending on what was good and what wasn't good. And so in addition to the habitat that's gone on heavy the last, I'll just say the last eight to 10 years heavily. The unit by unit general season approach, I think is just that last piece of management oversight for our general season units to issue tags on an archery muzzle rifle standpoint on a unit. Unlimited entry mentality, even though it's a general season unit. Right. For all intents and purposes, it's not general anymore. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. We're calling it that. Maybe the H classes are slightly different. Yeah. Yeah. But basically, it's limited entry units. I mean, it's limited. And we're seeing that too.

I mean, we're killing 250 bucks, you know, in these general units. We're going to have to answer the calls, Phil. Where, where, where? Find me there. Here's the deal. We're going to save all those messages for you, buddy. Hey, sounds good. So, anyway, and I have to agree with Adam as far as setting the table for that is we, we, we knew there needed to be a change. There was demand from a, from a, the public court of opinion to have change and to increase the quality. And what are we going to do? And the division was forced to look at new, new strategies. And it was hard. I mean, it was, it's like taken away. Remember we were trying out the five day rifles and we saw a change with that. I remember that. People were pissed, but we saw a change. And I think that's in my mind, and it's been, it may or may not be true, but in my mind, that's when we started seeing big deer.

It might've been weather. It might've been like, for sure it was chainings and turning dirt, things like that, but everything was coming together. We were aggressively changing strategies. Yeah. If, if, if you look at kind of history throughout our state, you know, when the, the first early settlers came over here, we really didn't have that many deer, you know, there was bighorn sheep everywhere. That's what they talked about. And people, what are we talking, what are you talking about? Not many. I guess you don't know in the early, late 1800s to know what there was, but they didn't mention it in all their journal. You read it over and over how infrequently they talk about deer or elk. Yeah. There's trappers. There's, yeah, there's trappers journals from like the 1830s, 1820s that are frequently mentioning elk and sheep, even buffalo and, and pronghorn, but just very, very incidental

mentioning of, of mule deer. There was one, you know, I was kind of digging through some of the historical stuff and there was one guy up in Cache Valley in the early 1900s. I want to say it was like 1910, 1900 ish that, um, talked about it by Providence coming across a mule deer track. And that was like kind of a big deal. And he followed it for four days straight and then he caught a glimpse of it. So I don't know that it's interesting. I think a lot of, a lot of sportsmen in Utah think, you know, back in the day, how would it have been to show up when the pioneers were here? And there was millions of deer here, you know, there wasn't, it wasn't, you said it was millions. It wasn't. No, no, that's what I'm saying is there wasn't, but that's what, that's what people see. So it wasn't all the garden of Eden from a mule deer standpoint prior to European settlers. It wasn't.

It wasn't until the twenties through the forties when we saw pretty extensive grazing, you know, problem. I mean, that was kind of what brought on mule deer. We kind of changed our habitat from a fairly heavy grass component and the sheep and the cattle raised it down. And so some, a lot of the forbs and a lot of the shrub, that kind of stuff, the browse that deer rely on. That's when the deer herd started taking off was after the forties. And so you see when it gets into the sixties and even in the eighties, I mean, there was in, in 83, there were 228,000 buck hunters in Utah, in 1983. That's pretty significant. So, I mean, the deer were on rise. Was that, was that including party hunting and everything else? Well, grandma's tag. Let's just say tag sold. So there was another 100,000 hunters that didn't have a tag. That's true. How many other deer were set in trees waiting to be tagged?

I mean, all right. So let's just say there was a significant number of deer. Is that, Josh, do you think that was, is that roughly the highest number or do you not know? I don't mean to put you on the spot. Was it 225,000? 225,000. Was that roughly, I think, as many as that was ever sold? That was the highest, yeah, hunters in the field. Was that 250? 50,000. That would be antlerless and buck hunters as well. Oh, everything. And Game and Fish got new trucks that year. That's true. Oh, yeah. Two-wheel drives, but they were new. Single-cow.

All right. But, yeah, that would be kind of the peak. And they haven't been back there. Well, and it's interesting, too, because, I mean, I believe just a few years before that, we kind of hit our peak of the highest harvest of bucks, which was just over 80,000 bucks killed in Utah. 81, because we had a giant. I think it was 83. 83 was 82,000, it says, was buck harvest. 82,000 bucks killed in the state. Was that the big winter that we had about then, 82, 3, when Billy's Mountain slid off and all? There's the big floods, and yep, yep. That was that winter, the 82, 83, when we were kids. I remember we couldn't get to Salt Lake. Remember, we had to go clear around to either go to Duchesne and up and around or go to, you were in Moab, I was in Monticell. I was in Moab, but, dude, I was barely out of diapers. I was seven years old. Well, eight years old. I just remember.

All I remember was interest rates are high. That was the time of high interest rates. That's all I remember. And good deer hunting. Well, it's interesting, you know, that era, there were a lot of buck hunters out. We were killing a lot of bucks, but I don't, you know, based on what we're. I see a lot of graphs right here. What does all this mean? That's just a big mess. But, you know, according to what everything we read, you know, there's just kind of this gray area between, you know, the early 1940s and really, you know, the mid 80s where we don't know exactly where the populations were. And you hear guys throwing out numbers. Yeah. Well, you did it. A million. 2.2 million. That's why. Was there ever 2 million deer in the state of Utah? No, there wasn't. Was there ever a million deer in the state of Utah? This is Phil's humble opinion here, but no, I don't believe there was.

We just think he is the highest you figure that could ever have. Based on, this is not just Phil. This is looking at. They still sold licenses in the 60s and 70s. Yeah, that's the thing. Before 83. We have, you know, we have the harvest data. You know, in the 60s, we were killing a lot of deer too. We killed just shy of 80,000 deer in 1961. And, you know, a lot of people kind of make the assumption, well, we killed a lot of deer. There must have been a ton of deer, but we were also pumping hunters into the system right then. There was a lot of hunters coming into the system. Well, I'll say no, but almost no elk hunting for, you know, very little compared to general season elk hunting. We had some general season, but. Yeah, but in the, you know, in the mid 40s, the early 50s. You know, there's some old articles out there that are, that are throwing just ballpark

estimates out there of 375,000 deer being, you know, on the map. It was increasing then. It could have gone higher than that. It probably, it probably did. It probably did. Did it, did it go all the way to 2 million? I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to say no. A resounding. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Well, and, and, and as Josh talked about some of the changes that happened is, is, you know, pioneers or European settlement came late 1800s, early 1900s. And then over the next decades, you know, cattle grazing, heavy sheep grazing, you know, changed habitat. You know, the grass that was belly deep, as we all hear, you know, back in the day, it was fed off and, and, and started to be gradually replaced with stuff that cattle and sheep didn't eat as much, you know, the, you know, they, they eat what they want. Now sheep are, sheep eat browse too, but, but you know what I'm saying?

So the, the species switch from browse that benefited deer, that was what was left by cattle more than grass. And so that, that propagated deer, but then you get things like as the sheep came out, then they had to have all the poisons that came with it to, to poison everything that ate a lamb or all that, the 1080s and all that through the forties, fifties, sixties till, till that tool was removed. And so you had a lot of things going right for mule deer. Yeah. For over a 40 year period, I, you would say our population exploded per se, because all that stuff was just lined up correctly. But, and, but from what I'm reading too, you know, it, it did swing and start coming back down. You know, it didn't, it didn't take that long and things started swinging the other direction. And we kept thinking things were, were pretty good and we kept, you know. So set that for us.

When did it start coming down roughly? You know, when you read in the articles, it started coming down in the seventies. So, um, you know, late sixties, early seventies, it started coming down. Um, I don't, who knows how fast it is. Again, this is all speculation, how fast things were coming down, but, but it, it was definitely coming down. Um, but, but, you know, it's funny too, because we're kind of right now, what are we at Josh? 2017 estimates statewide. About 375. So it's kind of funny to me that, you know, we're kind of right back up there in the realm of, you know, we've got a pretty good chunk of deer and I've got guys asking me, well, you know, back in the sixties, we were killing way more big deer. You know, you look at Utah's greatest bucks. We've got all these. Significant deer. 300 inch deer, 270 inch deer.

And, you know, one thing you got to keep in mind is look at how we were hunting back then. Oh yeah. You know, versus today. And, and those, the hunters were walking around with their 30 thirties. They were jumping a buck. They were shooting it. There's obviously going to be a lot more older age class deer getting through every single, every single year. And so there's just going to be more big bucks. Even, even if you were, even if you said the population estimate was the same of deer today than then. And I'm not saying that, but if it were today, you've got, you've got, um, an elite force of hunters out there with trail cameras, with thousand yard guns, with, you know, that's what you're saying. So let's just say we had 375 equal, equal. There were more, more big deer killed back then. There were more big deer. We're killing them all. We're good at killing them all.

We have long range rifles. We're hunting them very aggressively. We have long range, uh, everything, whether it be binoculars, archery, muzzle. I mean, it's like Adam and I talked a lot about the Henry's course. Adam's guided on there extensively. I guided the first non-resident to draw on the Henry's Lynn green, where we've come from since year 2000 is unbelievable as far as technology. And so it's like Adam said, I, he didn't necessarily want to guide a deer hunter on the rifle Henry's because they're dead because the archery hunters are good and the muzzle hunters are good and multiple power scopes and people have learned how to bait or whatever it is. There's been a lot of factors and we're letting, we're killing two twenties in Nevada. Same way. I'm out in Nevada and you know, we have a decent buck that's got splits and light mass, but

he ends up grossing two 20 governor tags, killing it instead. I'm not killing it because of trail cameras. We know he's there. You know what I mean? And so there's so many factors that are going on with why these deer aren't living two twenties. If they're going to get to two 50. And I know you brought up that number earlier and I wish you wouldn't have. I heard him say 300 at some point. He said that was in 1961. Phil's talked about the million number, the two 50 number. He's talking about all these big numbers, but anyway, we're watching these deer not live because of where we're at today. We can still have 375,000 deer and not killing the numbers of big deer. It's true. It's happening. We're not killing them because they aren't there because we're not letting them live. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm going to make an argument that there, that there are some pretty dang good deer out

there on the landscape right now. You know, I mean, yeah, we're not saying that we're not, but right. I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, it's just interesting to me that, that, um, people can, you know, I hate to say this, but there's a lot of people complain about the deer hunting and, and yet you talk to a lot of the guys, you know, in my opinion, that really, really know, and they're going, holy cow, it's, it's the good old days. You guys, it's, it's pretty dang good right now. Well, my little rant was based off of the very top end, you know, those very top end giants. It is, it does feel good. And I think that goes back to why Adam and I tell people to go ahead and apply for the general points only prepare for a tag in the next year or two. Yeah. Hunt decent deer. Have expectations when you come, it's not going to be a limited entry hunt.

You're not, you're going to see a lot of other people, but you know, what else, you know, to a large extent, how often are you going to be able to hunt in Utah if you don't do something like a general, you know, if you're only after a limited entry deer elk or once in a lifetime, they don't come around very often. So use the general as your opportunity to come hunt and bring your kids, family, whatever, if you're for non-resident, have, have modest expectations. But having said that there's one 60 to one 80 bucks on, well, I'm going to speak of the Southern half of Utah, Northern Utah. There's a lot of private land. There's other issues up there that go on. There are good deer and big deer and really big deer in other places, but, but as a public land as a whole, the Southern half is dominated by 90% plus, let's say public land. So just come to Utah and hunt.

And those are the units also in the 60s and 70s where we had the California and Texas camps that were giant. The, I mean, the big, the big Southern Utah units. So yeah, it's something you should be at least building points for in my opinion. So I think, I think a lot of this has, has come to the credit of the DWR and you guys and being able to manage strategically and smart and have the tools to do it. We've talked, we're going to talk about radio telemetry, talk about the new cactus hunt. I mean, there's things that we're willing to do now that we didn't do, you know, since 93. You know what I mean? And I think we're seeing a change. 93 to 05, let's say, or 10, 2010. Now we're seeing these changes and you guys are, you guys are more, I don't want to say you're more engaged than maybe your predecessors, but it just feels very aggressive and it feels like you care.

You can't, you can't just let mule deer just be, you know, you can't just, you can't just let them go and say, oh, they'll be fine. They'll always be there. And that's when that big change that you're talking 92 to 95 was a big change for Utah as far as deer hunting. And that's when we had those significant winners. Numbers were down and Utah said, you know what? It was 94 when we decided we were going to cap it at 97,000. And we've never, never gone over that as far as our general season buck permits. They capped it at 97,000. And that's when they went this first come first serve. I remember waiting in line at the high school, camping overnight. Never, never been so glad I had a lifetime license in my life. I've been watching those people camping on concrete. Yeah, that was me. That was me. See you drive by drinking a Coke. Later.

I used to check dry results by going down the bubble jet paper on the Game of Fish window. No, I remember, yeah, going to the window over here at the office on Main Street and looking to see. Ah, crap, I just don't see my name. I remember they'd read them over the radio. Do you remember that? Somebody on the radio and we'd be sitting there on the couch listening. So that was kind of a big change. Probably AM. Probably AM. Yeah. In 95, they kind of started doing management plans. That was when we really didn't have a deer management plan until then to try and set some standards and go off that. So if you look back at that, in 1993, we were averaging statewide eight bucks per hundred does. That's what I can't get over. How do they all get bred? You know what I mean? Yeah. And those does, yeah, those does, they were saying that a 12 to 15 range, all the does can get covered with that low.

Hard to believe. But it may take an extra month or something. They have to cycle again. Yeah. There's usually a second cycle with a lot of those does that you'll see if they don't get bred the first time. But so we've gone from in 1993 from eight bucks per hundred does to in 2013, we were at 19 bucks per hundred does. And we're over 20 now. Are you talking, is this all general, Henry's, San Juan? No. No, this is just general. General. Yeah. These are general season units. So it just doesn't count the 50 bucks per hundred does on the Poncagant. Poncagant and Henry. So no, this is just general season. So now we're at, I just threw some of the numbers together to get, we're almost 22 bucks per hundred does. That's a statewide general season. So that's, that's phenomenal. And what is your, what are most of the management plans called? I think there's a, there's a 15 to 17. Yep.

There's a 15 to 17 range, which is more of an opportunity type range. And then there's an 18 to 20, which isn't that much difference, but it's there. You're thinking you could see a thousand permit difference between going from those two On big public land units that have a lot of deer. You could have a pretty good. We want to petition to a 25 buck per hundred does. Decrease the tax and let's kill some cattle. Yeah. You know what I mean? But, but if you look at it now, you know, I think that's why our deer is doing so good and feels, you know, saying this, the good old days is when you look at those numbers, when we have 20 bucks making, and this is a post-season count as well. This isn't, this isn't pre-season. November, December. Yeah. They killed every fork and horn that was in front of them. Yeah, exactly. This is a post-season classification that we do every year.

And there's that many bucks left over at the end of the year. You're going to have bucks getting by and we're seeing it. We're seeing some great bucks that are, that are getting killed on general season units every year just because those buck to doe ratios have been up. We don't manage for an age class on these units. It's just a strict buck to doe. But those older bucks are going to get through if you have them. Well, you can't have all, if it's 20, that's a pretty high ratio for general season. That is. That's not all going to be yearning bucks. It's unbelievable. It's just not going to happen. Yeah, unbelievable. Because the yearning bucks are the highest prevalent one shot anyway, because they're in the, any single year, biggest cohort alive out there. You got fawns, they grow two points for sure, spikes, whatever. That's what most people have an opportunity to harvest.

And so that 20 is a little bit more uniform of say one to four with a few five, six, seven sprinkled in there. So it's, and it goes back to what we talked about earlier about having, have an individual unit management plans, objectives, and permit numbers. And that's. Which goes against the grain. It was, it's hard to change. Basically we used to buy tags over the counter. Yeah. So you're changing. I mean, kids were out of school for the deer hunt. So we had to change. And to change that, you guys got kicked in the teeth a ton. We were kicking you in the teeth because not a big deer. They're kicking you in the teeth because they don't have a tag. And it's, it's really hard. Well, it was like this back, back in, you know, early 2000, I worked for the division. And so we were getting bombarded by sportsmen to get something changed.

And so you go to anything, whether it be five day and it's like, wow, that's not even worth going hunting for. And kids don't even get a second weekend. I mean, it's like, they want both ends of the spectrum. They want their cake and eat it too. And it's hard. Opposition and all. Yeah. And it's tough. And so that's why we kind of have those two ranges, the 15 to 17. If you're looking for an opportunity to draw permits, put in for a 15 to 17 unit. If you're, if you're wanting to maybe to have a chance at a better buck, put in for an 18 to 20. Which is what? 18 to 20 is what? What, which, what units roughly? The entire Southern region is all 18 to 20. That was changed. So any, any of the other regions, I don't know exactly some of the units, but most of the units, you know, up North or even central Utah, some of those, there's some 15 to 17 units. But yeah. So you see the, the change.

I think the main thing is the change for deer. The reason why they're doing so good. We changed the, the management plans. We've each unit, we have a statewide plan. Each unit has its own management plan that we managed to, where we specifically look at these couple hundred thousand acres to see what we can do to this unit to make it better. And since then, I don't know if you guys are familiar with the WRI. It's the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative. It was put intact. I'm not sure exactly what year, probably late 2000s, 11, 10, 9, something like that. Anyway, basically, you know, you go to these, these hunts or these expos, places like that. We just had the hunt expo that raised, I can't remember what it was, $8 million or something like that. The word million coming up. But that, some of that money goes into this Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative to where

that money goes back right on the ground into projects. We've just barely been meeting this last week with, with Forest Service, BLM, you know, Park Service, a lot of other state agencies, SITLA state agencies that are trying to do projects on the ground, putting that money back in. And so, since that was put in, in the late 2000s, there's been 1.4 million acres of habitat restoration done. In the name of water, right? Well, yeah. I mean, but habitat restoration. Habitat restoration indirectly, which directly affects deer. Yeah. And, and it's hard to tease out how much goes to deer, how much goes to sage grouse, whatever. But if you think about it, deer thrive in like those early, early successional, right? You know, they want forbs, they want browse, a little bit of grass, that kind of thing. And so, when you have that back, and there's some places probably in the 80s that used

to have that, and it was taken over by pinyon juniper. Just dead trees. So, now we're going and taking that back from pinyon juniper and putting it back into those early, early stages that are healthier for deer. The deer are doing a lot better. And I'm, I'm convinced that that's why, I think that's why you saw a big jump on the Henrys. You had that big fire that was there, you know, and it resets that. Oh, yeah. Back when it first opened, there wasn't, the fire was not yet gone through there. It was closed for a time, but the fire came through, kind of resets that ecosystem. And now, it's better for us if we can reset that ecosystem without the use of fire. We can go in, they usually go and reseed it before they do it, then they, they bullhog the trees or chain them, that kind of thing, and get it reset. And the deer have, it's helped them tremendously.

I'm, I'm convinced that that's why the poncegon has just. There's got to be something with the fire, though. The fire, you know, reinvigorates the ground, just brings in a lot more things that maybe you can't. And, and, and because we can't really go do chainings up in spruce and fir conifer for us up on top of Panguitch Lake. So instead, we had a fire to blow through there and helped us out to do that. So we went back in, reseeded it. Millions of dollars are spent to reseed those, to try and get them. We're not just going to let them sit there and let cheatgrass take over. Well, and I, and I know you breezed over it, but you have reduced tags on Panguitch as well as Dutton for elk. And we're pretty excited about that, really. As well. Yeah. You're going to see some, you're going to see some of our big bulls come back.

I think it's a little early projection from, you know, Adam and I, what we've looked at and you as well. How many bulls are we saving? You know, and. Well, over the last few years, I mean, one year, this year is probably the smallest cut that's occurred over the last three to four. But I mean, collectively. We've cut here on some of those units. 40 permits almost. Some, both those units. Yeah. A lot of bulls. It's going to be awesome. So, along with the fire and everything else, I mean, it could be, could be pretty impressive. Yeah. Not too far down the road. So, with that, predator control. I mean, we've spent, we did the new Mule Deer Protection Act. Coyote money. We talked with. Doing the bounty system as well as we're paying. Is there anybody else that pays hunters to kill coyotes? I can't think of it. I don't think so. No.

I mean, Chris can go out and kill a coyote and go on a date tonight. You know what I mean? Might just have to go to Taco Bell. He's going to have to buy a GPS. Jailies might not work. We could even. Chris here. 50 bucks? I got a new business. He could open up like Chris's predator control. And then, and his sole revenue is from Game and Fish, you know, the $50 bounty. And then he could ride off his truck, his horses, his horse trailer, everything. All this stuff. He could. What do you think, Bronson? No? Go for it. Yeah. So, 2017, I mean, we had 11,000 coyotes checked in, in that bounty program. So, that's huge. That's a pretty big impact. That's a lot. And over $500,000 paid out to those guys, as well as we put money into wildlife services to go and target. Yeah, that's still going on. Target ranges. Yeah, we still have them.

If we get winter, you know, and have some snow, but we have them go kill. And we've kind of moved some of that from winter range killing, where they go do that, into some of the fawning grounds up high. There's coyotes that will stay up high and don't move with the deer. So, we've tried to target those deer fawning grounds. So, with that, as well as, I mean, highway crossings and fencing, you know, we've just tried to save deer, right? We've done the poncegant, that high fence down there that was on the buckskin, where those deer migrate. And from the telemetry we found, they don't just migrate on the poncegant. It's from other units. But we were killing 500 to 600 deer a year on Highway 89, outside of Kanab, between Kanab and Page. I mean, that adds up. Year after year. We're talking about cutting a few tags here and there. What about cars? What about 500? Yeah, how about 500?

We have that right here on the way to Pennell, from Cedar to Pennell. It's unbelievable. I've had to repair two or three vehicles alone. I just think, you know, we ought to do something, by the way. A little pitch out there. We've got to do something right here. But, yeah, it's significant. And we've gone, this year, we had zero. Zero deer were hit down there. We finally got that fence figured out. We got some ends. Well, the deer figured it out. The deer figured it out. Where are these crossings? Where do I go? First, when they first met the fence, they're like, that first year, it was a little rough. But, hey, they are survivors. They're either going to die or cross the fence. They're either going to die or go on an underpass. That's right. Go under there. So, yeah, we've had, for that, like, 13-mile stretch, we've had zero deer hit.

So, if we're saving 500 deer a year on the Poncigong just from vehicle collisions on that, that's huge. And they're not going around the ends of it and getting killed there. I mean, you don't have big spikes towards the Perea buckskin stuff. They're just walking down it until they find the other underpass. And then they learn that. Once they learn it, they'll know it forever. And they're going through. So, I think all that is kind of a deer success story. You know, we're trying. We need to document all these things because, you know, you're bound to be replaced at some point. There's going to be new biologists. They're going to be like, how are we going to fix deer? And you know what those factors are. We've got to figure that out and document all the changes and why we're going through all this. It's just, anyway, go ahead. That's interesting.

You mentioned, you know, the deer out here on 56. You know, as we dive into, you know, these GPS collar deer, we've got, I don't know how many deer we had. We had like 40-something out there. Now there's even more than that. You know, as we really look closely at that data, we're learning right exactly where you're hitting your deer, you know. And, yeah, we're going to make changes. At some point, it'll do something. We're going to make changes. Usually, that's a huge problem. Usually, whenever there's another highway, scheduled highway project come along, like, hey, it's time for a passing lane. Or because of traffic increases, they do those little things you run over and they know how many people are going on the highway. We now need to double it. That's when it's easy to dovetail it in and the money comes with it, right? Exactly. You know, we've got. David Fisher, who does it?

Well, we've got a. With UDOT? Yeah, UDOT. So, you know, right now we have what we're calling the Migration Initiative. You know, this is kind of an initiative, a movement. We're going gung-ho on this. And we even have a coordinator in Salt Lake that's the Migration Initiative coordinator. And, you know, he's sitting down in meetings with UDOT saying. All the time. Yeah, saying, look at this. Look what these deer are moving. Look at this corridor right here. I mean, take 56. Right here, we've got a spot that is just a highway. It's eight miles long. It is not that long. So what can we do, you know? And UDOT is on board, you know, because they're seeing the data. And it's. It doesn't always happen that first year. We talked about it, I think, on the Ponce for a handful of years. But, again, as traffic studies increase and funding mechanisms are in place to revamp part of the highway,

it's natural that that's when it's all open and dovetail it in and get it done and have the sportsmen involved in putting them there. And, you know, you guys, I know, have cameras, you know, on those. You can't help but drive by 89 and look at all the cameras on the overpass, underpasses down there. So it's pretty cool. You know, this migration initiative and the things that we're doing and things that we're learning from the caller and the telemetry stuff is pretty amazing. Well, let's talk about that. We talked about a lot about that last year, almost a year ago. Maybe it has been a year. I don't know. I have both of you guys here in the office. But you guys were freshly putting collars on or just had the first year. And so tell us where, at least in the southern region, where most of that effort, just for maybe people that listen to first go around,

where this collaring studies, where have you been targeting the units? I know it's been heavily involved on the Ponce got, maybe some other places, but maybe it's just there. You know, I think one of the big significant ones, I mean, more so than the Ponce got even, is the Pine Valley and the Monroe. We've been collaring deer there for a long time and doing a lot of studies, especially fawn studies, deer survival. And because of those studies, we've been able to better kind of wrangle in our deer population models. Because we can take a real-time data and we can say, look, we only had 40% fawn survival this year. So we can throw a real-time data instead of a, well, guess, we could have this. This is what we saw. Yeah. Instead of a visual, we know, okay, we had X amount of fawns die. We had X amount of does die.

And we've kind of, we're going to throw that in a model and give us, I mean, it's a really good thing. The better numbers you put in the model. The better models. So those have been going on those two units for a long time. And that's helped us out tremendously just to figure out what's killing deer and how and when and all that kind of information is just priceless to us. So then from that, we've kind of got those. And they've actually been doing those statewide. You know, every unit or every region has some units that they focus on and do that survival study stuff. But now we've kind of shifted into some of it as a migration corridors. And from that, we added the Ponce Gont this year, well, last year, which was really huge. We collared some does in the winter of 2016. And I think we talked about it last time we were here where we actually had a-

Teased you about collared bucks and then all of a sudden I see a buck hanging from a chopper. How awesome was that? Yeah. How sweet. It's pretty cool. And so from that, we've said, look what these deer are doing. We kind of just threw them on to see what they are. These collars are taking a point. We can get on Google Earth and see where that deer was standing yesterday or this morning kind of a thing. It's pretty amazing. What numbers are we talking about in terms of individual deer on this Ponce Gont collars? Roughly. If you had to put it within, are we talking 30, 50, 100? How many collars? 150 collars. Of collars? Yeah, we've got. That are currently talking to your computer. Yeah. Wow. 40, 40 something bucks, right? Yeah. Almost 50 bucks. Any cactus bucks? Oh, yeah, 10 of them. We collared. We sought out and collared cactus bucks. So if anybody draws the cactus hunt, come talk to you.

We're going to open up a little gray computer, and we're going to let you to it.

Just teasing. Jason. I know. I'm just teasing. I just think outside the box once in a while. That's all. All right. So anyway. So, yeah, we collared fawns. We're doing our fawn study with that as well as we do does and the bucks as well as targeting cactus bucks. A cool thing about it was we learned last time when we did it, we didn't have a single deer go to Arizona, and we know those deer go to Arizona. But we didn't have any deer go to Arizona. We collared them too late per se. You caught them on the winter range in 16, right? Yep. But they were all Utah. On the Utah side. It was the end of November. We were thinking, man, if we catch deer here, if the winter gets bad, maybe they'll pile into Arizona. Yeah, I know. They were already where they were waiting. Exactly. They were there. Oh, I see. The deer were already in Arizona.

You need to fly on the Arizona side, snag some deer, and then watch them go back to Utah. Right. Or back up on the Cayuga. Or do the summer deer and see what portion of them go into Arizona. So we were throwing that out. What should we do? And we said, let's go to Arizona and catch them. So we actually did that as well this winter. Oh, did you? We went and caught. Last couple months ago. Yeah. It was in December. We had to wait. They have some hunts that are later there on those units. So we had to wait until those hunts were over. But we caught bucks and does both in Arizona. That's awesome. Within a five mile, roughly, of the border? Some of them were about five to eight miles. A couple of them were as far as 12 miles south of Fredonia. Okay. Wow. So we're going to lose some of those deer back to the Cayabab. But Arizona provided some callers as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So we're going to see just this big mixing of those deer and where they go. So we'll see what that does. Did we catch, or you've been mainly doing it then, or did you guys catch summer deer too anywhere on summer? We have not yet. Okay. We're talking about it. We kind of have talked about it this year. We've got some callers that were left. We didn't get all of them put out that we wanted. We've got a few left, and we're going to try and do that on some of the deer this summer. It's always a little tougher too because you're talking about fawns that are just giving, or does that are just having fawns, and you're going to throw her mom in and then. It almost feels good. What you've been doing on the winter range almost feels good. Yeah. But I just do remember. We're likely just going to call her or target some bucks in the summertime. Trying to call her some bucks in the summer.

Yeah, just because the study I'm remembering was from the late 90s or around 2000 when they did that from around the Alton area. And I think that's where that, we'll call it old number of 25 to 30% of the deer went to Arizona came from. Yeah, right. You know, back then, that's where they first identified those heavy migration corridors as well that led to the, you know, hey, the signing, and then obviously the fencing and underpasses. And it kind of makes sense because we collared all these deer down there, and we had deer go all over the Poncegott unit, except there was a section on that south end, south of Alton in that CWMU. We didn't have a single deer go there, but there's deer there. So, yeah. So, the winter range deer that you caught them, they, so, yeah. So, we could have missed that portion that they go heavily to that section. Five miles different.

Yeah, so, the old study could have been biased as well if that's, I'd have to go dig it up to see how uniformly they color deer. But I think it was very heavily because it was my major professor that had a different grad student doing that. So, I know, I can remember some. It was heavily involved with the Alton CWMU if I remember right. So, it could have been a, you know, I'd have to, I don't want to speak out of turn. It could have been a somewhat biased sample. Those deer happen to go there, a third of them go there. But uniformly, the Poncegott deer, you know, don't. So, it might end up being 10% or 15% or whatever it ends up being. And so, that was cool. We just kind of threw them out in areas where we had high deer numbers and let them go. And that was the most amazing part was that you have deer that are standing right next to each other going to the same watering hole.

One of them went 80 miles. The other just went 30 miles, you know. But the interesting part was they're taking the same route. And then finally, at one point, one of them just said, this is far enough. My mom took me here and I'm staying. And this other deer said, well, my mom took me another 50 miles that way. So, we had that fawn. She was a yearling deer come all the way from Kanab all the way to Cedar City. We talked about that. On the Panguish Lake and on the west face. Yeah. Just right above Cedar. Which is what's crazy. I think you're drawing a line around some of these units saying this is a unit boundary. But they're actually deer coming, crossing, you know, multiple units. It's more than one. Yeah. You know what I mean? Multiple units to winter range. And maybe they're getting harvested on the Ponsagant. Maybe they're getting harvested up on the Panguish. Yeah.

Well, and general units, too. That's what's unique is it kind of gets hairy because there could be bucks that are Ponsagant bucks, at least during a certain time of year. They could be there. They come in on the Zion. And then, you know, they're coming from the summer range on a general unit. And then, you know, maybe they're leaving earlier than the hunts. Who knows when they're leaving. But then they show up on the Pons. And maybe then they're getting passed on because they're not quite there. Then they're getting big. You know, it's just interesting how that dynamic of. How that migration affects all of a sudden this general unit's coming on strong. Yeah. You know, and basically it's because they're hunted on the Ponsagant. Bleed over from the neighboring premium unit. Exactly. And I think you can see that with the Zion and Panguish Lake.

So what kind of data, besides just tracking routes, obviously, are you guys checking, like, collar goes dead? You're checking what killed it? Are you checking multiple things? It's been a big deal, especially this year, because with this light winter, we say, great, the deer are all going to live. This is going to be great. And up north, they've had like a 90% survival on fawns this year. You know, some of those are. It's high, extremely high. But yet on the Ponsagant and some in southern Utah and these areas, I've been picking up a lot of dead fawns. Really? And it's dry. They've got to trail too far and burn too much. We were hearing some of those dedicated hunter projects were hauling water in January. We've started hauling. The BLM started hauling water in January. You wouldn't think of it, but they're hauling water in January.

Some of the local sportsman's groups stepped up and the Landowners Association on the Ponsagant, they stepped up huge. So kudos to them. And they completely funded a 7,000-gallon water truck to go out and fill up some ponds for us out there. So that's huge. And because of that, we've seen, you know, the deer doing okay. I went down there the other day to pick up a fawn collar, and I'm not kidding you, there were probably 200 deer just within 50 yards of this pond. Half of them just bedded on the pond bank. Dry pond or wet? It was a wet pond. But they're just kind of hanging out. They're not going far. They can't trail too far. So it's affecting their foraging, and the habitat around there is probably getting crushed. And where are the predators? The predators know where to congregate. We're going to chill on water. We've been seeing our lighter fawns, less than 50-pound fawns,

are kind of getting picked off right now by the coyotes. Because, you know, the cause of death is a coyote, but you can attribute that to condition. Malnutrition. They're weak. They're trailing too far. I think that fawn, she couldn't run fast enough to get away from the coyotes. Everybody else got away, and she didn't. So we've seen a pretty significant loss of fawns this year. So a light winter doesn't always mean, yeah, we're in these drier areas, Nevada, northern Arizona, you know, southern Utah doesn't always mean. Nevada's getting hammered too. If fawns is getting hammered, Nevada's getting hammered. Yeah, I know Dustin Mitchell over in that Monticello area down in there, they're even seeing it too. Extremely low fawn survival this year. So, yeah, great winter. They're going to make it. But if it's down in these desert areas, it's too dry.

So we're able to learn from some of that as well, as we're seeing I've gone down there and had to pick up some cougar mortalities on some more adult deer. And it seems like, on the other hand, it's kind of some of our old grandma does, nine-year-old does are kind of in that same predicament. You know, they're not in the best body condition either, so they're getting picked off. If you survive 10 years without getting eaten by a lion already, you did something right. Oh, yeah. It's true. Your day was coming. You lived a good life. Bronson's feels nothing for that dog. Well, I'm grateful for the 1.1 average fawns that sheep threw every year. Thank you. Thank you. You're now feeding a lion. But it's just you can't outrun them forever. It's just a lot to overcome. We're a highway, a deer, a vehicle, or whatever. It's bound to happen.

Tell us, you mentioned, you know, collars up north and whatnot. I don't know. Obviously, we talk a lot about southern region. There's a lot of some of our big deer down here. We've got a lot of demand down here. You guys are from down here. We're from down here. But tell us statewide what kind of maybe some of the other projects we've got going on out there. I mean, as far as, you know, sheep and moose. I mean, there's all kinds of telemetry and studies that are going on, not just down here. Yeah, I mean, we're trying to collar. I mean, a lot of stuff is being collared right now. We collared even some pronghorn up like on the Parker this year to kind of see what they're doing. Again, that's still southern region. But also we had plans to collar some more elk on southwest desert, even some bulls. We're planning on collaring this year, which will be unique.

Sheep. There's a lot of sheep that have collars right now statewide. Just whenever we're moving sheep around, we take every advantage we can to put some collars out there. And this technology that's changed back from my day, which is not very long ago, but we had VHF and GPS were so expensive and so brand new. You couldn't afford to put very many of them on because they cost, you know, two, three grand for a collar. They do. You know, and I don't know what they are now, but now it feels like almost all of these are GPS. You know, now there's all we're doing. I mean, that's all you do. And so, I mean, sure, as technology's changed, it just allows you to get real-time stuff back on your laptop. You can sit down and see what's going on now. You can get a mortality. It used to be, oh, I'd schedule a sheep flight every 30 days to go fly my sheep.

And if it was bad weather in Salt Lake and you couldn't get out, I got bumped. So then it was two months. And, oh, now I've got some mortalities. How long have they been dead? I don't know. And by the time then you get there on the ground, they've been there three months. So it was a problem. Well, it's not only that. I mean, even the GPS collars just in the last year or two, the technology of GPS collars is going through the roof. Where we used to be getting data points every, you know, once a day or twice a day or whatever. You look at that data when a deer is really moving. And there's these big gaps in the data where you don't really know where she went. They move in a week. They've made their home migration sometimes. Right. And so now we're throwing out collars that are taking, you know, GPS coordinates every two hours. And it really tightens that up, you know.

So, like, this doe that ended up, you know, over here by Cedar last year, you know, we were kind of really curious to see what she was going to do. And she ended up going all the way back to the buckskin. Right on the exact same path. And we were able to recatch her this year and put a collar on her that now takes a data point every two hours so we can fill some of those gaps of what she's doing. And really, really tighten in on the migration corridor. That's pretty awesome. That is really good. And it just leads to better management. You can, you know, we're not just doing it for G-Wiz. Because it's interesting to hear about the G-Wiz animals, the outliers and all that.

But there's really the 90% of the collars that you can learn something really from that can put something on the ground, either an imagined prescription, whether it be the highway stuff and the fencing, or season date timing. Of season dates sometimes, I mean. Or, you know, predator stuff. I mean. Well, that's what a lot of these studies have been done for years and years, clear back to when my dad was gaming fish. You know what I mean? And it's like we keep trying to, you know, reinvent the wheel, so to speak. And a lot of it is because of the technology. You know, there was always, you know, ambiguity in some of these things where, you know, we think predators hurt deer, but we're not sure. Let's do another predator study with deer, you know.

And so I think a lot of that is like what you guys are talking about with all the, you know, innovations in technology and even lion hunters and their dogs and having GPS collars and, you know, real-time trail cameras. Everything's changing. Yeah, man, it's such a rare thing. So with some of this year, you did the bucks for the first time this winter, right? Correct. This winter, you call her, I think you said 44, something like that. 40, 50. Yeah, I spell 50. And that'll be, that was after the hunts and all that. And these have different, are they only going to last for a year? Or is that because the two-hour thing in battery life? Or is that just because you want to get them off? Do they blow off, break off collars? We still, even with a two-hour life, we're going to get three years out of them. Oh, that's cool. As long as I stay on, which is pretty amazing.

So you don't have to retrieve it every year unless technology changes. Solar-powered collars. No. We threw one on. What? We threw one on. You're kidding me. No. We threw one on a doe. I thought I had a $500 right there. No, you're so far behind. We need to stick to what we're doing, Carter. All right. All right. We threw one on a doe, and of course, she was the one that got killed. So I don't know how long it's going to last. But no, it's something that they put on there. But we, you know, these deer, the cool thing about these collars is I was just talking with one of the guys up in Salt Lake the other day. We can actually turn up the amount of points these are taken to every half hour. On your computer. Yeah. You have to pre-program it, and whatever goes on the deer is, that's what you're stuck So we're going to probably here in the next few weeks go in and set those collars to start

taking a ping every half hour. When the migration starts? So when the migration starts, we're going to, I mean, we're going to be tracking these deer almost, you know, live. Wow. You know, and it's going to be pretty amazing. And then we can turn it back off. In May or June, then shut it back down to twice a day. Yeah, save the battery. When they hit summer range, we'll turn it down. It's incredible. It is incredible. So it's. What would be really cool is if it did, like, selfies when they were getting attacked by a predator. You know, you have a little video camera rolling, just the whole rolling. Whenever the heartbeat reaches 120 or 30 beats or higher, something's going on. Video camera turns on. Video kicks on. Serious? Oh, that'd be awesome. That's good. I like that. We actually had, no, we had a caller that had a camera in it that we put on. Yep. See? Yeah. See? Then again.

You thought you had a $500 idea. It's already been a bit. We're getting squashed left and right. Yeah. We had one, but of course, that deer died as well. Oh, geez. So we took bad decisions at picking deer to put these cool collars on. Well, speaking of deer dying, like, how much mortality do you truly get when you do, when you stress them out, put these collars on them? You know what happens? It's part of it, you know. Yeah. But it was extremely low. I mean, we had. One in 50? With. No. Well, yeah. Probably, yeah. That's about right. That was about right. And that was 2%. 2%. In the first week, right? Yeah. 2%. Yeah. If they're going to. After that, you're good to go. Yep. And if you recapture them, do they just say, all right, I get it. Yeah. I give. There's some of those does on the Monroe, the Pine Valley. I'm not kidding you. They get caught in December.

They turn around and get caught in March again. And then they get caught in December and March. And so for the last 45 years. Oh, I can just imagine. Lay down. Just lay down. Take it. Yeah. Don't get running 40 miles an hour and get tripped up in a day. No. Just stand there with your hand. Here we go. Oh, yes. So tell us on these bucks. I mean, other than some of the movements and obviously what percentage of them go back to summer range Poncegant. So they're truly, you know, summering, hunted, and wintering on Poncegant versus dispersing to general season units. There's things like that you can learn. What other things do you hope or have you learned already through, you know, handling some of these bucks? Or what do you hope to learn? Yeah. Just body condition on a lot of them. You know, that was one of the things that when we originally were doing it, we weren't

going to have any of the bucks brought back to us. We were just going to give the collar to the capture company and have them put them on. And I said, no, let's bring them back. I want to see them. I want to see what they've got going on. So we did a lot of body condition scores. And it was pretty interesting. I mean, not what you would not expect. But a lot of these does, we're measuring a rump fat measurement on them. And most of them are coming in at two to four millimeters of rump fat, which is technically poor condition. Pretty small. But most times they don't need to be in great condition to survive a winter on the Poncegant. But some of those bucks, some of them had up to 21 millimeters of rump fat. So it kind of shows you that this doe, how rough of a life a doe has, it has a couple fawns that are on her for so long compared to this buck that's just out there walking

around, feeding. But then you see some of those bucks that were actually starting to rut pretty good because we were catching them in the end of November. So some of them were rutting pretty hard. They'd already leaned out. And some of those were down to five to 10, you know. So it'd be kind of cool to, and I know this has nothing to do with nothing, but it'd be kind of cool to, you know, the body condition, how that affects antler growth. If there was any way you could possibly, and I don't know how you'd quantify antler growth other than BNC score, but, you know, if you could kind of get those. And then based off of precip levels, what time of year we got the precip, I mean, that's a whole nother. Because if you think about it, that's what it's going to be. A lot of people say, oh, it's going to affect antler growth. Well, really, it's not necessarily the antlers.

It's the condition of that deer, like you said, because that deer's got to, he's got to, he's going to put everything into his body to survive. And that's going to go first. And then the rest is going to go into antler growth. So these years, like last year, 2016, where we had some phenomenal, phenomenal antler growth, probably the best I'd seen in a long time, those deer were healthy. They were in good shape. They didn't have to fight much. It rained all spring and summer, early summer. Yeah. So it went into antler growth and they looked great. But on a year like this, I don't know. You know, I don't know how it's going to be. These cactus buck or stags, you said you caught 10 or so of them. I don't remember. Do you guys take blood from them? What do you start, I mean, we talked a little bit about this last year preliminarily.

So obviously anything we talk about today is not like, hey, don't take it to the gospel and print it. Right. Yeah. But there has been always a propensity of high cactus bucks on there. And even from when I was there, it's always been the case. There's not one other place in the world that I'm aware of that has them show up. Deserts in Nevada have quite a few, but not like what you're talking about. No, not as many. And so did you learn? I mean, I know you guys have targeted some of those. You obviously looked at testicles, but probably took blood and all that. But what are some preliminary findings of those or compared to the other bucks you caught, perhaps? Things like that. There was actually one kind of outlier that was pretty interesting was they flew. They were flying some in. We actually caught seven of them in the same hayfield. It was pretty weird.

I mean, there was kind of some ridges around there. Seven cactus bucks. They were kind of congregated there. They know they're different. They're like, the women don't accept us. The men don't accept us. They beat us up. We're kind of not sure if we're boys or girls, we're just going to head down the middle and hang together. Laugh about that. But we caught some that were actually regular. If you were to see them in August, you'd say 24-inch, four-point buck. Really? I mean, regular antler growth, four points. Good-looking bucks. But this was November, right? It was November. Still retained the velvet. Testicles were very small. Size of peanuts. And it didn't appear that they were rutting at all. Their necks weren't swollen. And they looked. They were velvet, four points. Oh, yeah. Full velvet, four-point. Normal-looking antler growth.

If you were to see them in August, you'd say it's a normal deer. We caught anywhere from that to just some weird junk all over the head, some spikes here and there, to one of the deer that came flying in and were like, oh, man, that must be like a yearling cactus buck. He's really small compared to the rest. Because most of those, everything goes to body conditions. They know they need to grow antlers to try and rut, to fight, that kind of thing. So they're just gigantic. Steers. Yeah, pretty much. They're just gigantic deer. I've got a cactus buck in the mat. It's unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, just like, I don't know, 13 inches around all the way to the top. That one I've showed you, Adam. Yeah. Anyway, keep going. No, but there. So this one comes flying in. We're like, wow, that's weird. It's a small-sized deer. Anyway, we're getting down there.

And, you know, my job was the technical testicle measure, you know. Oh, yeah? Did you enjoy that job? Good job. I get down there, and I go to. I am the manhood guy. Got your calipers? I've got a certificate if you want to see it. Oh, really? Really? No.

Touch it. That's the interesting part. I had to go to Nevada for that training. They are a little weird over here. Anyway. But we bring it, and we get it, and I go down there. I'm like, there's no testicles on this one. That's weird. We got one with no testicles. And then we look, and it was a doe. No way. It was a doe. An antler doe. It was a doe that had antlers like a cactus buck. They were kind of heavy. Yeah, heavy velvet, just two spikes coming up. No fawns? No indication of fawns? No, it didn't appear. She looked like we aged her at about three, but it didn't appear that she'd ever even bred. You're kidding me. Wow. Well, the bucks are like, I don't know about breeding that.

So, anyway. So, that was a weird one. So, that was kind of some initial findings. That was just kind of crazy. Yeah. Just kind of cool to see in a way. Really cool. You did collar her? We did. Yeah. We put a collar on her. It would be interesting. Yeah. See if she has even antlers the next year. I mean, what if they fall off and something weird chemistry in her body changes? She doesn't grow antlers. Every feature on her was doe-like except the antlers. You know, most of us all still have fairly buck features, bigger, you know, all that. But she was just a straight doe. I don't know if that was just a complete fluke. I have no idea what that was. But, anyway, we did a lot. We drew blood on them and that kind of thing. And we actually just got some results back the other day, similar to what we had found when we did.

We actually had gone and taken 10 hunters out last or two falls ago, took them out and killed some cactus bucks. And we tore these deer apart. I mean, we got samples from every organ, blood samples, you know, everything we could. And we kind of found that these deer are getting the HD, essentially, like blue tongue is kind of what they're getting. Every single one of those bucks tested positive for that. How are they getting it? How are they getting it? Just the bug. Yeah. But they get it and obviously they don't succumb to it, but it did something. No, it can kill some, but it doesn't kill them. And what we've kind of figured out, talking with our vet, you know, their temperature is getting really high. And so it's causing a lot of testicle problems with them and stuff. That kind of soft tissue is where it will start to affect them. And so we caught those.

Every single one of those had been positive with that. For the HD pathogen in their blood. Exactly. And it showed for that. A bug on the pond scott, does it exist in other units? I mean, why? Is it based on, you know, specific moisture in the spring? What is, where's this bug coming from? It's pretty well nationwide, really. You see it a lot back east with white tails. White tails, yeah. They'll have significant, a whole county of deer will die off from blue tongue. I just wonder, like. It appears in others and more arid. It happens in more arid areas, it seems like. And so. So you think it's been a problem forever? It always will be a problem forever? My theory is because those deer, they're so congregated together. They do everything together. They winter together. They summer together. They travel together. I think they're together more.

And anytime you have deer where they're coming together like that, disease is pretty prevalent. You know, CWD, all this. Anytime you're having contact with other deer. So I would think it maybe. Those pathogens that are biting them, they're biting a bunch more deer versus a widely distributed deer population. You know, those insects only have a short lifespan. So if they don't. And if you get 150 deer coming to the same water hole. They're biting them all. Several times a day. They're biting them all. It could happen. And so we see that. We actually found. It was pretty interesting. We found two normal bucks that had actually tested. Normal looking. Yeah. Antler configured. One was a 4.5. Big eye guards. Middle aged deer. 180 looking buck. Yeah. 4.5. Nice. And the one we caught, we went to catch him and we're like, this is weird. He's not rutting.

Because most of his other bucks, they stunk so bad. Yeah. And their necks were swollen. And they were wanting to fight us the whole time. And this buck just laid there. His neck wasn't swollen. But he was normal looking as anything as far as antler growth. Wow. What did he look like between the legs? His testicles were smaller. They were smaller. Way, way smaller. Really? What did he look like between the legs? I mean. I'm sorry. Well, that's where I'm going. Some of those bucks, I mean, they said like an egg size. You know, I mean, they were some large. From a professional perspective. Yeah, they were pretty large. And his were pretty significant. So he could be going. He could be going. Half and half. Like he was getting enough to shed. He'll get enough testosterone to shed. Whether it stays. Did you collar him, though? Yeah, we did. We did. So we collared him.

We had two bucks that came back positive that the vet was thinking that maybe could have been in that moment in the process of becoming a gold buck to a cactus buck. Which is kind of a new concept. Wow. Yeah. You know. We didn't anticipate that. I said that. Even some of these guys that have picked up sheds watch a buck go cactus. Yeah. And they talk about that. Down there on the pond. And you could say it could come with age. You know, as an older buck, his testosterone is going to decrease. Yeah. And so it could come. But I always figured that when it's happening, these cactus bucks are getting it when they're fawns. And so it's affecting them for their whole life. But maybe they're getting it when they're older. Better at any time. Or you get some year down there. Because the EHD breakouts usually occur in these long Indian summers in October, November. Yeah.

When those bugs, I can't remember the species, when they don't freeze and kill them and they annihilate them later like that. Which we had this year. So you could get certain years down here. You get early frost and all that and maybe not be an issue. But then you get a couple of really mild years. And those are the years that maybe spreads a little bit more than normal. So did your vet say, when he speculated, these could be in the process. Was it based on blood or testicle size or both? Or levels. It was kind of testosterone levels. They had, the titers had showed that it had EHD. Both of them. Both of those. And that the testosterone was significantly lower than the normal bucks that should have been rutting. So she's saying that maybe those, the testicles were in the process of destruction and going.

So it was going to be real interesting to see that deer next, you know, September, October, if he rubs and. Right. Or if he's. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be really interesting. So the effects of light winters are who knows how drastic and wide ranging. I mean. Here we are. Everybody's happy. Light winter, light winter. There is. We're down here, obviously, because. There is no unit I know of that congregates deer like that on water in Southern Utah. It's just. And like I said, they're traveling together. You see them. You know, they're just, they're together a lot. So kind of my speculation, but. Yeah. You know, it'll be interesting. So let's move. We're going to hunt them. We got this hunt. We're going to hunt this year. Just made some recommendations. Not going to throw a million guys out there. Yeah. But going to throw a handful of guys. We're going to have to check these deer in.

Much like the management buck guys, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's the first time we've ever done it. And then you're going to test everything. Test every organ, the whole thing. If we can. Yeah. If we can. Some of that, we have to get it pretty soon. So we're going to actually probably go down and run a, have a trailer down there and say, hey, if you guys kill one, get to us as fast as you can. If we can get something off it, we will. Well, Josh, here's my gut pile. Have at it. Yeah. Pretty much. That's what we did last time. So we'll be doing that. It's going to be a two-week hunt. I don't know. Sometimes you'll go down there and you'll see several of them in a day. Sometimes you'll go a couple of days without seeing them. It just depends on where they're at. And that Paponcacant unit's a little bit hard to hunt later.

And you guys defined that as, I know there were some back and forth on it, but you defined that as a buck, a legal buck on that hunt has to have 50% of its antlers covered in velvet, right? Is that where it's at? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, it's going to be good enough. Those bucks, they're either full velvet or, you know, a little scab. You're not seeing problems. So it's not going to be like, oh, I'm going to have to measure that one to see. But you didn't want something that just had something on a G2 dangling to get shot and say, yeah, that's got velvet. Exactly. Like I sent you that picture, big old buck killed the Colorado. He had a lot of velvet on him. Yeah. I don't know if it was probably about 48%. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. 47. Yeah, that was a really valid argument when it came through the. Well, I bet. Yeah.

Because at some point, I think it was initially, I don't know who, proposed any velvet. And that, then you start, we all realize through our lifetime of hunting deer, we see, we see them and kill them that have something, just a weird spot if they're living in a new burn somewhere and there's not as much to rub on or whatever. Well, it seems like the Poncecon's doing really well right now. A lot of guys would argue and rightfully so that maybe the best unit in the state of Utah right now. What do you, obviously the entire state's doing well, but what do you attribute some of that to?

Just management styles. Do you feel like it's weather conditions? Do you feel like it's everything, all of the above? What do you think? I think so. I think it's because of the biologist. When it's good, it's good. You know, next year, next year, I'm going to be. I hear you're a friend of the Poncecon. I'm not even going to be allowed in the office next year because it's going to tank. Yeah, they might be lynching you by next November. And obviously last year was a great antler growth year for it, but maybe. No, you know what? The thing that I've got looking at, we've kind of leveled out on permit numbers. We've kind of hit a permit number that's good. You know, it's given some opportunity, but we're still, our average age is five-year-old deer. Forty, 50% of our deer this year were five-year-old deer. Harvested deer. Harvested deer. Yep. So that's good.

I mean, so we're managing for 40 to 55 bucks per hundred does. We've got that buck to doe ratio at about 50. Wow. So we give out some management permits off of that. So we're keeping it at about 50. So if we're keeping deer at five years old and 50 bucks per hundred does, it seems like for the Poncecon, it's a great recipe. I mean, I don't doubt that if we decided that we wanted to up and cut it, we, I'm pretty bold, but we could be competing with the strip, I think, if we cut clear down. There's no question. With the genetics that we have and that. But you know. I think we should move to 70, maybe six and a half, seven-year-old deer. Yeah. Could be retarded. What? No? The cool thing about it, though, is those deer down there, they kill a lot of four and five-year-old giants. I know. I mean, there's a lot of those bucks this year that were killed.

There were six-year-old deer that were in the 240 range. No question. You know, and I don't know how much bigger that deer would have gotten or if maybe it was in its prime. Six to nine. You know, six to nine-ish right there. Five to nine. They'll get in a point where they start to decline. Yeah. So you kind of got to kill them when they're in their prime. It feels like a lot of those deer. Pretty sweet spot right now. Yeah, because we'll kill some seven and eight-year-old deer with trying to keep it at five. Sure, sure. So, you know, it seems like we've done good. Seems like a fair bit of escapement, too. The main thing as well, though, was just that habitat treatment that we've talked about. You know, there's... A lot of it's happened. We've switched a lot of that, and we need to continue to be proactive with it, too. We can't just do it and let it sit.

Well, that's what happened in the 50s and 60s. It was widespread chainings and then nothing for 30-something, 40 years, you know. Yeah. And without continual upkeep and maintenance and or continue, you know, the different successional stages that you talked about earlier, that's what deer thrive on throughout their life. Right. Because you'll hear guys say, oh, man, this unit used to be so good. What happened to it? And I think you could argue the poncegon as well. When I was growing up down there, you know, fortunate enough to grow up there. Sunday afternoon drives, we'd go up and drive that top by Tropic Reservoir, and there'd be so many deer up there. And now you go up there, it's not that great. You know, a lot of those deer have moved down a little bit lower. They're in that midsection where there's some great habitat.

If you look at it, that upper poncegon, it's not the best habitat. It's still that aspen. The aspens have all been encroached with that spruce and fir. And I think you could say it with the beaver. These fawns are raised. Yeah, the fawns are raised in better habitat. And then pretty soon that becomes the new summer. Yeah, you've not... They're not just going up there in the meadows off the creeks and having fawns anymore. Yeah. So it's harder to... And it's harder to get some projects done in some of that kind of country. A lot of that just takes a burn. And so it's longer to come back. So if we can go out and bull hog a place and seed it, we can see results in a year or two. We're talking about logging, which is... Yeah. You know, we've gotten to where we can chain pea, pinion, juniper.

But the red tape that has to go to get timber cells and things like that to, you know, it's another story. And that's what we're talking about. Summer range projects to help stabilize that. Or just convince a guy to burn trash in June, July. Yeah. And I think you've seen that as far as now with the penguishes. We've got a pretty good habitat project that just happened in some areas that we normally couldn't get it to really go as easy. So I think you'll see that. And I think that's... You saw it with the Henrys, I think, when a lot of that... Some of that timber stuff burned there, changed it back. Now it's some shrub and oak. And so habitat, I think, is a big thing for deer. And we've got to have habitat for them. Well, what else you guys got going? And I know you came in here this morning saying you're going to go chase bears. I use that term chase, you know, loosely because...

You're asleep in a cave right now. But you're going to go, you know, either collar or you already got sows collared and you're going to go check cubs? Yeah, that's what it is now. You know, we catch those bears in the summertime and then they're in their dens right now. So we usually try and go catch them. Or we go hit them first after they have their cubs, seeing what they have. This particular sow, one of them we've got to go do tomorrow. She had three little boar cubs with her last year. So she danned up again. And you'd be yearlings maybe, see what followed her into the den this morning. And those bears, they don't have cubs every year. They'll take their bear cubs out with them and then they'll go back in the den with them. So for two years she'll have them essentially. And we'll go back in there and check to see production, that kind of thing.

How many of them survived if all three of them are back in there. So we're going to... I'm expecting to go in there and see just a big, bald bear pieces. And trying to figure out, okay, which one. As warm as it is, they might be half one eye open. Yeah, yeah. And they'll fill in there first. You got to head first. You got three boars and a mama hat at it. Yeah. If it's a sow with brand new cubs, it's easy. But now it's like, okay, there's a leg, there's a leg. And we don't want to tranquilize the same bear twice. Yeah. And you get two of them down. Stab and run. Stab and run. One of them tries to come out. So sometimes the yearling stuff is... Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sometimes the yearling bears are kind of... They're flighty. That's why you're showing your beard out. A little blue. So they think you're one of them. Yeah. Haven't showered for a week. Send old clean-shaven Phil in there first.

Yeah. He'll come back, scratches all over his face and bleeding. Yeah. Let's do a podcast. That sounds fun. Yeah. So we'll have that. But then BYU's been studying some bears on the Ponsagon as well. Cool. And I think they're considering maybe being at the end of their study. So we're probably going to take some of those bears over. What were they getting out of that study? What were they doing? Who knows? Several different things, I guess. All right. It kind of changed a little bit here and there. You know, they first started out, they wanted to talk about different hazing things, what's going to help. But none of the bears that they collared got into trouble. Oh, okay. So it's just like with some of those studies, they change throughout time and you kind of see. So some of it was whether they like the smell of sweet stuff or dead meat, you know. Oh, really?

I mean, there's all kinds of different things. Dumpster divers. Some of it was movement. Some of the best thing we've got, I think, off of it has been movement. You know, we've had two bears that left the Ponsagon as young male boars that just got kicked off from their mom in the summer. One of them went to the Mountain Dutton unit and never came back. He's still up there running around on the Dutton. And one of them came over to the Penguich unit as well. So it's pretty interesting that, you know, the bears are moving around that much. You know, like you said earlier, we've got these units that we say we're going to manage bears here. Bears and lions are another story. Yeah, they are. Lions are even another story than bears. But bears can wander. I know there's San Juan County, the biologists over there talk about them coming from Colorado or vice versa. Oh, wow.

Big movements over there. And I think that's where BYU might pick up and move that way. They're going to talk about going over there to do some stuff because there's a lot more bears over there. They run bears a lot and they're going to kind of just see some of the impacts. So we'll see what that goes. So what, you know, what are you seeing? How are we going to get our elk back? What are you seeing on the elk overall? We did talk about Penguich and Dutton a little bit. But overall, what are you seeing? What are you thinking? You know, I think a lot of it's just age, you know, and that's going to help. I, you know, we adjusted those ages a couple of years ago and, and couldn't hurt. I went back and looked and probably in the heyday of when those units were doing really well. Which was? Four to four to eight. Yeah. You know, in that range.

And that was, they were, they were hitting seven-year-old elk on those units, both of those. And so, you know, we'd like to see that. What happened after that, they had, there was a management plan change and the age was, was decreased. And so, yeah, it moved down to a five and a half to six year old. And we're talking about, we're talking about Penguich Lake and Dutton. Yeah. Just so people know about it. Yeah. So anytime you do that, I mean, it's an increase of 40 to 50 permits, which is pretty huge. So what are your long-term plans? Is there, you know, is there any change coming? Are you going to kind of stay the way it's been going? Just decreasing some permits till we can get that age and, and we'll see how it is. You know, it's, it's kind of one of those things. Some guys, I'd like to see everything be an eight-year-old, you know, the Boulder, some of these units.

But I, I think Utah has got a pretty, pretty good system set is where we have, we've got a mix of units to where if you want to just go hunt an elk, you can put in for the Ponsagon and you can draw it with two points on an archery tag and you can go hunt your elk. Resilent perspective. Yeah. And, or if you want to have to wait for 22 years, then the Boulder's your game. So it's, I think it's a good mix. But there's some of these units, especially the reason, one of the reasons why I wanted to change those units was because we've got elk that are coming from the Boulder, the beaver that are these eight-year-old units and they're coming over for the winter time. And when we'll see, especially on the Dutton where we kill older bulls in the winter time on that late hunt. Yeah. And so just trying to get it so there's not two years of age discrepancies on there because

it was kind of hard to keep it at five and a half to six on the Dutton because we kill older bulls. So just trying to adjust it. Kind of got to manage similarly because there's a lot, so much crossover. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So that was kind of one of the main things and just trying to make them good. I, you know, still provide an opportunity for guys, get some permits, but yet a great opportunity, a better bull when they get there. Yeah. Well, is there anything else you guys want to talk about or any other cool things you got going on, Phil, other than fishing? Are we going to have anything to fish this summer? It might be kind of scary, huh? It's looking pretty sparse. Right. A little bit. A little puddles. Yeah. Yeah. We finally got a little bit of snow. Hopefully we can get more. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we just want to say thanks to you guys. You guys are awesome.

We really appreciate you doing the job you're doing out there. Sometimes it's a thankless job, you know, from a lot of perspective out there in the sportsmen, but we do appreciate it. And I know there's a lot of sportsmen that feel the same and seeing a lot of great things coming from what you're doing. And it's obvious you're enthusiastic about it. Yeah. And you really do like your job and are trying to do the best job you can. And so we just want to say thanks from Adam and I and the Epic crew, as well as everybody that's listening out there. Love to have you guys on. And we'll continue this, you know, down the road and talk about all these cool things that you're learning and continue to, you know, give everybody updates on some of the studies we're doing. So thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks for learning. You bet, guys. Thanks. Hey, sounds great.