EP 63: Personal Application Strategies with The Epic Outdoors Crew

If you don't have the points, you can't prep for the future. A lot of applications going out, a lot to be decided. Keep applying, you know, there's no reason to hold out. And the odds for some units are pretty good. One in three, one in four. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Where are we at here? This is a From the Hip episode. Good grief. No script, no shoes, no shirt. From the hip. Plenty of slurping.

You've got that slurp down. Yeah, well, you know. I hear Adam's practicing it once in a while too now. I just get it. Just do it because I know it makes Jason laugh.

Are we ready to start this rack? Here we go.

What the hell are we going to talk about today? There's the first edit of the day, Chris. Yeah.

That's true. I better write down one minute in. One minute in. Yeah, you're going to need a full notepad there, Chris. I probably should. Usually I do. I just sometimes, like last time we did pretty good. I didn't need it. Do it on the back of that.

He is getting his pen of paper ready. All right. Where is this going to go? Hey, everybody. How y'all doing out there? It's Jason Carter, Adam Bronson, and John Peterson, as well as the infamous Jeff John. And Chris Peterson. We're all sitting here in the room just chilling out. It is. What is it? February 27th. One day before the Wyoming sheep, goat, moose, bison deadline, as well as two days prior to the Utah deadline to apply for tags. Of course, the bonus point only deadline is March 15th. That's right. We'd also like tomorrow to wish everybody a happy birthday that has a birthday on leap year, February 29th, because tomorrow is your only day to get some love. Happy birthday. In four years. So, anyway. Leap year, leap year babies. Tomorrow. Can't you divide their age by four and kind of get where they're really at? Yeah. Yeah.

They shouldn't be eligible to apply until they're like, I don't know, 50 or 60 years old. They shouldn't get driver's licenses until they're 40-something. Anyway. I'm sure we'll hear from some of you that are born on February 29th after we talk about this, but just thought we'd throw it out there. Random. That's the random shout-out of the day right there. There you go. I don't know where that came from. Do anything. It came from that white can right there. Oh, all right. Well, anyway. Whose can is that? That's mine. All right. Well, anyway, we just want to do a little podcast, I guess. We just barely finished up the Utah applications for our license application service. Anybody that doesn't have time to do that, of course, you can get a hold of us. We can do it. Get us your information. We'll apply you. And anyway, we'll just kind of take it from there, a little license application plug.

We also do applications all across the West for everybody and everything. And so, anyway, get with us and we'll do that. So, we're kind of feeling a little happy because most of our applications are done. Of course, Jeff, he's going to have to spend hours and hours and hours checking the work that Adam and I and Ames did. So, anyway, pretty fun, huh, Jeff? Thank you. Aren't you looking forward to that? Yeah, thanks. Three in the morning. Yep. There we go. Have all the monsters that you can possibly drink, buddy. And so, anyway, usually he doesn't find any mistakes whatsoever, which we're pretty proud of. But anyway, we do take a lot of pride in doing those applications. So, anyway, we just wanted to kind of visit today a little bit. Well, first off, we've got to give a little shout out to Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. Of course, they sponsor about everything we do.

Thank you to Under Armour. What is this, Chris? Officially powered by Under Armour. That's right. That's exactly what you're supposed to say. Who can do that? Do that. Who can do it like Chris? That'd be Chris, yeah. Go ahead. Give it to us, Chris. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast. Powered by Under Armour. Okay, can anybody do it better than that? No. Come on, try. Not happening. Powered by Under Armour. That's way better than Chris. Way better. Bronson, you've got a deep voice. No, Chris is good. Gurgle it out. Chris is good. All right. So, anyway, thanks to Under Armour for sponsoring the podcast. We just kind of wanted to talk today about application strategies, nothing too deep. Just kind of the basics on some of these states and some of our thought process. Of course, we've put it in print, but you can only put so much in print.

It doesn't always come across exactly the way we want it to. And so, anyway, I don't know. Somebody want to throw something out there? Let's start this thing off. What are we going to talk about, Bronson? Well, it is right in the middle of, it's probably the busiest 30 to 45 days of the year are from now till mid-April, I would say, in terms of applications and stuff coming at you left and right. States come and do. We do have, have had one state, Wyoming elk results come out, but for the most part, a lot of lines going out in the water right now and a lot of stuff to juggle. A lot of moon phases being looked at. A lot of schedules being looked at. I saw you looking at that moon phase calendar this morning with a guy on the phone. Parker, what was that look? That was a, you acted as if that was a bad day. Well, it was like fish.

No, I was thinking you were saying lots of lines in the water, and I'm like, fishermen, we're not talking fishing today. All right. So, metaphorically speaking, we're putting, okay, a lot of names in the hat. How's that? Does that make you feel better? Yeah, a lot better. All right. I mean, who likes fishing? We're not. John? I love fishing. When it's hot. All right. All right. We're putting a lot of lines.

There you go again. We've said that over and over, and I don't know why I caught Jason off guard today, but that's, anyway. So, a lot of applications going out, a lot to be decided. And, you know, a lot of times, for all of us, you don't know your firm schedule come this fall. There's a few hunts that we probably know we're going off on. I guess we'll just start off at that. That's usually how I start off. As I look at, all right, what do I know I can get this year if I want it in any of the states? And that usually has to do with the states that give a portion of, or in the case of like Colorado deer and elk, all their tags to the people with the most points. And I say, what do I want? Is this a year that is going to be great for Arizona elk? Last year, that was for me. And I picked last year, and I went after it and built my whole application strategy around an Arizona elk tag.

But going forth this year, how about it? Who's got something they're going to draw? Who's pretty confident? And who's working around a guaranteed draw? Because as for me, I'm not. As for me and my house? Go ahead, Jeff. Start us off. What are you going to do?

No, I'm going to draw a bear tag. Jeff's going bear on. I don't know if I'm turning it back. That's the only thing I know at this point. So yesterday, Jeff, and understandably so, he's slightly reluctant to tell Adam around his draw plans. We proceed to crush the poor fella. And he did move to southern Utah a year and a half, two years, whatever it's been, ago. So the southern part of the state, even though he's hunted down here, he's not as... He's hunted Pine Valley and Beaver. I've hunted the general down here quite a bit. But there's not a lot of great bear units in northern Utah. I've got 13 bear points, and I'm like, maybe I'll burn them because I don't know what else I'm doing with them. And you were making mini trips with your kids up to Brian Head to see deer. And he's like, well, if I'm seeing deer, there's probably bears up here. I'm going to use my 13 points on penguins bear.

Adam and I look at each other. Honestly? Well, I'm sitting there. If I'm going to hunt up for deer, you know, it'd be good to learn the unit because I want to turn around and in the future possibly draw a couple other tags there. Yeah. You know? Something else. We know they collared a bear up there. And we've talked about it, and we've kind of got some connections where they know some bear running around and whatnot in some private property. It resembles a bear. One bear. It could have been like a Sasquatch site. It could have been a brown something in the burn. I mean, it could have been anything. There's not very many bears. So, because you can amend your application here in Utah, you can pull it up until 11 o'clock last night. Well, yeah. Okay. So, originally. What did you end up with? Originally, I just bought another bonus point.

And then I got to yesterday, and I'm like, you know what to heck with it. I'm going to go ahead and apply. So, then I applied, and then I withdrew my application again. And then I. Reapplied. Reapplied. Then I withdrew that application. So, let's see, $30 later, because it's 10 times each time, right? There you go. It's 10 cents a back. There's a lunch, a lunch, a lunch, a lunch. Well, I must not have heard your final plan. What did you come up with? I'm going to beaver. I'm going to draw the beaver tag. So, anybody that applied with less than 13 and wants a max point tag, probably out of luck. All I know is up at Kent's Lake, they have dumpster diver bears up there. Well, and Chris told me the story about. Throw some trail cameras on all the dumpsters. Yeah, I was sitting up there about two years ago, and we were sitting around the campfire,

and all of a sudden we heard some racket about 20 feet away. I stand up, and there's a big black bear just sitting there. He didn't care. We were there making noise. No way. Dumpster diving. Once Chris told me the trail. Something on the guard was sold. If you hunt off, is that bait? Is that a bait stand? Do you have to register the dumpster? So, let's see. No, I would say that's incidental. That's like a trail. That's a camera on a trail. Finding a hunter-harvested elk carcass that's not yours, and you've got a bear on it. Whack it. What you doing, sir? There you go. I'm sitting here waiting for a bear to come in on this dumpster.

Well, so anyway, Jeff's got something to work around, it sounds like. He's going to go bear hunting this spring, and the rest of us didn't have to get a little bit lucky. But what about the fall? Well, who's got firm plans? And whether you've got something scheduled, whether you've got kids' hunts, your hunts, who's got a guaranteed draw? Well, I'm going to do dedicated hunter here in southern Utah. Our general, I've heard, is better than it's ever been. And so, anyway, I'm going to do dedicated hunter, which I should draw it. And anyway, so I'm planning kind of around that. And, you know, it's not very often. We have killed a few big deer on the general, but not very often a guy makes plans around the general. But it is going to happen this year. So, anyway, I'm just going to throw that out there. Anybody else? How about this? I got 10 points for elk in Colorado. Should I burn them?

What are you considering, Tom? I don't know. What are your options? I would say yes. Other than that, it doesn't get you a whole lot. It doesn't get me a whole lot. But, yeah. You should try. Yeah. I mean, try to. There's a number. It's 435-263-0777. Talk to Adam and Jason. They definitely get you lined out on something good, John. You printed that Colorado magazine. What did you see in there, buddy? I saw a few that I might try for. You're legit serious. Yeah. You want to do it? Oh, yeah. Possibly. It's just whether to, you know, keep building for a couple years or try to burn those on. Yeah. You're kind of in no man's line. I'd get what you. On a lesser tag, you know. I'd get what you can. 10 or 11 or 12 right there. No sense to build more than that. Draw 34 somewhere. We'll have our little key units. We'll have them favorites. So, anyway. Well, good. Right on.

That's generally where we've got to all start is what we think we're going to get. But, obviously, not every year you've got points guaranteed to draw something. So, if you don't, it's getting lucky. We should know, start to get some results back in Arizona as late as the end of the week. The deadline to update your credit card online is March 1st. I think midnight. I don't know. Probably midnight. Probably plus or minus. Which, the last two years in a row, I've drawn an antelope and an elk tag. And the very next day, after that publish date, they started crushing cards. So, be ready on Friday the 2nd. Pretty much. Saturday the 3rd. Watch out for activity from Arizona Game of Fish on your card for an antelope or an elk charge. If you have had a problem, just a tip with your credit card that you applied with back in January, early February,

go online and update your payment information right now. You can do that up until March 1st. But if your card's gone bad from the time you applied to now and you draw, you'll never know it. Because they'll skip you and go to the next person. So, make sure your card's good. Anybody who's sharing their card with their wife, make sure that card's good and got some room on it. 650 for elk and I think 550 for antelope. Make sure you got that room on there. Hey, that's a legitimate thing to worry about for some guys. And so, anyway. But, yeah. So, it should be a good year. Of course, we've got a little weather here, you know, down here in southern Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, the last week or so. And, Bronson, you were telling me this morning you were looking at the weather. It looks like things are looking up maybe for the rest of the week. Well, it's been really dry winter for sure.

But for the last two weeks we at least have a different weather pattern flow. And we've got some snow down in southern Utah. It's not much to save any drought. But we might green some feet up here in a few weeks if it turns warm and grow something. But it remains to be seen. You know, you're hoping, you're grasping at every bright spot we can have. And it's definitely better than the 65-degree golfing weather we had all of December and January. Because that's pretty much what we had down here. Yeah. Well, anyway, and so we did get the Wyoming elk results out there. Anybody that drew a tag, give us a holler. We can help you find people that have hunted in the past or give you an outfitter. My son, Colton, we forced to draw. He is 17. He'll turn 18 here in December. And so this is the last fall that he's going to be around the house. Cheap tag. Cheap feed before we went to 700 bucks, too.

Probably 299, right? It was a youth only. He was actually special. Oh. The big daddy. So it was 1,300 bucks for him. So he bumped an extra grand just to get it done. What a dad. No. What a dad. He's going to work it off one way or another. Okay. Never mind. I assume too much. He's going to be in the desert covered in ticks and masks checking cameras for you. Oh, yeah. To work it off. Yeah. No. No. He's got a summer job and everything. But, no, he's – yeah. So, anyway, we'll be heading up to the Bighorns up there in Wyoming. Looking forward to it. Kind of forced that draw. But, luckily, this year, everything kind of jumped a point or two. And so it turned out he had just the right number of points and we had the right strategy. It was unbelievable how many people tried to draw this year. It's like everybody's trying to draw. Yeah. It was like that price increase.

More people had said, I'm willing to pay it and be either done with it or whatever their mentality was. It did not deter people on the special draw in very few instances. Did we see that happen? Right. Right. And so, anyway, we're kind of looking forward to that. And, of course, now a lot of you guys have kids out there. It's a little bit of a sense of urgency, you know. Yeah. He's going to try to get him, you know, deer tags about everywhere we can. And, of course, Colorado is one of those states we definitely are going to be looking at, you know. Guys can draw second choice and still gain points in Colorado for deer. And there's plenty of good second choice options. Guys are killing 200-inch deer. Well, almost with an S. You know, at least one or two 200-inchers are taken on second choice. I was going to say, Jason, get ready for those calls because I'll let you handle them all.

200-inchers on second choice tags. It happens. It happens. Okay, so when we talk about draw strategy, Jason, I'm going to ignore you for a minute. Don't get your feelings hurt. Because I know mule deer drive your biggest application strategy plans, you know, for you personally. I mean, you got elk. You got a soft spot for you for a moose here and there.

Antelope. You guys didn't know I got a little antelope fetish. Okay. Two-point fetish. Jeez. But, Jeff, what species, because maybe people don't hear this from you as much, when you develop your personal draw strategy, what gets you fired up? And, John, we're coming to you next. We're going to be, you know, what species, what do you, or maybe it's multifaceted, but what do you really hope every year, deer? It's deer. It's deer. I mean, but that's because there's so many guaranteed hunts that I know I'm going to do. You mean like general deer, Utah, and Idaho, that? Idaho, Utah, Colorado. I just try to have a tag in those every year. And I've gotten a little lucky in Nevada. And then last year, maybe not so lucky in Nevada. But anyway. You learned how to change tires. Yeah, I did. Three of them, in fact. But, yeah, mostly deer. I mean, that's the thing is that's my fallback.

I know I'm going to be hunting deer in several states every year, you know, so that's pretty much my fallback. Between you and your boys, you've got boys that are 11 to 13, don't you? Yeah, two of them. So they've been part of your strategy. But deer, one of them drew an elk tag in Idaho last year, youth tag. So those kind of come out of nowhere. But you like to drive with your whole year with, I need two to three deer tags somewhere. Yep. That's exactly right. And they're not normally, you know, they're Utah general, Idaho general, or easy unlimited tags. Easy tags, yep. Or, you know, every other year draw tags in Colorado. Yep. Yep. You have killed the Rocky Mountain Bighorn. We know Utah, that was 10 or 12 or 14 years ago. 12 years ago now. Yeah, 13 actually. So I've got 12 desert points. So now you're hoping for a desert. Sometime that'll happen. Yeah.

But don't you have plans to go north this year too? Oh, yeah. We're going up chasing caribou. Just DIY foolishness. Just going up having fun. Who are you taking? Me and my brother and my dad. We're just going to go for a ride and go check it out. Check out some areas. Just learn a little bit more about a bunch of different places up there. Just, you know. You're going in September? When you said going for a ride, I want to clarify. You're flying up there, aren't you? Well, we've been debating. We were thinking about sending a truck and a trailer up because four-wheelers, ATVs, are awful handy. Jeff never takes easy. I don't take the easy way. The path has been paved. There have been thousands of hunters do this. Oh, yes. This is how they do it. In the last time they drop you off. You fly in, they drop you off. I've driven it all the way from Parabanks all the way up to Prudhoe Bay. Yeah.

Happy Valley. Yeah. Dead horse. All the way through the Brooks Range and on the backside. Yeah. I saw critters here and there. Yeah. So you guys may be road tripping it. Yeah. Well, not all of us. You know, the nice thing is, with three of us going, you know, we'll probably kind of do shift work. But you're not going to send Dad with a truck and you, Dusty, in a flight of Fairbanks. And you're not going to do that, are you? I thought about it. Oh, I see where this is going. Well, no, that and that, you know, there's, we haven't nailed down the idea completely. All right. But we've got a couple things going. Bottom line, you're working around September two weeks or something. If you're driving, add another week. Yeah, basically. So we'll have another week if you're driving. We've got to be up there on the 29th. Of August. August. Yes. I got a call and just double check.

They're changing a couple of the regulations and might be changing a couple of regulations up there. Like on the 40 mile herd and a couple of things. So, so anyway, we got to go. Things are in limbo, but you're heading north. So that's a big, there's a two to three week, you know, with actual days gone. And we all deal with this. The brownie points away from home. Like you can't just, you know, go there for three weeks and come right back and jump into something for two weeks. So it's a big part of your whole year. So archery deer and elk are pretty much out this year. That one's gone. One thing I want to talk about a little bit on this. Well, let's see. We got to go to John. So my strategy basically is put in for sheep, elk, deer. So sheep, it's going to be, you know, long term. You know, I'm sitting at between seven and 16 points in Utah on sheep.

So still, still got quite a few years on that. And hopefully draw, you know, a sheep every 20 years. Draw elk every seven to eight years. And then fill it in with deer in the middle deer and antelope. You've got one of your, your boys is hunting age. Is your youngest, is he going to hunt this year? I can't remember. Yeah, he's going to be first year. So he might not draw. Yeah, he might not draw. Even a general. But you've got, you're going to have two boys potentially this year. I've got my daughter as well. Daughter in the middle, in the mix. Yeah, and she should draw this year deer. So you might have all three. Yeah. If you're youngest. All three, we'll see on that. So that keeps me pretty busy, you know, on that for deer hunting and stuff. But hopefully be going to Colorado again. You yourself, maybe a deer, elk, or something like that.

And in Utah, I'm a dedicated hunter in Utah, so got all three seasons on deer.

Yeah. One thing I want to talk about a little bit, Adam, as we're, and John and Jeff and Chris, you know, as we go throughout the, through the years and we figure out our draw strategies, obviously Adam alluded to, we figure out what we can get points-wise. And so, and how do we know, how do we know we can get those points-wise? Well, in a lot of these states, they allocate a certain percentage to people with the most points that apply. Yeah. And so, like Colorado, it's preference. Guys have preference over another. And so, yeah, for deer and elk, for example, or antelope. Yeah, by the way, Jason, you've got a pile of antelope points. Are you going to put them on the line this year? You said you had a finish for them. Let's do it. Let's see if you put your money where your mouth is. Let's burn them. So, let's, it's funny, let's is under my CID number. But I get it.

By the end of the podcast, we're going to get Jason to burn those points. Well, what's nice, what is nice is you can make a plan. People can make plans. You have zero points. You can make a plan. I can't get Jack unless I get a point, right, type of plan. And so. The other states, though, yeah. Yeah, like Arizona, you know, they give a percentage to people with the max point, the people that apply with the most points. And so I can tell, I can draw an archery deer tag on the Kaibab. Yeah. And so you can kind of say, okay, now, do I want to do that? And by the way, what are the Kaibab dates? Yeah. And does that interfere with my Utah general dates? How dry has Arizona been? Do I want it? That's right. All those types of things. And do I want to point guard it? And if I point guard it, I can turn it back, get all my points back plus one as if I didn't apply.

Now, then that point guard's taken away from me until I draw that tag and actually utilize it. And so there's things like that that go, that are way heavily on our, it's not a haphazard. Utah and Wyoming, you alluded to it with your son Colton a minute ago. You knew. I knew. You was close to on regular, but you want to make certain he goes on an elk hunt this year. And he had six points. And he did the special just to make sure. Well, he had six points. Yeah. We applied for the bighorns. I knew, but I'm like, you know, he actually had two more points than it took the prior year. But keep in mind, the prior year he had one less. Yeah. He really had five. It took four. Yeah. And so then I'm like, okay, if I do special, it's so expensive. Most guys, I think I'll get a shoe in. And I wanted a shoe in. Yeah. I wanted to make sure he drew.

And that's what you and I do heavily is we look at it, we'll pay a little bit more money, know we can plan the year we're going to go. And so the draw processes are different for every state. And that's what's awesome about it. Those four, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, all have a portion of the maximum point in play. You know, the rest of the states, you know, the Montana. Yeah, it's going to be a crapshoot, right? Nevada, squaring your points in both those two. New Mexico and Idaho, truly random. And Montana, general deer and elk are something you could plan on. But there's certain things that we do look at, you know, with Utah's general deer. It's a preference point, not a bonus, right? And the bonus is for all the limited draws. And so we can tell. And you can tell. Everybody that's listening, you can tell. Magazine's got it in there. You can look at how many points you have.

And if you're on the bubble, you've got to kind of plan on drawing that tag. Because if you've waited 10, 20 years, it warrants all your attention if you get drawn. So it's not, you know, sometimes tags come out of nowhere. And you've just got to react and make it work. That's right. And so, yeah, and so we could tell, Adam, you knew you were going to draw that Arizona elk tag. I would say 70% certain. Yeah, I would have been shocked. You were right on the edge. Yeah. I did put a unit as my first choice. I didn't think I would probably get. But unit 27 as a second, knowing I'd probably get. And that's the one I ended up getting. But I knew the dates kicked late. It was, I just made time in my schedule. And that's what I got. And in 2013, I did the same thing. I forced a unit one archery draw. Unit one archery. Same thing. And so, same kind of plan. And so, do you get lucky?

Well, you got lucky on your Arizona elk. Yeah. You did get lucky. And so. You just react on some of those. They do give, you know, half the tags go to people randomly. And so you can draw these random tags. Of course, we're sitting on max with sheep in Montana. Never can, never will be able to know. Or plan. Nevada, we, what's some of the most, most questions we get about that is, how long is it going to take me to get my archery elk tag up in Nevada? How long, how long do I get an archery deer tag? Archery deer tag. I promise you. You're willing to use all five choices, not going just the top five, you know, five to ten years. But who knows? It could be 15. It could be one. Yeah. You don't know. Squares your points. You know, five times five, 25 names in the hat, plus one for the application. And there you go. That's not a way to predict that. That's right.

You're going to draw when you draw. And it's hard to predict. Like, you know, we talked to a lot of guys with 15 to 20 points on deer. That's right. That think they should be getting close. And yeah. You got a fair amount of 20 cents. And yeah. You're, you're, you're names in there a lot. But there's still no predictability. Guy with two points with five names in the hat. So what's, what some guys want to do is to make sure you, you've got a tag and you go hunting. Let's just up front tell you there are over the counter deer tags for Arizona for coos deer and mule deer both. Got some of the best coos deer units, archery, in the rut with a bow for, for guys that want to do that. Can't kill two deer in one year. So if you know you're going to draw a coyote archery tag, for example, don't be sure to coos deer in January. May not go down in January. That's right. You're done for the year.

You're done. So just make sure either it's big or you don't kill it. And so anyway, um, same thing, Idaho, Idaho has over the counter tags, both elk and deer and for general. And so there's some opportunity there where, you know, you can have a tag. You can have a tag. I know I'm going to have a tag. I'm going to go. Maybe it's second choice, Colorado or third choice in Colorado. Colorado elk. Maybe. Yeah. Colorado elk even over the counter, uh, or a second, third choice draw for mule deer. Cause there's no over the counter mule deer. There are things you can do. So you get a basic plan. I've got a tag. Now what? Now, if you're satisfied with that, worst case scenario, you end up with the general tag. Then let's go for the gold on some of these other states. And let's just not plan on drawing. Let's really work on getting a trophy tag, quote, trophy tag.

And so anyway, that's how I think what we're doing. We talk about just throwing around this and that and the other. It is very calculated. It's something we think about every day. Oh. I mean, it's consuming. Yeah, it is. And so. You know, you've got, you've got a lot of years invested, but at the same time, there's things like, like for me, desert sheep. Jason, you drew about 10 years ago. You cashed in your high points. And you went with me. We went out to Sklany. We all were there. Except for Jeff. Everybody. Jeff was smart enough to not know us that well. Then he knew Jason, but not us. Spare it his life. He wasn't invited on that trip. I wasn't invited. No, I'm just teasing. Absolutely. Which was good. But we, you know, I'm kind of in that same position now. I know I'm very, very close. Basically, can't, can't predict the crossover between these top few units in Utah for desert

sheep every year perfectly. And my time's short. Your time's coming. I have to plan on getting it every year. And I have the last few. And it just hasn't worked. Yeah. As I've moved a little bit on my applications too. And certain years, if I know, a few years ago when I knew I was going to go hunt stone sheep, I applied for Zion because I didn't really want to draw Utah desert that year. If it was, make it be the best. But, but yeah, there's certain things like that we have to plan around in case we get them because they are such a big deal that, that, you know, your Arizona deer that year when you knew you were going to draw that and you're going to make the switch from the strip to 12B, you knew. I planned that draw. You didn't want anything else. I knew I was going to get that tag drawn. You didn't want anything else to overlap.

That was, this is my once in a lifetime late season rut hunt in Arizona. We went and smashed a, you know, a small bull moose up there in Idaho. Oh, and we drove 2,000, however many miles that is to get home. A lot of miles. It feels like 5,000. Yeah. Just to get back. Went up there, killed a moose and couldn't get down to the, down to Arizona fast enough. Yeah. But. So there's a few of those that it's not. So those of you that see us draw on some of these tags, there's some of them we've, we've earned the hard way. We're almost the last one standing. Yeah. There's, there's no way other to put it than that. Didn't get drawn randomly. I'm the most, one of the most unlucky guys on Utah Desert Sheep. Yeah. Granted, I'm holding out for what I want, but that's another way to look at it. You're not going to go do Escalante this year? Eh, probably not. Not yet. But you could.

Although it's coming back. Oh, I could have drawn that five years ago. That's my point. And then units come and go. Yeah. Sheep especially. Utah's gotten better. And Utah Sheep have gotten infinitely better than when I drew. Oh, yeah. Exactly. And so when I drew, we were just going to kill a nice representative and enjoy the whole experience. That's what was there. Now you might kill a bookhead. You might. So, yeah, I'm kind of more, I'm seeing that for more what it is. Like, okay, I don't have to draw this year. My boy's gotten older. He's able to probably go with me on my hunt. That's factoring into it. So. Yeah. But, but that's still in the background of my mind every year now. I was like, I got to plan on drawing that, you know, that with the hunters I'm taking and what other hunts I'm going on. But. That's right. But, yeah. And you've got a sheep hunt booked for this year.

Yeah, I did have it for 2019. And another doll sheep just wanted to go back. It's been 10 years since I shot my first one. So I thought, well. Has it been that long? Geez. Yeah. 2000. Wow. 2008 or nine. I forget. One of the two. And so, yeah. That puts you in your mid-40s. Low 40s. So.

So. You're not in your mid-40s until you're 45 to 47 as far as I'm concerned. I've still got some years. You've caught me by one year. Anywho. Yeah. So. I did end up going to the sheep show. And out of the blue, the outfitter I'm going with. You know, there was another individual that was scheduled to go with the same dates. Opening of 2018. And couldn't go. And so. Ended up switching. So, yeah. I'm going August this year, which doesn't really affect my application plans a whole lot except for archery deer. I do like to archery deer hunt. I probably won't apply for Nevada archery deer this year because August 10th is the same day as opening day for sheep in Alaska. So I can't. I can't be in two places at once. And I don't want to burn points in a year in Nevada and come back and only hunt the last two weeks. Yeah.

And the nice thing that does play in our schedule as well and strategy is you can turn those tags back. Let's say you did draw a tag in Nevada. You don't want it. You can turn it back. Yeah. Let's. Points back plus one. Same with Utah. Let's talk about those. Yeah. And I think it's important. We have a lot of guys we deal with on a daily basis that says, I don't want to draw two tags in one year. Apply me points only. It's so rare do we hear of guys. Yeah. That draw three and four and can't do them justice. And let's say you do. If one of them is Arizona. If one of them. And you point guard it. If one of them is Utah. If one of them is Nevada. Colorado. Even Colorado you can turn back and get the points back you had as you went into the draw. You're not going to gain one for this year. But the others you will. Yep. Utah. You can even get your money back.

Utah if you do it 30 days before your hunt. That's right. They would get their permit feedback and your point that you would have got that year. So you're out nothing. And it's the same cost. You don't have to front the fees. It's the same cost. Whether you do points only or apply for a tag. Always apply for a tag. I'm just going to say. Unless your schedule. Always apply for a tag. Unless your schedule totally is like I've got three hunts booked and I'm going for three weeks here. You know. I can't go. And then all of a sudden. Well if I gave you a desert sheep tag would you figure out how to go? So yes. Okay. Then don't do points only. Sheep should never do points only. I don't care what. There's a couple very small window season dates. That's right. Like Wheeler Peak I think is about 10 days in New Mexico. That's about the short and maybe even Pecos and some of those.

Those are really short. And I can see if you had something booked over the top of those. But most sheep hunts are three weeks to two, two and a half months in the West. Months is average. So I don't know. I can't think of a reason why I would ever do points only for sheep in my life. I never have and I never will in any state. That's right. So yeah. I think a big part of your strategy is we all want to hunt. Of course we keep talking about the five, ten year, twenty year plan and other podcasts. But you got to go hunting in the meantime somehow. Yeah. You got to go hunt. You know. You got to put some tags in your pocket. So you know it's a matter of saying okay this is what I've got. You know. And I've got a brown bear hunt I booked with Litson who you know for this year. Yeah. That's right. Litson the guy that we're actually giving away a hunt away.

I booked a brown bear hunt with him and we're giving away a hunt. Combo. It's a combo hunt. I've never heard of one that's I mean just this awesome. It just has so many things you can do. Tell us about it. Whatever you need you can basically get it on this combo hunt. Yeah. We thought that would be unique. We gave a doll sheep hunt away on our first I guess called membership drive and then beginning March 1st through. June 1st. June 1st. It's March 1st to June 1st. March 1st to June 1st. The only way to enter you can't buy tickets is to refer a guy that joins our service or join yourself. If you're new. If you're a new member. This is not the first drive was for anybody who renewed. This one is for new members. So you only way to enter the slate is wiped clean on March 1st. The only way to be in this drawing for the doll sheep grizzly bear black bear wolf caribou

combo hunt that we're giving away fully paid for by us for the for the end of August 2019 is to join or refer someone that joins between March 1st and June 1st 2018. And we pay a subscription would also qualify. Yeah. Gifts of subscription for your buddy. And anyway the refer E and the refer R will both get a ticket into the draw. So that's the only way. That's it. That's the only way. The odds are going to be awesome. It is with an awesome guy. And we've we've paid for three species. So here at Epic Outdoors we have paid. We've already got a deposit on file and it should be awesome. So anyway I did book a hunt with him for brown bear and so I know I've got that. I know I've got Colton's elk. And then of course I've got some deer things coming up. Obviously I've talked about the dedicated hunter in Utah.

For those that don't know we've kind of talked about it before but dedicated hunter does allow you to hunt all the seasons. Even the extra rifle season in some of these general units that they gave out new for this year lets you hunt all seasons. You can kill two deer in three years. You do have to do 32 service hours or purchase those hours. I think it's 20 bucks an hour. And then an entry fee as well and take a little online course and you're in. So what a great opportunity especially where our general units are back. Back meaning fairly good quality right now. So anyway that kind of plays into this as we go through each of the states. We were talking about turning pet tags back, making sure you're in the draw for these. You know as Adam and I have even got older we start to play these raffles even. Just saying you know what we absolutely need your name everywhere they can be.

And we know some of these people that are drawing tags. I mean it happens. And we've beat a lot of long odds too. Yep that's right. You know everybody throughout whatever phase of life you are when you're. I mean we were back in the college days when we were starting this points game. We were using 0% cards, cash advance checks on the cards for the states that we had to write checks for. Arizona. They would allow a personal check so I wrote a credit card check. Yeah we did. For me and Clint. Clint you owe me. You owe me. And you know it was. First born. I don't want his first born. By all means possible really. Just to keep it out. And luckily then just as you go through you finish college. You got young families usually kids. That's tough. Times are tough. You can only do what you can do. So we realized talking about here it feels like we're doing everything under the sun.

And you know that's what everybody should do. We fully. We weren't that way. And we just everybody evolves through a different phase of their life. And hopefully financial situation gets a little bit more stable as you get you know into a career. And start making some money. And settle and put down roots and all that. But whatever your situation is. Get a plan. And do as much as you can. As much as you can get away with within reason. Realizing there's things that you have to do. It's with families and all that. We all are family guys. And we have to put those things first in our lives. But we also have said like we said in other podcasts. We don't have a lot of other if any expensive hobbies. We don't. And you know we don't race motorbikes. We don't. Nothing against anybody that does. But we just made that decision that our extra money goes into hunting.

And you know obviously we do family vacations. But as far as expensive hobbies. Hunting is our expensive hobby. No that's it. That's it. And so. And wherever that is on your spectrum. Invest the time. And whatever resources you can set aside. To get a plan. Long term. Short term plan. And do it. And you know. You know you're building for your future. For you and your kids. To draw tags. Even though you're not maybe seeing something right now. Yeah. So I kind of wanted to. Maybe just kind of break it down a little bit for guys. In our December issue. We did cover like the different species. And the must apply for states. And so just to kind of. You know. I don't know. Back to basics so to speak. If you are interested in mule deer. We definitely. Recommend applying for Arizona. Colorado. Idaho. Nevada. Utah. And Wyoming. Now Wyoming. You know. It is not. The mule deer mecca that it.

That it once was. There's obviously a few giants that come out of Wyoming. But gaining a point isn't that expensive. And there are things you can do. There's some private land outfitters. There's all kinds of. Different things. And if you don't have the points. You can't prep for the future. At least get the points. I have points. And if something comes available. I can go. Yeah. And the nice thing is. Zero to six. Yeah. Zero to six points. We'll get you all the general tags in the state. You know. The G is probably the worst at about six. Yeah. But I mean. Most of them are zero to two. General season. You can go as often as you want. Treat it like. Almost like Colorado. They do have a few limited entry units. When I say a few. You know. A couple handfuls. In all reality. But they're not. They don't manage like other states. For true trophy end. I mean. I hunted one last year.

And it was just what we thought. Lots of bucks. Lots of nice bucks. Not just lots. We're talking truck fulls. Hundreds. I heard semi. Hundreds. Truck fulls. That's what Jeff said. 400 bucks. You can. You can line a two. What did I say? You can line a two ton with bucks. Or you can line a semi with. With 160 inch plus type deer. There was just. Running off the end of your pickup truck. Oh. I'm telling you. Dumber and fence bucks. Bet it on the side of the road. I mean. You know. Unit 128. One of the top units in the state. But. Just a good experience. Good deer. But not. But not a true limited entry. I had max points. And I'm glad now to just go whenever I got out the window of time. Yeah. For five days or a week somewhere. I'll put in for generals for the rest of my life. Yeah. I won't chase a limited entry hunt ever. Probably again. And so with the Arizona. You know. Like in Arizona.

You can. You gain points. Deer points or deer points. If you change. And all of a sudden you've got a little coos deer thing going on. You want to use those for coos deer. You can. And I've done that. I've drawn the. I've drawn. Mueller. Trophy Mueller. Went and killed a good buck. And then a few years. Reset to zero. Good. 270. And then when.

Don't deviate from when you. I'm losing my thought process. And then you go. And then I went. Then you just do it every year. Early season coos deer. You know what I mean. And now I'm looking at an archery deer maybe. Or something. You know what I mean. And so. All of a sudden a big general. A buck pops up somewhere in the state. And you got five points. And maybe that's a draw unit. Go for a weird unit. Yeah. And so I think. And where you're doing other species. Like you're going to do deserts. Right. Most guys are going to do deserts. You're going to do elk. Most guys are going to do elk. It's just a very very minimal fee. To go ahead and get your deer point. Why not do it. Right. And so. Same thing with Colorado. Get your preference points. No matter what. And that's a fallback state. Just gives you options. If you want to go this year. And you got five points. In Colorado.

You can go hunting. If you got two points. You can go hunting. If you got 12 points. If you have zero. You can go hunting. And gain a point. That's right. There are so many options in Colorado. And that's what I think. And I do want to. I do want to discuss it just a little bit. Colorado is the mecca for mule deer. That doesn't mean. You're going to kill a giant. It doesn't. Back in the mid 2000s. You couldn't do anything wrong. You couldn't do anything wrong. It's just a lot of good options over there. It's not clear cut. Even if you have 20 points. It's not clear cut on where a guy should go with 20. Well you can go in 44 on the third or fourth season. If it's warm and dry. You're going to hard press to kill a 180 incher. And that's the best unit in the state. And even on some of the force. Or 21. Some of these force. And some of these units. That's right. You know.

You're at the mercy of the weather. You might be getting down to the hunt and say. That was nowhere near worth 20 points. Which goes to our point Adam. Of talking to a lot of our clients. Is we tell them. Use your points often. Do not get more than 10 points. No. Don't do it. And if you've got more than 10. I don't know what to say. I don't know. You're going to burn something on an 8 point type unit. Like a 22 third or whatever. And pray that you get the right year. Because now you can't turn your tag in. Except for 30 days before the hunt. If you want your points back. So you don't know what the weather is going to do. You can't see that. That's right. So you're going to have to just get lucky. You're going to have to put yourself in a situation. And get some weather. And make it. To make it great. Well and for guys that are just loaded. Now if you're loaded.

You've got plenty of hunts going on. Then yeah. Just apply for some of the points. Loaded with hunts. Not money. Loaded with hunts. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean. I get it. You know. Apply in a unit. You've got 10 plus points. Keep applying. You know. You might be. You might be booked up. Plenty of hunts. But if you're. If you're. You know. The average guy. There's no reason to hold out. I mean. Yeah. There's not. I mean. You killed a 200 inch. Well we found he was 200. After we ripped him off the wall. Jeff's like. I got a dink up here. I just really want to go to a good unit. But I'm like. Pull that freaking deer down. I'm going to measure it. I'm tired of being told it's 190 inches. Come to find out it's 196 or 7. Freaking dried out after years and years. 194. After dried out. But he's a. He is an incredible deer. Let's go back to the video.

If listeners haven't watched that YouTube video. Go on YouTube and find it. It's hilarious. Oh my gosh. I'm not too worried about the score of my deer. I love him. Smoked it in what? Unit 75. 75. Never will go back. I'm like. No. I've been back twice. Okay. All right. Well the other day I heard. I don't know where to go. Well no. Well a bunch of the BLM. Like the BLM where I killed that deer is gone. Yeah. No longer in existence. So. What do you mean it disappeared? Crater? They sold it? Dude it's locked up private. Really? Most of it. Well they split it in half somehow. So I guess once the BLM reaches a certain amount. I don't know all the rules to it. But now you could hunt this entire little BLM. Chuck. Well now there's a. There's a gated fence. Private property. Yada yada. On it. Probably did a land swap or something. Yeah or something. To group up property somewhere else. Yeah.

So it's a heartbreaker when you start seeing that home. Take these podcasts with a grain of salt. We're not. We don't have exact you know. Yes. Land swaps and everything. Yeah. We don't have exact rules to it. But. All of a sudden. It's getting tougher. That's what you're saying. Yes. But once again. I mean you do want to go back. Because you look at the record books. And they're piling up big bucks. Like the genetics are right there. Genetics are right. And you can draw that tag. Genetics are amazing. Those units and the ones that are east of there. 77 and 78 feet. New Mexico. A lot of their. Yeah. 4s and 2Bs and all that country. They just jump on the highway down to Cordesco. So anyway. I guess our point is. Is in Colorado. It's one of those states. You just. You got to do. But don't expect the world. We did a. Isn't a Henry Mountain. We did a whole podcast last year on Colorado.

And we could do it again. Go back and listen to that. But it would be a lot of. You'd get a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty from us. Because there's no. Number one. For every point here. There's not. There's a lot of options. And you got to discuss. Second season. Third season. Archery or muzzleloader. And. And you like driving around. You like high country. Do you like backpack. Horseback. I mean. We're big fans of going every. Zero to five years in Colorado. Go hunting. Go there. Three to four times. Versus going once on a. I put all my eggs in this basket. Type hunt. So that brings us to Idaho. I think Idaho. You know. In our opinion. There's. It is not a point state. So you can't tell when you're going to get drawn per se. You can play the odds. I drew a unit. 42 tag. And the odds are one and nine roughly. And so. You can play the odds. That was a cool hunt by the way. Yeah.

It was cool. We hit it a little late. They run early. I mean. They're. November 1st. They're rutting. Yes. And. And we hit. What about the 10th. Yeah. Just fell a little bit late. But. Anyway. Did kill a short forked. Big eye guard. Of course. Killed him for the eye guards. But. Anyway. Wide deer. He was 32. Yeah. He was a wide deer. But. But. But. It was right at the tail end. He. He was picking up the last doe. That was in heat. But anyway. Idaho was one of those states. We definitely recommend applying. If you're doing sheep. Goat. Or moose. You can't do deer. And elk. And antelope. You know. You have to choose. And so. Some years. Adam and I do sheep. Or goat. And one year I did moose and drew it. Kind of played the odds. Yeah. Those years that we drew a deer. I drew a deer too. You have to sit out the deer the next year. They have a one year waiting period.

If you drew an antler deer tag. Still do the general. You know. So. We did sheep. And I normally do sheep there. You know. This year you'll notice. We did the sheep. Moose and goat. Issue. And the March issue. You'll notice an increase. In the non-resident application fee. It's up to $41. And some cents. I can't remember exactly. What's crazy is. And then they're making you use the book. The two year book. And in there are the fees printed from last year's fee. But they changed the fees. And they warn you all over. This is not the new fee. Do not use the application worksheet in the 2017-18 moose sheep and goat regs. The application fee there is wrong. So the ones that we have in the magazine are right. Don't think we're stupid because it doesn't match the regulations. They changed the fees. And they changed some of the resident permit fees as well. Yeah, they did.

Well, I don't know exactly. I mean, legislative or the state. You know. They can change fees on an annual basis. And so they set the regs for two years. But they can change. So overall, it's about $200, non-refundable now. It used to be $15 or $16 plus the $155 license. I'm rounding a little bit. Now it's $41 plus. So it's getting more expensive to do sheep, moose, and goat. Now if you do the deer, elk, and antelope, it's still the $14 or $15 application fee. Yeah. Later on. So anyway, just a couple of things. You know, we do recommend applying in Idaho. Even though it's not a point state, they kill big deer. And of course, you can use that hunting license if you have to justify it just so it doesn't go unused. Then go wolf hunting or something like that. Or get a general deer. Over-the-counter deer. I've already got my general deer coming.

So anyway, and then Nevada, it's a definite must-apply for state for mule deer. Killing some good bucks over there. One of my favorite things about Nevada is we've got big unit groups, usually. Big groups and tons and tons of ground compared to the tags they give. And so you just feel like you have it to yourself. Obviously, there's a few big bucks that get some pressure. And maybe you've got to compete a little bit. But generally, Nevada's just an awesome opportunity. So muzzleloader, archery, or rifle. Utah would be much like a Nevada. It's not a tag you're going to draw off on a limited entry deer tag in Utah. We've talked about the general and dedicated stuff. But for limited entry or trophy, however you want to label those in Utah, for non-residents and residents alike, they're tough to get. You're going to wait. You're going to wait for those.

So that kind of wraps up our mule deer opportunities there. Of course, there are landowner tags, guided hunts. Jeff works with a lot of different outfitters. Not lots. I mean a lot of different outfitters. And we end up with a lot of opportunities that you can just buy your way in. If you want to buy a tag, buy an outfit and hunt, go ahead. Yep. There's options for sure. So anyway, for elk, we definitely recommend, must apply for states would be Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. And these are, keep in mind, in relation to quality.

Idaho, you know, is what we put as an other state to consider. There's a couple good units in Idaho. If you're doing deer, you should, in fact, do elk in Idaho as well. And then we also put on Montana in there. There's been some great bulls killed in Montana and definitely one to consider. So Arizona, no brainer. It's known for big bulls. Adam and I have both hunted it and done well there. So as far as New Mexico, well, it's one of my favorite states personally to apply for. They do have the guide draw, and that does help your drawing odds. If you're going to go guided, choose an outfitter, get a contract, and go in the guide draw. Yeah, you're crazy not to do that. And if you consider, okay, you know, we get a lot of guys asking about New Mexico landowner tags. Well, take, you know, several units. You know, they might cost you $6,000 to $7,500 to purchase those landowner tags.

Or $12,000 or $14,000. Yeah, or $12,000 or $14,000. And if you look at the auctions that have happened lately, even more than that. But, yeah, you consider the guide draw increasing your odds. You might be able to jump in the guide draw with a guy, pay the outfitter $5,500 for a fully guided food and everything, and get that for less than you would pay for a landowner tag. You know what I mean? Do it on your own. Yeah, and then pay for everything on your own. So why not, if you're willing to spend the money on a landowner tag, why not jump in the guide draw, see if you can draw it? Yeah. Then go after the landowner tag. Yep. Makes sense. It's great for the guides. One thing, one of my favorite parts about New Mexico, there are big bulls and weird, obscure units. You did it last year. Yeah, and so, you know, whether it be, you know, the 23, the 37s, the 38s, the 18s, the whatever.

There's just a grundle, the 12s and 13s, obviously, people know about and whatnot. But there are big bulls in many different areas. And so it's not just, you don't just have to go for two or three options. You know, all three choices count on your application, too, which is nice. They'll go through your first, second, third. Then go to the next guy. And the good thing about New Mexico is, being that there's no point system, you can treat every year uniquely. If you're, like, hungry for a tag one year, you get more aggressive. Maybe put one tough to draw and then two average to get tags. If you just want to get an elk tag, get more aggressive. But if you've got a lot going, stick to the very best. Or in some cases, yeah, you could sit it out. If you know, I've already got an awesome elk tag. And I'm going archery elk hunting here. And I can't, you know. Stick to the best.

Stick to the very best one or switch weapons. You know, I normally will favor archery. Last year, I didn't. I went to the muzzleloader and rifle because I knew I was going to be archery hunting in Arizona with a 99% probability. So I didn't want another awesome archery elk tag in New Mexico. I went with the different weapon types. But the guide draw there, unlike the guide draw for mule deer in Nevada, which only applies to rifle, all species have a guide draw option in New Mexico. All weapons, all species. You know, antelope, deer, elk, sheep, ibex, orcs, everything. You get placed into a separate pool where 10% of the licenses is for people that are going to apply with an outfitter. And only 6% get set aside for non-residents that are applying on their own. The residents get 84%. So not only do you get a bigger piece of the pie, there's generally less applicants in the guide pool.

So your odds are most notably, you know, a lot better. A lot better. And I think the only other places they have the guided pool is Idaho has a few opportunities for outfitters to have a guided draw, quote draw, as well as Nevada. Nevada's got a very popular mule deer guide pool for, like Adam said, rifle hunts only. So if you're going to rifle hunt in Nevada, you should be going in the guide draw, which is due March 9th. March 9th is coming right up, and you can't apply for that one and the regular deer draw. You used to 10 years ago or so be able to do both. Geez, they even gave a point for each one early, early. But now you have to pick one or the other. And keep in mind, if you like to mix weapons on the five choices in Nevada, you like to mix some rifle and muzzle load and archery, you shouldn't probably consider the guide draw then.

If you're only a rifle mule deer hunter and you're going to get a guide, you should always apply in the mule deer guide draw. And the odds for some units are pretty good, one in three, one in four for certain units in the state. Now, not the very, very best in Lincoln County. But if you want to hunt 170-inch mule deer in Nevada, you can do it very frequently. And so, yeah, if you need help choosing a guy or you'd like a few phone numbers, feel free to give us a call, and we'll definitely get you on that track. It does need to happen quick. Much like Arizona and New Mexico, Utah is known for big bulls, but they're very tough to draw. Ten bucks to apply for. Utah odds are real tough. You should consider, if you don't have a lot of points, look at the different weapon types or the rifle seasons in November.

They're very underutilized, in our opinion, in terms of there are some big bulls available. There are some units that you are going to ask for a rough hunt, very thick timber in November. But other units are awesome. One of the questions we get a lot of, Adam, and, you know, unlike a lot of states, they give prime rut dates for the archers. That's not the case in Utah. We have kind of a pre-rut archery hunt. And then, you know, getting a lot better starting September 15th-ish for the rifle. And then the muzzleloader is prime rut. And I really like that muzzleloader hunt. A lot of guys ask us about that. Definitely well worth doing the muzzle. And like Adam said, those late rifles can be awesome, too. So, and then Wyoming, no brainer. You can kind of tell when you're going to get drawn in Wyoming. And we love that about Wyoming.

You can make plans and there's a lot of different options, a lot of different units, whether it be general or whatever, units across the entire state. And so, you know, like I said, my son drew six points and we're excited to go. And you can do things with not a lot of points. Montana, you did mention that as another option. And the one big change that occurred in the summer of 2017 was you can do points only now in Montana for deer but also for the elk and not have to do the tricky get your general tag as a first prerequisite. Then you're in for the special draw. And if I don't draw that, I don't want my general and you end up losing 200 bucks. It's kind of expensive. Build points in the summer for Montana elk. The archery elk tags in the eastern part of the state generally aren't that difficult to draw for a lot of the Missouri breaks in different areas.

You're going to want to build points for those. Our suggestion is probably to build a few points there. When you want to try to draw, you're still going to have to probably get the general tag that year. And then apply for the special area that you're hoping to get. If you get it, great. If not, you're going to have to either get a refund or whatever you want. So definitely has elevated in our minds the feasibility for non-residents to be considered in that one. When you talk about Colorado for elk, they're everywhere. But they just simply don't have enough quality limited draw units around the state to meet the demand of all the flooded point applicants. They just don't. They can't work them through the system. That's why you see the units in the northwest corner or even now units 40 and unit 61 climbing to crazy numbers what they're taking to draw versus what the quality is available.

I mean, 61 is an awesome public land unit. And there's a few 350 to 370 bulls that would come off of it. But really, it's a unit where you're going to hunt 320 to 330 bulls. And most people that wait 20 plus years to draw an elk hunt, they're expecting a whole lot more than that. So if you're thinking of starting elk in Colorado, you should really analyze it. Or just don't have high expectation. Now you don't have to front the fees necessarily. And if you ended up hunting in the state the year prior, it's going to be cheap. It's $3 to gain points. If you didn't hunt the year prior, it's going to be $40 unless you buy some kind of fishing license or whatever. So from the year prior. So anyway, just keep that in mind. But not a no-brainer to do for elk in Colorado. Don't feel bad if you'd miss out for sure. Anything else you guys want to add? On elk? I don't know.

I mean, they've got elk in Oregon. Kind of the same thing. If you're going to do sheep, we haven't really started talking about sheep. And I think we lump the Oregon, the California stuff kind of together in a bit when we maybe talk about sheep and the add-on species over there. Well, I think it's a lot to keep track of. And for those of you who aren't members, that's what the magazine's for. You can go on. And we detail each state as they come out, go through all the details of the same things that we're talking about. Yep. Just get that magazine each month. It'll be clear on our take on each species in each state, whether a state's even something you should really consider in our opinion. So overall, use each magazine as it comes each month and evaluate whether a state's for you or not based on the cost to apply and everything like that. Where does that bring us?

That brings us to antelope, one of my favorite species. And so antelope must apply for states, Adam. Let's go with Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming. And then, you know, definitely must apply for states. You gain points. Arizona, Nevada, do not gain points in New Mexico as we've talked. And then Wyoming, you can gain points. You can tell when you can draw. Guys with even one point. I've got guys we're doing in a license app service. Want to draw? We're going to get them drawn. Yeah. So. Something for everybody up there. Some of those zero to one or two point units, you're probably going to have to look at eastern Wyoming. Yeah. Where the amount of private land goes way up. You may have to pay for some access or an outfitter. But you don't have to wait long years to go hunt antelope in Wyoming. That's right. They've got antelope everywhere and options are endless. Yeah. And good bucks.

And so same with Arizona. It's a no brainer. Minimal fee to apply. Nevada, minimal fee to apply on top of your already purchased hunting license if you're doing any other species. And so anyway, New Mexico, it's a no brainer. It's a big bucks down there. And then Wyoming. So as far as, you know, some guys are doing Colorado. I've got a lot of points in Colorado from years and years ago. I can't wait until you burn those. I just.

I am looking forward to it for some reason. We talk about it every year. It's just because I know it's this little outlier pool of points he has over there. I'm waiting for the mentor program and everything else. Anyway, and then Idaho, another one of those states had a new unit cluster open up last year. There's some decent potential. Nothing, you know, to really write home about. Same. Montana, we did have a good friend of ours kill a good buck up there. There's some decent potential in Montana. You could almost add that to almost the next must apply for it. Odds aren't that difficult. You can get an eastern Montana tag, either the Archery 900 or the 700 rifle pretty easily. And a lot of options. Mixed to public and private land. Some block management out there, which is a program Montana has instituted for, well, not just antelope, for deer elk and antelope.

You know, access properties to privately contracted properties that people in agreements with the state. But those maps come out usually in about August of every year for you to be able to find out what properties enrolled and go hunt them or the adjacent BLM and have good hunts. I mean, Montana is not a difficult state to draw. They aren't known for giant antelope, but they kill a few every year. They're really, really good bucks. That's right. With one of our outfitters. So, anyway, if you do draw tag and you want to not fight with the public versus private, you want to go outfitted, just give us a holler. We definitely got guys killing some great bucks. And so, same with Oregon. Oregon is known. Don't give very many non-resident tags at all. It's really kind of disappointing. However, they do kill good enough bucks we can't pass it by.

And we got some good friends up there in Oregon that we don't want to offend. Definitely have some good quality, even of every species. They're even, you know, they've got private land and a lot of different things for elk and deer and whatnot. And there are some good animals taken, just generally speaking. Their management practice as a whole. Stinginess to honor. Stinginess to honor. Yeah, stinginess. Three to five percent. That's right. Yeah, that's right. So, anyway, and then Utah, no-brainer for 10 bucks. If you're going to be applying for something, might as well add Utah in there, not known for big bucks. However, Colton, he drew an expo tag. I forgot about that. So, yeah, another one of those tags that kind of got a plan around. Colton, who did draw the Wyoming elk, also got an antelope tag here in Utah. And so, it's the year of the tags for him.

Through the Western Hunting Conservation Expo. You probably heard that on some of the earlier podcasts. But they have those $5 tags you can enter, and he won one of those. Yeah, he did. So, anyway. Let's get to the good stuff. Okay, here we go. Done with antelope. We're jumping into the sheep. Let's start with desert sheep. Must apply for states. Definitely apply for Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. No-brainer. Must apply for states. Non-must apply for states. It would be California, Colorado. You've got to choose. You can do deserts. You can do Rockies. But you can't get points for deserts. There is no points system. There's only one tag. And one non-resident tag. And up to 10%, which has been only one in California in recent years. And so, maybe just to address why. 75%, 25% rule where 75% of tags go to people with the most points, which is max.

If you don't have max in California, chances are that one or two non-resident tags, depending on the year and the total tag numbers, would go to a max point holder. So, you're just sitting there. You may be buying a license and applying for something that doesn't even exist by the time it gets to the random draw. And with Colorado, the odds have been about one in 400, it seems like, for that one non-resident desert tag because you've had to choose, like Jason said, between Rocky. Or desert. And, you know, the Rockies have a point system. It's where we've applied for a lot of years. We're kind of committed down that road. Now, 2018, now that you don't have to front the tag fees, those odds are going to be incredibly bad. No question. You know, one in 400 and something, that was back when you had to front 1,400 and something dollars to apply.

Well, not only that, you have to fill out, buy paper, use their forms, cut them out, make sure the whole crop gets sent to you. All caps, in a letter. Number 9 envelope, or 10, I think it was. 10 envelope, it just got to be. And even then, there were 400 and something applicants for the one tag. Now, it's going to be astronomical. It will. So, it's hard to tell you that that's a must apply for. For Utah, the reason we lumped that one in is, if you're going to do it, it's an extra 10 bucks for Rocky and Desert. You can build points for both. But like Jason said, the two no-brainers, if you want to try to get a Desert Sheep, Nevada's head and shoulders above any other one. They draw 28 to 31 or two non-resident Desert tags a year, more than all the other states combined. Arizona draws about 10. New Mexico draws three. Yeah. One in the unguided. Two in the guide draw, one in the... Yeah.

And the guide draws open to residents, too. Yeah. So, you're in it for three tags. And yeah, if you've got room on your car, 3,200 bucks. You know, the odds are... That's the one thing about New Mexico. They make you front the fees, which, you know, I'm actually a fan of. Well, the variety, actually... I'm glad every state isn't the same. Me, too. So, you've got different angles. Some states have pluses than the other states. That same thing is a minus. But back to Desert Sheep, the toughest to ever count on drawing. You know, for most people, the ability to try to draw a tag is the only way most people are going to get a hunt on a Desert Sheep, through a raffle or through a state draw. So, you're going to dream. Same for Rockies. I guess maybe transition to those, Jason, in terms of Rocky Mountain Bighorn.

Because there are more states that give good or what I would call better opportunities to draw a Rocky tag. There's more names in the hat to be in with the Rockies. But having said that, we've always talked that these Rockies seem to be the bottleneck for guys. No, it's kind of happened. Yeah, it is. It's happened. You can buy deserts in other places and whatnot. You know, so anyway, it's hard to buy a Rocky. It's hard to buy a Rocky. For a reasonable price. You go to Canada, you're talking 30% success rates. 40 grand. 40 grand. And then three trips later, you ended up 120 grand, some of these guys. So, anyway, just kind of keep that in mind. It is a bottleneck. Something, if you want a sheep, definitely apply for these Rockies. Must apply for states. We definitely consider Colorado. Of course, we're going to jump into that one with, now, you don't have to front the tag fees.

There's going to be a lot of people going into that. And you need three preference points to even be really eligible to draw a tag. The rule states, it goes to meet people with the most points. The most points is three that you can get. If there's so many people with three, it'll never go to less than somebody with three. And then you get the weighted points after that, which effectively just increase your mathematical odds every year. You get one of the weighted points. But moral of the story, the next three years are going to be the best odds Colorado ever sees on Rockies. And then once the fourth year hits it. Then you've got everybody that now has three that's truly eligible. They're going to crush the flood of the applicants. So I know we can't wave a magic wand and try to get drawn in three years, but to whatever extent, we're going to try to do that.

We're going to be waving something. So anyway, and then as far as Idaho, of course, we've talked about that in relation to the deer and the elk and whatnot. If you choose sheep, you can't do anything else. Choose sheep. They're pretty good odds. You know, if you truly like sheep, choose sheep. But we are limited to a maximum of 10% statewide, as well as a unit by unit quota. But keep that in mind. We don't know what the odds truly are from a non-resident perspective. But we can tell you, you know, until we meet that quota, you're in with the residents and your odds are your odds. We've broken that down in the magazine, both from a total non-res. I think it was 1,200 and something last year. Nine tags were, well. And we drew a good chunk of those. Six Rocky and three California. But, and also give you an idea of how many non-res applied for each unit.

But there's not non-resident odds for each unit. You can't calculate that. We're in the hat with residents. And as each non-res, as the draw progresses, each non-resident that draws and does not have the statewide quota been met or the individual unit quota been met, it's successful. And then all the other non-residents, for sheep at least, since there's no more than one sheep tag can go to any individual unit. But the rest of the non-residents that are drawn in that unit after that first successful non-resident was picked are null and void. Yep. And so your odds get progressively better. Let's say the first non-resident that gets drawn comes out of unit 11. When there was 200 non-residents supplied for that, they're all out of the hat for the next, you know, five or six Rocky. And if a resident's drawn, yeah, they're all out of the hat.

Plus, it didn't go to Ward on a 10% quota statewide. So it's a progressively changing odds as every non-resident gets picked. That's right. It's kind of confusing, but that's the way we portray it, the way we do. But it is probably a must-apply state. It's ground floor. Especially some of these California bighorns. Equal drawing odds. Yeah. They've got California and Rocky's, of course, basically the same species as far as boot and crockett's concerned. But at the same time, some of those California bighorn units definitely a little bit easier. Fire success. Yeah, down in that lower desert, some of them can be early season hot. But anyway, definitely look at those. Montana, no-brainer. Biggest Rockies out there. Having said that, we have not drawn. We have max points and we keep trying. Tough to draw up there in the state of Montana, but well worth doing. Nevada. California.

You know, we've got the California bighorns usually. There's four. There is, again, this year, four units available to non-residents. Apply for all four. You get five choices on your application. Rocky hasn't been available for, what, eight or ten years maybe? Yeah, it's been a while ever since they had the die-off up there in the rubies and whatnot. So anyway, and then Utah, for you non-residents, you know, here at Residence, we have to choose. One of the ones in lifetimes. One of the other species. And general deer. And then you guys get to do everything. So no-brainer. I guess we'll talk about Wyoming. Wyoming has been one of those over the years. If you have a bunch of points built up, 75% of the tags go to the people with the most points. And the other 25% go randomly. So because of that system, there's only five tags. Or five units, sorry, that actually even give a random tag.

Units 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. So if you don't have, let's just say 17 points or more, you should be applying for unit 1 through 5. Because you're not even in the draw. You're wasting your application somewhere else. And now that they have increased the fees slightly and the bonus point fee to $150, it's getting pretty costly out of pocket every year to do a Wyoming sheep. You don't have a choice to participate in the point system or not. Even if the point system isn't going to help you because you'll never have enough points to force a draw on one of the 75% of the tags. You still got to pay it. They are going to take it out of your refund. So, yeah. So, anyway, as Adam says, definitely we apply, you know, units 1 through 5 unless you can force a draw somewhere. Unlike a lot of other states, if they give one tag in a lot of other states, it'll go to the random guy. It'll go to anybody.

And everybody's eligible for that. Not the case in Wyoming. It doesn't matter what you're talking about. First three tags. First three tags go to preference. Some of the elk units don't have random draws. So, you know, if there's only two or three tags, you go into the preference point holders. End of story. It's very similar to Colorado in that respect until you get to that fourth tag. Yep. All right. Yeah, we do. New Mexico, I guess you'd lump it just like we did the desert. It has two guided tags and one unguided every year for Rockies. Very tough drawing odds. If you've got the money on your card, $3,200 to apply for sheep in New Mexico. You get to do both sheep for the same cost. They don't charge you $3,200 each. All right, sheep or sheep. Well, first choice would be, you know, deserts or Rockies, and then the units you want under that.

It'll give you kind of a subcategory as far as your application is concerned, and same thing on the Rockies. Oregon, we've drawn Oregon tags. Of course, we've talked about that, but that's probably one of the, you know, highlights of Oregon in regards to, you know, being able to have an opportunity to draw a tag. No points associated with sheep or goats, but while you're doing it, you might as well kind of plug in for some of the other species. Yeah, $8, you can get your deer and elk points. It's a Washington well-established point system, and they square your points, so it's a little bit, I think, overwhelming to look at that. And a $110 sheep application up there, realizing how far you are behind. The odds are really, really bad for Washington sheep. $110 just starting into a squared point system that's been around a long, long time. Same pool with the residents.

It's pretty tough to justify, but if you're, you know, no hunting license to purchase, so it's just about $110. I'm rounding on cost there, but not a no-brainer to apply for sheep there. So, goats and moose, where do we want to do that? Should we do it? All right, so as far as goats, must apply for states. You know, Colorado, of course, you can gain points. That's going to change a little bit, too. That'll change. Same kind of thing. Odds are going to get bad in three or four years from now. That's right. And there's units you can do, you know, easily enough, self-guided. I've been down there with Roger Smithson, a good friend of mine, and we just backpacked it and killed a goat. And then same thing with my dad. He drew a G7 and enjoyed that hunt as well. And so, anyway, great opportunities there. Idaho, if you're not doing anything else in Idaho, throw in for a goat, I guess.

If you did choose goat, you can't do anything else, so that's it. And then Montana, Adam, you've drawn a goat up there in Montana? I think that was about the third year they started a point system, 2003. Yeah. So, just got lucky and drew, killed a nice billy, and I'm back in again. He had a seven-year wait, and I'm back in. It's a lot of goats in Montana. Did you take your bear spray? I didn't back then. I had a gun. One gun between you and your brother. Well, I don't remember what he had, but all I had to do was run faster than him. You did see grizzly tracks, didn't you? Oh, yeah. We saw those. Oh, yeah. And then Wyoming is one we probably can't forget when it comes to goats. No point system for the goat. A little bit unique. They have them for the sheep and the moose. Not enough goat tags probably to justify an overall point system. At least that's probably why they haven't done it.

Only three units to apply for. One unit. Unit three has two different seasons. But not a tremendous high number of goat tags, but it's strictly random. They do make you pay the over $2,000 up front. Deadlines, you know, end of February. So you may be in the hat for that or not. And then as far as, yeah, Oregon, can't forget. It's got some great goats up there. And it's, again, $8 if you're applying for other things. So anyway, might throw in for that. Non-residents, of course. No-brainer. Add goats. We can't do it if we're doing anything else once in a lifetime species-wise as residents. Same with Nevada. $15 if added on. They added it back last year. I don't know if they're going to do this year. I haven't seen it. Yeah. I actually have seen it, but I haven't looked at that. They brought it back last year. It's been absent for a while. But anyway, so.

Yeah, as far as bison, definitely Utah and Wyoming. You know, Utah's a no-brainer. Easy to do. You don't have to front the money. Wyoming might be a little bit different case for some guys. Yeah, I'm sure they jack the money. $2,500 or so for a cow and $45 for a bull. Not cheap. Not cheap. No. Then you get to other states. You know, there's issues like, yeah, Montana. You're hunting them out of the north and northwest side of Yellowstone Park late. Can be tough. This year was a really, really tough hunt. We did have a good friend of ours, Rick French, kill an awesome bull on that hunt this year. He's a resident. He had a lot of days. You're counting on snow moving bison out of Yellowstone Park off to, you know, huntable areas. Similarly, Arizona's got them in Unit 12, 12A around Grand Canyon.

They weren't put there, but they found a place where they could be left alone, and that was the park. And there's a lot of them. They like to run to the park. And they've had a lot of meetings about what to do with them. Those bison that are harboring in the park. They have a couple different applications for them in Arizona. They're very, very tough to get. And, you know, one of the season application period has a very liberal season date. That's right. The other one has a little short ones. That's right. And you get points on each one. So you get effectively two points a year. It's the only place I know that we can do that. That's right. So, anyway, pretty, that kind of in a nutshell didn't really mean it to be such a grundle of information. And kind of, was it boring? It feels boring. Well, we talk about this stuff. So if it comes across as we're rambling too fast, we're sorry.

We are here every day as members of Epic Outdoors or consultants here at Epic Outdoors for you members to call. Your $100 membership, it gets you the magazine to use as a tool to break down the states each month. We want to help you decide what you want to do and what personal application strategy or state species you want to add. But in addition to that, we've done this for decades. And so give us a call if you have Unit X or Y to bounce off of us or run through a quick goat or a sheep application strategy or whatever. Something that's not clear in the magazine. That's part of your membership. That's what we're here to do. So it's hard to throw it all out there in an hour, hour and a half podcast. What we think you should do. It's not a one size fits all. We kind of run through it all. The magazine will go in much more depth to break it down. Let's see.

With all that information, are you guys ready to play? You're fired up. Anything you're going to add to your strategy? What did you think? Well, I don't know. Yeah. There's all sorts of stuff to think about. You know, the changing state systems is something you've got to think about. I mean, just like you said, you're waiting for a mentor thing in Colorado or something. Or, you know, these states change. And you look at Arizona, and that one will kick you in the teeth if you said, you know what, I'm never going to be in that max point pool, and so I'm not going to apply. That one will get you. Yeah. You know? And then next thing you know, all of a sudden they start giving random tags. They start doing some other things. And then you're like, oh, shoot. That's what happened.

A lot of people, you know, applied, like for Arizona, the max point draw, got drawn on deer, call it a wash, be done with it. And then all of a sudden they give random tags. And you get more names in the hat for every point you have. And we hear about these guys drawing random tags. And they do. And so then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I wish I would have done that. And that's the one thing I think about. If people changing systems can be in your favor. And you can't predict it. And it could hurt you. It could help you. If you can afford it, just build points. It gives you options in the future. And I know there's a couple of examples that we've kind of told you about, like Colorado elk that we've told you. It's not. If they were to ever change that system, you might be saying, oh, I'm glad I have some points.

So I guess if it's cheap enough for you, which it kind of is now, you don't have to front it. There's an instance that, okay, build some points, even if you have no idea what you're going to do with something. And it's a no-brainer in the states like Utah, Nevada, Arizona that make you buy a license. Just get the points for the extra $10 and all those. You can't buy time. That's why I told a couple of kids that came up to us at the expo, you know, do everything you can do to get the points. You cannot buy time. And there'll be a time in your life when your finances change and you'll wish you had had those points. You can't buy them. So anyway, it's a pretty awesome opportunity. For everybody that's still with us, let's give them a little something-something. Should we do a giveaway? Yeah. Let's do a giveaway. What are we going to give? We've got an epic knife. Let's throw that out there.

Nobody has it. Let's throw an epic knife in there. Awesome knife. I've not seen one out there that I like quite as much as this. It's got the longer, thicker blade. It's not going to break on you. Yeah. Built by Outdoor Edge. Super sharp, replaceable blade. Killer knife. Awesome. Changing it. You're not taking your life in your own hands. It is true. Okay. Keep your fingers changing that blade. I might be. You might be, but. And then, let's see. So let's do an Outdoor Edge knife. It's laser etched with the Epic logo. Freaking awesome deer. And then, so we'll do that. Let's do maybe a hat. And what should we give away from Under Armour? Ooh. Ooh, ooh. Come on. Fat Tire Boots. Fat Tire Boots? Okay. Let's do a pair of Fat Tire Boots. Fat Tire Boots, Hat, Epic Knife. We'll do all three. And should we do the promo code? They go to a website. Epic Outdoors.com. Yeah. Epic Outdoors.com.

Podcast section. And then in there, there's a place you can put in a code. Let's put in the code APPLYNOW. APPLYNOW. APPLYNOW. P-L-Y-N-O-W. APPLYNOW. So let's do that. We'll give away an Epic Knife, a hat, and a pair of Fat Tire Boots of your size. How long do we have to do? We'll give you about a week to enter for that. So starting on February 28th, a week from then. Okay. So sounds good. Got a week from the time you hear this basically to get in. So APPLYNOW is the code. Anything else as we wrap up, boys? No, just another thing to put out. You know, we talked a lot about APPLYNOW. But when you draw a good tag, let us know about it. Whether you're going to need an outfitter or you need another Epic Outdoors member to talk with about it, we've got the Epic Member Experience database that we can send out to you.

So there's a purpose to all this madness, all this APPLYNOW that we're doing, you know, lines in the water. Jason, as we said earlier, there's a purpose to it, and that's to get drawn and go hunting. And so when that happens, let us help set it up. However we know how. Maybe we have personal experience in a unit. Maybe we don't. But if you need an outfitter, we work with the best all over the western states. We've vetted them. We know who we're talking about when we say go with this guy or this individual here or this individual there. And if you are a self-guided individual, take advantage of that Epic Member Experience database. So got something for everybody. So good luck in the draws. And apply, apply, apply. So good luck to that one. JOY JOY