EP 64: Getting More Tags in Your Pocket with The Epic Outdoors Crew

there's just no reason guys shouldn't be getting tags maybe you don't have a lot of points maybe you're waiting for something awesome what can you do this year there's a lot of deer tags down there if you just want opportunity deer hunts with multiple weapons anything to do with western big game welcome to the epic outdoors podcast powered by under armor hey everybody jason carter here along with the epic outdoors crew uh just got done working on the magazine all night and uh we're right here bright eyed and bushy tailed here this morning so anyway uh we just thought well heck man we started talking about all the tags and what's going on here in the office and what we got planned and stuff and so anyway we just thought maybe we would start a podcast talk about getting tags and talk about some of these over the counter easy to draw awesome

opportunities there's just no reason guys shouldn't be getting tags one way or another so if we want to thank under armor for sponsoring this podcast and everything else we do and uh as well as outdoor edge knives outdoor edge knives is on board with us of course we've got uh some of you have seen some of the private labeled stuff we've got uh etched outdoor edge knives coming in bulk we do have a few here in the office but they are coming in bulk and uh we're kind of excited about that really excited actually so it'll be a promotional uh item here later on this fall so anyway um as we get started here uh of course we're right in the middle of the draw process there's just freaking tags and statistics and everything going every which way everybody's planning planning stuff we got jeff going to the great white

north jason going to the land down under not literally but you know he's going south not the thunder down under i wasn't thinking that i must have missed something what's this line down under just we're covering it all western north america that's the what we're trying to convey but we're you know we were talking we seems like we get calls or we hear other people talking about oh hunting sucks there's no you can't get tags anywhere you know everything's a draw blah blah and there is some truth to that in a lot of the cases of the west but depending on how much you have time to do you have you could have more tags to fill up your schedule than you're going to have time we that's the case for us more tags we yeah we we can't have more tags than you can use we can hunt we can do justice and yeah not all of them are henry mountains or san juan elk tags you know those just

come around when they come around yeah but yeah let's right so in between some of the steps yeah so in between some of getting some of these awesome wazoo crazy awesome tags like an arizona strip or sheep or goater moose or whatever there's a lot of things you can be doing and that's what kind of what we wanted to talk about this morning is things that you can do when you're just starting out maybe you don't have a lot of points maybe you're waiting for something awesome what can you do this year like what can you do now um and can i only do one or can i do multiple is there how many opportunities are there available so we just wanted to kind of talk about that uh arizona has over-the-counter deer tags you can hunt in august you can hunt in january 95 of the state you know except for strip and kaibab those areas are drawn a couple of other exceptions there's some other limited

percent of the state is open yep and so and you can get a tag now you can only kill one deer a year but uh anyway if you were to hunt let's say let's say you hunted january 2018 a couple months ago you hunted archery you went down there you hunted coos deer you didn't kill one you could still draw a tag this fall and kill a deer this rifle yeah let's say you bought an over-the-counter tag in january you killed a deer with a bow got lucky awesome hunt you cannot kill one this fall you'd be applying for points only so anyway but you can go if you want to go you can hunt some of them the most premier coos deer units over the counter with a bow during the rut so anyway tons of opportunities there same thing with idaho idaho you can get over-the-counter deer tags in idaho and elk and elk tags and rifle and

archery elk they do have one archery deer that's right they do have non-resident quotas some of them fill up for elk like diamond creek zones full for this year it filled up i think december 14th but it's a first come first serve non-resident quota you can do that if you want to do that a lot of areas you still buy tags right now that aren't in a sub quota they're just in the non-resident you know lumped some of non-resident elk tags that's right come out of that same with deer deer have a quota but it's so high i mean i don't remember when it's even been selling out even it's sold out october after the season started last year and we can get this a second tag of the residents that aren't filled up so you can get a second over-the-counter tag as non-residents and so you know white tails over the counter mule deer over the counter have at it there's some limited entry

units obviously same kind of principles here in utah same principle in in wyoming some areas are more managed for a general status not trophy status per se but there's still some trophy bucks being taken in lesser managed quote areas so anyway so you can kill great bucks there was great bucks taken in idaho there's great bucks taken on our quote general units here in utah and our general units here in utah are easy to draw two-point system one for the limited entry one for the general and you can get them both and you can draw the general fairly regular even from a non-resident perspective especially if you're well versed in all the weapon types uh same thing with the dedicated hunter we've talked about easy to draw really easy about a 40 draw on some of the even higher demand general areas

here in utah with zero points and so they do have points for the dedicated hunter just just saying there's a lot of opportunities for that you know here in the state of utah as well montana general deer and elk tags the combo up there is like 90 91 you get a general season deer and elk tag good for both the archery and the rifle season in the majority let's just say that the state you know what all of western montana with a few exceptions is where the general season don't elk units occur and so if you have plenty of time you got a six-week archery season about a five-week rifle season super liberal now yeah some of the units you've got issues with wilderness and access but there's a lot that you don't you can do self-guided go just research something go learn it we're going to do some of that this year as well as

idaho just for the sake of learning something because you need to line your schedule with things like this when you you don't draw everything through the draw that's premier montana's a great opportunity if you know deadlines coming right up no and we had a guy kill a 375 inch bull on a general montana tag doesn't feel like you can do it every year felt like you got lucky but at the same time they're out there and so these opportunities exist same thing with colorado we beat colorado to death so i don't want to talk about it like way too much but it's something we fill a lot of questions on every single day maybe 20 questions 20 calls a piece on colorado every single day colorado has a lot of second and third choice type opportunities for guys to draw we have stories in our magazines from guys that are

killing big bucks on second or third choice uh hunts in the state of colorado if you draw those you can still gain a point so in theory i'm not calling them over the counter but they're liking over the counter opportunity all five of us here have killed bucks on units that take at the time we drew them zero to two points to draw that are 190 plus bucks yes every one of us that's right i mean and multiple most of the time um so even though they're seven 175 let's just throw it out there john you've hunted 63 i've 135 18 not even hunt a big buck in 18. 43s and all these weird ones bronson kills a 200 inch so it's just and and even now not having to just get a second choice there's tags the zero to two point unit options are endless you know you can go every year to every other year easily on units that hey

have great genetics if you get the right weather combination you might have as good a hunt as somebody in a six to ten point unit if you get the right weather and snow combination talk to a lot of members that have hunted units that aren't even on our radar stuff that's you know with one point guarantees you a draw so obviously it's it's best if you're well versed in any weapon type you're an archery hunter you're going to draw a lot quicker than rifle hunters quote quicker they're still like i say we've been talking about a lot of rifle opportunities that are basically over the counter second third choice um depending on the state we're talking about oregon tons of over-the-counter opportunities not maybe one of our go-to states um although we've had friends that have gone up there and done fairly well considering the state but uh you know you can get over-the-counter opportunities

for guys who like to go to oregon or live close to oregon say you're in washington or something like that kansas you can get tags for whitetails they're generally 90 percent draw with 90 plus percent draw if not 100 depending on the unit in the state of kansas for whitetails you can go when you want to go we do recommend for guys maybe get one point just have one point for the year that you want to go to make sure you're going to get drawn on the year you want to go you can't just get a mule deer tag when you want to get one um you do have to apply for those mule deer stamps and they are fairly tough to draw generally you know just going to shoot from the hip 20-ish but anyway awesome opportunities you can go when you want to go so what are you grinning about bronson just watching you go

all right i'm done it's your turn how about it you know i think that's a pretty good rap you know when you start to get to other states like you know new mexico you know there's there's some forced draw stuff down there with deer outside of the top handful of units but um you know you know they are draw tags in new mexico but there's a lot of deer tags down there if you just want opportunity deer hunts with multiple weapons whether it be mule deer or coos archery muzzleloader stuff in the central or southern part of the state they're easy to get and we realize that not all of them have great trophy potential but our our whole i guess reason for bringing this up is sometimes the draws and the drawing odds can get people down and discouraged like this is terrible and for some people if you're way on the east coast or you know whatever if you're even out west and you have a real busy job

and leaving work is you know time and money out of your out of your life to go do an average hunt that's probably not something you're always looking to do but these are all just maybe things for you to keep in mind that one year when you know you're not going to have anything or or even if it's mid-summer and you think about some of these things like the idaho or the arizona keep them all in mind because things change schedules change and all of a sudden you're you weren't thinking you could go hunting and now you're like i wish i had applied for something instead of points only all year long well here's some options for you that's exactly right so another thing i want to talk about real quick um is the the guide draws within the state of nevada as well as new mexico and it may be too late time you guys hear this for the state of nevada as far as the guide draw for deer but the odds are

two to four times um better in the guide draw for rifle deer hunters uh than they are in the regular main draw so yeah you cannot you know there's no archery hunts to apply for there's no muzzle hunter hunts to apply for um but if you're a rifle hunter you're gonna go guided just applying that guide draw it is so much easier when you start looking at what the drawing odds are they're brutal in the main draw compared to especially compared to the guide draw yes especially sneak peek this year to our april magazine which we're working on right now uh finally through a lot of requests and all that um the all five choices has been made readily available that depicts uh nevada applicant choices one through five it's a pretty sobering reflection of how hard nevada tags are to get so for deer definitely keep that in mind it's going to increase your odds dramatically especially if

you're going to book somebody to begin with um no i was just where are you going you're reaching for resources and stuff here just grabbing a thought epic magazines makes me feel at home i was going to talk about the new mexico guy draw real quick um the guide draw in new mexico is an unbelievable opportunity for guys that are going to go guided the drawing odds are incredible a lot easier than the main draw you do have to be contracted with your guy whatever guy of choice that you want to use and it's cut so it's kind of nice to find a guy that's versatile in multiple species because it just makes it easy to put in with with you know with one guy and several different species and and we've got that so if you need any of that you know feel free to call us but whether it's mule deer elk all different sea unlike nevada all different uh you know seasons within the different species

everything has a guide draw or guided odds quote guided tags you know within the state of new mexico residents and non-residents can apply in that draw but generally speaking as it would be in any state the non-residents are the ones that are going guided you know for the most part so um tags i mean literally before we really get into i want to go through each of your schedules i want you to tell me what tags are falling out of your pocket at the moment it just feels like we are so jammed and we haven't even scratched the surface on getting draw results like it is barely starting uh the opportunities are endless and so bronson and i've been talking so i want to hear from jeff and john and chris what's up guys oh man well that is kind of the name of the game for me for years like um you know i wanted to make sure i my schedule is so jammed up every fall basically when it came to having an

opportunity to go hunt i just wanted to be able to know that i had a tag like two years ago before i started here or anything between me and my oldest boy we had seven different mule deer tags so it was just like and i realized you can't do seven mule deer tags true justice but with my schedule i was just too busy all the time that when i got a break i wanted to go i wanted to leave and go hunting and so you know i loaded my tag and my pocket with tags i guess you could say and and so when that time came there i always had a hunt open you know what i mean um between me and my boys i mean it was it was basically we could fill almost every single day between mid-august and i don't know a week into november finishing up with colorado but um but yeah this year it looks like i'm gonna be probably do i'm

gonna try out some general montana stuff which is gonna be fun yeah i'm gonna have the i got my caribou hunt coming up um gonna have so basically archery is gonna be tough this year so i'm not i'm not applying for any archery anywhere strictly going just because of that caribou hunt yes september is gonna conflict with archery dates you know because of the lengthy montana archery out dates you'll you'll hunt there even later even october but i still got to practice with my bow because you know might do something you know of course the the the montana stuff but then also my bear tag oh you know yeah that uh my bear tag in utah after 13 years and those of you those of you that are that are listening to this thinking a bear tag for 13 points i know that's terrible you're right okay we agree you're right yeah yes it's true absolutely we also apply for turkeys here

yes we do i have turkey points but you know i will have i mean i i i think i've missed maybe one year in the past i don't know 15 years 13 years of hunting colorado i've either bought a landowner tag or a you know just a cheap landowner tag just an opportunity to to see something you know what i mean or or i try to draw a tag nearly every year so i very seldom miss colorado not sure i might miss it this year i don't know just depends i i really gotta make my decision on that but i'll put money on that right now and i'll say no you'll be there yeah i'll probably be there i'll take that bet i'll probably be there it's hard to miss it just because you get these zip codes you know that you can get these tags in jeff's like a kid in a candy store oh man he just looks around he's like i want i want oh i can

only choose one you know and then i buy two and i only get to go on one and then he ends up in wyoming and you know 128 without there you go that's true looking at lots of dinks running so now dink is a relative term jason you got it yeah you know a lot of guys would be looking at 170 bucks thinking wow this place is amazing now granted were they 170 good the better ones the better ones were 170 all right so in and amongst jeff i must say you did draw henry's deer tag randomly randomly you did draw rocky mountain tag in utah randomly yes so you had your fair share luck oh yeah yeah and you know when you're looking at it you know i was only two years behind what the max guys were drawing in utah for deer but that equated to over eight years and possibly if everybody jumped over it could have been

12 years before i got that tag oh yeah so so even though you're that close terrible it's random good clean living we'll get you a tag once in a while ain't living clean

well you know the monster in front of me kind of tells a little more than it should so uh all right and so you've got a lot of opportunities you're cranking you're going to do a drop camp in alaska you're going to be up in montana with the rest of everybody that's going to be up there uh and that's not even starting with my kids you know my kids are going to do be doing you know general tags in utah idaho and my wife really told me i got to limit their hunts this year so really come on oh she's crushing us father son time what oh i know i know you're not playing it right let me i know yeah your wife and my wife are sisters yes i'm gonna have a talk with you yeah do it let's see how that goes good luck with that i'm scared he's pleading with you he's pleading with you get me two more weeks yeah yes two more weeks with my boys tell me what's in

it for me because it's quite a nerve-wracking experience you're gonna have a busy fall with your boys too with colton that's the thing and like last year we we uh my kids had more tags than they could use more tags like school and everything else i mean literally tags went unused and and this year it'll be the same way i mean justin's gonna have a general tag here in utah hopefully they get a tag or two in nevada we're definitely playing those odds really heavy um they just got plans we're gonna be doing idaho gonna be doing colorado colton's already drawn an elk tag in wyoming that was his six points and a utah antelope utah antelope at the expo right here behind the house like i mean i'm starting to worry about my own yeah quite frankly keep the pedal down my youngest just turned 12 and it's the first year that i put in and i realized i could have five deer tags in a five

day time period you know for utah general if they all draw five tags what am i gonna do with five tags you know you're trying to kill one i'm gonna fill a couple yes yes which is great with the kids it's not it's not high stress yeah they're just having fun you know i don't know about the high stress john because i saw an instagram post of you basically getting in a fist fight with another individual that was wanted you to shoot over his head yes he did want me to shoot over his head word to the wise if you see me on a point don't set up right under me you're like i guess you didn't want me to shoot over your head huh he's like well don't shoot over my head oh dude you that's a three kids john hunting age this year so that's it factors in i i'm the same jason's the same yeah oh yeah geez john jeff john you guys two what about your kids adam what are you gonna do utah general i

should be able to get that again but yeah uh just debating now um i do have some activity on your on a credit card for arizona the problem is i got five of us on my card so i have no idea it can be i kind of archery me again i don't think so but it's probably i'm banking on it being one of my kids a late rifle hunt you know they you know kids don't have a lot of points and so not that selective uh brand new hunters haven't killed an elk and uh one of my kids has killed a cow out but you know so you know whatever it is will be probably their first bull so if if that's what it ends up being so that should have somebody excited kids are already fighting you know think as if they can control who gets it it's mine i tell them it's done already you got one kid mentoring another kid oh yeah yeah and if it's my wife they're all fighting over who gets the mentor tag from her because that's how

she's willing to play the game there so anyway so that'll factor in but you know call her out i'm weighing out that pretty heavy right now like jason alluded balancing out my schedule knowing that they already are going to have utah general tags and so um they'll have a deer hunt here but like to get them you know they're talking about antelopes maybe we'll do a wyoming can wait wait on that one until later in the year uh end of may see what they do or don't have anywhere else and plan a three-day weekend and go do that so but no it's and they're a lot of fun yeah and uh time is limited seems like i don't know when we were kids well and we couldn't even hunt until we were 14 to 15 in some states so but now when they're hunting at 10 and 12 in every state uh and i don't know i don't want to say there was a lack of emphasis on school when we were kids but there's way more now our kids miss

an afternoon and it feels like they're two weeks behind in school i don't know why it seems that way but it just feels that way it doesn't seem like they're learning more than we learned i know that

they're not any have you ever have you ever had them bring your math homework to you yeah i just so i look at it like that's chinese might as well be go visit your mom so they they're learning stuff but you're right they're doing between sports and just extracurricular stuff and everything life it's uh busy kids are busy so but getting them on a couple of different hunts is is pretty important because that's when you hook them that's when you get them and they're asking about it i mean they're involved every year i mean i know i know jason's kids and and jeff too you know they're it's it's becomes a big deal to them john i know this year being maybe maybe your daughter and your youngest son both first year of applying yeah yep and uh so yeah they're looking forward to it and uh you want to get them

on some hunts so they they want to keep going with that one thing about our license application service we do with a lot of guys we also apply their kids and any kid that's under 18 we do for 100 bucks as long as their parent guardian or whatever is applying as well and so anyway there's a lot of kid hunts per se there's there's arizona hunts in arizona for in large part not the bull hunts you know for elk they're generally antlerless but they do have some deer hunts you know buck hunts better for youth only and same thing with new mexico new mexico's a phenomenal state lots of kid opportunities of kid only uh you know seasons october 6 type stuff stuff that's you know before the adult season and so they're they have opportunities to kill freaking giants i remember sean i had him in new mexico we were hunting we were on a 370 plus inch bull and i'm freaking out he's got a muzzler

we got the ultimate muzzler everything how old is he at the time i don't young 10 10 or 12 i mean well there's no age limit as long as you have 100 you're good i mean he's young it was his first big game animal i know and so anyway we're down there and we're all set up and he's anyway i've got that ultimate and i just didn't have the bolt all the way down it was partially down and he just squeezes the trigger and it's pop nothing and i'm like you're kidding me and it was just a small dent in the primer that particular it had to be all the way down put it all the way down it gives you a little bigger dent a little bit closer just puts the firing pin just a little bit closer freaking didn't get that bull ended up killing a bull but um anyway great opportunity for kids uh whether it be elk or deer even sheep opportunities for kids alone and and the guided pull works for

kids so you can if you're going to go guided anyway because you're non-resident and you're going to you know hire guide or whatever for your kids uh for your kids hunt you should be applying yeah i draw some of the best deer and elk seasons in the state are for kids that's right in new mexico makes me jealous handicapped kids new mexico really does play let's call it playing favorites yeah well they are so it's good you know for all species they've got some for oryx and ibex and sheep and all of them all species antelope everything's got it yeah and we ate tags antelope tags everything there's just not enough time and kids can only do so much and you don't know what you're going to draw so you kind of play it heavy and all of a sudden you're like whoa a little intense i got a lot of mail right there and i don't know where it's all going to be used so anyway um great

opportunities you know nevada changed their fees as far as you know we always had to buy that expensive hunting license for kids to gain points which i've been doing five five of you in there's a thousand bucks yeah it was a grand grand a year i mean you're just like you know how important is it and and so we did it new this year it's cheap dirt dirt cheap to apply them and get them points and start them on that process um so anyway same thing with arizona cheap to get them points you might as well be doing it um five dollar license instead of 160 unbelievable yeah so you know idaho great great state for that too um reduced price license and reduced price permits if the parent has one of the same species buys one of the same species kids can get area for reduced price so and they've got youth only youth only hunts for deer that are really good the the elk i believe most all of them are at

unless it's up there as well but the the deer are awesome my boy drew one of those he drew one of those last year it was during the regular season yeah it's a regular hunt just a subset of tags here's 500 for adults and here's a hundred for youth only so the odds are a lot better for you got it on that secondary draw yeah so you know it's great and uh you know killed a great buck got up there learned a unit had fun killed a great shot so yeah seven well he doesn't let me forget it but you know what i'm a better shot oh man yeah he yeah technically is farther than what i've shot a deer but whatever he'll be listening to this podcast finally got dad dead yeah thanks for bringing that up yeah so anyway just uh you know uh before we get cranking too much further i do want to you know a little shout out to hilleberg hilleberg's been with us for a long time since inception

of epic outdoors the hilleberg tents the tent maker they are awesome some the first great tents we ever had were hilleberg's and you could just roll them out on tundra and you wouldn't even get wet inside it it was like monumental phil felt like a major discovery back then it's it's just awesome to work with some of these companies like hilleberg and that they're so passionate about one thing and and tents and you can talk to her for hours about tents and she can you know tell you about the right way to set it up and the wrong way to set it up and she sees your pictures and she's like that's the wrong way to set that oh you know she crushed me that that podcast was great that that one we did yeah well there was what she doesn't understand is you know you get in at midnight there's rocks everywhere you can't just set it up perfectly make everything taunt and tight you know what i mean

so it is what it is but it is nice and and a lot of our sponsors have been with us since the the get-go i mean we started up and they're on board immediately and so i mean that's a really good way to support us support the podcast go check out our sponsors visit their websites tell them we sent you and it goes a long ways yeah so if you do like talking about tents call them up we're good friends with the people there at hilleberg petra they're awesome you can go to hilleberg.com check them out or you can give them a call at 866-848-8368 tell petra we sent you and if you're going to do something like jeff is which is a drop camp for caribou and anything else that he can kill that he might have a tag in his pocket for you're gonna need a four season four season tent not a little k mart walmart

tent yeah jeffrey i think what have you told your wife about some of these expenditures that are coming up no but she warned me she she pre-warned me that there was going to be extra expenses i'm like i'm like oh it won't be that bad and then i started adding up i'm like it's gonna be bad spread it out over time so start now start by even though our wives are sisters i don't want them playing too close together because if your wife affects my wife which affects my hunting and my expenditures i'm gonna have a problem with you jeff i tell you though there are benefits there are some great benefits of of a guy like jason being your brother-in-law because because you know when he's been gone for how many months weeks whatever you can always tell your wife i can always say well you could have it worse yeah i'm going for two weeks jason's been gone for six so i'll take that yeah and now

guess what she can't say well it's all just for fun jeff because you work here jeff yeah that's true you work here i don't know if she sees it the same way but yeah but anyway uh so anyway i don't know is there anything else we wanted to talk about i think we need to hear from chris he's always the sly one around the office never quite sure what he's got up his sleeve what he's working on uh so let's have it went in without a word yeah it's like utah was pretty uneventful because i know i'm not going to draw anything um you're gonna get i mean i got dedicated so i'm gonna go on that that's my one hunt that i'm definitely gonna do um i've been toying around with a bunch of stuff i still don't know exactly because there's nothing that i know that i'm going to draw at this point um i could draw a colorado elk the ones i really do want to go on only require one to two points and i've

got 10. so i'm trying to figure out okay well do i just go this year and then start going on these ones that i really want to go on with one to two points um i've been on some deer hunts in the past where i've seen really nice bulls um in colorado and they're one to two point units that's where i want to go but i've got 10 points so i'm trying to figure out i got to get that off my plate um i may figure out how to do that this year um but i've just been looking at options on that there's so many different things you can do i've been just crunching odds and looking um maybe there's a a chance in some obscure unit where i can have an elk tag and a deer tag in the same unit so i can scout and get all that done for elk and deer yeah he brought in some weird ones yesterday for us there was some stuff in left field you know archery deer or something wasn't it yeah he came brought in

i'm like whoa so the gears are turning in that other office over there some of that stuff getting brought my way i've been going through stuff just trying to figure out you know there's just so many options and it's worth taking a little bit of time to see what the possibilities are right now you get a couple of early states like uh wyoming elk out of the way boom you get results back quick all right that one i can plan around it now we're in the core right now this six week period where it feels like 75 of the states are all coming due and you've got you know no idea what you're going to draw within those states so that's exactly right so that's exactly right it's a lot of fun we keep on planning and then all of a sudden you're just like whoa between uh you know you're doing a sheep hunt i'm doing a brown bear hunt then we then you add on you know like jeff's and you know

caribou hunting and so you've got a couple you know you do that and then pretty soon you know you add on a kid tag or two and then you just start pretty soon you're busy you're full and so the one thing about chris you know if you ever you remember being in high school can't wait for this do you ever remember being in high school and your dad wanted you to go hunting and really you wanted to kind of stay home because the cute girls were back at school and everything chris isn't married and sometimes i'm like i'm not sure he's ready to get out of the house yet because he ain't married we're ready to get out of the house go on right chris he's like i don't know if there's some cute girls back at home i could do a date here and a date there and how important are these points anyway

it's more accurate is i live out of the house i'm never home like i'm i'm constantly doing something if it's not hunting with somebody else then i'm gonna be like a stray cat false this is a hand hunt with him he's got a gal backpacking wyoming for a bear in four feet of snow how was that it sucked this is false advertising

you find out if they're gonna stick with you on the second hunt after you take on one of them like that there you go that's right you weed them out pretty quick all right well that's about it we just wanted to kind of do a quick podcast as far as just uh you know there's just a lot of opportunities out there there's a ton of things you can do about anything and uh you know yeah you're not gonna be hunting henry mountains every time and yeah you there are guys with 20 23 plus points in colorado wondering what to do those are good problems to have they're really good problems to have i used to have a good friend of mine be like you know it's just terrible i gotta pay pay a grundle of taxes i'm like well how much and it was tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars hundreds you know like a wealthy guy i'm like well that means you made a lot of money you know and so anyway that's kind of

the way it is here there are a lot of opportunities in the hunting world especially western big game so anyway that's about it you guys have anything else one of the things i want to highlight is don't be afraid to go on a lesser quality hunt don't be afraid to fail go learn something i mean i've killed actually my best buck on a unit i didn't i knew nothing about at the time it was an unknown unit but just go out and learn stuff don't be afraid to to go somewhere and fail just take it as a learning experience to get out hunt and you may find a hidden gem or something like that that that i mean like utah for instance it's the general it's not known to be that great but it is close to home for us so somewhere you can go and spend a lot of time and put in the time that's where you're going to be successful so if you live in idaho get out in idaho and maybe a lesser tag general spend time

just spend some time don't be afraid to get out there that's the i'd also add too is in the last 10 to 15 years there's hunts that i've wrote off that are now good again yeah within a 10 or 15 year and so all of a sudden i'm quick going there whether it's colorado or looking at it and um you know utah general units or something like that that were terrible just the the stars realign some of these units come and go you get a bunch of years of good moisture a bunch of fawn crops um and four or five years later there's a lot of bucks to be had again and we're seeing that colorado we're seeing some of that some of the as we've talked about there's a lot of good in colorado right now not as much elite great units but not as many loads of those but there's some units that really took it in the in the shorts that are starting to get okay pretty good again

some big bucks coming out of them that's 100 right and i and i agree with you and i want to i want to reiterate what you guys are talking about is things change you know um units areas regions whatever there we've seen some major change in the last 15 years whether it be like when when i was hunting sheep here in utah on my desert hunt dang lucky to kill 160 inch rev dang lucky now they're killing them somewhat regular units that weren't good before are now really good 160s and 170s with nevada genetics nevada transplant few things like that burns some of these elk units adam 127 burned off you know some of these burns in nevada there's just things change things become awesome they kind of cycle a bit and we're seeing that and we're writing about that in the publication and it creates opportunities it creates opportunities for guys that do like to trophy hunt and do want to try to

maximize their tags and so and i and i really liked what you guys were saying about don't be afraid to fail we are going to have some podcasts in the future on let's say you you know i got a tag i've never been there how do you guys go about making the most of that tag how do you start how do you finish what do you do you know to help yourself out and so we're going to discuss those probably with maybe some specific tags that we have here in the next couple months maybe we'll take some specific tags we've got and say hey how are you approaching your montana general yeah yeah for you know idaho generals or colorado easy get whatever something you've never been to it just we realize a lot of people can get either overwhelmed or a little bit intimidated where to start i've got this tag it's

an x around a you know a couple highways and a mountain range and how to really digest and break it down and find out where you should start looking um for the specific season you're going to be there for we have had a few requests for you know like that like i was saying from start to finish starting up something new and just going out and doing it we've also maybe had a few requests for guys just slow it down a minute teach me a little bit more and and you know especially from guys that may be a little bit intimidated to call it call adam or i or jeff and visit with us about some of their draw strategies thinking their questions are dumb i want you to know there's no question that's dumb um just call us and visit with us and let's get you started on on a program or any particular tags that you have we

love talking about that kind of stuff and uh and like i say in the next few podcasts we'll do not maybe just the next few but in the next short amount of time we will have a few podcasts on how we do it we've hunted we're gonna hunt new units this year everything we've done was new to us at one point in our life and uh and you just gotta venture out and do it and and you do eat a lot of tags and it is not so fun at times but at the same time there's a lot of reward that comes from it um you know a lot of satisfaction of going out and seeing new country and and uh making it happen and uh as long as your expectations are somewhat reasonable um that you're you're gonna have a good time no matter what well that's one of the great things about these tags that are more available to get is you can get

more than one tag go with a buddy and and then share that experience sometimes even if you're not successful you know you have a great time i remember a hunt with kurt where we both had tags he shot a 190 inch buck and that was the only four point we saw the whole time but it was an awesome time well i didn't shoot one it's still lots and lots of fun some of these hunts you're talking about here too the you don't have the pressure riding on you of 10 to 20 years of points that i've got to milk every degree of enjoyment trophy quality everything out of this tag you know we we have some tags like that that that naturally you're going to feel pressure sheep tags or elite deer and elk tags they're going to come with that self-imposed sometimes expectation sometimes we let our hunting buddies or whoever else kind of dictate well you ought to be able to kill a 380 on that huh and you're like

do you really realize how hard a 380 bull is to kill how many have you killed yeah that's right so you know but but a lot of these is you know you're gonna have to the reality of hunting the west is there's a lot of opportunities still out there that you can hunt regularly and yeah you're not always going to hit a home run but you're going to learn stuff you're going to hit one now and then and that's just part of a hunting schedule as far as we're concerned eating tags and having stuff every year we go on a hunt or two that is just i wish we had to just save that week off my life but we've also hit hit home runs on you know stuff where we didn't expect to do it jason's done that on a couple elk units in new mexico we've done that in deer in colorado sometimes stuff just happens and uh it's not going to happen if you only wait for a great tag to come across your you know mailbox it's

not going to happen that often if you just wait you know i'm going to put in a little plug for the service here um that kind of sets is sets us apart a little bit you know most podcasts can you ever call in and talk to the hosts about a specific unit or a specific idea that you're bouncing around in your head well i'll tell you with ours if you're a member call in or if you're not a member get joined up call in you're going to talk to you can talk to jason and adam about these you can talk to me a little bit you know just just whatever works but i will put that plug in for us that that you might be listening to this thinking man i wish i knew a little bit more about that idaho thing or that colorado thing or whatever we expect members to call us we expect guys to call us and talk to us about this stuff so so don't think that it's just an invisible voice somewhere you you guys can call

us and chat with us about this stuff i mean that is what our service entails yeah and if you're looking for a hunt that's guaranteed tag email jeff there you go hunts at epic outdoors.com hunts at epic outdoors.com i do uh as we're wrapping up here i do want to also thank another advertiser of ours old mark thompson of thompson long range um anyway awesome guys him and his boy scotty thompson they're awesome guys anyway we did uh give a thompson long range rifle away at the expo we bought it and gave it away at the expo and just appreciate them we've talked to them many times he swears he can have you a gun in one week with a couple boxes of shells and you can shoot as far as you dare to shoot and so anyway uh we did have a guy that drew a couple of tags didn't even own a rifle he was a bird hunter he was a waterfowl last year last year and and i told him hey call thompson

and get a gun it's the most affordable gun that can actually shoot any kind of yardage whether it be 500 you need to have a gun that can shoot and uh and mark did the job for him and he went out and he freaking killed some deer and elk both so on tags we drew him in the license app service he's like i want to go this year boom got him two tags and so anyway great guys very affordable not all these guns are eight to ten grand very very affordable super guys to work with and uh and they're using a reputable rifle a weatherby so in many different calibers so yeah you ought to go out and check out the are on our youtube channel jeff went up and went through his course and there's a ton of information even if you're not in the market or not looking at that rifle specifically there's a ton of information

there on long range shooting on setting up rifles so just go to youtube.com and search epic outdoors go to our channel scroll through there find uh find the thompson long range videos on there tons of information so yep i was uh i went through mark's course you know it was the first time i ever shot a thousand yards with mark thompson and a gun i had um that i got from him so anyway don't believe everything he tells you uh you know he does like to throw a few little pointers and tidbits out there about people here in the office and it's just not true so but anyway thompsonlongrange.com 435-713-4248 so appreciate them and their support of epic anyway that route wraps it up for today boys i just wanted to you know of course we we get on a rant we're here in the office sometimes uh been here since i don't know

132 trying to crank out statistics and write in the magazine and we're all very actively involved in this next april issue and uh so then everybody comes in the office and get a break and we start ranting about something and we jump in the podcast room and just thought we'd throw a few few ideas out there for guys that are looking for something to do without burning a ton of points that's all i had to say how about you boys over and out all right all right

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