EP 66: Applying in Nevada, Montana, and Kansas with Jason Carter and Adam Bronson

Montana is a little bit different. They actually tell you these are the units non-rosin is going to apply for. The desert sheep seasons have been extended to January 1st. Kind of cool. What were the odds last year and was there non-rosin applicants? Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson, along with Chris Peterson sitting at the computer making sure everything's recorded just perfectly. Coming at you from Cedar City, sushi capital of the world. Huh, Bronson? Had some sushi today? All these people from the coastal states are laughing about us inland people claiming that we've got the sushi capital of the world. Well, they think that we don't have any culture here, and that's just not true. Frozen fish over ice, that's what we're eating. We get sick every other day we go there. So, anyway, before we jump in the middle of it all, we do want to thank Under Armour. I'm not as good as Chris. Chris always says, powered by Under Armour. But, anyway, it is powered by Under Armour, and we appreciate them and their support.

We've been using their gear for a lot of years, and we appreciate them and all that they do for us here at Epic, as well as our membership. I did want to highlight one of the pieces of their gear, the boot that I wear dang near every day. It's a fat tire boot we wore at the expo. It's nice because it's just got a little quick clasp. There's no shoelaces or anything to tie it. So, anyway, it's nice. It's awesome. Very comfortable. Feels like you're walking on pillows. But, anyway, awesome for early season hunting, antelope, early season archery deer, and things like that. But, anyway, I have fell in love with the boot, and I wear it nearly every day. So, anyway, we also wanted to kind of highlight the winner of our last giveaway was Matt Lee. He won a pair of fat tire boots, an epic hat, and an epic knife from Outdoor Edge. So, anyway, that was awesome. Appreciate him.

Good luck with all that free gear. And, if we remember, we're going to give something away at the end of this podcast. So, Adam and I just wanted to kind of come at you today with a little bit different angle. Highlight the April 2018 issue. It's Volume 3, Issue 4 of the Epic Outdoors magazine. Those of you who don't know, we do a hunting magazine. It's once a month, December through June, and then it's bimonthly after that. Because we're out hunting. You're out hunting. And the statistics, for the most part, are over with. So, these really, we really highlight the state draws, what to apply for, when to do it, and how to do it, and the different seasons and species and all kinds of options. And do it in a manner which you can look at it, apply for yourselves, and get cranking. If you don't have time to do it, of course, we do it for you. We have a service for that.

In addition to the $100 membership. The $100 membership, you can call in any time. We answer phone calls all the time from people that have questions about applying across the West. So, anyway, in this particular issue, which came out yesterday, we had it done for a couple days, just kind of holding on to it a little bit. But we did publish it. It's out there on our Epic Outdoors website, epicoutdoors.com. You can go log in and check it out. And, of course, it'll be in print at your doorstep, hopefully very soon. Pretty important to mention that, Jason, because April issue, Nevada is always one of those states that has a mid-month application deadline. A lot of states have it at the end of the month, the first of the month, something like that. But Nevada comes at us earlier, April 16th. So it's going to perhaps be key for you. Jump online, strategize. Application period just opened up.

Yeah. And so you can apply. Got our little postcards in the mail that help remind us all. So it's eMAG's up and working online. I encourage you to go check it out. And we'll break it down the best we can here for you today as well. Yeah. In this magazine, we've also got Kansas. Just more like an alert. It's a pretty short section. Of course, we talk about whitetails and mule deer and the drawing odds for both, as well as like the mule deer stamp and the ins and outs of that. And so we cover that one as well as the sheep, moose, goat, bison, and antelope in Montana. Yep. Those are due May 1st for those species. We also do cover the antelope for Montana. That isn't due until June 1st. But we'll get into those in just a minute. And it just maybe is a little bit of an overview as well. Maybe some things to be heads up on. Wyoming Game and Fish has their formal grizzly bear hunting regulation,

proposed hunting regulations out on their website. If you look at my article at the front, Adam Bronson, I just did kind of a spring, you know, alert. I detailed some of the information in there that's at least out for proposal right now. They're accepting public comment for through the end of April. I highly encourage every listener to go take advantage of going to Wyoming Game and Fish website and provide positive feedback as to it's about time. A themed message to hunt grizzlies again. They were delisted from a threatened species last summer. Wyoming Game and Fish has pushed forward with proposing season dates, application period this July. Going to be obviously tightly regulated. They're not going to just turn everybody loose with grizzly bears tags. But it's a start, much like it was with wolves at some point. And so we highly applaud their efforts for doing that.

We know they're going to get plenty of feedback and comment from aptly hunters and everybody else right now. So go to Wyoming Game and Fish's website, wgfd.wio.gov. Click on the Get Involved Public Meetings link to view the proposed Wyoming Grizzly Bear Hunting Regulations. Again, those are due. You can do them online. You can print it and mail it in if you want. But really easy just to do an online web survey there by April 30th. Then on May 23rd, Wyoming Game and Fish Commission will meet and ratify the hunting regulations for grizzly bear for the fall of 2018. And so pretty big deal. Haven't been off the docket since 1975, which is, I don't know, maybe that was when we were young pups. Very young. Maybe even in diaper. Well, maybe just in the womb. I don't know. Very, very, very, very young. And so anyway, you may provide your comments.

Like Adam said, by April 30th, we encourage you to do that. Anyway, there is that survey. It's wgfd.wio.gov backslash wgfd underscore web survey and provide your comments. And so anyway, you know, it is going to be about six grand for a non-resident tax. $600 for a resident, 6,000 for a non-resident. So there's going to, and just to point out this so you don't flood their inbox with, why are you so expensive? The legislature set those. This public comment period right now, those proposed fees are not up for negotiation. They're not going to change. For this year. Don't bombard them with their screw in the non-resident. We realize that seems very high and excessive, which it is. So, but the legislature set those if and when they're ever going to be hunted again. And right now, Game and Fish can't just lower those and change those for this fall's hunt.

So they're really looking at the regulation in general. Quotas, subquotas, female subquotas. You can read about that. But more or less, they just need positive feedback regarding, you know, hunting grizzly bears again under a limited draw system. So, if we're to tell you what to write in there, say, I love the fact we're going to hunt grizzlies. Don't say anything else but that. We applaud it, support it, and we want it. And so, anyway, six grand does seem high, but you know what? That tag might be worth three grand unpunched. Just put, you know, put on a plaque or something. It's one of the first ones given in how long? Pretty awesome. Well, if you draw one and don't kill one, Jason, I'm not paying you three grand. What if it's tag number one? No. Tag number one. No. Huh? No? All right. So, anyway, we are kind of excited about that. We'll see. It'll be interesting.

The outfitters, we probably give a little bit of a new revenue source for a few outfitters, being able to guide one of those. And, you know, we know there's plenty of guys seeing them. We've even seen them when we've been out in the field, too. So, just wanted to acknowledge the awesome ram on the cover that we have here. Yeah, what an awesome ram. A hundred and ninety-five inch, if I remember right. Mike Folia gets a pair of Vortex 15x56 Kybes for being on the cover. We appreciate them. We've got some awesome covers picked out for the rest of the year. Big, big stuff. And so, anyway, we're pretty excited about that. And so... Let's dive into Nevada. All right. One of my favorite states, Nevada, of course. A lot of you guys know that. It was one of my favorites until... Well, and it still is. But they did come out with the real drawing odds, which show everybody all five choices

and how tough our drawing odds really are. And, anyway, it was out there. We kind of heard about how tough the odds are once we actually dove in and realized how tough they were. It is a little bit sobering. It's sobering. And so, they do have a... You know, while I'm on that subject, I mean, just because a couple of my buddies, including myself, have turned back tags in the past. You can turn them back and get all your points back. And we've done it. Our friends have done it. You should never turn a tag back in Nevada. They are tough to get, no matter how many points you have. They do have a point system. They square them. And so, you're never guaranteed anything. You've got more names in the hat. I mean, we're upwards of 20 points for desert sheep, never drawn, and not sure when we'll draw. And so, that is one of the most asked questions is how long does it take to get a tag in Nevada?

And you can't predict it. One thing definitely worth pointing out, we did portray those one through five draw odds choices in the magazine this year. Unique. So, we decided to, since this is their new way of giving us data, the drawing odds comparing it in the last five years to first choice only really wasn't apples to apples. So, you've just got the new drawing odds for 2017 in there. Keep in mind, it shows application choices by hunt code for one through five. What you can't tease out of that is did a guy listed his fifth choice, but he drew his first or second or third or fourth. And whether he really was in the draw for that hunt or not. So, some of that goes on. Guys that draw their preceding choice versus a unit they listed as a third, fourth, or fifth. They're going to be counted on there, which they may not have actually been competition for in the draw.

The other thing that doesn't take into consideration is your bonus points squared. They square your points in Nevada. Square them plus one. That's how many names you get, quote, or chances you get for the computer to draw you a really good random number. For every single species. Yep. Yep. All of them. So, it is tough. And so, that's the one thing you can't quantify on paper. The odds in there show you number of people. Number of people. Put that one through five. It gives you a much more probably close reflection of reality than just first choice. No question. The answer is somewhere in between as far as exact. And the draw only dictates that year to year as people draw one through five choices. But that's a big change. Anything else noteworthy, Jason? Yeah, there's a few things they've got. Kids license is kind of nice to talk about. Kids license changed. We're now down to $15.

Adam and I have been supporting Nevada Game and Fish. Probably by ourselves, solely with all our kids, extended families. Who knows? A thousand bucks a pop for five of you. It's over the grand. So, that's what we've been doing to gain our kids points. And now we're at $15. Thank you, Nevada. We appreciate it. Anyway, and so, it does allow you to apply your kids. Non-resident youth. We can't participate in the youth resident program, per se, like on deer. But we do have a little price break. They're still in for the adult licenses. So, awesome deal. And they also have the adult tag fees as well for youth. So, no real break on that. But that dang, you know, non-resident, non-refundable hunting license, which now includes fishing and all kinds of crazy stamps, is now $155. Which, that's a little bit of a change. Slight jump from $142 last year. But not a huge deal. Saves you $140 per kid.

That's a big deal. That's a big deal. And so, the other kind of big change, they did go to a new licensing system company. And I think they're out of Texas. Anyway, they've been working with them. At first, it's a little frustrating. We all get frustrated with change. Nobody likes change. I get that. But it's not that bad. Once you get on, you're going to create your account. You're going to go over on the left-hand side. You can click on applications or points or whatever and see what you've got going. When you apply, it's not set in stone. You can make all kinds of adjustments free of charge. Up until the deadline. Click, point, and click, change. And I love changing my mind. And I love the fact that it's free. So, every day I can dream about something. Sleep on it and change. And come back in and make a change. And so, anyway, did that a little bit.

The unique thing that you're going to have to do is worth pointing out. Is you're going to have to have a unique email address for every member of your family. Yeah. And that's going to be similar to some of these other states, portal accounts we've had. You know, maybe Montana, Colorado, all that. So, it comes into play. If you're applying you and your wife and three or four kids on there and you've all been using yours. Your kid's got an email address. He doesn't tell you what it is. But just get it from him. Use it. And we'll go from there. Once you log in, you can go back to the notifications email in their profile. And put your personal email as far as the one that gets the receipts and whatnot. But you have to set it up with a unique email address. I don't know how you remember all that. I remember writing it, but I don't remember it. Well, I just remember doing it. Oh. All right.

When I went up and set them up. Portals. Yeah. I'm like, I don't want drawing odds going to elementary schools and high school emails and blocked and spam. Mine are. They're going to suusuccessacademy.org. I don't want that. Some stupid thing. Anyway. But all right. So non-resident Mountain Goat. It has been closed for 2018. So nothing there. You can't even gain points. When it's closed, it's closed. There's no points for non-residents or anybody for doing that. Except for the residents, obviously, because they still have a few tags. The desert sheep seasons have been extended to January 1st. Kind of cool. Most people were done anyway. But nevertheless, you do get a little more time for those retired guys to get to do whatever they want. Because they're now retired. By the way. Yeah. It gives you 11. I am hopped up on monster. This purple is different than white. No. No. I'm tingling.

I've been tingling. I'm sorry. I am. TMI, Carter. Let's just move right along. So anyway. There is a shed season now. Kind of a bummer. People can't go over there and gather up shed antlers. And so everybody's coming to Utah finally. You know, people from Utah used to go to Colorado and Nevada. Now they don't want us. So anyway. Here we are. We're dealing with the shed season over there now. Starting May 1st, you can go hunt sheds over there wherever you want. Other than that, you know, if you want to hunt before May 1st, you're going to have to pick a different county. Because there's only certain counties that have the season. Kind of weird. Social love, I guess. Just a social deal. I want to kind of block us out. They do have a non-resident guide draw for deer. It's kind of similar to New Mexico.

It's kind of a separate little opportunity for people that are going to go guided for deer, rifle hunters only. No non-resident guide draw for elk or sheep or anything else. So anyway. It's a separate set aside number of tags. The deadline this past month was March 9th was the deadline. If you do that one, you can't go into the main draw for deer and vice versa. But points are good for either or. This year you could go for the guide draw and next year the regular draw. Results will actually be out this coming Friday. That's kind of enough of the details. We've got so many little ticky-tack crap. There's, you know, rifle hunt. You know, what you can use for rifle and things like that. What's the broad head diameter in regulation in Nevada, Carter? Probably 7.8 if I had to guess. But anyway, you can, for muzzleloaders, you do, you know, you can't use scopes. That's kind of a big deal.

So just, it's for primitive, which I like. Honestly, I'm going to put a plug in here. I'm tired of muzzleloader seasons being fully, basically rifle hunts that are in September. That's just my personal take. I think it should be primitive and it would help your drawing odds. It would help deer live, elk live, things like that. But that's just my take. So take it for what it is. Why don't we jump into sheep, Bronson? Yeah, Nevada, it's hard not to talk about desert sheep. They issue more non-resident desert sheep tags than all the other western states combined. Having said that, 30 to 33 or 4 a year is what they'll give. The odds are still sheep odds. Doesn't mean that your odds are great. They do give more than every other state and their odds are better than a lot of other states. But they're still tough to get. Look at our tables. There's choices 1 through 5.

You'll definitely see some units that had 1 in 1,000 plus applicants and others that were in this 400 or 500 range. That's about as good as it gets. 1 in 400 to 500, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, yeah. I'm seeing here 262, 1 in 3,331. So some of the better units in the state, like 268, 262, 263, they're tough to get. They are. They're rough. They got big rams and everybody wants them in the past. And even probably more so now. More people will put one or two or three of those as your first one to two, three choices. And then follow them up with maybe some easier draw hunts that you would be happy to take, you know, on the 21s or 12s or 13s or some of that type of stuff that's generally better drawing odds. But there's something for everybody in Nevada. As a general rule, not physically difficult hunts for the desert sheep.

But they occur in, for the most part, there's a few exceptions to these early seasons. They've added a couple for residents in that. And I think, what, 173 and 161, but they're early. But 90% of them are in November now until January 1st. Like Adam said, some of these 212s, 211s be a little better odds. Keep in mind, better. We're talking 1 in 500s, 1 in 700. Very frustrating from our perspective. And keep in mind, this doesn't take into bonus points. If you've got 20 points, you're getting them squared, you know. And so there's a lot more names in the hat, obviously. But the guy with 19 is not far behind you and the guy with 21 is ahead of you. So, you know, we're just saying basic relative to the number of actual people playing.

And so this is one of these things where, you know, we've looked at these odds, and it's the only state I know of where they actually look at all five choices before they go to the next guy. And we would like to see that changed. If you went to one or two choices and guys were only eligible for one or two choices, these drawing odds would be astronomically better. You'd segregate some to the people would choose, I want only the best. They would only have to stick to their one or two best and couldn't follow it up with some that are slightly less than that. And similarly on sheep, everybody, even if you're a better hot sky, a lot of guys are putting in these. Why wouldn't you? Yeah, there's no reason not to. If your number gets picked, you're going to want a 263 or 8 or 262, something down there. But I'd accept a 211, 212, something a little bit off the wall. So, I don't know.

We would be a proponent of that just simply because I think you see a lot more segregation. And if you're willing to accept an archery hunt in a marginal unit or an archery hunt period or a muzzleloader hunt period as your one and only choice or two and only choice, you're going to have better odds. Now, when people are listing that as a fourth or fifth choice because they're doing all the rifle hunts in the same units first ahead of them, they're adding all those. It's affecting you. It's adding pools of applicants. Well, and basically, you're getting a piece of the drawing odds for five choices. So, you know, you get just a little sliver of hope in five different choices instead of actual good, fairly good drawing odds near my home in some unit that I'm willing to accept.

If I live in Elko, most likely, you know, if I can do five choices, I might be applying for edly hunts for elk or deer or whatnot. Even though if I drew, great. I get to go down there and hunt a giant. But I would accept something near my home. If you actually made them choose one place, you know, one unit or two choices, they would probably apply near their home, whether it be Elko, over to Reno, whatever. And so it's a big deal. Yeah, and if you, I guess, think about it this way when it comes to sheep. If you have, I think there's 20 units open to non-residents this year. And if everybody, most people, let's say you do five, you've got the whole pie of non-resident applicants applying for a quarter of the units, five out of 20. That's right. They're doing a quarter of the pie, all right, versus one choice, you're doing one-twentieth of the pie. That's right.

Or one-tenth if you do two choices. That's what we're talking about in terms of you're competing against, that quarter is overlapping a lot more hunts than a tenth or a twentieth would be. That's right. So pick what you want. So you know Nevada, you know they're not happy with this either. The residents aren't happy with it either. I mean, you look at it and you go, well, they're dealing with the same kind of problem we are. They could have one in ten drawing odds instead of one in 40. And so anyway, it's quite interesting. With these desert sheep, Adam and I have hunted them, guided it a little bit. We haven't hunted them ourselves. We're sitting with a lot of points, and we would never miss an application on them. But they're awesome. They're in a time of year, I mean, you're generally November 20th. There is an early opener, like 173, which is quite cool. A new change, 173 north.

They split it this year. So it's a September 5th to October 5th. It's early season. High country. You're going to be working. You're going to be backpacking. Not the end of the world. You'll probably set up camp at about 10,000 feet, and then you're going to hunt upwards of 11. Again, a little bit scarce on the water up high, so you're going to have to pack in some water, camp down where there's a little more water, and then day hunt it after that. But anyway, plenty of sheep. And I talked to one of the main biologists. I had a tag last year, and he really enjoyed it. Hunting grouse, all kinds of things. Saw rams. Could even glass them from the valley floor and then took off. But anyway, that early season allows you not to have a less chance of harsh weather. Shouldn't be too cold, even though it's high elevation, although it will get chilly at times,

especially toward the end of that season. So anyway, it'll be interesting. You're generally talking 150s, 160s type ram, and so it'll be interesting. It'll be just a great hunt for some people who are willing to work dang hard. Of course, you could take horses in there or whatnot, but overall, you know, I think a good, you know, good backpacker can do just fine in there. But generally, it's November 20th. There's not a lot else going on November 20th. What a fun time of year. I mean, t-shirt weather, but it's nice. We've had it colder than you'd think sometimes, but overall, it's a nice place. It's why, you know, I'm usually, if I'm guiding some sheep hunters here in Utah, it usually allows me to jump down the I-15, head to the warmer country, and take a few more in November if I can. Anybody that wants a desert sheep should be applying there.

You're not going to draw one if you don't apply, and if you're going to apply for deer and elk and sheep or one species, do multiple species in Nevada to get more bang for the buck out of buying that license. So Nevada does have California bighorns as well. This is, you know, from what we were talking about a minute ago, there's only four units open to non-residents, right? And so the odds, the best odds are one in 3,600, and the worst odds are one in 6,700. So that's an example of almost everybody putting in for all four units, you know. And, you know, one unit is one in 3,000. The other ones are all over one in 5,700. Well, that's because it has two tags. You know, so you're splitting the odds in half. Basically, it'd be double that. And it's the best unit in the state, has the best odds, but it's because there's two tags in that one and only one in the others.

So more or less, everybody's putting in for the same ones. That's a, you know, you got one in 5,000 or 6,000 for a California. That's an unbelievable, terribly odds. Terrible odds. And so just kind of, you know, I'm not saying they'd improve dramatically if you had to pick one in that instance. But for $15, you can add that. The Rocky Mountain Bighorn are not open to non-residents again, much like Jason talked about. The Mountain Goat are not open to non-residents this year either. So we do mention a couple units in the write-up for residents, which there's only two units. So, yeah, 114, 115. But anyway, that brings us to elk. We crank through. You know, we feel like obviously there's some awesome elk in Nevada. It's no question kind of an elk, somewhat of a paradise. There's some big bulls in Nevada compared to the amount of elk habitat they have over there.

We've really enjoyed it over there. Archery hunted it. I've also had a late-season bull tag and clear back in the day when there were some big bulls and held out for one bull and didn't kill one. But not the easiest units in the world to hunt. You definitely got, you know, a lot of thick trees and a lot of long-range glass. And so, anyway, anybody that has the BTXs, the Swarovski BTX, obviously that is a must, I would say, if you have that. By the way, since we're talking about BTXs, I want to thank Kent's Optics for sponsoring Epic Outdoors. These guys are awesome. The Harrells brothers have been selling optics and sporting goods for over 20 years. They have the best brands, including Swarovski, Vortex, Nightforce, Zeiss, Six Hour, and Black Diamond. With the ability to special order many of them, they do have BTX eyepieces in stock.

And so, anyway, for those of you who don't know it, it's like basically big eyes. Your spot and scope, great big 95mm objective, 32 power. If you're using the 95mm objective on that spot and scope, and you can take the single eyepiece off and on as you want. Put that BTX eyepiece on, and you're looking through with both eyes. 32 power at long range is angled. But, anyway, definitely one eyepiece that I would have if I was going to hunt Nevada. Give those guys a call as well. It's 435-257-7014 or kentzoptics.com. Give them a chance to earn your business. You won't be disappointed. These Nevada archery elk hunts open the end of August. They're not rip-roaring, screaming their guts out. Most of them start, you know, the last week in August. There's a few of them that start as early as the 16th or so. And it's a glassing game.

There's some bulls, you know, in velvet still, you know, in some of these hunts. Yeah, garbage. And so you're going to be glassing bulls. Got a velvet bull story in our magazine. That's right. Killed one opening day. So you definitely need to use optics in your Nevada archery elk hunts. And on all Nevada hunts. There's no, in any numbers, there's a few obscure, not obscure, but a few random placed muzzleloader and rifle rut hunts. But they're very minimal in number. The bulk of Nevada's firearm elk hunts are in October and November. And that's, they can maximize more opportunity there without hammering the resource and the top end bulls. And having said that, there are some pretty awesome hunts in early September with muzzleloaders. That's right. There is. In fact, and a lot of their muzzleloader hunts are October 22nd to November 5th, like you talked about.

And then you kick in with those late season rifle hunts being November 6th to the 20th. And, you know, at least that'd be the first part of the season. And then you come in with November 21st to December 4th on the late. It's kind of that second. They're both late, but they call them early and late. They're not really early. That's when the bulk of their tags are issued is those two rifle hunts in November. And all of Nevada, that's the bulk of it. And that's, you know, you're going to need your optics. You're going to need, you know, probably a long-range gun or something like that. You've got people lined up, you know, on the valley floor glassing long range at some of this stuff. And, you know, there are a few exceptions to that. You know, you've got a couple of these early muzzleloader hunts. I don't know if you want to highlight a couple of those. Jarbage, I believe, is one of those.

They've got those. They've got a couple of these late August, early September muzzleloader hunts in Nevada, which they've only had those for the last, I want to say, two years. Yeah, it's not been very long. But you know that the 06s, 06.2 to 06.8, has a phenomenal hunt. September 1st to the 16th, it's just crazy. It gets really, really good. And, you know, that's actually a season that, and that 06.1 to 07.1, that's a season that kind of, you know, takes place what you would be normally like here in Utah. Our archery hunt would go then. But their archery hunts start then and before then and end at the end of August. They have three to four units where they flip-flop the, you know, the archery is even earlier than where it normally starts and put the muzzleloader the last two weeks of it. You know, a jarbage is another one.

And so you've got seasons of time from mid-August till December in Nevada. And so depending on your schedule and weapon type, keeping in mind, you've got to have open sights and muzzleloaders in Nevada. It's not maybe as appealing for everybody. But there is something for whatever your schedule is, you should be able to find something and work in mix-and-match weapon types and all that throughout your five choices. One thing I liked what you said as far as long range, you know, you are glass in long range. And no matter what you say and what you do, you end up glass in long range in Nevada, especially in those E-League units. It's very, very thick. And the guys that know it best, and we do recommend an outfitter in there, by the way, going with an outfitter. But the guys that do it best are sitting there for hours and hours. And you think, man, I've glassed that hillside how many times?

I don't know how many more times we can glass it and not see something. And all of a sudden, a giant stands up. And I've been there and witnessed it. And so anyway, it's good to be able to shoot as well. And so, you know, we do recommend, you know, being able to shoot as far as you can. We do work with Red Rock Precision. I'd like to thank them for their support with us as well. Adam and I both have their rifles. We're able to shoot long range. I know, Bronson, you've got clients where, you know, they'll even leave their gun home. And you're like, just leave it home. I'll dial for you on the scope. And we're good to go. Well, it just depends. A lot of guys that maybe draw a sheep hunt. And they're from back east. And maybe they don't even hunt with a centerfire because you can't. You've got archery, muzzleloader, shotgun type, whitetail or bear seasons.

And it's one less thing to bring out and fly out with or one less cost they've got to incur if they're looking at, you know, hey, I've got a desert sheep hunt. Offer to help them out. Great guns. Very easy to use. Deadly. They set them up start to finish. Work out a specific load for each gun themselves. There's nothing cookie cutter about it. It's unique. Worked up for that gun. And you have the ability to come out and go to their shooting range with them. Shoot your actual gun before you take it home. And great, great, great setup. Encourage you to give them a call. If you're thinking about a long range gun setup, you know, use whatever scope combo you want. Huskama, Night Force, Swarovski, you know, if you have a personal preference. Yeah, they're very customized. If you like a different scope, they're cool.

Because about any setup that you really know and you work well with this day and age with the quality optics there is, you can make it shoot long range if you work with it. And they're willing to do that. But anyway, we do have an Epic series rifle. And so you can get on board with that with a limited number edition, 1 through 50. So anyway, you can call those guys at 801-391-7840. Let's jump into Mule Deer. I know when I was making a few comments in here, I put that Nevada had a great year in 2017. And Bronson scratched it out. And put solid year. And it did have a solid year. It was spotty. Some units did very, very well. Like 231. 231, for instance. Yep. There's other units that struggled when compared. The 130s, obviously. Governor Tech came from the 130s as well as some other bucks. But then some of the bucks that, you know, I had been watching down in the desert didn't do as well.

Like they came back 30 inches less. And so there was a lot of bucks that kind of struggled last year. And then a lot of it was just where the rain hit and the timing that it hit. And it was a little bit northern. And I call them northern. It's just the habitat varies a bit. 231 has just a lot more green. It has a lot more, you know, burns and foliage. And the storms kind of build up on Wilson and White Rock and whatnot. And it just seems to get more rains. Those monsoons smack there pretty good. And, man, it produced like crazy. Again, second year in a row. You know, the year before they killed a net. Booked non-typical, which I guided Adam Kearney to. And then they killed the world record archery buck at 207 net. And so just, I mean, how can you beat that year? And, again, this year several other 220 bucks could take it in 231. So just very, very impressive.

You know, a friend of ours and member, Louis Polish, went with Greg Krog and killed a stud in Area 13 and whatnot. And those guys know that well. And so, anyway, just there was a number of units that did really good. We highlight those in our magazine. But, you know, the one thing we do like about Nevada and what's crazy about it is a lot of their archery hunts start August 10th. There is nothing else going on except for hunts north of the border, meaning Canada, you know, Alaska, where there's seasons that compete with that. And so the first big bucks of the year always come from Nevada and it gets everybody fired up. And it's a 30-day archery hunt, I believe. It goes until the 9th of September. And that's, you know, pretty much velvet the whole time except for maybe the last week or 10 days they're starting to rub. Or bucks can be starting to rub.

And then you jump into the muzzleloader hunt right after that. As far as other archery opportunities, there are some hunts November 10th to the 20th like 121 late, which we highlight. The 194, 196 over by Reno. We've got, you know, December 1st to January 1st. And just some of those opportunities that allow guys to, you know, even the 101 to 109 rubies late that's killed a couple of giants. There's some great opportunities. You know, they're a little bit shorter, obviously. Not going to let you hunt the entire rut, you know, like a 30-day early season. But they do have hunts November 10th to the 20th in some of those. And then obviously a full month out there by Reno. So great opportunities for the archers. In fact, phenomenal. They are. And, you know, bleeding right in, like you said, to the muzzleloader hunt, you still have another 30 days with a muzzleloader. Dang near, 25.

You know what I mean? Well, it's September 10th, October 4th. Yeah. I mean, good grief. Almost another month with the muzzleloader. And, again, hunting pre-scouted bucks that hopefully no archers, you know, harassed too bad or killed or things like that. But it's a great time to hunt pre-scouted bucks. Again, there's a few exceptions that have late muzzleloader hunts in the 08 ones. Sure. Yeah, 194, 196 has some stuff as well as 114, 115 to take advantage of some late season migration hunts. I have done that one 10 plus years ago. Tell us, that was back in the Ford Ranger days. 95 or 90, 95, 2005, something like that. It was, you know, one of the years that it did not snow. Watched a couple of big, big deer in Great Basin National Park right up to the last of the hunt, end of November. And they were content chasing the ladies up there at 10, 5, 11,000 feet. They were happy.

They didn't need to come down. So that's that type of hunt. But Nevada, we're, we, I'll speak for myself and I know Jason feels the same way though. We like to have more in our control when we hunt deer. And that meaning scouting deer and hunting deer where they live is generally how I like to hunt them. And so that generally in Nevada for me leads me to, you know, archery and muzzleloader. My last tag I drew was an archery tag in Unit 24. And I'd rather hunt, hunt big deer and go down swinging with a bow than, than to hunt tough dates late in, in October after they've been crushed and it's hot. At least you've been able to pattern a deer, know where he's living, get first crack in the velvet or just out of velvet. They're just a lot more in the open, a lot more. You can glass them up a lot better. Even if the year you did hunt was one of the toughest years on record. It was 2012.

I take it. And it was brutal. But, but that, and area 24, I want to, I want to clarify is 241 to 245. The area, they used to go by areas years ago. And so anyway, it just, it's kind of, you know, what you go by. But anyway, 241, 245. But yeah, what a phenomenal opportunity. The one thing about the muzzle before we leave it, they, it does feel, they give less tags in the muzzler season than any other season. And so generally speaking, you have a few very lates like the 220s or something that they'll give very few tags in. But generally speaking, you know, and even at that one, there's less on the muzzle. So anyway, generally speaking, very great opportunities. You know, you don't, you've got big clusters of units. You know, it feels like an unbelievable amount of ground, maybe 100 square miles at times where you are not going to be dealing with other people.

You're not going to see other headlights unless obviously there's one particular buck that's kind of the local legend or something. And then you might have to deal with some people, but rifle hunts, rifle hunts are awesome. You know, they're probably the toughest season, generally speaking. They do have some later seasons that are a little bit easier and quite high demand. The October 5th, if you've got a season that splits like an October 5th to the 20th, be a little bit tougher. That's obviously the least desired, toughest, highest tag numbers, less quality bucks taken, you know, per hunter than the other seasons. And so they're smart, man. They are coming out of their summer pattern. They've stripped their velvet. They're not rutting. They're not really migrating. You've just got a smart deer.

Smartest time to, you know, not the smartest time for a hunter to hunt, but that's when the deer are the smartest and toughest to pattern and kill. Yeah. Some of those units start October 5th and go till the 25th, 28th, 31st, and maybe a couple of sessions longer than that. And you have only one season. But in a lot of the state, they have at least two rifle seasons. There's a couple that have three, an early, a mid, and a late, like the 220s. I think the 101 to 109 has one of that structure. But for the most part, you have an early hunt, about the 5th to the 20, 21st. And then you've got the late hunt, which goes till, depending on the unit, a lot of times around the 5th of November. A few of them cut it off short like the 2nd. A couple of them extend till the 8th.

It's just kind of how some of the county advisory boards over there, how they've politicked and lobbied for some of their particular units in their part of Nevada to get a season date, you know, go a couple days longer. Or they want to cut it off a couple days shorter just to save some deer. It's amazing. You know, Nevada's one of those states in our, you know, where two to three days at the end of October and in November can make a huge difference. Huge difference. Like 231 now goes till October 31st. It's a huge deal. They pile up in the south end of the unit and by the thousands, literally, and they're looking to rut and whatnot.

So a little bit vulnerable, you know, that's the one thing, you know, we learn, Brownson, as we hunt across the west and we hunt Colorado and Utah and Nevada, you see some of these little changes that make huge, huge differences like the Poncegon extending till the 31st of October or something like 231, the extension there, or even like the 220s late now going to November 8th. Like there's things like that where we were hunting governor bucks November 3rd in the 220s. Now that regular late season goes into November 8th. I mean, that's it for all intents and purposes when we were shooting governor bucks out there. And so it tells you how vulnerable they can be and kind of the desired, you know, season date that that is. Not easy to draw, obviously, but the few guys that do get it, it's a pretty awesome opportunity. That's right. So jumping into antelope, you know. Jason's favorite animal.

My favorite animal. I actually am learning to love them. So anyway, with antelope, there are some great units coming on. Nevada is really coming on with some good bucks. And so especially that 076 to 081 up there in that northeast corner, big, big antelope bucks being taken. Some of the other units are still doing good. The 033 Sheldon and the 041, 042. So a lot of those are still doing good. We did. I did spend some time in 251 this year. I had a deer tag, a muzzleloader deer tag, and ended up turning it back. Just didn't see quite the quality I wanted to see. So anyway, got my points back. But, you know, did see some big antelope bucks in there. And so pretty impressed. Area 13, the 132, 134, there was some good bucks in there. Saw some pretty stout antelope bucks in there. So we do, you will find some of those within our tables of the magazine.

Adam and I are just kind of briefly going through this thing, cranking. Not giving you everything just because it would take hours and hours, but our members sure can see it on the web right now as well as, you know, at the doorstep fairly soon. Definitely consider adding antelope if you'd like to hunt them. Ten bucks, build points, apply the year you want to go. And, you know, big bucks. They've got, you know, areas where you can just shoot antelope. But for the most part, we'd characterize antelope in Nevada as trophy, trophy quality. That's 100% right. So Montana, that brings us to Montana. We do have it in our publication. We cover the sheep, moose, goat, bison, and antelope in this particular issue. Covered the deer and the elk already. That had an application period ending March 15th. And so that's done and gone, although you can do points only this summer, starting July 1st.

And so anyway, and that holds true for the sheep, goat, moose, bison, and antelope as well, the exception of bison. But there is a points period there, July 1st as well. And so while we're covering that, I thought I'd just throw that in there. Yeah, it's a big change from last year. Legislature passed the points only period last year. They did add it for the summer, but it wasn't, you know, this time last year we weren't even talking about it. It hadn't been approved yet. It did get later on approved by the legislature. They implemented it. But it's made it nice in Montana if you don't, in the past, if you didn't want to draw, you simply had to just pick the hardest to draw unit in the state, even for antelope. And cross your fingers you didn't draw. And if you drew it, your points went to zero. They were gone.

You couldn't just be building points for antelope or, you know, sheep, moose, and goat. A lot of people were fine putting the very best unit in the state because if you got it, wow, you know, you got a once-in-a-lifetime type species. Go make the best of it. But that is a new change to keep aware of. They did much like, I guess, Nevada, Colorado, some of these others. Montana added a new portal type system. Portal jordle. A place to go log in, track your draw results, your preference points, and all of that. You do not, unlike Colorado and Nevada, you do not have to make your portal in Montana first before you can apply. You can still apply like normal. Yep. Go to your regular online spot. Apply that way. All the same things are going to look very similar. However, when draw results start coming out, you are going to have to have your portal made in Montana.

You're going to have to be able to go check your draw results, preference points, all of that to check that. So they probably will merge it all together and make you have to apply through it in the future. But just be aware from that. If their page looks different, if you're going there to set up a portal and you're going to apply on that, that's not where you apply. So don't look for it there. A lot of these states are coming on with these new systems, being able to log in and whatnot. And a lot of it is just to protect you. It's frustrating for us. It's frustrating for you as well, I'm sure, in a lot of cases. But it is to protect you and not allow people to just jump in and see what you got and steal your personal information. Type in a birthday and zip code and look up your stuff.

Guys get on Facebook and guess where you lived and pretty soon they're cruising through your personal information. And so there was a lot of that going on. And this helps that, especially some of these companies that do have things where they can go and look up your points and kind of have these spiders that go out and check everything and whatnot. This will fix some of that. We don't want to go line by line in these particular states on a podcast. But I do want to make you aware it is just $50 to apply for sheep, goat, moose, bison, and then $20 bonus point for each one. And then you would buy the base hunting license fee, $15 and $10 conservation one time. Not for each species, one time and be able to apply for those. And then obviously you'd get charged the license fee if drawn, which is the case in most all the states. Yeah. The only exception to that is antelope.

They do make you pay the permit fee up front when you apply. Plus a $5 application fee. So it's $205 when you apply for antelope. Again, if that's the only species you're going to apply for, you have to buy the base and the conservation license as well. Just breeze over antelope real fast since we just talked about it. Opportunity antelope. You're just excited about antelope. No, I'm not. I'm just getting them out of the way. Okay. And great opportunity state. A lot of tags. Eastern half of the state, especially Unit 700 District, Unit 900 antelope. You get multi-region tags up in that part of the woods. And, you know, but for the most part, sheep, moose, and goat. Sheep, you cannot talk about Montana without realizing it's kind of the holy grail of giant Rocky Mountain bighorns. Monsters. There's no place like Montana. There hasn't been for my lifetime.

And, you know, last year killed a number of tremendous rams in the breaks. Unit 42, 680. Both produced 200-inch plus net. 208 and 680. 204, 205s. And 482. 482. So, giant, giant sheep. You know, the average ram taken in those units. This is the average out of, you know, 20-plus sheep in each unit was 16-inch bases by like 39 and 6. I mean, almost a 40-inch by 16 average. With the largest at 45 inches long and a 17-inch base. A 7-year-old. That's a pretty good one. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And what you'll find out, you know, talking to people that are on the ground, spending time there is, you know, well, yeah, the genetics are awesome. We've always known that. The average age has come down on what they're harvesting. They're just, there's some freaks still. Six- to seven-year-old rams that are just freaks of nature. Just like we have in people, you know. Yeah.

They're mature fast and they're giants. And having said that, you know, our tables break down all the non-resident sheep units that are available this year. They'll draw 10 to 12 non-resident ram tags. Not great drawing odds overall. Pretty tough. But we are in the same draw pool in Montana with residents. But after looking at the drawing odds in Nevada, it's unbelievable. We're talking like 1 in 244 for unit 680, you know. All of a sudden you're thinking, oh, gee, they're not that bad. Yeah, 482 is 1 in 327. So obviously this doesn't take into account bonus points. The non-resident quota. You know, there is 2,000 non-residents putting in for unit 680. So for a couple of tags. So your odds are not true odds for non-residents there. We're in the same hat together. With the residents. And then we're limited to a 10%. That's right. So, you know, you've got to keep that in mind.

And it doesn't mean just because a non-resident can apply for a unit that one's going to get drawn there. It's a little bit like Idaho. They tell you in Idaho you can apply for all units. Montana is a little bit different. They actually tell you these are the units non-residents can apply for, for sheep, moose, and goat this year. Changes here to here. You may look last year. We put it in our tables. We made it helpful for you to look and say, all right, what were the odds last year? And was there non-residents applicants? Was it available last year? So you can kind of gauge, okay, those odds are probably going to be somewhat reflective this year. Or, no, they're probably going to get worse now. Hasn't been open for non-residents for three years. Now it is. The odds are going to get worse. So I think one of the things to point out, too, is these long season dates.

Generally, the season dates are September 15th and November 25th. Super long opportunity. And you're running 100% kill dang near every time. You may have somebody that doesn't hunt or whatnot. Things happen within their family or something. But for the most part, these are high success hunts for big rams. Even the average units have big rams compared to other states. They do have unlimited opportunities for guys. We have those in our tables where you can actually go. And if you apply for first choice or you buy it during the application period, you've got a sheep tag in your hands. They are not easy. Don't get us wrong. A lot of times, you know, you're constricted to a certain time frame. You've got to call in. Maybe it's a quota. Once the quota is filled, you're done. Things like that. So be very careful on some of that stuff.

Having said that, if you apply for one and you do not participate in the bonus point system, you will keep your bonus points. And you will get the tag. And then you can later on apply for points only in the summer and gain a point as if you didn't get a tag. Yeah, that was a new byproduct of a points only application period. Because in the past, you had to either buy a tag or apply for a tag during the application period or apply for an unlimited. But if you applied for the unlimited, you lost your points. Now you just would fall a point behind. Now you can go in the summer and buy a point and keep up the pace. That's right. And so really doesn't change it too much from a standpoint other than in the past. You also, if you set out two years doing an unlimited, you'd lose all your points. Now you don't lose your points in Montana until you draw your first choice.

So you can sit it out, do an unlimited run for three or four years and try to give it all you got while you're building points in the summer. And that's generally, if you're going to do it on your own, that's probably how you're going to kill one. You're not generally going to go up there, throw on your pack and go up there and kill a three-quarter curl ram. That's worth pointing out. Any ram is not legal. It's got to be three-quarter curl. So you're going to have to, you know, seeing sheep as a bonus, seeing rams is a big, big bonus. Find an illegal ram. You better be in shape. You better be ready. You better not let them get away. It's aggressive. So anyway, we'll, you get the drift. Apply for Montana for sheep. You get the drift. You can also apply for moose and goat. Applying for one doesn't prohibit it from applying for the others like it does in Idaho. So you can apply for moose.

I know Bronson here's got a lot of moose points. He's super excited to use those at some point. I've got max points, but that's all it means. I started when they started. I know. I did draw a goat tag in Montana after three years and, you know, have the sheep and the moose now just plugging away. Killed one too. Killed a goat. Killed a nice ram. Nine and three-quarter inch. Billy. Not ram. Billy. Nine. Yeah, did I say ram? Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking rams because I was in an unlimited unit and I was looking at sheep the whole time. Were you? Yeah. Was there any good ones? No. No legal rams, but got me thinking. Really? Was the quota on? Was everything? Oh, it was all green light central. Wow. Yeah, never saw anything over about a half curl, but my mind was turning. Yeah. And then like two years later, I drew Oregon and thought, okay, killed one.

I kind of have the bug to kill just any ram, Rocky slash California. Did you have 14 bottles of bear spray on your belt? I had none. The guy needs some bear spray. I had a gun and that's all I cared about. I was the permitted hunter, so I had what I needed on my shoulder. Your brother? I don't remember what he had. Put him up on a point. He was younger than me. Probably could have outran me. But, yeah. So, I do have max points for moose. I'm not that contrary to what Carter tries to portray. You are, too. I do not base my... Anytime we research these different states, we get all fired up over stuff that we're not normally fired up about. Well, I can get fired about. Just like you and Antelope in Nevada right now. I'm kind of excited about it. I'm going to crush a giant. When you do a lot of research on something, there's a few things that you can get a little bit excited about. I guess...

There was a lot of units available to non-residents that were kind of new this year. Yeah. There was a big turnover. Did a lot of research on them. Big turnover. 20... 24, 28. I forget right now off the top of my head. That was last week. Pretty awesome. But, a lot of units available to non-residents. Drawing odds are not too bad. Of course, we put in the drawing odds as we tried to allude in the sheep section. And the resident and non-resident are together. They're a little off, obviously, because once we reach that 10% quota, you're done. No more can be drawn. But, anyway, until we reach that quota, those are your true odds. And a lot of these units, you'll see, did not have non-resident applicants last year. So, that was just the resident odds last year. This year, now that we can apply for them, they'll go down, naturally.

Probably the biggest thing to just highlight about Montana Moose is, you know, there's a lot of variability. But, throughout Region 1 and Region 3, which is where 90% of the moose tags are given, and in this case, there's no exception, there's issues that have had wolf predation or thick, decadent timber and things like that just deteriorate moose habitat. And so, the combination of those two have moose numbers down, has made it tough. They're thick. Sometimes a giant just happens. A guy comes around the corner, happens to be standing in the logging road with a cow, comes to a screeching halt on his electric bike. Yeah, pounds of 52-inch moose. And, you know, everybody on the outside looks at that saying, wow, that unit must be awesome. And, in reality, you know, 45% harvest rates for everybody else. So, things can just happen.

We do kind of list the better odds units as well as some of the trophy units, in our opinion, in the write-up so that you can, you know, if you want to stick to one of the trophy units, you can glean that from our table. So, Mountain Goats is the third one of the big three that have a point system at least. And, you know, Region 3 is pretty much it this year. You know, that's where the bulk of the goats are, is in Region 3. Including the Bridgers, number one unit in the state, now available to non-residents again. That's right. It's open this year for non-residents. It's probably the clear-cut favorite from a trophy perspective. But most of Montana should be viewed as just really solid for 8 1⁄2, 9-inch to 9 1⁄2-inch goats, which are nice goats. Good goats. What's the difference? A trophy's a 9 1⁄2. You know, a 10's rare, but we're talking 1-inch. So, anyway, it is what it is.

Of course, we covered the antelope already. Brings us to bison. Yep. We've got a couple of units adjacent to Yellowstone National Park. One backcountry unit that's kind of a resident-only type option there. But a couple units, one on the northern end of the park, the Gardner unit, and one on the west side, the west of Yellowstone unit. Long three-month seasons from mid-November to mid-February. Which you need them. You're going to need them. And these are contingent upon bison leaving Yellowstone National Park with weather and snow to find winter forage. That's basically what these hunts are designed to do, is to harvest bison that leave the park. They're similar to what you have in Wyoming, but the Wyoming movement and migration is much more consistent, and you can count. You're going to kill one there generally. Montana just doesn't mean necessarily you're a hard hunter.

You go there and hike your guts out, and you're going to find one. It's just sometimes they're not in the hunt area. This last year was tough for a lot of the hunt until it got way deep into the season, and then they started trickling. But it still wasn't in heavy numbers. Some years, they'll have 90% harvest in Montana. Some years, they'll have less than 10%. It seems like with bison in general, you've got a lot of these kind of quirky little spots. You've got Wyoming is tough, you know, kind of weather-dependent coming out of Yellowstone. Grand Canyon Park in Arizona. Grand Canyon in Arizona, you're just dealing with them running to the park because they know where the refuge is and where they can get away from people. And there's nothing like just like the Henry Mountains in Utah where it's traditionally just

a great hunt on an isolated mountain range where you're definitely going to be on bison no matter what the weather is. And so you're just dealing with some of that. If you're on a free range in bison, you kind of have to apply for the places that have them. There's not very many. Apply, apply, apply. Got to do it. But at the same time. It's not. Drawn a tag is the start of a long process. In Montana. That's right. And you're going to pray that you have to use snowshoes. That's right. So anyway, that brings us to Kansas. We both hunted Kansas. Spent some time up there. I've killed a whitetail a couple years ago, I guess, maybe 2016. And Bronson's killed a mule deer. I actually went up there and killed a really nice buck late in the season. It would be December. Colder than crap. Cold. Remember that, Chris? You guys. That was cold. It was cold.

All I heard was whining, gnashing of teeth from you two fellers. But it was bitter. Well, when you sit. Like, you know, what you hunt deer with in Kansas. Whether you're glassing or whether you're sitting on a stand or a blind location. You have no heartbeat. Yeah. And it's blown like crazy. And it's near zero or whatever it was. Yeah. And you're seeing the same deer every day. And it's wide open. You can see everything. You know? So, anyway. Yeah. Over in Kansas, they don't have specific mule deer to apply for. You apply for a whitetail tag and units that have mule deer. And then you apply for a mule deer stamp if successful. And you mark the little box at the time of application. If you're not successful in drawing a mule deer stamp, which is fairly tough. A lot of times 20% or so. Then you're sitting with a basic $442, you know, license for whitetails, which is non-refundable,

non-transferable. Can't turn it back. And so, anyway. Kind of an interesting deal. You want to make sure you can hunt Kansas or you want to hunt Kansas for whitetails up there. A lot of good opportunities. I spent my time in Unit 16. And, you know, 15 and 16, I guess, are traditionally, you know, the hot spots. But, honestly, there are giants coming from a lot of different units depending on the ranch and whatnot. And so, anyway. I rifle hunted my whitetail. And I got tired of sitting in a blind and decided I was going to drive in glass. And glass and glass. And glassing up and pounded him. And it was over. And so, anyway. Just kind of did it the way you do it for mule deer. Is glassing and covering the numbers. And so, anyway. Good opportunities. I know, Chris, you've hunted Kansas. Of course, we don't have you and Mike on. So, I guess you could shout out praises for Kansas. But, anyway.

He did. He went up there and hunted the walk-in areas. And killed a buck. Okay. Not a giant. But you killed a buck. But you saw a giant and should have killed a giant or whatever. If I remember right. And so, anyway. It's good eating. Having said that. Good eating. And so, anyway. There are some walk-in areas. You can go out there. And you don't just have to have ranch access. And a lot of guys are like, well, everybody can go do that. There's nothing big there. And that just couldn't be further from the truth. There's a lot of good bucks in some of those areas that are just overlooked. Because people think they're pounded. Got a story in this issue about somebody that did that. So, it's doable with a lot of guys that end up hunting some of these walk-in areas, state access areas, year after year. You know, they can turn up a great buck.

If you need an outfitter, we work with multiple good outfitters within Kansas. You know. And so, if you. One thing about Kansas. They do have a points-only thing. If you have one point, you pretty much get anything you'd like. You can tell when you get drawn. That's what's cool about all these. All the states are different, right? And so, how cool is that? You can tell when you're going to go. If you know you're going to go to Kansas and you know you're going to need an outfitter, book one now. Like, book them now. Call us and we'll get you lined up. And that way you know you're going and you've got a place to hunt. That's right. It's not one of those things that you apply and get lucky for. You apply knowing you're probably going to get drawn. Most of Kansas you can draw with zero points guaranteed. The ones that you can't are like 80 to 90 percent with zero points.

So, you need a place lined up to hunt before you do it. Whether you're going to research the walk-in areas, which is tough to do. I mean, it's doable, but it is a state with 95 or 7 percent private land. And so, it's not got big vast tracts of public land or walk-in areas or state-owned ground or things like that. It's going to take some work. So, that's, I guess, a boiled down version of the April issue as far as the three states that we cover. And obviously, that's all, like we've talked about, that's online. It'll be mailed to you if you're a member of our service. And, you know, next month we'll cover a couple new states. And they're timely in that we cover them prior to their applications being due. But with the current year's application and regulation information in our hands.

We aren't going to go to print prematurely before we have what's new for this year, what the unit's available this year, or all of that information. Does you no good as a reader. It's poor business to put out stuff that's old and outdated. So, that's why we do it. We have short turnaround times. We work like dogs getting it out to you guys on time. And, you know, for some of you guys, it's getting to be, starting to get time of year where you might be looking at some hunting gear and things like that. Boots are on the list that you're always going to be needing to do and buy and break in and get prepped before your hunts. Kennetrek's been a great partner of ours at Epic Outdoors from the very, very start. They jumped online as soon as we got up and going. We like to appreciate Jim Wynnjim and his support of us.

They've got everything from early season hikers to extreme train mountain boots. I've used their desert guides and their mountain guides exclusively for the last several years. They have a new version of the Kennetrek Mountain Guide 400. Just a new mountaineering boot. It's designed, you know, for more rugged terrain, deeper lug, stiffer outsole, and 400 grams of Thinsulate insulation. Great boot. Kennetrek's been around a long time. Great support of ours and support of hunters and genders. You can go on their website at Kennetrek, K-E-N-E-T-R-E-K.com or call them at 800-232-6064 if you want to talk with them and place an order. Bronson, because the Colorado deadline is coming up April 3rd, it is time to apply. I want you to tell a story about your Unit 61 buck. This ought to be good. It's a good story.

It's a crazy story with the air conditioning rolling, which is kind of characteristic of the last two years in Colorado. Being so warm and dry and yet you killed a 200-inch deer. And I'll tell a story about one of my bucks. Go ahead. This was 2007 or 2008. I don't remember when it was, but I cashed in my points. I think it was about, I don't know, nine or so at the time. Been eyeing in 61 for years. It was just over the Utah border. Looked over at it. Probably like you, Jason, growing up. You know, we hunted the LaSalle Mountains in Utah for general season elk. And you look over there, what's that mountain range? Just a little bit by bit, you get to know a little bit more about it. It was familiar-looking country. Red Rock Canyon country. Oakbrush, Aspen, all that type of thing. It was a type of unit. Had a great reputation. It was. It was a great reputation. Great genetics and whatnot.

Anyway, cashed in. Just ended up, happened to be one of those years that was brutally warm. It was hot. And the writing was on the wall. This is going to be tough. And I don't remember the specific circumstances. It's been 10 years ago or so now. So as to why maybe I decided to not turn the tag in, frankly, because you could do that back then up until the day before the hunt. But I didn't. And I just thought, you know, I've waited this long. We didn't know as much back then. Yeah, and I waited this long. And if you remember, you could get easy to get second choice tags and that and cheap landowner tags easily. So I thought, well, just burn these. They're gone. Then I'll go hunt. Well, you know, a couple of days into the scouting right before we got there, I thought, this is going to be really tough. So anyway, I think it was the opening night. We hadn't seen much that day.

And I said, hey, told my brother he's there with me. Let's drop off and hunt somewhere totally different, somewhere low down. Got down there. He was perched way above me, 2,000 vertical feet higher, glassing kind of everything in this big basin and valley below in benchy country. And I would just kind of still hunt through it and glassing as I went. But I thought, you know, if he's a mile or two above me, glassing, he spots something, you know, maybe I can make a play on it that night. Turns out, you know, hiked up on this point, turned around, probably walked within 300 yards of this deer and his does. And I'd made it a half a mile beyond him by the time I could actually get up out of the seed or draw I was in and get some elevation to look around me. I looked back, I spotted some does, and I looked up, there's a big buck.

And I'm ripping off my pack, getting my spotting scope out, and, you know, thinking, this thing looks pretty good at first sight from 800 yards or whatever it was. And put up my scope, could see in lines, good big eye guards. And I'm thinking, this thing's a freaking shooter. And the buck, you know, I probably left the truck and walked within, like I said, 300 or 400 yards underneath of it. He had to have heard something down there in the draw. Whether he saw me, I don't know. But he's literally 300 yards off the road, you know, right above it on a knoll, on a north side in the shade, just nosing these does around. It's already November. So right then, right then, I hear some noise. I look over and hear some orange walking right towards me. I'm a hunter, and I'm like, he's got. Which is common. We're in Colorado. Yeah, and I'm starting to load up my stuff.

But it is a limited entry elk unit. Yeah. So you don't have the elk pressure that you have. That's another reason I saw it after 61, is it was draw for both. The hunting pressure is about as low as you can get for Colorado. It really is. Yep. But my scope is buried on this buck, my spotting scope. All right? And so first thing I do is whip that thing at 90 degrees. So it's, you know, and I'm just pretending, and I pretend like I'm gathering stuff up. His back is to the deer, and I'm looking at him, and I can glance behind him, and I can see deer at 800 yards with the naked eye. And I'm just watching him because we're whispering on being quiet. And he said, oh, sorry, I didn't mean to bother you. And I said, no, no. I said, I'm just going to work my way back to the trucks. You know, I'm not going to go up this. If you want to go up this way, the way you were headed, that's fine.

I'll stay out of your way. Oh, that would be great. So he started walking, and I waited until he was two. So is it safe to say you lied to him? No. Oh. I said, I'm not going to be up that way. Oh, okay. You can go that way. I thought you were going to work your way back to the truck. I am. That is right to the deer, though. Oh, okay. The deer and the truck are the same direction. Got it. Okay. I'm not going to say, hey, I'm going to go shoot a 200-incher right here, right now. Yeah. You want to watch? I'm not going to say that. Would you be my spot? Yeah. Would you spot? Would you hold the legs for me as I field dress it? No. Okay. Not going to do that.

Conversation. Okay. He walked up the ridge. As soon as I couldn't hear him, couldn't see him, I was off. You know? And I only had to go probably, yeah, like I said, 400 yards at the time. You know, long-range guns. You know, they were kind of new. I didn't have one at the time. This was 10, 11 years ago. Yeah. And so I just thought, I need to get through him. You know, 400 yards, and he's toast. Anyway, I got up there. Got a pack laid out on a rifle. He came out there. Pounded the deer. Get up there, and he's a, you know, 7x5. Big white-tail-looking frame in the back. Yeah, it was white-tail. Spikies in the back. Spikies. And splits. You know, big 12, 14-inch spikes were a normal G2. It was. It was like behind the G2. Behind them had spike, you know, had eye guards, and just up the beans, it had another long, long 12 or 14-inches. Then what you'd call normal G2s and 3s to the side of it.

So really neat buck. 207. I remember calling you that night and telling you, well, I'm done, because I think I've been prepping. You were guiding somebody in Nevada, if I remember right. And I'm like, you know, this is going to be terrible. I'm going to be here all week. The writing's on the wall. And then that night, I'm like, well, I'm done. I can kill the 200-incher. I'm like, what? I know. It was good. And so that was the story. And, you know, it was a. And you had the AC on. It worked out. It was hot. And I believe you had the old Ford Ranger back then. I can't remember. I don't know what it was. Seems like it was. Yeah. One of my favorite trucks. And it was, you know, I remember AC on, driving out of there. And I remember leaving Colorado with that deer in the back of my truck thinking, I got so lucky.

I won the Super Bowl because it killed a great deer, but also in a year that I knew this is not going to be an easy year. And it wasn't. It was one of those tough years, like you said, the last two have been. So that was that. Seems like your brother was with you. Didn't he find a couple of good deer, too? Yeah, he was. But then we hunted with him two years later. So he decided to use them. We decided to not both draw the same time. We had the same number of points, but we just decided, heads don't burn them both at once. So he was there spotting for me. He saw some good deer, but, you know, we killed that deer the first night. So he wasn't there long enough. Yeah. Haven't been back. We went that two years later with him and then haven't been back to that year since. I think overall just a gradual decline. And it's not easy. No, it's thick country. Safe to say you got luckiest.

Opinion Juniper took a 207 buck off that unit and, you know, would love to go back sometime. Don't know that I'll, you know, now it's taken 10 to 11 points to draw the hunt. I'm not going to wait for that. Yeah. All right. All right. So what are we going to hear from you? That brings me, I don't know. I was thinking about which one. I guess I'll go with a buck I killed in 21. A hundred 21. One, it was, you know, everybody was touting it as being an awesome unit, wanted to go experience it and hit it. And it was one of those things where, so 21, everybody talks about best unit in the state. And you got a lot of the locals are like, you guys are full of crap. It's not the best unit in the state. And, you know, and what they had seen from when they had seen it, it had come down in quality. And so we totally sympathize with that.

Having said that, it still was one of the best producing units in the state, even though the quality wasn't what it once was. And so went in there, spent a lot of time. It just, you know, when you hunt those units, a lot of times those late seasons, Bronson, and you can testify to this as well, it's a numbers game. You're covering country. You're covering numbers. You're not hunting pre-scouted deer per se. They're migrating or they're looking to rut or whatever, and things change. And so anyway, spent a lot of time glassing country. Actually went up a layer, went up a little bit higher, probably at 7,500 feet, I want to say, maybe a little bit higher. And just working it and having a hard time anyway. Ended up glassing up this buck, no eye guards, and had cheaters out both sides. And I was like, man, I don't know. I'll probably pass this deer, but I don't know. I'm considering it.

I went back, hooked up with a good buddy of mine, and showed him the video clip. And he goes, you're an idiot if you don't shoot that deer. And I'm like, well, I don't want to be an idiot. So anyway, went back there, glassed him up again, and watched him go into, it was a long-range glass, and it was kind of in this wilderness area. Glassed him up, watched him go into this cut and disappear into this cut. And I thought, that's a freaking long hike over there just to hope. Usually when you bet him, you want to glass him and you want to watch him bet it. You know what I mean? You want to know that you're hunting a deer and exactly where he's at, and as soon as you get into range, you can kill him. And so anyway, went over there, had the Thompson Long Range, I remember. Thompson Long Range rifle. And I took off. Just took off, hiked over there. It was in a burned area.

Long, you know, a long hike. Get over there and get into the canyon just above us, walking up the ridge of where he disappeared into this draw. And I'm glassing and walking, glassing and walking. And I glass down, and I glass him up bedded underneath me. He's probably less than 100 yards. And he's just chewing his cut. And I'm above him. And, you know, with Hunter Orange on and everything else, you just kind of feel like you stand out like a sore thumb. But anyway, I'm above him. He can't see me. He's just chewing his cut. And I lay down, and I just pile drive him right there in his bed. And, of course, didn't even need the long-range rifle. Thanks, Mark, but didn't need it. Could have shot him with anything. Chip shot. It was a chip shot. And so, anyway, it turned out he was 207, 34 1⁄2 inches wide, cheater-to-cheater,

and super heavy, just no eye guards, which is kind of characteristic for that unit. But, I don't know, just an awesome, you know, an awesome experience. Even though it was hot, I had to go up higher and make it happen and felt like I had to stretch a little bit and put a lot of miles. On a lot of these hunts, we put on, you know, a couple thousand miles at times, just covering country, covering numbers, and doing everything we can to scratch one out. And so, anyway, got lucky on that one, scratched one out, and ended up being a good deer. And so, here Colorado's coming due. Like I say, April 3rd, there's a lot of great opportunities. Everybody should be applying. It'll be interesting to see what the weather does. We've had some warm, warm years the past couple years on the third and fourth season. And so, we'll see. We'll see what comes of it all and whatnot.

You can draw some of these tags, you know, a few of them, second choice and still gain a point. And then there's obviously a lot of guys looking to use points. And you, you should not gain too many points. We are fans of using points up any of you guys that do want, like in the meantime, you're looking to apply in Colorado. We have an old podcast where we covered Colorado in depth, all the units last year. And I would say it's very good information for this year as well. And so, you might go check that out. It was very well received. And so, anyway, we might have time to crank out another Colorado podcast. Probably wear us out. Might take two monsters for that one. So, anything else we need to talk about? I don't think so. Christopher, we missed anything? That was a good breakdown on the April magazine. I'd like to give one last shout out to one of our sponsors, Vortex Optics.

They've been with us from the start as well. We'd like to give thanks to them for their continued support of Epic Outdoors. They provide our cover stories, a pair of 15x56 Kaibab binoculars for every cover we put out there. We'd like to appreciate them. They came to the table early on and stepped up and offered that for us. They produce high-quality optics at great prices. As Jason mentioned earlier, Kent's optics is a great place to pick up your Vortex optics there. Carry everything you've got from riflescopes to binos to spotting scopes, everything. So, appreciate them as well. And, yeah, give us a call. If you have some questions on what we've talked about today, you're a member of our service, give us a call. The e-mags online should answer a lot of that, see and validate a lot about what we talked about today for the stuff in Montana, Kansas, and Nevada. Okay, boys.

Until then, good luck applying. Let us know if you draw a tag. One last plug. One last thing. We do have a membership experience database. If you end up starting to draw these tags, let us know. We'll send you a list of members who've drawn in the past. There's literally thousands of people into that database with draw tags. And so, anyway, let us know. We'll give you some help as well as, you know, any personal information we have. Anyway, feel free to call us. You start drawing these tags or you need help applying, and we definitely, we're here to help you. So, all right. With that, good luck. We're out of here.