EP 67: Question and Answer with Jason Carter and Adam Bronson

There's only one way to get to your current frame of mind and that's to go through experience stuff. Us as non-residents didn't draw a single hybrid tag for elk and deer last year. You're going to have to take the down years with the good years. Anything to do with western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson here from the Epic Outdoors podcast. Doing a little bit different podcast today. We'll be doing a little bit of a series of a question and answer podcast. So anyway, this will be the first of a few maybe. So anyway, we cut the questions down. We just got something we felt like was manageable for today's podcast. But anyway, before we get started, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. We've been wearing the Under Armour gear for years and appreciate them and their support of what we got going. We really, really like their bearing pattern. It's specifically designed for hunting the west and it's been awesome. So especially in some of this desert and arid environments. You can see a video of some of the new lineup on the Epic Outdoors YouTube channel.

In a video we released recently showcasing the new 2018 product line. So anyway, again, we appreciate them and their support for what we've been doing here at Epic Outdoors. And so anyway, Bronson, you want to start us off on maybe a few of these questions? We've invited people on our social media to ask a few questions of just different things they might want to hear us talk about here on the podcast. Yeah, we appreciate everybody sending ideas to us. This might be fun. Who knows? First off, from Dave, being an eastern whitetail hunter, I have the muley bug. I got it a few years back in Wyoming. I've been back every year since. I decided this year I'd give Colorado a try. I've applied for a preference point only this year's plans of hunting in Colorado in three to five years.

Would you guys have any unit recommendations and or advice for a few eastern guys looking at a do-it-yourself Colorado hunt? Yeah, we've talked about Colorado before on this podcast, but obviously years change things. And we probably get more questions regarding Colorado deer than maybe any other question we get for the year because there are so many options. First thing, I guess, you'd probably start off by identifying the weapon you want to hunt with. Colorado has, you know, archery, muzzleloader, and two to sometimes three rifle hunts, sometimes four if you've got an early season rifle hunt. So you have, you know, from the end of August through mid-November, you've got to identify that. One thing that some of you eastern guys have to contend with that we know, we hear from you guys, is you guys like to hunt your whitetails that first two weeks of November in a lot of states.

So you have to decide. It's frankly why Jason and I have not gotten into the big whitetails in Iowa and some of these other states with a bow in the rut, is we've not been willing to put aside our mule deer hunting then to go hunt whitetails. And conversely, you guys have to decide whether you're going to do that, give up your whitetail hunting then to come hunt muleies with a rifle. So first off, you've got to decide the weapon that you want. And then, you know, it sounds like you've got some muley hunting under your belt in Wyoming and whatnot. I don't know how well you've been doing. If you've been killing one 60 or 70 or 80 type deer, then I would say keep doing that. Colorado's got those kind of deer, has got great genetics, but you've got to kind of set a benchmark or size of deer, and that would probably govern our unit selection process for you.

If you say, hey, I only want 180 plus or I don't want to make the trip to Colorado, you're probably going to stretch it honestly to a little bit more on the five to maybe a few more years than that. End of thing, if you really want to increase your odds of killing 180. But we definitely are advocates of hunting Colorado on a shorter cycle. Three to five, we think, is a good number that you've suggested. But you're going to have to take the down years with the good years if you do that. You're going to go there, experience tough weather. You're going to have years like the last couple that you've not had the weather line up great for a migration out of the high country or rut initiation or things like that. And you're going to say, geez, I've heard a lot about Colorado. That was a rough year. And then you could go the very next year on the similar to same season dates, and it's crushed.

It's phenomenal. You have deer all down low. They're starting to rut. And you could say, how come I've been waiting this long to hunt Colorado? It could go either way. You have to be prepared to go to Colorado consistently and hunt every time you can, frankly. We have it as part of our rotation, and we go there and eat tags some years. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I think there's a lot of different. The nice thing about Colorado is there's tons of different season options, like you've got second, thirds, fourths. Even some of the fourths, like Adam, you've hunted a fourth in easy-to-draw units, stuff that takes five points or less depending on the year. And I've done the same. And so it's just a matter of the season dates. The nice thing we like about the second and third rifles is, you know, you've got a longer season date.

You've got nine days to hunt versus your fourth being a five-day season. And so you have a little more chance of having weather or whatever. And like last year, I was on a fourth, and you end up feeling like you're hunting the seconds of what's left over on the second and third. And so it's always just one of those things, you know, you can turn your tag back if you do it 30 days prior and get your points back. But you don't know what the weather is going to be 30 days in advance. And so it is dependent on the weather. If you get weather on the second, you're going to have a great hunt. If you get weather on the third, you're going to have a great hunt. And so, like you said, hunt more often than waiting because, you know, the chances of having good weather, good hunting conditions is better if you're hunting three or four times in 20 years versus one time in 20 years.

And so it seems like when you get the weather, you kill big bucks in almost every unit. If you don't get the weather, it's tough even in the best units. That's what I would say. So, Dave, when it comes down to a specific unit, feel free to give us a call when you're looking to maybe cash in your points. There'll be something based on that year, the season date for that year, second season, third season, or archery, muzzleloader. Nail down the weapon you want to hunt, the season time frame you want to come out, and then give us a call for a specific unit because it may vary. Two to three years from now or four when you're looking to do it, we could be recommending a unit right now we're not. Or vice versa, a unit that's hot and doing well right now could taper off, get overhunted slightly, or have a winter kill issue or something like that. So call us in the year you want to come. Yeah.

The other thing, too, we look at a little bit is being able to draw maybe a second choice unit, still gain your points. And if you do apply for something that you can draw on your second and you do that, then you get to hunt every year. And so there's nothing wrong with that. Some of these second choice units will produce big bucks as well. So consider that. And like Adam said, we publish it in the magazine. We also consult with guys every day on where and when to apply and whatnot. Speaking of Colorado, we spend a lot of time talking about that, and we get a lot of calls on it like we've mentioned. And we get questions asked of people saying, hey, what about this hybrid draw? I know that it's a preference point state for deer and elk, but I'm going to go for the hybrid draw because at least there's a chance. Jason, how would you either foster that mindset or crush his hopes and dreams?

Well, it is something you actually, we don't even think about the hybrid, and there's several reasons why. The main reason, us as non-residents didn't draw a single hybrid tag for elk and deer last year. Adam and I went through it. Of course, we get a little tangent at 3 in the morning, and we went through every hunt code that's available in the hybrid. And those are listed, I believe, on page 8 in the regulations. And you can read about it. On page 8, you'll also see where it says non-resident quotas apply on this. Yes, most of these units we are set with a 20%, not the 35%, because they are high-demand units for residents and non-residents. That's right. Which kicks us down to only being allowed up to 20%. What you'll notice as well is because that percentage is so small that non-residents have the most points in these units.

We're talking about, like, let's take, you know, 2, 10, 201, these top northwest corner units. You're only talking about removing 1 to 5 non-residents a year off the top versus 10 to 25 residents. And so they whittle that down. And so when they do the preference point draw. The regular draw. The first 5 tags are going to go to non-residents with 24, 5, 6, whatever, because they have the most. Yeah, they're allocated to the people at the most points until we reach our quota. Boom. Boom. Four tags are issued. Non-resident quota was met right then. There's, therefore, every remaining tag in the preference draw, sometimes it skips 2 to 3 point levels before the residents start drawing maximum point tags, preference point tags. And then comes in the hybrid draw. Well, if the non-resident quota was met clear up here because they out, you know, out- Which we do, 99% of the time.

Then there's nothing left for the hybrid draw. We did see some resident kids, youth draw hybrid tags. That's right. Six points, I think, if I remember right. Five or six points. A youth drew an incredible elk tag, all right? Resident. Resident youth. But did not find one instance. So repeatedly, it'll squash your hopes and dreams, I know, but you're not going to draw unit 201 as a non-resident in the hybrid draw, or any of those that are listed, because of the fact that the non-resident quota is being met in the preference point portion of that draw, and there's no 20% is maxed out, and there's no remaining tag for the random hybrid draw. And what's hilarious when we looked at it is, like, for mule deer, for example, we looked at the hunt codes available. There's, like, I'm just going for memory so I don't have them in front of me. I wish I did.

Two or three that are the regular hunt codes. Everything else was ranching for wildlife, which is available to residents only. That's right. Regardless. And so, yeah, I mean, what are you giving us? Thanks. We appreciate it, Colorado. Thank you. But we just want to reiterate, not one non-resident drew. Deer and Elk. Last year. Just ignore it. Just pretend it didn't exist. You know, we're doing this kind of from an informational standpoint. We hear it from people. They call us with other philosophies they've either heard somewhere else or come up with by reading through the regulations. And initially, when you read it, you think, oh, that gives me a chance. If I have at least five points or more, I can be in the hybrid drawing these units. No. In reality, you can't. And they clearly say non-resident quotas apply.

And it'll squash you out because non-residents in those units have the most points of anybody there, and they're going to meet their 20% quota in the preference point. That's right. The one instance, and we've talked about this because we have a really good friend of ours that drew in the hybrid in the Antelope. The Antelope do not have resident and non-resident quotas. We're all in the hat together. There's no 35% or 20% limit to non-residents. So have at it. Yes, that does apply. Hybrid draw does work. We've drawn people with five to seven points for Unit 3 or other units for Antelope. So Antelope, it doesn't apply. Dream, dream big on that. But deer and elk, pretend it didn't even exist. Yeah, and it felt like people were kind of hanging their hats on that. And, of course, it's fun to talk about and all exciting and whatnot.

But when in reality, you know, it actually forced people to put one of those choices in as their first choice when maybe they would have chose a different hunt code. You know what I'm saying? Maybe they would have chose something different. Something they legitimately had a chance to get. Yeah. I'm thinking, oh, I've got a random chance to draw a 201 tag. No, you didn't. So just by way of education, a little bit. It is confusing. It's not spelled out clearly. We went through and looked at the odds specifically and saw every hybrid person that drew, and they were all residents. So residents of Colorado, we're not talking to you. We realize there are random chances for you to draw some of these deer tags in the ranching for wildlife and the few units that actually are non-ranching for wildlife that are in the hybrid draw, as well as the best elk tags in the state.

Residents, totally different story. Apply, you might get lucky. So anyway. A little tangent. Yep. Next question. Can you provide the expected dates for the 2020 through 2024 Colorado season dates? Interested to know how the third season dates play out during these years. Thanks, Bert. Yeah. Well, that's, everybody's questions usually do revolve around Colorado and season dates. It's one of the few states you can hunt deer in the rut in November. Um, they do set their season dates in five-year chunks. And Bert, as you probably know, they're, they're online now for 2015 through 2019. And during 2019 sometime, they will go through a public comment period and input process and develop those for 2020 to 2024. But to give you some ideas of, I guess, what the framework that they've been working under, at least these last two cycles, I believe, which is maybe 10 years now,

is the archery season and muzzleloader seasons are independent of the rifles in that the archery season starts the last Saturday in August. That's how it's been going. And the muzzleloader season have started the second Saturday in September. When it comes to the rifle seasons, the first season in Colorado, uh, first, first combined, we're not talking about early high country rifle, but the first combined season, or first rifle season, I guess, is elk only. And it starts the first Saturday after October 9th. So the earliest that that ever gets is the 10th of October. Um, and then the second season and the third season, you know, follow those accordingly. You get a five-day hunt. And so then that, um, second Saturday after October 9th will be the opener of the second season. And, you know, the next Saturday after that, um, um, will be the, I guess, the second weekend of the second.

And then you'd have a five-day break. But, but in essence, um, the driver is that first rifle season opening the first Saturday after October 9th. Looking ahead, I guess, to 2020, that was on the 10th, wasn't it? Yeah, that's right. It sets to start on the 10th. Um, if you're wanting to know when the dates are going to kick late in Colorado, if that's really what your question is, if they maintain the status quo, um, with this, this season setting, um, procedure in 2021, the third season in Colorado would open November 6th. If that's really what you're getting down to now, I would just put all kinds of caution behind that, that they could in this next five-year season, season setting process, they could switch it all up and say, hey, we want to set, set opening dates, uh, on exact seasons that don't fluctuate year to year. I mean, that would be pretty radical change.

They haven't done that, but they could. So, but if everything stays status quo, that's the best we could do to give you an insight of when those dates might be the latest they would get. Yeah. It's one thing to line them out for five years. The big important thing is when they ratchet late, which gives you better weather, better chance for weather and better chance for a good rut. So anyway, 2021 would be the year that, uh, everybody's really interested in. So, all right. Next question. Uh, from Patrick, what is the best strategy for early season high country mule deer hunting in Colorado? How about it, Carter? So early season high country hunting, definitely, uh, pre-season scouting. If you can, you know, if you can't, uh, pre-season scout in the summer, you should be doing those later seasons in any state.

And that's what, uh, you know, personally, we pre-season scout stuff that's close, close to home for us. And, uh, knowing that we can spend a lot of time throughout the summer and we, we've always tried to find a 190 to 200 inch plus deer, you know, early season and use that as our, as our kind of our, our hunt that we scout a lot for. And then, for example, we go to Colorado or, or any other, you know, place that's got late season dates, uh, like you did in Wyoming this last year. But anyway, that you don't pre-season scout, uh, and, and you can't scout the rut. You can't scout migration per se. Some of those late hunts in Nevada, you can't scout those ones. You do, you might go learn the roads. You might go learn some country, but you're not going to keep a track, track of a migrating deer.

And so the important thing on, uh, high country stuff, in my opinion, would be spending a lot of time. You know, if you've got a work schedule that allows it or, or it's not 12 hour drive each way, spend a lot of time, you know, hiking and glass and a big glass. And that high country stuff is a lot of, you guys know, you know, generally has a lot of water. It's not like you're going to trail camera water holes or, or whatnot. And then there's some baiting restrictions and salt restrictions in different states, uh, not here in Utah, but other states there is. And so, you know, you're not going to be, you know, salting bucks and putting trail cameras out and whatnot. You're going to be glass and you're going to be glass and a lot of those open basins and high ridge lines and whatnot.

And then obviously they're going to go bed and, and, uh, different, you know, stands of trees be a little bit tougher. And so anyway, preseason scout, I think it's the name of the game, uh, and heavy glass and long distance glass. Yep. And if you can't do that, you're going to have to just go there and hope to get lucky. Or you might consider and lessen the service of an outfitter because it's really, that's what it comes down to. I agree totally. If you don't have time to put into it, scout, find those deer and their patterns. That's when they're vulnerable, they're in velvet, that's when they're, you know, feeding and bedding. And that's all they're in a routine to do. And they're in the open. If you can't spend the time to do that or pay someone else that can, it might not be in your best interest to burn a bunch of points doing that. Unless you're just hoping to go get lucky.

The one thing I guess to be a little bit concerned about on some of that early stuff, depending on the state, you're going to have archery hunters, muzzleloader hunters, a lot of those, you know, as well as some early rifle hunts and stuff. It just depends on the state, so you might be dealing with different pressures and whatnot. But a lot of big bucks have been killed in the high country, and there's a lot of guys that just live for hunting the high country. And so everybody kind of has their own little, you know, forte or what they like. Well, before I read one more question, we want to give another shout out to one of our sponsors, Thompson Long Range. We've known Scott and Mark for years. They've been in business for, you know, 20 years or so. Longer, to my knowledge, than any other shooting school. They've had over 3,000 people through their course. Great system. Very user-friendly.

Whether you're an avid shooter or first-time shooter, they can help you out. They've designed a system that's successful for everyone. So check them out at ThompsonLongRange.com or 435-713-4248. We've been through that course ourselves. Very user-friendly. Take a gun off the shelf, cook a load up for it right there, see it start to finish. Give them a call. Okay, here we go. Next question from Tim. Quick question for your podcast. If I buy a landowner tag, I'm sure each state is different, so maybe an answer for a few different states that sell them. But I am unsuccessful on my hunt. Can that tag be transferred to someone else to fill if I can no longer hunt? Or, once a tag is bought from a landowner, it can only be used by the original person who purchased it. So the quick and short answer. Yeah, in all states, when you redeem a landowner tag in your name, you are committed.

When you redeem the voucher to the state, you get the permit. Even if you're successful and I don't have time to come back, you can't go now redeem that to somebody else and get half-price money out of it. Once you commit it to your name, you're committed. That's gone. Now, there are a few exceptions. Jason, maybe you can run through a few of them. I guess we're mainly talking about Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. For the most part, those are the states we're talking about. They do have provisions. Once you purchase one from a landowner, if you're unable to go on the hunt itself and you haven't redeemed the voucher, there are some provisions for reselling or getting rid of that tag. You want to run through those real quick? Yeah, real quick. There in Colorado, it does say in their rules, a landowner voucher may be only transferred one time.

The landowner may transfer the voucher to any hunter who is legally eligible to hold the license. So you just must only be able to transfer it one time. There is no reselling, reselling, reselling, nothing like that. Yep, when you commit, you're committed. When you send them a check and they transfer it, send you the voucher, if you can't go, you're out. You can't get your money back from the landowner, tell them to resell it. You're committed. So different in a couple of these other states. Yeah, and that's kind of, I guess, a recent change. I want to say, you know, recent meaning last decade. But anyway, no transferring of that. I mean, guys used to be able to just have a stack of 100 of them and send them out and sell them, and then they could send them out and sell them to their buddies or whatever you wanted to do.

So you did mention, Adam, in Nevada and New Mexico, real quick, Utah, obviously. But you can resell those. You can have a stack of tags in your hand and sell them to your buddies or whatever you want to do with it. Your buddy can't go. He can sell them as long as he hasn't put it in his name. Once you put it in your name, it's in your name. That's the end of it, no matter what state you were talking about. That's right. So they are a good option if you want to have something early in the year, you know, December, January, February, buy a landowner tag for deer or elk in one of those three states, Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico. So you're guaranteed to go on something. They are a good way to do that, to make sure you have something. Then if you do draw a tag that maybe takes precedent or whatever, you can flip that, get rid of it to a buddy. We oftentimes help people get rid of those.

Because the biggest thing to remember is once you mail it into the state, buy the permit, put it in your name, in all states you're committed unless maybe there's some provisions of death and of immediate family or severe medical emergencies. But we're not talking about those really. So, and one thing before we leave this subject, kind of a little cool fact, a little fun fact. In Nevada, you can have multiple tags. So if you wanted to buy two or three landowner tags, have at it. Put them in your name. Kill three deer. Kill three elk. Whatever you'd like. And you can draw a tag as well. So there's no issues with that. You can't do that in the other states. And so, you know, that's just one of those kind of little fun facts. They don't, you want to buy tags, you can buy tags. Kind of the only state that that's offered in. Anything else you can think of? No. I think that covered that.

Maybe a little bit on the Colorado tags. Just as far as how hard they are to come by. And we don't, you know, hear about as many of those as we get a lot of questions about that. Yeah, we do. And it used to be something that we were heavily involved with, you know, eight, ten years ago. When they didn't have the restrictions of having to buy directly from the landowner and transfer them one time and one time only. They've tightened a lot of that up just to, I guess, Colorado's way of making sure to whatever extent the landowner and hunter and direct communication. They've also made it tighten up the law that landowners have to allow access to the property that they buy, that they're selling the tag for. And so, and then they also changed some, the percentage of the permits.

It used to be that 15% of the tags in Colorado for deer and elk and antelope went to landowners and they were all unit wide. And they increased that to 20%, but of that 20%, half go to private land only, the other half are unit wide. So, really, you took a cut from 15% unit wide to now only 10% unit wide. They got cut by a third. And, you know, the fact that just as more and more time goes on and landowners are nervous of, hey, how do I get rid of these? And they've been dealing with either outfitters or repeat buyers more and more as they've had more and more years to be able to buy and sell those. When they find a good groove, people that are treating them well, buying them, not causing problems, a lot of repeats buying those. Not as many tags on the open market. You cut a third of them out and then increase the amount of time that they've been doing that.

But there's a lot of people that have their foot in the door on those. And it's getting harder and harder to get your hands on them. Yeah, that's exactly right. All right. Well, next question. What's up, guys? My name is Jeremy. I want to say thanks for the Fat Tire Boots. I won on one of the podcast giveaways. We should maybe give something away a little bit later on. So my question is, this is only my second year putting in for out-of-state hunts, and I wasn't raised around the out-of-state hunting. We've always done well here in California. He didn't say California. Call me for you. But California. He wrote that. He wrote that. That's a direct translation. So I don't get a lot of time off. Me and my wife and son want to experience other states. What are the main states I should focus on? Being, I can't scout a whole lot. I would like to go on one out-of-state hunt a year.

Or what should be my long-term goal for out-of-state being that I'm late to the game. I'm 33. I know it's going to be real hard to draw those great tags. So just good hunts are okay with us. If my question is picked, I'd like to give a shout-out to Jimmy Devin. He's the one that pushed me to start doing other things. Thanks for the other podcasts and magazines that help out a lot. Also, have a wonderful day. All right, Bronson. I don't know which part we want to start with. I guess my, and I do, when people call in and consult us, where they live does maybe, a guy from Texas, I'll always start bringing up Colorado and New Mexico because they're closer to them. If they're just starting, New Mexico doesn't have a point system, things like that. In this case, Jeremy, you've been from California. I'd look at Nevada, no question.

Not that it's a state that you can plan and go regularly, but that it's close. There's no waiting period on deer. If you're not after the best of the best, you can put in for average deer tags and get them, you know, I'll just say maybe every five years. I mean, that's, you know, pretty regular, especially if you mix up weapon types.

If you're going to do Nevada, make sure if you bite off that $155 license fee, make sure you do multiple species. Maybe do the deer, elk, antelope, desert sheep, just so you get more bang for the buck. I'd probably look at Utah because it is also somewhat close to you.

Utah's odds are tough, but one thing that I would make sure, it's probably the quickest way to go on a hunt every two to three years is the Utah general season deer. You brought up the fact that you just want decent hunts. You don't need the hard-to-draw great tags. A Utah general should be something that you plan your hunting schedule around. Every one to three years, you can come to Utah on a general season deer, and it's not that far away. You know, the elk, the limit entry deer, sheep, moose, goat, all of those are going to be very tough to get. Definitely going to play the game. You're going to buy the hunting license for $65. Do the general deer, make that part of your rotation every year, two, three, and play the other games for that stuff. When it comes to, you know, the other states, you know, Idaho is one you might consider. Either deer and elk, no point system.

You can go after some general season tags as a backup there. That could be your backup plan. Your closest state with backup general season deer and elk would be Idaho. Closest, you know, tag, I guess, to California that I would make my time to do. I know there's options in Oregon and other places, but I would put Idaho as your closest state that I would look at from general season deer and elk perspective. And then it probably gets to your personal interests. If you're more of a deer guy, then definitely I'd look at Colorado, building points there for sure. If you are more of an elk guy, I'd recommend, you know, probably Wyoming. You can get general season elk every couple of years and do hard to draw elk tags in the years you don't want a general season tag. Play the general deer draw game in Wyoming as well for opportunity.

You can go every three to five years on good general season deer tags in Wyoming too. Arizona, I don't know. I'll let you maybe talk about that, Jason. But it's a little bit like Nevada, although you don't have the easy to draw deer options in Arizona. You're going to probably, Arizona is going to be a long, long-term goal on the sheep, deer, and elk, unless you do over the counter or something. Yeah, exactly. And so some of our, you know, they did kind of change it to where half of our non-resident tags can go on the random draw. And so we do tell guys, yeah, go ahead, apply for Arizona deer, sheep, elk, and different things. Adam, you've even drawn stuff that's on random draw, quote, random draw. You didn't force it with your points. And so, although we force stuff with our points as well, both of us have.

But anyway, there are some easier to draw early season, kaibab early season, stuff that's, you know, not premium tags but does give you an opportunity to kill something good. And so we, again, by the time we get done with this, we're going to have this guy applying for absolutely everything. No question you should be doing Colorado. And, you know, same thing with Wyoming and different things that we've talked about. Of course, you brought up that. So there's things you can do. Like Adam said, you've got the Utah general deer. You've got Wyoming general elk. You've got some general deer options in Idaho that are over the counter. You've got over the counter in Arizona if you need. And so there's plenty of things you can do once a year. I think that long-term goal, you've got, what should be my long-term goal? It's like Adam said, you've got to figure out what's important to you.

And if you ever want to hunt a sheep in your life, you should apply for them. But maybe you do it blindly, so to speak. Like, you don't think about it. We don't think about a lot of these that we're doing because we don't expect to draw them. And you just kind of do them out of habit to make good use of the non-refundable license where that pertains or whatever to be able to gain points for those. And so you just kind of do that. And we help guys here in the office develop short-term, long-term goals all the time. It's going to be very specific and tailored to you. And so there's a lot more we would need to know about you and what your preferences are and getting your wife started, getting your kids, or whatever the case may be. And so 33 is still young. You've got plenty of time. I'd definitely be applying and not be scared, even though you feel like you're late to the game.

Well, and one thing to say, we've been there. I mean, Jason and I have lived through the, you know, brand-newly married, broke is broke. And we realize, to some extent, this comes down to budget. And that changes throughout your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Hopefully, as you start, you know, getting into a career and job and have a little bit more disposable income, it doesn't mean as much to you to give up $150 or $200 in a state. But when you're 21 or something, we were robbing people, paying Paul, credit card checks. I mean, it was anything possible to stay in the game. And now, got a lot of points. And so you have to do it within your means. If there's states, if you set a budget of how much can I commit to an application plan set at each year and it's $500 or $1,000 or whatever, well, then you're just going to have to cut some of the states

that are maybe like the Nevadas or the Arizonas what's going to be $200 a pop. Unless you say, hey, that one's one I'm going to stick to and go to the ones that are a little bit cheaper, like Utah or building deer points in Colorado or deer and elk points in Wyoming, something like that. I think part of this, too, is you can do these, and we've done them, Adam, where you pick these maybe a little bit easier to draw and the more work, let's say you pick something that's a little easier, you end up drawing a Nevada tag, for example. Maybe it's 051 for deer, whatever the case may be. You can make that into a trophy tag. There is a big deer there. There's probably a big deer in every single unit. And if you have a little more time that particular year, you use it, you know, quote, family time for the wife and kid, and you go out there and run trail cameras or whatever,

and can spend some time, then you can make those into good tags. And so even though they're a little easier to draw, you can still pull something great off. That's right. Anything else in there we missed, Bronson? I don't think so. The biggest thing, you're young. You're not too late to the game. You've got a lot of years ahead of you, and so get that plan, nail down, stick with it, and start building points in the places and species that matter to you. Okay. In previous podcasts, I've heard you guys talk about doing an over-the-counter hunt to show people how you did it. It'd be awesome if you guys can talk about what you look for when finding a new unit to hunt and what factors led in your final decision to selecting the unit. Then once you've selected your unit, what do you do and things you look at maps to determine on where you're going within the unit to hunt? Thanks.

I'm excited to listen to the podcast. Eric. So I don't know. I guess it's kind of one of those we've talked about doing a podcast. We have quite a bit as far as what we look for and when we're looking to go to a new unit and different things. And I know back when we were really young, we didn't think a lot about feed, and we didn't think a lot about burns, and we didn't think about a lot of different factors that make what creates big deer, what creates big bulls. We've talked a lot about rams, Adam, and when they're born, the years they're born, and moisture content, and a lot of different things that might go into, you know, let's try this unit, Boone and Crockett, looking up Boone and Crockett records and figuring out where the genetics are, which we're kind of, I don't know,

that's even a little bit archaic in the fact that with the social media age, we're kind of keeping track of some of that stuff, even if they don't make the book. That's right. You know, and it's something that I've changed. I went through, you know, you go through your 20s and whatnot, and you're, you know, you just need an extra tag or two. And as the older I've gotten, and now as I've gotten a bunch of points in a lot of states, and my kids are starting to hunt, I'm getting a lot of those easier, fun, you know, exploratory, if we can call my, that hunt's done with my kids, to where I'm a lot more restrictive with me and my own applications than I used to be when I was just like, hey, just throwing stuff out, and whatever I got, I'd go figure out. Now I'm a little more calculated on what I personally want to go do because my time, as we all get older,

your time gets more valuable to you than maybe it is in your 20s when you're just running, you're running from freight to state like a chicken with your head cut off and, hey, let me kill something. So I guess for me now, and we have talked about Idaho General, you know, for the most part, I don't want to be in a unit that's got incredible, for me personally, and I'll just talk about me. Versus when I'm looking at something for my kids or whatnot. Because when you're with your kids, I want easy access, I want to see good numbers, I don't need big stuff. They just want to see animals. But when I go for me, I want to know that at least, you know, if I'm looking at burning my points in Colorado or I'm looking at GoHunt General in Idaho, you want to know that some big animals have come off that unit. If it's not and never has, I'm not interested in going there. I just personally not.

And I don't want to seem conceited or whatnot. But again, it goes back to my time. I can stay in Utah and commit that time to a general season deer. And I'll hunt 180 or 90-inch deer every year in Utah if I make the time. And that's the biggest thing. I've not even been making the time in my own state for some years because I get too busy with other tags I've drawn or maybe I'm guiding clients here, whether it be sheep or deer. And so really, I don't want to give up something like a Utah general and cut into that and go to Idaho just to say, I'm going out of state to Idaho. There is the whole, it is nice to learn and hunt new country and it broadens our knowledge. And we've done that a lot around the West. And that's what's made us, you know, have the ability to talk about a lot of different places as we go with stuff.

And sometimes we're never going back, but I can tell somebody I wouldn't go there because here's why. It's like hunting the moonscape. I thought I was on to something. It's rough. But overall, I want to go somewhere I know. I'm hearing chatter through Game and Fish Biologist or the network of hunters or outfitters we talk to. I want a little bit. I don't mind hiking. I'm a big glasser. I tend to, when I hunt deer especially, I want to be able to glass. Because I'm not a sitter. I'm not, whether it be bow hunting and whatnot, I'm not, I don't sit. I don't sit in tree stands. I haven't hunted tree stands in 20-something years for deer. I don't. Or blinds. I just, that's not me. I don't do it that way. So I want to be able to glass. Idaho's got a lot of country like that. Steep, deep, glassable, things like that.

As long as I know there's big deer being killed there, the trend's good or improving. I figure, well, I'll go down swing and try to find one. But if I don't think there's one to begin with, it's not worth my time going there. So I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, no, I agree 100%. I think you nailed it in a lot of aspects. I think one thing about it is I think you need to kind of stick to what you know and stick to what you like. So let's say, for example, there's giant bucks being killed in the Frank Church. And you don't like backpacking. You don't like horseback. You don't like remote airstrikes. Whatever. Yeah, right? You don't like that. Well, don't do it. Don't do it. Go find somewhere you like. So, you know, you might do it. But we have friends that go in there. It doesn't necessarily make me want to do it. Sometimes I like the desert.

I might be out in the Arco Desert, out in lava, you know, where there's very limited water, limited deer. And when there's limited deer, people get discouraged. They kill the first buck they see. And maybe you've got deer dying of old age. I mean, there's little things that I like that our friends, Adam, good friends of ours that wouldn't like. And they do well up there. We do well out in the desert or whatever the case is. And I think, too, part of it is units change all the time. And we've talked about it. They change with habitat burns, management practices. Things change. Seasons change. Dates change. All of a sudden, man, when that season, you know, when that unit used to suck, now it's added three days. Like, for example, Unit 231 in Nevada. Those last three days are freaking awesome.

If you can hold out to the last three, which most guys can't, afraid they're going to go home without one, it's awesome for those last guys that hold out. And so that change alone makes it to where it might be considered, might be something you consider. And so I think that we can stay on top of that with the magazine and with personal strategy and personal application strategy when we help guys. These are some of the things that are going on. These are some of the changes we're seeing and why you might consider this. There's always kind of the standard answer. Arizona Strip's the best in Arizona. Yeah, it's always going to be that way. But I project that for the next 20 years. Those may not change as much as what we're seeing. And, you know, that's year-to-year drought changing. But those may not change as much as what we've seen in Nevada, even Utah we've seen.

Oak Creek's coming on, for example, in Utah. All of a sudden it's like what we used to not even consider is what we're totally doing now. Yeah, it does. It does change. And over 5 to 10 to 15 years, units that you forgot about can come back on and things like that. And that's one more to maybe answer the last part of your question is once you've selected a unit, what do you do? It generally, for me to get real interested in a unit, I generally know something about it. I've talked to enough people. They've killed something there, and it's piquing my interest to begin with. So if I get a tag, I might go back to some of them or an outfitter or someone that I know that's from that part of a particular state and just try to break it down. For me, I like to not see people, even though there's parts of a unit that might have the bulk of the deer and the most deer.

As long as it's not, I mean, I don't want to go hunt the North 40 if it's got one deer per square 10 miles. I mean, I'm not talking that and to be alone just to have that experience. I still want to have a chance at a big deer. But for me, I'll ask a few questions to the game and fish biologist or the hunters that have been there before or outfitters. Just try to get a feel of, all right, where are most of the people going to be? I want to know where, when opening day comes or whenever the hunt is, where's the bulk of the people going? Because that just lets me get a mental game plan. And then, all right, I'm going to hunt fringes. I'm going to go, you know, hunt areas that look good to me. I use Google Earth plenty like Jason. We try to, you know, if you haven't been there on the ground, that's the best thing you can do. And then we usually try to get there at least once in the year.

And I know maybe that's a little bit spoiled for us. But living in the middle of the West where all these states surround us, when a day is dry, we can get there. And maybe even if it's for a two- or three-day weekend, go see what it's about and see what it's like. And that's usually led to greater success than just showing up blind. But we've gone and showed up blind too, like we talked about earlier with Colorado. Hunt in November, you can. It is more forgiving to show up blind to a unit in Colorado in November. However, if the weather comes, it'll make a non-scouting, ill-prepared person, you can have an awesome hunt. And I'm nothing against them. I've been in that same case. I've showed up two, three days into a hunt and had phenomenal hunts after it was already been going for two, three days in Colorado. Yeah, it makes crappy units great units. Yeah. Weather. Weather.

So I think another thing is you brought up pressure, and I like that. I think Colorado's a prime example. They have general elk tags in a large portion of the state, and there's some units that do have limited elk tags on a limited draw. So you're not just having – you're not just being inundated with over-the-counter elk guys during the second and third rifle season. And so anyway, that just kind of made me think of that once you brought that up. So totally agree. A lot of times just overall tag numbers, we just kind of half hold our breath. I guess we're going back to Colorado for a minute. But we do half hold our breath on some of this stuff, worried about how many hunters you're going to see. Idaho over-the-counter, you're going to see some people. Yeah. It's over-the-counter. You're going to see people.

So anyway, but there are some good bucks coming out of over-the-counter units there as well as in a lot of over-the-counter areas. You know, there's good bucks down in Arizona, and we know guys that are killing them. One thing I think you did bring up, Adam, was talking to people in the past, and we do have that membership database absolutely loaded. Thousands of entries of guys that have had prior experience that are willing to help the members of Epic Outdoors. And if you draw a tag and you participate in that, your name will go into that database as well and help the next guy. Yeah, and, you know, there's obviously a lot of people say, well, what are people going to tell you where the best honey holes and things like that? Well, sometimes these guys are never going to get the tag again. And you've got to realize that.

Sometimes if they are, you know, questions that they can ask you about where do you camp, where do you use the nearest gash and groceries? I mean, questions like that, there's nothing secret about that. You'll just learn something about the logistics of hunting your unit from people on that list by being a member of Epic Outdoors that will benefit your hunt somehow. So that's a big factor. You know, Jason and I, you know, being in the business, we get to talk to a lot of people. We know friends. We know outfitters or people that have been there. And so we naturally will call some of those people. And some of those are obviously your people that are access to you. They're member experience database members as well. Awesome. Anyway, kind of fun. Of course, you can tell we get pretty excited about this kind of stuff.

But there's a lot that goes into determining something like an over-the-counter hunt and where we're going to start. And a lot of it is just time. We like to hunt places you can hunt multiple years. So the first year, we're going to call it a bust. You know, you just got to know in your mind, it's going to suck. I'm not going to – I'm either going to get lucky, I'm going to eat my tag. And we just figure we're going to eat our tag. Yeah. You – we learn as much on – let's just pick a general tag, whether it be Utah, whether it be Wyoming, whether it be Idaho. You're learning as much stuff as, hey, I do not want to go there again. That's learning something. You weeded that out. You weeded parts of a unit out of, hey, that is crazy over there with the amount of people that show up. And I thought it was going to be good. No.

So you hone it over a couple of years of hunting some of these units over and over. And that can be said for even units that you hunt on draw tags with points every three to five years. You'll do something better hunting familiar country, even if you like the unit and the style of it, by going and learning stuff that you don't want to do or don't want to experience again just as much as, well, I found a honey hole and I killed a big buck there. I want to go right back there. Yeah. Well, it's like I drew an obscure deer unit in New Mexico thinking I might really do something. And I will never go back. I don't even want to hear the word nine. I don't even want to hear it. And so anyway, went in there, didn't even have to hunt it to know I didn't want to be there. He has so much an aversion for it that the units 19, 29, 39, and 49 are all never going to be looked at again. So anyway, yeah.

Was there a big deer killed? Yes. It requires so much insider knowledge that it is something that absolutely I will never be successful there. So anyway, a waste of a year. And there you have it. So, of course, we only have so many years to waste. I guess that's why we're talking about all this stuff. So let's see. Let's talk about Outdoor Edge knives. We've partnered with Outdoor Edge. They've got some incredible knives coming out. We all like the razor knives. So the Outdoor Edge, they do have the long, fairly stiff blade along with kind of a half blade that goes with it that you attach it to. And so it makes it really sturdy. You don't have to worry about breaking your blades, razors, whatever you want to call them, near as often and jabbing one into your leg or something like that. You have a little more control on some of that. And the easy to change in and out, just been awesome.

They're a great partner of ours. We really appreciate them. And what a great product. And so, anyway, you can check out the different knives they offer at www.outdooredge.com or ask an Outdoor Edge dealer at your local sporting goods store. So, anyway, you can go check them out. Super good guys at Outdoor Edge. And, anyway, I've got a little more coming out with a little Epic Outdoors special version of one. Stay tuned for that. We'll announce that full board later this year. All right. All right. Next question. Have either of you guys ever hunted Wyoming mule deer? And what was your experience? This was submitted by Brothers in the Wild TV show. So, yeah, we have. Yes, we have. That's a, those guys, Instagram handle. We'll throw a little shout out to them at BITW307 on Instagram. So, anyway, yeah, we have, in fact, Adam has the most recent experience, 2017. Kick it off. Yeah.

I'd hunted K and H and G. I've hunted all those in the past. And a couple of them back when you could, even while I was building points, since they started the point system, I'd done Region H a couple times as a second choice while you could still do that. But had fun. Killed some bucks. Learned some country. Same thing with Region K. But last year, picked a unit 128 strictly because of season timing. You know, we get a lot of questions on Wyoming deer, too. Not as many as Colorado. But Wyoming's a great place to hunt mule deer. Got great genetics. As a state, in general, they don't manage limited entry units for true trophy hunts. They manage most of their limited entry units are, have to be limited entry because when they're general, they get crushed and they, you know, got to limit the number of hunters on them so they make them a draw.

But I picked that unit strictly because of scheduling. I didn't see anything on the horizon that I thought, hey, I've got max points for a reason and that's it. And I didn't see it really projected to change in the next handful of years. Frankly, I should have probably been there two or three times back to Region G in those 12 years. I'll honestly admit that. But my schedule in September usually is very busy. And so I just haven't been able to or made the time in September to go hunt that. Those open September 15th with the rifle, September 1st to the 14th with a bow in G&H. And I haven't made the time to do it. So I was left with max points and I didn't really want them anymore. I threw that in as a choice because it goes to November 20th. I'd be done hunting or guiding my sheep and whatnot. And so I drew it. Still was about 10% draw.

I drew it, that late hunt around Du Bois, knowing that it was going to be one of those I didn't have to put time into. The rut's going to take care of it. The snow's going to take care of it. But knowing I probably wasn't going to hunt a 190, 200-inch deer either. I knew that. It was just the facts. And so I pulled the tag, went up there, Jeff, John, here from the office, and then a buddy of mine, the guy's from Wayne Brown. He went up there with us and just stayed in Du Bois. I don't know how many hundreds of bucks we saw. Hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds. Elk, sheep, antelope, moose, wolves. What did you call it? Something kind of jungle. It was like the Wild Kingdom. That's it. The Wild Kingdom. You know, the old Mutual of Omaha show back when we were kids. The Wild Kingdom on, I don't know if it was PBS or whatever. It would come on. It was just, there was animals everywhere.

And bucks everywhere. Ended up finally killing a deer the second to last day. Saw a lot of 160 to 175 type bucks, which is exactly what I planned on. Ended up killing a 30-inch, 5x4, really nice, cool buck, mid-180s type buck, second to last day. That's my most recent experience. I fully intend now to hunt generals as often as I can working under my schedule. I have no plans to build a bunch of points after a limited quota unit anymore. I'll hunt general region stuff. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Like you said, you've been up there a lot, spent a lot of time in some of that high country. Of course, you know, getting them second choice, that's an awesome way to steal a tag. But anyway, I've spent a lot of time in, or, you know, back in the day in region K. Did hunt region W pretty aggressively a year. Saw lots of deer. It was pretty shocking out in these like. Open sage.

Yeah, just like all these clay, this clay country. And a lot of really cool country. Just not great genetics. Spent some time in region G with a good buddy of mine back then. And just surprising how much orange you do see up there. And I think a lot of it, you know, guys, even overnight, all of a sudden you wake up and there's orange and horses and wall tents and stuff everywhere. Because it is over the counter for residents. It's unlimited. They limit the residents, or the non-residents, excuse me. They limit the non-residents. And so, anyway, that's their, that's I guess their idea of limited tag numbers is limiting the non-resident. But, anyway, if they ever did limit it, truly limit it, like, you know, like we don't ever foresee. A lot of the residents do like opportunities. If they ever did, it would be unbelievable up there.

So, just like you say, 102 used to be one of the awesome units. Still probably could find, there's a glimmer of hope there from what I'm hearing. But, man, it's far, far cry from what it once was. And 101 and 87 and 89 and, you know, all these different units. And so, like Adam said, definitely not producing as good a deer as they could. It's just not managed for it. And I'm not sure we're seeing a lot of, you know, great change on the horizon with that. But, nevertheless, it is a good opportunity state for guys that want to get out and hunt deer. And maybe, you know, just not hunt absolute monster bucks. Although, every year, there's so many tags in the field up there in G&H. And they've got incredible genetics. There is always several amazing deer to come from Wyoming. All right. So, here we go. Maybe the next question.

As a non-resident, I'm currently sitting on three points for Wyoming mule deer and hope to draw a region H tag this fall. Would you consider an outfitter to get more access into the wilderness area? Or do you think there's plenty of opportunity for a respectable buck on BLM and other public lands that non-residents have access to? Kobe. All right, Bronson. You've been there. What do you think? I've hunted H, so I do know. I did. I've hunted the wilderness and the non-wilderness portions.

For a short time, my brother did live in Wyoming and was able to get that resident accompany permit. They call it like a resident guide permit. It wasn't a licensed guide, but you can take up to, I think, two people with you. Just to clarify so people don't get all excited. That's right. And show up here at the office with a search warrant. That's right. He was a resident there and got that, so we could go hunt that. And we did that in that northern, that Gravant wilderness, the northern part of H. And if you're going to hunt there, yeah, you're going to be limited. You can hunt the very fringes of that if you don't do it with a guide. And there's some great ones. And they know it well. They hunt it every year. They have camps and basins that they'll hunt you with and do a great job. The southern part of Region H, down along the G border, the G divide, it is literally just a divide.

One side is H and one other side is G. There's plenty of public land to do it on your own if you want to do it that way. I can't really tell you that one part of H is better than another, just like you can't say there's only one part of G that produces the big bucks and the other parts you need to forget about. It's not that way. It's all pretty much, I want to generally classify it as, you know, generally the same big mountain ranges. And, you know, it's not like it's, you know, dry arid in one part of it. We're all talking about mountainous country. And deer throughout, sprinkled throughout, areas with trailheads and closer to trails and all that are going to get a lot of the activity. Having said that, I know guys have shot deer within, you know, a quarter of a mile, some of those places that are big deer. Where they've just, you know, it's a numbers game. They grow big deer.

They let you hunt them fairly liberally. All the residents are going to hunt those tags over the counter. They're limiting us non-residents to it. But I guess just to answer that simply, depends on your situation. If you have nothing else going in your year, you've got some extra funds to commit to an outfitted hunt and all that, you are going to be able to probably hunt the northern part of that unit. And, you know, where you're without all the do-it-yourself people there. Having said that, you're not going to be all by yourself. It's still a lot of tags. And you've got residents going in that country on horses and outfitters with people on horses. Really probably comes down to your time. If you've got time, go sink it into the public land, non-wilderness stuff. Go have a good time. Realizing you're not burning a ton of points. That's probably my recommendation.

But having said that, we've got plenty of outfitters that we know that do well in the northern part as well. Great. Yeah, as you look at the map, there is a lot of non-wilderness country in there. And so, like you said, there's definitely options for everybody that wants to do it. So, all right. Let's see. Moving right along. We appreciate that question, by the way, Colby. But moving right along here. Do you think the long wait on draw tags, some tags taking 20-plus years to draw, is hurting hunting in any way? Some people, depending on when they started to apply for a tag, may never have the opportunity to go on that hunt. The smartest thing I ever did was to start applying my sons for tags when they were 10 years old, if the state allowed. Jimmy. So, this is quite an in-depth, could be a very in-depth, aggressive conversation.

I don't know. What do you think? Is it hurting hunting? I guess you could construe that maybe it's limiting recruitment in some ways. Some people don't even want to start certain states. I mean, we hear it. We hear it in places like Arizona. But that change, that draw change down there a couple years, it gives you a glimmer of hope. So, I guess there's no absolutes. You know, there's a lot of states now that are 20-plus years into a point system. And if they don't ever change it, yeah, it looks kind of bleak. You could paint that picture. But a lot of the questions we've had in this podcast up to now, as we've talked about, are a lot more of like opportunity, general, making something out of it. I mean, there's still plenty to do in these states if you are willing to take it. If you have an elite trophy, only the best mentality everywhere, it's a pretty bleak picture. Yeah.

I think you're 100% right. It is bleak. And some tags do take 20-plus years at times. Having said that, we're getting good, and I think the states are getting good at creative seasons and whatnot. And we're getting better at making something out of nothing, so to speak. And we're also seeing, like we've talked about, general Utah. You know, we're seeing great bucks come off the general units. And the tougher it is to draw in other places, the more we're willing to spend more time in some of these easier-to-draw units. And so, is it hurting hunting in any way? That was the question mark. Of course it is. It would be awesome to draw the Arizona Strip every year. Those were tags that were over the counter one day, you know, back in the day. And so, yeah, I mean, it's no fun. We want to hunt the best of the best all the time, but that's just not the way it's going to be.

I think, too, like with Colorado changing to where now they're a cheap application fee, for example, you're not having to front the fees. I mean, that hurt hunting. That's hurting us. It's like, you know, guys that don't value it as much or maybe, you know, again, I don't want to price everybody out. And I'm not, we're not indicating that. But like you said, Adam, we were broke a broke way back in the day using credit card checks to apply for Arizona when they started the point system for deer, for example. And, you know, because they took a personal check. So you take those little checks you get in the mail from the credit card, and that's the way we put them on a credit card back when they didn't accept credit cards, per se. So there was a lot of things that we do because it's important to us. If sheep and goat and moose were really important to you last year, you applied for them.

If they were too expensive for you, you didn't apply for them. Now you've got a lot of guys jumping into that pool. And is that going to hurt the odds? Absolutely it is. Because we've talked about Nevada offering five choices. It would be nice if they went down to one or two choices. And that would help your odds incredibly. And so I think there's a lot of things that we're seeing. Yeah, drawing odds are getting worse. Everywhere they're getting worse. They're absolutely getting worse. But we're also getting better at, and I don't know if it's the information age. I don't know if maybe we value a tag more. Back in the day, we would just, we'd have these general tags. We wouldn't even use them. We wouldn't even think about them. Now we're thinking about them and allocating time to them. Yes.

And I think to build on just exactly what you said, you have to have a different set of glasses looking at the draw and application and hunting process now. If you're strictly getting into the game to want to hunt the biggest and the best in every state, you have a big, long road ahead of you. You have to look at it multifaceted. Some states, you're in it for the long haul. If you get lucky, great. You're like a Utah. But maybe you're hunting the general every two to three years. You've got to have that as part of a plan or Utah will never, you'll never hunt Utah. Similarly in Wyoming, maybe for general deer or easier to draw elk units and things like that. And maybe even when it comes to Arizona elk, we all want to hunt early rifle hunts with an elk. I mean, Jason and I generally would pick archery because we can go sooner.

But even then, now both you and I are back in the building phase of our points and we're probably more apt to take a gamble on something weird or a season that maybe, or a unit that's like, well, they don't kill many 370 bulls there. But I hear of a one or two occasionally and I'm going to go for it. You know what I mean? Versus hoard our points for another 15 years and get another tag. So that, you know, especially once you burn points somewhere, you really have to have a hit the reset button and look at it a different way. There are states like Nevada. You want to draw an elk tag there, there's not a lot you can do. Good luck. Very tough. You can't force it very much. I mean, there's, you know, you look at the odds, they're terrible. You want to draw a desert sheep tag, they do issue more tags than everybody else. But you're just, doesn't mean. The odds are astronomical.

They're terrible. So, yeah. But having said that, you know, Jason and I both have young kids. All of our kids are just hitting hunting age, you know, from the youngest to the oldest now. They're all in that year gap. 10 to 18. Yep. And so we go through it. We're making the calls ourselves and realizing, hey, what was 200 bucks and now is 1,000 bucks to play for a state like Arizona. You know what I mean? For roughly 200 a pop. So there's big decisions. And you realize that, you know, they may have to take early season deer tags or late season elk tags or things like that to get something out of it to ever hunt that state. And so back when you were all maybe starting on some of the ground floors of these point systems, you could have a different mentality than now. But you could have a realistic approach.

And for some people that maybe they either have the means or they make the means to book hunts and go on some of the best hunts they want and they're only interested in the best, maybe the draws don't make sense to them. Because it's money you maybe never get anything out of if you're only after the very, very best. Well, and I think to add on to that just a little bit and don't want to take too much time, I guess. But we do advocate applying in many different Western states. There's a few we don't. But many different states. And that's to add on to, yeah, it does take 20 years maybe in one or two states. And we have guys, Adam, we even have guys in our licensed app service that are worried about drawing too many tags. And they're very, very limited. I only want to apply in these three states for the best mule deer tag. Points only everywhere else. Whatever. Yeah.

And you're like, what do you, let me try to convince you. And we work with them. And over time they start to see that there is no stress. We are not going to draw four tags in one year, especially going for the best. And so I think that's part of like what we do with states that are non-point states like Idaho and New Mexico, for example. Prime opportunities. Go hunt every year for the price of the tag. You're not hurting your future by, you know, burning points because there is no points to burn. There are no points to burn, I should say. And so, you know, why not? Why not go on odd things? And we've done that in some of these states. I mean, you know, like you in Idaho with the muzzleloader deer and some of these. Oh, I had to go buy them. You've got to buy a weird muzzleloader that's only legal in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington that has an exposed percussion cap number.

11, loose powder, solid lead. And it was a tough year you happened to draw it, but you could have killed an absolute monster. Yeah, and I'd go there again just for the chance. But those are the weird things you can do in the two states like you mentioned. Idaho and New Mexico, every year is a new year in those states. Some years I'm only for the best. Other years I'm like, just let me try something weird. And once in a while they hit. Jason, it happened for you on some of your elk units down there, and you killed some giants, you know, on weird units and gambled. And, you know, in 10 years you've drawn a couple of them twice. Yeah, and we're even seeing that with some of these over-the-counter elk here in Utah or something for our kids. There's just things you can do and things we do that maybe we, you know, used to not have to do. But now we're definitely considering it. Exactly.

Maybe one more quick shout-out to one of our sponsors, Helleberg, the tent maker. They've been making great tents for a lot of years. We've been introduced to them, I don't know, probably 15 years ago, Jason, something like that, since we got affiliated with them. Back when they started first making tents. Yeah. They were always kind of mountaineering, you know, based in Europe at the time. But when they really started making the push come to western North America, that's kind of when we got involved. And that's what I mean by making tents is for, you know, really targeting hunters. Yes, exactly. So one of the first tents we had, Jason and I, we still have them, is that one-man acto tent. Solid wall, you know, you don't have to share a tent with somebody. Pretty roomy for a one-man tent. And they make all styles of tents. We've had a podcast.

If you're interested in some more of the specifics about the tents that Helleberg offers, you can go back in the podcast archives. Listen to that with Petra. But also you can visit their website at Helleberg, H-I-L-L-E-B-E-R-G.com. Look at more of their tents. It's a large selection, one-man, two-man, you know, family, you know, big, big, those mountaineering people that go together and have like six, eight, ten people. And they're like pods and all going on. I don't know what you call them. They make a little model for everybody. That's right. And for every occasion. A city, a mini city on the mountain, if you want that. You've got them. I've seen pitchers. I don't know. I'll probably never have something like that. But for whatever your reason, they've got a tent for it. That's right. So, yeah, we did have the single ATCO, the single-man ATCO.

And I did stuff two people in there, me and Jana, my wife. So, anyway, out there in the Escalante Desert. So, good times. All right. So, let's see. Moving right along, I guess.

This would be an interesting one. I don't know. Might not be able to limit to one. I know. But let's see. If you could pick one piece of hunting gear slash knowledge from the today and take it to the past, what would it be and why? That is, thanks, guys. And I love your podcast from Matt and Jed Lee at Utah Sportsman on Instagram. That's their handle, at Utah Sportsman. So, anyway, I appreciate the question there. Bronson, you got any ideas on your favorite pieces here? This is something we once in a while, we'll get off rambling around the office on a topic like this. Like, I wish I would have. And I have a couple of those. Probably the biggest one for me, and I was at a period of my life that I was going to, you know, finishing my bachelor's degree and going to grad school when Wyoming was starting their point system for sheep. I didn't. I wish I would have got in on the ground floor.

And the reason for that is you would have been guaranteed a sheep tag by now in the units that I would have applied for. That's the one thing I wish I could hit rewind was my Wyoming sheep on the ground floor knowing that, hey, you start now, they're going to be giving 75% of the tags to people with the most points. And because of that weeding out, those guys have gone hunting. That would be a guaranteed Rocky. I missed out on that opportunity just from a timing standpoint of where I was in life or not maybe quite paying attention enough or foreseeing how big a deal that could have been. That's one of those things. When it comes to gear or knowledge, I mean, I'd have to say the guns we have. They're pretty nice. If I had had those in some of the earlier years, the holdover years, we'll just call them. Holdover. There would be a lot of big shiz dead. You know, that's probably it.

And I would dovetail that into the optics. It wasn't that we didn't have Swarovski when we were young kids. It's just that you can't afford, you know, in high school, you know, dad's not buying you all Swarovskis in the, you know, mid-'80s. You know, it's just we don't do it with our own kids. Like you kind of don't want to just strap $2,000 to their neck and say, hey, bring that back when you're done. Our kids are hard on stuff. So the optics and the rifle setups that we have now and the bows, they're phenomenal. I mean, the brass pins. They kill stuff. The brass pins on our bows back in the day. Remember just the gold pins out there that you're looking through your peep. And if it got even dusk, you couldn't see them. Well, and we thought we were doing something by painting them with fingernail polish. And now we have glow in the dark, whatever. You know, the ops, not glow in the dark.

They do practically. Yeah, tritium. So you've got, those are some pieces of gear, the archery, the rifle. And I guess from the knowledge standpoint, and then I'll let you go off, Jason. But for me, if I knew, we've talked about mule deer being good in Utah again right now in general. But if I knew in the 80s that what I was experiencing would go away for 10 to 20 years. Yeah. And I would have hunted a lot harder. I would have hunted probably Colorado sooner. The things that you don't know what you had until they're gone, that mule deer thing in Utah for 10 to 15 years, I wish I would have made more. When we were, we were little though. We were kids. We thought we were good. It's a muzzleloader in the rut. Yeah. And we thought, yeah, you could hunt. You could kill up until I think the year before I started. You could kill a deer with a bow.

And then you could hunt with a rifle or a muzzleloader. You know, all three. You had the dedicated hunter program without having to do the dedicated hunter program. There you go. And you could hunt in November, the first week into November with a muzzleloader. Yeah. Hit rewind on that. Let me go back. And give me a muzzleloader. That can shoot. Instead of a hawking around ball with, hey, did I put it? Did I put two patches on that ball or one piece of cloth patch? I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. Just pull the trigger. And directional patches and all this that we thought we were really getting detail oriented. So that's some of my thoughts. Oh, I agree 100%. So like there's a lot of things I wish I could. I mean, and maybe this is varying a little bit from knowledge. But I wish I could take tags. I wish I could go back like you're saying.

I had a Pinion Canyon Colorado tag unit 142 late. I freaking ate the tag. I had it in 1996. If I had anything to do over, it'd be that one. I also killed a dink buck on the muzzleloader poncegant back when it was late. And just wasn't sure how big he was and took the chance. And I should have made sure. And I should have really made good on that tag. But I was too young to know better. The 240s in Nevada used to go to like mid-November. And that was one of those that you just, you know, if you knew that was going to go away, you'd have worked dang hard at it. And so anyway, there was one day we had a 241 landowner tag come through back when nobody knew anything about 241 in and of itself. And it was going for $2,500. And we were like, that's retarded. That tag's now going for $20,000, $23,000. And so anyway, we always thought 242 was the best. And you had the migration on the Utah border.

And no way 241 would have any big bucks at all. And now it's, you know, some years it's better than 242. And so just disgusted at the lack of knowledge, having great tags, and not making good on them. And I think everybody kind of has that. As far as gear, binos for sure. You've touched on the rifle and bow. Yes, give me those rifles and bows back then. But the binos, the high-def binos that we've got, whether it be Vortex, Zeiss, Swarovski, whatever you like to use, they are 100 times better than what we used to have. I had the Redfield 10x50s thought I was really doing something. You couldn't pry them out of my cold, dead hands. But, you know, those days are long gone. I'd drag them behind my truck, you know. So, anyway, just one of those things. There's things, and I think part of that is knowledge, having the gear, but then knowing how to use it and learning.

And the distance we've come, whether it be range finders, whether it be turrets, whether it be whatever it is, the distance we've come. And then also the knowledge to make good on those tags. And some of that, Adam, just comes with being old. We're just old. Yeah, you're going to have the experiences we just talked about that you wish you could do over. I have a few of those hunts that wish we could do over. But there's only one way to get to your current frame of mind that you have right now, and that's to go through experience stuff. Whether it be awesome hunts or whether it be crappy hunts or stuff you didn't put enough time into to make the most of or whatever. There's only one way to get to your current mindset of how you view my hunting plans and my time every year. And that's to go through everything you've gone, good and bad, in the past. So chalk it up to experience.

But those are a few things that I wish I could do over. Let's kick it off. You got a question right there? You bet. Question from Cody. I recently found a sheath off of a young ram. Either of you stumble onto a sheath, and also do you know if it's very common for them to shed? Figured I'd ask the experts before going to anyone else. Thanks. The quickest answer is if that thing is shed, he's either dead and that's been drug off and you found a shed and his skull is somewhere else. Or if it looks normal like it's sloughed off, that ram's, he's dead. And if it looks like it's been busted off, which I did find a partial horn this year on a desert sheep hunt in Utah that had clearly broken off like through combat and head butting. You know, you look in some states, it's not as common in Utah.

But in Arizona and Nevada, these sheep, they get sinusitis and things and they'll bang their head on them rocks. We've seen it, Jason. Some of these rams, they got big dished concave parts out of the top of their horns. We've seen them change in eight months. We've seen a ram, the big, long ram. Yes. Jeff Jones. He almost fell off. It had almost was ready to fall off. From the time we pre-scouted him to the time we killed him. So big old black hole in there. It was crazy. Banging on it. It was rotten. So they can rotten and partially fall off like that. It's, you know, it is live, you know, underneath their bone and blood and all that. It's part of their cooling mechanism that sheep have to have that blood go up there and out of their body and come back in. It's just kind of physiologically kind of interesting. But if you find a whole sheet that came off right at the skin.

They don't shut them. They're dead. He's dead somewhere. And that sheet that you found has been packed off by usually an animal because they stink for a while and probably got packed off, things like that. It's not, you don't come across them. You know, I found, you know, I guess three deadhead sheep last year. Some of them are little. One of them was a big ram that I was able to get the DWR involved and go pick up. But I found a few that I've kept and like anything else when you find deadheads or for deer and elk or anything else, they're kind of neat. It tells a story, you know, with sheep. Unfortunately, sometimes it has, you find a lot of them in places where they've had a die off. Sheep are very susceptible to that. So you can end up stacking them up in a hurry. But sheaths, not very common. Kind of like antelope. Antelope you find a bit. I think coyotes and things.

I mean, when I've been out with my dog out in the West Desert, they'll come packing them back. I think they stink. But I mean, if you're starving to death, I'm sure coyotes gnaw that thing down to nothing. You know, they're kind of hollow hair, stinking things. And they don't hold up super well for year after year, like as well as bones. So anyway, anything to add on that? No, you covered it good. It's something that, I mean, we've seen how that can happen, like you said, and whatnot. And so it just depends on the ones that he found. And obviously, a little something there. Well, and since we are talking about sheep a little bit, just mentioned one of our partners who has been with us from the start. And that's the Wild Sheep Foundation, great organization that's purely dedicated to putting and keeping sheep on the mountain.

They've put millions of dollars, in fact, over $13 million into wild sheep and wildlife restoration in the last three years. Their mission is to enhance wild sheep populations and promote scientific wildlife management and educate the public on sustainable use and conservation benefits of hunting. So big advocates of Wild Sheep Foundation. And obviously, we had Gray Thornton on just prior, which is the CEO and president of Wild Sheep Foundation. If you want to go back in the archives and listen to that podcast, we did that with Gray right before the sheep show, first of the year, 2018. And if you want more information, becoming a life member, Summit Life member, or regular member of Wild Sheep Foundation, go to wildsheepfoundation.org. And join up. Okay. So last question of the podcast. I just want to keep in mind, you know, let everybody know this is going to be a multiple part series.

If you do have questions, throw them in there. DM us at epic underscore hunts on our Instagram or Facebook or what have you. Us personally, we have Instagrams as well. So anyway, and we'll try to get them covered. It's been kind of fun. But last question. Here we go. We saved it. Good friend of ours, Colton in Nevada. You know who you are. Sent us a little question. Sometimes he's digging me a little bit. But he knows some of these answers. But anyway, what's your favorite unit to hunt in Nevada and why? Also did a lot of big deer from 241 to 245 survive the 2017 hunting season. He's trying to extract a little info on this one. Where do all the giants in 242 shed their horns? Okay. I'm going to give you a coordinates. Stay tuned. Here in about three minutes, I'm going to cover it. What is the biggest deer you know about in Nevada that's still alive? And where is his exact location?

And so anyway, classic. I love these guys. Pretty funny. Spent a lot of time. And they spend a lot of time in the field. I can learn a lot from them, especially shed. I know they started him and old Colby out of southern Utah. Started a new Instagram page. It's the number one hunted, H-U-N-I-D, outdoors. So anyway, not sure where they're heading with this. But him and Colby are going to be doing that or are doing it and cranking. And so anyway, my favorite unit. They probably know I do like all units. You know, so the 240s, 230s, 130s, 220s. There's about everything. There's a big deer in any of these units. And I like to keep learning and whatnot. And so we just keep moving. Moving and killing as best we can. And so where do they all shed? Who knows? And what's the biggest deer you know about in Nevada that's still alive?

I don't know. I don't know. You never know. Some of the biggest. Those are questions you don't ask. Colby. Especially don't ask Jason Carter. I'm just going to tell you right there. And I know you were needling him here. Oh, yeah. He was giving me grief. But they do. Everybody's tuned up, driving down the highway, running on your Stairmaster. The volume's high right now, waiting for those words to come out of Jason's lips. And I'm telling you all, you're wasting your time. So the biggest deer. You never know. Like last year, he turned to, you know, it wasn't big. He lost 30 inches. And so it seems like last year, Adam, and you and I have talked a lot about this, but there were some big deer in 242 and 231. Really big deer in 231. Just produced like crazy. Lots of deer. We wrote about it in the magazine. I mean, you know, killed the world record archery buck 2016.

Killed a 230 net, which we killed with Adam Kearney in 2016. And then we jump into 2017, think that it can't be beat. Boom. Here comes how many over 200. How many over 220. 231 kicked him out. It did. And when, when as a whole, Nevada was off. You can't, you can't say it wasn't anything but off. It was. As a whole. That's right. Like, and specific deer we know about. And these guys know too. There's specific deer that were down, but maybe there was a little bit more rain up in the northern part of 242. And in 231 and just kicked out a bunch more big deer, which those desert units in 241, it sucked. It was tough. But anyway, as for coordinates, go on to Onyx Hunt map. Onyx Hunt. Here we go. North 37.790431. West 114.407303. That will take you to the biggest deer I know about. Just kidding. But go check it out. But anyway, that's some of the best country in Nevada.

And for that, I guess, I don't know, it kind of wraps it up. Adam, what do you think? You got anything else out there that would kind of grind us out a little bit? It was good. You know, these are, these are good. They're obviously, hopefully you get something you glean out of this and, and maybe a glimpse into our minds, which maybe isn't a good thing, but at least how we perceive and how we go through a throughout process of picking units and going on some of our hunts. We really appreciate everybody that sent stuff into us. We realize that, you know, we can come up with our own content for podcasts, you know, on a spur of a moment, we can jump in here and just talk about something or set up guests and things like that. But it's nice to have some ideas from you all. So we'll keep them coming. Like Jason said, through our Instagram DM or, you know, send us an email or whatever.

And glad to do it. Well, should we give a little something away? I don't know. What do you think? Maybe just Epic Hat and a decal or? Throw a knife in there too. All right. We'll throw in one of these Outdoor Edge knives sponsored by, since it's sponsored by them and, and we got a partnership with them. So let's throw an Epic Hat decal, truck decal and a knife. And we'll do that to one guy. You got, you got to get on our website. You go on there and you'll enter a promo code. What do you want the promo code to be? Throw it out there. Epic knife. Knife. How about that one? Epic knife. All one word. Okay. Epic knife. Lowercase. Yep. All lowercase. All right. Epic knife. E-P-I-C-K-N-I-F-E. In case you don't know how to spell. Which sometimes I wonder about myself. So, and everybody else does too. So anyway, go to epicoutdoors.com backslash podcast. Enter Epic Knife and we'll give that away.

We usually send them out in a week or so, don't we, Chris? So we got them here in the office. We'll get it out right away to you. Appreciate everybody that's out there listening to us. Because every other podcast I listen to, which they're all kind of addicting, it's kind of fun to listen to podcasts. But they do say, you're supposed to go out and give us a five-star review. Go out there, tell whoever you want that we, and give us a good review. Hey, I give these guys a good review. And if it happens to be on the web somewhere where it's supposed to go, all the better. So appreciate everybody and all the support. If you do want to visit with Adam and I about your draw strategies, of course, we're willing to visit with you, especially if you're a member of Epic Outdoors. We charge $100 a year. It's pretty cheap considering the price of gas, the price of trucks.

I know you've got a new set of tires, Bronson. That's a lot of hundreds. Yeah. Thanks for reminding me. So anyway, nothing's cheap anymore. And so $100 seems to be a good value. You get nine issues a year. And of course, we break down all the states, drawing odds, kill percentages, and everything. And we also have a license application service. You don't want to do it yourself. That's a separate service. We charge a little extra for that. But well worth it. If you're the kind of guy that doesn't like to do your own taxes, you'd be a prime candidate for this. So anyway, it's very customized for Adam and I. All right. Until next time, we'll do another question and answer. We've got a whole bunch more questions we didn't get to. But here in maybe another week, week and a half. Appreciate everybody. Like Adam said, thanks for your questions. And until next time, we'll go from there.