EP 74: Spring Bears, Application Deadlines, and Bucket List Hunts

Jason, right now, he's on the Alaska Peninsula. We've heard he now knows the meaning of horizontal rain. This is not a light Bannon hunt. This is a legit stone hunt. This is the one you book three years out and you make happen. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, here another episode of the Epic Outdoors podcast. Today we've got myself, Adam Bronson, here with John Peterson and Jeff John here in the Epic Outdoors office here. A couple of the other guys are out playing. We'll get to that here in a minute. But Jason and Chris are out chasing bears. But first off, we wanted to thank our title sponsor, Under Armour and UA Hunt. They've been great partners of us here at Epic Outdoors. We appreciate that. And being the title sponsor, they've always got some great gear. Jeff, you want to just give them maybe a heads up about something coming up here. Piece of clothing we actually highlighted you in the car wash on here about a month ago. Yeah, me and Chris went off goofing around, did a little YouTube video there.

Stole a couple pieces of Jason's equipment that, you know, Jason gets it early. He gets it a little earlier than everybody else. And tried out that wind stopper jacket that they have. It's going to be available at the end of July. Right now is kind of the tentative schedule. But anyway, Jason had that jacket. We went over. Now, it is not the rain gear. Not the rain gear. This is just the wind stopper jacket. It's the one you have in your bag. You throw it on when there's a little bit of breeze or whatever, you know. We put it through the car wash. Because it says that there's a certain amount of weatherproofing to it. You know what I mean? It's water resistant. Water resistant. Yes. It was more than water resistant. We full on blasted each other with it. I used the old version. Chris used the new version. I cannot believe how well it did. For just being the rain jacket, it's light.

I mean, it's... You mean wind stopper, not the rain jacket. Yeah, yeah. It's wind stopper. Yeah, it's the wind stopper. I can't believe how well it... I mean, we full on blasted it. Like, and I wasn't... I didn't take it easy on him. I pressure washed Chris. Like, literally, we would have been taking grease off. And it did pretty good. It did really well. And you can watch it on the YouTube video and check it out. You know, for a wind stopper jacket, I don't think you can beat it. When's it going to be available? So, you can get it at uahunt.com, right? Uahunt.com, yeah. Should be the end of July. We should be seeing it. Hit uahunt.com. We'll be seeing it there. Hopefully, I don't know how that goes out in stores necessarily, but the best place to get is just directly from there, uahunt.com. And I also wanted to mention Vortex has upgraded the cover prize for all of our 2018 covers.

Instead of the 15x56 Kayabab HD binos, they sent us 18x56 HD binos. We've got them right here. There's a little bonus for all those cover guys, all the cover. Back to January. They were a little bit late getting them to us because they wanted the new models to us. But we've got them in and sent them back to everybody from January to June that's already been on one of our covers. So, if you want to check those out, vortexoptics.com. And, you know, go check out and see what other models they've got. Support us. The guys who support us. If we happen to crack open a box, you know, if the box doesn't look completely sealed, that might mean they went through a test run before they got help. Check for my fingerprints. Check the fingerprints or probably Jeff's. All right. Well, you may have heard, you may have gotten an email or something from us here at Epic Outdoors,

but we just announced a big announcement last week with an Epic Stone Sheep Hunt giveaway. Anyway, very short timeline on this. We're selling tickets for this. It's live on our website at epicoutdoors.com right now. But we bought a full-priced stone sheep hunt. This is not some crappy area, something like that. This is something we've had members go on. This outfitter only takes three hunters in this concession a year. We've had personal friends and clients kill rams on this hunt. It's a $40,000 stone sheep hunt if you're going out to book it yourself. It's a 14-day hunt. The dates are set. I do want to highlight those. It is August 16th to the 29th, 2018. There's no exceptions to that. It's the second hunt this August. So there's a hunt from the 1st to the 14th and then a day in between. And then this is the second hunter. So cannot be transferred, anything like that.

14-day stone sheep hunt in northern British Columbia with our Epic Outdoors approved outfitter, Luke Vince. Like I said, we've had many clients hunt with him on this specific hunt. It's a great opportunity to kill a dark ram. It's right in northern B.C. Not right hugging the Yukon border, but you do fly into Whitehorse, drive to Watson Lake, and charter back into northern B.C. there. You can also, the winner of this hunt, can take a Canadian moose or mountain goat on a harvest fee for an additional $5,000 each, which is very reasonable. So the only thing, if you win this hunt, the only thing you have to pay is the standard licenses and tags, which are, you know, around $1,000, depending on how many tags you actually want to buy. If you're only there for sheep versus you do want to buy your goat and moose and all that.

So licenses and tags, your charter, which is $1,500 from Watson Lake back into base camp, as well as the tax and your tip for your guide. So, but the base hunt cost for the stone sheep has been fully paid for by us. It's not transferable. So the winner is simply going to have to go on this hunt. Poor you. And I think one thing of note here, Adam, this is a legit stone sheep hunt. It is. This is not one of those that they can't sell, that nobody can get rid of. You know, it's an add-on late in the year, a quote cancellation. This is nothing like that. This is a legit stone hunt. Like, these guys do not send people home unhappy. I mean, it just, they kill beautiful rams. This is not a light fanning hunt. This is nothing. This is a legit stone hunt. This is the one you book three years out and you make happen. You've got three months this time. That's right.

So it is a little bit of a short turnaround, but we decided, we've had a lot of feedback. We did a survey with some of you members. You might've got that or hunters in general about the type of hunts that they like to apply for, try to win, things like that. And overwhelmingly, we heard back that a stone sheep hunt or hunts like that of a bucket list nature were of big interest. And so we bought this hunt and are going to give it away in less than 45 days from the time we announced it, which is almost unheard of. Don't know what the odds are going to be like, but they're going to probably be as good as any stone sheep raffle you'll ever have in your life simply because of a 40 something day turnaround from the time it was announced until June 19th at midnight when ticket sales end. So want to emphasize that this is a hunt that is the second hunt. He only takes three in this area.

It's a phenomenal hunt, dark sheep, moderate physical type hunt. This is not brutal. There are horses, you can jet boat up the river, then you horse back up into the area. And then obviously, you know, you got to be able to hike and, you know, close the distance when you've got a ram, you got to tie the horse up and whatnot. But it's not one of those that's a brutal physical hunt. $25 gets you into the game. Um, if you buy five tickets, uh, that's $100 or we'll give you 10 tickets for $200, which includes one of our outdoor edge epic outdoors series knives, which is a $40 value. So a $200 package gets you 10 tickets and a knife. If you do want to even keep going higher than that 25 tickets for 500 plus three knives. But anyway, as low as $25 gets you in for the stone sheep hunt. You can give us a call at 435-263-0777. We can take your tickets over the phone.

You will receive, uh, an email of your ticket, ticket stubs sent to you with your name on it. So, you know, uh, they're in the draw or if you just want to go to the epic outdoors.com and buy tickets online, anytime you hear this, you can do that as well. So great opportunity. Somebody's going to be very happy the end of June. Um, it'll give you about two months to prepare. So, um, we, we couldn't extend this too much longer and, uh, before people didn't have maybe enough time to put everything together. And yeah, get all the gear they need. Yep. Put on the final touches or run on the treadmill for two straight months. Yeah. And we've really tried to make the tickets affordable on this. I mean, entry level at $25, you know, this may be the only chance you've ever got to go on, you know, a stone sheep hunt. Yeah.

You realize stone sheep or things of this nature, a $40,000 type hunt are for a lot of people, um, maybe just on a wish list or a dream list for now. And this is a way that everybody gets a chance to, to maybe win a hunt like that, that they might only otherwise save up to do once. Not everybody. Not everybody. Okay. Yeah. And I'm excluded from this opportunity, which I, uh, you know, is causing some emotional scarring for me. Well, there's obvious exceptions to who can apply, you know, Epic Outdoors family members, staff, or relatives of family members, staff, and some other, other exclusions. Yes, Jeff. So we're sorry to pop your balloon on that, but you cannot. I can't win. Pay me 25 bucks, pay me 25 bucks and we'll go to lunch. I want to, I want to win it, man. I'm dying. Well, you know, we, we play a lot of these other, other raffles.

We, you know, we talked about the, you know, the raffles with some of the other organizations earlier in the year and we, we supported them and we, we play some of those. And this is one that we just want to give a great opportunity for somebody. You don't have to be a member of Epic Outdoors to buy tickets. So anybody can go online to epicoutdoors.com and, uh, read more about it. And, uh, somebody is going to get lucky the end of June and, uh, be going in August to kill a stone sheep. So, well, let's jump into why I guess the other guys aren't here. It's kind of turkey and bear season right now. And, uh, I've been out hunting turkeys a little bit with, uh, my kids and getting ready to take off tonight, actually go hunting bears with a, with a friend over on the San Juan unit, which has kind of gotten to be a tradition last four or five years. Love doing that.

Jeff, you've got a bear tag yourself here in Utah. Yep. You've got a bear tag just up to me. It kicks off here in a couple of weeks. I think the 26th year hunt opens up. Man, I'm itching. I'm ready to go. Yeah. You've got a summer bait, bait season, I believe is the one you got. So, um, that's awesome. And then Jason right now, he's, he's on the Alaska peninsula. So he's, we've heard he's, he now knows the meaning of horizontal rain. It does not sound fun. I heard he's, he's found out what that means, but he's seen plenty of bears. He's, he's just had some, you know, like can be, you're right on the coast right there on the, catching some weather. Southward, the Pacific blowing the whole way, right up and you're the first piece of land it's seen for a long time. But seeing a couple of big bears, he's got one he's hopefully can close the deal on. And then Chris, Chris is up in Montana.

Montana, as we speak hunting bears over the counter. Yeah. We heard it, heard a report from Chris. It's, you know, one mishap after another, but tell us about it. I didn't get all the, yeah. You just talked to him this morning. So he did. He, he located a couple of bears, almost ran one over on his, with his truck. I think he didn't see it all of a sudden, you know, it's right in front of him. Oh my gosh. And anyway, but he got into the bears and I guess, you know, he, he got set up. Tell me about this one. Here's some kind of remote spot. So he had some tiny little two track logging roads or something in clear cut area. Got in there. Spotted a bear. Found the bear. Gets set up and he's trying to film himself, you know, so we can release it on YouTube and all that. So it's a little bit, usually Chris is filming everybody else. It's a degree of difficulty. It is a degree of difficulty.

So he sets up the camera, gets the camera on the bear, sets up his gun, gets the gun on the bear. Right then dude pulls up in between him and the bear. No. He's a little two track logging road. He didn't even know was there. He's like, there's just a truck a hundred yards from the bear. The guy didn't know Chris was there. The guy didn't see the bear. He didn't see the bear either. He's a hundred yards from the bear. So Chris is like, I can't shoot over the guy, you know, anyway, you Peterson's and people getting in the way of, I don't know what the, so he waits, the bear turns kind of, he loses the bear. And the guy, you know, guy drives off. So he spends a bunch of time, relocates the bear, gets the camera set up again, gets his gun set up. He says immediately, hailstorm, like the worst hailstorm he's ever been in. Oh my gosh. Just pounds the heck out of him. Well, spring hunting, man.

Yes. So, you know, one thing after another, but he was, he was thinking about coming home and I'm like, dude, you're on the bears. You're not going to get back up there to stay. Stay and kill that bear. Well, and he's up, I think he's going to maybe stop by and visit the folks at Kennetrek too while he's up there. Yeah, he is. He's going to go talk to Jim Wingeom and check out some of their boots, do a little filming. We might see that on our YouTube channel as well a little later. I'm jealous. I'd like to go up there and visit. I think he's breaking in a new pair of boots up there too. So, yeah, if you want to check them out, Kennetrek.com, and they've got a lot of great stuff. I know people are drawing tags and getting geared up. So, you know, if you're in the market for a new set of boots, check them out and watch for that video coming out from Chris.

Yeah, in the meantime, hopefully we can have some more to report in a week or two of some dead bears for you all. It's kind of the thing, you know, turkeys and bears, that's what you can hunt in the spring. It's like they may not be your most favorite thing in the world, but they're your most favorite thing in May. Well, unless you're a shed hunter, you know. Well, you can shed hunt while you're in the trigger to kill something. While you're bear and turkey hunting, you end up shed hunting too. You always tend to stumble on some of that. So looking forward to that. So you're going to San Juan with friend. Mm-hmm. Go there tonight. It's been three or four days. See if we can turn up a big. Is Aaron coming down? He's not this weekend. He's already done his share of bear hunting. Well, yeah, he actually ran to Idaho. Him and his brother-in-law and a couple of buddies went up there.

Some country, we've hunted wolves up there, and, you know, obviously when you're in the middle of winter, there's no way to know whether, hey, how many bears are in this country because it's snowed over and all that. They're all denned up. But we went back to some of that country. One of them killed the bear the first night, and then Aaron, his first night there, glassed a big bear up just before dark. And so the next day they dinked around in the day, went and looked at some new country, and that afternoon hiked way up there, a couple miles up to get up above to where they looked down into that little canyon where that bear came out. And lo and behold, that bear came out like 400 yards away from where it came out the night before. You know, he's just in feeding mode. He wasn't in roaming looking for sow mode yet. Just a big, big brown boar. And his brother-in-law pounded it.

It was awesome. It was a great-looking bear. No ground shrinkage on that bear. No, that was a big bear. Sometimes on Instagram you see they get up there, and there's a little bit of ground shrinkage on those bears. That's a big bear. Yeah, nice bear. Especially doing it on over the camera. Yeah, just bite a tag. Went up there blind, so to speak. So probably start working. I'll probably go up there in a year. I don't have anybody down here in Utah to follow. So, yeah, that time of year and stretching the legs, starting to, you know, doing something, getting active. A lot of the application stuff's kind of winding up here. But time, like John said, to start buying gear, boots, optics, things like that. You know, it's that time of year to do that. Jeff here, he's been good friends with some of the guys. He's lived up next to some of the guys at Kent Optics for years. Yeah.

Been neighbors with him, I guess you'd probably put it that way. Yeah, not too far off, only a few miles away. Kids run around a little bit together. But, yeah, it's a great time to get a hold of, you know, pick up some glass, pick up whatever you're needing. Man, that new rangefinder would be nice that they got up there. There you got that new Vortex Fury HD built into the binos. Now, this is new for Vortex, I believe. This is one of their newer, brand new model, I believe, where you can range glass all at the same time. I have, you know, I started, I picked up my first pair of rangefinding vinos, what, last, two years ago. And I cannot believe how handy it is, especially when you're hunting with somebody. You don't have to take your eyes off the animal. You don't have, you're not pulling different equipment out.

You know, you are, you know, either set up on your tripod, set up on, you know, set up, you don't pull it off. Hunting with my kids, it is. Comes in handy. Oh, well, you know, I mean, you, we've proved that you never know when your kid's going to pull the trigger, necessarily. But, but yeah, it's nice to be able to see it, range it all in one step, jump to the gun, or be with somebody. You know, and that's, that's my biggest thing is being with somebody and, and being able to just keep track of an animal when he's moving, you know, keep the range going. And, well, those, the new Vortex HDs are, are awesome. They're awesome. Kent's has them. I know they're having a little bit of a special on that right now. So if anybody's interested, get a hold of them. Their number is 435-257-7014. They can give, they can feed you a bunch more details on those.

But, you know, they are like, you can't beat their prices. I mean, you just can't. And I picked up all my optics from Kent's, everything. I get my ammo from Kent's. I get most, most things from Kent's. But Dave and Jeff up there are awesome. Give them a call. They'll set you up with those binos, whatever you're looking for. And most of the time they've got them in stock. It's not like, hey, we've got, those are on back order. You've got to wait. You know, you draw a tag. You want to upgrade your optics. Give them a call. Yeah, it's awesome. Well, it's, we're getting towards the end of our application season. But there are quite a few deadlines here coming up that I just want to run through really fast. Maybe just go in order. Washington is due on May 23rd. That's coming up here soon. Wyoming deer and antelope for non-residents, as well as deer and antelope and elk for residents.

It's coming up May 31st. California due June 2nd. Iowa whitetail due June 3rd. Idaho deer, elk, and antelope is due June 5th. As a reminder, if you did not apply for sheep, moose, or goat already, you can apply for deer, elk, and antelope. If you did apply for sheep, moose, or goat, you're going to have to sit this initial draw for deer, elk, and antelope out. And then we've got, last but not least, as far as this spring application period goes, Arizona for sheep, deer, and their bison is due June 12th. So that's kind of a quick rundown of what's coming up here in the next couple of weeks. Also got some new things. I want to keep making you aware of what we're doing on our website. John, you want to talk about that a little bit in terms of our drawing odds for members? Just the other day, we loaded Arizona draw odds for sheep and deer. And so those are available for members.

Log into your account. If you have any problems logging in, just give us a call. But it's pretty easy. All you need is your email address and your password. And if you forgot your password, hit the forgot password link and reset it and you're in. So really awesome. We're going to have a lot of new announcements coming this year on our website. But those have just been released. So what do we got for draws? So Utah is kind of hitting cards and somewhat sending emails. But they don't have anything posted on their website, which is killing me. I guess we will applaud them for charging cards and sending emails to most people faster than they normally have. Their published release dates are by May 31st, which, you know, that's ridiculously long. You know, we used to be able to sneak in backdoor, check your points, and they would deduct your points.

Or they're used to, there's always ways, well, there's nothing now. You get an email or maybe you don't get an email. Who knows what's going to happen? So if you go to charge on your card, that's an indicator. For some non-residents where some of the permit fees for the once-in-a-lifetimes are all the same price, you don't know what you've got until you get an email, which most of them have been sent out. But we keep hearing every day from people chomping at the bit, you know, they've got this, that, emails, blah, blah, blah. And they've got maybe a charge on their card for a once-in-a-lifetime species of the non-residents. They can put them for all five, but they still haven't got an email. They don't know what they got. And you can't go to your account online, which seems like the most logical first place you'd go to check, but it's not. So hopefully be patient there.

They should hopefully trickle out to the remainder of people, the emails, or have the accounts loaded. I'm hopeful by the end of the week or something like that so that you know definitively, make your plans, book an outfitter, or plan your time off work or whatever. So that's first and foremost. So what do you got that you know of?

Not much. Thanks for reminding me, Jeff. I've got a general deer tag, lifetime license holder in Utah, so I've got that. But my boy did draw a tag. I guess we're announcing that right now, Jeff, since you teed that one up. Yeah, I'll send that one to you. We'll be on the Henry Mountains with my boy on the muzzleloader hunt. He had one point. Before all of you get too wound up, he did draw the management buck hunt. But I just figured, you know, with a 13-year-old kid, that'd be a pretty awesome hunt. He did well last year and killed a couple of really nice bucks. But anyway, one point, he drew that. I can't believe it. That is a fantastic hunt. So it'll be a fun time. But that pretty much derailed some of my plans. I wasn't planning on that happening. But you'll take it, and we'll make it work. And I don't know who else in the office. What are some of the regulations on that?

Just got to have, yeah, for you listeners, the Poncegant and the Henrys have a management buck hunt. These are units with very, very high buck-to-doe ratios. And there's bucks simply that 95% of people that are old and mature that 95% of the people won't shoot or don't want to shoot with their trophy tag. So it has to have at least three points or less on one side, excluding the brow tines and any basal points. So drop tines between the eye guard and the first fork, they don't count. I didn't even think about that. You could have a panage drop. If it's below the G2 and main beam fork, anything below the G2 and main beam fork back to the base, anything down there does like it didn't exist. So droppers. If that kid goes down there and kills a big old drop-tying 4x3, oh, my goodness. There's some pretty solid deer, mainly because there's an old-age class. And we'll see. It'll be fun.

They get to hunt more or less right along with the trophy hunters a few days after they start. So that'll be fun. Looking forward to that. Our kids are spoiled. They are. That kid's been spoiled the last couple years. He's drawn a great Idaho tag and now this. And so he just thinks now. He's like, Dad, I just want an elk now. And I'm like, you know, just don't pick stuff off the shelf usually when it comes to hunting. So it'll be fun. I think most of the rest office so far, we've just got generals, right, to talk about. Yeah, general tags. Haven't heard from Jason on that. We talk to him every few days on a sat phone. So we haven't talked about pending charges and checked your emails because he doesn't have access to some of that. So my daughter drew a general tag. So that'll be first hunt. So that's always fun. Oh, that's awesome. Love that, you know, first deer hunt with them. Yep. Yep.

Sounds great. Well, so that's Utah. We should. Idaho went to a new company this year for their draw. And their turkey and their spring bear draw was really delayed. And so normally their sheep, moose, and goat draw results are about right now, around the 17th to 25th of May. That's a quick turnaround usually, even though the deadline was to apply for those was April 30th. They usually get them out here from the next week. I guess just stay tuned. We're letting you know that that's historically what's been the case. I don't know if they'll stay on track. Similarly, Nevada. Nevada, that's a state that for the last five or six years has always had their results out the Friday going into Memorial Weekend. I know that because I'm usually bear hunting. And I have one spot that Friday that I always glass from. Because you have service. No, I don't want to have service.

Not this year. We don't know. We don't know what's going to happen. This new company that they have, whether they keep on that, I've tried many times to call and get a straight answer out of them. And they are not sure yet. So we're hopeful that that's next Friday, but not sure. Those are probably the most imminent ones, I guess. With Colorado sheep and goat already being out, but they're deer elk, antelope, bear, moose. Should be on the hills right there somewhere. Should be right there. They're published to be out the first week of June. So a lot coming out here real soon. So if you do draw something, let us know about it. We can either help you with an Epic Member Experience Database, which we'll talk about here in a minute. Or set you up an outfitter if you're looking for some additional help like that to make the most of the tag you've drawn.

So anyway, that's kind of a quick rundown of application deadlines and some of the draws getting ready to come out here right away. So also, by way of gear, I want to talk about QU's new Attack Pro pant. This is a new 2018 version of their Attack pant, which has been around and, you know, very popular. I've had, you know, many different versions of that. But this new version has got a little bit different fabric. It's more abrasion and pick-resistant, so you don't get, you know, don't get caught up and get those little tug, you know, stringers or whatever you call them. I guess they're called picks. I don't know. That's what it says on their thing here. Pick-resistant. But you get them, particularly from down in really, you know, down in Arizona or old Mexico. And everything grabs your stuff. So it'll help a little bit on that. It also has foam, ultra-suede foam aligned knee pads.

But I can't wait to try some of those out this year. Everything that they make has been pretty much top of the line. And don't expect any different of those. So you might give those a try. The Attack Pro pant, new from QU, this year. Appreciate them. You can only order and check that out on QU.com. Buy direct from them. That's it. So I also want to thank all you members. We just barely had a deadline come up May 15th for a just kind of an incentive prize, if you will, some SLC 15 power 15 by 56 binoculars to give away to somebody that submitted their EPIC member experience into our database. We had just a ton of response on that. So if you're not familiar with our member experience program, you know, it's members who have hunted or have experience in a specific unit. So if you draw a tag, you've never been there, want to know something about or talk to somebody who's, you know,

has recent experience there, you call in, give us your name, the unit that you drew, and we'll send you a list of past members who have been there. And that database has just grown like crazy. It's awesome. You have to be careful. You can get lost in there. You know, a guy will call me up and say, hey, I drew this tag. And I'm like, well, let's see if we got some. I'll go through. There will be 13 guys that drew, you know, this tag or that tag. Some obscure unit. And, you know, they got comments in there or, you know, and they're willing to talk to other members too, which is great. Because, I mean, half the time I'm like, I just want to call this guy and see how this hunt went. He killed a 362-inch bull or something like that. I want to know about it. You know what I mean? You could get lost in there. I mean, thousands of entries, thousands.

So it's just like, you know, you cannot beat the information that's in that one little database right there. I mean, it's unbeatable. Yeah, last year I sent out the letters. It was our first year of doing this program. We have great members. We averaged 5 to 10 people per unit when I sent out the letters. And we've tripled that now. So it's been very good. Our members are awesome. Yeah, we realize our members have a lot of experience. And we wanted to tap into that and allow that be a good resource for other members that draw tags in the future. Many of them, many times being hunts, you know, the members that have been there, done that, may never be on again. So, and these, I want to just maybe emphasize that these, even though we haven't said, hey, they can only be within the last five years, the majority of them are. Yeah. And they're recent stuff.

This isn't stuff that, I hunted this 20, 25 years ago that might be obsolete. We've had to eliminate a couple of those that we saw come in because, like, that unit doesn't even exist anymore or whatever. But this is recent stuff, by and large. And so it's stuff that's more reflective of what you're going to experience yourself when you're on the unit right now that you draw yourself. So it's not just 20-year-old information. Yeah. If you're on the fence about joining, then, you know, and you draw a great tag, that's well worth your $100 right there. Especially this time of year with draw results coming out, a couple pieces of information, that, talking to a few guys that have been there, done that on your unit. That, you know, what's that worth? And there's, you know, you may, you know, may get lucky and bump into somebody that's been there, done that.

But this is a targeted program, the Epic Member Experience Database, that you can tap into people that have said, I'm going to talk to people that I've been there, done that on, and you'll be on that list for people in the future. So I appreciate everybody that submitted that. Like John said. Yeah. Thank you. The May 15th deadline, we were inundated that last two, three days. So as soon as we caught up and processed all those in there, which everybody that submitted an entry there got a name in the hat, so to speak. So we want to make sure we accurately get everybody's name in the hat as many times as they entered units. Then we'll do the draw for those Swarovski 15x56. Call some lucky hunter. I did want to mention, if you missed the deadline and you've got units that you did not submit, send them in anyway. We're going to do something next year.

So you'll be in for whatever we do next year. Yeah, starting today or whatever, you'll be in there for next year's giveaway that we do. So we just have to draw them a line in the sand somewhere. We usually do it in the spring like this because it's the time that people are calling in and wanting to get that list. So I appreciate everybody doing that. What else? Let's talk about another. Another shameless plug for joining our service here. Oh. Yeah. Well, we're giving crap away left and right. I hope we can pay for all these bills, John, because we're sending stuff out by the gross, it seems like. But we have another 14-day doll-sheep combo hunt giveaway that we're going to be giving away the first week in June. You may remember that we gave away a doll-sheep hunt only with Mike Litson, Mike Litson's Guide Service, back in 1st of March. We had a membership drive.

Everybody that renewed or joined our service or referred somebody that joined got names in the hat for that deadline. Initially, on the first one was February 28th. The line in the sand was drawn after that. So from March 1st till June 1st, everybody that joins or renews because some people didn't have a chance to renew, you know, by February 28th because they hadn't expired yet. So anybody that joins, renews, or refers somebody to our service between March 1st and June 1st gets another name or two in the hat. You couldn't buy your membership for a buddy. You could get a name in the hat for buying it and one for referring if you want to do that. It's the only way to get tickets or names in the hat for this is to join or renew or have somebody that renews our service. And the odds on this hunt are phenomenal. Yeah, it is. It's drastically different than the first one.

I guess probably because most people, yeah, it's hard to get in. And the first one, most people probably renewed before February 28th. Oh, yeah. Most of our membership renews before then. And this one is a little bit different time frame. It's a shorter three-month window, and it's great. It's a 14-day guided doll sheep combo that includes two additional species, either a grizzly, a caribou, or a black bear. So that's all included. There's no trophy fees on there. Three species included, a 14-day hunt. This is August 28th to September 10th, but the hunt's in 2019. So you've got a year plus to prepare for this one, but somebody's going to win an incredible hunt here. You can take a wolf or a wolverine, no charge, but you get three species. Obviously, the primary species there would be a doll sheep.

But then as soon as you're done, it's caribou, black bear, grizzly bear with Litsen Guide Service. So you could potentially go home with five species. Yeah, you could. With the wolverine and the wolf. Maybe catch some fish and shoot a ptarmigan and add to that species less. It would be hard not to. Once again, I'm excluded from these drawings, which is somewhat bothersome. But, man, I'd love to buy five friends a freaking membership, get them in. I mean, you've got pretty good odds on this one. This is some great odds. Yeah, you could do that and have 10 entries for yourself. Yes. Don't give them to your friends. Keep them for yourself. Yeah, it's true. It's true. You can do that. You can get in. You can actually do that. You could, if you want to buy your friend's membership, not just refer a friend, but buy

your friend's membership, you could get his entry and your entry because you're the one that forked over the $100. That's two entries in. That's 10 entries in. That's pretty, that's a bonus right there. Entry period ends June 1st. Go to epicoutdoors.com. That's the only way you can get into this is to join or renew or refer somebody that does that cannot purchase tickets. So yeah, running out of time, less than two weeks for that one. And we're going to make somebody there. It's going to be fun. We're going to, I like, I love drawing those things. I do too. You know, I love calling people and getting their reaction. Oh, it's, it's pretty dang fun. So somebody's going to get an awesome hunt there. We appreciate everybody that's taken advantage of that and become members of Epic Outdoors. This is just a way to give, you know, give you something, give you an incentive.

Obviously, if it needs to push you over the edge, hopefully it does that. So like we talked about, just want to make sure, you know, if you do go to our website, you'll see this doll sheep hunt and our stone sheep hunt giveaway both on there. Just to clarify again, the doll sheep hunt is only for joining or renewing or referring somebody that joins or renews. The stone sheep ticket purchase is, we're selling tickets for that. There's no tickets for joining, for renewing, anything like that. Two separate sheep hunts. The first one, the doll sheep, June 1st deadline. The second one, the tickets for stone sheep is June 19th at epicoutdoors.com. So, hey, I just wanted to mention one thing that I think it's, it's a first for us for having in our June issue, so many women and stories. That is true. It was packed. The women really represented well there. And they killed some studs.

And they killed some giants. A couple deer. Nicole Rims' cover buck and a couple other from Arizona. Some ladies killed. California black tail. I mean, just some. Some studs. Yeah, shout out to that. Obviously, they've got husbands or boyfriends or whatever's in their lives that's probably introduced them to hunting dads, whatever. I don't know in the case of Brian Ingram and his daughter. That's the case. But, yeah, very good. He had some incredible splattering. That one was really cool because he wrote the story and he surprised her with it. So, she didn't know that it was going in. So, it was pretty fun. No way. Yeah, I actually heard from Brian a day or two ago. He got his magazine. He's pretty fired up and he said, I'm just going to throw it on the counter tonight and tell my daughter, hey, check out that magazine. There's some pretty good black tails in there. You might get excited.

Just let her thumb through and find it on her own. I don't know how it went. But it's pretty fun. Yeah. So, we do appreciate, you know, all of you that submit stories to us. But it was a, you know, we hopefully, you know, we're, that's pretty, I guess, by design here at Epic Outdoors. We want great content. We try to limit ourselves to the amount of ads that are meaningful, that don't bombard you so that you feel that every page in our magazine is hopefully worthwhile. And consequently, we have a lot of stories in our issues. We do have a lot of stories, yeah. And we appreciate it. We want to give back to your members and let you, you know, see your name in print and, you know, appreciate the time it takes to put those together for us because it makes our magazine thick and nice. Yeah. So, and if you've, if you have submitted a story and you haven't seen it yet, we've got

a bunch of issues coming up that you're going to see more and more stories. So, keep your eye out for that. The success, you know, in our member, Epic Member Success, those photos, I cannot believe the amount of photos that members have sent in of just fantastic critters. I mean, a lot of coos, big coos, coos deer. I mean, there's, there's, we got some members that are just, they're killers, man. They're awesome. Yeah. So, we appreciate that. We do. I echo that, Jeff, and appreciate your response. I mean, our board, our whiteboard in there is packed full of stuff throughout the remainder of the year. And just by way of reminder, the June, May and June magazines, you probably got within a week or 10 days of each other. This is the time of the year that we go every other month. Um, just, uh, just wanted to give you a heads up on that. We'll have a, you know, July, August issue.

Um, or is that August, September? What do we call that, John? July, August? Yeah. No, it's August, September. But you'll get that by the first of August, then in October, November. And then, uh, starting in December again, um, you'll get a monthly magazine from then until June. So, well, let's, let's, we're wrapping things up. Jeff, let's do one more shout out. Talk about a special that Red Rock's going on. Oh yeah. Red Rock, um, who I just got off the phone with one of our members. He, he actually bought a Red Rock. He's looking for a, he's looking for an over-the-counter elk hunt because he's ready to let some bullets fly. I'm like, you know, I don't blame you. He's had the gun for a couple of years and he's like, it's time to shoot something. So anyway, but they, right now they're running a special where you buy a gun, you're going,

you're going to get 40 rounds of a match grade ammo free with, with the purchase of the gun. So, um, and, and when they're saying, this, this is ammo that's built specifically for your gun. You know what I mean? It's, you know, powders weighed, bullets smashed, everything it's built to shoot out of your gun. That's the, that's one of the greatest things about that. You're not playing, you're not running through 10 boxes of ammo, just trying to find a bullet that your gun likes. It's prebuilt. They do the work for you. They do it. They shoot it. Yes. It's dialed in so that when you go home, when that, when that gun hits your house or hits the mountain with you, you have ammo that's built for it. You know what it is. The confidence of being able to pull down on an animal and know that, you know, you've got a custom built gun by Red Rock. You've got ammo that's matched for that gun.

It's on you now. Like it's, it's your job now. The confidence is un, unparalleled. You, you have to have that confidence in your gun, whatever, whatever you're shooting. Um, but it is, they are running that special from now till, uh, June 1st. You can get that ammo. Just order by June 1st. Yep. Order by June 1st. Yep. And you'll get that. You'll get the free ammo. You need the code EPIC. Yep. So you call up and give them the code EPIC and you'll get that deal. That's awesome. All right, guys. Well, or if you want to call them, you can call them at 801-391-7840. Call Kurt or Todd and, uh, yeah, they got a special going on right now. Um, you order before June 1st, we get 40 rounds of match grade ammo for free. Um, so reiterate that. So, well, guys, we're, uh, I know I am eagerly awaiting some good news in the draws. It's last year.

I had some forcible draws, I guess, uh, stuff I knew I was going to get in my Arizona. Um, I, I had a pretty good chance in Wyoming, Deer, even though that kind of got lucky still. Um, I got lucky in Utah, obviously on the deer, but, but it's nice when you had a tag like Arizona elk to build everything around early on. And I didn't have that this year that I want to do. It looks like I struck out on my desert sheep in Utah have to be another year. So I'm chomping for something good to hit. I mean, otherwise we're going to have to be left with, uh, you know, landowner tags, over the counter tags. I don't know. You're going to be left with helping everybody else. Yeah. I've got plenty of that. I do that. I get to do that luckily anyway, over, you know, a couple of months. So not yet, but it's going to be a good year. It's shaping up to be super fun for sure. Yeah.

And if you're, if you're one of those guys as, as the draws come out here right away and you're left without something that you thought you'd want, give us a call here, whether it's a landowner tag, whether it's a guided hunt, semi guided hunt, or an opportunity that, that Jeff or Jason and I, one of us could help you with, give us a call. Um, if you, if you don't have enough in your hunt schedule, we'd love to set that up. It's the time of year also that, that cancellations from June, July, August on cancellation hunts, usually the, the North country stuff, sheep and moose and goat hunts usually start coming up first since they start happening earlier in July and August. Um, but call, get on a, get on a hot file list. If you will, Jeff's keeps that. Um, if you know, we'd like to have people call us current, current with current requests on that. So we know they are ready.

They drew nothing. They're ready to pounce on something if I call them versus the guys that call you in January. Hey, call me with any good deal. If a good deal comes up, you know, you know, when I'm shocked right now, I have some incredible hunts available, you know, whether they, you know, you hate, you hate to hear about it, but you know, guys getting hurt or something like that. And they're having to back out of hunts, cancel hunts, whatever. Um, you know, we have some fantastic hunts that are available right now. If you're looking for anything great, you know, um, quality hunts, like hunts that, man, I wish I could be on, you know what I mean? Um, three 30 plus bulls are not an easy thing to, to book and to kill. I've got hunts right now that you can kill three 30 plus type elk on that are available. A rifle in the rut with any weapon in the rut. In September. Can you believe it?

Like incredible hunt. So anyway, get ahold of us. We got some, we got some good options if you're looking. So yeah, let's give out our number to the office. We often forget to do that. 435-263-0777. Um, whether you're a member or not, if you are looking for a guided hunt, we can help you out on that. And you don't have to just be a member for the guided part of things. You know, we will help members, non-members, whatever. If you are looking for a hunt, just get ahold of us. We can, we can help you out there. Um, but, uh, for sure. Okay, guys, I think that's a wrap. Um, good luck in this next two weeks and, uh, let's go kill some bears. So, um, good luck to you.