EP 87: Hunting the West from and Eastern Perspective with Roger Smithson

I want to get aggressive. I want a long-term plan. You just keep applying and you just never know when it's going to happen. Drawing too many tags is really never, ever an issue. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson, the Epic Outdoors podcast here in Southern Utah, coming at you from Cedar City. So anyway, we've got an awesome guest on. Before we do that, we want to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast. Of course, sponsor about everything we do here at Epic. So we appreciate them. I know they've got some of their new models of clothing have hit the stores, so to speak. They've hit online. Go to Under Armour and it's probably UA.com, RidgeReaper.com, Under Armour.com. Go to any of those sites. You're going to end up fishing through there, be able to see some of their new lines of clothing. I've had some people hit me up and I've already ordered some of the new pants and whatnot. So I'm going to be doing that today,

but myself. So anyway, 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've all, 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 jacks. 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 we've got a guest, Roger Smithson on a good long-term friend of both Adam and I's. And he also authors The Hunter Next Door here in our magazine. And so he's a valuable, has a valuable insight to a lot of different aspects of Western big game hunting. He's been doing it for many, many years. And he's just an awesome guy, wealth of knowledge and a good friend. So anyway, Roger, are you on? I'm here. Awesome. Awesome. Good to have you. Where are you coming to us? Roger, you're from Arkansas, but I think you're on the road joining us from the little bit deeper south today, huh? Yeah. I live in Arkansas and I'm working a project in Western Row, Louisiana today, Duck Dynasty land. I'm right by the Duck Dynasty headquarters. Wow. Geez. Might be able to get an autograph from somebody like that. Should have had Si up for coffee and we chatted with y'all this morning.

Yeah. Get Willie on for the next podcast, maybe. Hey, do you think Si ever takes some sunglasses off when he sleeps even? I don't know if he sleeps as much tea as he drinks. It doesn't seem like it. Are you a tea drinker, Rog? No. Is it good for you or bad for you? They say it gives you kidney stones. And that's a southern deal down here. Everybody drinks tea. I'm not a big fan. I wonder if monsters give you kidney stones.

I got a feeling you'll be able to tell me in a few years.

That's probably the least of what they give you.

Colon cancer and everything else. All right. Well, Roger, we kind of wanted to have you on a little bit today just kind of talking about western hunting from the eastern point of view. And so, anyway, I know you've got, you know, some ideas that maybe you wanted to share with everybody, but where do you want to start this thing? Oh, wherever you guys want to go. I can tell you a little bit about my history in the western, the lure of the western hunts. I had a kind of a mentor that kind of took me under his wing as a young guy late in high school and he would always go out to west and hunt. And this was in the early 80s, mid-80s. And he was kind of in the mule deer heyday in southern Colorado. And he was just bringing back these big mule deer every year. And so one time he took me out. I was 18 years old and we drove out there and we bow hunted. And from then on, I was just hooked.

And I liked the change in scenery, just the different types of animals and the people. It's really kind of a different culture. I got hooked on that and have been hooked on it ever since. And I don't know, I probably came to know you in the, I guess, in the late 90s and started trying to figure out the application game, which had been real confusing to me. And you helped me figure that out. And I started applying for tags many years ago and have got lucky through the years and hope to have more luck in the future. And I've just had some great experiences and opportunities through the years and met a lot of just really great people. And you and Adam being two of those. Well, it's probably right. I mean, we've known you back with our former employer. I mean, we had you on covers. We had, you've drawn a couple of Rocky tags, one in Colorado and one in Montana.

And we put you on the cover on that one. I don't want to shortchange any other stuff. Some of your deer and your big white tails and goat in Colorado. But of course, we're all, when you draw a sheep tag, it's something kind of next level. And we know you have an affinity for those yourself. And so, yeah, you've, you've paid your dues and earned some the long way. And then when it comes to sheep and things like that, you know, boom, they just happen out of nowhere. Yeah, I think that was it, Adam, too. I drew that sheep tag kind of early in the application process in Colorado. And man, when you get one of those early, it just, that's a hook. Yeah. You're like, oh, this can happen. Yeah, this really does. This can happen. And just the experience I had on that is one I may never have another experience that dramatic. And just all this, all the stuff that goes along with sheep hunts.

And that was the hook. And it's kind of been, been there ever since. Well, and we came, Roger, I know a lot of people know you out there, you know, more so than you might think. And a lot of it was you've, you've helped guide and guided a lot of different sheep hunters, especially there in New Mexico. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, you know, we all have a mutual friend and GT none. And I, I was, I was friends with GT, I guess, really before I even got into the guiding business. And, uh, I remember one time GT and I were talking about rams and neither one of us really knew anything about it. And he said, well, I've heard there's some big ones up there on Wheeler Peak. And so we'll just go look, let's go find them. And I, I just remember we were so lost as to how to access the area. And it just felt like we walked for days and days and days.

And we saw a few sheep, but we thought we'd figured a few things out. Then over the years, we began to learn how to access a little better. And we were seeing bigger rams and seeing more sheep. And GT thought it was time to, to, to take a hunter. And, uh, we basically offered a guy almost like a free hunt, a guy named Vince Schneider from a Washington drew the tag. And we swung him a deal, took him in there and found a couple big rams the day before season opening and Vince killed like a one 82 round opening morning. And, uh, then from then on, it, it just kind of snowballed in a, in a good way for GT and, uh, GTs took a lot of sheep hunters through the years. And I've been fortunate to be able to guide some of those and just met some phenomenal guys and got to see some really big rams hit the ground.

Um, I was telling GT the other day that I went quite a few years there and never saw a sub book ram hit the ground. Everyone that we were seeing hit the ground was, was netting above one 80. Yeah. That, that was a, that was a special time. Well, it was, and, you know, with sheep, you know, maybe more than any other species, you got elk and deer that kind of fluctuate with drought years and things like that as they shed and grow, but sheep, they, uh, when they come on hard, it's, it's time to ride the wave hard because, you know, not just because of die off potential with sheep, but, but naturally sheep as they really, their densities increase in certain places. I mean, it's happened in the Pecos down there to where it, you know, they used to kill one 80 or one 85 or 90 rams. They're a little bit more commonly.

And then it got to where one 75 or 80 was a giant and, you know, they killed a giant last year, but, but collectively when sheep kind of reach a density thing, they kind of, they kind of maximize everything's competing for all the same resources and all that. And so ride the wave hard. And you guys did that. You guys, you know, put Wheeler peak on the map, so to speak. And, and, you know, you alluded to it that, yeah, you started it off with Vince and, you know, you're not just, you put your hands on something like that and you're not just going to stop at one. You're going to, you know, when it comes to sheep, you're going to, you're going to want to keep pushing and doing, and then other units like Latere open up and, you know, a lot of times, yeah, you were foregoing some of your personal hunts just to be able to go

down and have, have the experience to hunt Rocky mountain sheep, you know, with somebody somewhere. Yeah. I know you do that too, Adam. I mean, you, uh, you, you have to guide and get into that business in order to kind of feed that, feed that, feed that sheep, uh, fix. And, um, that's what we were doing is we wanted to be up around those sheep and knew the only way we could do it was, you know, have, have hunters with us. And you're right. I mean, I've, uh, we're going some of my hunts in order to go do that for a week or two. And it's just, it's been a blast and watching those rams and, and, and, uh, just go back to some of the guys we've met and become close friends with like Vince Snyder. We mentioned, he was the first guy we took and Vince is a very close personal friend of mine now. And we've done hunts together since then.

I was his guide then, but now we just, we do hunts together. Vince and I did an Idaho white tail hunt just a couple of years ago together. Well, and then his boy, I don't know if you were there, was it just last year's boy drew a desert sheep tag in New Mexico, you know? Right. Yeah. So I'm sure GT helped him out, but that's, that's pretty awesome. So it is, you know, the people you meet on some of these hunts is, is just as, you know, big as the actual individual hunt itself. But tell us, tell us another, you had a, you had another experience with getting the word successful by your name in Montana. So tell us about that, the Holy Grail, so to speak. Oh, that was, that was kind of a wild story. I was at work, um, you know, on a project in Texas and, uh, uh, my, my cell phone rings and it's a guy that I forgot his name, but he didn't identifies himself as something with

the Montana fish, wildlife and parks. And, uh, he said, uh, we had an error in our, uh, application tag reward process last year. And you guys will have to make sure I get this terminology correct, but they had awarded, uh, they worked against a 10% allotments on the districts and not the regions. And that they had messed up on that. And they said, you actually drew a sheep tag, but our program messed it up and took the tag away because it, the program thought, uh, the non-resident allocation already been met. So what, and he said, what, so what we're willing to do this year is offer you a tag. Uh, you basically offer your, your, your tag from the year before, if you're willing to take it this year. And, you know, this is a surreal experience for me because, you know, I'm, I'm waiting on the Montana results from that year to come out. And this is like a week before the results.

You're like, show me, show me your ID. Yeah. Who am I talking to here? This is somebody punking me and you two. I started having you on my mind. Okay. They got me. We wouldn't do that. Ronch. We wouldn't, we wouldn't do that. You don't play on sheep, but then I thought, what is this guy? What's he doing? And, uh, so then it takes me a second to process it. Oh yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. I'll take it. So then as soon as I hang up the phone, I thought somebody got me. So I hit call return and I call the guy back and he starts laughing. He said, I knew you would call back. I knew he said, it's legit. You have a Montana sheep tag. And, um, and the crazy thing about that was that the year before when I'd applied to that unit, I put in for one of the real tough to draw units, which I typically wouldn't,

but I put in for a tough to draw unit because it was going to be the birth of my, my, my daughter. And I thought, well, I'll just put in for one of the tougher units. And, uh, cause I won't draw it. And that way I couldn't, I couldn't do the hunt that year anyway. So then I've, they awarded me the tag the next year and go out there. And, uh, it's, it's, it's a Montana hunt. It's a Montana Rocky hunt. And those usually work out pretty well. I killed a gross one 86 top ram and, um, phenomenal netted one 84. Yeah. Yeah. Just a phenomenal sheep and once a lifetime type tag, something that Adam and I haven't drawn yet, yet we have max points, but you just keep applying. And, you know, like I drew a tag this year or on the random draw, you just never know when it's going to happen. You just kind of blind faith something, you know, I know my name's in the hat. At least I think it is. Yeah.

I paid my, paying my dues. And then you go about hunting other species until that tech comes. Yeah. It was, it was truly a hunt of a lifetime. And, uh, there's a lot of those experiences out there and they're going to draw somebody's name to do it. And fortunately they got mine that year and it was just a world-class experience. But that unit that year, um, Anaconda had a unit two 13 and recovered from a dial from probably 10 or 12 years before. And it was just loaded with eight and nine year old rams. They were just everywhere. I mean, you would see groups of eight and 10 rams and, um, we kept a, a total. And I think we, we thought we saw 117 different rams on that. Wow. Pretty special. Yeah. Well, and, uh, since we are talking about sheep a little bit, just mentioned one of our partners who, uh, has been with us from the start and that's the wild sheep foundation.

Great organization, um, that's purely dedicated to, um, putting and keeping sheep on the mountain. Um, they've, 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, educate the public on sustainable use and conservation benefits of hunting. So, uh, big advocates of wild sheep foundation. And, uh, obviously we, we had Gray Thornton on, uh, just prior the, which is the CEO and president of wild sheep foundation. Um, if you want to go back in the archives and listen to that podcast, we did that with Greg right before the sheep show first of the year, 2018. And, uh, if you want more information, becoming a life member, summit life member or regular member of wild sheep foundation, go to wild sheep foundation.org.

Maybe let's dive into your, you know, being from, I don't know if you call Arkansas, the Midwest, whatever I call it the East, but you probably call it. Alligator state.

Razorback nation. Yeah. It's, it's razor. Where they have, where they, where every puddle of water all of a sudden begets fish. I never, like, I've never even noticed that I go out there and visit Raj and he's just go proceeds to tell me that when you, when you build a pond, you don't have to put fish in it. They fish come. And I'm like, how do they come? He's like, Oh, the eggs on birds feet and stuff. And I'm like, you're crapping me. I mean, out here we stock ponds. You know what I mean? Yeah. And they, and they dry up in the summer and you have to redo it next year. That's right. They all die. No, Roger says, no, if you, if you just take a little caterpillar and make yourself a pond, pretty soon they'll be fishing it. Right, Roger? Yeah. Yeah. That's the way it happens. And your, your boy's got to see that firsthand.

I don't know how many fish we caught that day, but we just lost count. The boys, the, the desert dwellers were just kind of shocked with the amount of fish that we could catch. Well, yeah. You're like, well, which pond should we go to? It rained yesterday. There's a pond down the road. We can go over here. So anyway, as Adam was talking, let's dive in maybe, you know, from, from your perspective on maybe some of your, your philosophy on, on these applications. Yeah. That as well as, as you know, you alluded to it earlier, you know, the newness for people. And that's partly what we, what, why we wanted to have you on today is we realized that living in the West, you're going to understand your home state well and all the neighboring states perhaps fairly well, but you're not a resident. I mean, you do have some unique draw hunts near you and, you know, you even have elk and

things like that. But for the most part, you know, we're talking about every state you're applying for, you're a non-resident and it's, it's not even close. It's a two day drive maybe to get to you, you know, for the most part. So talk through that philosophy so that other listeners that are maybe in that same boat, like how do they, how did you start breaking it down? You've been doing it for 20 years now, but how do you, how did you approach it? How did you overcome the, the, I don't know, fear is too strong a word, but fear of the newness of just getting started and like, why do I need to do this or why should I, or do I even try? Yeah. Well, I, you know, initially I think just the confusion around how do I go hunting the West? You know, how do I get a tag? How do I start? And obviously you guys have helped thousands of guys through the years or more in the East with that.

Just try to figure out how does it even start? And the first is you've got to understand that you have to get a tag. Most Eastern hunters are used to, well, if I want to go hunting in West Virginia or Kentucky, I just go there and I buy a license the day before the season that I hunt. And that license may have two or three deer tags on it and a bear tag and a turkey tag. And it's just so different in the West is that you have to have a strategy and you have to have planning beforehand. And I think that's what a lot of the Eastern guys just don't know. Cause I'll have a lot of guys say, well, yeah, I want to go to Colorado and hunt a big, big mule deer. Okay. Well, you need to start planning now. Cause you, you can probably do that in a 2030, you know, if you want to get one, of those areas, you know, where you have a chance that a reasonable, you know, 180 inch

type deer, you need eight or nine points. Well, you can't decide you're going to do that this fall. It's you, you better have a eight or 10 year plan. Take some thought, take some thought and, uh, you know, to be able to, you know, start gaining points and, and develop an application strategy and, and, and then go through the processes. Yeah. And that's, that's kind of what I started doing back then. And it was kind of trial and error. And, uh, then, you know, I was doing it through, uh, I was getting some information from a, an old guy in Montana about some of the sheep units. My traction was more on the sheep initially. I was getting some information from him. You're talking Ron Jenkins. No, no. At that time it was, uh, it's not, uh, uh, the Hulk or Elvin. Oh, Elvin, Elvin Hopkins from Oregon. Is he still around? I think he is. Well, he was not a, he was not a young guy back then.

So, uh, I just remember talking to him and you just basically call him up on the phone and it's a, yeah, apply here, here, and here. That was kind of it. And, um, good luck. But I just remember him telling me all those years ago, he said, I'm, I've never known a guy that got committed to getting a sheep tag that didn't get one. He said, if they're committed to getting one and they're committed to playing the application game, he said, I've never known a guy that didn't get to go sheep hunting. And I would say 20 years ago or whenever that was probably more true. I would be hard for Jason and I today to say without crossing both our fingers under our desks when we said it, because it's, it's just a different, I mean, the, the Western game, more people have caught on or just the finite resource. Yeah. Just the, exactly.

The sheep numbers are no more than they were 20 years ago, generally speaking collectively. So, um, and obviously as more States and more States have gone to draw hunting on their general season stuff, even deer and elk in places, you've got that naturally. Well, I got to start applying in other States because my own state, I can't just buy a deer tag in Utah or Colorado anymore. Like you could 20 years ago. So, well, but you would think he, he does have a point people, you know, you do, you, you, if you're committed, you've got a decent chance. I mean, you've got, but committed means 22 years in my point, you know, in my case down here in Arizona and Adam and I've drawn Oregon and a few other tags, but I mean, you got to be committed. It's a, it's an every single year. Don't miss a year, you know, it's just the cost of doing business. Yeah. I think the commitment has stepped up.

Cause I remember another thing he said is he said, if you apply in every States you can apply to, it's reasonable to think that you'll get a sheep tag within a 10 year period. I don't think that's the case anymore. No, I think it's not. I mean, it's not even close to that. 30 or 40. But yeah, I think if, if you go, we'll go to that same philosophy now and apply to all those States, I think it's reasonable to think you will get a sheep tag in your lifetime. And I don't think a guy can look, look for any more than that. So knowing that you don't play this game to get a sheep tag, a sheep tag is a byproduct of the application process. That's icing on the cake. So you play the game for deer and low and elk. Yeah. And if you get a goat tag, a sheep tag or moose tag, that's icing on the cake. That's generally true. Yeah.

And if you started 20 something years ago, like you, and in some of these States where, where that may have put you, let's say Wyoming, if you started in the first year in Wyoming, you've drawn a sheep tag by now. That's right. Um, you know, so if you, you know, had that foresight, but if you even waited five years before you started in Wyoming, you're still trying to get a sheep in a rough spot. You know what I mean? You know, you're in the random draw, but you know, you're, that mentality you're talking about, like you said, you, how many, how many tags are, you know, in the collective Western States, how many tags do you think you'd apply for a year generally 30 or 40? I keep a pretty detailed record of it. I've since, uh, since 98 or 98, I've kept a Excel spreadsheet and I, it's routinely around 40 a year. Yeah.

And, um, I will typically draw two or three of those per year, but there's some tags in there that I expect to draw. I expect to draw Eastern Plains, Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. I expect to draw Eastern Plains, Whitetail. I do that. Um, I do that about every year. I expect to draw a Kansas tag. I expect to draw a few antelope tags. You know, I expect to draw Iowa Whitetail every third year. Um, but then throughout that, I sprinkled in about every other, almost every other tag I could draw. Yeah. I've drawn elk, sheep, uh, goat. Jeez. We did, we did draw that terrible, terrible elk tag in Colorado. Elk? Oh, yeah. That was a miserable that Roger made me go on and waste a bunch of points on. A hot mother. Well, Roger's got a little different take on who, who made who a draw for that. Let me moderate this for a minute. Jason, be quiet. Let's, Roger, let's talk for a second.

What did Jason, what did Jason get you into? Oh, it sucked. Well, we, we decided that we're, it was time to cash in all these Colorado points that were just burning a hole in our pocket. We had to do something. So we decided to go muzzle loaders. So we, all the angst and all that of buying long range muzzle loaders and getting those set up with the weird sites where we could shoot loose powder and open sites and all that. Then we, we go out to this unit and, uh, 40. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's unit 40. Yeah. Go hunt it if you want.

Well, we were, we were, obviously there's great bulls on private land and unit 40, but you know, it's, it's us working class guys. We're, we're doing the public stuff and it was a grind. And we thought we'd, we'd figured a few things out. We'd got there a week before season. And, you know, we saw a couple of really nice bulls, Jason bulls that we, either one of us would have shot. Oh yeah. And big bulls. Yeah. Really nice bulls. But then, um, as like a day or two before the season, the weather started turning. And I think Jason, that didn't we see like 102, this was the second week of September and the weather got, uh, the temperatures got above a hundred degrees. It was unbelievable. So all, all the elk were moving back up on the Mesa. Well, and then remember the black bear hunters coming in and. Oh, bear hunters everywhere. It was like the orange army. They had rifles. They had rifles.

Yeah. So not only we had hunters traipsing down every valley, we had orange in every direction. I remember your dad was there. Garth is like, turn the tag in, turn the tag in. You got to turn the tag in. Oh, we're going to make this work. Well, we didn't, it didn't work. We ate it. We ate both those tags.

If you wouldn't have been there, I'd have went home early, Raj. You're like, Oh, the only thing keeping me here is he drove here from Arkansas. Oh. And, uh, we're going to stick it. Well, and I had the camp trailer. So if I go, Raj is going to have to go shack up in grand junction or something. And I just remember, uh, we, we split up and you went to one side of the unit and I went to the other and I was sleeping in that little one man Hillenburg and there, there were bears everywhere. I thought, well, why are there bears all around my tent? And there's hunters everywhere. Something's not lining up here. They're not killing these things. And, uh, but we split up, went to opposite sides of the unit, trying to find elk. And, um, there were elk there, but they'd moved back up to that private land. I think 40 still holds potential, a great potential, but it was tough.

September 9th and 190 to a hundred degrees every day. It was just a little rough. That's all. Yeah. We learned from it and got a lot of good laughs. Well, that's when we started really working. So that was one of those, you know, like onyx maps would have helped us a ton back then. We were reading maps really heavy and, you know, latitude, longitude, you know, figuring out, uh, public access. And I mean, we learned a lot on it. There's no question about that. How the sun is casting your shadow. You were trying to figure out how you were. Hey, our shadow's pointing this way, Roger. I think we're on public. It was a, it was a confusing, it's a confusing unit to hunt, unfolding maps, folding maps back up. And the technology is just that, that hunt hasn't been that long ago. No. But the technology has changed so much now. It's like trail cameras.

I mean, we, you know, they came out with digital cameras. It seems like in no seven ish. Oh, six or seven. 12. I mean, what the change we've seen in this stuff. I mean, it would have been nice to have it back then. Yeah. And that, you know, that's, that's a lot of stuff that like, you know, go back to the question a while ago about the Eastern Hunter. I mean, some of the stuff that the Eastern Hunter, the guy that knows in the East, he can take advantage of in the West too. These trail cameras. I mean, that's, I know some of the regulations are changing on that by the day, but it offers some great opportunities in the, in the West too. I get an example of, we've, we use some trail cameras. I think it was two years ago. We hunted public land in Kansas and we just went out Western Kansas and hunted all the just vast open prairie land. And it was a lot of, it's just public walk-in stuff.

And, uh, we put some trail cameras up on these trails and we were hunting an area that had zero trees. There's no trees. And that's odd for a whitetail hunter. I mean, you could, as far as you can look in every direction there, you cannot see a tree. You can't even hardly see a bush. And, and, and we're hunting this, this growed up, these growed up CRP fields. And, uh, we'd have to put a trail camera on a fence post or, uh, I remember putting up a brick block beside a trail so we could see what was coming through across this road at night. It's amazing what lives up there, huh? Yeah. And we did a lot of riding around and, um, late in the afternoon, early in the mornings and kind of got a gauge of what was there and what to hold out for. And, uh, we were seeing 80, 90, a hundred deer in the, in the evenings. Just by glassing? Just by glassing.

Riding around and glassing, which is, you know. Using the Western technique. That's, that's how we do it out here. That's how you guys, that's how you guys are used to hunting. The guy from the East doesn't really know to just use his glasses. And, you know, that land is so flat that what we would do is we'd stop the truck and get up in the back of the truck and just glass. And you, most of the time, all you could see was their head and there would be in these CRP fields. And we were seeing all these bucks and we realized, Hey, we can kill a good, respectable whitetail here. You know, a 140 inch whitetail is kind of what, you know, it's what we were seeing. That was the best type bucks we were seeing is that we, we can kill that type of buck here on public land. And we're scouting these areas and, uh, we found them.

I mean, and, uh, I killed one, the, uh, the opening morning of the season. And then my buddy that went with me, he'd never really hunted in that type of stuff. And we bedded a good buck in one of those CRP fields. And we were probably watching from a mile off. And he bedded in this grass. So there's, there's no marker how to, how to get to this buck. You know, you can't, you can't get anything to mark yourself by where, you know, you get close to him. So we realized, Hey, we can count fence posts. And we counted like 170 fence posts. And we said, okay, we're, we'll get, we'll crawl down these fence posts. And when we get the fence posts, 130, we're going to stand up and see if that buck stands up in that grass and my buddy's a big guy, you know, he, he, he kind of leaves a deep track. He's a big guy. And that's about like me, Raj. No, no.

Well, anyway, we're crawling through this grass and it's like eight degrees that morning. Big boy sweating big time. He's just, it's pouring off of him, but we got to stay under about this. The 24 inch grass. And so we're counting fence posts. We're crawling. We're crawling. We get to like 130 fence posts. And I said, okay, we're going to stand up. And he's what we know the bucks with the doe and that the doe will stand up. And I think he'll stand up beside her. So we keep standing up and we wait and we just start inching closer to fence post number 170. And finally the buck stands up when we're 20 yards from him and the guy shoots him and he's, you know, a mid one forties type buck on public land. So the walk-in stuff's worth it. I mean, good stuff. Yeah, it was great. So what, you know, and I know I've got a lot of friends that live in the East and most of

those guys, they have hunting leases and, um, they'll mount 130, 140 inch deer. You know, that's, that's a real trophy where they come from. And I've kind of maybe going out on a limb and say this, but I think there's 130 or 140 inch top buck on almost every section, every track of public land in the West that holds whitetails. Yeah. And, and they're, and they're, they're fun to hunt. It's a different experience, but it is different. I talked to a guy the other day that's only hunting public land type stuff or state land or walk-in areas in Kansas. And he's running 60 trail cameras and it's unbelievable. The bucks he's killing. Oh yeah. We've done, we've been able to do the same thing through the years. And, uh, I've kind of got a little cooperative almost of there's four of us and we share a lot of notes in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa.

And we've through the years, we got to kind of counting it up other day and hunting public land and some private that we've gained access to the four of us. Um, so far we have killed over 20 bucks that score over 170 and in that area in the last few years. Jeez. You know, when you talked about a Western style hunting in Kansas, remember that hunt we went on and get over there just a couple of years ago. And I got tired of sitting in the blind and started driving around and glassing it. Yeah. I was either that or leave. I said, I'm, I'm done sitting in a blind and seeing nothing. I'm done with that. And so I got in the truck and I'm like, well, I guess I had a glass my way out of here. And Roger doesn't know it, but I'm headed home. And, uh, yet again, he leaves me stranded on a hunt. You see a familiar theme.

And anyway, I smoked a buck that morning. I was, I was done. I was done sitting in those blinds. I don't know how you guys do it. That's, you know, you're talking about things that are new from your, your perspective and people even further East from, from where you live. Uh, white tails, we might as well be hunting camels. Jason and I, when we start talking, hunting white tails, because we're, we're going to hunt them. Like I've only killed one. Um, it was in Montana just on a, probably a flute. Cause there's a neat, any deer tag up there, but that'll be neat. Let's shoot one of them and meet for mama, you know? Yeah. Back at the time it was college days. Oh, it was college days. Yeah. It's close. It definitely takes a change in philosophy, you know, and, and from the mule deer hunter changing to the white tail or the Eastern white tail guys changing to the West where

the, whether they're hunting white tail or mule deer in the West, it is a different philosophy. And through the years I've had really good success in Eastern Colorado. And, you know, there's nothing out there. There's no cover. There's minimal habitat. I mean, you're just, well, there, I guess there's a lot of habitat, but you just, there's no trees. Not the traditional hardwood habitat. The one tree that's out there, you're sitting in a tree stand in it. Yeah. That's, that's kind of it. And, uh, but that, that's a different philosophy for us guys from the East to go to. And I've, I've grown accustomed to it through the years now because I've done it, but, uh, it's a different way of thinking. And I just, I mentioned those white tail hunts because I think the, the Eastern hunters is, there's a lot of opportunities for like a, what I would call almost like a transition type hunt.

You know, if, if you're not into going out West and paying a lot of money for an outfitted elk hunt, and you're not into hiking for eight or nine days on a, on a tough mountain hunt, there's a lot of great hunts in the, in the West that are for, for white tails or mule deer that, that are more like a transition hunt. You know, you can use some of your Eastern tactics, but you can still access, get good access to some of these areas where white tail, uh, and antelope, antelope, antelope, mule deer, white tail, high prairie type hunts, you know, Eastern Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, you know, even, you know, those three probably the most, you know, and they are the closest of states you're going to get if you're an Eastern, you know, a lot of people hunt those from, you know, the Midwest, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Dakotas and all that, you know, hitting those states cause they're closer.

And the guys from the East coast, you know, that they can, they can drive that in a day, day and a half where some of those guys from the East coast, if they're going to drive across and carry all their gear for an Idaho hunt or something like that, you know, there's great white tail on public land in Idaho, but that's, that's a long haul from somebody from South Carolina. I think that's brutal. What you kind of alluded to on this, this year philosophy on these application and tags, I heard you say 40 tags and the spreadsheet, by the way, this spreadsheet, do you, do you let Michelle, your wife see, see this spreadsheet? Does she know what goes into these tags and the expense to go along with it? Uh, no, Michelle's not real, uh, real, uh, not real versed on that spreadsheet. I would say she might ask to see, to have, you know, executive privilege to check it out.

You know, my wife, well, and you know her, well, you know, she's not going to miss a dollar that escapes the, the Buckman, the Buckman house. And now she's, she's got that whole deal figured out. I said, Hey, you asked, I would always sell her all. Yeah. But Michelle, I get the money back when I don't draw the tag. And she said, yeah, you get the money back, but it's like $110 less. How is this working? You know, $110 and 23 cents, Rob. It's like that's coming out of your Coke fund. Yeah. But now we're, I know the three of us guys here are all blessed with supportive wives to do this. And Michelle's never really, she's actually going just the opposite on a lot of that. Cause she'll say, you mean you're only doing three hunts this year? I thought she would do more. Oh, well, thanks baby. I will. Maybe I'll find one. Just give me five minutes. Let me call Jason and Adam.

So, so it, let's talk about wrapping your head around that many applications, uh, for the Eastern Hunter. You know, it's a, like you said, your States back East are giving people tags, you know, whether you're hitting deer with cars every day, you know, and can't get enough tags, like, you know, and it's totally different. How do you, one, one thing we get a lot, Roger, and talk maybe from your perspective, we get a lot of guys when we're starting to talk with them about first playing the West, they're scared that they're going to draw too many tags. And so you start talking to them about applying for six, eight or 10 States because they say, I want to get aggressive. I want a long-term plan. You start talking about, you know, they say, Hey, I, you know, sheep's a dream. And, uh, you know, I want to apply for those in the ones that make sense States that make sense.

And, but mule deer and elk, I want to hunt the classic Western species, which those two, maybe an antelope thrown in. Those are the ones that kind of, kind of come to mind. And then they start freaking out when you start talking about, all right, you got New Mexico, doesn't have a point system. You should definitely start there because Hey, you could draw the first year. You got the same odds as anybody else. Same with an Idaho. And then you start talking about, well, Colorado and Wyoming, you can generally draw rather, you know, rather quickly. If your trophy criteria isn't off the charts right out of the gate, you can go every three to five years or two years or one year, if you want. And then they start saying, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I don't know. Maybe I'm just, maybe I can't, I can't have that much out there wondering if I'm, I can't do more than one hunt a year, two hunts a year.

Pretty soon it's click. Pretty soon. They're like, yeah, I'm done. You know, and they're, they're scared that they're going to draw too much. So from your perspective, how do you, and I mean, Jason, I could answer what we would tell somebody, but how do you manage that? You said earlier, you know, you're going to draw maybe two tags a year, you know, based on what you know you want based on, you know, easier to draw or predictable tags. And then how do you go about still throwing the line in for 40 and you've had a year. And I know you've dealt with this a bit, Roger, this question Adam's talking about, because you've done some of these seminars and whatnot. And so you've dealt a lot with it, but what do you, what do you say to these guys? Well, draw, drawing too many tags is really never, ever an issue. And that's what you've got to get across to these guys.

And okay, let's just say you put in for that many tags and on the, let's say all the stars line up and you, you, you draw too many tags. Well, I'm willing to eat a Kansas whitetail tag. If I drew a New Mexico sheep tag, it's just the way it works. But the odds of, of you having to eat those tags because of something is just slim. I I've had one tag that I drew that I just could not go on for other things. And in 22 years, it was one tag. And that was a New Mexico barbary sheep one. And I put in for 40 and there was one tag that I couldn't do. And I don't just go crazy on the hunt. You know, I don't do seven or eight hunts. You're not applying for antler lists in every Western state of every species. No, but you know, I will, I will play in the, um, the hunts that I'm pretty sure that I will draw that year.

Like if I know that I'm going to draw an Iowa whitetail, a Colorado whitetail, and I'm going to cash in some points somewhere and say like a Nevada or, you know, Wyoming. Okay. There's my three hunts. Okay. So there's the three hunts and I'm pretty sure I will do. And let's just say in 2019, that's the three hunts that I will do. Okay. Well, I will put in for the tougher units on sheep and like Arizona, Nevada. Knowing that I probably wouldn't even draw a lesser unit, but I put in for those real tough units and saying, okay, if I draw that tag, it's worth me eating a Colorado whitetail or an Iowa whitetail tag. But it's one time, one time in 22 years has that been an issue. So I do plan for it, but if it, if it happens and I have to eat a tag every once in a while, it's just, that's kind of part of the game. It does.

Well, and there's, like you said, there's the prior, if that happens, it's the prioritization factor comes into play. You draw a Gila elk tag in the rut versus a, you had a, you know, over the counter, you know, Colorado hunt as a backup plan or a, you know, an average whitetail or a barber sheet. Yeah. Give those up and go do that. The other thing that a lot of these states have, not all of them, but about three or four of them, you know, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, all have mechanisms in place for you to return a tag and get your points back. And so in those states, Greenlight Central, go ahead. And the worst thing, the worst thing you're going to be out is maybe a permit fee, which is way, you know, worth losing than, you know, 10 or 15 years of points, which are far more valuable than a permit fee. So you've got mechanisms in place.

But, but we hear it all the time too, is people say, I just want to build points for 10 years and then I want to draw sheep tags. And, and we tell people, you just, you just crossed 10 years off of your life that having the ability to have lightning strike and you get lucky. That's all you did. And with sheep, especially, we try to encourage people, keep your name in the water. Should not, should not be, yeah, should not be even a points only option for, for tags like sheep. Only unless you know, I've got a family wedding or I've got a once in a lifetime overseas vacation with my family or something that, you know, consumes three to four weeks of your fall, right during a sheep season or something like that. You know, you, you were saying you knew you had a, uh, even the year you knew you were going to be having one of your children. Um, you, you didn't do points only.

Fortunately, you threw it in for one of the better units in the state and it all worked out. You didn't draw that. You didn't do that year. And the next year they called you and say, Hey, you should have drawn. And so you, you went hunting the year when your daughter was a year old, you know, it all worked out. And if you would have just done points only, well, you couldn't do it back there in Montana then, but, but, but in another state, we would be shocked at how many guys ask Adam and I to apply for points only in sheep, you know? And it's just, I mean, it's good for drawing odds. And it's, I mean, it's good for that for other guys, but it's just, it's, it's a little crazy, you know, if you, if you want to just buy points and someday bank that you're going to draw a sheep tag, you're, you're going to, you're just going to be disappointed for decades.

It's probably in today's time that probably will never, ever work out for you. Yeah. And it might, but you just, you cross off that element of luck too many years. Now, when it comes to deer, elk and antelope, that's one thing we can dovetail this back in the conversation of, of drawing too many tags, you know? Adam and I have got extensive backup plans and now we're going, Oh, maybe we have too many backup plans. You know what I mean? Over the counter Idaho and I got excited and already bought the test, you know what I mean? But you can do the points only, which is, you know, for those of you, most people know what a points only. It's just a, Hey, my name's, I paid my money. I went through the motions and sent in their fees and all that, but I had no chance to draw deer elk and antelope. Those make a lot more sense.

And especially in the States that are, you know, maybe somewhat predictable when you're going to draw the Colorado, the, the Wyoming's, you know, States like that. But there's mechanisms in place. And that's what I guess we want to, you know, let everybody know that you've drawn too many tags. And when you say drawn too many tags, that would be like drawing three to five tags. That's not, Oh, I drew 30 out of 40 tags where that could never happen. Drawing too many tags is like making too much money. It's not possible. And I think, you know, you just, these guys, they need to see that if you on the rare occasion that you do have to eat one odds are, if you drew that many tags, some of those are going to be tags. It's going to be pretty easy for you to either turn back in or eat the tag. You're going to have some options, but I think also a lot of that plays into your application strategy.

Like I mentioned with my daughter being born and, but you know, a lot of that was just trial and error for me through the years are really screwing some of that up. And I know you guys can offer that to a lot, especially to the guys that you apply because like, like this year, I really, I know of a, of a giant buck in Iowa that I would, would like to hunt, but also knew of one in Colorado. So I'm wanting to hunt that Colorado buck and I applied for that unit in Colorado. I'm thinking, okay, Colorado, when are you going to post the results? When are you going to post the results? And I'm waiting for the last second thinking, okay, you're going to post your results. And that way I'll know, cause those two dates would, they would lay over each other. And I would sit and waiting on Colorado to post while I was waiting. I had not applied to Iowa.

So some years you can just, you can think, well, I know I probably will draw this, but I can wait cause these draws are spread out over a three, three month period now. So, and that's where you guys can offer, especially to the Eastern guy who doesn't understand how these are staggered and say, okay, we're good. If you won't draw too many, cause we've got a strategy for you on that. You draw one out of the gate and you're like, that's it. And I'm going to need to book an outfitter. And that's my financial obligation for the year. I'm points only from there for the rest of the year. That's when points only starts making sense. The one thing drawing too many tags does. I mean, the one time it does kind of happen, I guess, is like my kids, you start getting your kids involved pretty soon. They're drawing tags. I mean, we got tags coming out our pockets everywhere.

It's crazy this particular year. And it was, a lot of it was by design, gaining them points over the years. And I'm seeing it, watching Colton is going to turn 18 in December. And all of a sudden I'm like, it's time to go hunting. He needs to just quit school and go hunting. And so, you know, and we've had a few guys in our license app, we only charge $100 for youth, for guys to apply their kids, you know, as far as our fee. And, you know, we've had a few of them where they've got their kids have drawn special tags into Mexico and this, that, and the other. And so it does get a little bit busy with kids and whatnot. Oh, yeah. Well, but it, but it also brings up a good point, that point of staggering, you know, we're starting, we're talking about, you know, January 1st through June 12th or 13th to Arizona sheep and deer. I mean, it's six month period that we're talking about.

So if you're on top of it, the magazine we put out breaks it down each month. You can, especially in the States, like you did a Wyoming elk or an Arizona elk that you think you might draw, you're going to know by the end of February and early March in those States and stay away from other stuff from there on. So there's other mechanisms in place, but the point is get started, make a plan. Everybody's wish list is a little bit different, but, but what I guess I would throw out there too, Roger and you, you, you maybe add your thoughts to this 22 years ago, or whenever you think you started, how do you think your wish list has changed in 22 years? Because what I guess where I'm going is if you think there's any possibility you want to hunt mule deer at some point, even though you don't think now, if it's an extra 10 bucks

in a state to add it, when you only think you're interested in elk like Arizona or Utah, just build the points for it. Um, I don't know. I I've even had things in my, in my life, you know, that have elevated more, you know, from over the last 25 years or more to me or mean a lot less to me elk. As I get older, elk mean less and less to me personally. They, you know, were new in Utah when Jason and I were, you know, teenagers, they were spreading them all out throughout Utah. It was the new thing. We hunted mule deer and they had elk kicking out of horse trailers everywhere. They were doing transplants without getting approvals. They were midnight runs everywhere. And elk were the new thing and they were cool and they scream and oh my God, you know, and we start putting in for them. Come 25 years later, I love, I love hunting elk. But I'll hunt deer three to four times a year.

And if I have one elk tag, I'm fine. Or one elk tag every other year, I'm fine. So that's kind of changed for me. Have you seen that change for you? And how do you, it's hard. Absolutely. I can go back and like I said, I keep mine in an Excel spreadsheet and, um, I can go back and look at those initial applications of the units I applied to the States. And there was like, uh, I filled in, uh, I filled out 12 applications and nine of them were for sheep. So, and that was, uh, that was going to really take me nowhere. This Excel spreadsheet. You mean you have years, you, the tabs at the bottom are different years and you keep track of exactly the applications you filed. Yep. I can go back and look at the units and I've kept that through the years. That's an Excel spreadsheet of Epic proportions. But I can go back and look and I can see that I didn't apply to many States back then.

You know, I was putting in a couple of whitetail tags and I was fixed on getting a sheep tag. Then it kind of registered because of really some of the stuff you guys were doing. Um, if I'm buying that license and why should I, why should I not be getting points for this other stuff applying for like a, you know, a unit one elk tag in Arizona. And, um, yep. By the way, we drew that one too. So, um, that was, um, I think that one went a little bit better than the Colorado hunt. Yeah. That was, that was a world-class hunt. Arizona does well. But, um, but, um, but, um, but anyway, go back to your deal, Adam, your question is, yeah, mine has grown through the years where it was nine or 10, 12 applications, 20 plus years ago. And I'd say about 15 years ago is, or 20, 15 years ago is when it really hit its peak of 35 to 40 different animals scattered around eight or nine different States.

And there's some States for me that just, that just don't make sense to apply, but there's also some States that don't make sense. Why I have 20 points in them now either. Yeah. I have got a ton of points in Oregon. Adam's got a ton of, Adam's got a ton of moose points in Montana. I've got max points. Every year he's like, Oh, what am I doing? And remember before now you can do points only at least, but remember when you had to apply for a unit in Montana is the only way you can get a point. And some years, please don't let me drop, please do not let me draw this moose tag. Non-resident units you can apply for change year to year. And all of a sudden you have nothing great. He's like, Oh yeah. You have nothing that you really feel like you want. You're like, please do not give me this moose tag. And I'm making light of it.

I'd take a good moose tag, but it's just, it's gonna, it's gonna happen when I've got, you know, maybe my desert sheep tag and an awesome elk tag and 14 backup. And now I've got a, I burned 20 points in Montana. I'm a moose, but. And Adam, I'm, I'm very similar on that, on a Wyoming moose. I've got enough points where someday I can draw, I can draw most of the moose units in Wyoming. Someday I will do that, but it's just, it's not in my plans. So tell me, tell us about this goat tag you drew. We talked about your sheep up there in, well, in Colorado and Montana, but. Tell us about the goat. You also drew a goat just on a random draw. Yeah, I did draw that. And that made me think that that's, that's one thing that did change my application process in Montana. When Adam was asking about how things change your application thinking is I thought, well,

if I ever draw a goat tag, I probably won't apply to other states. I just wanted one goat. So I took my name out of the hat in Montana, but I drew a Colorado tag. Was it, what's it? G3, Jason? I don't know if it was. It's not even, it's not even available. No, hasn't been. It hasn't been. Non-residents anymore. And it was, it probably shouldn't have been a unit then. I mean. It sucked. It was awful. They're white and it's above timberline. How hard can this be? You drug me over there. I don't know. I was like, yeah, maybe I don't. Maybe I don't need a goat in the water for you. It was better for elk scouting than it was for goat hunting. And I just, the funny thing I remember about this, Jason and I hiked way back in the middle of nowhere. I mean, we've got on our, our top end, a high dollar boots, our good packs, you know, and

we've got a rifle that'll shoot a long way and all this, you know, we've got our lightweight gear. We're, we're, we're big, hardcore hunters. Kenetrax, Hillebergs. We got it, everything. We got all of our stuff. We go back there and we bust our butt for three days. We cannot see a white goat anywhere. We can't see one. How about a brown one? Any pack goats in there? We saw a 350 bull or something. Yeah. I mean, why we didn't take advantage of some of this stuff on over the counter Colorado tags and people are doing it, but we, and we see stuff and then we'd walk away and never go back. Yeah. But we, we go back in and we scout this area and we're, we're hunting and we've got blisters on our feet. We're wore out. You know, we've, we've lost weight and all this. And I remember, I just remember this like it happened yesterday. We give up on this area.

So we start hiking out and we're spent, you know, we're thinking we're back in the middle of nowhere. I just remember we see something coming toward us on the trail. I can see colors down through the dark. Tim, what is this? And there's three 70 year old women hiking in there with flip flops and stuff on and other. We think we're pretty tough guys. And there's three grandmiles that have hiked in there to go trout fishing. It was kind of a humbling experience. Okay. Maybe we're not very tough. No, we're tough. We're tough. That had me doubting. Also like to give another shout out to one of our sponsors, Kenetrek boots. We've used their boots for 10 plus years. Great boots. Well-made. I've used their mountain guide boots myself. Very well-made. Love them. Like the fit. They, they work hard for us. A lot of our sheet punts and whatnot.

You can check out their whole line of Kenetrek boots at Kenetrek, K-E-N-E-T-R-E-K.com. Or you can call them to place an order 800-232-6064. A little shout out to Hilleberg. Hilleberg's been with us for a long time. Since inception of Epic Outdoors, the Hilleberg tents, the tent maker. They are awesome. The first great tents we ever had were Hilleberg's. And you could just roll them out on tundra and you wouldn't even get wet inside. It was like monumental. Felt like a major discovery. So if you're looking for a great tent, you might contact Hilleberg through www.hilleberg.com backslash epic. So www.hilleberg.com backslash epic. And check out some of their tents. You might order one online or you can give them a call and drop our name as well. They'll treat you right. They've treated all of our people right. So anyway, super appreciative of Hilleberg and all that they do.

And some of the great products they make second to none on their tents. How about shooting your goat and putting it in the pack and pretending we're naturalists walking out so we don't get hammered by everybody? So your tires don't get slashed. That's exactly right. I mean, they are everywhere. People are everywhere. Yeah, we do get a goat on the other end of the unit and Jason's right. I mean, it's just people everywhere. But I just remember thinking, they're going to see the barrel of my rifle sticking up above my pack. And these people are staring at us. They got their little beanies on. And, you know, they're... They're hiking every 14er. I'll do all the 14ers. Yeah. And we're on a 14er, you know, shooting one of the goats that they're watching. And there was, you know, that was before marijuana was legal in Colorado. But I remember smelling plenty of it going up that trail.

And there were just... There were people everywhere. But we finally got above them, got the goat, and coming back down. At least we got to do half the way out in the dark. But it was... Ran the gauntlet. That's a different experience. Definitely a different experience. You could fit a full goat in a backpack. I can vouch for that. Well, the meat. We split up the meat. But anyway. Well... I just remember us getting off. And that was a pretty long hike after we come out there. And I remember Jason taking his boots off. And your socks were covered in blood. Yeah. We just went. We just took off and went. And it was late that night before we got back to the truck. That sounds like... Remember our buddy saying, can Jason go? Can he really go? Oh, I know who that is without even you bringing it up. I know who we're talking about.

We've got a friend that thinks hunting is more like a marathon than it is about the experience. And I've just... He knows I hunt with Jason. And he'll always ask, can he go? Can he go? Oh, what do you mean, can he go? Well, how does he walk? How much ground can he cover? What's his stride? What's his pedometer spitting out? How many... How fast is he going? How many miles can you guys cover in a day? I don't really know. He walks fine, but it's not a marathon. I'm not measuring. And he doesn't think he's hunting unless he stomps the mountain down. And I'm not trying to scare any of the eastern hunters on this because, you know, there's some long hikes and, you know, there's some bloody feet and heavy packs and that stuff. But there's plenty of great opportunities for the eastern guy. That's a half-mile walk from the trail. Oh, yeah. Well, we talked about it earlier. And I'm even...

Even some of your... You've hunted mule deer. And, you know, you can hunt mule deer at 11,000 to 13,000 feet. Or you can hunt it at 5,000 to 6,000 feet or 7,000 or whatever that generally won't affect anybody from back east at all for all intents and purposes. Well, like that mule deer that we killed in Nevada that year, Jason. And I shot that buck, what, 300 yards from the truck? Oh, my gosh. In the desert valley? Yeah. In the desert valley. I parked behind some bushes. And actually, I sat on the edge of a road and an old sandy... Two-tracker. Two-tracker. Yeah. And just was glassing from there. So, yeah. Well, we got to expound upon it a little bit. But there was... So, we're down in the desert. Water's Key. The deer, it's kind of a rut hunt. And we take you out there. And basically, there's just... Remember that water? I mean, there was so much activity and tracks and everything.

And I'm like, you're going to kill a giant. Hang around this place. You're going to kill a giant. And the first report... What you saw, though, Jason, was you said, look at this. There's two tracks running from this water. And you said, I think we ran those deer off of this water. Yeah. And that was like 8.30 in the morning. And you said, I think those deer were here when we drove up. They heard the truck and they ran off. And they were big tracks. Very big tracks. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, just sit up on that knob. That knob's 500 yards away. Just sit up on that knob. And shoot. If a giant comes in, shoot him. And that night, you're like, well, a giant came in. And I was so cold. Yeah. I couldn't pull the trigger. And I'm like, what? I could not hold my gun still. The wind was blowing. I was ready to kill you.

I'm like, what? You're like, oh, he had points everywhere. I don't even know how big he was, Jason. That deer is embedded in my brain. I remember he was a mainframe three-point with just stuff in every direction.

But I tried to get him in the crosshairs. I knew it would just be a marginal shot. The wind was blowing. I was shivering. It was brutal cold. And I didn't get him that afternoon. But I went back the next morning, which was, I guess, it was 24 hours, almost to the minute of when we found those running tracks before. Two running tracks the day before. Went back the next morning. And almost to the minute, 24 hours later, two big bucks walked in. And you shot one of them. He's basically a 190-incher. And you saw a total of three deer on your hunt. And you hunted about 24 hours. Yeah. No does. You didn't see a doe. Never saw a doe. Never one doe. I mean, it's just like, anyway. Anyway. And that's worth talking about. I mean, that's a case of a hunt that goes extremely, everything in your favor, it all lines up. Yeah.

But the take-home message for Eastern folks or people that aren't familiar with Western hunting is within each species, antelope, there's easy and there's tough hunts. There's not many tough hunts, maybe. Maybe that's not a good example. But mule deer, there's tough, backcountry, high country, region G&H in Wyoming or Colorado stuff. And then there's high plains hunts in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho that are easy, that anybody can do. Same with elk. There's backcountry wilderness where you're 20 miles back in or 28 miles in the thoroughfare if you want that kind of experience. And then there's private land hunts or public land hunts on easier 6,000 to 7,000 feet elevation rolling prairie type stuff. So don't think that everything out in the West is the same, that elk hunting is all jagged peaks and horsemen. It's not like that.

You know, in general, even within sheep, in every state that has a variety of sheep units, there's some that you only have one option, like Colorado desert sheep or something like that. You've got one option. But in other states, you've got places that are very, very tough and are probably going to involve a lot more backpacking, lower sheep densities. And you've got others that are a lot of road access, high sheep numbers. So keep all that in mind. That's part of what we break down. We break it down. And you can fit what, if you're looking, there's people that ask us for the meanest, the roughest. They want a horseback, wall tent, elk hunt in the wilderness with grizzly bears. They want that. But what I don't understand, what I've never understood and what I will caution all my Eastern friends is, don't do that as your first hunt to the West. Yeah.

Because odds are, it's not going to be like the guy I wrote about in the book or what you watched on the TV channel. It's not going to be like that. It's going to be hard. You're going to be cold. You're going to be wet. Can't breathe. There's going to be days without even seeing game. Don't go to the extreme the first time you do it. Because you're like all of us from the East. We're not conditioned that way. We didn't grow up that way. Our fathers didn't teach us that way. So those extreme hunts, that is not the way to start. And that's why I was talking about more like transition hunts. Do a Kansas whitetail. Do an Idaho whitetail. Do a Wyoming antelope. That type of stuff. Yes. Exactly. Great point. And ease into it. Come out and try something. For a lot of people, just seeing a mountain with your own eyes. That sounds stupid.

But I guided a 14, 15-year-old young man two years ago here in Utah. He drew one of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn tags. And he was from Kansas. He had never been west of Kansas in his life. And so he'd never walked on anything that wasn't perfectly flat. Let's just call it the way it is. Yeah. All right. And we got him out there. And we killed his ram. It was in a unique position. We killed his ram where we could drive up on this mountain, hike out on this plateau. We shot straight into the canyon. And then it took us maybe two hours to get him to the sheep. And it was 350 yards below us. It probably would have taken all of us 30 minutes. But he was in spider mode. He had hands and feet on the whole walk down. All fours. Because he was so, you know, he was a young man from when he wasn't experienced. But he had never walked off of anything that literally was not flat in his whole life.

And he just was unsure of just walking on uneven ground. And it was a sheep canyon. It was steep. But it wasn't treacherous. It wasn't, oh, we've got to rope up. And we're going to do it. It was nothing like that. So just coming out to that point, coming out, seeing the mountains, going for some hikes. I mean, it sounds very simple and basic. But for a lot of people, I've had people wake up in my camp trailers at, you know, 9,500, 10,000 feet, gasping for an hour. Get me out of here. I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm dying. They're from, you know, on the East Coast. And just the altitude at 9,500 to 10, they just couldn't get enough oxygen in their sleep. They would not sleep the rest of the night. They thought they were going to die in their sleep. And here's my wife's number. Be ready to call her if I don't wake up, if I'm dead in the morning. Oh, what?

You know, there's just things about coming to the West and seeing it if you've never done that. But ease into it like you're saying. Don't go, you know, to the steepest, deepest, roughest. You're probably going to get intimidated and throw in the towel. Don't come from just doing one flight of stairs once a year when the elevator at the Marriott quit working. You know what I mean? I mean, you're going to have to train. It is different than you think. And it will be different when you get there. And sometimes, yes, you need to be in good shape. And there is no doubt about that. You need to be in good physical shape. But the other side, there's so much mental to it. And like a lot of these guys that we take on these, like these Wheeler Peak and Latir hunts, some of these guys, it's been their first hunt in the West.

And what you try to explain to them is that altitude hunting you were talking about, there is a compounding effect on that. Because you're tired from hiking all day. You're tired from not oxygenating very well all day. But then, like to your point, Adam, you don't sleep well at night. So you're not rested. Then you do it again the next day. And it's snowballing on you in the wrong direction. And typically, if we don't have a sheep hunter, his ram, on that Wheeler Peak hunt by day three, GT and I know we have to rest them. They have to rest on day four. Because they're beyond going. And it's tough on guys coming. Yeah, it's a mental thing. We've had two where guys struggle being without their family. Literally. Yeah. Because, you know, you guys, when you're hunting whitetails, you get to go home every night. A lot of times, guys are hunting near their house or whatever.

And they go home every night. And they just never have truly left their family for two or three weeks at a time. And, yeah, if you're with a total stranger. They get a hot shower. They get good food. They see their family. Soft bed every night. Yeah. And it's different. And, you know, the funny story about those, not funny, it's kind of sad. We'd had two guys in Wheeler Peak a few years ago. And we were camped on two different sides of the drainage. And we'd found both big rams. And we were going to try to hammer them open in daylight the next morning at a legal shooting light. And our ram is gone. We cannot find the ram that was under us. It moved out through the night. But we can look over and we can see the ram that the other guys are going to shoot. And he just bedded right where he was the night before. And where are the guys? Where are they? It's three hours after daylight.

The ram's still laying there. And the guys are nowhere to be found. And I finally get up where I can get a text. And the text says we had to walk the hunter off the mountain because he got altitude sickness last night. And so, well, he's gone. He's gone from the situation. They had to walk him off in the middle of the night because he thought he was having a heart attack. They knew it was altitude sickness. And they walked him down or got him on the horse and got him off the mountain that night. Well, the ram was still laying over there. So we walk over there and we shoot the ram and it scores 187 inches. So the guy was not in shape. To handle that hunt. And he had a, at daylight, he would have shot 187 inch ram at 200 yards. And how do you train for it though, Raj? Like what's your, what's your advice?

Or is it just, are you just saying it's mental thing and just live being sick until you acclimate to it? There's some mental to it. But I've always told hunters the better shape you're in, the more you're going to enjoy the experience. I know some very fit guys that can struggle with altitude sickness. But for the most part, the guy who is very fit when he gets out there is not going to struggle with it. And I, I don't know if you guys have seen that in your guiding too, but if they're fit, they're typically going to be able to handle it. And I like a guy I mentioned earlier, Vince Schneider. Vince Schneider is an in shape guy. Vince can just walk and walk. Vince had no trouble in some of the worst country in New Mexico. And because of that, it was pretty easy to get Vince around. Some of the other hunters, it can, it's definitely more of a challenge.

But what I tell a lot of the hunters is you need to be able to walk 10 miles without stopping in your hunting boots. And if you can do that, you can handle most of those, especially New Mexico. You can handle those New Mexico sheep hunts. Not, not everyone has access to, to work out and hike on a mountain. But before I go out West, I have a mountain behind my house and I go, I go up and down that mountain. And that, that gets me in good enough cardiovascular shape to, to handle those hunts. And that's the Eastern guys need to find a way to walk and walk a lot. And if you can get on a hill and go up the hill, and I think it's also just as important to go down the hill. You guys don't, this never enters you guys brains because you're always walking up and down hills. Yeah.

But these guys here, going downhill, it's just as important getting your knees and your ankles and your hips conditioned to that. Because if the first time that you've walked two hours downhill is when you're in New Mexico, you're going to get shin splints so bad that you can't walk the next day. What about bench presses? What about benching? Do you usually, do you usually ask people what they can bench before they come hunt with you? We've took some big muscle bound guys and big, big, massive dudes. And they look real impressive, but man, do they struggle. There's just, there's, there's just too much mass to carry a lot of times. And they're, they're big, massive guys and they, they look like they could play football on Sundays, but it's tough on them. The average guy will, if, if, when you look at these guides in the West, they know, they know as soon as they see a guy,

if they see a guy that's six foot tall and 180 pounds, okay, we've got a great chance there. But when they see a guy that's five, seven, three 50, it's, it's, it's going to be a tough hunt. But the, uh, now the bench pressing, the squats, well, I guess squats could help, but the bench pressing I haven't found helps a whole lot on these Western hunts. That makes me feel better personally. Cause I can't.

Feel better. Good. Helped out him today. Long, skinny arms. Same with pull-ups. I can't, I can't crush a bunch of those. So I'm feeling better about this podcast right now. That was, that was a random question. Yeah. Well, just, uh, we were kind of in the car, you know, the cardio, the, you know, is it all about, you know, the. This time of year, we're seeing so many social media posts of just gym selfies and mostly the guys lifting and, and, uh, you know, that doesn't, it's not really what's helping guys out here. You know, doing a stair master, being able to do a stair master with no hands with a backpack for 45 minutes would be something, you know what I mean? And versus, versus just bench pressing. So. There, there is no, there is no substitute for just getting your pack and your hunting, getting your pack on, getting your hunting boots on and just walking.

And if you can find a hill, go up and down a hill. Well. And I have not found a substitute for that. Well, Raj, um, we need to go in, dive. We've got a bunch more, uh, you know, subjects and topics to talk about, but for, for now, let's, uh, let's call it a day. I mean, you've, you've, we sure appreciate everything you've done for us. And of course you and I've spent a lot of time in the trailer and tents and whatnot together and got a lot of stories. But anyway, we appreciate your insight on some of this with, uh, you know, dealing with hunting in the West from an Eastern perspective. So. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Well, thanks guys. Thanks for having me on. Um, there's, like I said, there's so many opportunities for the Eastern guy to take advantage of in the West. And, uh, just, there's no reason to go to the full extreme to, to take advantage of it.

Get focused on the, some of the Western white tail, the antelope and the mule deer and transition into some of these other hunts and hope that you get one of those real big bonus tags and they like a sheep or goat. That's right. Thanks, Roger. Appreciate your time. Been great as always. And, uh, you know, good perspective. I think there's certain things, Jason, I, we, we take a little bit for granted as everybody does. You're used to what you're used to and that's your world, you know, and, uh, we can sometimes rattle off stuff like it's common, common knowledge at some point, but different perspective from someone that doesn't live out West is always great. So appreciate your insight today. Yeah, sure. Guys. Anytime. Okay. Thanks, Roger. Um, also, uh, by way of gear, I want to talk about, uh, QU's new attack pro pant.

This is a new 2018, um, 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 a more abrasion and pick resistant. I can't wait to try some of those out this year. Uh, 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, uh, on q.com.