EP 89: Question and Answer with the Epic Crew "Hunt Tactics"

Are there hunts today that we should be taking advantage of that might go away soon? Everything you're doing today, you're going to wish you did better. For those guys who are sitting there with three points already in the game, you're in much better shape. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter here with the Epic Outdoors podcast. Also got John Peterson, Jeff John, Chris Peterson in the room with Mike so they can talk. So anyway, they'll be yakking. How are you, fellas? We're good. Doing great. It's getting busy, huh? Oh, yeah. It's getting busy. You got something going on tomorrow, don't you? Yeah, our tree, Nevada archery starts tomorrow. So can't miss that. Never have missed it my whole life that I can remember. Exciting times. No pressure. No pressure. You're here in the office when there's deer in the hill. Yeah, I know. I know. It's August 9th. Anyway, should be 200 miles from here, but I'm not. So might as well do another podcast. So anyway, we're coming at you here, Southern Utah, Epic Outdoors.

Of course, most of you guys out there know what we do, but we do publish a monthly magazine for the first six or so months of the year, December through June. About seven anyway. And then we do bi-monthly after that. Nine issues total, 100 bucks a year. And we cover all the western states. We give you all the drawing odds, kill percentages, best units. And, of course, you can call in and visit with us about hunts and all kinds of application questions and hunting questions as far as landowner tags or guided hunts. Jeff represents a lot of our endorsed outfitters. Of course, you know, that's an epic endorsement. But Jeff works for us, and that's kind of his main focus. And so we rely on him to let Adam and I and John and everybody else here in the office know what we have available and what our guys are going through. So anyway, it's a great little business.

Very, very customer service oriented. And anything to do with Western Big Game, that's what we specialize in. So as we get started here, we want to thank Under Armour. We appreciate them and their support of Epic Outdoors with this podcast as well as Epic Outdoors magazine. We do a lot of different things with them. Of course, we're good to them as well and a lot of great gear. In fact, Jeff, I think a lot of their gear came available on the website. Yeah, they're starting to put out all of their new, like their Raider line. That new Raider line is fantastic. It's all coming out on the website. You can also find some of that in the stores, you know, your local stores. But the website is getting loaded up with a bunch of that Raider boots, the new Raider pant, Raider jacket. A lot of good early season stuff, especially for, you know, guys who are hunting like Nevada archery.

Yeah, that's right. I need to buy some of that. No, that is actually really good stuff. I've got their pants and just loaded them up this morning, actually. But anyway, great, great gear, like Jeff said. And a lot of stuff available at retail locations that's not available on the website. Yes, you can find a bunch of it on, you know, on the shelf that they're just getting onto their website as well. So I think they kind of take care of their retailers and they're getting the stuff. Yeah, very frustrating from my perspective. Very frustrating. But anyway, you can go on to UA.com, Under Armour, Ridge Reaper.com, whatever. Jump on the UA hunt site. Yeah, the UA hunt. And then type in Baron or Baron Camel or whatever and your options will come up, right? Or Ridge Reaper. What else do you want? The easiest way for me to search is I always just type in Baron in the search bar.

And that way it will bring up basically all the Ridge Reaper stuff is going to come up on there. Because that's, you know, the Camel. It's Baron Camel. So you're going to be able to go through scroll there. You're going to see early season jackets, pants, anything like that. Speaking of lightweight and breathable, Kenetrek boots. They have this new men's Bridger Ridge boot. It's a lighter weight, a little bit more convenient, more of a hiker boot. Not that big, thick, heavier boot that you're kind of used to. Like a trail runner. Kenetrek. Yeah. Like a trail runner. Like a trail runner. Yes, exactly. So it gives you a little bit better option for early season especially if you're just, you know, hiking quick, fast. I mean, they're light. The low rise one only weighs 2.1 pounds, which is great. You know, $125. It's a perfect kind of all summer boot that you can wear.

Just great trail runner. Awesome. Well, we appreciate Kenetrek. They support us here at Epic Outdoors as well. And so, anyway, don't feel bad about getting a hold of them. They've got great gear. And you can go to Kenetrek.com. That's K-E-N-E-T-R-E-E-K.com. Or you can call them at 1-800-232-7014. Tell them Epic Outdoors sent you. They might give you a little sticker or something. All right. Let's get started. Jim's going to call us. What's this sticker? I owe this guy a sticker. What were you thinking? So, anyway, of course, this is powered by Monster, but we're not paid by Monster. Dang it. But we should be. Having said that, I want to make a disclaimer. These are not good for you. I've been told you're supposed to have like 100 ounces of water between Monsters. So, just make. How about that? These aren't good for you. Having said that, we tried the Mountain Ops a little bit.

Actually, I didn't try them. Guess why? Guess why? Why is that? I'll give you a guess. Go ahead. Because they freaking got to mix it up as a powder. I don't want to mix stuff up. I want it in a can. So, if these supplement companies, and I don't know, or whatever, let's say it's a protein drink. If they come in a can, you're going to sell 10 times the amount. I'm just saying. And I know it's dumb and everybody would be stupid. You know, I don't want all my powder all over the counter, the little tiny neck of a bottle of an Arrowhead water bottle or whatever. I want it in a can. I want it cold. I pop the top, and I go to town. And so, if. And that's a million-dollar idea that I'm giving them for nothing. That's totally fair. Shipping expenses rise a little bit, I imagine there. A little royalty. We'll see if these guys are friends at all. But I'm just telling you, if they come out with.

Could you imagine seeing a Mountain Ops can in a Maverick? It's going to go retarded. You're going to, oh, I feel better about drinking Mountain Ops versus Monster, even if you're the same crap. I don't know. Right? You're going to say, I feel better about it. It's healthy. It's a healthy choice. And it's cold. And it's in an aluminum can. And we're supporting a company that supports hunting. And I would love to be able to do that. I mean, how would you like? Right? Like, that's me. I like doing that. That's me, too. So, anyway, for the time being, I'm going with the aluminum can. And that's going to be a monster. So, that's where we're at. All right. So, let's get started. This is going to be like a Q&A podcast, I guess. There was a lot of people that had a lot of questions. And we were just kind of going to get started. Some great questions. Yeah.

Just a lot of thought-provoking questions. And we're not saying we have all the perfect things. We're going to be directing most of them to you, Jason. I read through some of these questions. And I'm like, I am unqualified to answer that question. I haven't read them. And the next 10 beyond it. So, we're going to pick on you pretty hard here, Jason. I haven't even read them. So, let's see what we got. Okay. Here's the first one. On the last Q&A podcast, you spoke about going back in time with your knowledge and the hunts you didn't take advantage of. My question is, are there hunts today that we should be taking advantage of that might go away soon? If yes, what are a couple you're willing to share? Thanks, guys. Not a better crew out there. Yeah. This is a tough one. So, everything you're doing today, you're going to wish you did better. That's the bottom line.

It doesn't matter on these Colorado deer tags. You look at it like a unit 35 third or it takes zero to one point. You know, in reality, that's probably a five point type unit. I mean, there's too many hunters in the field, but you're going to wish you did better. You're going to wish, you know, and a lot of times we put in the effort in accordance to how much it cost us or how many points it took to draw. The demand that everybody else places on it, right? Yes. Because the points that it takes to draw is, in theory, demand of our fellow hunters. That doesn't mean anything. It shouldn't mean anything. Although, if it took 20 points to draw that, we'd put a lot more effort in, wouldn't we? If it takes 10 points, we'd put a lot more effort in it than a zero point. Well, I can get it every other year. I may do it justice. I may not. You should treat it like it takes 10 points.

That's my opinion. Those units, 18, 30, whatever, we could be talking, there's a number of Colorado units. The Idaho General over-the-counter deer and elk tags, I mean, they're hunting 330-plus bulls on over-the-counter for archery. That's going to go away. Everything goes away that's over-the-counter. Everything goes away, you know? We watched the Arizona Strip go away for 13A that was over-the-counter deer, and I did that like an idiot. And it was hard, and it was tough, and whatnot. But knowing what I know now, of course, knowing what I know now comes in part from trail cameras, and trail cameras have come really since 2005. So, anyway, you know, but having said that, we do know a lot more now, and opportunities are hard to come by. Same thing with, like, over-the-counter archery deer in Arizona. You're hunting deer in the rut, okay? You're hunting mule deer and coos deer in the rut.

Yeah, it's not the Arizona Strip, but, like, Unit 10, got big old deer, Unit 9, big old mule deer. And then you can hunt all of the coos deer units in the rut, but pretty much, you know, the amazing units. And so I'm just saying, like, those are things that are going to go away that have value that nobody really pays attention to. Eventually, the pressure will build enough people out there. They'll turn it to a draw, more than likely, on a lot of these units. Yeah, and the landowner tag systems change. We see things, we see change coming forward all the time as far as New Mexico elk and different proposals. And who knows, you know, those tags may go away someday or be good for, you know, elk or ranch only and not be able to hunt the whole unit or whatever. I know they've talked about a lot of things coming up.

Change is allowing some ranchers to kill as many elk as they want, be able to sell as many tags as they want for their own property. And, you know, things like that happen. It's going to affect quality. Quality is going to go down the toilet because you can't manage when you give unlimited tags. So there's just tons and tons. You know, think about this, the unlimited sheep in Montana. You know, if that goes away, we're all going to go, really? Rocky Mountain sheep? A Rocky Mountain sheep is probably the hardest species of sheep to kill. So there's, you can't go buy them like you can a stone or a desert because you have Mexico with desert. With the Rockies, where are you going to buy one? You're going to go to Canada and have a 30% kill rate.

And that's what, like, we, Jeff, yeah, like, we told you, Jeff, the biggest thing you should do is go find us some Rocky Mountain big horn sheep hunts. It's the hardest thing we've tasked you to do. And we know that. And so in reality, you know, to go out there and say, I want to kill a Rocky. Yeah, well, you know, you probably need to throw 100 grand at it. And even at that, you're going to kill a nice one. You know, 150 incher or something, 150. And you talk to guys that have spent hundreds of thousands of them, been up three times and have not killed a Rocky. And then finally go, all right, I want to do it right. And they buy a Utah Governor tag. So anyway, I'm just, those are things that are going to go away. Same thing, like, General Elk in Montana. I mean, for archery, you know, easy to draw, you know, and amazing bulls.

But, you know, we all just kind of ignore it, thinking it will always be there.

And we don't really place value on it where we should. So anyway, any tag you get, I feel like it's, you know, every tag we get, we don't do justice to it. And, you know, wish you do, we all have a few regrets as we roll down the years. And we've seen a lot of those units we were hunting in Colorado that took, you know, one point to draw, one or two. Now, a couple years later, they're at six to eight. And, you know, it just changes so quick. You never know when a draw system is going to change. That exact thing, I mean, Colorado changing, just the way that you apply has changed the game completely. Now, where you had a lot fewer people fronting the fees, now you're just flooded. And I think it's going to make a huge difference in the long run. Well, it's going to crush everybody. Well, there was a question on here just for that. And we might as well cover it now because we brought it up.

Let's see. There's a guy that asked with Colorado's new draw system, how bad do you think point creep is going to be? I had a tag last year, the tag I was going to say takes four to five points. Is that going to take eight to ten now? Probably not eight to ten. But I think there's a little bit of a lag, don't you guys? I mean, there's a little bit of a lag. So people that weren't applying, especially for deer, anybody that's really serious about deer was putting up the three or four hundred bucks, right? I mean, you're putting it up. But what you're going to see is the sheep and the goat and the moose. You're going to see those odds go to crap. And absolutely go to crap. And so with the deer, I mean, that wasn't an enormous amount of money. Having said that, anybody that's even remotely interested for a minimal fee can go ahead and get a point.

And I think once they get four and five points, you're going to see this creep in, so to speak, four to five years from now when they go to use those points. So just a few numbers here. In 2016, there was 178,000 applicants in Colorado. 2017, there was 185. Now jumping to 2018, there was 212,000. So it jumped a little bit. So it jumped. It jumped more than the average. An average jump is a 5% growth or whatever. Yeah, 6,000 to 7,000 maybe the year we were 7 to 8. And then we jumped 15,000 plus 17,000, something like that. So anyway, there was a jump. Absolutely. That's just in the first year that it's available too. That's on the deer side. Now the sheep side of things, that's a whole different story. You're talking about in 2016, you had 16,000 applicants. 2017, let me flip my page here. 2017, you had 17,000. So you added what?

Just over, you added just over 1,000 applicants from 2016 to 2017. Now 2017 to 2018, you're at 40,993. Huge. So you're talking 23,000. Yeah. And percentage-wise, it's an absolute astronomical figure. Oh, unreal. Percentage-wise, you're a double. For those guys who are sitting there with three points already in the game, you're in much better shape for the next three years. Three years then. Next two years. After that, you're in trouble. After that, you've got to, yeah. You'll have an edge as far as drawing odds, but it's just a slight edge. Tell us, is that total applicants? That's total applicants. Non-resident, resident. Total applicants, non-resident, resident, youth, and youth altogether. Okay. So, yeah, anyway, those kind of, I do think you're going to see some point creep. You know, it's not going to be, obviously, as drastic in some areas as others. So, all right.

Well, where are we at? John, you want to keep us on task here? Yeah. Here's another interesting one, I think.

First-time sheep hunter. Wants to know what are the top three tips to be successful sheep hunter. Oh, this guy drew, he drew the Frank Church, Unit 26 in Idaho. So, that's a serious hunt. That guy needs a Stairmaster in his house. Yeah, in his house. It's a pretty rough country. We, you know, we drew a couple of guys up there this year. And probably the best thing you could do is hire an outfitter and be in shape so you're not holding him back. Crazy, tough country. That's some amazing country up there. I think the biggest thing is glass. You've got a lot of timber, some burn country, and it's all going to, you know, it's going to be tough. It's not like you're looking at mountain goats that are, you know, that are white. You got brown on brown, basically. You got, you know, with their, they just blend in with their environment. And so, I think, you know, glassing is going to be key.

Being in shape is going to be key. Sometimes horses are flying in. You're going to be renting a flight service like you would in Alaska. You're going to be dropped in on a remote airstrip and hike from there or horseback or whatever. And so, anyway, top three tips. But I don't know about three. But, I mean, I think gear is critical. Being in shape is critical, absolutely critical. Some hunts like Nevada, deserts, you don't have to be in that good of shape. You just don't. But there are some units that you do, and somebody's going to line me out here once they hear this podcast. So, I'm going to, with a disclaimer, get your butt handed to you on some hunts. I agree. But having said that, it's a lot different than going to some of the most rugged country North America has. And that's up there in Idaho. So, anyway, so being in shape, good gear.

And, man, if you could afford it, you probably won't get this tag again. And, I mean, I'd probably hire a guy. Yeah. So, there's some hunts that we wouldn't say that. You know, if you're a decent hunter and got some time, why, man, you could do a lot of these hunts here in the lower 48 on your own. This particular one, a little bit tougher. I would consider hiring an outfitter myself. Bronson as well. It's just a little bit. It's like 40 miles back into some of that sheep country from the closest trailhead. So, you're going to save some of that by going with flight service. But, you know, those outfitters that are going in there, they are packing their horses in 40 miles. Talk to one guy. He has hunted sheep all over the world. He said those hunts, that Frank Church and whatnot, some of the most rugged hunts that he's ever been on.

I mean, one of the most rugged sheep hunts, which is, you know, that's saying something. Yeah, that is. Right on. Let's move along. Okay, next question. Hey, Jason, I've got a question. And this may be a rhetorical one considering you live in Utah, LOL, but I'll ask it regardless. If you were going to choose a state to move to in the West and become a resident in order to take advantage of mule deer hunting opportunities, regulations, potential, as a resident, what state would you choose? It's funny he says LOL. When I go to write the magazine, I write LOL. I want to write LOL. Get edited out. Wait, this is not a text message. I know. I have to remind myself that's not proper English. Well, yeah, but they know exactly what I mean. You know what I mean? So anyway, what are we trying to do? It's how we communicate. Yeah, that's how we communicate. So anyway, but yes, if I was moved to.

If I personally was going to move anywhere, I'd move to Idaho. Idaho has some amazing deer, giants. If you look back through the records, I mean, and the photos, you know, Ryan Hatfield put out a deer, Idaho's greatest mule deer or whatever, you know, book. And you look at those photos, they rival anything on the Arizona Strip. Not only are they 40 inches wide, they have 14 eye guards on each side, bladed out, freaking amazing frames, amazing cheaters, amazing mass. I mean, we're not talking cheap their way to 40. They might be a 40-inch frame. I mean, it's unbelievable, some of the deer. And so, you know, all I'm saying is they have the genetics. They obviously haven't managed for those kind of deer. However, some amazing deer are killed every year. And everybody will argue, those are Idaho residents, will argue that it's terrible, worst thing they've ever seen.

Nothing, no big deer left. Well, you know, if you really want to come somewhere choice, come to our place, you know what I mean? And we've seen some big deer, and we have genetics too, but we're not necessarily managing for them. Although we've seen, you know, an increase in quality. So, anyway, that would be my choice. Chris, where would you move? Colorado? Chris loves Colorado. I'd probably go to Colorado. I mean, yeah, it's just the ability to draw every year would go up quite a bit, I think, as far as being a resident. And really good quality. We can't. Chris thinks that mule deer don't even exist in any other state of Colorado. Not true. Not true. I mean, he shed hunts.

It's been a little while since I've been out there for a shed hunt. Back in the day, take his little girlfriends on extended dates and make them shed hunt, hike their guts out all over the hills. Make them sleep in the back of a vehicle. Sleep in the back of a vehicle, not even a nice vehicle. Remember one time there was like four of us, and we were sleeping in the back of a Toyota 4Runner. Yeah, you and three girls. Yeah. Hey, I couldn't get anybody else to go. And I'm like, really? Oh, dude, they hiked their guts out. Nice. I felt bad for them. Once we got in there, I'm like, oh, we still got to hike back. So anyway, yeah. So don't have to worry about them stealing your spots as much. It's true. So no question, Milder, you know, Colorado could be the, you know, Milder capital of the world, so to speak. Just numbers. They've got the vegetation, the habitat.

And season dates are great right now. You know, letting us flirt with the rut here and there on a couple of different rifle seasons. And the early seasons, everybody overlooks. And lots of opportunity, especially if you're a resident, easy to draw, lots of stuff. And so, yeah, I could see that. John, where would you move? Yeah, same, Colorado. Really? Yeah. I like those late seasons. Yeah. All right. What about the double deer tags you can get in Idaho? You can get two general tags. That's pretty unbeatable. Feed the family, you know what I mean? What do you think, Joe? You know, it might be a toss-up between. New Mexico? No. That's a negative. It might be a toss-up between, honestly, Wyoming and Idaho. I mean, you think about a Wyoming resident can buy their general tag. They can hunt stuff that takes us five, six years to draw.

They can buy it every single year, and they can start hunting, what, mid-September, and they can stop hunting, what, end of November in some of those units? Yeah. You know, it's like, that's a lot of deer hunting that you can do. So, Idaho, same situation with all their tags on that general. You can start hunting in those archery seasons early, and you can keep going on some of those late archery hunts clear into, you know, December. So, those two would be probably on my top two. Yeah. I can see why. And, you know, that's one opportunity. Going back to our first question, that's one opportunity that probably won't go away is Wyoming having to give up their resident general tags. Oh, they fight tooth and nail for that sucker. Oh, they'll kill people. And the commissioners know it. So, anyway, no matter. They're scared. They're running scared. We all want quality.

But, you know, they live there, and they're residents. They get to decide. But having said that, there's a few residents that are disgusted. But, hey, you know, they want, you know, crappy quality and to make sure they get a tag every year, have at it. And we'll abide by your rules as non-residents. But having said that, I don't think you're going to pull those tags out of their hands. No. No. When you're talking 7,000 residents are hunting a unit, and there's, what, 600 non-resident tags? They keep slapping our hands and taking our tags and reducing our opportunity. Hey, and let's go ahead and raise fees. Let's see. Residents, we're going to jump you up a couple hundred bucks here or there, you know. Or non-residents, we're going to jump you up a couple hundred bucks to 600 bucks. Residents, we're going to raise you up about $2.50. And we're going to scream like hell. So, anyway, so.

They're worried about a gun showdown on the streets. Yeah, it is. It is what it is. So, anyway. Here's a question that kind of dovetails with that, and it's for beginners. So, is there a specific state you would recommend for a beginner DIY hunter, whether it be elk or deer, and why? Yeah, I think, like, I'd go to Colorado. You've got great season dates. You're going to be able to go. Not going to hurt much, you know. You're going to be able to drive around glass. You can hike your guts out if you want. There's just a lot of opportunities. And you're also, it's going to learn you. It's going to teach you a few things. Learn you a few things. It's going to teach you a few things. You're going to be able to, you're going to have to learn how to use Onyx Maps. You're going to have to learn how to use your phone, your GPS.

It's going to require you to engage with maps, engage with private land versus public. But it's also not the end of the world. If you mess up on a buck, you can go to the next one. And there's good opportunities for numbers, even at zero points or leftover tags. And typically, good access. You know, you're not fighting. I mean, there is private, but you're not fighting it as much as some other places. Yeah, just get a good mapping system. You'll be all right. So, jumping into that one, that's just, you know, a third season Colorado tag. You know, so many units, you have a rough time. When you're hunting out of state, it's hard to go out and scout, right? So, if you're coming from a little ways away and you're just wanting to make a hunt happen, third season Colorado is hard to beat because it doesn't do you a lot of good to scout.

You know, you need to know the roads, but it doesn't do you a lot of good. Show up there, hope for bad weather, you're going to do great. That's a good question. You know, there's a lot of hunts out there that are hard as crap. You know what I mean? The wilderness country in Idaho. You could go back in on horseback or backpack and kill a 25-incher. Or you could go to Colorado, drive around, and kill a 25-incher. And so, I've learned a lot of that. I mean, even guys that I know, you know, my dad, he's a huge fan of alfalfa fields, you know. If there's alfalfa, there's deer. Deer love alfalfa. I'm not, like, that's not really my thing, you know what I mean? But anyway, there's a lot of guys that, you know, I want it the hard way. Well, okay, you know. But I think what they're getting at is they want to earn it or they want to feel like

maybe you're by yourself or you're out in the middle of nowhere. It's you against the deer, not you against the deer and 15 other hunters. I mean, I get all that. But as far as a DYI beginner, hard to go wrong in Colorado. You can be able to kill a buck. If you're not too picky, you can kill a buck, you know. Not a lot of places you can say that. You guys want to add anything? What do you think about coos? What do you mean? If you want to do DIY. And if there's not a mule deer hunt going on, then go ahead. Then you're not doing it. And if it's not going to take away from your mule deer points. And they say, I'm really afraid to hunt coos very much because they say, yeah, absolutely get addicted to them, and I've got too many addictions. According to my wife. But for a DIY guy who's starting out, they're easy to get tags. It is, yes. It's fairly easy to get tags there. Where?

Or in Arizona. In Arizona. For coos deer. So if you're starting out, good to practice. Yeah, you can do that. And the thing about coos deer is they're super prolific. They have very high tag numbers. But the reason why is because there's freaking deer everywhere. Yeah. And so in most of the units. And we go over that in the magazine and kind of give you a heads up on some of that stuff. But a lot of it you can draw with zero points. Just very easy to draw and 100% drawing odds. Especially a lot of these units have four different coos deer seasons. Starting in October, ending in December. And those October hunts, even the first part of November. Those ones are really easy to draw. Nearly 100% success. And they got giant bucks. There's freaking 120-inch bucks that come from some of these units. So anyway, yeah, you could sure do it. Hey, let's hit this one.

When entering a new deer or elk unit. I don't even know where your goods are at. What's the process you do to locate bucks or bulls during the scouting season? So he's talking about before the hunt starts. Never been there before. Oh, if you've never been there. Well, you've got order maps. A lot of people call us and try to get some info before they get maps. But then they, you know, you can see through the phone the deer in the headlight look when you're talking about specific drainages. You know what I mean? Because they don't have a map to look at. But now you can jump on. Get your maps. You know, and then you'd call us and get a list of members who've hunted in the past, the member experience. And then, of course, there's a lot of units that we all hunt that we can kind of help you with and are happy to do it. And that's something we just added to our website.

You can get maps directly through our website. So just log on at pickoutdoors.com and you can order your maps. The best maps. You can actually choose specific units. You can go on there and choose a state, a unit, and have it delivered to your doorstep. And they're awesome that way. So you're not dealing with 14 BLM maps that cover your area. I'd also recommend on that subject as far as scouting a new area if you've never been there. We did a full podcast on that. And it's episode 82. And we just talked about going to a new place and how to start and what to look for in a new area. So we cover that really well. And so go listen to that if you have more questions on scouting. So, yeah, go on there. And then depending on your season, you're going to scout in the summer. You're going to scout, you know, right before the hunt starts.

And so if you're a late-season Colorado deer, for example, you know, yeah, you could go over in the summer and learn the roads and whatnot. And you can also get on Colorado's website and get all these migration corridors. And they've, yeah, it's awesome. Those are awesome. And wherever the winter ranges are, that's where you're going to start out, especially a third or fourth season tag. So even second at times. And I think there's a lot to be said for learning the roads. You just, you know, learning the roads, well, it's a lot different on Google Earth and on the maps than when you actually get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all true. So anyway, then you can kind of get a feel for, you know, what kind of glass you're going to need and accessibility to glassing knobs and, you know, backpack day hiking, whatever. Of course, we can give you some of that as well.

So anyway, and then, you know, some of this stuff, you might be running trail cameras or you're just flat-out glassing and spending some time. And there's no substitute for time, you know. And a lot of guys, I've had a lot of guys hit me up and, you know, well, some of us have real jobs. I get it. I get it, okay. Having said that, I've had a real job once in a while. And, you know, a lot of times when you own your own job, you're 60 hours a week. But we all have time off and we all get to choose what we do with that time off. I'm not saying if you don't want to spend time scouting, don't spend time. Like, it's fine. I'm just saying in a perfect world, you know, perfect case scenario to make the most of a tag, you should scout. And the more you scout, the more it's going to pay off. If you can't scout, that's okay.

Just don't feel bad if somebody else is scouting or if we're telling other people to scout. Just don't feel bad. Just understand that's not in your lot. I've got kids right now that are freaking getting to be 18 years old. I'm trying to do a lot with them before they leave and go do their own thing and have their own families. And it's just crazy how life changes. And so there's tags I'm not doing justice. And I'm okay with it. I've wrapped my head around it. I'm not happy about it. But I've wrapped my head around it. So you've swallowed that pill. No, I'm still choking on it. But I'm trying my best and I'm trying to make the most of some of the tags that I've gotten. And two, there's so many opportunities out there. You know, in reality, I'm doing too many. I've bitten off too much. And that helps me not do justice to some as well.

And so anyway, I think the biggest thing is just, you know, do as much scouting as you can. The more you scout, the more it's going to pay off for you. And look ahead, I think. Like I talked to one guy. He was on a business trip to Wyoming. He's got max Wyoming points. He was like, I'm just wondering, like, what unit should be on my radar? Well, he took an extra two days on his business trip, took the weekend. And he hit like 101, 102, drove up to 128. He hit some of these places and just looked at the country before he goes in to apply for them. He's just been building points, sitting there at max. And he's like, well, I'm wondering what I should do. Well, he's thinking two, three years in advance and just checking it out. You know, so like you said, back to your priority scale, you know, know what you're going for. And then, you know, put in some time beforehand, maybe.

And know what you're going to draw before you get there. I think that's a, you know, that's a big thing. You know, Jason, you're not. High mountain basin country is not necessarily something you love to hunt. I hate aspens. I hate water and green things.

So it's not 110 while you're scouting. You're not there. So a lot of it is just people. That's just people like green stuff. And so I got to deal with people if I go there. So not that I hate it. I've killed, killed plenty of animals in high country and whatnot. But anyway, keep going. Yeah, well, I'm just saying, you know, you're going to apply. You're going to be going into areas that you're familiar with, that you know, that you know how to hunt before you get there. And it makes you more successful. Yeah. Well, people need to do that, too. That's an important part of it. I think just be not be scared of doing break, you know, doing stuff. Just don't be scared of trying something new and doing new things like just, you know, just get out there and do it and get aggressive with it. And don't be scared to ask questions. And there's no dumb questions out there.

So let's go to the next dumb question. Okay. In your opinion, what would you consider a stalkable deer versus an unstalkable deer when hunting with a bow? Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough one. So there's 100 different scenarios. You know, there was a buck we hunted out there in Nevada one year. Adam and I, Adam drew a tag. And in 2012, one of the worst drought years we'd seen. And anyway, we called this buck the AZ Buck. And he was super wide, had one weak G4 on one side, but just an amazing deer. And we caught him bedded in a little piece of shade on this knife back ridge. And this is a ridge that you could walk around and you could climb up and get on top of him and come down on top of him. And the wind comes up a little bit. And so it could mask the noise. And with, you know, bear's feed or whatever, sneaky feed or who knows what, just some kind of a sock, right?

And you could really get in close. And it was an awesome opportunity that we just hem-hawed and we waited too long. But we did try him. And then right before we were able to execute the kill, actually, I think Adam made the entire stock. And right before he made the kill, deer runs out of shade and he, you know, walks across the draw. Just stood up. Just stood up. It was calm and everything. Yeah. He didn't know we were there. You know, he didn't know we were talking about him and plotting against him. But anyway, got up and walked, what, 400 yards or something? Totally not stockable. Totally not huntable or approachable after that. He walked across the valley into a bunch of open country. Yeah. Bedded under another little piece of shade from a freaking cactus or something. And just was brutal.

And so had we been there and made that, you know, 10 minutes earlier and just got off our butt and made a decision and go. And I think that's kind of the key, you know, getting a little off track of the question. But when there's an opportunity, you freaking take it. You go. There's not a lot of opportunities. And so you make good on the ones that arise. And get aggressive with it, as aggressive as you can. And so anyway, unstalkable would be bad wind. And you do not beat the wind. I don't care. I don't even wear a cover scent. You can't beat the wind. And so, you know, the wind is, I think, the biggest key. And then also the friends that the buck has around him, they will key in on you, possibly. I think it's key to know where everything's bedded around him. And so when you're making that, you're closing that distance, there's a doe or there's a small buck or whatever.

You know, that may catch you before anything else. And so, you know, that's kind of key. And then it's nice to be out of sight. So, like, if you can get in a wash and then pop up and look and get in a wash and pop up and look, I mean, that's a stalkable deer. Being able to be out of sight and stalk him, but then be able to check on him. Getting out of sight and stalking him, be able to check on him. If you can never check on him, really tough. If you're, you know, chances of him re-bedding in the course of a couple hours that it may take to do a stalk is probable. And then when he moves, you don't know which way he's facing. You don't know which tree he's under. He may have walked 100 yards. I mean, so there's just a lot of different variables. You're going to have to stalk a few. I think there's no substitute for experience on that. You have kind of a general rule. Every how many stalks?

Like every seven stalks. Yeah, you get lucky on every seven. One out of seven or something. And I've had guys say, Carter's full of crap. I make a kill on every single stalk. You know, well, these guys might be on the eastern plains with 30 or 40 mile an hour wind with the deer looking away from them. It's a little different. You're going to be able to stalk that deer. And how can he hear you? How can he hear you? And with 30 mile an hour wind, how can he and how can he see you when he's looking away? Like there's circumstances that allow for that. You know, but every stalk that never swirled on this guy, another deer never caught this guy. That's just not true. Well, and you get some of these guys hunting out of a blind and they're telling you that. Yeah. Every stalk works for me. Every stalk a deer makes on me. See, that's right. Never missed a stalk. Yeah.

Every time they came into the apple, I killed them. Whoa. You said it. You went there. I might have said that. That might have came out of my mouth. Holy cow. But anyway. Well, anyway. Sometimes it happens. Anyway. Yeah. So, anyway. We did go there. So, next one. Do you guys have a hunt that you do every single year that you already know you'll be going on? Or is every year a new adventure? Thanks. I love the podcast. Yeah. There is some things. You know, I like to hunt Nevada every single year. You got landowner tags. And it just gives you an awesome opportunity to be able to hunt specific deer year after year after year. Plus, those landowner tags are good for multiple seasons. And so, anyway. We did sell, buy and sell. Help our members obtain, I don't know, 30 deer tags this year on landowner tags. I mean, that's a significant number of tags.

And so, even the crappy, piss poor, so to speak, tags in Nevada are awesome opportunities. Because they allow you to hunt all the seasons. How cool is that? And the entire unit. You're not limited to this guy's hay field, which is generally what the private is in Nevada. It's a little wet spot that they try to grow some alfalfa on. And so, anyway. You hunt the whole unit. And you can bypass the draw. You can still gain points or whatever. If you draw, you can use that tag, too. There's no limit to how many tags you can have in Nevada. So, how cool is that? So, I try to do that one each year. Try to do Colorado each year. I know Adam tries to do Colorado each year, no matter what. And he likes to hunt, you know, Colorado elk pretty regular. And, of course, we all like to hunt Utah pretty regular. Chris, I know you like to go to Colorado once every five or six years.

This probably has to do with where you live. Yeah. You know, and I would say choose a spot that you can go back to, you know, whether if it's closer. Even if it's not, choose someplace where you can get a tag every year. Even if it's not the best unit that there is to fill in, you know, if you don't draw a great tag or you just need something to do. If you go back to the same spot repeatedly, that can turn that area into a better area than if you're just jumping around all the time. Yeah. Yeah. And some areas are just genetically gifted, you know. I mean, and you might have too many people hunting the unit, you know what I mean, too many tags going in there. But you might have one buck that gets old and smart, you know, is a little bit smarter, gets a little bit older and gets some. And those are the areas you want to hunt.

I mean, it's hard to go into an area that you've never seen a big buck or heard of a big buck come into. It doesn't matter if you're going in there every single year. You're not going to kill a big deer if there's no such thing as a big deer there. So you need to make sure you're hunting in, like we talked about Southern Idaho, like we talked about areas in Colorado. You can get tags for there year after year. But you just got to make sure you're in the right zip code, genetic zip code. I mean, if you're not, you're never going to kill it. I mean, let's face it, you can have an eight-year-old deer that never breaks 170. I mean, in all honesty, like, it just happens. You've got to hunt where the big deer are. That's a good point. I like it. I agree. 100%. Good point, Jeff. We better take a minute here and talk about one of our sponsors, Outdoor Edge. Go for it.

Jeff actually introduced me to them last, I think it was last year. Did you cut yourself? No. But I've always been pretty critical of the replaceable blade knives because I've seen so many fly at my face. You're videoing? Yeah, well, I go out and I film. Chris is down there, like, zoomed in, like, right next to it, just looking at the camera shot and all of a sudden, bing! Filming? Filming? You're either filming what they're doing or you're holding a leg while they're cutting on it. And so I can't even tell you how many blades have flown toward my face. And so I was always like, I don't like these replaceable blade knives because they're too flimsy. Yeah, and I laugh with you most of the times about that. But having said that, I'm scarred up all over my hands. Havlon's definitely made a, you know, a lasting impression.

So anyway, Jeff, last year broke out this Outdoor Edge knife, and I was pretty impressed with how sturdy that blade is. It is a replaceable blade, but it's not something that's going to break. It's something you can get a hold of, too. That was probably my favorite thing about it. It's a knife that you can really get a hold of. It has the feel of a regular skinning, gutting, hunting knife without that little surgical blade that can fall off. You know what I mean? So that's, you know, we'd heard about them. Me and my brother, Dusty, had heard about them. And we were like, man, we need to look into those. So we bought them. And I really enjoyed it. Yeah. In fact, you introduced it to me, Jeff, on Kearney's deer when we were breaking him down. And, of course, you know me. I kind of laughed with you a bit on that. And I'm like, okay, fine, Jeff. Oh, yes, that's nice. I actually liked it.

It was awesome. So anyway, we, you know, we're a huge fan. You can go to OutdoorEdge.com, O-U-T-D-O-O-R-E-D-G-E.com. Of course, they sell them anywhere and everywhere. But anyway, go there. I got a quick story on Outdoor Edge knives. So I had mine. I had a guy come over that I know that's selling knives, right, selling big sets and fancy knives. So part of his demonstration was, hey, grab one of your knives. Let's do a comparison, right? So I laughed. I had my Outdoor Edge right on my pocket, and I pulled it out. He's like, okay, okay. He pulls out this big rope, right? Yeah. And he's like, cut through that. And I did, and it was like one slice, and it went through like butter. And he's just like, oh.

John, who are you inviting into your home? This is weird.

Well, I was a kid I had in scouts, you know, and he's trying to get some experience for. Sales. Yeah, for sales and stuff. But he was just like, your knife's pretty good.

One thing about it, I like the replaceable blades because I can't sharpen a knife. I mean, it'll come out, you know, I mean, it'll look like a PVC pipe when I get done with it. So anyway, that's what I like. I like replaceable blades. Again, it's like the can of Mountain Ops that they're going to come out with because it's my idea. Like, we need royalties here. It's a big deal. Epic Outdoors needs a royalty on that. It's a big deal. And who wants to sharpen that just so I can do it the hard way? I can sharpen one, but I guarantee nine times out of ten I forget the sharpener. Yeah. So there I am with the button. This doesn't forget shit. Okay, this is maybe. This should be a whole podcast. This should be a whole podcast. It may or may not be. You should know. It's your job to know how long that battery will last on standby.

This may or may not be from personal experience, but I remember one time I was hiked in. It took me like an hour to hike into this spot. Anyway, it's pitch black. I have a headlamp. And basically my nice knife was reduced to butter knife. So here I am with a headlamp. I guess by the time I finished, it was probably three in the morning. It just took me all night to cut through that with the butter knife. The knife was so dull. I didn't have a sharpener. But this, of course, was like eight years ago. But anyway. We did that with little Sean's deer in New Mexico, remember? Oh, yeah. You were the only one. In fact, speaking of stuff, I didn't have anything because we were tracking this deer down. And I'm like, it's no big deal. We'll run back to the truck. Well, the truck's 14 miles straight uphill, you know. We're like, Chris. Was this the deer last year? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I'm like, Chris, what's in your pack? You got a knife? He goes, I think so. He still gets this goofy grin. And sure enough, he does have a knife. But it was the butter knife left over from that hunt. And 14 hours later, we just flat grabbed the meat and ripped it off the bone. So anyway. Let's see. There's one other question. I don't know. We're kind of. We're going to make this quick and short. We've got a little birthday party we need to do. But anyway. It says, what is the scent control you use when bow hunting in and close on the deer? And so there is no scent control. I haven't used scent control. I did hunt the kai bag when I was a little kid. I was walking down the road and I had this. I did have some little. Oh, it was like vegetation in a bottle, basically. And so anyway. I had that plastered all over me. And this doe came up and sniffed my leg. And then kept on down.

And I was like, holy crap. This is amazing stuff. And if there was social media back then, I would have blown the place up. Anyway. Anyway, having said that, I haven't used anything on a lot of these big deer. And remember, Chris, we had that doe come and basically sniff my shoulder when I was in on that pretty boy buck. Brutus's partner. A 220-inch deer. And I thought she'd blow and she didn't. Yeah. I thought it was over. A deer walked straight up to you and sniffed your back and then just kept walking. But, you know, that was in a burn. And I often went along. Well, geez, this carbon. There's something to it. You know, this deer's nose is full of carbon and full of ash and they can't smell. I don't know. Maybe there's some truth to that one. I have no idea. But, anyway, she didn't smell me and I didn't have any cover-up on it. I was sweating my guts out. So, I don't know.

We don't usually use cover-up or scent control. I mean, I know the white tails. I was using some silver stuff and this and that and the other and doing what I'm supposed to do as a white tail hunter. And I don't know enough about it to tell you if it works or not. You know what I mean? Rubber boots and all these other things. But here in the West, you just got to have the wind in your face. And, you know, you wait in the morning until the wind comes up strong. If it's up and down and swirling and whatnot, just don't make that stock. Don't do it. But if it's 11 to 2 in the afternoon and it starts to really get stiff in a certain direction, make your stock and go. Anyway, that's just my two cents. You guys got anything? I'd say my opinion on it. Even if you're wearing a great scent control and you're standing in the wrong spot, deer's going to smell you. It's just so.

It's covering up a skunk. Having said that, don't light up a cigar in a blind 70 yards from blinds and winds in your face. You know what I mean? Also, probably don't want to take a leak in front of your blind. Yeah. Oh, my dad used to take leaks. Right? I got blamed for a bull running off. Let's tell that story real quick. So, we're sitting there setting up the blind. Chris is the videographer slack pack horse. Yeah. I'm watching. We're setting up the blind and he takes a leak right next to the blind. I'm like, that's kind of weird. That's like breaking rule number one. And he's like, well, one time I peed out of a tree stand and this cow elk came and sniffed it. Nothing happened. So, I figure it's no big deal. And I'm like, all right. Well, that's okay. Anyway, so we're sitting in the blind and I've got the camera on and I see in my screen,

in the viewfinder, I see this big bull's brow tines come into the screen. And it gets to where I can see about half of his head and he stops right above that where he took a leak and the bull just blew. You moved, Chris. So, I got blamed for moving him. Is it sure as heck wasn't the piss? It's just too hard to hunt with two people. Well, you scared that bull out of here. And I'm like, pretty sure that's right where you took a leak. Might have something to do with it. And yesterday, you took a dump there. So, I don't know. Well, I don't know, Carla. Anyway, well, you got to have broad shoulders to hang out with this crew and especially the old man. So, anyway. Anyway, so, yeah, we don't use the ascent control out here. You know, and there's maybe guys that are doing it and being quiet about it and got the next best thing to, you know, since peanut butter. But I haven't heard of it.

And maybe that silver stuff or whatever would work. I think you should shower regularly. You know, Randy Omer uses a fresh pair of, you know, shoes every single day. And I don't know, maybe washing stuff and baking soda and stuff works. But that's about it. Speaking of footwear, this next guy wants to know what we use on our feet for stocking. Oh, all right. Yeah, anything. Whatever's in your pack. A couple pairs of socks at a minimum. The Rimrocks are good. Sneaky stuff we've used is good. Under Armour came out with a prototype of a shoe, a little booty that I was wearing on a couple of the Ridge Reaper hunts. You know, they were good. They had a little bit of a hard bottom, and so I felt like they were a little bit loud still. But overall, like, I mean, I double up on big old thick socks at the bare minimum on that final stock. And you know what?

I've walked through Cactus and done crazy stuff that you're just going to do. It's just part of the game, and you're going to sacrifice your body a little bit. What do you guys? Old scuba socks work really well, too. But once again, you may want to even put a regular sock on over that to muffle the noise. Muffle the noise, yeah. Yeah. Go through some of your old socks. What about you, Jeff? You know, I've tried a couple of them. You know, I think the biggest thing, whatever you do, go out and try it before you do it. You know, I had a pair that if I was just walking on dirt, it was fine. But I put them on, and I stepped on some, like, Nevada, you've got a lot of crunchy rocks. They crunch. You know, it's just, I don't know, it's weird. It's a little bit different. It's a dry, miserable place. But they were too thick, and it echoed. Like, it almost echoed inside it, inside the foam bottom.

So, you know, just try, just take whatever you're looking at. You need to go out and try them out before, and decide you want to return them, or do whatever you've got to do before you get to that point of the stock. And you need to try them on different kinds of vegetation. Anything you step on. If you've got dry grass, you've got leaves, you've got anything like that, it doesn't matter what you've got on. It's going to make noise. So, you know, plan your stock accordingly that way. But try it out before you use it. Don't get there, and then slip them on for the first time. Like, oh, I'm going to be super sneaky with these, and they aren't sneaky. You know, and try them out in the vegetation that you're hunting in, because that's going to make a difference. Let's do a shout-out to Kent's Optics. I just bought a new spotting scope. Swarovski from them.

Awesome thing was, they had it in stock. How much money do you make? You're freaking blowing through money like it's water. I've been saving up for this one. Water.

And he had it in stock, put it in the mail, and so I ordered it yesterday. It'll be here tomorrow. Wow. It's impressive. It's awesome. How much did it cost you?

Oh, you don't want to say? You haven't even told Jen about it? That's a little classified there. All right. All right. I get it. I understand it. But he does have some great deals. He's got a couple things on his website, but most of the stuff you just call and ask, and a lot of those prices, they're not allowed to publish even. So go to kentsoptics.com or give them a call. Right on. Super good guys. Jeff and David Harrow, some of our very good friends, and they also kill big stuff, which is nothing like killing big stuff. They do it. They know it. They can give you some advice on all the different models, different brands, depending on what you're looking to do, and a little bit of cost savings as well. So you can give them a holler at 435-257-7014. Or you can go to kentsoptics.com. All right, guys. Chris, did you talk about one more? You're going to grab us out on another one? Yeah.

One more question just to end off on. We still actually have two more pages full of questions, so this is going to have to be a few episodes. We've only been through a half page. Yeah, exactly. We're going to have to spend a few episodes. But last question for today, because we're a little bit out of time, but a guy wants to know about field judging mule deer. If you have any formulas, anatomical references, anything else you use to field judge mule deer? Oh. Anything and everything. D, all of the above. A lot of guys will use, you know, like the width of your ears, you know, a big set of freaking ears is 26 inches. And so, you know, if you got something that's way out past his ears, but you're in an area that's got 22-inch ears or whatever, even smaller at times, depending on age, then, you know, you're going to misjudge that deer. You're going to misjudge his inside spread.

Everything else is going to look big. The other problem you have with field judging that I have, compact bucks are always smaller than you think. Anyway, when you have compact bucks, their beams are usually shorter than you think because you don't have the shank going out for the width. And you also have a narrower inside spread. And so that's concerning. And then, you know, if they're a good big old inside spread, no, they should only be outside because that's what matters. But anyway. No, I hate measuring air and making a difference in the size of a buck, you know, because when you're measuring inside spread, you are measuring air. Let's say we took that measurement out. Let's say we took that measurement out and everything is 24 inches smaller than 200. Like a 200-inch deer is now 176 inches. Yes. How does that sound to you? 176 versus 200? Well, and comparing it to the other one.

The Jeffrey John scoring system will never gain traction. It won't. No. So we're all, we're all. And so anyway, that's the thing. Same thing. People like water displacement. I agree. How are you going to measure that? Well, it's 897 cubic, whatever, displacement. What does that mean? Well, he's 200 inches. I get that. I understand that measurement. So anyway, and same thing with heavy bucks. Heavy, heavy, heavy deer. The tines look a lot shorter than they are. You're going to actually have ground gainage. I love heavy deer. They do make things look smaller than they actually are. And so it's very tough. I don't use an ear. I don't use this or that or the distance between an eye and an ear, all this. It's a lot of measuring sheds. It's a lot of measuring bucks from the country you're hunting or just a lot of gut feel. But I'm usually pretty close.

We had some friends of ours in Oregon send us a buck to score. And this was yesterday, the day before, one of the governor bucks. And anyway, I put him at 210. And he was hit the ground at 208. And, you know, and they did, too. They had him 204 to 205. And, you know, and I think a lot of it is just understanding what makes a beam look long. If they got a side profile and you got the nose and that beam is past the nose, I mean, you've got a long beam. I killed a buck that was 196 net official four-pointer 207 gross. And he had 29-inch main beams. I'd have never guessed it. And a 29-inch total outside spread. It wasn't like this. Yeah, it wasn't. Yeah, but the beams blew my mind. And it was the distance. I mean, you've got to look at the distance between the base and the eye guard. The eye guard to the G2 where the G2 breaks off. The G2 to the G4.

And then if they got a lot of curl and stuff, you just get to feel like that's a big beam. Well, what's a big beam? I think a lot of it is like, what's a big beam? You know, a big beam is 26 plus. 26 plus. Key would be 27 plus. 25 is a good beam. 24 is an average. And so then you're kind of, you can kind of say, well, that's kind of what I feel like is an average. But beams are the toughest tying on a deer to judge. The beam, beam length is the toughest. You know, of course, you've got your eye guards. And that's just a matter of seeing them and getting a feel. And then your G2s, a giant is a 19-inch, 20-inch G2. They make them to 22, 23, 21, 22. Those are freaking monster. 20 is monster. A nice average one is 15, 16-inch G2. You know, and so you can kind of just get a feel and you've got to measure sheds. And, you know, if you've got a 12-inch G3, a 12-inch G4, you're in the money.

You've got a 14-inch G4, freaking world class. 15-inch G4, world class. And so, and then mass, you know, big mass. I mean, a heavy deer is 20 inches of mass, hard horn. That's a heavy deer. Yeah. A light deer is 16-incher. Think about that. 16, you're taking off four. I know. Per side, that's eight inches that you can't make up. And if a deer doesn't have eye guards, he's probably not going to net book. You have to have eye guards. That's a free eight inches. It's four inches a side on a big eye guard. And so, eye guards are huge, and people just overlook them. And he just looks big. Yeah, he does. And he probably is. And as long as you don't care about score, you're not really looking for that. No big deal. Kill him, knock him down, enjoy him, and love him. But at the same time, you know, those are things. So, a lot of it is not just judging, but making sure he has what you think he has.

Make sure he has eye guards. Make sure he has mass. Make sure he has everything's built and symmetrical. And if he has a short G4, it's a short G4. You're going to say, if he's noticeable, it's a six-incher, you know, or whatever. And so, I think a lot of it is just experience. Go ahead. Jump on in. Anybody else? Got a little something-something? Oh, yeah, I think you summed it up.

Can't talk about it anymore. We're talking to the mule deer man here, so. I just take Jason Carter with me. If you can take him with you. Can I get a pocket? I'm going to call it the pocket JC. Anyway, that happened last year, John. This is true. This is true. In Colorado. Text a photo every once in a while. Hey, what does this bug score? Oh, I've done it. And then, if you hear- We've all done it. Jason, how big is this? What do you think? If the reply is, give me exact GPS coordinates, it's big enough.

Shoot it. You probably better shoot it. Anyway, a lot of those things fun to think about and look at. You know, hit me up with a picture. I don't care. I'm not going to be chasing your deer. We've got plenty that we're chasing, and we didn't do that to you anyway. So, if you want to hit us, Jason, at EpicOutdoors.com. Hit us with some pictures of your deer video clips with PhoneScope. So, Cheston Davis' awesome little setup that everybody should be able to get pictures and video of their animals, or at least a lot more. So, you can put it on your phone, attach it to any scope or product that you have, binocular or whatever, and send us a picture. Give you a rough feel for what you're looking at. And, of course, a disclaimer, we're wrong too. So, who knows? But I have guys in Oregon. I've made some good friends in Oregon that are serious, legit hunters.

Oh, Joe up there, he's a good dude and hunting some big deer. And so, you know, they're sending me some of their pictures of their bucks. And, of course, I'm not asking any questions. It's all good. I want him to kill it. You know what I mean? It's cool. They want everybody to be successful. So, anyway, give you a feel for what I think. And then you guys, you know, of course, a lot of you have your own experience of what deer in your area have for beam length or genetic-wise and body-wise as well. Bodies are a big deal. You've got to – it's like a ram. You've got a dwarf body. He's going to look like he's big, but he's a dwarf. He's a big dwarf. And, you know, I don't like big dwarfs on deer. So, anything else, guys? I think we're about out of time for today. But for all those who kept listening to the end, let's give away a little something-something.

And I'm thinking, why not give away, since we were talking about it, a phone scope from Chestyn. So, to do that, you're just going to go to our website, to the podcast tab. And in there, there's a form where you can put in a code. And the code for today is going to be PIC, P-I-C. And we'll be giving a phone scope away within the next 10 days. All right. Yeah, let's give two of them. All right. Two of them. Let's give two of them. So, anyway, we're going to give two of them away. Phone scope, appreciate them. Chestyn's a good dude from not too far from here. He's a legit hunter. And just awesome. It's just an adaption, you know, adapter to your phone. And, you know, for you whitetail guys, you'll be able to video whitetails or whatever. And it makes you look like a hero. It's pretty awesome. These phones take better video than you might think.

And so, anyway, and then it'll help with your field judging as well. There you go. Film birds while you're sitting in your blind. No. No.

Oh, well, Jason, that leads us up to the next thing. It's about time for you to go. Yeah, let's go hunt. Let's go hunt. Let's go kill some shows. All right, guys. Sounds good. Appreciate y'all. Well, hey, and we do want to thank you all for listening. You guys are good. We like all the responses. Email us, info at epicoutdoors.com. That's for general delivery. Gets to our secretary. Does a wonderful job of sending them over to us, and we answer your questions. Or if you have any suggestions on podcasts, that's fine, too. You can hit chris at epicoutdoors.com. Give him hell for everything that he does wrong. And we'll go from there. You know, also, wouldn't mind interviewing a couple of legit guys that are knocking down some big bulls. I'd like to talk to some of these guys and get their take. We've killed a number of good bulls ourselves, and we'll be talking about that down the road.

But anyway, any suggestions for that would be awesome. Okay, guys. Sounds good. Let's freaking hit the road. Until next time. We'll be right back.